Editing Espionage (section)

== Targets of espionage ==
Espionage agents are usually trained experts in a targeted field so they can differentiate mundane information from targets of value to their own organizational development. Correct identification of the target at its execution is the sole purpose of the espionage operation.{{citation needed|date=October 2015}}

Broad areas of espionage targeting expertise include:{{citation needed|date=October 2015}}
* [[Natural resource]]s: strategic production identification and assessment (food, energy, materials). Agents are usually found among bureaucrats who administer these resources in their own countries
* [[Public opinion|Popular sentiment]] towards domestic and foreign policies (popular, middle class, elites). Agents often recruited from field journalistic crews, exchange postgraduate students and sociology researchers
* Strategic economic strengths (production, research, manufacture, infrastructure). Agents recruited from science and technology academia, commercial enterprises, and more rarely from among military technologists
* [[Military capability]] intelligence (offensive, defensive, manoeuvre, naval, air, space). Agents are trained by military espionage education facilities and posted to an area of operation with covert identities to minimize prosecution
* [[Counterintelligence]] operations targeting opponent's intelligence services themselves, such as breaching the confidentiality of communications and recruiting defectors or [[Mole (espionage)|mole]]s