M N Hebbar :
Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton could not have arrived in Berlin at a more inopportune time. In the German capital on her book promotion tour, she found herself in the midst of a most unusual and alarming situation in transatlantic relations in recent times. The German government had just taken the dramatic step of asking the top US intelligence official in Berlin to leave the country, following two suspected cases of American spying in the wake of the year-long spat over eavesdropping by the National Security Agency.
As reports have it, a 31-year old German clerk working for the German equivalent of the CIA was functioning as a double agent and had given 218 documents to the Americans for the paltry sum of 25,000 euros ($34,000). Of these, three concerned the committee in the Bundestag (parliament) investigating revelations by Edward Snowden about American surveillance in Germany – a bizarre situation where Americans were spying on Germany’s parliament even as it was engaged in looking into American spying.
Into this heady mixture popped a second American spy whose details are only beginning to be deciphered. This only heightened the growing impatience in Germany at what has been perceived as US nonchalance about being caught spying on a close ally. Just before the expulsion of the US spy chief, Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that unfortunately, Germany and the US had “very different approaches to the role of intelligence agencies” and “contradict everything that I understand to be a trusting co-operation between friendly partners”.
Germany’s President Joachim Gauck called it “a gamble with friendship” between the two countries, and said, “enough is enough”.
Germany’s Justice Minister accused the Americans of “surveillance mania” and even threatened to prosecute them. The opposition has stepped up calls for the government to give Edward Snowden, now in Russia and who only last week requested an extension of his stay, asylum in Germany in exchange for his testimony.
German public opinion is solidly behind the government’s decision to sack the spy chief in Berlin. It has also changed the perception of American behaviour from one of a benign friendly power to one that needed to be carefully watched. Parliamentarians now look over their shoulder when moving in the Bundestag corridors. You’ll be amused to hear that when members of Germany’s anti-spying committee now meet, the first thing they do is to throw their mobile phones into a box and turn up the music (Grieg’s piano concerto)!
Merkel is angry. Democracies do not go to war against each other. But it now transpires that democratic allies do wage spy wars against each other. After persistent exposures of American spying on Germany, she has lost her patience and finally hit back. Such happenings in olden times were a precursor to armed hostilities. But wars only beget wars as can be seen all around today. And nuclear-armed states only make the scenario unthinkable.
Against this backdrop Hillary Clinton has thought it fit to offer an apology to Merkel for the NSA spying, which included tapping the chancellor’s cell phone. When questioned about whether the benefits of American spying were worth the costs, she suggested that the answer may be ‘no’.
Back in Washington, there was no direct reaction to Germany’s decision from the White House but State Department officials gave the impression that spying on allies was a normal and accepted practice in international relations. In other words, ‘what are the Germans so excited about’? These things happen. But President Obama was prudent enough to arrange a meeting of US and German foreign ministers in Europe over the weekend to smooth ruffled feathers and reassure the petulant ally, as it were.
It is normal diplomatic practice for countries to do a ‘tit for tat’ and in this case carry out a retaliatory withdrawal of a German official of a corresponding rank stationed in the US. The nature of governments determines the course of history. US sources have, however, indicated that no such measures are being contemplated yet, thus putting the sacking of the CIA chief in Berlin to a routine ‘shuffling of the guard’.
A century ago, the assassination of the archduke of the Austro-Hungarian empire in Sarajevo triggered World War I. Europe’s past could well shape Asia’s future today as one observes in East Asia that “disputes about clumps of rock could become as significant as the assassination of an archduke”, as The Economist put it.
(M N Hebbar is a veteran journalist and commentator on European affairs)
