The New Face of Espionage

While browsing the net earlier, I came across two articles that caught my attention. The first hailing from The Council on Foreign Relations, addresses the current legal debacle facing the CIA; namely a demand for greater transparency in the American Intelligence Community. Sanford V. Levinson's article notes that upon entering office, President Obama promised to investigate the intelligence gathering technics utilized by the Bush Administration (i.e. torturing), yet has seemed reluctant to follow through. And then I realized, why reform the intelligence community when conventional espionage has become a thing of the past? The recent global recession has highlighted better than ever the new playing field for government hosted black ops - national economies. As with the situation facing Prague (Czech public), this article by the International Relations and Securities Network notes intrusions into Czech's economic sector by Russian government officials ("economic hitmen") in a maneuver to takeover state owned holdings of resources. Parallel this with US holdings of oil in Iraq, and we can see the overall picture - why bother with the inconveniences of geopolitics such as traditional borders? Or even in the case of the CIA, why risk being accused of torturing when a state government can just as easily cripple a country's economic sector from the inside - only to simultaneously profit from such actions?