The Cold War era was a time of extreme tension and paranoia around the world. The Soviet Union and the U.S. were both preparing for war, although trying to avoid it, and used their intelligence agencies to gather information about the enemy and their intentions. By virtue of experience, the Soviets were simply better at some things than the U.S were, but the U.S. had its own areas of expertise as well. Both countries had its successes and failures, from disinformation campaigns to the use of SIGINT, but in the end, only the U.S. was left standing. Although the two great superpowers were trying to avoid a mass conflict, which many feared would involve mass destruction, both countries intelligence activities were aimed at preparing for a potential …show more content…
It was very effective at conducting disinformation campaigns to publicize stories that were exaggerated or not even relatively true. Additionally, they were also effective at using denial and deception measures to prevent the U.S. from gathering information on activity inside buildings that were used for their nuclear program and left the U.S. with significant intelligence gaps (Bukharin, O). Perhaps most importantly for the Soviets, the KGB was very proficient at suppressing internal dissent and revolutions in its proxy states and at gathering personal intelligence (Soviets) (Rollins, D). In terms of its weaknesses, the Soviets were not near as efficient at gathering electronic intelligence in the same manner that the U.S. did against them, and they were not quite as technologically advanced (Rollins, D). While the Soviets weaknesses hindered them in some ways, their intelligence services still managed to be extremely successful during the Cold …show more content…
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