Writing Security briefings November 29, 2011
Posted by Jeff Riley in : Intelligence and security, Political risk, internships , trackback
We recently spoke to a consultant who studies at King’s College War Studies department and now works for a private security company working in high risk and emerging markets such as Afghanistan, Colombia, Gaza West Bank, Pakistan, Iraq and many more, including most recently, Libya. For the time being I have made the report anonymous. Part of the discussion focused on what goes into security briefs.
What does your company do? Mainly we provide physical security mainly but also have an element of analysis to support that function. For example we may be approached by an oil company drilling a new well outside of Basra. They provide numbers of staff, locations, dates and request protection for their operations.
We can provide things like access control, vehicle search, perimeter control, armed guards and cars to protect their staff wherever they need to go. This does mean there are a lot of ex-military staff on our team. However, I have no military background. I started as an intern working on Pakistan and Yemen.
Now I work with the Commercial Support team. I put together bids to win security work. This brings everything together - for example how our recruitment works, how our finance works, how we store our equipment. Also pulling in information from our people on the ground – what’s happening in such and such a small town. Or a high level report about what’s going in Pakistan or Iraq. I don’t do analysis work as such in this role but I still need to have a very good idea of what is going on.
What is the difference between this and working as a research analyst. As an intern research analyst I was writing more security reports rather than bids for work. For example on a daily basis I produce a short security report – A bullet point list of security related events that that have happened in the last 24 hours. Produced on a daily basis. On Pakistan it could be a fortnightly 8 or 10 page brief called ‘Northern Pakistan Explored’. Looking at Peshawar or a larger area which includes a graph that, for example, shows the number of IED attacks and the number of incidents of small arms fire. A monthly report Pakistan report is also produced. Similar reports on Yemen would look at security issues in the main cities. I also wrote more specialised briefs on energy security for a firm’s windfarm resources in an emerging market.
When writing for commercial clients you have to be brief and to the point. If you are worried about your engineers being blown up they want to know practical things such as where is it physically safe to go and not go. They want numbers and they want to know that you are talking to guys on the ground with military experience. If you throw in a few acronyms they like that. Essentially though it is just about being straight and to the point.
This work doesn’t involve client contact though your work does reache clients. My work in the commercial team involves much more client contact.
This succint approach can also help with applications by the way. Our senior managers have to read a hell of a lot of information every day and they can get irritated with what they see as long-winded stuff.
The interview for the internship. I think one of the reasons I got the interview was that I was able to include some basic previous work experience with the Canadian High Commission – it was the most boring job processing visas but it looked good on the CV. In the interview itself I didn’t bluff and pretend I was a world expert. I told them that I knew a fair amount but that I was also there to learn. Anyone who gives the impression of bluffing or blagging could end up producing unreliable material which could literally be fatal for our clients. I also had to deal with a really tough question on the difference between a threat and a risk – to be honest I couldn’t answer that then and I couldn’t answer it now. They questioned me on why I had said certain things in my application but also curved ball questions such as what are main risks of operating in certain parts of Columbia which I didn’t know too much about
Did the Internship impact on your studies? Yes. A significant impact to be honest but I had a very pragmatic view of it from the beginning and it had always been my intention to get the vital work experience. On the other hand without a Masters I would not have been able to get the internship. There isn’t a single intern I have met that wasn’t doing a Masters at King’s.
What tips do you have for current students?
* Intern early. I started early with the internship and it was crucial in creating a paid opportunity later.
* Get career clarity. If you want to be an academic you are going to need better grades than I was prepared to get. In which case internships wouldn’t be so important. Think tanks also need better grades but also some work experience. Interning is great. It was very beneficial for me. It is hard to get a foot in the door and the only way to meet people is to get an internship and establish a network.
* Cold call rather than email to ask about internships. It is easy to lose an email but a phone call is more direct. The worse that can happen is they say no. Do something that other people won’t do. There were loads of networking events at organisations such as RUSI and that’s also a good way to meet people.
What value did the course give you? The course is great and for this sector a Masters is really an entry level qualification. It isn’t designed to cover the operations side of the things I also have to deal with. What armoured car formations are proving effective or exactly what kinds of weapons are being used – things like that. Unless you have a military background you have to get that from people on the ground. I am still learning a lot and I still have to get input from other people. Though less and less as I get more experience.
Is it a male dominated industry? Yes, most definitely. Though partly this is because a high proportion of our staff are operations based and they are often men (ex-military). We have 70 permanent employees and 2500 contractors. The vast majority of the contractors are male. It is much more balanced in the area I work in.
Comments»
Hello. I find this article very interesting. However, I would like to correct the author: there is no country called Columbia. The name of the country is Colombia. It could seem as a simple spelling mistake but it diminish the credibility of the whole article.
Thanks.
Hi Ailin, thanks very much for pointing that out and it was entirely my fault and not that of Piers. And yes, you are right, these simple spelling errors can have a big impact on an article’s credibility. I’ve corrected it now. Thanks again.