Here I will talk about two concepts, each representing some of the World Powers.
Those are the concept of spy and spying and the concept of intelligence officer and informant.
Some, in the years after 1963, came to an idea to connect those two concepts and give the honor to the founders who used the prefix intelligence when forming the agency. Then they promoted the raw spies over intelligence officers. It was the indicator of how, where, and why the policies of that superpower will shift. That is when the agency departed from the core idea of being in the business of intelligence gathering and went to promote raw spying where spies replaced intelligence officers. It reflected the rise of the “exeptionals,” but without substance exept the insatiable greed for power and money. The process of decline started.
Today, if we are allowed to judge from a Foreign Affairs magazine essay with the title "Spycraft and Statecraft" both terms are mixed. It gives a strong impression that once strategically oriented agency can not find a way out of the impasse. If true, that conclusion is raising many serious issues as it represents the change of the policy of one of the world powers that became, and still is, at least on paper, the only superpower. Instead of serious, deep, intelligence gathering, through common sense analysis, the agency became the bureaucratic spy nest abandoning the intelligence side of business. The result is that their findings being presented to the policymakers and practitioners lack strategic depth, or are custom made for the particular ears with particular mind set. The other, competing side, Russia, had the same issues in the 1990s but it went through reorganization and it looks like, learned from failures and managed to equippe itself with the new, commonly sensed, open-minded, chess-loving, strategic thinkers.
Before going further and analyzing recently published views, one from the USA high ranking individual and one from Russia long-serving veteran of military intelligence, let me explain the difference between a spy and an intelligence officer, using the conversation that happened in March of 1932 in Paris between the lady called Olga and the gentleman called Branko.
About Olga, I will let you know more in another post. Now let me introduce to you Branko. By the way, Wikipedia, which most people use to get instant information about different matters, insidiously presented Branko as a spy. Well, Branko thought then in March of 1932 that he would be a spy but after meeting Olga he understood the difference between Spy and Intelligence Officer.
Branko was Branko Vukelic, born in 1904 in Osjek, then the Austro-Hungarian empire, today's Croatia, from a Serb father and Jewish mother. In 1932 he was to become a member of the small group of the Legendary Richard Sorge that operated in Japan. Richard Sorge was the man who changed the course of history with his intelligence gathering in Tokyo from 1933 till his arrest in October 1941. From there he sent many messages to the Soviet Union explaining the state of politics, economy, military, and any other part of the Japanese Kingdom that was of interest to the policymakers of the Soviet Union, with the most important message being sent, just before his arrest in October 1941, saying that Japan will not attack the Soviet Union enabling Soviet High Comand under Josef Stalin to transfer fresh divisions from Far East to Moscow front and stop the German advance towards Moscow.
I tried hard to find ANY American High official visiting the grave yard where the person who served the USA was buried to at least lay flowers to honour and show respect to him/her. I am sorry I couldn't find. However, as I mentioned Richard Sorge please see the collage from the visit of “Russian Defence Minister General of the Army Sergei Shoigu and members of the Russian military delegation visiting inteligence officer Richard Sorge grave and laid flowers at the Tama cemetery in Tokyo.”
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