Espionage


Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret, confidential, or in some way valuable information. Such information is also referred to as intelligence. A professional trained in conducting intelligence operations by their government may be employed as an intelligence officer. Espionage may be conducted in a foreign country, domestically or remotely. The practice is clandestine, as it is by definition unwelcome. In some circumstances, it may be a legal tool of law enforcement and in others, it may be illegal and punishable by law.
Espionage is often part of an institutional effort by a government or commercial concern. The term is frequently associated with state spying on potential or actual enemies for military purposes. However, there are many types of espionage. Industrial espionage, for example, involves spying on civilians and their respective business or corporate interests.
File:Wolkowski-Craucher.jpg|thumb|Madame Minna Craucher, a Finnish socialite and spy, with her chauffeur Boris Wolkowski in 1930s
One way spies gather data and information about a targeted military organization is by infiltrating its ranks. They can then return information such as the size and strength of the enemy forces. They can also find collaborators and dissidents within the organization and influence them to provide further information or defect. Spies can steal technology and sabotage the enemy in various ways. Counterespionage, also known as counterintelligence or offensive countertintelligence, is the practice of thwarting enemy espionage and intelligence gathering. Almost all sovereign states have laws concerning espionage and the penalties for being caught spying are often severe.

History

Ancient history

Espionage has been recognized as of importance in military affairs since ancient times. The oldest known classified document was a report made by a spy disguised as a diplomatic envoy in the court of King Hammurabi, who died in around 1750 BC. The ancient Egyptians had a developed secret service, and espionage is mentioned in the Iliad, the Bible, and the Amarna letters. Espionage was also prevalent in the Greco-Roman world, when spies employed illiterate subjects in civil services.
The thesis that espionage and intelligence has a central role in war as well as peace was first advanced in The Art of War and in the Arthashastra. "The Art of War," identifies five types of spies that are essential for gathering intelligence and achieving victory: local spies, inward spies, converted spies, doomed spies, and surviving spies.

Post-classical history

Asia

In Asia, the Mongol Empire relied on a state-sponsored network of spies, often disguised as merchants, who gathered intelligence on enemy strengths, weaknesses, and potential allies in a series of conquests. Feudal Japan utilized specialized covert agents called shinobi, who were mercenaries hired by feudal lords for espionage, sabotage and infiltration, often operating outside the code of the samurai.

Europe

In the Middle Ages, European states excelled at what has later been termed counter-subversion when Catholic inquisitions were staged to annihilate heresy. Inquisitions were marked by centrally organised mass interrogations and detailed record keeping. Western espionage changed fundamentally during the Renaissance when Italian city-states installed resident ambassadors in capital cities to collect intelligence.
Renaissance
Renaissance Venice became so obsessed with espionage that the Council of Ten, which was nominally responsible for security, did not even allow the doge to consult government archives freely. In 1481 the Council of Ten barred all Venetian government officials from making contact with ambassadors or foreigners. Those revealing official secrets could face the death penalty. Venice became obsessed with espionage because successful international trade demanded that the city-state could protect its trade secrets.
Under Queen Elizabeth I of England, Francis Walsingham was appointed foreign secretary and intelligence chief. The novelist and journalist Daniel Defoe not only spied for the British government, but also developed a theory of espionage foreshadowing modern police-state methods.

Modern history

United States

During the American Revolutionary War, Nathan Hale and Benedict Arnold achieved their fame as spies, and there was considerable use of spies on both sides during the American Civil War. Though not a spy himself, George Washington was America's first spymaster, utilizing espionage tactics against the British.

20th century

World War I
In the 20th century, at the height of World War I, all great powers except the United States had elaborate civilian espionage systems, and all national military establishments had intelligence units. In order to protect the country against foreign agents, the U.S. Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917. Mata Hari, who obtained information for Germany by seducing French officials, was the most noted espionage agent of World War I.
World War II
Prior to World War II, Germany and Imperial Japan established elaborate espionage nets. In 1942 the Office of Strategic Services was founded by Gen. William J. Donovan. However, the British Special Operations Executive was the keystone of Allied intelligence. Numerous resistance groups such as the Austrian Maier-Messner Group, the French Resistance, the Witte Brigade, Milorg and the Polish Home Army worked against Nazi Germany and provided the Allied secret services with information that was very important for the war effort.
Cold War
Since the end of World War II, the activity of espionage has enlarged, much of it growing out of the Cold War between the United States and the former USSR. The Russian Empire and its successor, the Soviet Union, have had a long tradition of espionage ranging from the Okhrana to the KGB, which also acted as a secret police force. In the United States, the 1947 National Security Act created the Central Intelligence Agency 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.
In the Cold War, espionage cases included Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers and the Rosenberg Case. In 1952 the Communist Chinese captured two CIA agents and in 1960 Francis Gary Powers, flying a U-2 reconnaissance mission over the Soviet Union for the CIA, was shot down and captured. During the Cold War, many Soviet intelligence officials defected to the West, including Gen. Walter Krivitsky, Victor Kravchenko, Vladimir Petrov, Peter Deriabin, Pawel Monat and Oleg Penkovsky of the GRU. Among Western officials who defected to the Soviet Union are Guy Burgess and Donald D. Maclean of Great Britain in 1951, Otto John of West Germany in 1954, William H. Martin and Bernon F. Mitchell, U.S. cryptographers, in 1960, and Harold Philby of Great Britain in 1962. U.S. acknowledgment of its U-2 flights and the exchange of Francis Gary Powers for Rudolf Abel in 1962 implied the legitimacy of some espionage as an arm of foreign policy.
China has a very cost-effective intelligence program that is especially effective in monitoring neighboring countries such as Mongolia, Russia and India. Smaller countries can also mount effective and focused espionage efforts. For instance, the Vietnamese communists had consistently superior intelligence during the Vietnam War. Some Islamic countries, including Libya, Iran and Syria, have highly developed operations as well. SAVAK, the secret police of the Pahlavi dynasty, was particularly feared by Iranian dissidents before the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Post-Cold War

21st century

Today, spy agencies target the illegal drug trade and terrorists as well as state actors.
Intelligence services value certain intelligence collection techniques over others. The former Soviet Union, for example, preferred human sources over research in open sources, while the United States has tended to emphasize technological methods such as SIGINT and IMINT. In the Soviet Union, both political and military intelligence officers were judged by the number of agents they recruited.

Targets of espionage

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.
Broad areas of espionage targeting expertise include:
  • Natural resources: strategic production identification and assessment. Agents are usually found among bureaucrats who administer these resources in their own countries
  • Popular sentiment towards domestic and foreign policies. Agents often recruited from field journalistic crews, exchange postgraduate students and sociology researchers
  • Strategic economic strengths. Agents recruited from science and technology academia, commercial enterprises, and more rarely from among military technologists
  • Military capability intelligence. 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 or moles