52 pages • 1-hour read
Agent Running in the Field
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Background
Ideological Context: The Trump Administration and Brexit
The period between 2016 and 2020 saw a significant shift in the priorities of Western governments. The passing of Brexit marked a challenge to the supremacy of the European Union, and the election of Donald Trump demonstrated the importance of evolving dynamics in international relationships. Additionally, intelligence frameworks started to be more concerned about democratic integrity, cyber warfare, and hybrid threats. Relations between Western governments and Russia during this time remained tense, particularly regarding questions of democratic interference in elections. To maintain the administrative state, civil servants and intelligence officers had to maintain professional objectivity while operating within polarized political environments.
The period also saw growing public awareness of conflicts between maintaining civil liberties and national security operations giving rise to concerns about the intersection of private wealth, political power, and national security. These developments reflected broader uncertainties about the future of liberal democratic institutions and international cooperation in an era of rising nationalism and declining institutional trust. The period marked a significant transition in how Western societies understood their political institutions and international relationships.
Intelligence agencies during this period faced unprecedented challenges in managing both internal and external threats, including the rise of cyber warfare, the increasing sophistication of disinformation campaigns, and the growing intersection between organized crime and state-sponsored activities. Traditional methods of intelligence gathering and verification had to adapt to these new threats. This evolution in intelligence operations occurred against a backdrop of rapid technological change and shifting geopolitical alliances, forcing intelligence services to reconsider fundamental aspects of their operational methodologies and institutional structures.
Authorial Context: John le Carré
Agent in the Field was British author John le Carré’s final novel, having published it in 2019 at age 88. The work emerged from his extensive career both as an intelligence officer and as the preeminent English-language author of espionage fiction. Having worked for British intelligence (MI5 and MI6) during the 1950s and early 1960s, le Carré brought authentic tradecraft knowledge to his fiction, though his later career increasingly focused on criticizing intelligence institutions and Western political systems. Le Carré was born in 1931 with the name David John Moore Cornwell, but he published his novels under the name John le Carré since Foreign Office staff were forbidden from publishing under their own names.
Le Carré’s early works, particularly 1963’s The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and the George Smiley series, are morally complex espionage narratives set during the Cold War. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, le Carré transitioned to addressing post-Cold War themes, including corporate malfeasance, arms dealing, and pharmaceutical industry corruption in works like The Night Manager and The Constant Gardener. In his final decade of writing, le Carré became increasingly political, using his platform to critique Brexit and the Trump administration. Agent Running in the Field represents the culmination of this political turn, directly addressing contemporary political concerns while maintaining a focus on institutional loyalty and personal morality. The novel’s concerns with political divisions and corruption reflect le Carré’s own evolution. His portrayal of younger characters’ ideological absolutism versus older characters’ pragmatic compromise mirrors debates occurring within British society during Brexit.
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