Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by roenxi 929 days ago
Why would the US bother? Unless they propose not to engage in diplomacy, the replacement diplomat is going to spy on them too. It isn't like these are rogue actors, the spying is sponsored by their state.

The only reason to even talk about it would be if they want to roll a particular diplomat who is hard to work with or if it was convenient to gin up a diplomatic incident so that they could pretend to be unhappy.
1 comments
impossiblefork 929 days ago
The US does expel diplomats who engage in spying. For example, in 2022 they expelled twelve for spying in ways that threaten US national security.

Even if you try to keep an eye they will of course try make keeping an eye on them difficult. The US feels it can spy-- with people having been found with wigs and whatnot, so to imagine that others can't, even if they are allowed to do things very freely is a little bit strange.

link
roenxi 929 days ago
When you say "in 2022" do you mean the ones listed on this page [0]? The "Diplomatic expulsions during the Russo-Ukrainian War" page? I'm sensing there might have been issues at play other than the espionage, which is routine and everyone does.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_expulsions_during_t...

link
impossiblefork 929 days ago
Notice though that the US specifically chose to give a reason for the explusions as espionage activities. Spain expelled those it expelled over 'Russia's terrible actions'.

I think we can take the reasons for the expulsions as correct.

link
roenxi 929 days ago
The reasons are honest insofar as yes, the Russians expelled were involved in espionage. That part that has me tagging you as naive is you seem to believe that this was news in 2022.

It is the Russian embassy. The US spooks are monitoring it very closely. It is not a serious position to say that they suddenly discovered that espionage was afoot a few days after the invasion. I mean, it is completely plausible that the invasion made them say "we're about to hit the Russians hard, now is the time to disrupt their espionage activities". But the existence of those espionage activities has been a given since for the entire history of Russian diplomatic missions in the US.

The US is certainly not going to expel diplomats for spying under ordinary circumstances. We can see that because places like the Chinese, French and British and whatever other embassies are still allowed to exist. Maybe there are some African or Pacific Island embassies that are incompetent and just exist to chat, I dunno. But we know how the serious players use embassies this has been a thing for centuries.

link