Spying on your allies, part two

[Khendraja'aro]

So, I actually didn't expect our government to react that harshly, given their previous record of appeasement towards the US.

Let's recap: First there was this wiretap on our chancellor's phone a while back, then they found a mole in our intelligence agency. And then they found another mole.
US reaction? No apologies, nothing really solid.

As a result, the chief of CIA operations in Germany has just been "asked" to leave the country.

With friends like these, you don't need enemies. Seriously, though, this is not a good idea unless the US want to return to a policy of isolationism.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...70a_story.html

[Loki]

Or perhaps the main difference is that the Americans are getting caught now.

But yes, I generally agree that the spying seems to be on a scale that's not justifiable when dealing with allies. It seems to me that spying is no longer serving a political goal. Instead, we spy as much as our technology allows, which isn't the proper way to be doing intelligence work.

[Steely Glint]

Is it me or does the US intelligence community appear to have gone apeshit?

[Loki]

I think they have more toys at their disposal than ever before, and they never sat down and stopped to think about what to do with them (other than to use them all!).

[Steely Glint]

Well, I'd agree with that if it was just a case of them firing their ultra high-tech microwave spy beams through Merkel's window in order to intercept her porn collection (or something), but this was a double agent. An honest to God mole. That's some cold war shit right there. Can't get more old school than that.

I suppose the problem is that because the intelligence world is so secret (sort of the point of it) we the, general public, cannot know what the norms of that world are and so cannot make informed judgement about them. It seems to me that recruiting a double agent in an countries intelligence apparatus is an extraordinarily hostile act that you'd reserve for a serious potential enemy, but for all I know it could be standard practice. Maybe they all (western intelligence agencies) have them and it's just expected. Maybe the Americans are doing something else that's pissing the Germans off and this is just how the Germans are telling the Americans to knock it off without exposing what's really annoying them and which, for some reason, it is in neither parties interest to have made public.

Point is, when you have an organisation whose organisation culture is built around secrecy and whose job description involves lying to people, operating clandestinely and a certain ambiguous relationship with the law and a somewhat flexible idea of morality and yet also a firm belief that what they do is for the good of King and Country... then you have to keep a very stern eye on them otherwise they're going to start getting creative. Which is why I asked if the US services haven't rather gone a bit of the rails - they seem to live by the motto "if it moves, spy on it".

[Loki]

Exactly. That's why I think the only thing we know for certain from this is that the US got caught.

[LittleFuzzy]

Is it me or does the US intelligence community appear to have gone apeshit?

This is the long-term consequence of the shitstorm generated by the success of the 9/11 attack and how it unveiled the decline of US humint.

And Steely, suborning people in the intelligence communities of friendly/allied countries both is and isn't a big hairy deal. It's kind of a perspective issue. From an IR angle, it's not really/necessarily a big deal. We all spy on each other, we all know that we're trying to collect information that our friends would prefer to keep to themselves. As long as we don't use snooped information for nasty things, it should be more like egg on the face or an unzipped fly than a huge matter. From a domestic security perspective, a suborned official/agent is a terrible and awful thing. Among other reasons, because from any sort of legal perspective, there isn't really a difference between spying for friends or spying for enemies. And then not only is a subornable person subornable, with the problems inherent in that, being suborned leaves them vulnerable to other groups suborning them. If you break the law and feed information to the Americans, then if the Russians find out they can blackmail the person by threatening to reveal what s/he has already done. Two sharply different views that are hard to reconcile and have distinct borders between. They to bleed into each other.

Then of course there's the difference between friendly countries and friendly countries. The German/US relationship purports to be the latter (NATO, New World Order, 1st-world bloc, free-trade cooperation, etc) but that's frequently a facade. The degree of real cooperation and generosity between the two countries is much more friendly than friendly and that arises from both sides of the relationship, not just the US running roughshod. And intelligence work is one of the (many) areas demonstrating that. British and US intelligence work closely together. Sharing information, assets, providing free cooperation and active assistance, etc. That is a friendly relationship and one that obviates any real benefit to attempted spying. Any information spying could get you is something they'd have handed over freely if they were aware you were interested. The Germans are significantly less willing to work that closely with US intelligence (and US intelligence isn't that open with the Germans either).

[Khendraja'aro]

Well, Fuzzy, that's the perception over here: The US agencies are demanding a whole lot information but aren't very forthcoming from their end.

Not to mention that if you're caught one usually at least expects an apology. That's another part of the problem: The US government doesn't take the incident very seriously from our viewpoint.

This all makes for a rapid increase in anti-US sentiments over here. And I'm not exactly sure that any kind of info gleaned by such espionage really outweighs the cracks in the relationship...

[Hazir]

Well, Fuzzy, that's the perception over here: The US agencies are demanding a whole lot information but aren't very forthcoming from their end.

Not to mention that if you're caught one usually at least expects an apology. That's another part of the problem: The US government doesn't take the incident very seriously from our viewpoint.

This all makes for a rapid increase in anti-US sentiments over here. And I'm not exactly sure that any kind of info gleaned by such espionage really outweighs the cracks in the relationship...

To expect apologies is naive; it's tantamount to giving disclosure and no agency would be willing to do that.

However, clearly some people have not properly considered the risks of being caught. Because you are right in pointing out that not just politicians are angry at US intelligence agencies. People in general are and it's not unthinkable this does some serious long term damage. It may even play into how important a partner the UK is in the EU for Germany, given that they appearantly are in cahoots with the US.

[RandBlade]

I'm reminded of a line by Bob Dylan from one of my favourite songs when I was a kid, the Traveling Wilbury's Tweeter and the Monkey Man: In Jersey everything's legal as long as you don't get caught

Surely that should be spy rule number one too. US agencies have a serious lack of discipline and/or incompetence right now it seems. Its not that the US is spying on allies that is shocking, its that it keeps getting caught that is.

[Dreadnaught]

Also, it was only ~two decades ago that there was a pretty big reason to have spies in Germany.

But I think Snowden's extremist view that allies should not spy on each other is, well, extremist.

Now if we could take Germany's balanced budget...hubba hubba

[LittleFuzzy]

Well, Fuzzy, that's the perception over here: The US agencies are demanding a whole lot information but aren't very forthcoming from their end.

As I said, US intelligence isn't much open with the Germans either. It doesn't really matter if the chicken or the egg comes first though, as long as the relations are merely friendly rather than friendly there is benefit and consequently motivation to spy. The only conditions I can imagine where Germany would be cooperative and helpful enough (i.e. to the British level), even if the US was also willing to be equivalently open, to remove the tangible benefits from spying would be if Germany was facing a sustained international terrorist threat or if tensions with Russia rose back to some fascimile of the Cold War AND the EU collapsed as any sort of coherent-appearing entity.

This all makes for a rapid increase in anti-US sentiments over here. And I'm not exactly sure that any kind of info gleaned by such espionage really outweighs the cracks in the relationship...

The benefits of the relationship with Germany are and have been more a matter of appearance than tangible reality already. Germany hasn't yet become as reflexively oppositional as France but since the mid-to-late 90s it also hasn't been much more helpful than France even when Germany is being cooperative. I don't know whether Germany either doesn't have or simply doesn't want to provide much in the assistance of US endeavors but as near as I can tell, the only compelling reason to give Germany the sort of special consideration expected here is from the possible consequence of having a broken relationship with a prime mover in an EU that is a truly effective power bloc sometime in the future. The EU is not one right now except in trade and Germany has been closer to adversarial than friendly in that sphere for at least two decades now, particularly when it comes to the EU.

[Dreadnaught]

Arguably, when tensions are low between Germany and Russia, the US also has motivations to spy on an ally like Germany. Germany does extensive business with Russia and Iran. I believe bilateral trade with Russia and Iran exceeds German trade with the US.

[Khendraja'aro]

Well, Dread, this is not exactly the way to get your supposed allies to cooperate more closely.

[LittleFuzzy]

Probably a good thing that you weren't going to cooperate more closely regardless then, huh?

[RandBlade]

Well, Dread, this is not exactly the way to get your supposed allies to cooperate more closely.

Which is why they're spying on their nominal allies like Germans and not their actual allies

[Khendraja'aro]

Probably a good thing that you weren't going to cooperate more closely regardless then, huh?

Well, if they want to bury treaties like TTIP then they did a good job.

[Loki]

Because the US needs that more than the EU?

[LittleFuzzy]

Well, if they want to bury treaties like TTIP then they did a good job.

Germany and France in particular are and were never going to allow TTIP to go forward on anything but a very limited basis maximizing their own benefit at the expense of. . . pretty much everyone else in the EU and across the pond.

[Khendraja'aro]

Because the US needs that more than the EU?

You're confusing the electorate with the politicians, Loki. If there wasn't profit in such a treaty then the US wouldn't be interested, right?

However, the electorate is very doubtful as to the advantages of such treaties - and stunts like these do force the politicians' hands.

That's what I'm talking about.

Germany and France in particular are and were never going to allow TTIP to go forward on anything but a very limited basis maximizing their own benefit at the expense of. . . pretty much everyone else in the EU and across the pond.

Oh, of course, the US is a sweet little baby, easily taken advantage of, right, I forgot.

First you're arguing that we're not cooperating and that we can't force the US' hands either - and suddenly we're powerful enough to force the US to enter a one-sided trade agreement. What is it?

[LittleFuzzy]

Oh, of course, the US is a sweet little baby, easily taken advantage of, right, I forgot.

First you're arguing that we're not cooperating and that we can't force the US' hands either - and suddenly we're powerful enough to force the US to enter a one-sided trade agreement. What is it?

The US would take almost any trade agreement. The prevailing view over here is that, other than some areas of agriculture, just about any of the cross-Atlantic trade would benefit from removing the remaining trade barriers. France and Germany have much more limited views on what would benefit them, free-trade wise. No one will be forced into things which are of absolutely no advantage, but the advantages gained are not going to be anything approaching comparative equality.

Anyway, not all power is equal in all areas. Germany (plus Benelux, France, and Britain) is leading a strong and mostly coherent trade bloc which largely speaking with one voice in dealing with others outside the bloc. Germany wields a LOT more power and leverage in trade issues through the EU than it does in other areas.

[RandBlade]

Isn't the US far more concerned with the TPP?

[LittleFuzzy]

Probably. Our politicians and economic/trade advisors (on either side of the political divide) are all pretty heavily invested in any and all free trade outside of some agricultural areas. Much much more so than most of the EU players, including Germany.

[GGT]

I hadn't thought about it this way until I read it in op-eds --- but Germany has been "spied on" since WWII, that's really nothing new. What's "new" is that Germany is in a position to say that's no longer acceptable, and say so without a signed agreement (like the type between US and its other European allies).

Since Germany is economically strong, with VIP status among the EU and US, they don't have to tolerate the continued spying.

[Loki]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/19/wo...an-spying.html Oops.

[Khendraja'aro]

Yah. I'm not amused by those morons.

[Loki]

This probably tells you why there was so little outrage from the German government until the public started demanding a response.

[RandBlade]

"Those in glass houses..."

Hopefully this helps mark the end of the "OMG spies have been spying" shockfest

[Steely Glint]

I think what Germany was really upset about was the sheer scope of US spying against them and the nature of the targets they're going after, but they could hardly say "the Americans are spying us way more than allies usually spy on each other, and we don't like it"

[Loki]

I don't think the German government was particularly upset at all...until the public got outraged.