The expulsion of Ryan Fogle, a wig-donning cash-loaded American diplomat and the subsequent outing of the alleged CIA station chief in Moscow, Steven Hall, attest to the Kremlin's conscious decision to exacerbate tensions with the U.S. In the post Cold War era, nations have not made much of a fuss when their friends spied on them; when spies were caught "red handed," their subsequent deportation was a remedy for a mishap, with both sides eager to move on and forget it ever happened. At first glance, the latest espionage affair suggests Russia is reverting to the old rules that defined superpower relations during second third of the 20th century. John le Carr novels are now headed for the best-seller lists once again. "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold"; "A Small Town in Germany"; the list goes on and on. These spy novels captured the rivalry between Moscow and Washington and the tension that le Carr had experienced first hand when he worked as an undercover British agent in Bonn, West Germany. Why does Russia want this media frenzy over the outing of U.S. operatives on its soil? The truth usually comes out, if it comes out, only years later, when the spies and diplomats who had defected share their account of how things unfolded. This high-profile exposure of the CIA station chief, unlike past incidents when a spy was simply declared "persona non-grata" and quietly whisked out of the country, could be attributed to a whole number of reasons. For example, intelligence officials, or members of the Russian defense establishment, wanted to force their government's hand and air the dirty bilateral laundry in public. If this is the reason, it would be a continuation of past espionage affairs where diplomats who had enjoyed diplomatic immunity turned out as spooks or sought political asylum in rival nations. But there is another plausible explanation: Russian President Vladimir Putin made a conscious decision to bombard the media with details on the Russian counter-intelligence operation that outed the CIA chief because he wanted to send a message to his people -- stay away from foreign diplomats. When it comes to such deliberate media circuses, nations can regulate the ebbs and flows according to their rapport with the government whose spies are caught. In the aftermath of the Six-Day War, Eastern European diplomats and agents used Israel to facilitate their defection to the West. But if they hailed form Romania, to name just one example, Israel would do everything it could to keep this under the radar so as not to embarrass Bucharest, a friendly nation despite its Soviet influence. But such media embargoes are nowhere to be found when relations deteriorate. There is mounting evidence to suggest that the U.S. and the Russian Federation are rapidly becoming estranged, with Syria serving as one of several flash points. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not the only one trying to dissuade Putin from delivering the S-300 missile systems to Syria. U.S. President Barack Obama has been lobbying his Russian counterpart as well only to be rebuffed. This is but one chapter in the much larger battle that will determine the fate of the Syrian regime, and it is not a one-off diplomatic kerfuffle in U.S.-Russia relations. If the U.S. retaliates for the expulsion of its spies, it will have proven that relations among the respective spy agencies are nothing more than a barometer, a litmus paper if you will, for how much the two capitals can get along.
The interagency relations cannot define bilateral relations, but they can most surely reflect their most up-to-date state. The world may soon be flooded with spies who have come in from the cold.
