Hell, I was there.
During my aerospace career I encountered agents from many countries.
A few examples:
In the early 1990s my company was approached by an Israeli company with a stereolithography machine that could create molds and models of 3 D parts overnight from a CAD drawing. The female rep was very beautiful and told me of spending a lot of time exploring South America. She set up a meeting with her executives when they visited the USA. After the meeting, I asked her, “XXXX (name redacted), why do all of your top execs look like paratroopers?”
I never heard from her again. Of course, the Israeli company would have to “service” the machine regularly and download all of the CAD drawings of spacecraft and aircraft parts.
Mossad, of course.
A British born colleague of mine related how she got herself bayoneted while photographing a military base in Yugoslavia. She was in charge of our company’s technology databases. I think she owed her allegiance to the Queen.
In 1986 I was working on a Star Wars laser project. The ceramic mirror we designed was being fabricated in France. The French were behind schedule and so our Chief Engineer, who spoke the language, called the French plant. He got his call transferred to the factory floor where a worker asked him which mirror he was inquiring about. Our engineer was puzzled, “But we are only purchasing one mirror”. “Oui”, the Frenchman replied, “But we sold two more of your design to the Russians”.
In the early 1990s my company had a contract with a Japanese company to help them develop a space launch vehicle. The FBI went to my boss and told him, “The Japanese rep is not working for the Japanese aerospace company. He works for the government of Japan. We busted an engineer from YYYY (company redacted) and he got 30 years for selling classified info to the Japanese rep. We did not get enough evidence to convict the Japanese agent last time. Will you help us set him up?”
My company brass decided to NOT cooperate with the FBI for fear of losing the contract. So much for patriotism in the defense industry.
As for the Brits and France trying to steal tech and influence our politicians, didn’t they tell you about this in your security briefings? Maybe you did not get the same briefing I got.
Our companies steal technology from each other all the time. Do you think countries don’t protect their industries and pursue national goals?
St. Gobain, right?