The Psychology Of Spies And Spying

The Psychology of Spies and Spying tells the story of the people involved in spying: the human sources (agents) who betray their country or organisation and the professional intelligence officers who manage the collection and reporting process

The Psychology of Spies and Spying tells the story of the people involved in spying: the human sources (agents) who betray their country or organisation and the professional intelligence officers who manage the collection and reporting process

Thompson dissects the most important spy cases, including those involving Aldridge Ames and Bob Hanssen, and draws conclusions that can help to avoid similar cases in the future. In essence, he applies the latest psychological theories to explain the decision to commit espionage.

'It's rare to find a book that is not only intensely personal but deeply practical. Julian Fisher has somehow pulled it off, in this fascinating and engaging guide to the art of influence. Think Like a Spy is a fantastic read, full of eye-opening espionage tradecraft as well as insightful tips on how to achieve your business goals. Highly recommended' - Henry Hemming, author of Four Shots in the Night Discover the secret skills of influence and persuasion taught to intelligence officers and how to adapt them to win over personal and professional allies to your cause. Every day, intelligence officers achieve the unimaginable. They persuade people to share classified secrets with them. To become traitors, in fact. And their targets do it willingly, despite the risk of imprisonment, torture and, even, execution. Spies achieve this thanks to their structured use of nine secret skills of espionage. In Think Like a Spy, you'll learn these techniques and how to adapt them for effective and ethical use in your own life. A good spy is a people-person. She knows how to identify a potential agent, how to attract their attention and what to do to build an enduring relationship with them. From this base, she will coax out personal information to work out what makes her target tick. She will use that knowledge and her understanding of human psychology to her advantage while winning lasting commitment from her new ally. All these skills can be mastered and turned to use in civilian life. The author realised that he used all of them in his own progress from the poorest postcode in Britain to Oxford University, into a blue-blooded stockbroking firm, and on to a thrilling and varied career in the security and intelligence worlds. Julian uses a wide variety of stories from this journey to illustrate how spy skills can be adapted to situations and challenges that we all face. Everyone is capable of thinking like a spy and of using that thinking to transform their lives. This is your opportunity to learn how.

This volume examines the ethical issues generated by recent developments in intelligence collection and offers a comprehensive analysis of the key legal, moral and social questions thereby raised. Intelligence officers, whether gatherers, analysts or some combination thereof, are operating in a sea of social, political, scientific and technological change. This book examines the new challenges faced by the intelligence community as a result of these changes. It looks not only at how governments employ spies as a tool of state and how the ultimate outcomes are judged by their societies, but also at the mind-set of the spy. In so doing, this volume casts a rare light on an often ignored dimension of spying: the essential role of truth and how it is defined in an intelligence context. This book offers some insights into the workings of the intelligence community and aims to provide the first comprehensive and unifying analysis of the relevant moral, legal and social questions, with a view toward developing policy that may influence real-world decision making. The contributors analyse the ethics of spying across a broad canvas – historical, philosophical, moral and cultural – with chapters covering interrogation and torture, intelligence’s relation to war, remote killing, cyber surveillance, responsibility and governance. In the wake of the phenomena of WikiLeaks and the Edward Snowden revelations, the intelligence community has entered an unprecedented period of broad public scrutiny and scepticism, making this volume a timely contribution. This book will be of much interest to students of ethics, intelligence studies, security studies, foreign policy and IR in general.

For fans of both real spy dramas and fictional ones—both Ben Macintyre and John le Carré—the story of why spies spy. Why do people put their lives at risk to collect intelligence? How do intelligence services ensure that the agents they recruit do their bidding and don't betray them? What makes the perfect spy? Drawing on interviews with active and former British, American, Russian, European, and Asian intelligence officers and agents, Michael Smith creates a layered portrait of why spies spy, what motivates them, and what makes them effective. Love, sex, money, patriotism, risk, adventure, revenge, compulsion, doing the right thing— focusing on the motivations, The Anatomy of a Spy presents a wealth of spy stories, some previously unknown and some famous, from the very human angle of the agents themselves. The accounts of actual spying extend from ancient history to the present, and from running agents inside the Islamic State and al-Qaeda to the recent Russian active measures campaigns and operations to influence votes in the UK, European Union, and United States, penetrating as far as Trump Tower if not the White House.

From the former director of GCHQ, learn the methodology used by British intelligence agencies to reach judgements, establish the right level of confidence and act decisively. Full of revealing examples from a storied career, including key briefings with Prime Ministers and strategies used in conflicts from the Cold War to the present, in How Spies Think Professor Sir David Omand arms us with the tools to sort fact from fiction. And shows us how to use real intelligence every day. ***** 'One of the best books ever written about intelligence analysis and its long-term lessons' Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 'An invaluable guide to avoiding self-deception and fake news' Melanie Phillips, The Times WINNER OF THE NEAVE BOOK PRIZE 2022 LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 2021

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