A caseload that has quadrupled
Britain's domestic intelligence service now spends more resources on countering hostile states than it did at any point during the Cold War, its director general said this week. Ken McCallum used his annual threat update in London to describe what he called a new era of national security.
"Our terrorism and state threats operational missions are pretty much of equal scale," he said. Over the past decade, he added, MI5's state threats caseload has quadrupled. He described the shift as a lasting change rather than a passing spike, and compared the moment to the period after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, when security services rebuilt their priorities around a new kind of enemy.
Iran moves against harder targets
McCallum said Iran is increasingly willing to go after harder targets, including military sites on British soil. Russia, he said, remains "aggressor No. 1" as the Kremlin keeps lashing out at Britain and its allies.
His warning followed a suspected plot against RAF Fairford, an airbase used by US bombers to carry out strikes on Iran. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Tehran was "highly likely" behind it. The security alert led President Donald Trump to pull US aircraft out of the base.
McCallum said state threats have moved well beyond traditional espionage into sabotage, arson and physical attacks carried out by proxies.
Artificial intelligence as a force multiplier
The MI5 chief said AI is raising the ceiling for both spies and terrorists. He said the service has caught terrorists trying to exploit the technology, including by pairing it with drones. His biggest concern is that violent groups could use AI tools to develop bioweapons or even new pathogens.
He listed Russia, Iran and China as the main state threats and also flagged extreme right-wing terrorism as a growing problem. He called on the public to treat resilience and vigilance as part of national defence, warning that the more contested era will not end soon.