In Chapter 13 of the Art of War, Sun Tzu focuses on “The Use of Spies”. In spy movies like Casino Royale, it is easy to draw parallels between Sun Tzu’s concepts regarding the types of spies and the characters in the movie.  The five types of spies outlined by Sun Tzu are:

1. Local Spies
2. Inward Spies
3. Converted Spies
4. Doomed Spies
5. Surviving Spies

Local spies are people from the area your conflict is in. These could be locals who can tell you about the weather in the region or guides that can explain the terrain. In the movie most of the “local spying” would happen in the background and would remain unseen, but one clear example is when James Bond arrives at the resort in the Bahamas. He needs to find a criminal that sent a secret message to a bomb maker and he uses the people and technology at the resort to gain this information.

First the technology, he knows when and where the criminal was based on his cell phone record, so he uses the security footage to find out what the person looked like. From the footage he knows what the criminal looks like, but also what type of car he drives. Next Bond uses a resort employee as a local spy. To do this he talks to a woman at the check in desk and asks who owns the car he saw in the security footage, which she is able to tell him. Thanks to local spies, James Bond now knows who he is looking for and where to find him.

Inward spies are people employed by your opponent that are willing to share information with you. Many times this type of person is referred to as an informant. A major motive for James Bond to attend Le Chiffre’s poker game was to make him lose.  If he were to lose he would need protection from Bond’s organization and in return for that protection would provide them with information on his criminal network. This would make him an informant or inward spy. It is important to note that inwards spies are usually still employed by the enemy, as opposed to Le Chiffre who would no longer be part of the criminal network that he once was.

There are a lot of similarities between inward spies and converted spies. Both are employees of your enemy that are willing to help you gather information. The difference is that the converted spy is someone who was a spy for your enemy, whereas an inward spy could be anyone from your enemy’s organization. Converted spies were a big part of the Casino Royale plot. The movie starts with James Bond killing a corrupt MI6 agent named Dryden. In this situation Dryden was a converted spy working for the enemy.

The much bigger converted spy in the movie was Vesper Lynd. She was actually not a spy by trade but an accountant, but her position as part of the plan to bankrupt Le Chiffre made her an important part of the intelligence operation. The criminal network represented by Mr. White was able to make Vesper work for them by tricking her into believing her boyfriend was in danger. When she began to work with the criminals she became one of their greatest weapons since she knew James Bond’s plans and had access to the money from the poker game. When looking at the critical role she played in the outcome of the plot, you can easily see why Sun Tzu says that the converted spy is the most important spy and the one that you must use to build the rest of your espionage network around.

A doomed spy is someone that is used to spread false information amongst the enemy. The importance of doomed spies is that they allow for you to trick or fool your opponent by spreading lies. In this movie there was no major character that played the role of a doomed spy, but the main tool of the doomed spy, deception, was common throughout the movie. The closest example of a doomed spy would be the character of Rene Mathis. He was able to use false information to get two of James Bond’s opponents in trouble with the law. In the first instance the local police chief was being bribed by the Le Chiffre so Mathis used Photoshop to create evidence again the chief so that the deputy would arrest him. That way the police chief would not be able to bother James Bond. In the second instance Mathis placed a dead body in the trunk of a car owned by one of Le Chiffre’s henchmen, once again hindering Le Chiffre, and helping James Bond.

The last type of spy is the surviving spy. This is the type of spy that is most commonly thought of when discussing espionage. The surviving spy’s job is to infiltrate the enemy and bring back important information. James Bond would be a surviving spy. In this movie and 20 others he succeeds in getting close to his enemies and learning their secrets. Much of the Casino Royale movie is centered around James Bond in the role of the surviving spy.

A big difference between James Bond and the classic surviving spy described by Sun Tzu is that he routinely does more than just collect information. A surviving spy’s main role should be to enter the enemy’s camp, watch, learn, and then return with the gathered information without anyone noticing. This is often what James Bond starts out doing, but he ends up beating someone up or killing someone from the enemy which often draws attention and makes the plot more interesting.

In conclusion, the James Bond Movie Casino Royale has elements of all five types of spies that Sun Tzu discussed in chapter 13 of the Art of War. Not all of them match Sun Tzu’s description exactly, but that is understandable since counter terrorism in the 21^st century is a little different than warfare in China 2500 years ago.

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