Simon Gass backs Japan foreign intelligence agency plan
Former Joint Intelligence Committee chairman Simon Gass voiced support for Japan’s effort to establish a foreign intelligence agency, while warning that…
Former intelligence committee chair Sir Simon Gass said in Tokyo on October 28 that Japan needs a foreign intelligence agency, backing the Takaichi administration’s effort to establish one. His support comes with a warning: building overseas intelligence networks and earning public trust will take time.
Gass, who chaired the United Kingdom’s Joint Intelligence Committee from 2019 to 2023, said Japan’s global importance and geographic position make a service focused on foreign activity necessary. The proposed agency would also need to share information effectively and operate under oversight that gives its work public legitimacy.
“It is absolutely right that a country of Japan's importance and its geographical position in the world would need to have an intelligence service focused on foreign activity,” Gass said in an interview.
That work takes patience.
What challenges did Gass identify for Japan?
Gass named three challenges: time, professional culture and oversight. He said Japan could not build human intelligence networks or recruit sources overseas overnight, and useful intelligence would take time to emerge.
The second challenge is creating a shared sense of purpose among intelligence personnel. Staff need to understand that their work protects Japan’s national security, Gass said, while agencies also need a culture of information sharing.
He argued intelligence services should do more than produce assessments. Their role should also be “to help decision-makers make better decisions.” That distinction puts the value of intelligence in how officials use it, not only in what agencies collect.
Oversight is the third challenge. Gass described it as “a form of public consent which allows them to do the job which they are being asked to do.” Without a framework that the public considers appropriate, he said, people could grow suspicious of intelligence agencies and their activities.
Public confidence has practical consequences for the proposed service. Gass said proper oversight would lend legitimacy to its operations and help it recruit personnel. For Japan, the challenge is therefore not just establishing an agency, but creating rules and a working culture that allow it to operate with public trust.
Why does Gass see an opening for cooperation?
Gass said friendly countries would be interested in working with Japan. He said Japan’s experience dealing with China and North Korea could add to partners’ understanding of international affairs.
“My impression, as somebody who is outside the government, is that there is a lot of goodwill towards Japan from many of its friends, including in the Five Eyes community, who want this to succeed, because of what Japan can bring to their understanding of the world,” he said.
He also urged Japan, the United Kingdom and other countries to continue making progress on protecting and sharing classified information. Cooperation and the exchange of insights, he said, would strengthen all participating countries.
Gass’s comments draw on his experience leading the JIC, a government body that integrates and analyzes classified intelligence gathered by agencies including the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service. He chaired the committee from 2019 to 2023, after working at the British Foreign Office and serving as British ambassador to Iran.
During his chairmanship, the United Kingdom accurately anticipated Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Britain also publicly released some classified intelligence ahead of Russia’s disinformation campaign, an unusual step at the time.
Gass said that assessment relied on “sophisticated all-source intelligence assessment” carried out over several months. In the UK system, intelligence assessment is independent from agencies’ operational responsibilities: information is evaluated and cross-checked separately rather than left solely to the organizations that collect it.
He suggested that separating collection from assessment could matter as Japan reforms its intelligence capabilities. The interview comments represent Gass’s personal views, not the official position of the UK government.
