Spying for the motherland

Imagine this: a bright, sun-drenched tarmac in the middle of Austria, just before noon on a July day. A plane from Washington D.C. lands, followed in quick succession by a plane from Moscow. Suited men and women walk from both planes towards each other, board the opposing plane and take off again. It is a spy exchange worthy of Roger Moore and gleaming in cold war mystique.

But here’s the catch; it happened on July 10, 2010.

Two weeks before the aforementioned spy exchange, the FBI concluded a seven-year investigation that ended with the capture, arrest, and conviction of ten deep-cover Russian spies that had been living in the United States for decades.

Spies are supposed to jump out of moving cars and have firefights. They have the ability to kill a person with their bare hands, find anyone, anywhere, and make the most mundane things blow up whenever they feel like it. Yet, here we are, finding spies at PTA meetings, driving their kids to soccer practice, and living in Cambridge, Mass.

WTF!!

Millennials didn’t live through “duck and cover,” there is no evil red phone that told the end of the world, and Russia is better known for its vodka and extreme poverty, rather than its nuclear arsenal or communist leaders.

Spies are the characters in action movies that leap out of trains, get shot a few times and somehow manage to keep running. We image that Jason Bourne or James Bond are who spies should aspire to be.

While the idea of ten deep-cover Russian spies, living here for decades, finally being sought out and captured sounds like a great spy movie plot line, when it actually happens in real life, we can do little but laugh and say, “Really?” “Russian spies?”

We grew up knowing no other enemy than terror cells, and Islamic jihadists. Even North Korea, which could prove to be a much more damaging force, doesn’t get more than a shrug from our jaded generation.

The days of Cuba and communism have passed, and we missed out. The Boomers’ KGB spy is our Al-qaeda operative. We no longer live with the ever constant threat from nations with vast nuclear arsenals, it is now about the ever-dangerous rise of new nuclear powers like North Korea and Iran.

While today’s focus may be unfamiliar for those who grew up in the shadow of the USSR, Millennials never experienced the fear of being on the brink of war every day. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the international community lost its ability to compete with the FBI and CIA when it comes to spy-savvy technology and tactics, and the capture of undercover Russian spies only bolstered this point.

It has been almost 20 years since the Cold War ended, meaning that we will never fully understand the terror of MAD or the constant tension and suspicion brought on by McCarthy. We have our own wars to fight now, our own suspicions, and our own lingering fears of massive, albeit non-nuclear, destruction.

We do not fight against governments anymore, so the idea of government spies is somewhat laughable to our generation. So, sorry Russia, but I have to ask, “Are you serious?”

Luckily, none of the ten captured spies gathered or transmitted any valuable or security-related information. Most of their tasks were easily completed by a quick Google search, or a foray onto MSNBC.com.

Perhaps Russia is clinging to its last lingering moments of international prominence, perhaps they are just paranoid enough to try anything, but I don’t buy it. The notion of deep-cover espionage from Russia may have, at one time, been frightening, but with its lack of resources, lack of reason, and lack of foundation, it’s a pretty futile endeavor these days. At least, in our opinion.