For Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, the exposure of a Moscow-run spy ring in the heart of the American suburbs could not have come at a more embarrassing moment. Only a few days before the FBI made its dramatic arrests in New York, Medvedev was being fêted in Washington, where President Barack Obama entertained him to lunch at his favourite hamburger restaurant. Obama and Medvedev agreed that the two former Cold War protagonists had achieved their goal of "resetting" relations on a more amicable footing, and announced their intention to enter a new era of joint co-operation between the two countries, particularly in the sensitive fields of intelligence and counter-terrorism.
This new friendship now appears rather hollow, following the release of the FBI's detailed dossier on the espionage activities of a group of Russian agents. But it is not so much the exposure of the spy ring that is causing Moscow discomfiture, as the antediluvian methods used by its operatives in their somewhat laughable quest to penetrate the inner sanctum of America's policymaking establishment.
False names, invisible ink, dead drops, brush passes — these antiquated tricks of the espionage trade were supposed to have become obsolescent when the Iron Curtain collapsed 20 years ago. Instead, we discover that the hapless group of Russian agents, many of whom had been living humdrum, suburban lives as part of a "deep cover" operation since the mid-1990s, relied heavily on a Smiley-esque array of old-school techniques to maintain contact with their Russian handlers.
In a world where advanced satellite technology allows the world's spy-masters to eavesdrop on the phone conversations of Taliban commanders calling from remote mountain passes, and where sophisticated computer hackers can infiltrate government databases at will, there is something rather quaint about these Russian spies' archaic methods. It is surprising that modern-day Russia does not appear to have developed more creative techniques for running its spy networks than burying large sums of cash in upstate New York, or making payments by passing matching orange bags between two agents, in a classic "brush pass" manoeuvre.
Obvious embarrassment
No wonder the Kremlin was almost apoplectic when it denounced the FBI's claims that it had smashed a major Russian spy network. The Russian Foreign Ministry said the arrests were "deplorable", and lamented the fact that they had taken place against "the background of the reset in Russia-US ties". But the Russians have no one but themselves to blame for this embarrassing state of affairs. After all, it is their agents, not the Americans, who have broken the cardinal law of espionage: don't get caught.
Moscow's default position when caught red-handed in some perfidious plot is generally to deny everything, and to turn the tables on its accusers. Britain has been on the receiving end of these disingenuous tactics over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the dissident KGB agent who died after being poisoned with polonium when he was lured to a London hotel four years ago.
Even though Scotland Yard has identified Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB bodyguard who is currently a member of the Russian parliament, as the prime suspect in the case, the Kremlin has steadfastly refused to hand him over. Indeed, prior to Medvedev's first meeting with David Cameron at the G20 summit in Canada, the Kremlin urged the British government to set aside its concerns over the case, and to follow Obama's example by pressing the "reset" button in its relations with Moscow.
But then British spy chiefs can hardly plead innocence when it comes to playing the intelligence game against their old Cold War foe. Britain's spy-masters are still wringing their hands with embarrassment after the Russians broadcast pictures on the main evening television news of an unusual rock-like object that had been planted in a park in a Moscow suburb. On closer inspection it turned out to be a clandestine transmission device used by British agents to pass sensitive intelligence back to London.
For the truth of the matter is that, however much the leaders of the world's main powers might claim that they are committed to a new era of global co-operation, the world's second-oldest profession is thriving as never before. British security officials estimate that there are as many Russian agents active in London today as there were at the height of the Cold War. And if the Russians are still keen to spy on the West, it would be fair to assume that the West is just as keen to spy on them.
Indeed, it is arguable that the global espionage network today is more active than at any time in world history. Since the September 11 attacks in 2001, the budget for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) has doubled to around £1 billion (Dh5.5 billion) each year, and the service employs more case officers and agents than at any time in its history.
Nor are all the world's espionage operations quite as mundane as those practised by Moscow's suburban New York spy ring. Today, the greatest threat to western civilisation is posed not by a barrage of ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads fired by China or Russia, but by well-directed cyber attacks which, within a nanosecond, could bring entire continents to a standstill. The Russians have already demonstrated their expertise in this field when they launched a series of cyber-attacks on the Baltic states, and succeeded in disabling many of the Georgian government's computer systems during the brief border war of 2008, which severely hampered the Georgians' ability to muster their defences.
Less romantic
But the Chinese are the undisputed masters of the new art of cyber wars, and have revealed their prowess with attacks on the Pentagon's computer system in Washington, as well as making half-hearted attempts to infiltrate Whitehall. To counter high-tech threats such as these, today's spooks must spend more of their time studying computer screens.
But that is not to say all the intrigue of the spying game has been entirely lost. The talent to fathom human nature is as important to a successful espionage operation as the ability to analyse computer data. And so long as the human factor remains a central part of a spy's everyday work, the potential for embarrassing disclosures will never be far away.
Con Coughlin is an expert on international terrorism and the Middle East.
