It’s the next shoe to drop after the rush to declare imminent cyber war is upon us. According to MI-5, those notoriously sneaky Chicoms are using sex (gasp!) to steal our secrets. British journalist Philip Knightley offers a fairly rote recital of so-called ‘honey traps’ across history.
It’s true that different cultures pursue strategic intelligence collection methodologies according to their own internal characteristics but the actual tactical tools are relatively universal. We’ve always expressed support for and appreciation for the Bureau’s CI mission (still underfunded and understaffed in area studies expertise in our opinion) – Russian GRU and SVR efforts continue to escalate back to Cold War levels in some respects. The Chicom intelligence offensive against the West unfolds along different lines, approaches to gathering and ultimately targeting than say the Russian/Slavic tradition.
Knightley is a bit prolix. But it is a timely reminder.