Edward Lucas - The Snowden Operation

Woolsey’s points were true in 2000. Nothing has changed since then. On the contrary: America is now far more aware that it faces a grave terrorist threat. And European countries have behaved in ways that make the worries of the 1990s seem mild. Germany in particular has cultivated Russia, adopted a unilateral policy of appeasement towards China, and has repeatedly undermined international sanctions on Iran.

At least some of the outrage prompted by revelations of America’s spying may stem from envy. European spy agencies (Britain is a partial exception) are unable to match the NSA’s capabilities and are therefore left playing the role of junior partners, offering collection services in exchange for shared intelligence. But the hypocrisy is still striking. I have already mentioned France, but Germany also has well-resourced and effective intelligence and security services which do exactly what such agencies are expected to do, including spying on other countries. [25] In Germany’s case, this sometimes happens in a way that might be seen as questionable. The Nazi past creates particular obligations to countries and people who suffered horribly at the hands of the forebears of modern Germans. As a result, Germany is a loyal friend of Israel. It lobbied strongly to bring Poland into the EU. It has pursued a long and (in recent years) largely futile attempt to seek a close relationship with Russia. But it also owes a special debt to the Baltic states—three small countries which Nazi Germany consigned to the meat-grinder in its secret deal with Stalin’s Soviet Union in the spring of 1939. The Baltics regained their independence only in 1991. But Germany decided to put its relations with Russia ahead of any other bothersome business with small countries. It even recruited Estonia’s top defence official—in tacit collaboration with Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service—in order to find out what Britain and America were up to in the Baltic region. I write about this at length in my book Deception .

Germany’s electronic intelligence agency is the low-profile Kommando Strategische Aufklärung (Strategic Intelligence Office). A report in Der Spiegel in 2008 admiringly described how this organisation, which is notionally a pure military intelligence agency, can ‘bug the world’. [26] http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/strategische-aufklaerung-bundeswehr-belauscht-die-welt-a-575417.html Its targets included calls made on the civilian phone system in Russia, and the communications of drug barons in Kosovo. Some of this intelligence activity is clearly commendable. Some of it may be questionable. But it undermines the recent German outrage.

So too does a further point: that Germany is one of the world’s top intelligence targets—from all directions. Chancellor Merkel’s penchant for using an old-fashioned phone for her private use (she has a cumbersome but highly secure phone for government business) is no secret: it has been a subject of much jocular mention in past years. It is hardly surprising that other countries try to glean what clues they can from her text messages and phone calls. These countries, incidentally, include France, China and Russia—as well as America.

Given that German policymakers, as a rule, read English, have access to the internet, know that their country is often at cross-purposes with America, themselves receive intelligence information based on electronic intercepts, and are not stupid, what exactly is bothering them? [27] Julian Lindley-French, ‘What U.S. Intelligence Really Says About Europe’, http://lindleyfrench.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/what-us-intelligence-really-says-about.html The answer is the publicity. Asked privately about espionage, few if any would contest the picture outlined above. But when the details of spying operations are revealed, it is often politically impossible in the targeted country for even seasoned and cynical politicians to remain silent. Faced with an irate media, and demands from opposition parties for action and explanation, they have to feign outrage.

Revelations of even the most justifiable spying create the impression of a scandal exposed. A good exhibit here is the Snowden camp’s attack on Sweden’s FRA electronic intelligence agency for its collaboration with Britain’s GCHQ and America’s NSA. [28] Greenwald reveals his naïveté and ignorance in a television interview, available at http://www.svt.se/nyhetsklipp/nyheter/article1669193.svt . The other material he published can be found at http://www.svt.se/ug/read-all-articles-in-english Glenn Greenwald, the American lawyer in Brazil who is the custodian of at least some of the cache of stolen material, and the most articulate public defender of its release, implies that it is wrong for Sweden to have security, defence or intelligence links with Britain and America. [29] For a detailed look at Greenwald’s rhetorical style, see http://m.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/08/1192256/-The-Final-Word-on-Glenn-Greenwald

For anyone familiar with European security, it is hard to see the scandal. Sweden is not a NATO member, but it has excellent if discreet relations with the alliance for entirely understandable reasons. During the Cold War, Sweden experienced frequent intrusions by Soviet submarines. Now it is experiencing dummy air attacks. One of these, on Good Friday 2013, involved Russian warplanes targeting two vital defence installations. [30] Sources have named the air-defence headquarters, the military command centre and the FRA (signals intelligence) headquarters. Unpublished but well-sourced information suggests that the Russians also jammed Sweden’s air defence radar. A leaked military intelligence report says the drill included launch codes being received to fire nuclear-armed cruise missiles. Most Swedes do not like this, and neither does the government (or the slimmed-down armed forces, which say that in the event of a crisis they would be able to defend only part of Sweden from military attack, and for less than a week).

So Swedish policymakers want to know what Russia is up to. What is the aim of the sabre-rattling? What subversion, mischief and influence peddling are under way in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, just the other side of the Baltic sea? Why is Russia putting nuclear missiles in its Kaliningrad enclave? What state is the Russian Baltic Fleet in? What plans does it have for the two Mistral helicopter carriers it has ordered from France? These are classic national security questions to which espionage provides at least a partial answer.

Sweden, like other small countries, cannot mount the kind of intelligence efforts it needs alone. So it exchanges information with countries that can help. America has satellites, for example, which have extraordinary abilities to look down on Russia from the sky. Sweden does not have spy satellites. [31] http://www.thelocal.se/20131105/sweden-pulled-plug-on-france-spy-satellite-report But it can benefit from America’s—and it is in America’s interest that Sweden, a vital defence partner in the region, is secure and well informed. In turn, Sweden has intelligence assets that America may lack. These can involve collection of electronic information based on proximity to Russia, or linguistic and cryptographic capabilities. Sweden also has human intelligence assets (spies) in and around Russia which may complement or even exceed those available to American intelligence (especially in its current plight).

Why is this wrong? Not because it breaches Swedish ‘neutrality’: though Sweden was indeed neutral during the Second World War it does not now count itself as a neutral country (it is not part of any military alliance, which is a different status). Whether neutral, non-aligned or independent, the country must be defended: that is the responsibility of Sweden’s government. Intelligence and security cooperation with other states is an entirely normal and legitimate part of that. It also helps the security of others. A recent tip-off from Sweden’s FRA alerted Finland to a sophisticated Russian cyber attack on its foreign ministry. [32] Keir Giles, ‘Cyber Attack on Finland is a Warning for the EU’, Chatham House, November 8, 2013, http://www.chathamhouse.org/media/comment/view/195392 . The National Police Commissioner Mikko Paatero noted that ‘we cannot follow signals in Finland or travelling through Finnish cables … but others can do it for Finland. In my opinion it’s a little bit embarrassing that we can hear from somewhere else about what is happening here.’ Finland now wants stronger powers to protect itself. See http://yle.fi/uutiset/finnish_police_want_web_snooping_powers/6923309 and http://yle.fi/uutiset/defence_minister_police_and_defence_forces_to_get_wider_web_powers/6914546?origin=rss