The NSA and GCHQ have jointly published a history of World War II SIGINT: “Secret Messengers: Disseminating SIGINT in the Second World War.” This is the story of the British SLUs (Special Liaison Units) and the American SSOs (Special Security Officers).

You can read the details of Operation Spiderweb elsewhere. What interests me are the implications for future warfare: > If the Ukrainians could sneak drones so close to major air bases in a police > state such as Russia, what is to prevent the Chinese from doing the same with > U.S. air bases? Or the Pakistanis with Indian air bases? Or the North Koreans > with South Korean air bases? Militaries that thought they had secured their > air bases with electrified fences and guard posts will now have to reckon with > the threat from the skies posed by cheap, ubiquitous drones that cFan be > easily modified for military use. This will necessitate a massive investment > in counter-drone systems. Money spent on conventional manned weapons systems > increasingly looks to be as wasted as spending on the cavalry in the 1930s...