While not always at the forefront of the news, Russia is still a formidable force in the world. The intelligence war between the US and Russia dates back all the way to the days of the Soviet Union and the Cold War. Both sides have attempted to sabotage and infiltrate important government projects, but in general the public was unaware of the background.
Presumably during the Cold War, the CIA had found a low-level government official who was willing to act as a informant to the US. After several years, the informant was promoted, and gained access to the upper echelons of the Russian government, known as the Kremlin. Recently, the CIA began to worry about the safety of the informant, and persuaded them to leave the country for the US.
With this new development, it might begin to cause worry in both governments about the possibility of there still being spies in either country, as well as bring up previous entanglements. For example, the concern of Russian collusion in the 2016 election. While much of the intelligence war is now played on the Internet, such as hacking, there is probably still plenty of use for personnel located within the inner workings of a government.
Questions
1. Should the US or other countries be spying on others, in order to gain an advantage?
2. How do you think this will affect future policies on security?
I think that, ideally, no countries should be spying on each other, but we don’t live in a perfect world, so I think spying is necessary. There are many things that governments don’t want to share with the rest of the world, but we can’t just believe that all of these secrets are harmless. It is entirely possible that, like what was revealed by the informant in Russia, there are secrets held by other governments that are malicious to our nation. Additionally, there is no way to stop other countries from sending spies or planting informants in the US since their whole purpose is to not be discovered, so the US would be at an extreme disadvantage if it were to stop stop spying on other countries. Also, with the extraction of the high-level informant in the Kremlin, I’m sure the CIA information is now more limited, but I highly doubt that that single informant was their only source of high-level information within the Russian government.
ReplyDeleteI second Nathan's opinion that, although ideally spying should never be done, the US would be at a disadvantage if it did not spy when other countries do. Thus, as morally corrupt as the action is, I believe it is justified because of the immoral precedent set by other countries. As for how this extraction would affect future security policies, I'm not sure it would change much as the nature of spy work is and always has been dangerous. I think a big concern here however is the deterioration of the Russian-US relationship, which has never been good but is getting worse, a concerning development considering Russia's immense power.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that spying is a necessary evil in the US's relationship with other countries. However, I definitely feel like it should never be done with the US's close allies like Britain or France. With Russia, however the US is always competing with them and they are more likely to fall into conflict. Therefore, the US needs to spy on them to ensure they will not overpower the US, since as Kevin said, Russia is super powerful. In regards to how this will affect future policies on security, I don't think there will be many changes to future policies, but the government might take more measures to moniter if people have any interactions with Russia. Also there may be more security checks and screenings on who gets access to government information, but overall I don't think it will really affect future policies.
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. actually has agreements with many close allies to share all information acquired from espionage and to host spies in each other's countries to ensure fewer domestic terror threats, so in this case spying is actually mutually beneficial for everyone's security. Regarding hostile spying, as in spies remain secret to gain knowledge they're not supposed to know, such as the U.S. - Russia relationship right now, I agree with everyone above that it really is a necessary evil. In an ideal world, everyone would share knowledge and cooperate, but governments rarely trust other nations enough in the real world to do that. In regards to security policy, they usually won't change unless something super significant happens (e.g. 9/11), and one more spy being discovered or pulled out is nothing really new.
ReplyDeleteThe US and Russia, for decades now, has been in a state of "if we don't do [morally questionable defense/offense tactic] and they do, we're the ones that are in hot water later on." The question has never been how to fix relations, but rather an accepted idea that as long as both countries foul played to the same extent, the MAD policy would protect them both. Spying of this nature (unlike "friendly" spying as mentioned by Philip) is indeed a necessary evil at this point, just as everyone said. That's not to say it's right, or even slightly moral in its truest sense, but perhaps it is of good moral in other ways. We don't know exactly what the spy in question may have learned for the US, but who's to say it didn't end up preventing senseless deaths? Although we would all like to believe that America doesn't play dirty, sometimes playing dirty in politics is the only way to keep people safe. The idea I just presented is a difficult reality to accept, but one that we must realize in light of actions like spying coming to light like this. In the world of intergovernmental relations, even the most seemingly innocent actions (such as aid from one country to another in a disaster) can have ulterior motives, like gaining leverage or favor in certain regions, or exhibiting strength to other countries. Thus, there is no absolute good or bad, only ways in which our government attempts to protect its people. The spying incident is merely an example of that.
ReplyDeleteAs the others have mentioned, in a perfect world no country would spy on another, but because of the security risk that Russia poses to the US today, it is crucial for the US to gain whatever information they can to ensure the safety of the American people. Since the Cold War, Russia and the US have engaged in mutual spying to gain valuable information about each other, During that time, spying was a useful tool for the US to determine how to deal with the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons and preventing the Cold War from escalating. Today, spies are just as important, and if we extract them right now, we would be at a serious disadvantage, potentially putting the lives of people in the US or other countries at risk. After recent events, the Russian and American governments should try to address the issue of spying and security, but it is likely that no matter what they agree to do, spying will continue to happen on both sides.
ReplyDeleteI believe that spying on other countries is necessary for the US government to prepare for anything the Russian government tries to do that may negatively affect the US and its citizens as previously stated. However, if the US can successfully spy on other countries, then other countries can spy on internal government matters in the US as well. However, I do not think this will majorly affect future policies on security for the US. Since spying has been going on between the US and Russia since the Cold War, the US is aware of the problem and has most likely already changed their policies to address the spying issue.
ReplyDeleteI personally believe in an ideal world, no country should be spying on one another in order to gain an advantage. However, because that is not necessarily the world we live in today, one can say that the it is necessary for the United States to spy on other countries in order to plan and think ahead. Following the same idea, in terms of countries in general, spying on other countries, is a "necessary evil" in that countries can be informed of any specific polices or attacks that may have a significant effect in their own country. Regarding the issue about future polices on security being affected by this, I do not think that this will impose a tremendous effect due to the stated fact that spying between countries, specfically the US and Russia, has been occuring since the Cold War. Because of such a long time period that has passed, I think that there are new policies that have been established in order to address the serurity issues that have been ongoing throughout history.
ReplyDeleteUsually, the act of spying other countries is a terrible idea. Some countries, however, need to be spied by others for the greater good. Some of these nations would be North Korea, China, Iraq, and especially Russia. Here's the catch, while it's not a bad idea to spy on these nations, I believe the act of spying them should not bring any "advantage" to anyone. Countries should spy on countries to just "check on them". For the future, I strongly think that nations will begin to have a stricter background check on all of the members of their government to make sure that spies don't infiltrate anymore.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to tensions between the two nations, I believe that the reveal of the US spy will increase them and will also lower a sense of trust among them.
I really struggle with the fact that this story is real and not part of a movie script. What I really don't like about this whole situation is the fact that people feel like we have a need for spying; countries feel that they have a need to interfere with other countries in order to protect themselves. Unlike today's world I wish that countries could work on improving themselves and others and spying wouldn't be necessary because countrying seeking assistance would be transparent. I feel like when it comes to politics humanity gets lost and it's really unfortunate we see the worst in people.
ReplyDeleteI feel like spying is generally something that's viewed as incredibly immoral, but seems to remain a fact of life regardless. Neither side would choose to end the whole spying system unless the other does too, but even then, there's no way to hold anyone to it, since the spies are... well, secret. This single event likely wouldn't change that, though. Perhaps countries will be more wary of spying, and be more careful with it, but I doubt it'll cease anytime soon. Future security policy might be tighter, as we can see for ourselves how spies could be in danger, but I really don't know enough about spy security policy to say for certain any sort of changes.
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