I agree; this makes spies ridiculously powerful. I remember using spies on war opponents in the last major war--it must have been a pain in the butt to login and find that you've been attacked at DEFCON 5 in spite of your best efforts; to make it so that it takes so long to get back up to full military strength just doesn't seem fair.
I don't like this "update" at all. Not that I am against improving gameplay, but I don't think this does much good for CN.