@cstross I never worked in intelligence but if you work in communications at my level, you keep meeting people who did.
In today's intelligence world, Bond would be considered a serious security risk and for very good reason. 1/
@cstross Back in the 1970s, the KGB developed an agent (i.e source, Bond is an operative, not an agent) recruitment process whose imprint can be clearly seen in the backgrounds of the men at the center of Brexit, Trump's election and more (aFD, Golden Dawn, etc.) 2/
@cstross Imagine a sales funnel for recruiting traitors. You start off by sending a pretty girl (boy) like Maria Butina into a cocktail party. Her job is to report back the names of every man who grabs her butt to her handler /3
@cstross The young men, early 20s who are on the list of #metoo types are approached by a second operative who decides if they are likely to be any use. In sales terms, qualifying the account. 4/
@cstross The selected targets are introduced to a person who will encourage them to engage in increasingly depraved activities. When they are ready, this person passes them on to the closer. 5/
@cstross The closer is a 12 year old. And lest you think I make it up, I have seen evidence of very young members of the Soviet Komsomol youth league receiving extraordinarily high honors. 6/
@cstross In a variation of the scheme, the closer is rather older and engages in a sex game. Only when the Tory MP is dressed up and munching on his drug soaked orange, she holds the bag on tight instead of releasing it as supposed to. 7/
@cstross The number of potential traitors this process created was likely in the thousands. Only some of them would be used for espionage of course. Most would be used simply to help advance the positions of the other assets. Some held in reserve 8/
@cstross Look into the backgrounds of the men at the center of Brexit. Every single one accused of rapey stuff in court papers. Look at the men in Russiagate, same. All three of the spokesmen for WikiLeaks. 9/
@cstross Same in 'journalism'. The men trying to tell us that it is absurd to think the Skripals were poisoned by Russian agents all have such rapey pasts when you look into them. So do many of the (male) leaders of nationalist/separatist groups in the EU. 10/10
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