Both in a modern and historical sense
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There are three flavors of spies: OC, NOC, and assets. “OC” is “official cover.” This is primarily diplomats, people working at the embassy, or maybe military officers in the area. They are there as employees of the government and both governments know they are there. “NOC” is “no official cover.” This could be an American with a business in China or an American professor at a Chinese university. They are an American citizen spying for their home country but they are not government officials. They do not have diplomatic immunity if they are caught (this is where “if you or your team are caught, the Secretary [of Defense] will disavow any knowledge of your actions.” comes from.) You are on your own but also you can fly a bit under the radar in comparison to somebody with official cover who is automatically suspected of being a spy. Valerie Plame was NOC, working for the CIA while posing as an employee of an international energy company.
Then there are assets. These are actually the bulk of the people who do the work we would consider “spying.” They are citizens of the country we are spying on. They have jobs in the military, in a defense contractor developing weapons, are the mistress of a political figure, etc. They have access to secret information and another country wants it. They rarely begin as spies. They usually are people that the spying country gets dirt on and exploits or people who become disillusioned with their country and give secrets away for ideological reasons. Aldridge Ames didn’t start spying for the Russians until he got a bunch of debt from a messy divorce. Julius Rosenberg sold state secrets to the USSR because he had an ideological affinity for communism, having been a former member of the Communist Party of the United States.
During the Cold War, there was what was called “the lavender scare,” where the US and many other countries went on a witch-hunt for homosexual people, primarily men, in their own ranks. The thought was that they could be blackmailed and thus would be more likely to spy on the US for the Russians out if fear of being outed. There is a John let Carre novel that features a gay man who it is revealed is a spy.
This is why background checks are supposed to be very thorough for people who get access to classified information: if you’re prone to gambling, have a mistress, are a heroin addict, have a ton of debt that a foreign government has covered for you, then you are a bigger risk for being an asset. My father worked at the Pentagon and his background check to get clearance had them calling childhood friends, old co-workers, extended family, etc. After he got clearance, he was warned about strangers who become overly friendly or other methods where agents would try to create a relationship to get information.
Of course, there’s electronic surveillance and other forms of intelligence gathering but often all of it goes back to some member of the country being spied on planting a chip, giving codes to their handler, or some other work that assets do at great risk to themselves. Remember, Valerie Plame’s cover was blown and her career with the CIA was over but she made out okay financially and with her life and limbs. Her host countries definitely screened who was talking to her and some of her assets probably didn’t fare as well.
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