Human Intelligence & Counterintelligence

1274 BC · roughly 3,300 years ago

Ramesses II was deceived by false deserters at the Battle of Kadesh

Two captured men posing as Hittite deserters fed the Egyptian pharaoh false information about the enemy's position, nearly leading to disaster, an episode recorded in Egyptian inscriptions and among the earliest documented deception operations using human sources.

5th century BC · roughly 2,500 years ago

The Chinese strategist Sun Tzu set out five types of spies in The Art of War

A dedicated chapter classified sources as local, inside, converted, doomed and surviving agents, and argued that foreknowledge from human sources, not divination, was the basis of victory, a framework still cited in intelligence training.

4th century BC · roughly 2,300 years ago

The Indian statesman Kautilya systematised espionage as an instrument of statecraft

The Arthashastra set out categories of spies, from wandering monks to poisoners and courtesans, and detailed how a ruler should recruit, run and verify human sources, one of the earliest systematic treatments of intelligence tradecraft.

1586 · 440 years ago

Francis Walsingham uncovered the Babington Plot

Elizabeth I's spymaster used intercepted letters and a network of agents and informants to expose a plot implicating Mary, Queen of Scots, establishing methods of interception, deception and source-running still recognisable in modern tradecraft.

1909 · 117 years ago

The United Kingdom founded the Secret Service Bureau

A single body created to address fears of foreign espionage split within years into a domestic security service and a foreign intelligence service, the direct ancestors of MI5 and the Secret Intelligence Service.

1911 · 115 years ago

United Kingdom criminalised spying under the 1911 Official Secrets Act

The 1911 Act established the offence of spying, committed by acting for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State. This gave British authorities a statutory basis for prosecuting clandestine human intelligence collection directed against the country.

1917 · 109 years ago

The Bolshevik government established the Cheka

The secret police created after the Russian Revolution began a continuous institutional lineage, through the OGPU, NKVD and KGB, of state security services combining domestic surveillance with foreign human intelligence collection.

1920 · 106 years ago

United Kingdom extended the law to cover acts preparatory to spying

The 1920 Act created further offences of doing any act preparatory to spying, or of soliciting, inciting, seeking to persuade, or aiding and abetting another person to commit spying. This broadened counter-intelligence reach from the act of collection itself to the recruitment and support networks that make HUMINT possible.

1942 · 84 years ago

The United States formed the Office of Strategic Services

Wartime necessity produced a single agency for espionage, sabotage and propaganda, developing tradecraft and training methods that shaped American and allied human intelligence practice for decades afterward.

1947 · 79 years ago

The United States created the Central Intelligence Agency

The National Security Act established a peacetime civilian agency for foreign intelligence and covert action, replacing the wartime Office of Strategic Services and setting the template later copied by allied services.

1963 · 63 years ago

Kim Philby defected to Moscow, exposing the Cambridge Five

The senior British intelligence officer's flight confirmed decades of Soviet penetration of UK intelligence and the Foreign Office by a group recruited as students in the 1930s, reshaping Western counter-intelligence practice.

• Anthony Blunt was publicly named as a further member of the ring

1971–76 · 55 years ago

Edwin Wilson left the CIA for the Navy HUMINT unit Task Force 157

Wilson departed the CIA in 1971 and worked for the Navy human intelligence unit Task Force 157 until 1976, after which he went private. His career illustrates the movement of trained clandestine operators between official HUMINT organisations and private activity.

1982 · 44 years ago

Edwin Wilson was arrested for illegal arms sales after operating out of Libya

While based in Libya in 1982, Wilson travelled to the Dominican Republic and was arrested for illegal arms dealing. The case became a prominent example of a former intelligence officer turning his tradecraft to private and hostile purposes.

1984 · 42 years ago

United States courts sentenced Edwin Wilson to 52 years in prison

In 1984, at the age of 55, Wilson received a 52-year sentence. The severity signalled how seriously the United States treated the defection of trained clandestine personnel to foreign clients.

2025 · last year

The United Kingdom convicted and sentenced a Russian-directed spy ring operating on its territory

Members of a surveillance cell that had tracked journalists and other Kremlin critics across Europe for Russian intelligence were convicted at trial and sentenced, one of the largest Russian espionage prosecutions brought in a British court in decades.

• The cell operated for years under false identities before detection

2024 · 2 years ago

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released Mandarin-language material aimed at recruiting Chinese officials

Following an earlier Russian-language campaign, the agency published guidance aimed at Chinese officials on making secure contact, part of a public recruitment push run alongside traditional clandestine outreach.

2024–2025 · in the past two years

Russia's Africa Corps expanded its security and intelligence liaison role with Sahel juntas

The successor to the Wagner Group deepened ties with the military governments of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, combining close protection and counter-insurgency support with intelligence liaison functions once run by Western partners.

2024–2025 · in the past two years

China's Ministry of State Security widened public counter-espionage messaging campaigns

The ministry used social media accounts and public appeals to encourage citizens to report suspected foreign spies, part of a broader effort since 2023 to raise counter-espionage awareness alongside an expanded legal definition of espionage.

• The 2023 counter-espionage law broadened the legal definition of espionage-related activity

2024–2025 · in the past two years

Biometric border screening complicated the use of false identities by intelligence officers

Wider deployment of facial recognition and biometric passport checks made it harder for officers to travel under fabricated identities, pushing services toward greater use of cyber access and remotely handled sources instead of physical travel.

2024–2025 · in the past two years

Russia's intelligence services leaned further on illegals after mass diplomatic expulsions across Europe

With far fewer officers able to operate under diplomatic cover following waves of expulsions since 2022, Russian services increasingly relied on undocumented illegals and recruited proxies to sustain surveillance and sabotage operations in Europe.

2024–2025 · in the past two years

Poland reported record numbers of arrests linked to Russian-directed sabotage

Polish authorities detained a growing number of people, often recruited online for small payments, accused of arson, surveillance or sabotage on behalf of Russian intelligence, part of a wider pattern of low-level recruitment across central Europe.

2024–2025 · in the past two years

Taiwan prosecuted a rising number of military personnel recruited by Chinese intelligence

Active and retired officers were charged with providing classified information or agreeing to cooperate with Beijing in the event of conflict, a trend Taiwanese authorities said had grown as cross-strait tension increased.

2024–2025 · in the past two years

Iran was linked to a rising number of plots against dissidents living abroad

European security services reported an increase in surveillance, kidnap and assassination plots against Iranian dissidents and journalists, often organised through criminal intermediaries recruited for individual tasks rather than trained intelligence officers.

2024–2025 · in the past two years

North Korea expanded a scheme placing IT workers inside Western companies under false identities

Nationals using fabricated or stolen identities took remote technology jobs at companies across the US and Europe, generating hard-currency income for the regime, with agencies reporting some cases evolving into data theft and extortion once employment ended.

• Western employers and agencies issued fresh advisories on the scheme

2008 · 18 years ago

US Defense Department found divided loyalties displacing money as the motive for American spies

A 2008 Defense Department study concluded that financial incentives and external coercion played diminishing roles in motivating Americans to spy, with divided loyalties increasingly evident. It reported that two thirds of American spies since 1990 had volunteered and that 80 per cent received no payment, reshaping counter-intelligence assumptions about recruitment vulnerability.

1997 · 29 years ago

Project Slammer presented its findings on spy motivation at public Security Policy Advisory Board meetings

By 1997 the Project Slammer research into why human sources change allegiance was being aired at public meetings of the Security Policy Advisory Board. This marked the movement of systematic study of insider betrayal into the open counter-intelligence policy debate.

1994 · 32 years ago

Aldrich Ames was convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and Russia

A CIA counterintelligence officer had sold the identities of US agents inside Soviet and Russian services for cash over nine years, one of the most damaging betrayals in American intelligence history and a catalyst for internal reform.