In the United States, spying has often been regarded as necessary, at times even as vital. But it has never been regarded as a normal peacetime pursuit. During the Second World War, the CIA's precursor, the OSS, mounted a vast cryptographic effort against Germany and Japan, thanks in part to the support of Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson. Yet Stimson was also the man who, as Secretary of State in 1929, closed up the State Department's cryptographic section with the famous quip that "gentlemen do not read each other's mail." With its post-Victorian overtones, that quip now has the resonance of a bygone age. Not so, however, the assumption that lies behind it: Spying has no place in a "normal" world.
The "clash of civilizations," often debated in these pages, has an analogue in the clash of intelligence services and of intelligence cultures. Centuries before Clausewitz wrote his treatise On War, many countries inside and outside Europe regarded peace and war as complementary, rather than opposite, poles of activity. Many still do. In these countries, spying, like war, has been regarded as the continuation of policy by other means. The same has been true for other activities that intelligence services have been known to conduct: subversion, sabotage, disinformation, and assassination. So, too, for the reverse side of intelligence: counter-intelligence, and the need to maintain good spies at home. In the Clausewitzian tradition, or for that matter the tradition of Sun Tzu, any peacetime activity--be it spying, negotiation, or commerce--may signify friendship, but just as often its purpose may be winning without fighting.
