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[Servant Corps]

"In a world that increasingly measures power in economic as well as military terms, many foreign
intelligence services are turning their sights to stealing American technology and trade secrets."
"Some countries with whom we have had good relations may adopt a two-track approach,
cooperating with us at the level of diplomacy while engaging in adversarial intelligence collection."
- Former CIA Director Robert Gates

"This espionage activity is an essential way for France to keep abreast of international commerce
and technology. Of course, it was directed against the United States as well as others. You must
remember that while we are allies in defense matters, we are also economic competitors in the
world."
- Retired Director of the DGSE, Pierre Marion

Apparently, the French government has engaged in economic espionage against the United States. This article also stated that other allies of the United States have been also engaged in economic espionage against the US.

Of course, said article is basically written by some expert in Corporate Espionage wishing to make money through hysteria. But if true, there needs to be a movie about it.

[Luke_Prowler]

Friendly fire espionage: because taunting the trigger happy paranoid nuke lovers wasn't stupid enough.

[JoshuaFH]

Man, sounds like something I'd do in Mafia.

[Aqizzar]

You're surprised?  Welcome to the real world, where every government that has the means spied on every government it thinks it can get to, and private companies spy on each other, and related interests share secrets and so on and so forth.

The one thing to remember, and help you sleep at night, is that real life spies tend to be remarkably inept, conservative in approach, and every bit as blind to the world around them as anyone else.  Rest assured, the Conspiracy is a conspiracy by way of dumbfounded, unknowing complicity by all parties involved.

[Jakkarra]

HURR DURR.

We could fix all this if we were still Pancea. We could simply join together into one super-nation and have a time of unparralelled love and pe-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[Realmfighter]

I've always thought that eternal peace and love would be boring as hell.

[Jakkarra]

Yah.

War is a pastime.

[JoshuaFH]

So what exactly were they espionaging? Is there a french 007 somewhere wearing a beret and sporting a curly mustache loving up all the inexplicably attractive women in high power?

[Jakkarra]

He's in disguise, he dropped the onions.

[MrWiggles]

I don't see the issue. I'm also not surprised. I'm not cynical on the issue. I don't think I am.

It would unresponsible to be not well aware of your surrounding, and others in the world. The France statement is very true. Yes we're allies in terms of defense, but we're also competitors for everything else. Intelligence is one of many means to gain an upper hand on your competitors. The United States does it as well.

Uh... When that US plane was crashing down where China was going to do the 'friendly' pick up; the crew were destroying as much as the onboard electronics as possible to preserve State secrets.

It would be extremely unlikely for first world nations to go to armed combat with one another. We're to interdependent on our trade relations to make a war a reasonable actions.

Not that War is really that bad of a thing on the long term.

[JoshuaFH]

How is war not that bad a thing for any length of time?

[MrWiggles]

How is war not that bad a thing for any length of time?

Well, human beings have been waring on every level since probably before we we're human. If war was overly bad, there wouldn't be almost 7 billion of us.

War increase the population growth on both sides. It increases the technological level on both sides. It increases the economical prowess for the winning side. It promotes civil liberties. It increases medial treatments. It intermingles cultures and exposes themselves to each other. There probably a few other I'm forgetting.

What got the US out of the great depression? World War 2.

What started the Renaissance was the crusades.

What ended the gold standard? War.

If you want to dicuss this in length, it should be in its own thread.

I'm in favor of peace, as war when its your country, sucks major balls. I'm not favor of abolished of war though.

[Heron TSG]

Actually, the black plague started the renaissance. They finally figured that God wasn't going to stop the boils. They had to.

[Cthulhu]

No, the renaissance was started by -complete nonsense, with no basis in fact-

[G-Flex]

What started the Renaissance was the crusades.

Only through trade of knowledge and goods, which can certainly happen through other means (obviously), and the causes of the crusades themselves were often the very things stifling new knowledge where they could find it.

What ended the gold standard? War.

This is another ridiculous statement. What ended the gold standard was the great depression, and probably a few other things.


And seriously, just because a few good consequences come out of something, that does not mean that that something is a good thing. That's very, very logically unsound.