What’s the Point of Espionage in a Spy Novel?

What’s the Point of Espionage in a Spy Novel?

Espionage is conducted by nations to shape policy. Pretty simple. One country gathers information about another country, analyzes it, and then makes policy decisions based on the analysis of the information. The policy result is national in scope, although it is often not made public for a variety of reasons. Those policy choices can include reallocating assets, refocusing training, undertaking new initiatives or retooling existing ones, shifting pol...