[Goose]

We infamously tapped Angela Merkel’s phone, so yeah.  OTOH, once discovered it didn’t exactly lead to a strengthening of ties, so I think the moral of the story is spying on your friends is fine, getting caught is not.


BC

I was however talking about spying on our enemies. Reagan was able to negotiate the SALT treaty because we knew exactly what Russia had in terms of strategic weapons and what they could and could not do. Further, we were certain we knew. You can make intelligent compromises when you know exactly how much it matters. He knew they weren't 10 feet tall and he also knew what they couldn't do. Unconditional hostility wasn't necessary or helpful. It is much harder to negotiate agreements with the enemy when there is lots of Fear and Doubt about the correlation of forces.

As far as spying on friends, everyone does it. France has conducted active industrial espionage against the US with full support of the French government for many, many years. We know it, they know we know it. Israel, well that speaks for itself. As far as Merkel's phone goes, any government employee at her level who uses a regular commercial telephone to conduct any "business" is a fool. I think the list of telephones the BND does NOT tap is very short. Relatively, we are amateurs. Getting caught is indeed bad form.

---

In the early days of the war, even some reporters were getting scoops from high level FSB operatives. I think even we were leaking that we were getting info from high level sources, but that could have been an attempt to sow distrust. Still a number of high level intelligence and defense administrators have been put under house arrest, so it may be true (or the ruse may have worked well).



BC

Russia has a very long history of having intelligence agents (KGB back then) "leak" information. Some of it was true, which gave them credibility. However, there were whoppers inserted that caused much angst in many quarters. It is rumored that some of these whoppers got people killed by countries that don't have quite the sensibilities of the US. If someone may be a spy, just off them. No point in taking chances.

[Goose]

We infamously tapped Angela Merkel’s phone, so yeah.  OTOH, once discovered it didn’t exactly lead to a strengthening of ties, so I think the moral of the story is spying on your friends is fine, getting caught is not.


BC

I was however talking about spying on our enemies. Reagan was able to negotiate the SALT treaty because we knew exactly what Russia had in terms of strategic weapons and what they could and could not do. Further, we were certain we knew. You can make intelligent compromises when you know exactly how much it matters. He knew they weren't 10 feet tall and he also knew what they couldn't do. Unconditional hostility wasn't necessary or helpful. It is much harder to negotiate agreements with the enemy when there is lots of Fear and Doubt about the correlation of forces.

As far as spying on friends, everyone does it. France has conducted active industrial espionage against the US with full support of the French government for many, many years. We know it, they know we know it. Israel, well that speaks for itself. As far as Merkel's phone goes, any government employee at her level who uses a regular commercial telephone to conduct any "business" is a fool. I think the list of telephones the BND does NOT tap is very short. Relatively, we are amateurs. Getting caught is indeed bad form.

---

In the early days of the war, even some reporters were getting scoops from high level FSB operatives. I think even we were leaking that we were getting info from high level sources, but that could have been an attempt to sow distrust. Still a number of high level intelligence and defense administrators have been put under house arrest, so it may be true (or the ruse may have worked well).



BC

Russia has a very long history of having intelligence agents (KGB back then) "leak" information. Some of it was true, which gave them credibility. However, there were whoppers inserted that caused much angst in many quarters. It is rumored that some of these whoppers got people killed by countries that don't have quite the sensibilities of the US. If someone may be a spy, just off them. No point in taking chances.