Political Science

In his book,  A Century of Spies,  Jeffrey Richelson gives the reader a comprehensive history of the espionage or intelligence business in the 20th century which is not far from the James Bond persona most people tend to associate spies with.  Parts I and II depict how intelligence services began to develop into specialized agencies that were not only limited to military purposes but for political or state matters as well.  The great powers began to create dedicated intelligence agencies to enable them to gain the advantage over the other as well as dealing with spies within their borders.  Their worth would be realized during the two world wars where they would serve as the  eyes and ears  of their governments to know what the enemy was up to and to plan accordingly.  In addition, they also performed acts of sabotage to disrupt the war efforts of the enemy to further give their country enough leverage in the battlefield (Richelson, 1995).  Parts I and II emphasize the key role played by spies in the wars though their efforts and sacrifices were unrecognized owing to the nature of their work.

The third part shows how intelligence agencies became larger in terms of their institutional structure and the scope and range of their missions as the smaller intelligence agencies and units were reorganized and consolidated to form one large agency such as the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),  the British Security Intelligence Service (SIS) and the Soviet State Security Bureau (KGB).  Their missions are no longer limited to gathering information of military capabilities but have extended to economic and technological espionage we well as these also play a key role in determining the strength of the states they can regard as an ally or adversary (Richelson, 1995).

All in all, intelligence services have become key components in a nations foreign and national security policy and will continue to do so even if their work will never be known.