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Elisabeth Braw is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Denmark’s European allies are “shocked, shocked!” to discover this week that the little Nordic country had helped the United States spy on Germany, France and other European allies between 2012 and 2014.
Quelle horreur! France’s Europe minister, Clément Beaune, declared the revelations that Copenhagen allowed the U.S. National Security Agency to use Danish eavesdropping systems to listen in on conversations by top European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and German President Franz-Walter Steinmeier, as “extremely serious.”
“Not acceptable among allies” was his boss President Emmanuel Macron’s evaluation. Peer Steinbrück, a former Social Democrat candidate for German chancellor and another target of the NSA, said the affair was a “political scandal.”
These men know better — or they should. Sure, you or I might have a similar reaction if we discovered a friend had helped somebody listen into our phone calls. But nations don’t have friends, a famous French leader once said, only interests. And spying among even close allies is not only common practice — it’s very often a good idea.
References to Captain Renault — the police chief from the film “Casablanca” who shuts down a casino, faking astonishment even as he collects his earnings — are sometimes a stretch. Not here. When news that the U.S. spied on its allies broke eight years ago, then Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault announced he was “deeply shocked,” only to be immediately rebutted by Bernard Squarcini, the recently departed head of France’s counterintelligence agency.
“I am amazed by such disconcerting naiveté,” Squarcini told the French daily Le Figaro. “You’d almost think our politicians don’t bother to read the reports they get from the intelligence services.”
Berlin has no more cause for complaint. Six years ago, Germany was in Denmark’s place, with media reporting that it had allowed the NSA to spy on European defense companies.
The Germans know better than anyone that spying on one’s allies has a long history, precisely because it is so necessary. In the 1970s, trust between U.S. and West German intelligence was so poor that the West Germans were thought not to share some intelligence with their American counterparts for fear of it being exposed by Congress.
Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence agencies were convinced that West German intelligence agencies were penetrated by East German spies, so they, too, withheld information. They turned out to be right: In 1974 Chancellor Willy Brandt’s right-hand man Günther Guillaume was unmasked as an East German spy.
I once had the privilege of interviewing Markus Wolf, the legendary East German spymaster whose coups included getting Guillaume into Brandt’s inner circle. We spoke, among other things, about the CIA’s efforts to woo him after East Germany’s collapse. (His wife marveled that the Americans’ letters even addressed him as Genosse — Comrade — until Wolf pointed out that the “Gen.” in the Americans’ salutation stood for General.)
Does anyone think that West Germany’s intelligence agencies appreciated the U.S. trying to their biggest-ever prize? Or does anyone think that the CIA would have let slip the chance of working with Wolf, considered by both friend and foe the master of the espionage trade? Nah.
Countries have a justified interest in informing themselves about the goings-on and prospective developments around the world, including in friendly countries — because those countries may have different priorities regarding what’s important, and just like the United States and West Germany back in the 1970s, they may be reluctant to share what they know with even their closest allies.
Consider Austria’s former Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, who danced with Russian President Vladimir Putin at her wedding three years ago. Austria’s intelligence agencies likely made a different assessment of the event than their allied counterparts.
You can’t know whether your ally’s assessment is trustworthy until you’ve conducted one yourself. What makes the Five Eyes group of countries so unique is their commitment not to spy on one another. Everywhere else, there’s no such commitment. As former U.S. President Ronald Reagan said, referring to nuclear disarmament: Trust but verify.
European leaders like Steinbrück, Beaune and Macron have the right to be angry. But they shouldn’t ask to believe that they’re shocked. Any leader worth their grain knows what every citizen behind the Iron Curtain knew: Only conversations with one other person, conducted during outdoor walks, are safe from snooping — and even then not necessarily so.
It’s safe to assume that Merkel, skillful leader and child of East Germany, discussed no state secrets on her mobile phone.
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