Spying among friends

Submitted by Martin Kaufman (United States), Aug 10, 2012 at 16:53

My own view is somewhat "agnostic." The interests of the US and Israel are not necessarily identical. Whether they converge enough, not enough or too much is a matter of opinion. The same can be said of US-United Kingdom, US-Canada, US-Germany, US-Japan, US-India, US-Pakistan, US-Russia, etc., etc. relations. The degree of convergence/divergence may well change over time. That being the case, each side of the bipartite relationship will want/need to gather intelligence about the intentions of the other; hence they spy on one another. That is "fair game."

But each side also wants to keep its intentions/capabilities secret, not only from adversaries, but also sometimes from its allies. And of course the rule is that if one person other than yourself knows a secret, it's no longer a secret. The US hasn't been perfect about keeping secrets -- its own or those of its "friends." Hence the need for each country to have counterintelligence. It is disingenuous for the US to complain that Israel -- or any other country -- is vigorously guarding its secrets. In many cases those secrets [e.g. the capability of the Patriot missile defense system] would, if made public, harm the US.

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