Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR)
Country: Russia
Area of expertise: Officially—counterterrorism and protecting Russian commercial interests abroad. Unofficially—consolidating political power back home.
Activities: Russia has a formidable spying tradition that dates back to the czarist-era Cheka. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the once omnipotent KGB was broken up into several smaller organizations with vastly limited powers.
Since ex-KGB man Vladimir Putin took power, however, the SVR, or Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedk as it’s known in Russian, has recovered much of its swagger. Russian spying within the United States is now back to Cold War levels, U.S. officials believe. Peter Earnest, the executive director of the International Spy Museum in Washington, who matched wits with the KGB as a CIA operative for over three decades, shared this assessment.
“They are as important today as they ever were, if not more,” he said. “Russia has not eased off at all on its espionage activities.” The SVR is widely suspected to have played a role in the assassination of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko in London last year. Putin has denied this allegation and lauded the SVR as “one of the most professional and effective special services.” In reality, the intelligence services have emerged as one of the most powerful political groups in Putin’s Russia, and ex-KGB agents occupy many of the Kremlin’s key positions. As the Russian saying goes, “There’s no such thing as an ex-Chekist.”
***********************************************************************************Israel's Mossad or the "Institute" in Hebrew is also one of the agencies that employ wide range of tactics. Actually, most analysts consider Mossad the best in the business of spying the enemy, locating and getting classified technology in where in the world and eliminating the enemy by wide range of assassinations. Including poisoning, sniper shooting, and electrocuting.
The Mossad
Country: Israel
Area of expertise: Combating Islamist terrorism, evacuating Jewish refugees
Activities: “We’re all students of the Mossad,” says Earnest. Since it was founded in 1951, “the Institute,” as it translates in English, has acquired a reputation for extraordinary skill and aggressiveness in combating Israel’s enemies. Some of its notable achievements include the abduction of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann from Argentina in 1960, the assassination of the planners of the 1972 Munich Olympics killings, and the assassination of a senior Hamas operative with an exploding cellphone in 1996. The Mossad has also been active over the years in efforts to assist Jewish refugees who seek to immigrate to Israel, including the secret airlifting of thousands of Ethiopian Jews in “Operation Moses” in 1984. The Mossad made some moves toward greater transparency and openness in the 1990s, including revealing the name of its director for the first time, but under Ariel Sharon it turned back toward the clandestine operations for which it is best known. Reports indicate that the Mossad may have had either an agent or an informant at the Syrian military installation that Israel bombed in***********************************************************************************
China's Ministery of State Security has formidable intelligence wing that is not well known but being around for decades.
Ministry of State Security
Country: China
Area of expertise: Industrial espionage and data analysis, domestic security
Activities: The MSS is close in structure to the old Soviet KGB and is responsible for both domestic security and foreign espionage. Its overseas activities are believed to be focused aggressively on the United States, particularly its high-tech industries and military technology. Rather than relying on a handful of agents, the MSS views almost anyone has a potential intelligence asset and gathers intelligence on new weapons systems painstakingly over time through personal contacts. “Chinese espionage is different than Western espionage,” says Earnest.
“We go after a secret somewhere; they go after numbers. They collect little bits and pieces and put it together.” Sources often don’t even realize they’ve collaborated with a foreign spy mission, and the thousands of Chinese diplomats, students, and business people who travel to the West every year make spies incredibly difficult to detect. Through this method, the Chinese have managed to reverse engineer numerous U.S. weapons systems. China appears to be stepping up its espionage efforts in cyberspace as well. In September 2007, the Pentagon accused China of hacking into U.S. Defense Department databases. The governments of Germany and Britain have made similar accusations.
India's main intelligence agency was created to distabilize Pakistan for years ago, but it is becoming a new comer in the wold stage since the start of the war on terror by sharing data with other big agencies such as the CIA, MI6 and Mossad.
Research and Analysis Wing
Country: India
Area of expertise: Destabilizing Pakistan
Activities: RAW was founded in 1968 specifically to counter Pakistani support of militant groups within India, but over the years it has grown into one of the world’s most formidable intelligence services, with wide-ranging activities in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, and elsewhere.
It is particularly active in Bangladesh, where it played a key role in that country’s movement for independence from Pakistan. Pakistani authorities often blame RAW for terrorist attacks in their country. Although these accusations tend to lack evidence, RAW does have a history of backing militant groups in Kashmir, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka. Recent years have not been easy for RAW.
In 1996, RAW was implicated in a scandal involving the illegal donation of funds to U.S. congressional campaigns. Stories about infiltration by U.S. and Chinese assets have become public scandals, and the media is now calling for greater transparency and oversight of the notoriously secretive agency.
***********************************************************************************Even Pakistan's Inter-services Intelligence has become more of a force to be reckon with when it comes dealing with weapons of mass destruction. It was accredited to be the creator of the nuclear power that Pakistan enjoys today. Among its responsibility is to protect the nations main asset - the Nuclear weapons:
Inter-Services Intelligence
Country: Pakistan
Area of expertise: Destabilizing India
Activities: Sometimes described as a state within a state with virtually no oversight, ISI is best known for the firm control it exercises over Pakistan’s politics and its role in protecting the military from domestic opposition.
But the ISI has also been accused of playing both sides in the global war on terror—fighting Islamist extremists domestically while abetting them abroad. Whether spreading anti-Indian propaganda in Kashmir or funding Sikh separatists in Punjab, the ISI has consistently undermined India’s stability for decades.
India has accused the ISI of involvement in dozens of terrorist attacks over the years, including the Mumbai bombings of 2006 that killed 187 people. At the same time, the ISI has worked with the U.S. and allies to combat al Qaeda and the Taliban inside Pakistan.
MI6, CIA and other European agencies are also the most effective spay organizations with huge classified bugets. Most of those agencies were the product of the cold war era, but are adopting to the new threat of terrorist attacks and protecting technology.
