ESPIONAGE – the BRIDGE to LIBERALISM Raphael Bitton∗
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-Draft only. Please do not cite without author’s permission- ESPIONAGE – THE BRIDGE TO LIBERALISM Raphael Bitton∗ INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................................. 1 I. REJECTING AVAILABLE JUSTIFICATIONS .................................................................................................................... 3 A. The Realist Argument ..................................................................................................................................................... 3 B. Just Intelligence ................................................................................................................................................................ 5 II. THE IDEAL DUTY OF TRANSPARENCY ....................................................................................................................... 7 A. On Capabilities and Intentions ................................................................................................................................... 9 B. Transparency and Liberal Political Imperialism ............................................................................................. 12 III. ESPIONAGE AS A BRIDGE TO LIBERAL DEMOCRACIES ............................................................................................ 15 A. A Concept of Global Justice ..................................................................................................................................... 16 B. The Global Original Position .................................................................................................................................. 19 C. Limiting Legitimate Espionage ............................................................................................................................... 23 D. Risks other Than Surprise Aggression ................................................................................................................ 28 E. Between Emergency and Routine ....................................................................................................................... 29 F. The Utilitarian Argument .......................................................................................................................................... 30 G. The Cosmopolitan Approach to Espionage ........................................................................................................ 32 H. On Proximity in the International Cluster .......................................................................................................... 33 IV. CONCLUSIONS ....................................................................................................................................................... 34 This paper deals with the question of the proper justification for espionage. It rejects existing justifications based on Realism, Traditional Utilitarianism and Just War Theory. It argues that basic cooperation in the international community requires the recognition of a duty of basic transparency among nations. Transparency allows neighboring states to observe the deliberation strategic process in its making. A transparent state cannot surprise its neighbors with regards to its strategic intentions concerning their security, such as unleashing a surprise attack. Transparency however is argued to be a structural quality. It is a characteristic of a liberal regime. Non-liberal nations are therefore likely to reject a duty of transparency, standing in contradiction to their comprehensive political doctrine. Espionage is argued to assist in solving this otherwise irresolvable political crisis. It enables enforcing transparency on non-liberal nations yet such transparency is achieved without imposing a liberal structure on such nations. In accordance, it is argued that a rule setting a duty of basic transparency, which its enforcement is solely limited to espionage, is morally justifiable since it will be endorsed by all well-ordered nations in a global impartial and fair process of deliberation. Current international law is understood therefore as targeting the maintenance of this required range of transparency in international relations: Legalizing espionage avoids hypo-transparency of states. Legalizing counterespionage at the same time avoids hyper-transparency. INTRODUCTION Gathering intelligence is a human activity of the first magnitude. It consumes immense human, technological and financial resources1. It involves enormous moral loss.2 One therefore expects that ∗ Tel-Aviv University School of Law, Research Fellow and Visiting Scholar- Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law, and Israeli Law, Economy and Society, UC Berkeley School of Law. For helpful discussions and comments, I wish to thank: Kenneth Bamberger, Daphna Barak-Erez, David Caron, Alon Cohen, Chanoch Dagan, Meir Dan- Cohen, Chaim Gans, Philip Hamburger, David Enoch, Menny Mautner , Ariel Porat, David Rosenberg and John Yoo. 1 As an illustration of the size and cost of a modern intelligence community, the American community consists of 17 federal intelligence agencies employing more than 100,000 employees. Average annual total budget of the intelligence community ranges between $40 to $60 billion; In year 2010, it reached a record high budget of $80 billion. This figure represents about 12% of the entire defense budget of America. It is typically believed that intelligence budget in western countries represents around 8-12% of total defense budget (S. espionage be anchored to a solid moral and legal ground. Surprisingly, this costly and harmful activity lacks a clear base of legitimacy. Legal and philosophical scholarship is most interested, for example, with the legitimacy of war among nations and its legal framework.3 We even thoroughly discuss the legitimacy of the domestic governmental use of force.4 And yet, when it comes to espionage, moral discourse is almost as silent as the people who carry out the task. When we do talk about espionage, it is largely perceived as an extra-moral activity, which takes place far beyond the boundaries of ethics. Espionage is frequently associated with an obscured sphere in which the gravitation of states’ supreme interests bends the contours of the moral space. This article therefore concerns one main question: What is the proper ethical justification for espionage? Such a justification will dictate the legal framework for regulating this activity. My account of espionage among states is based on the observation that states restrict access to various spaces that serve as access points to information and that espionage targets the intrusion of such spaces for the sake of collecting information. Espionage between states is therefore an undercover state-sponsored intrusion of the restricted space of another state or organization for the sake of collecting information.5 Access to a space can be restricted in many forms including, but not limited to, physically, visually, acoustically, digitally and legally6. Such intrusion of a restricted space can be DAGGETT, The US intelligence budget: a basic overview (DTIC Document 2004); KEN DILANIAN, Overall US intelligence budget tops $80 billion, Los Angeles Times Oct. 28 2010; D. PRIEST & W.M. ARKIN, A hidden world, growing beyond control, 19 Washington Post (2010)). 2 ROSS BELLABY, Many spheres of Harm: What is wrong with Intelligence Collection (Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) Conference paper 2006); JOHN P. LANGAN, Moral Damages and the Justification of Intelligence Collection from Human Sources in ED. JAN GOLDMAN, ETHICS OF SPYING A READER FOR THE INTELLIGNCE PROFESSIONAL (2006). 3 For only two prominent and pivotal sources out of the extensive writing on the justifiability if war and killing in war, see: MICHAEL WALZER, JUST AND UNJUST WARS: A MORAL ARGUMENT WITH HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS (BASIC BOOKS. 1977); J. MCMAHAN, KILLING IN WAR (OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, USA. 2009). 4 Russell Hardin, Rationally Justifying Political Coercion, 15 JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH (1989). 5 On various approaches to defining espionage, see: M MARK LOWENTHAL, INTELLIGENCE: FROM SECRETS TO POLICY 1-2 (2000); Martin T Bimfort, A Definition of Intelligence, 2 STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE 75-78 (1958), p.; SHERMAN KENT, STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE FOR AMERICAN WORLD POLICY (1966).p. vii; TF Troy, The "correct" definition of intelligence, 5 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE (1991); VERNON A WALTERS, SILENT MISSIONS 621 (1978); MICHAEL WARNER, Wanted: A Definition of “Intelligence” (http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA525816&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf); SHERMAN KENT, Prospects for the national intelligence service, 36 Yale Review (1946), p. 117; ABRAM N SHULSKY & GJ SCHMITT, SILENT WARFARE: UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD OF INTELLIGENCE 171-176 (2002). See as well Sholsky’s reference to Randon, identifying secrecy as a common feature of intelligence: Ra Random, Intelligence as a Science, 2 STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE (1958), p. 76. 6 On the legal definition of spying, in international law, see: Annex to Hague Convention IV 1907, Regulations Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, Art. 29; Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), Art. 46; Y SANDOZ, et al., Commentary on the Additional Protocols of 8 June 1977 to the Geneva