THE PLACE AND ROLE OF THE INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE SERVICES

The security (Intelligence and Counterintelligence) services are one of the key elements for dealing with the 21st century challenges. The principle itself is directed mostly in preventive action i.e. early discovery, identifying and stopping the security threats. Intelligence is a process of collecting, processing, analyzing and distribution of intelligence data. The Intelligence i.e. the Intelligence services own the capacity for collecting information which is important for the safety and the constitutional order of the country. Counterintelligence is inverse process of the Intelligence i.e. detecting of unfriendly intelligence capacities. After the end of the Cold War, the security threats and challenges in the world changed, so according to that many countries changed their entire security system. Intelligence services are also susceptible to transformation. With the emergence of terrorism as a security threat no. 1 in the 21st century, the biggest parts of the Intelligences’ activities are directed to discovering and preventing the terrorist activities and to dissolving and destroying the terrorist organizations. The way the terrorist groups operate is similar worldwide. They are well organized, have strong propaganda machinery, hierarchy and a high degree of secrecy within the organization. They act on vital and sensitive goals in society, mostly on civilians, in order to sow fear and demonstrate power versus the regular security forces. The terrorism is not only a number 1 threat to national security, but also to international security. The need for cooperation of intelligence and counterintelligence services between the member states of NATO and the EU is extremely important for the 16 mutual exchange of intelligence information concerning the terrorist organizations and their actions. One terrorist organization does not operate locally but has cells in many countries around the world. That’s why the cooperation of the Intelligence services is so important in the process of uncovering future plans for detecting future terrorist attacks and stopping them as well as jointly dismantling terrorist organizations. The process of exchange of experiences, lessons learned and the organization of joint training and training the members of the intelligence services enables greater efficiency in the fight against terrorism. Key words: Intelligence, Counterintelligence, Intelligence Services, terrorism, terrorist organizations, security threats.