Re: Re: Assassins

From: Light Castle <light_castle_at_...>
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 23:19:47 -0500

That was my understanding. When I first heard about them, I immediately thought of The Three Musketeers. The Cardinal has his guard and his spies, the King has his Musketeers and his spies, the Queen doesn't seem to have a guard, but almost certainly has her own information network, etc...

LC

On 19 Mar 2005 at 22:20, Mark Galeotti wrote:

> Peter has already given some examples, but I'd add that the key
> thing about the majority of the Instrumentalities is precisely that
> they are typically small, ad hoc teams, networks and groups. If you
> think 'intelligence ops' is a new concept, then you are sadly
> mistaken. When, for example, the Mongols were rolling westwards in
> the 13thC, their armies were always preceded by not just scouts but
> also spies, as individuals and in teams, to gather information,
> assess routes and carry out psychological warfare. Likewise, no
> Renaissance Italian grandee would not have his network of
> informants. Even in the ancient world, espionage was commonplace.
>
> The whole point is that it was so ad hoc, and this is why I framed
> the Instrumentalities as I did -- even the bigger organisations such
> as the Spoken Word and the Bearers are actually much less organised
> than they seem when you look at them as they are, rather than
> through the prisom of modern organisations as the 'Lunar KGB'
> or 'CIA' or whatever...
>
> All the best
>
> Mark
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