“At the CNI we need universities to recruit talent.” This is how the general secretary of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), Infantry Colonel Arturo Relanzón Sánchez-Gabriel (Toledo, 1959), expressed himself this Monday at a conference held at the University of Valencia and organized by the University Chair of Studies on terrorism and victims’ rights. The ‘number two’ of the espionage services gave the honorary conference, in which it was not allowed to photograph or record his intervention, as warned by the academic director of the event, professor José Luís González Cussac. “We need the University to train university students in intelligence who are the future cadres of this country and who know their service as they also know the rest of the administration organizations,” said Arturo Relanzón. “But, above all, we need the knowledge produced by the academic world,” he added before dozens of students and a wide institutional representation, from the police, military and judicial fields.
The general secretary of the CNI, according to his official resume, joined the Counterterrorism Division of the Higher Defense Information Center (Cesid) in 1989. In 2004, after occupying “different heads” of the intelligence service, he was appointed advisor to the representation of Spain before the United Nations in New York. Five years later, he was appointed area chief of the Counterterrorism Division and, in 2011, he headed the Transnational Risks Department. Four years later, he became a counselor at the Spanish Embassy in Washington. Since 2020, he has been secretary general of the CNI, the ‘number two’ of Esperanza Casteleiro, director of the Spanish secret services.
“Spain has powerful universities and intellectual capacities that we are often not aware of and many of them are fundamental for the CNI,” said Colonel Arturo Relanzón at the conference, who stressed that the Spanish intelligence services need “everything.” knowledge and experience of the world.” ““We cannot do this work alone,” he said.
A private detective, present among the audience, asked the speaker about the perspectives that the CNI offers to young candidates like the students who populated the assembly hall of the Gregori Maians library on the Tarongers Campus. “Without the intention of being here as a flag,” replied the general secretary of the Spanish spies, “what it offers is a way of life.” “Coming to the CNI to say ‘good morning, I’m here to work, it’s five o’clock, goodbye’, forget about it, it’s better that you continue looking for a law firm in the field of law, that you compete for the judiciary, for notaries, for what necessary, because they are also fundamental for the rest of the Spanish people.”
The intelligence services offer “this youth” and “new potential candidates” to feel proud of “being part of an organization that fights for the security of the State.” “The movies always refer to the intelligence services as something dark, low, impersonal, cynical, unscrupulous and gutless. We are absolutely normal and ordinary citizens, but we are very clear about what our mission is and, when we have to be there, we do whatever comes our way,” said Arturo Relanzón. “If you are looking to get rich, forget it; “You are civil servants,” recalled the general secretary of the CNI. “And, by the way, there is no teleworking,” he added.
The colonel highlighted the concept of culture of intelligence, a project initiated by the CNI in 2003 to “open up to society and make itself known like any other body of a democratic State governed by the rule of law, complying with the obligatory transparency.” A culture of intelligence oriented mainly to the academic and business world, as he clarified. “For me, collaboration with the academic side is essential and we are increasingly increasing our presence in the academic world,” said Relanzón. “What we need is critical thinking that makes us understand intelligence much better,” the colonel added.
The ‘number two’ of the CNI highlighted that in the espionage service, “today, 19 percent are military and the rest, 81 percent, are civilians,” percentages inversely proportional to the scenario that was found when entered the old Cesid. “That is already an example for the students who are here that this center is not about entering a place to do military service,” he explained.
Another of the attendees at the congress, the Vox deputy in Congress and professor at the University of Valencia, Carlos Flores, raised during the question period whether it is possible the existence of a culture of intelligence with “political forces that directly advocate for the demolition of the constitutional order.” “Of course it is, I don’t have the slightest doubt,” replied Arturo Relanzón. The culture of intelligence, he clarified, remains “apart from any political interpretation.” “I have been in this profession for 35 years and I have been through all kinds of crises, the center remains the same, it is the same 35 years ago and today, with the different governments, of the corresponding colors,” he stated.
Relanzón detailed the work of the CNI, focused on anticipation and prevention. “The main obligation of an intelligence service is to know with the greatest possible degree of accuracy the threats it must combat in order to reduce vulnerability to them,” said the ‘number two’ of the CNI. A prevention task “inherent” to espionage and developed in “a world in which immediacy, hand in hand with new technologies, has ended up taking over.” “Reaction times have been reduced and decision-making processes can barely be delayed,” he warned.
This is “key preventive work” in a context in which “terrorism is undoubtedly one of the most serious threats facing the entire world and Spain is no exception.” “It is no use for us to do studies of what is happening, we have to obtain [información] first-hand: if for that we have to be in a conflict zone, we will be in a conflict zone; If for that we have to carry out infiltration operations, we will do it,” he warned.
A “discreet job” without “secret work”
Esperanza Casteleiro’s right-hand woman in the CNI also spoke about the complex dialectic between the secrecy inherent in the “discreet work” of any intelligence service—to guarantee the protection of its spies, its sources and its procedures—and democratic transparency. . Arturo Relanzón asked not to confuse secrecy with “secret work.” The CNI, stated its secretary general, “is aware that society must trust it so that it can carry out missions effectively.”
Relanzón also reviewed the current scenario faced by Spanish espionage, with a “growing hostility shown by the intelligence services of some countries.” The debate about secrecy is not easy. “Transparency,” he warned, “can become a double-edged sword: when the effectiveness of intelligence services is a matter of discretion and even secrecy, too high transparency can mean an operational risk for the services and, therefore, therefore, for the security of national interests.”
After the end of the Cold War, spies experienced a “paradigm change” and a “false sense of peace,” in a context in which “people began to talk about transparency, intelligence became a topic of public debate.” , the risks become global and the attacks become asymmetrical.” “Before, the enemy was perfectly identified and, with it, the origin of the threats and security risks,” explained Relanzón. However, “in recent years, information manipulation and foreign interference have emerged as critical threats to national and European security.”
The general secretary of the CNI alluded to the “dissemination of disinformation, cyber attacks, manipulation of critical infrastructures, often with the aim of influencing public opinion, but fundamentally to destabilize governments.” Arturo Relanzón expanded on the strategic concept of hybrid threat: “The coordinated use of traditional and non-traditional instruments by an external actor, often unrelated to that actor, with the aim of expanding its influence, internally destabilizing a third State and harm interests on the international security scene.”
“Certain countries, it is not a secret to name Russia, use this type of hybrid threats in their foreign policy to obtain the capacity to influence large geographical areas,” he said.
“Friends even in hell”
After a rather technical conference, the question time encouraged the debate with a somewhat more foul-mouthed tone from the person who must, by law, guard relevant state secrets. A teacher asked the colonel about the limits of collaboration with intelligence services that do not have a democratic regulatory framework.
“We collaborate with a diverse intelligence community, but, normally, we are based on the same values, let’s call them legal ones,” answered Arturo Relanzón. “It is also true that an intelligence service cannot be very squeamish, obviously it obtains information wherever it exists and we will obtain it under our parameters of legality and the service that can provide us with information that we all know is true and that, in addition , helps our objectives,” he added.
As an example, the secretary general of the CNI presented a hypothesis: “If we collaborate with the Iranian service, do we have to say ‘no, no, you don’t give me the information about when there is going to be an attack somewhere because your parameters I don’t like? Obviously not. It is their problem to use their parameters, but if they are going to help me with information that will prevent an attack inside Spain, I don’t care what the Iranian service has done. Understanding that I don’t care saying: “you work with your parameters, I am certainly not going to allow your parameters to enter my zone of action.” That’s the important part.”
In addition, he also insisted on “fundamental work” as an “alternative channel” when diplomatic relations with a country have been broken. Although the intelligence services may not be like in the movies in reality, when it comes to “capturing certain objectives” or obtaining information, their assets “are not usually souls of charity.” “So you have to have friends even in hell,” he concluded.
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