Espionage endangers US political position

Twenty-one nations are supporting the effort in the United Nations to restrain the United States’ National Security Agency surveillance program, according to the Foreign Affairs Journal. The concerned nations want the UN  to reaffirm the worldwide right to privacy on the Internet, which the NSA has certainly not been observing over the past few months. This continued spying by the United States is fraying relationships between the country and its allies.

The United States has been transitioning away from hard power, or military force, as a method of exerting its assumed superiority in the world over the past decade. The move makes sense, since American military power is ill-suited to fight the so-called “War on Terror” begun under the Bush administration. As former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wrote in the Foreign Affairs Journal in 2009, American military spending is too high in relationship to the benefit to American power. Simply put, the United States isn’t gaining anything from its military spending.

According to counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen in his book The Accidental Guerilla, the incredible amount of defense spending during the first few years of the War in Iraq was almost worthless; a better policy would have been a soft- power approach on the ground in Iraq working with civilians. These efforts could have included peace talks and diplomacy. The world is changing, and soft power and economic power now matter more than force, according to Leslie Gelb, the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, in the Foreign Affairs Journal.

Given that hard power is no longer working, the United States is moving toward soft power to try and relate to other countries. This accounts for increased American involvement with world politics, in talks with world leaders such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia, and greater attention to dealings in the U.N. President Barack Obama appears concerned with the United States’ image in the world, given his remarks during the government shutdown.

“Probably nothing has done more damage to America’s credibility in the world, our standing with other countries, than the spectacle that we’ve seen these past several weeks,” Obama said during a speech at the White House. “It’s encouraged our enemies, it’s emboldened our competitors and it’s depressed our friends who look to us for steady leadership.”

Given this new emphasis on soft power, it is depressing to see the U.S. lose its place in the world because of spying programs. Make no mistake; American spying is hurting our position in the world. As Harvard Professor Joseph Nye, who coined the term “soft power,” said in an interview with Reuters, the spying program makes other world leaders less willing to work with America. And Foreign Affairs notes that, recent allegations from Edward Snowden have made the spying game more personal, leader to leader rather than country to country.

Thus, the espionage program presents a significant problem for soft power: Soft power relies on negotiations and relations, especially between heads of state. If heads of state are uncomfortable with each other, as Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil are with Obama, then open and honest relationships are not possible. Without the possibility for these relationships, then the United States cannot rely as heavily on allies.

Cordial world relations and agreements between nations are based on reciprocity; the concept that international entities will hold up their ends of deals based on nothing more than the expectation that the international system requires cooperation and poor relations with other world leaders prevent the United States from entering into agreements based on reciprocity as the country has already violated international norms with its espionage activities.

The world has no basis to trust the United States since the country will violate such fundamental rights as privacy on the Internet or the privacy of other world leaders. The United States has no way to assuage those fears, and no way to work around the issue, without giving up these kinds of spying activities.

Espionage is creating a significant burden on U.S. power. Our interests will likely suffer as a result. In the end, the program is not worth its cost.

Dan Morgan-Russell is a sophomore majoring in international relations (global business). His column “Going Global” runs Mondays.

Follow Dan on Twitter @ginger_breaddan