Total Espionage doctrine is a specific approach to intelligence gathering, implicating as many variable sources as possible.
Tourists, scientists, actors, university professors, sailors, auto-mechanics, diplomats, journalists, NGO's and business corporations were instrumentalized to gather intelligence and to sabotage the enemy.
Vast network of spies was developed by Goebbels' Counter-Action (Abwehr) Department jointly with the War Ministry Intelligence Service.
[7] Intelligence historian Roger Deacon attributed the invention of total espionage strategy to the pre-Revolutionary Russian secret police, known as the "Okhrana".
In his 2001 article "Playing on Enemy's Field", discussing ancient Chinese spying strategy, Nechiporenko declared: "The object of espionage can be anything: there is no person, nor any area or a single phenomenon in the enemy's country that might remain unknown to the opposite side.
Some of its elements, like faking Western media outlets, are used in the Russian covert campaign against the United States and its allies.