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Comment by liberte82 | Hacker News Reader

What is it about Russia that makes them so partial to espionage as a preferred method? From the Cold War to today's cyberattacks, they manage to use intelligence gathering and espionage as a method of maintaining disproportionate world power. Is it cultural? If so where does it come from, and when did it start?

America has great intelligence capabilities as well, but in general you tend to think of it as more of a "brute force", or "diplomacy" type of nation, while Russia's strategies tend to be more asymmetric.

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> Is it cultural?

It's cheap. You need a few people and clever ideas rather than enormous capital. Russia has people and education.

It is partially cultural too, Stalin started it, he though knowledge was most important resource and he was right too.

The tradition of Russian espionage predates Stalin and, in fact, predates the USSR altogether.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okhrana

During the Cold War, the USSR stepped up the size and sophistication of its covert operations and intel apparatus dramatically. But the Russians have always believed in espionage as an effective, asymmetrical advantage.

I would still put this into the cultural camp. But I tend to see culture as a reflection of many factors including social, genetics, generational (which includes technological which is itself influenced by the overall culture), evolutionary aspects, and competition factors (which positively influence evolutionary and social aspects vs -say- a dormant passive society), not just social factors which culture is typically view as a product of.

what country hasn't, ever?

There's a difference between theory and praxis that we need to consider here. Most countries "believe" in espionage; the Russians have always invested in it as a sort of national discipline. Russia 'specializes' in spycraft, you might say.

Maybe they read The Art of War and actually took it seriously? The entire final chapter is about espionage.

And chapter III:

> It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles;

Or is it? If the operations are truly intended to be espionage and thus covert of course you won't hear it in the mass media, which would only tend to report busted enemy operations. CIA has massive operations everywhere. Basing everything you think on the mass media would not be smart to say the least.

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