"Spying involves
waiting, watching, remembering, and recording. It involves sophisticated
cameras and high-altitude aircraft and missiles with satellites -- but also
people on the ground, quietly walking down streets, looking". John Risen
"Soviet-era military
maps were so good that when the United States first invaded Afghanistan in late
2001, American pilots relied on old Russian maps". John Risen
Wherever you are on
the planet reading this book, the place is likely to have been mapped in detail
by the Soviet Union. At least once.
Many hundreds of
specific symbols were devised to differentiate in as much detail as possible
the purpose and construction of individual buildings, the religion of places of
worship, the type and density of vegetation and crops, and the nature of the
terrain and coast.
