Espionage is perhaps as old as war itself. From infiltrating an enemy camp to kill the general, to general intelligence gathering, espionage tactics have largely remained the same throughout most of history. As warfare evolved and entered the modern era, however, so did the tools and techniques of espionage.
Today, spies are equipped with far better and deadlier tools than history. That’s, obviously, the tools and techniques that we know of, as we only know about most of them due to operatives getting caught using them. The best espionage tactics are the ones that have remained hidden throughout history, toppling empires and changing the course of history like few other warfare tactics have been able to.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that we know nothing about spycraft. Thanks to declassified files and information gathered from captured operatives, we’ve come to know of quite a few creative and fascinating espionage tactics that have been used to great success throughout history. Here are our picks for the best of them.
This is an encore of one of our previous lists, as presented by our YouTube host Simon Whistler. Read the full list!