House of Spies by Peter Matthews

Author:Peter Matthews [Matthews, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

FIVE

THE COLD WAR

Military intelligence concepts and practices were created and formed in the heat of battle in two world wars, largely to serve military purposes, but as the ‘hot wars’ came to a chaotic end in 1945 intelligence began to change in nature. Cold War tensions and pressures emerged, and a different kind of threat to the world produced a differing need for intelligence with an increasingly political motive rather than a military one. Information and knowledge about the sinews of war became the basis of a long-term political policy rather than a shorter term military strategy. Military force in this era was available and of an overwhelming nature, represented by the atomic bomb as a weapon of war. The prime armaments were no longer guns and tanks, although there were still plenty of those, but information about the activities and intentions of the opposing side in the new atomic age was paramount.

The world’s major intelligence services and their people clashed in an epic story of great drama, heroism and even greater deceit as they enacted their parts in a modern version of the Great Game. Germany became the chief battlefield once again, although minor and major skirmishes took place all over the world. The Germanys, both East and West, were the arena for the conflict and the city of Berlin was the prize. Both the Soviet Union and the Anglo-American alliance concentrated on gathering intelligence to ward off the possibility of the Cold War turning into a real one in an effort to make sure they were prepared for the worst.

The threat of nuclear war loomed over Europe and the rest of the world for almost half a century, but the worst was mainly fended off by an intelligence war of special intensity. During the conflict, major espionage and intelligence agencies were created and destroyed as their methods and objectives changed to keep pace with the struggle between communism and the democracies. Enormous bureaucratic and technological systems were built during that time, the effects of which still resonate over old battlegrounds.

The Cold War was foretold over a century before it began, in 1836 by the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote:

There are two great nations in the world, which starting from different points seem to be advancing towards the same goal: the Russians and the Anglo Americans … Each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world.

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