As my first official post as a guest contributor to the Duck, I would like to take a moment to thank Charli, Jon, and the gang. This really is an honor and a privilege for me, and hopefully my posts will live up to the Duck’s high standard!
There has been no lack of coverage in the United States regarding the National Security Agency’s spying activities. My sense, however, is that the focus in the media and by politicians has largely been on the domestic political implications of the NSA dragnet. The Obama administration has gone to great pains to communicate that the NSA only targets non-Americans. That makes sense, as there are important laws governing surveillance on Americans, and few if any pertaining to espionage against foreign targets.
But the United States does not exist in an international vacuum, and the NSA revelations as well as the political treatment have effects overseas. This summer I had the great privilege of working with my colleague Vicki Birchfield as she directed the Nunn School’s 10-week study abroad in the EU, and in that context I was able to observe some of the international implications of NSA spying up close. In some of the places we went, NSA spying hardly registered. In Athens, for example, we very much got the sense that surviving the economic crisis and damming the flood of undocumented immigrants occupied most of the attention of policymakers and the public.
But NSA surveillance clearly had a significant impact in France and Germany, albeit in very different ways. In France, the response seemed to be the same as many foreign policy analysts in the U.S.: everyone does it. At the French foreign ministry, briefers specifically argued that, because the French public knows France has an expansive intelligence establishment, the revelations about American spying were seen as part of what modern state does in international affairs today. That may be part of why the French government has said relatively little about the subject.
However, the briefers at the French foreign ministry did not argue that all Europeans see the issue the same way. Indeed, they specifically highlighted that Germany saw the surveillance in a very different light. Owing to the WWII experience with the Nazi state and the postwar position at the heart of the Cold War, Germans understand wiretapping and other forms of surveillance in different way. Rather than being just something the modern state does, NSA-style espionage is a sign of enmity and oppression. US targeting of Chancellor Angela Merkel, turning of intelligence and defense officials, and repeated reassurances by US officials to the American public that the spying was aimed at foreign nationals all feed into a narrative that the US-German relationship is not a friendship and alliance between states of shared identity and values, but rather something more contingent and darker.
I think it is difficult for Americans to understand the importance of these issues. During the Cold War, the West and specifically the US were the guarantors of West German survival and in later years served as a beacon for a new generation of East Germans. At a deeper, perhaps collectively unconscious, level I think a strong relationship and friendship with the US as the ‘leader of the free world’ serves as an indicator that Germany has truly left the first half of the 20th century behind. Friendship and trust is the key here. The US has alliances with all sorts of unsavory regimes (Saudi Arabia) but only true friendships with fellow democracies. At the same time, US spying contributes to German disillusionment in the idea that the US really represents freedom and liberty in the world—because spying on friends embodies neither. In all cases, the issue of spying is an emotional one for Germans, linked to their history, identity, and sense of place in the world.
There are indications of this interpretation. Merkel and German President Joachim Gauck have both come out strongly against the NSA spying—in contrast to relative silence in France. That suggests that the revelations about the NSA have a political power in Germany that they do not in France. Merkel also recently expelled the CIA station chief in Berlin, an unprecedented move by an ally. At a briefing at a NGO in Berlin, an interlocutor who deals with German federal officials on a regular basis told us that German transatlanticist foreign policymakers were in tears over NSA spying. Given the nature of the NGO and the briefer’s background, I belief the claim is not hyperbole. Many Germans feel personally betrayed by the United States. That in turn undermines the bonds of shared trust and identity that are critically important for maintaining international peace and stability. This happens not just at the level of policymakers, but also within the broader public. It is here that NSA spying helps fuel the establishment of new systems and narratives through which Germans make sense of the world. These are not kind to the United States, and that has real ramifications. On a range of issues, from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) to events in Ukraine and beyond, the United States relies a great deal on generally shared systems of meaning with its close allies like Germany. As those systems come into greater disjuncture, relations and in turn the means for managing issues will come under greater pressure. To exemplify, it is worth asking ourselves what the German response toward Russia’s bad behavior in Ukraine and US demands on Europe would have been had the NSA revelations not occurred. Would Germany see more merit in the US position? Would it in turn be more willing to make the sacrifices US policy demands?
The negative impact of NSA spying is not limited to Germany. In Brussels we heard from Commission officials resentment toward the United States. In the context of TTIP negotiations, some officials wondering aloud as to the point of a negotiating when the Europeans suspect that the United States already knows everything the EU has to offer. Anti-TTIP graffiti in Brussels also suggests an underlying anti-American resentment, exacerbated no doubt by the NSA revelations and the subsequent handling by US officials. Indicators like these are small, but they betray a fraying between the US and Europe that American officials and the public should be very concerned about. No other region on the planet shares as much cultural and political history with the US as Europe. Nor does any other region have as many states that broadly share the US vision of peaceful, liberal, and humanitarian global system. America damages these relationships at its own risk.
I really dislike those generic “no shit” comments, but in that particular case it has to be said. In fact, it amazes me that you don’t paint a darker image of Europe’s current anger and resentment. Are Americans really so unaware of the no-longer-so-latent anti-americanism in Europe? Or to what degree the NSA affair has poured supertanker loads of fuel on those flames? Pretty much across the political spectrum, perhaps with the exception of Machiavellian cynics, European stances towards the US has gone from a kind of hate/love to personal outrage. Soon even those in Greece scrambling for their daily bread will put together the dots of US economics and international spying. As you say, the US should think hard about this generation growing up…
Yes, there can be diplomatic problems arising from intelligence leaks, particularly those that go public.
That is one of the reasons why it is so important that secrets remain secret. But I suppose that—like Greg Treverton and others have argued about covert actions—the prospect of leaks and/or eventual public knowledge should be taken into account in the cost/benefit calculation (political risk?) regarding any particular intelligence collection program/tasking. But in my opinion it’d still be better if the secrets remained secret.
Beyond that, however, it is also important to point out that intelligence collection (spying) produces benefits (both direct and indirect) as well as costs.
What about the diplomatic goodwill (indirect positive benefits) stemming from intelligence sharing arrangements? The US acquires significant net benefits from this activity.
(Note: There is a fairly large literature on intelligence sharing and cooperation, and a good survey of it can be found in Timothy Crawford’s contribution on Intelligence Cooperation to ISA’s compendium project (International Studies Encyclopedia) which is now freely available to all ISA members in the publications section of ISA’s website.)
What are the implications in terms of policy here? That the costs of spying are too high? What would the costs of *not* spying be?
Regards,
Stephen Marrin
Jarrod, an excellent post, thanks. Having grown up in Germany during the cold war (but living in the US for the last 2 decades), I can say that this a very accurate description of the perspective many Germans have. Both the belief in shared values as a way of overcoming the past during the cold war and in cooperation among democracies, and the feeling of betrayal now, which actually started at least a decade before the Snowden revelations. Remember “Old Europe” and the nasty attempts by the previous administration to put a wedge between the new and old members of the EU, basically trying to sabotage the largest union of democracies in the world to gain a small amount of support in invading Iraq? And remember Kyoto and related? The US has been p*ssing away the international good will for the last 10 years, with not much to show for it.
Now you can argue that the view that Germans had was naive. They actually took the stuff the US said about democracy and freedom seriously. What a bunch of suckers! But they did, and so they reacted very negatively once it turned out that the US was not really serious about any real cooperation between democracies that involves listening to the other side. So here we are.
And this has many consequences. It has consequences when it comes to the emergence of China as another power. Should Germany support the efforts of the US to remain the leading power in the world? Why, yes, because China is a dictatorship, right? Except, nobody who pays attention can believe that China becoming democratic would change anything in the US posture. So yes, these things have consequences, and most people in the US seem to be blissfully unaware of how the plates are shifting, from the US as benevolent leader of democratic countries, to the anglo saxon countries against the rest. Maybe this was unavoidable as we now have many more democracies in the world than 40 years ago and no common threat for them. But maybe it is a missed opportunity.
So what exactly does Germany’s Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) do with its 6,500 personnel, over 300 locations worldwide and 550 million euro annual budget? Apparently not much in terms of spying if we are to believe them–although those euros would be useful in drying the tears of German foreign policymakers.
Now I’m all for making the case that the Snowden revelations have had a negative impact on U.S. relations in Europe, and to be sure there were many overreaches by U.S. intelligence agencies. However, until Germany is willing to publicly open its files on how the BND operates and who it spies on, I will remain skeptical that the German government’s attitude toward spying on foreigners (including on erstwhile friends) is truly different than France’s. Until then, the only difference is that Germany has fewer capabilities than the U.S., and hasn’t yet been publicly shamed. And that is why after the inevitable “Sturm und Drang” this will eventually blow over.
I fully agree with JFS. Of course, German and other European publics might be incensed and disillusioned, but this is hardly the first time that has happened. While cooperation may grow marginally more difficult in the short term, it’s hard for either side to ignore the larger structural, economic and cultural incentives pushing them together. In a year, are Germans really going to be distancing themselves from the US if Russia is destabilizing the east and the Arab world–with its hand on global oil markets–is still staggering? I don’t minimize the sense of frustration or betrayal, but in the end, the US and its European allies have far more in common as they fend off Chinese cyber infiltration than the NSA’s overreaching.
For all of the hand-wringing about repercussions of U.S. spying on Germany, it still is amazing that no one has ever asked the question “why?” The United States does not spy on friends/allies the same way that France does; it needs much more justification.
From a U.S. perspective, German foreign policy is hardly as benign as that of the United Kingdom, South Korea, or others. Consider the number of German components in Iraq’s WMD programs of the 1980s-1990s, Iran’s nuclear program, etc. Did German companies operate above-board? Did the break sanctions; if so, with or without Berlin’s knowledge? Berlin was one of the primary proponents of integrating Ukraine into the European market (setting off the current crisis), and it has a fluctuating hot-cold relationship with Moscow, acting as a gateway for the Russians into Europe.
Whether U.S. foreign policy is correct is a different question altogether; however, spying on Germany is the natural result of U.S. and German policies as well as Washington’s general geopolitical concerns.
Stephen raises a key point about costs and benefits. I’m not at all convinced that the analytical insight gained through certain types of SIGINT collection on NATO allies offsets either the potential political costs of disclosure or the operational costs retaliation through reduced intelligence cooperation (a particular issue with the Germans, since they do some good collection and excellent analysis).
Certainly there may be a few particular issues on which advance knowledge of German policy is useful. However, more than 9 times out of 10 I suspect that this is already pretty clear from OSINT, and the actual contribution of SIGINT is pretty marginal.
This is different, I might add, from SIGINT collection for CT or CI purposes, where the target is individuals who are part of bad guy networks rather than allied countries themselves. This is much more likely to be useful. However, much of it can be collected in partnership with the local IC–and that relationship is actually placed at risk by the sort of collection discussed above.