User talk:Woratcli/sandbox

The background information is a good jumping off point - in spite of the large nature of cold war espionage (in many ways the 'war' was waged by spies and number crunchers) there doesn't seem to be a lot on the wiki page - which is good because it provides a lot of opportunities to add and create. I noticed that the page didn't really even mention why espionage was relied on so heavily and there are a number of factors - nuclear climates, limited diplomatic channels, the inability to wage a conventional conflict, arms races, the emergence of a technocratic culture within the US military, etc. Theres a lot more to add to the background information because the actual espionage activity doesn't really mean much unless we understand why it was happening, and being relied on so much. In addition, you can also explore different espionage strategies by both the US and the USSR - the USSR relied heavily on HUMINT (human intelligence, "spies" and collecting info from human sources, contacts, deep undercover in enemy countries, etc.) while the US relied more heavily on SIGINT (signal intelligence - surveillance from planes, radar, radio interception, codebreaking, etc.) this page has a fair amount of superficial instances of espionage, but doesn't really delve into the reasons, motivations, or methodology and the reasons behind it. If I were you, I would zoom out a bit and see how the world was being reshaped in the aftermath of World War 2 - how did countries control power? Was it still through military means, or economic and political influence? Then zoom back in and see if you can fixate espionage into that broader global shift - what role did espionage play that armies could not, and why did the suits in Moscow and DC see it as being imperative to being competitive in the cold war. How did Soviet/US cultures influence the way they conducted espionage? Hope this helps, you've got an interesting topic to work with.˜˜˜˜

-Johnny