Читать книгу The Secrets of Spies - Weldon Owen - Страница 8

9

operatives is a new and increasingly important type of

intelligence officer—the analyst. The volume of information

that flows into an intelligence organization has become an

exponentially growing flood that needs teams of analysts

to control and make sense of it all.

Also working behind the scenes are the cryptographers,

encoding written messages to make them unintelligible

to all but the intended recipient. They are countered by

the codebreakers who, having intercepted the message,

attempt to find out what it means. Over many centuries,

enormous intellectual effort has been directed at the

making and breaking of codes. For those who have

cracked a code, the information it provides can be

priceless, as demonstrated by the Allied decipherment

of the German Enigma codes during World War II.

If spying is primarily concerned with the gathering

of secret information, then it is mirrored by the

counterintelligence of security services that work to

deny the enemy this clandestine information—and to

apprehend those conducting the spying. In the United

States, while the CIA is deployed abroad to gain intelligence,

the FBI tracks down enemy spies operating on home soil.

What makes people become spies? American intelligence

uses the handy acronym MICE to assess motivation.

Money: Sheer greed or financial difficulties bring a surprising

number of people over to the enemy—Ames and Walker

both actively offered their services to the KGB for hard cash.

Ideology: A rather smaller number are motivated by belief in

the superiority of the social or political systems of another,

hostile country, but their commitment tends to be

long-lasting, as was the case with idealistic American and

British citizens prepared to spy for Soviet communism.

Compromise: This usually involves some form of sexual

coercion, where an individual is typically confronted with

photographic evidence of their indiscretions, espionage

against their own country being the price for silence.

Ego: Certain individuals are susceptible to flattery and,

with suitable encouragement, are prepared to become

spies for the sheer enjoyment of seeming to be superior

to those they are spying on.

The motivations for becoming a spy will vary according

to time and circumstance, but we can be sure that

espionage will continue as it has done for centuries.

The end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism

has not led to a more benign intelligence environment.

Rather, intelligence targets have increased in number

and become more diffuse and unpredictable.

Western intelligence agencies have had to extend

their interests beyond superpower and state rivalries

to confront new threats, including Islamist terrorism,

organized crime, and industrial espionage on a mass

scale. Rapid advances in surveillance technology and

artificial intelligence also need to be taken into account.

But the greatest espionage challenge—or opportunity,

depending on your standpoint—has been the

development of cyberspying. This is transforming

espionage, and those that fail to understand its nature

and react accordingly face potential disaster.