International Conference KNOWLEDGE-BASED ORGANIZATION Vol. XXIV No 1 2018 THE SUPERIORITY OF INFORMATION AND THE POWER OF THE NATION STATE Laviniu BOJOR “Nicolae Bălcescu” Land Forces Academy, Sibiu, Romania
[email protected] Abstract: Access to valuable information has been, is and will continue to be the focus of all the nation states. The benefits of access to information cannot be questioned, but the volatile nature of this Power Information has shown over time that a state's inability to keep its secrets leads to the loss of this power. The present paper captures historical milestones of information gathering activity that have greatly changed the balance of power between the state actors involved. Keywords: espionage, motives, ideology, money, revenge, whistleblower, Rosenberg, Philby, Walker, Penkovsky, Ames, Snowden 1. Introduction Case studies are focused on historical The fight for the state supremacy is based milestones of intelligence that have greatly on the access to information of all kind and changed the balance of power between state fields. The access to information, by using actors involved in this silent fight for all means considered available, has information. characterized the geopolitical scene of the second half of the past century. The 2. Ideology and nuclear secret dichotomy communism – capitalism was The damage caused by nuclear capabilities carried out in state and non state, direct from Hiroshima and Nagasaki has conflicts or proxy war, overt and covert generated major changes not only on the operations, where were invested massive geopolitical scene, but also in society, human and technological resources with the leading to a real nuclear culture marked by accurate aim of getting classified data and symbols like: “events (such as the Cuban information.