In the post-World War II era, the Soviet Union and the United States wanted to gain the advantage in international security. Both engaged in intelligence gathering. This book provides a comprehensive understanding of the evolution of the espionage game.
For more than four decades after World War II, the quest for intelligence drove the Soviet Union and the United States to develop a high-stakes "game" of spying on one another throughout the Cold War. Each nation needed to be aware of and prepared to counter the capabilities of their primary nemesis. Therefore, as the Cold War period developed and technology advanced, the mutual goal to maintain up-to-date intelligence mandated that the process by which the "game" was played encompass an ever-wider range of intelligence gathering means. Covering far more than the United States and Soviet Union's use of human spies, this book examines the advanced technological means by which the two nations' intelligence agencies worked to ensure that they had an accurate understanding of the enemy.
The easily accessible narrative covers the Cold War period from 1945 to 1989 as well as the post-Cold War era, enabling readers to gain an understanding of how the spies and elaborate espionage operations fit within the greater context of the national security concerns of the United States and the Soviet Union. Well-known Cold War historian Sean N. Kalic explains the ideological tenets that fueled the distrust and "the need to know" between the two adversarial countries, supplies a complete history of the technological means used to collect intelligence throughout the Cold War and into the more recent post-Cold War years, and documents how a mutual desire to have the upper hand resulted in both sides employing diverse and creative espionage methods.
- Details how and why the United States and the Soviet Union maintained and evolved their robust spying capabilities from the end of World War II to the present era
- Highlights how the espionage and spying employed by the United States and Soviet Union involved far more than just people placed to obtain and transmit information
- Provides a foundation of knowledge to understand the tension between United States and the Soviet Union over current issues such as Georgia, Syria, and Ukraine, as well as the expansion of NATO into Central and Eastern Europe
- Includes compelling stories in espionage history, including the Manhattan Project, the convicted Rosenberg spy couple, the U-2 incident, and the discovery of Russian "sleeper" cells in the United States in 2010
- ISBN10 1440840423
- ISBN13 9781440840425
- Publish Date 7 March 2019
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher ABC-CLIO
- Imprint Praeger Publishers Inc
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 231
- Language English