Evolution of espionage - Intelligence agencies around the world

Any avid observer of the geopolitical scenario understands well the fact that wars are won more often inside closed chambers than on the open battlefield. The sharing of intelligence behind these dubious chambers has played a crucial role in securing historic victories. Do you remember watching Benedict Cumberbatch starring in "The Imitation Game"? How did a mathematical genius use his skills to crack the riddle code and change the entire course of World War II? If you have not done so, you can see it now. The great art of warfare knocks a lot on Spionage, the second oldest profession in the world. We outsiders have seen this glorious world of spies in all its glory through shows like Homeland, The Americans, The Spy, Killing Eve etc. And I'm sure these secret and hidden relationships have caused the most intrigue among many. After all, who would not buy the brand that James Bond globally supports?

From ancient times the network of spies has always played an important role in establishing / destabilizing order throughout the world. Espionage is one of the most well-documented military and political arts. In the postmodern world, this network has manifested itself under various sophisticated organizations such as the CIA, Mossad, RAW, GRU, BND, MI6 etc. In this paper I will talk about the development of espionage since antiquity and its various manifestations in today's polarized world.

Espionage in the Ancient World

Throughout history, intelligence has been defined as the collection, elimination, analysis and dissemination of critical and strategic information. Historical and literary accounts of spies and espionage acts appear in some of the world's earliest recorded stories, through hieroglyphs, papyri, and other such objects.

Antiquity

The beginning of intelligence

The first documented intelligence organization, according to Tanakh - the Hebrew Bible, was created by the Israelite tribes led by Moses, around 1300 BC. After the exodus from Egypt and the years in the wilderness, the Israelites crossed the Jordan River into the land of Canaan. According to Christopher Andrew, author of The Secret World, God told Moses to "send spies to reconnoiter the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel." Since no trained intelligence personnel were available for the mission to the Promised Land, Moses, at God's instruction, selected a leading man from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. The Qur'an contains a similar account of the mission of the spies.

The biblical account of this mission provides the first overview of a joint operation involving both, allegedly, the world's two oldest professions (prostitution and spy craft). Honey trapping, one of the most potent tactics in the espionage trade, is thus mentioned in documents as old as time. Rahab, who worked at the brothel, is known to be the first female spy ever to play a supporting role in the Israeli conquest of Jericho.

The influence from the mission above can be seen in today's intelligence agencies Mossad and Shin Bet. Both agencies draw their mottos from the Hebrew Bible. Shin Bet comes from Psalm 121: He who watches over Israel shall neither sleep nor sleep . The current Mossad motto is: Where there is no advice, the people fall, but in the diversity of advisers there is security (Proverbs 11:14). This replaced an earlier, more controversial motto based on Proverbs 24:6:'By deceit you will wage war.'

- This motto is still sometimes quoted by the current Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. When he celebrated the Hanukkah festival with President Shimon Peres and Mossad's boss, Tamir Pardo, in December 2012, Netanyahu declared:

In Hanukkah, we traditionally say, 'Who will sing the strength of Israel?', And I add, 'Who will carry out Israel's secret operations?' 'This is the way the few defeat the many, and we have learned it from the days of our ancestors. We need a body that can operate at an international level with both old and modern methods. Mossad does just that in the most outstanding way. ”

Apart from the Israelis, the ancient Egyptians were also deeply involved in intelligence gathering. The city-states of Canaan were administered by the vassals of the pharaoh with a strong Egyptian military and administrative presence. It was also an important source of supply for Egypt's army and navy. Canaan also formed a bridge between Egypt and the four other "great kingdoms" of the ancient Near East with which it had diplomatic relations:Hatti, Mitani, Assyria, and Babylonia. Therefore, Canaan was a priority for Egyptian intelligence gathering. The earliest evidence of Egyptian espionage comes from "Amarna letters", written on clay tablets in the middle of the fourteenth century BC. A total of 329 of the Amarna letters were sent by vassals in Canaan to the pharaoh about a century earlier than the Israelite conquest of Canaan. Most of this information can be considered as high priority intel and not as open source.

From 1,000 BC and onwards, Egyptian espionage operations focused on foreign intelligence on the political and military strength of rivals Greece and Rome. Egyptian spies made significant contributions to espionage vessels. Since the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, and Rome used literary subjects in their civil service, many spies dealt with written communication.

The use of written messages forced the development of codes, disguised writing, hoax ink and hidden sections in clothing, etc. Egyptian spies were the first to develop extensive use of toxins, including toxins from plants and snakes, to carry out assassinations or sabotage operations.

Even Jesus' Passover meal, now known as The Last Supper, saw an infiltration of a secret agent named Judas Iscariot among his twelve disciples. He was a secret agent recruited by the high priests. While they were eating, Jesus said to the disciples, 'Verily I say unto you, That one of you that eateth with me shall betray me.'

Ancient Greece

The ancient Greek viewers relied on divinity for guidance by interpreting the insides (especially the liver) of sacrificed animals (extispicy), the behavior of the birds (augury), dreams and a wide variety of signs. The most direct access to divine guidance was believed to come from oracles - especially the oracle at Delphi, the leading sacred site in the ancient world. Around 8 ^th century BC, a virgin high priestess of Pythia, Delphi Oracle, was apparently possessed by Apollo himself for nine days each year. She used to sit on the stand and utter incomprehensible messages from Apollo, the god of sun, light and prophecy. These messages were 'translated' by an elderly priest into hexameter verses. Among those who turned to the oracle for intelligence, information, wisdom, and guidance were Aeschylus, Aristotle, Clement of Alexandria, Diodorus, Diogenes, Euripides, Herodotus, Julian, Justin, Livy, Lucan, Nepos, Ovid, Pausanias, Pindar. , Plato, Plutarch, Sophocles, Strabo, Thucydides and Xenophon.

The rise of Greek civilization led to new military and intelligence strategies around 1500-1200 BC. These skills were necessary to undermine the rival as Greece fought wars on all fronts. The first Greeks relied on deception as a primary means of achieving surprise attacks on their enemies. The legendary event of the Trojan horse, a wooden structure donated to the city of Troy, which featured hundreds of Greek soldiers seeking safe entry into the heavily fortified rival city, became the symbol of Greek intelligence. In democratic Greek city-states, espionage was employed as a political tool.

The most far-sighted contribution of the ancient Greek intelligence community was the creation of a complex and effective means of communication between cities. Couriers delivered messages between cities, but important messages were also forwarded between a series of outposts or towers using semaphore, a form of communication that used signals to convey messages.

Rome

No civilization in the ancient world relied more heavily on intelligence than Rome. They contributed significantly to the development of espionage. Over the course of a millennium, the Romans created the largest empire in the ancient world, necessitating the management of the most expansive infrastructure, military, and bureaucracy of the day.

Rome's most famous case of espionage and intrigue culminated in the assassination attempt on Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 BC. The exact details of the assassination attempt are still a mystery to historians, but records show that Roman intelligence was aware of the plot and even provided information to Caesar or his assistants with the names of several conspirators. However, information from the intelligence community was ignored.

The Roman Empire also had a willingness to engage in political espionage. Spies engaged in both foreign and domestic political operations, and measured the political climate in the empire and surrounding countries by tapping in the forum or in public market areas. Several ancient accounts, especially those from the first century AD, mention the presence of a secret police force, frumentarii . Political espionage was not limited to the more controversial parts of the Roman periphery, but was also practiced in Rome even by rival factions in government. Some ministries even used saboteurs. Concerns over the government's rivalry necessitated the creation of agents in rebus , the first exclusive counterintelligence force.

China

In China, Sun Tzu wrote the comprehensive military dissertation, The Art of War , which contained several chapters devoted to the use of spies both on and off the battlefield. Sun Tzu is considered one of the greatest military thinkers of all time.

The central argument for The Art of War summarized in the first and last sentences:

' War is a matter of vital importance to the state; province life or death; the path to survival or destruction. '

'Secret operations are important in war; on them the army depends on making every move. '

Intelligence in The Art of War was closely linked to deception:'All warfare is based on deception. Therefore, when it is able, exhibit incapacity. When active, inactive. 'Although there had been individual cases, as in the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC, of the use of secret agents to give the enemy disinformation, The Art of War was the first to recommend their systematic use in wartime.

India

Varuna, one of the most important gods in the Vedic pantheon, is considered a forerunner of the Secret Services. Magha, one of the most learned and clear poets and pragmatic thinkers, unequivocally claimed that statehood could not exist without the help of espionage. In ancient India, espionage was not intended as an instrument of repression, but as a management tool. Secret agents were seen as 'the king's eyes'. Indian history illustrates Indian expertise in this secret art. The techniques and operational methods used by them were very advanced. From the spas in Varuna, the forerunners of today's spies to Chanakya's latest manifestation of this art in Arthashastra, the techniques for spyboats are timeless and unique. No wonder 2,500-year-old skills in deception, betrayal, hypocrisy and machining taught by the master strategist, Chanakya alias Kautilya, were adopted by India's leading intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

Middle Ages

Following the collapse of the Roman Empire in Europe, espionage and intelligence activities were limited to wartime or local service.
The birth of large nation states, such as France and England, in 9 ^th -10 ^th centuries eased the need for intelligence in a diplomatic setting. Systems of messengers, decoders, and royal couriers carried diplomatic messages between monarchs and feudal lords.
Espionage remained largely confined to battlefield operations. Due to the development of the complex relationship between monarchs and feudal lords, the complex network of loyalty provided laws prohibiting treason, two fidelity and political espionage against allied lords.
11 ^th century onwards, the two important events, the Crusades and the Inquisition, solidified the authority of the Church and created the only long-standing, medieval intelligence community.
At the beginning of the fourteenth century, both Rome and the Spanish monarchs used significant secret police forces to carry out mass experiments and public executions.
In 1542, Pope Paul III established the Congregation of the Holy Office, a permanent council whose mission was to uphold the political integrity of the Church. The Council maintained spies and informants, but shifted its focus to scrutinizing the actions of Europe's monarchs and prominent aristocrats.

Modern Times

In the 18th century saw a dramatic expansion of espionage activities due to ongoing wars. With the expansion of armies and ministries, room for intelligence departments grew as well. Industrialization, economic and territorial expansion, diversification of political philosophies and regimes, and immigration were important factors that led to the transformation of the world's intelligence community.
During the French Revolution, in the 1790s, all factions relied heavily on espionage. Robespierre's dictatorship saw the worst abuse of intelligence in modern times.
During the American Revolution, 1775–1783, US General George Washington developed a successful espionage system to detect British sites and plans. The British intelligence system was weak; it completely missed the movement of the entire American and French armies from the northeast to Yorktown, Virginia, where they captured the British invasion army in 1781 and gained independence. George Washington has been called "America's First Spymaster."
Modern espionage tactics and dedicated public intelligence agencies were developed in 19 ^th A central background to this development was the Great Games, a period that marks the strategic rivalry and conflict that existed between the British Empire and the Russian Empire throughout Central Asia. This eerie conflict became popular in Rudyard Kipling's famous spy book, Kim , in which he portrayed the great game as an espionage and intelligence conflict that "never ceases, day or night."
In the early 20 ^th century, espionage had developed into a highly specialized, technical field. Far from the arena and dogmatic intrigue of the ancient world, modern espionage involves more research and analysis than field operations. Specialized military units are still used for strategic intelligence, but most nations have developed large, centralized, civilian intelligence communities that conduct wartime and peacetime operations with increasing technological sophistication.

Modern Intelligence Agencies

Here is a list of some of the best modern day intelligence agencies in the world.

Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) - India's leading intelligence agency was found in 1968 by the legendary RN Kao. The agency was created after the Sino-Indian War in 1962 and the war between India and Pakistan in 1965, which revealed gaps in the intelligence gathering conducted by the Intelligence Bureau.
Mossad - It is Israel's intelligence agency and is headquartered in Tel Aviv. It was founded in 1949 and has been part of some of the most daring undercover operations in the world.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) - It was founded in 1947 and is headquartered in Fairfax, USA. This agency plays an important role in maintaining the United States' position as a superpower and disseminating foreign policy intelligence and analysis on a national basis. To secure US dominance around the world, it once owned a dummy company called "Air America", which operated as a civilian airline but was actually used to conduct military operations in the East.
Military Intelligence, Section 6 (MI6) - It was founded in 1909 and is one of the oldest intelligence agencies in the modern world. MI6 has existed in various forms since the establishment of a secret service in 1569 by Sir Francis Walsingham, who became Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth I. In its current form, it was constituted by Commander Mansfield Cumming to coordinate intelligence activities before the outbreak of World War I. / li>
Federal Intelligence Service (BND) - It is headquartered in Germany and was founded in 1956. BND collects and evaluates information on a number of areas such as international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the illegal transfer of technology, etc.
Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) - It is headquartered in Lubyanka Square, Russia, and was founded in 1995. The FSD is the most important domestic security agency in the Russian Federation and is responsible for the internal security of the Russian state, counter-espionage and fighting other forms of organized crime.>

References

Boardman, John, Jasper Griffen and Oswyn Murray. Oxford History of the Classical World. New York:Oxford University Press, 1986.

Oxford's History of Medieval Europe.

Richelson, Jeffrey T., A Century of Spies:Intelligence in the Twentieth Century (New York, NY:Oxford University Press, 1995)
ANDREW, C. (2018). Secret World:A History of Intelligence . New Haven; London:Yale University Press.