Despite the over the top headlines – such as, inevitably, “Reds Under the Bed” – the arrest by the FBI of 10 alleged Russian agents in the United States reveals a couple of fundamental truths: that the end of the Cold War did not mean the end of espionage between East and West and that spying or, if you prefer, intelligence gathering, remains a standard operating practice for most governments.
During the Cold War, the intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union focused most of their activities first, against the United States and, second, against Britain. Considered by Western policy-makers to be an expansionist country, the Soviet Union was, in turn, the main target of the American and British intelligence services.
But with the collapse of the Soviet Union and, with it, the end of the Cold War, many commentators in the West believed that the “cloak-and-dagger” world of James Bond had come to an end because everyone was a capitalist now. This view failed to recognise that all governments compete with each other for resources, trade and influence and, consequently, strive to obtain valuable information at the expense of each other. As Walter Laqueur, an intelligence expert, observed, “Intelligence is an essential service” for any government.
It should, therefore, come as no surprise that Russian agents are working in the US and in Britain. Nor that there are Western spies active in Russia (and, indeed, in many a “friendly” country, too). It wasn’t that long ago that “a boulder” on a Moscow street was revealed to contain surveillance equipment planted by MI6.
The more interesting question – and one which has been ignored by most commentators – is not so much the revelation that spies are still at work as the timing of the outing of the 10 alleged spies. Given that it appears the FBI have been monitoring these individuals since 2000 why have they been named and shamed now?
One possible answer is that the warming of relations between Washington and Moscow since Barack Obama replaced George W Bush in the White House has unnerved those with an anti-Russian agenda and a vested interest in continuing the Cold War by some other name.
Certainly, some diplomats are pointing up the possibility of these arrests as an attempt by influential neo-cons and hawks at the heart of the American establishment to scupper President Obama’s attempts to reach out to Russia.
As Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, dryly remarked after the arrest of the alleged spies: “The only thing I can say is that the timing [of the arrests] was chosen with a particular care.”
