Espionage,spying, orintelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret orconfidential information (intelligence). A person who commits espionage is called anespionage agent orspy.[1] Any individual or spy ring (a cooperating group of spies), in the service of agovernment,company,criminal organization, or independent operation, can commit espionage. The practice isclandestine, as it is by definition unwelcome. In some circumstances, it may be a legal tool oflaw enforcement and in others, it may beillegal and punishable by law.
Espionage is often part of an institutional effort by a government or commercial concern. However, the term tends to be associated with state spying on potential or actual enemies formilitary purposes. Spying involvingcorporations is known asCorporate espionage.
One way to gather data and information about a targeted organization is by infiltrating its ranks. Spies can then return information such as the size and strength ofenemy forces. They can also finddissidents within the organization and influence them to provide further information or to defect.[2] In times of crisis, spies steal technology andsabotage the enemy in various ways.Counterintelligence is the practice of thwarting enemy espionage and intelligence-gathering. Almost allsovereign states have strict laws concerning espionage, including those who practice espionage in other countries, and the penalties for being caught are often severe.
The problem of defining intelligence and espionage
Theoriginal definition of intelligence (in English) was as to be synonymous withjournalism andnews, and has morphed and transformed into whatever uses it has today.[3][4]
"Here it is up front: intelligence is, with thanks to Constantine FitzGibbon, knowledge of the enemy. No sooner is it written than the readers' rejoinders flash in the mind, form on the lips, strike the air: No, it's wrong, inadequate, misleading, or impolitic; or, So, what else is new?
Rest assured, dear rejoinder-ers, that these objections will be handled long before the last page is reached... so many of those intelligencers who have tried to define intelligence have grievously botched the job. Finally, unless intelligence is properly understood, the country's intelligence agencies, faced with changing targets and priorities, may lose sight of their proper task."
— Thomas F. Troy, The "Correct" Definition of Intelligence
That modern definition of intelligence as "knowledge of the enemy" is considered problematic.[5] Scholars argue that it does not include any sort of inclusion of who gathers intelligence and for what purpose.[6] Can police detectives, inspectors, or federal agents be considered as gathering intelligence? In which case, what is the difference between a spy and a detective?[7] Who is the enemy?[8]
"The debate withinIntelligence studies over its central conceptual term is by no means a discipline-specific problem.International security experts have debated the term “terrorism” ad nauseam, whilebiologists have been at war over the term “species” for over two centuries. In contrast to these parallel debates over the respective essences of “terrorism” or “species”, scholars of intelligence add that intelligence is under-theorized. In short, they posit the following: if we think harder we could get a better, more functional, definition of intelligence."
— Jules J.S. Gaspard, Intelligence without Essence: Rejecting the Classical Theory of Definition
For centuries, there has been no single definition of intelligence, nor indeed espionage.[9] The definition depends on thescholar, the practitioner, thegovernment, thecitizen, or any of the otherstakeholders who might be making remarks upon the practices of spies orintelligence agencies.[10] Some scholars have written that the definition of intelligence is confused by the fact that intelligence agencies today are engaged in many more activities than intelligence gathering,[11] and ask whetherSabotage,Deception,Counterintelligence,Analysis,Financial intelligence,Propaganda, and evenAssassination might be considered all forms of espionage. Is intelligence a product, or process?[12]
"Formulating a brief definition of so broad a term as intelligence is like making amicroscopicportrait of acontinent, and the product of this effort is likely to have less value than the process of arriving at it, the reexamination of our own thinking as we seek to pinpoint the essentials of the concept."
— Martin T. Bimfort, A Definition of Intelligence
MadameMinna Craucher (right), a Finnishsocialite and spy, with her chauffeur Boris Wolkowski (left) in 1930s
Scholars have also been eager to point out that the United States Intelligence Community does not own the definition of intelligence, nor espionage.[13]
"Indeed, even today, we have no accepted definition of intelligence. The term is defined anew by each author who addresses it, and these definitions rarely refer to one another or build off what has been written before. Without a clear idea of what intelligence is, how can we develop a theory to explain how it works?
...For producers of intelligence, however, the equation "intelligence = information" is too vague to provide real guidance in their work. To professionals in the field, mere data is not intelligence; thus these definitions are incomplete. Think of how many names are in the telephone book, and how few of those names anyone ever seeks. It is what people do with data and information that gives them the special quality that we casually call "intelligence.""
— Michael Warner, Wanted: A Definition of "Intelligence": Understanding Our Craft
In theMiddle Ages European states excelled at what has later been termed counter-subversion when Catholicinquisitions were staged to annihilateheresy. Inquisitions were marked by centrally organised massinterrogations and detailed record keeping. Western espionage changed fundamentally during the Renaissance when Italiancity-states installed residentambassadors incapital cities to collect intelligence.
RenaissanceVenice became so obsessed with espionage that theCouncil of Ten, which was nominally responsible forsecurity, did not even allow thedoge to consult governmentarchives freely. In 1481 the Council of Ten barred all Venetian government officials from making contact with ambassadors or foreigners. Those revealingofficial secrets could face thedeath penalty. Venice became obsessed with espionage because successfulinternational trade demanded that the city-state could protect itstrade secrets.
In the 20th century, at the height ofWorld War I, allgreat powers except theUnited States had elaborate civilian espionage systems, and all national military establishments had intelligence units. In order to protect the country against foreign agents, theU.S. Congress passed theEspionage Act of 1917.Mata Hari, who obtained information for Germany by seducing French officials, was the most noted espionage agent of World War I. Prior toWorld War II,Germany andImperial Japan established elaborate espionage nets. In 1942 theOffice of Strategic Services was founded by Gen.William J. Donovan. However, the British system was the keystone of Allied intelligence. Numerous resistance groups such as the AustrianMaier-Messner Group, theFrench Resistance, theWitte Brigade,Milorg and the PolishHome Army worked against Nazi Germany and provided the Allied secret services with information that was very important for the war effort.
Since the end ofWorld War II, the activity of espionage has enlarged, much of it growing out of theCold War between the United States and theformer USSR. TheRussian Empire and its successor, theSoviet Union, have had a long tradition of espionage ranging from theOkhrana to theKGB (Committee for State Security), which also acted as a secret police force. In the United States, the 1947 National Security Act created theCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA) to coordinate intelligence and the National Security Agency for research into codes and electronic communication. In addition to these, the United States has 13 other intelligence gathering agencies; most of the U.S. expenditures for intelligence gathering are budgeted to various Defense Dept. agencies and their programs. Under the intelligence reorganization of 2004, the director of national intelligence is responsible for overseeing and coordinating the activities and budgets of the U.S. intelligence agencies.
China has a very cost-effective intelligence program that is especially effective in monitoring neighboring countries such asMongolia,Russia andIndia. Smaller countries can also mount effective and focused espionage efforts. For instance, theVietnamese communists had consistently superior intelligence during theVietnam War. Some Islamic countries, includingLibya,Iran andSyria, have highly developed operations as well.SAVAK, the secret police of thePahlavi dynasty, was particularly feared by Iranian dissidents before the 1979Iranian Revolution.
Intelligence services value certain intelligence collection techniques over others. The former Soviet Union, for example, preferredhuman sources overresearch in open sources, while the United States has tended to emphasize technological methods such asSIGINT andIMINT. In the Soviet Union, both political (KGB) andmilitary intelligence (GRU)[22] officers were judged by the number of agents they recruited.
Espionage agents are usually trained experts in a targeted field so they can differentiate mundane information from targets of value to their own organizational development. Correct identification of the target at its execution is the sole purpose of the espionage operation.[citation needed]
Broad areas of espionage targeting expertise include:[citation needed]
Natural resources: strategic production identification and assessment (food, energy, materials). Agents are usually found among bureaucrats who administer these resources in their own countries
Popular sentiment towards domestic and foreign policies (popular, middle class, elites). Agents often recruited from field journalistic crews, exchange postgraduate students and sociology researchers
Strategic economic strengths (production, research, manufacture, infrastructure). Agents recruited from science and technology academia, commercial enterprises, and more rarely from among military technologists
Military capability intelligence (offensive, defensive, manoeuvre, naval, air, space). Agents are trained by military espionage education facilities and posted to an area of operation with covert identities to minimize prosecution
Counterintelligence operations targeting opponent's intelligence services themselves, such as breaching the confidentiality of communications and recruiting defectors ormoles
Although the news media may speak of "spy satellites" and the like, espionage is not a synonym for all intelligence-gathering disciplines. It is a specific form of human source intelligence (HUMINT). Codebreaking (cryptanalysis orCOMINT), aircraft or satellite photography (IMINT), and analysis of publicly available data sources (OSINT) are all intelligence gathering disciplines, but none of them is considered espionage. Many HUMINT activities, such as prisonerinterrogation, reports from militaryreconnaissance patrols and from diplomats, etc., are not considered espionage. Espionage is the disclosure of sensitive information (classified) to people who are not cleared for that information or access to that sensitive information.
Unlike other forms ofintelligence collection disciplines, espionage usually involves accessing the place where the desired information is stored or accessing the people who know the information and will divulge it through some kind ofsubterfuge. There are exceptions to physical meetings, such as theOslo Report, or the insistence ofRobert Hanssen in never meeting the people who bought his information.
The US defines espionage towards itself as "the act of obtaining, delivering, transmitting, communicating, or receiving information about the national defence with an intent, or reason to believe, that the information may be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation".Black's Law Dictionary (1990) defines espionage as: "... gathering, transmitting, or losing ... information related to thenational defense". Espionage is a violation of United States law,18 U.S.C.§§ 792–798 and Article 106a of theUniform Code of Military Justice.[23] The United States, like most nations, conducts espionage against other nations, under the control of theNational Clandestine Service.
This article needs to beupdated. The reason given is: What about the Defense Department, and the Director of National Intelligence?. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(December 2021)
In larger networks, the organization can be complex with many methods to avoid detection, includingclandestine cell systems. Often the players have never met. Case officers are stationed in foreign countries to recruit and supervise intelligence agents,[25] who in turn spy on targets in the countries where they are assigned. A spy need not be a citizen of the target country and hence does not automatically committreason when operating within it. While the more common practice is to recruit a person already trusted with access to sensitive information, sometimes a person with a well-prepared synthetic identity (cover background), called alegend[25] intradecraft, may attempt to infiltrate a target organization.
These agents can be moles (who are recruited before they get access to secrets),defectors (who are recruited after they get access to secrets and leave their country) ordefectors in place (who get access but do not leave).
Alegend is also employed for an individual who is not an illegal agent, but is an ordinary citizen who is "relocated", for example, a "protected witness". Nevertheless, such a non-agent very likely will also have a case officer who will act as a controller. As in most, if not all synthetic identity schemes, for whatever purpose (illegal or legal), the assistance of a controller is required.
Spies may also be used to spread disinformation in the organization in which they are planted, such as giving false reports about their country's military movements, or about a competing company's ability to bring a product to market. Spies may be given other roles that also require infiltration, such assabotage.
Many governments spy on their allies as well as their enemies, although they typically maintain a policy of not commenting on this. Governments also employ private companies to collect information on their behalf such asSCG International Risk,International Intelligence Limited and others.
Many organizations, both national and non-national, conduct espionage operations. It should not be assumed that espionage is always directed at the most secret operations of a target country. National and terrorist organizations and other groups are also targeted.[26] This is because governments want to retrieve information that they can use to be proactive in protecting their nation from potential terrorist attacks.
Communications both are necessary to espionage andclandestine operations, and also a great vulnerability when the adversary has sophisticated SIGINT detection and interception capability. Spies rely on COVCOM or covert communication through technically advanced spy devices.[14] Agents must also transfer money securely.
Industrial espionage, also known aseconomic espionage,corporate spying, orcorporate espionage, is a form of espionage conducted forcommercial purposes instead of purelynational security.[27] While political espionage is conducted or orchestrated by governments and is international in scope, industrial or corporate espionage is more often national and occurs between companies orcorporations. It may include the acquisition ofintellectual property, such as information on industrial manufacture, ideas, techniques and processes, recipes and formulas. Or it could include sequestration of proprietary or operational information, such as that on customer datasets, pricing, sales, marketing, research and development, policies, prospective bids, planning or marketing strategies or the changing compositions and locations of production. It may describe activities such as theft oftrade secrets,bribery,blackmail and technological surveillance. As well as orchestrating espionage on commercial organizations, governments can also be targets – for example, to determine the terms of a tender for a government contract.
ReportedlyCanada is losing $12 billion[28] andGerman companies are estimated to be losing about €50 billion ($87 billion) and 30,000 jobs[29] to industrial espionage every year.
In espionage jargon, an "agent" is the person who does the spying. They may be a citizen of a country recruited by that country to spy on another; a citizen of a country recruited by that country to carry outfalse flag assignments disrupting his own country; a citizen of one country who is recruited by a second country to spy on or work against his own country or a third country, and more.
In popular usage, this term is sometimes confused with anintelligence officer,intelligence operative, orcase officer who recruits and handles agents.
Among the most common forms of agent are:
Agent provocateur: instigates trouble or provides information to gather as many people as possible into one location for an arrest.
Intelligence agent: provides access tosensitive information through the use of special privileges. If used incorporate intelligence gathering, this may include gathering information of a corporate business venture orstock portfolio. Ineconomic intelligence, "Economic Analysts may use their specialized skills to analyze and interpret economic trends and developments, assess and track foreign financial activities, and develop new econometric and modelling methodologies."[30] This may also include information of trade or tariff.
Agent-of-influence: provides political influence in an area of interest, possibly includingpublications needed to further an intelligence service agenda.[25] The use of the media to print a story tomislead a foreign service into action, exposing their operations while under surveillance.
Double agent: engages in clandestine activity for two intelligence or security services (or more in joint operations), who provides information about one or about each to the other, and who wittingly withholds significant information from one on the instructions of the other or is unwittingly manipulated by one so that significant facts are withheld from the adversary.Peddlers,fabricators, and others who work for themselves rather than a service are not double agents because they are not agents. The fact that double agents have an agent relationship with both sides distinguishes them from penetrations, who normally are placed with the target service in a staff or officer capacity."[31]
Redoubled agent: forced to mislead the foreign intelligence service after being caught as a double agent.
Unwitting double agent: offers or is forced to recruit as a double or redoubled agent and in the process is recruited by either a third-party intelligence service or his own government without the knowledge of the intended target intelligence service or the agent. This can be useful in capturing important information from an agent that is attempting to seek allegiance with another country. Thedouble agent usually has knowledge of both intelligence services and can identify operational techniques of both, thus making third-party recruitment difficult or impossible. The knowledge of operational techniques can also affect the relationship between the operations officer (or case officer) and the agent if the case is transferred by an operational targeting officer] to a new operations officer, leaving the new officer vulnerable to attack. This type of transfermay occur when an officer has completed his term of service or when hiscover is blown.
Sleeper agent: recruited towake up and perform a specific set of tasks or functions while living undercover in an area of interest. This type of agent is not the same as adeep cover operative, who continually contacts a case officer to file intelligence reports. A sleeper agent is not in contact with anyone untilactivated.
Less common or lesser known forms of agent include:
Access agent: provides access to other potential agents by providingoffender profiling information that can help lead to recruitment into an intelligence service.
Confusion agent: provides misleading information to an enemy intelligence service or attempts to discredit the operations of thetarget in an operation.
Facilities agent: provides access to buildings, such asgarages or offices used forstaging operations, resupply, etc.
Illegal agent: lives in another country underfalse credentials and does not report to a local station. A nonofficial cover operative can be dubbed an "illegal"[32] when working in another country without diplomatic protection.
Principal agent: functions as ahandler for an established network of agents, usually considered "blue chip".
In the United States, it is covered by theEspionage Act of 1917. The risks of espionage vary. A spy violating the host country's laws may be deported, imprisoned, or even executed. A spy violating its own country's laws can be imprisoned for espionage or/andtreason (which in the United States and some other jurisdictions can only occur if they take up arms or aids the enemy against their own country during wartime), or even executed, as theRosenbergs were. For example, whenAldrich Ames handed a stack of dossiers of U.S.Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents in theEastern Bloc to his KGB-officer "handler", the KGB "rolled up" several networks, and at least ten people were secretly shot. When Ames was arrested by the U.S.Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), he faced life in prison; his contact, who haddiplomatic immunity, was declaredpersona non grata and taken to the airport. Ames' wife was threatened with life imprisonment if her husband did not cooperate; he did, and she was given a five-year sentence.Hugh Francis Redmond, a CIA officer in China, spent nineteen years in a Chinese prison for espionage—and died there—as he was operating without diplomatic cover and immunity.[33]
In United States law, treason,[34] espionage,[35] and spying[36] are separate crimes. Treason and espionage have graduated punishment levels.
In modern times, many people convicted of espionage have been given penal sentences rather than execution. For example,Aldrich Hazen Ames is an American CIA analyst, turned KGB mole, who was convicted of espionage in 1994; he is serving alife sentence without the possibility of parole in the high-securityAllenwood U.S. Penitentiary.[39] Ames was formerly a 31-yearCIAcounterintelligence officer and analyst who committed espionage against his country byspying for theSoviet Union andRussia.[40] So far as it is known, Ames compromised the second-largest number of CIA agents, second only toRobert Hanssen, who also served a prison sentence until his death in 2023.[41]
Espionage laws are also used to prosecute non-spies. In the United States, the Espionage Act of 1917 was used against socialist politicianEugene V. Debs (at that time the Act had much stricter guidelines and amongst other things banned speech against military recruiting). The law was later used to suppress publication of periodicals, for example ofFather Coughlin inWorld War II. In the early 21st century, the act was used to prosecutewhistleblowers such asThomas Andrews Drake,John Kiriakou, andEdward Snowden, as well as officials who communicated with journalists for innocuous reasons, such asStephen Jin-Woo Kim.[42][43]
As of 2012[update], India and Pakistan were holding several hundred prisoners of each other's country for minor violations like trespass or visa overstay, often with accusations of espionage attached. Some of these include cases where Pakistan and India both deny citizenship to these people, leaving themstateless.[citation needed] The BBC reported in 2012 on one such case, that of Mohammed Idrees, who was held under Indian police control for approximately 13 years for overstaying his 15-day visa by 2–3 days after seeing his ill parents in 1999. Much of the 13 years were spent in prison waiting for a hearing, and more time was spent homeless or living with generous families. The IndianPeople's Union for Civil Liberties andHuman Rights Law Network both decried his treatment. The BBC attributed some of the problems to tensions caused by theKashmir conflict.[44]
From ancient times, the penalty for espionage in many countries was execution. This was true right up until the era ofWorld War II; for example,Josef Jakobs was a Nazi spy who parachuted into Great Britain in 1941 and was executed for espionage.
Espionage is illegal in the UK under theNational Security Act 2023, which repealed prior Official Secrets Acts and creates three separate offences for espionage. A person is liable to be imprisoned for life for committing an offence under Section 1 of the Act, or 14 years for an offence under Sections 2 and 3
Government intelligence law and its distinction from espionage
Government intelligence is very much distinct from espionage, and is not illegal in the UK, providing that the organisations of individuals are registered, often with the ICO, and are acting within the restrictions of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). 'Intelligence' is considered legally as "information of all sorts gathered by a government or organisation to guide its decisions. It includes information that may be both public and private, obtained from much different public or secret sources. It could consist entirely of information from either publicly available or secret sources, or be a combination of the two."[45]
However, espionage and intelligence can be linked. According to the MI5 website, "foreign intelligence officers acting in the UK under diplomatic cover may enjoy immunity from prosecution. Such persons can only be tried for spying (or, indeed, any criminal offence) if diplomatic immunity is waived beforehand. Those officers operating without diplomatic cover have no such immunity from prosecution".
There are also laws surrounding government and organisational intelligence and surveillance. Generally, the body involved should be issued with some form of warrant or permission from the government and should be enacting their procedures in the interest of protecting national security or the safety of public citizens. Those carrying out intelligence missions should act within not only RIPA but also the Data Protection Act and Human Rights Act. However, there are spy equipment laws and legal requirements around intelligence methods that vary for each form of intelligence enacted.
In war, espionage is considered permissible as many nations recognize the inevitability of opposing sides seeking intelligence each about the dispositions of the other. To make the mission easier and successful,combatants weardisguises to conceal their true identity from the enemy while penetrating enemy lines for intelligence gathering. However, if they are caught behind enemy lines in disguises, they are not entitled toprisoner-of-war status and subject toprosecution and punishment—includingexecution.
TheHague Convention of 1907 addresses the status of wartime spies, specifically within "Laws and Customs of War on Land" (Hague IV); October 18, 1907: Chapter II Spies".[46] Article 29 states that a person is considered a spy who, acts clandestinely or on false pretences, infiltrates enemy lines with the intention of acquiring intelligence about the enemy and communicate it to thebelligerent during times of war. Soldiers who penetrate enemy lines in proper uniforms for the purpose of acquiring intelligence are not considered spies but arelawful combatants entitled to be treated as prisoners of war upon capture by the enemy. Article 30 states that a spy captured behind enemy lines may only be punished following a trial. However, Article 31 provides that if a spy successfully rejoined his own military and is then captured by the enemy as a lawful combatant, he cannot be punished for his previous acts of espionage and must be treated as a prisoner of war. This provision does not apply to citizens who committedtreason against their own country or co-belligerents of that country and may be captured and prosecuted at any place or any time regardless whether he rejoined the military to which he belongs or not or during or after the war.[47][48]
The ones that are excluded from being treated as spies while behind enemy lines are escaping prisoners of war and downedairmen asinternational law distinguishes between a disguised spy and a disguised escaper.[24] It is permissible for these groups to wear enemy uniforms or civilian clothes in order to facilitate their escape back to friendly lines so long as they do not attack enemy forces, collect military intelligence, or engage in similar military operations while so disguised.[49][50] Soldiers who are wearing enemy uniforms or civilian clothes simply for the sake of warmth along with other purposes rather than engaging in espionage or similar military operations while so attired are also excluded from being treated as unlawful combatants.[24]
Saboteurs are treated as spies as they too wear disguises behind enemy lines for the purpose of waging destruction on an enemy's vital targets in addition to intelligence gathering.[51][52] For example, duringWorld War II, eight German agents entered the U.S. in June 1942 as part ofOperation Pastorius, a sabotage mission against U.S. economic targets. Two weeks later, all were arrested in civilian clothes by theFBI thanks to two German agents betraying the mission to the U.S. Under the Hague Convention of 1907, these Germans were classified as spies and tried by amilitary tribunal inWashington D.C.[53] On August 3, 1942, all eight were found guilty and sentenced to death. Five days later, six were executed byelectric chair at the District of Columbia jail. Two who had given evidence against the others had their sentences reduced by PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt to prison terms. In 1948, they were released by PresidentHarry S. Truman and deported to theAmerican Zone of occupied Germany.
The U.S. codification of enemy spies is Article 106 of theUniform Code of Military Justice. This provides a mandatory death sentence if a person captured in the act is proven to be "lurking as a spy or acting as a spy in or about any place, vessel, or aircraft, within the control or jurisdiction of any of the armed forces, or in or about any shipyard, any manufacturing or industrial plant, or any other place or institution engaged in work in aid of the prosecution of the war by the United States, or elsewhere".[54]
Spies have long been favorite topics for novelists and filmmakers.[55] An early example of espionage literature isKim by the English novelistRudyard Kipling, with a description of the training of an intelligence agent in theGreat Game between theUK andRussia in 19th centuryCentral Asia. An even earlier work wasJames Fenimore Cooper's classic novel,The Spy, written in 1821, about an American spy in New York during theRevolutionary War.
During the many 20th-century spy scandals, much information became publicly known about national spy agencies and dozens of real-life secret agents. These sensational stories piqued public interest in a profession largely off-limits tohuman interest news reporting, a natural consequence of the secrecy inherent in their work. To fill in the blanks, the popular conception of the secret agent has been formed largely by 20th and 21st-century fiction and film. Attractive and sociable real-life agents such asValerie Plame find little employment in serious fiction, however. The fictional secret agent is more often a loner, sometimes amoral—anexistential hero operating outside the everyday constraints of society. Loner spy personalities may have been a stereotype of convenience for authors who already knew how to write lonerprivate investigator characters that sold well from the 1920s to the present.[56]
Jumping on the spy bandwagon, other writers also started writing about spy fiction featuring female spies as protagonists, such asThe Baroness, which has more graphic action and sex, as compared to other novels featuring male protagonists.
Espionage has also made its way into comedy depictions. The 1960s TV seriesGet Smart, the 1983 Finnish filmAgent 000 and the Deadly Curves, andJohnny English film trilogy portrays an inept spy, while the 1985 movieSpies Like Us depicts a pair of none-too-bright men sent to the Soviet Union to investigate a missile.
The historical novelThe Emperor and the Spy highlights the adventurous life of U.S. ColonelSidney Forrester Mashbir, who during the 1920s and 1930s attempted to prevent war with Japan, and when war did erupt, he became General MacArthur's top advisor in the Pacific Theater of World War Two.[57][58]
Black Widow is also a fictional agent who was introduced as aRussian spy, an antagonist of the superheroIron Man. She later became an agent of the fictional spy agencyS.H.I.E.L.D. and a member of the superhero team theAvengers.
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^Ulfkotte, Udo (1997).Verschlusssache BND (in German) (2 ed.). Munich: Koehler & Amelang. p. 38.ISBN9783733802141. Retrieved6 January 2023.Ein neuer Typ des Spions War Daniel Defoe (1650–1731), der Autor des weltberühmten Romans "Robinson Crusoe" ... Zudem verfaßte Defoe eine Theorie der Spionage, in der er der Regierung die Spitzelmethoden des Polizeistaates empfahl.
^Allen, Thomas."Intelligence in the Civil War"(PDF). Intelligence Resource Program, Central Intelligence Agency. RetrievedSeptember 3, 2021.
^abcIgor Primoratz (August 15, 2013).New Rules for Victims of Armed Conflicts: Commentary on the Two 1977 Protocols Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (Nijhoff Classics in International Law).Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. p. 214.
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^Charlesworth, Lorie (2006). "2 SAS Regiment, War Crimes Investigations, and British Intelligence: Intelligence Officials and theNatzweiler Trial".The Journal of Intelligence History.6 (2): 41.doi:10.1080/16161262.2006.10555131.S2CID156655154.
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^Liulevicius, Vejas Gabriel (October 2011)."1. Introducing the Secret World".Espionage and Covert Operations: A Global History. The Great Courses.Like the old adage about war, real spionage is most often made up of vast stretches of boredom punctuated by sharp moments of fear. [...] It has been said, with some justice that good tradecraft keeps espionage, routine, and boring, which is good, because excitement actually means that something has gone terribly wrong.
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Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri.In Spies, We Trust: The Story of Western Intelligence (2013), covers U.S. and Britain
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Keegan, John,Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda, 2003.
Knightley, Phillip,The Second Oldest Profession: Spies and Spying in the Twentieth Century, Norton, 1986.
Krugman, Paul, "The American Way of Economic war: Is Washington Overusing Its Most Powerful Weapons?" (review ofHenry Farrell andAbraham Newman,Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy, Henry Holt, 2023, 288 pp.),Foreign Affairs, vol. 103, no. 1 (January/February 2024), pp. 150–156. "The [U.S.] dollar is one of the few currencies that almost all major banks will accept, and... the most widely used... As a result, the dollar is the currency that many companies must use... to do international business." (p. 150.) "[L]ocal banks facilitating that trade... normally... buy U.S. dollars and then use dollars to buy [another local currency]. To do so, however, the banks must have access to the U.S. financial system and... follow rules laid out by Washington." (pp. 151–152.) "But there is another, lesser-known reason why the [U.S.] commands overwhelming economic power. Most of the world'sfiber-optic cables, which carry data and messages around the planet, travel through the United States." (p. 152.) "[T]he U.S. government has installed 'splitters':prisms that divide the beams of light carrying information into two streams. One... goes on to the intended recipients, ... the other goes to theNational Security Agency, which then uses high-poweredcomputation to analyze the data. As a result, the [U.S.] can monitor almost all international communication." (p. 154) This has allowed the U.S. "to effectively cutIran out of the world financial system... Iran's economy stagnated... Eventually, Tehran agreed to cut back itsnuclear programs in exchange for relief." (pp. 153–154.) "[A] few years ago, American officials... were in a panic about [the Chinese company]Huawei... which... seemed poised to supply5G equipment to much of the planet [thereby possibly] giv[ing] China the power to eavesdrop on the rest of the world – just as the [U.S.] has done.... The [U.S.] learned that Huawei had been dealing surreptitiously with Iran – and therefore violating U.S. sanctions. Then, it... used its special access to information on international bank data to [show] that [Huawei]'schief financial officer,Meng Wanzhou (... the founder's daughter), had committedbank fraud by falsely telling the Britishfinancial services companyHSBC that her company was not doing business with Iran. Canadian authorities, acting on a U.S. request, arrested her... in December 2018. After... almost three years under house arrest... Meng... was allowed to return to China... But by [then] the prospects for Chinese dominance of 5G had vanished..." (pp. 154–155.) Farrell and Newman, writes Krugman, "are worried about the possibility of [U.S.Underground Empire] overreach. [I]f the [U.S.] weaponizes the dollar against too many countries, they might... band together and adopt alternative methods of international payment. If countries become deeply worried about U.S. spying, they could lay fiber-optic cables that bypass the [U.S.]. And if Washington puts too many restrictions on American exports, foreign firms might turn away from U.S. technology." (p. 155.)
Lerner, Brenda Wilmoth & K. Lee Lerner, eds.Terrorism: essential primary sources Thomas Gale 2006ISBN978-1-4144-0621-3
Lerner, K. Lee and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, eds.Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence and Security (2003), worldwide recent coverage 1100 pages.
May, Ernest R. (ed.).Knowing One's Enemies: Intelligence Assessment Before the Two World Wars (1984).
O'Toole, George.Honorable Treachery: A History of U.S. Intelligence, Espionage, Covert Action from the American Revolution to the CIA 1991
Murray, Williamson, and Allan Reed Millett, eds.Calculations: net assessment and the coming of World War II (1992).
Owen, David.Hidden Secrets: A Complete History of Espionage and the Technology Used to Support It
Richelson, Jeffery T.A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century (1977)
Richelson, Jeffery T.The U.S. Intelligence Community (1999, fourth edition)
Shaw, Tamsin, "Ethical Espionage" (review of Calder Walton,Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West, Simon and Schuster, 2023, 672 pp.; andCécile Fabre,Spying Through a Glass Darkly: The Ethics of Espionage and Counter-Intelligence, Oxford University Press, 251 pp., 2024),The New York Review of Books, vol. LXXI, no. 2 (8 February 2024), pp. 32, 34–35. "[I]n Walton's view, there was scarcely a UScovert action that was a long-term strategic success, with the possible exception of intervention in theSoviet-Afghan War (a disastrous military fiasco for theSoviets) and perhaps support for the anti-SovietSolidarity movement inPoland." (p. 34.)
