ABSTRACT
How might we understand the secrets of security? We must sometimes enter undisclosed locations and witness secret events. We know that the visible practices of security are only the tip of the iceberg, but we do not see the expertise beneath the surface. This chapter discusses elite security professionals, the “tip of the spear.” Such individuals train in secret with other professionals, often from different nations and institutions. The chapter describes ethnographic encounters with counterterrorism training, and conversations with “Tier 1 operators.” The chapter argues that contemporary social-scientific terms are inadequate here. This security scene can be likened to a medieval “secret college.” Of course, this professional, very masculine, world is connected to the wider security culture of SWAT teams and militarization. We must go deeper, the chapter argues, to fully understand the power of tactics in the secret college. The chapter switches to a set of discussions with Special Forces, post-combat, in Nairobi, questioning the role of the secret college in terms of how it implicates the public, often unknowingly, in violence.
