Eh, not always. The Red Orchestra was arguably one of the (if not the) most successful intelligence operations in WW2. Their problem is not really intelligence collection, I would guess they are reasonably good at it, but the entire apparatus is so corrupt and useless that it is unable to turn that intelligence into anything useful.
Mr_DedicatedMan t1_jaeoo18 wrote
Reply to comment by princeps_harenae in Putin tells FSB security service to raise its game against Western spy agencies by northern_hero
Eh, not always. The Red Orchestra was arguably one of the (if not the) most successful intelligence operations in WW2. Their problem is not really intelligence collection, I would guess they are reasonably good at it, but the entire apparatus is so corrupt and useless that it is unable to turn that intelligence into anything useful.