Espionage - Targets of Espionage

Targets of Espionage

Espionage agents are usually trained experts in a specific targeted field. This allows them to differentiate mundane information from a target which has intrinsic value to own organisational development. Correct identification of the target at its execution is the sole purpose of the espionage operation.

The broad areas of espionage targeting expertise are:

• Natural resource strategic production identification and assessment (food, energy, materials)

Agents are usually found among bureaucrats that administer these resources in 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 military technologists

• Military capability intelligence (offensive, defensive, manoeuvre, naval, air, space)

Agents are trained by special military espionage education facilities, and posted to area of operation with covert identities to prevent prosecution

• Counterintelligence

Operations specifically targeting opponents' intelligence services themselves, such as breaching confidentiality of communications, recruiting defectors or moles