How Spies are Affected by Current Events

A spy’s life is almost entirely run by the news cycle. We assist in political plans that become the next day’s news cycle. We react to events that were yesterdays’ news cycle. We often are part of the events that are the current news cycle. Remember the mantra: Spies lie. We conceal secrets and tell lies. Many of the things politicians say as “truth” are nothing more than the lies told them by their country’s intelligence services. In effect, history is manufactured through espionage.

In “peace time,” when there are no looming crises, governments are often tempted to slash the budgets for their intelligence services. In the early 1990s, with the fall of the Soviet Union, for example, in the United States there was discussion of closing down the CIA and mothballing our navy. Indeed, we closed many of our domestic military bases, including Fort Ord, nearby where I live. This behavior is anathema to intelligence services, and they fight hard to keep our new eneies forefront in the minds of our politicians. No wonder they lie. Remember “Weapons of mass destruction?”