The Green/Labour/journalist/InternetMana approach to spying was finally balanced by  excellent pieces in NBR by Nathan Smith, and Paul Buchanan. Sadly they are behind the paywall. I’d reflected on some of the issues late last year, when Angela Merkel was being hounded by the German political commentariat to denounce the US for hacking her phone calls.

This post contains those thoughts, first published in a post yesterday prompted by the pathetic coverage of the Snowden/Dotcom show in the last week of our election.

Edward Snowden and Assange may have sent many people to their deaths. Perhaps they should be executed for treason. But one can still admire their courage, and respect spies the world over because what spies do is also essential, while supporting laws against treason.

Without spying, without the risk that what is hidden could become public,  behaviour can and would be so much worse. Indeed there is a strong line of argument that a world without spies is far more dangerous, because others will cautiously assume the worst about what is happening when they do not know. They over-react. They will not trust. Very effective spying helps the countries that are more often than not honest. Because spies confirming that a country is telling the truth to its neighbours, reinforces the foundations of trust. When spies revea that the truth is being ‘shaded’ or spun, the targets will apply their own morality – if the shading is within the bounds of the spin in which they too indulge, relative trust remains feasible. When spies and hackers reveal that another country is totally untrustworthy, but the truth is that they remain incapable of really damaging their neighbours, the spying is still a force for peace. The target of the lies need not over-react.

It is only when spying and hacking are in the service of a country already bent on doing its worst to the country spied upon, that is becomes a thoroughly malign force. And that malignancy is compounded if the target country has inadequate spying or hacking capacity itself to be aware of the threat, and to prepare to counter it. In other words, a serious imbalance in spying or hacking capacity is as serious a threat to peace as any other drastic inequality in power. Armed neutrality and the so called ‘balance of terror’ have served humanity well and better than foolish volunteering to be over-run (by pacifism or obvious inability to defend) for as long as we can look back in history.

The conditions that are most likely to result in war calamity are perceived imbalances in capacity, when the aggressor gets over confident, or the potential target of aggression over-reacts defensively, with pre-emptive defences that prove to have been unnecessary. The Bush/Blair Iraq invasion is reported as one of those cases. The intelligence was insufficient to dismiss the fears that Hussein could use weapons of mass destruction. As he was pretending to be able to deploy them he does not get the sympathy that might otherwise be due.

As nations can never be certain that a friend will not become at least the covert or de facto ally of enemies (as NZ did when it unilaterally abrogated the ANZUS Treaty with Australia and the US) it is prudent to ensure that you know as much as possible of the inner workings of anyone important to your future. I hope that our intelligence services always maintain a prudent eye on even our ‘most-of-the-time’ friends, while focussing on those whose behaviour and interests show clearly that we should not trust them.

Angela Merkel would know all that. I’m sure that her outrage at the US eavesdropping on her calls is feigned. By and large, if a friend has ways to know just where your words and actions diverge, they can be more accommodating and more confident in their dealings with you.