By Glenn Agung Hole, Ph.D.
A recent expert survey published by L'Express and subsequently reported by The Telegraph ranked MI6 as Europe's leading foreign intelligence service. While the ranking itself is noteworthy, the more important question concerns the institutional explanations that may lie behind it. It is these explanations that I wish to explore.
From an institutional perspective, however, the question should be framed differently.
The central issue is not simply why MI6 performs so effectively, but why the United Kingdom has, for more than a century, demonstrated a remarkable capacity to reproduce an intelligence capability that continues to be recognised by allies and competitors alike. This is not primarily a story about a single organisation. It is a story about institutional state capacity.
The French analysis highlights several characteristics associated with MI6: historical continuity since 1909, close integration between intelligence and political decision-making, broad political legitimacy, professional prestige, organisational learning, and extensive international cooperation. From my perspective, these characteristics are not isolated organisational strengths. Rather, they represent classic indicators of high institutional capital.
By institutional capital, I refer to the accumulated capacity of institutions to reproduce competence, trust, professional norms, organisational memory, and strategic capability over time. Unlike financial or technological resources, institutional capital cannot be purchased or created through isolated reforms. It develops gradually through historical continuity, accumulated experience, and intergenerational learning.
Institutions are therefore not constructed through short-term political initiatives. They evolve over time as professional norms, organisational routines, strategic culture, and accumulated knowledge are transmitted, refined, and reinforced across successive generations.
During my recent visits to London, I have been struck by the extent to which historical institutions remain deeply embedded within the functioning of the contemporary British state. Parliament, Whitehall, the judiciary, universities, the City of London, the diplomatic service, Britain's traditional membership clubs, and the armed forces should not be understood as isolated organisations. Together, they constitute an interconnected institutional ecosystem through which knowledge, trust, leadership, and strategic culture are continuously reproduced.
This, in my view, provides the key to understanding MI6.
Intelligence is not produced by a single organisation operating in isolation. Rather, it emerges from an institutional ecosystem in which information, expertise, legitimacy, and decision-making circulate among institutions that have developed shared norms, mutual trust, and stable patterns of cooperation over extended periods. From this perspective, MI6 should be understood primarily as a consequence of Britain's institutional strength rather than its principal cause.
The French analysis also emphasises the importance of international cooperation. Institutionally understood, this illustrates how trust between organisations evolves into a strategic asset. Such relationships cannot be created overnight. They are built through sustained interaction, reciprocity, credibility, and institutional reliability. Trust therefore becomes more than a social virtue; it becomes a strategic capability that enhances the overall capacity of the state.
This also reflects what institutional theory describes as path dependence. Historical choices shape future opportunities. As institutions develop robust procedures, professional norms, and organisational memory over successive generations, institutional quality becomes increasingly self-reinforcing. New personnel inherit not merely positions, but established traditions, practices, and accumulated organisational knowledge.
Continuity, Memory and Learning
Among the observations highlighted in the French analysis is the importance of historical continuity and institutional memory. In my view, this extends well beyond the existence of historical archives. It illustrates how institutions accumulate experience that can be transmitted across generations. Organisations capable of learning over time do not begin anew during each crisis; rather, they build upon accumulated knowledge, previous successes, and past failures.
Recruitment should likewise be understood institutionally. Exceptional professionals do not emerge in isolation. They are shaped by educational institutions, professional cultures, mentoring systems, organisational legitimacy, and long-established norms of excellence. Institutions do not merely recruit talented individuals; they actively shape the characteristics that make those individuals effective.
This distinction also highlights the difference between resources and capabilities.
Resources can be acquired. Technology can be purchased. Budgets can be expanded. Infrastructure can be built. Institutional capabilities, however — the capacity to coordinate, analyse, generate trust, exercise strategic judgement, and learn over time — cannot simply be legislated or financed through annual budgets. They emerge through sustained institutional development in which experience and organisational learning gradually become enduring competitive advantages.
This should not be interpreted as suggesting that British institutions are without weaknesses or historical failures. Like all intelligence organisations, MI6 has experienced significant setbacks throughout its history. Yet perhaps its most important characteristic lies precisely in its capacity to learn, adapt, and improve over time. Robust institutions are distinguished not by the absence of failure, but by their ability to convert failure into institutional learning.
Institutional Ecosystems and State Capacity
In my view, many European countries continue to underestimate the importance of institutional continuity. Political reforms are frequently organised around electoral cycles, whereas institutional capacity develops over decades. Organisational structures can be redesigned within months, but professional culture, trust, legitimacy, and strategic norms cannot be reconstructed at the same pace.
The same institutional logic extends far beyond the intelligence community. British universities continue to reproduce academic traditions developed over centuries. The City of London maintains professional norms and financial practices that have evolved across generations. Historic guilds preserve craftsmanship, vocational identity, and professional standards. Military regiments reproduce leadership traditions, organisational memory, and professional culture. Even London's traditional membership clubs continue to function as environments in which trust, networks, and strategic culture are cultivated. Individually these institutions perform different functions; collectively they form an institutional ecosystem that reinforces the overall capacity of the British state.
From this perspective, the French ranking ultimately tells us less about MI6 itself than about the broader significance of institutions.
The more fundamental question is not which country possesses Europe's strongest intelligence service. Rather, it is which institutional mechanisms enable certain states to reproduce high levels of strategic capability across successive generations. This, I would argue, is precisely what the concept of institutional capital seeks to explain.
Organisations may be restructured. Budgets may increase. Technologies may evolve. Yet the institutional capital that enables organisations to remain resilient, adaptive, and strategically effective develops only through long-term institutional evolution.
Perhaps this is Britain's most enduring competitive advantage — not any single organisation, but an institutional ecosystem that has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to develop, preserve, and reproduce state capability over time.
Ultimately, the most important lesson emerging from the French analysis is therefore not how to build a more effective intelligence service. It is how societies build institutions capable of learning, adapting, preserving competence, and sustaining strategic capacity across generations. In the long run, these institutional qualities — not simply technological superiority or financial resources — constitute the true foundations of state capacity and strategic resilience.