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Last fall, there were the allegations, based on the traitor Edward Snowden’s alleged NSA documents, that the N.S.A. had been monitoring German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone conversations and recording meta data of who in Germany was calling whom. This caused a small tempest in U.S.-German relations and certainly gave anti-American factions within the German political scene a great rallying issue. (By the way, when my father-in-law, who’d been a B-17 tailgunner in WW II, heard about this accusation, his response was: “I certainly hope we’re listening in on the German chancellor.”) This past week has brought forth news stories of one and possibly two German officials being caught and charged with having spied on behalf of the USG, presumably for the CIA. Chancellor Merkel ordered the expulsion of the CIA Chief of Station Berlin over these cases and as a general complaint that the USG hasn’t taken seriously her proposal for a no-spy agreement between the two countries. Several German Parliamentarians have called for a lifting on the supposed German ban on espionage activities against America. (One wonders how strictly the BND has followed that claimed ban in the post-USSR years.)
As for the expulsion of the COS, that should first and foremost be seen as a domestic political gesture by Merkel. It’s a bone to her political opposition about the spying and it’s a nice way to draw any domestic discussion on German foreign policy away from real issues. I refer to useless policies such as Germany’s failure to do anything about Russia’s invasion of sovereign Ukrainian territory, the Crimea region, or the ongoing Russian supplying of arms and men to groups within Eastern Ukraine. (Nor is Germany likely to do anything more than “talk” given Germany’s massive dependence on Russian energy imports and as a market for German export products.) Nor does Germany carry any weight concerning Syria, Iraq, Israeli-Palestinian problems or Afghanistan. For all its economic power, Germany is fairly irrelevant in the world of foreign diplomacy.

The reality of the world is that except for a few very special cases, countries spy on each other. I vaguely recall from last fall some inane comment about how if America wants to know what Chancellor Merkel is thinking, President Obama can simply phone her and ask. (An amazing presumption that world leaders never dissemble to one another.) Over the last decade in particular, Germany has openly criticized and worked against a number of U.S. foreign policy actions and given its energy dependence, rarely does anything that might annoy Russia and Mr. Putin. America has been involved in two world wars in the last hundred years and both times, Germany was on the other side. We are indeed on paper NATO allies, but that alliance means ever less as the members around Europe continually spend less and less on their militaries – and have no political will to rock the diplomacy boat.
Chancellor Merkel wants to join the mutual no-spy circle with the United States, which according to many newspapers includes the U.K. Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It’s not that the governments of those countries never disagree with Washington foreign policy, but there is a longstanding common history, culture and politics with those four countries – that is not there with Germany. Germany is an ally by treaty and we do on occasions have common policy goals, but not always. Germany has its own interests that it pursues and particularly being under Mr. Putin’s energy thumb, those interests and America’s will continue to be at times at odds in the future. It would be foolish not to try to find out what the German Government is really planning on doing on certain international matters. Instead of complaining so loudly about alleged U.S. spying, perhaps Germans should be asking themselves why America feels it needs to spy on them.

I confess, I did ask myself this week why were we spying on Germany. I obviously came to the conclusion that it was an overall good thing. Part of my calculus was the recollection of a comment made to me over 40 years ago by the first real live CIA officer I’d ever met – before I’d even joined the Agency myself. I was a summer intern in Washington DC in 1972 and had written the draft of a memo concerning “West Germany” in which I’d referred to the country as “our best ally in Europe.” Rich, now a retiree in the sunshine of New Mexico, said to me: “There is no such thing as a best ally, only today’s friends and tomorrows potential enemies.” I also read the Washington Post Editorial Board piece of 11 July, concluding that it was “stupid” to spy on our allies. After reading that piece of naïve hogwash, I knew I was correct about the need to spy on Germany!