One question directly invokes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s demand that allies stay “strong, clear, and quiet” in alignment with U.S. interests.
One question directly invokes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s demand that allies stay “strong, clear, and quiet” in alignment with U.S. interests.
Do you really believe that?
Also:
That’s not “spying on its own” anymore, though, is it?
It’s a fact, look it up.
I looked it up. I didn’t put a ton of effort into it, but I found some things.
First link I found was this one, https://www.mi5.gov.uk/history/between-the-wars/the-inter-war-years, talking about spying going on between WW1 and WW2.
British intelligence service was started in 1909. They weren’t at war, but they were concerned about spying, German spies in particular:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Steinhauer
UK was not a normal country before WW2, they were a gigantic colonial power, and used “intelligence” also as a secret police to keep the Empire under control.
It was not normal for countries to have spy agencies that spied on allies. And even USA didn’t have it at the time.
But Franklin D. Roosevelt was worried about Germany, and wanted an intelligence service like the one UK had, and so he created the CIA.
Before that it was more ad hoc as necessary by the different branches of US military. This was mostly used by colonial powers like UK and France, and then USA mimicked it, And shortly after WW2, they were treating the entire world as a colony and an enemy in that regard.
This does not make it “normal”, CIA is a disease, their false intelligence has done a lot of harm, their activities in other countries are widely illegal, and they use illegal methods even in allied countries. However after WW2 USA normalized it, so other countries now have to do the same in self defense.
So, you say spying wasn’t done outside of war prior to WW2, then I provide examples of intelligence organizations prior to WW1 and you wave it away with talk about Britain not being “normal”, while at the same time ignoring the link indicating Germany had intelligence agents operating in other countries.
There’s something pathetic about someone not being able to admit they were wrong.
No I wrote it was a war time thing, as outside of war it was more ad hoc if at all. Of course there was military intelligence, but not the crazy shit we have today, with manipulation of politics and industrial spying. There are degrees, and USA turned that up a lot.
Before the more normal thing to do was LEGAL intelligence, where agents at embassies read the papers, and followed politics. It was not the illegal spying we have today.
Look in the mirror.