Espionage and Covert Operations

2.4.1- Intelligence Gathering and Security
    An important weapon in many nation's arsenals, espionage is the art of performing secret operations within another nation, in order to obtain intelligence, steal state secrets, perform acts of sabotage, arm rebels, carry out acts of subversion, assassinate political, military and scientific leaders; and anything else that may further the agent's nation's goals. All intelligence arms; be they intelligence gathering, counterintelligence, enforcement divisions or what-have-you, cost a certain amount of cash to train and to maintain, all of which must be approved in a nation's budget.

2.4.1.1- Political Espionage
    Probably the most acceptable form of intelligence operation, political espionage is the art of gathering information from sources within a foreign nation, with the intent of discovering the aims and goals of a nation's regime. This might take the form of paying off members of a nation's legislature, stealing or photographing mail, tapping telephone or telegraph lines, or even simply listening at doors and windows.
    The practice of political espionage is committed by an agent within the foreign nation, who must be given orders to retrieve certain documents or information. A prime example would be the interception of messages sent from specific- or all- nations to the target. Another common use of political espionage agents is the theft of secret codes used by that nation, enabling the intercepting nation to read any and all communiqués that are written using that code.
    Nations maintaining embassies in each other's countries automatically receive one free political espionage agent in that nation; as well getting improved espionage chances within that nation. Additional agents may be acquired, by means of additional funding provided for training in a nation's budget. Once dedicated to a specific nation, a political espionage agent may not be reassigned to another nation; though unassigned agents may be placed into a waiting queue for assignments.
    Examples of agencies solely dedicated to political intelligence would include the CIA and NSA in the United States.

2.4.1.2- Military Espionage
   Military espionage is the art of the agent behind enemy lines, watching troop movements and deployments, determining general patterns, listening to radio traffic and such; in order to obtain a picture of a nation's military goals, strengths and weaknesses.
   Agents trained in military espionage are acquired as any other agent; by funding the training of the agent in the national budget. Military agents are trained to interact with intelligence from any nation, and may thus be deployed and redeployed at will by the nation seeking the intelligence. Nations that spend significant resources to military intelligence against specific nations gain bonuses for their troops when combating those foes, due to the time spent studying their tactics and organization; though this may be offset by successful misinformation techniques employed by counterintelligence agencies, or similar intelligence gathered by the foe's intelligence community.
    Examples of military espionage agencies would include the DIA, MI-5 and similar service specific intelligence organizations.

2.4.1.3- Industrial / Scientific Espionage
    Industrial espionage is the art of studying a nation's industrial operations and manufacturing techniques, in order to steal their technological secrets to enhance one's own nation's capabilities. Industrial agents can steal technological secrets from more advanced nations, thus enabling their own state to improve it's capacity in that arena without the necessity of maintaining research facilities, though the cost of the improvements are roughly doubled. An additional skill of the industrial espionage agent is determining where a nation's facilities are located, what they are building, and how efficient they are at doing their jobs. Naturally, this can be a major advantage when conducting a bombing campaign against a foe, and also allows the nation to 'set up' their opponent for sabotage operations, if need be.
    Industrial espionage agents are acquired in the same fashion as any other agent; and each nation gets one free industrial espionage agent in each country they have a trade agreement with.

2.4.1.4- Cryptography and Cryptoanalysis
    Each nation has, at it's disposal, a section of their intelligence service dedicated to creating and cracking codes and ciphers. These codes may be shared at will between nations, enabling more effective and secret communications. In order for a nation to decipher an encoded message, their own cipher corps would need to crack that code.
    Developing a new code requires the efforts of a research facility, cash, and time. The more skilled a nation is in the field of mathematics, the more complex codes and ciphers can be created; and thus the more secure. Codes are rated on a scale of 1 to 200 (possibly higher), corresponding to the level of mathematical skill needed to create them. The higher rated the code, the harder it is to crack and decipher, (though this is mitigated by mathematical skill in the agency attempting to crack it). The development costs for a new code are equal to the level of the code, in cash. In addition to the cost and the mathematics required, for every ten rating a code is to possess, it takes one month to develop in the research facility, rounded up. Thus, in order to create a code rated 125; it would require that the nation possess a Mathematics technology rating of no less than 125; spend 125 cash, and take up the use of a research facility for no less than 13 months.Once created, the specific code is named (example: "Enigma" as used by the Germans during W.W.II), and placed on that nation's available code list.
    Once the code is developed, the developing nation may share it with any nations it likes, enabling them to encode their communications using the cipher. To do so, when sending an encoded message, they simply place in the subject field, and the top of the message the name of the code used. Any and all nations that wish to read the message, whether they were the intended recipients or not, must possess the code used, in order to do so. (Note that a nation does not need the mathematical level of the code to be able to read the code, only to create it.)
    A nation's cipher corps may attempt to crack any code that they get an example of to work with. Generally speaking, the higher the mathematical skill of the nation trying to crack the code, the more likely and easier it is to do; and the more complex the code trying to be cracked is, the harder the effort.
    To crack a code, the nation must allocate the efforts of a research center to the task, at a cost per month equal to the complexity of the code, divided by ten, with the results rounded up. For example, attempting to crack the code noted above with a rating of 125 would cost 13 cash per month. Each month, the cryptographers have a chance to break the secrets of the code, based on the complexity of the code, and the skill possessed by the nation in mathematics. Once broken, the code may be added to the cracking nation's arsenal for use, or just for decryption of intercepted messages, at the will of the nation breaking it.

2.4.1.5- Counterintelligence
     Counterintelligence is the art of detecting intelligence agents and espionage groups within one's own country, and dealing with them in the manner that the 'host' government deems appropriate. This may be by arresting them and simply stopping their activities; continuing to gather information about their operation in order to uproot the entire organization; attempting to subvert them; in order to gain a foothold in the enemies intelligence community; feeding them false intelligence, in order to gain an advantage over one's foes in that manner; or simply executing them on the spot.
   As opposed to standard intelligence operations, which must be tasked a specific duty on an agent-by-agent or cell-by-cell basis, counterintelligence is normally a passive operation, working in the background, and when something raises a 'red flag', they spring into action; gathering intelligence about the possible mole. Once detected and verified, a counterintelligence agency will advise it's chief executive of the leak, and to request what direction to take to deal with the potential threat.
   Other threats dealt with by counterintelligence forces would include protection of the government leaders from assassination attempts, defense of the government's gold reserves and currency, and the like. Counterintelligence forces are beholden to the rule of law, and must conduct all operations within legal and ethical bounds of the country.
Examples of counterintelligence agencies abound in the world, with those perhaps best known being British MI-5, and the US's Secret Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

2.4.1.5- Secret Police
    Secret police are, in essence, counterintelligence forces unbound. Secret police forces, rather than sitting by passively, waiting for a crime to be committed and reacting to it; instead focus on aggressively rooting out anti-government activists, whether foreign or domestic. As a result, secret police forces tend to be more effective and efficient than standard counterintelligence units at investigating and eliminating intelligence leaks and subversives; but at the cost of trampling the individual, human rights of the people being investigated.
    In action, their practices are remarkably similar to those of standard counterintelligence, but secret police tend to operate above the law; seizing what they need, using torture to extract information, arresting and detaining suspects without due process, in some cases, 'disappearing' people that it considers dangerous to the fabric of society.
    Secret police are raised in the same fashion as any other intelligence arm, and also require funding. Governments should take care with the care and feeding of secret police- sometimes their leaders might get uppity, and with the powers granted them, that could be a very dangerous thing.
    A perfect example of a secret police organization is the German S.S.

2.4.2- Active Operatives and 'Wetwork'
    In order to perform missions that do more than gather intelligence in foreign nations, a government must train and cultivate 'wetwork' operatives. These specialists perform the dirty deeds that nations might prefer never came to light; assassinations, supplying rebel forces, theft, kidnapping, sabotage, aiding coups, terrorism, and the like. These acts, whether publicly recognized or not, are performed on a regular basis by most of the world's nations at one time or another.
    Operatives are trained and funded much like Agents (the intelligence gathering arms), but specialize in their own brand of dirty work. Historical examples about of wetworks operatives, some of the most storied being the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) that worked behind the lines in occupied France during WWII, and many of the operatives of the CIA and KGB, especially during the Cold War. If conventional military forces, or even surgical strikes, are too heavy-handed for the operation, wetwork or 'black bag' agents are sent in.
    Once trained, wetwork agents can be sent anywhere in the world to perform their operations, and are not typically dedicated to any one nation. Unlike intelligence agents, wetwork operatives tend to remain at home in an operative 'pool' until needed, and are then sent out with a very specific task or series of tasks. Rarely, if ever, will a wetwork operative function as a deep mole in a foreign nation.

2.4.2.1- Assassinations
    Regarded by many as the most heinous of operations, assassinations are an actual attempt to kill foreign political, military, industrial, spiritual or scientific leaders; with varying reasons for the desire for termination. Assassinations are easily the most risky task an operative might undertake, since they will likely be tangling directly with enemy agents and operatives themselves, in an effort to get to the best and brightest of a nation's citizens.
    When an operative is tasked to assassinate a leader, the sending government must sanction the operation, though in many cases, knowledge of the operation will be limited to a select few, in order to maintain plausible deniability. Historical examples of assassinations and attempted assassinations include the killing of US Presidents such as Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield; and the aborted attempts to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro with poisoned cigars (a noted and amusing attempt); and the bomb plot to kill Hitler, (though this also could be considered a coup attempt, based on the circumstances).

2.4.2.2- Coup d'état
    Coups are efforts by factions within a government or a population to seize power, typically by force, bluster, and other extralegal means. Typically, a coup will be sponsored and performed by a governmental party, a military junta, a non-governmental organization, or the populace itself; or any combination of these examples. Since coups are, by their very nature, internal to the foreign state, they cannot be actually accomplished by a wetwork operative or team; but may well be aided or orchestrated by one, by means of supplying arms, cash, intelligence or some other material aid to the coup's forces. Likewise, operatives might assist the legitimate government in surviving the coup by similar means.
    If successful, a coup will set up a new government to their own liking, in place of the former regime. This might be a dramatic change in government style, or no change at all; depending on the whim of the coup leaders. Historical examples of successful and failed coups include the 1999 military coup in Pakistan, the 1973 coup in Chile, the 2001 overthrow of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic; while unsuccessful coups would include the 1961 Bay of Pigs disaster, and the attempted coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991.

2.4.2.3- Sabotage
    Sabotage is an operation undertaken with the intent to destroy a critical piece of a foe's infrastructure or industry. This might be an attempt to plant a bomb in a warship in port, to the destruction of a research facility to slow or halt a dangerous program, to the blowing of a rail bridge to prevent supply from reaching a force in the field, or some such operation.
    The key feature of a sabotage operation is that it involves the destruction of some form of important assets, in order to achieve a specific military or industrial goal.

2.4.2.4- Terrorism
    Terrorism, in many ways, is very alike to sabotage, save that usually, people are the targets, rather than objects. The modern FBI defines terrorism as "...the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives." In practice, this may take the form of small radical groups operating with a specific goal; or larger, state-sponsored operations with more sweeping missions. The key bottom line is that the actual goal of terrorist operations tends to be having a psychological impact beyond that of the actual target or targets- the deaths or destruction caused by the terrorist actions are not the actual goal; rather the intimidation of those in some way associated with the target(s) is.
    It is this subtle difference that separates terrorism from other wetwork operations; even though similar tactics and missions are used- bombings, hijackings, assassinations, small-scale attacks on facilities, and kidnappings/hostage takings and the like.
    States utilizing terrorist tactics may do so either using it's own operatives directly, or by training and sponsoring other groups. Another important word of warning regarding training other groups- while it increases a government's ability to maintain plausible deniability regarding these heinous actions; there is a lingering possibility that the trained forces may not actually share a harmony of interests with the operatives; and this may come back to bite the government at a later time.