LONDON (Realist English). The head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, Blaise Metreweli, has warned that the world has entered a dangerous space “between peace and war”, as new technologies, disinformation and state aggression erode trust and rewrite the rules of conflict.
Speaking in London in her first major public address since taking office, Metreweli said the UK faces an interlocking web of military, technological and societal threats, accelerated by advances in artificial intelligence, biotechnology and quantum computing. These technologies, she argued, are not only transforming economies but “rewriting the reality of conflict, trust and global power”.
Metreweli described Russia under Vladimir Putin as the most acute current threat to UK and European security, accusing Moscow of waging both a grinding war in Ukraine and sustained “grey-zone” operations below the threshold of open conflict. These include cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, sabotage, aggressive activity at sea and in the air, and state-backed propaganda designed to fracture societies. She said UK support for Ukraine would remain “enduring”, calling it fundamental to European and global stability.
While declining to offer a full global threat assessment, the MI6 chief said intelligence services must adapt to a world in which power is becoming more diffuse, shifting from states to corporations and even individuals. She warned that information itself has become weaponised, with falsehoods spreading faster than facts and undermining shared reality.
Metreweli stressed that MI6 must now go beyond analysing threats to actively shaping outcomes, working closely with MI5, GCHQ, the armed forces, diplomats and international partners including NATO, the Five Eyes alliance and partners in the Indo-Pacific and Middle East. China’s rise, she said, would be central to global transformation this century and a core focus of UK intelligence assessments.
She also signalled a deeper integration of technology into intelligence work, saying MI6 officers would need to be as comfortable with coding and data as with traditional human sources. Artificial intelligence, she said, would be used to augment — not replace — human judgement, with the “human element” remaining decisive.
Despite the emphasis on technology, Metreweli framed her message around what she called “human agency”. Intelligence, she said, ultimately depends on listening, cultural understanding and the willingness of individuals — including foreign agents — to take risks based on trust in British values. Accountability, integrity and respect, she argued, are not constraints on MI6’s work but the foundation of its legitimacy.
Concluding her speech, Metreweli said the choices made by people, not machines, would determine the future shape of the world. “In the end,” she said, “it is not what we can do that defines us, but what we choose to do.”
