Recently, I've read about the NSA (the US National Security Agency) spying on European leaders - Angela Merkel in particular.
But this is highly unusual for me. I can understand the US spying on its opponents. But European countries are the US's closest allies.
Why does the NSA need this?
Everyone realistically spies on everyone else. The US spies on Germany, Germany spies on the US, every marginally powerful country spies on every other marginally powerful country.
The fact that two countries are allies merely indicates that most of the time their interests align. But that doesn't mean that their interests always align. To take one current example, the United States strongly opposes the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would deliver Russian natural gas to Germany. Germany supports the pipeline. If a spy could gather inside information about what Merkel is really thinking, which concerns were most politically important for her, and what she might be willing to accept in trade, that would be very valuable information for the United States to have in ongoing talks. Just as in any negotiation, if you can get inside information about your opponent's position, you can generally strike a more favorable deal.
Remember that there are degrees of "spying."
I think there can be little doubt that the US is more active in spying -- on enemies, on supposedly neutral countries, on supposedly friendly countries -- than many others.
Things get awkward when the US spies together with Germany on the traffic in the Frankfurt internet hubs, and then against Germany on the traffic on the Copenhagen hubs. Should Germany throw out NSA officals who have also visited Denmark, and let others in?
Sun-Tzu laid it out rather well.
Thus there are five types of spies to be employed: Local spies--employ people from the local district. Internal spies--employ their people who hold government positions. Double agents--employ the enemy's spies. Expendable [Dead] spies--are employed to spread disinformation outside the state. Provide our spies [with false information] and have them leak it to enemy agents. Living spies--return with their reports.
As for the armies you want to strike, the cities you want to attack, and the men you want to assassinate, you must first know the names of the defensive commander, his assistants, staff, door guards, and attendants. You must have our spies search out and learn them all.
(Art of War, Ralph D. Sawyer translation, chapter 13, Employing Spies)
Spying on allies serves many purposes:
Ever tried playing the game Diplomacy? A couple of games will quickly show that your so-called "closest allies" might not be your ally at all! Furthermore, if they are going to slide a dagger into your back, you had better know early because of the high stakes that are involved (it can threaten the very existence of your country).
Historical example: just before the start of World War 2, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a mutual non-aggression pact that further declared that "neither government would ally itself to or aid an enemy of the other". Two years after the pact was signed, Nazi Germany invaded. The Soviet Union was caught by surprise and almost destroyed. Beware.
Being allies does NOT mean friendliness or absolute trust
There is that old saying of "Trust, but verify" and it is pretty apt here.
U.S. is a superpower whether you or I like it or not. To keep that power, they (and anybody else with the power to do so like China, Russia, Germany, UK, SAR, Czech Republic, Sweden,...) are going to use their considerable political, economical, and other (military) capital and use it to further their own interest and their obligations. As long as the rewards for honoring those obligations outweigh the negative effects and the political decision not to honor them has not yet been made, of course (Winston Churchill and seizure of Turkish battleships Britain was building before WWI, anyone?)
It is extremely naive (and IMO idiotic) to think that relationships between countries (which are by definition groups of people with extremely diverse opinions and interests) are the same as between you and your best mate Benji. Another mistake is to equate information gathering and spying with terrorism/disruptive attacks.
In short, any country worth it's salt is going to gather as much information as possible in their political climate about anyone they can.
U.S. is going to gather information (spy) on anyone they work with and against because they need as much political advantage they can and because Germany might be their ally, but that does not mean they trust Germany or that Germany will be an ally forever and not everyone in Germany is an ally of U.S., same as everyone in U.S. is not an ally of Germany.
Germany at this time is run by a group of people who have not had a reason to sever that relationship, the same as U.S. is. Those people change and they have their own agendas that might go contrary to the interests of the people on the other side or even amongst their own country.
They agreed to cooperate/work towards similar goals as long as it is beneficial for both of them on areas where their interests align. That does NOT mean absolute trust, but more a grudging acceptance.
You cannot foster a relationship of absolute trust between groups of people who periodically change and have diverse and often contrary interests.
You can foster a business relationship, that can even be friendly, but certainly not complete trust.
Four reasons that I can think of...
The USSR and Germany were allies in 1939, had treaties in place about joint military operations, trade, etc., etc.
Yet two years later Germany invaded the USSR because (in part) of fears the USSR was going to invade Germany (fears that were probably well grounded, though the timing was off. German intelligence reports had identified a planned large scale exercise as preparations for an invasion, which it may have been as Soviet war plans tended to do exactly that, as was found out in the 1990s).
One reason for the Germans' problems during the Russian winter, ironically, was a lack of cold weather gear. Cold weather gear that had been on order from the USSR for delivery a few months after the start of Operation Barbarosa.
One reason for the initial failure of the Soviet forces against the German invasion was the fact that indicators of a German buildup had been ignored by the Soviet high command ("they're friends. They'd be daft to invade without cold weather gear, if at all").
It goes to show you need to watch your friends as they may not be as friendly as you think they are.
The same can be said in part about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. There were plenty of indications that the Japanese were preparing for war against the USA, but those were ignored in Washington. Those in charge there thinking the Japanese would be smart enough to know they couldn't win.
The answer to the question "why does the NSA collect information" is "because it is their raison d'être. The agency has been conceived exactly for this purpose: Collect all available data.
In this particular instance, everything emanated from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trace Centre in the United States.
As we all know, the United States went on to invade both Iraq and Afghanistan. But while the US managed to get allies to attack Afghanistan with it, the Europeans – both the citizens and their governments – were vehemently opposed to an Iraq war that was rather clearly based on flimsical, made-up "evidence" and which was sure to both destabilize the region and fail to bring any improvement to the security of Western nations. (Not to mention the conditions of local civilians, which were sometimes shot up by private contractors.)
But then-president Bush jr. made a clear distinction that nations were either "with us, or against us", which of course meant that Europe was against the US. The German government therefore was not to be trusted and thus, the illegal phone-tapping began. The German government, for its part, was of course spying on the US. At the time, Germans didn't even know whether the US was going to use nuclear bombs in Afghanistan.
Once upon a time the US forces in Iceland spied on the Icelanders. This took place during the negotiations for the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), an agreement which every nation with forces in another nation has (when the other nation agrees to this).
During negotiations, the Icelandic government representatives would have sidebar conversations with each other, in Icelandic. They could do this because almost no Americans can speak Icelandic.
Almost.
During one round's negotiations, the American side brought along a young Air Force officer whose name escapes me (this was over 25 years ago). He was the son of a American civilian who had spent his working years as an administrator in the CB squadron (a Navy unit), stationed at NAS Keflavik in Iceland.
The Icelanders had no idea who he was, but when he began to translate what the Icelanders were saying to each other, they did at least understand why the Americans had brought him.
