
Why was the Zimmerman Telegram so important? - sohkamyung
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38581861
======
bainsfather
Code interception and breaking. Cutting undersea cables. Parallel
construction. Carefully managed release to manipulate public opinion.

It's nice to have an inside view on an intelligence coup - albeit from 100
years ago.

~~~
dx034
It somehow shows that what we see at the moment isn't new at all. Yes, there
is a different scale of information gathering, but that's just because there's
more information flowing. 100 years ago it was very hard to communicate over a
distance without traffic being intercepted, and the same is true today.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to make communication more secure, but
it indicates that we are not heading towards an ever worse surveillance state.

~~~
sametmax
I find it scary. If they could do that 100 hundred years ago, what are they
doing now with the added century of experience and the new tech ?

~~~
pif
I find it reassuring. If _we_ could do that 100 hundred years ago, what are
_we_ doing now with the added century of experience and the new tech?

~~~
sametmax
The benefit of experience and tech is diluted among the public, but
concentrated in corporations and govs. The will and ability to use and
understand them even more.

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danieltillett
The thing that most amazes me about the Great War is how so many fought and
died to prevent the EU [1].

1\.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septemberprogramm](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septemberprogramm)

Edit. It seems my brevity has caused some people to miss my point (or maybe
not). I am lamenting the huge loss of life that flowed from the Great War that
was fought trying to prevent the creation of the EU.

On a personal note my great uncle died in the Great War and the effect this
had on my family is still with with us to this day.

~~~
emj
Your comment is short and slightly offensive, but sure there's some truth to
that the diplomatic/economic European Union could have happend faster if
people just hadn't warmongered so much.

The people living there were, to put it midly worse off, but I'm sure the
leaders thought it was a great idea to expand their culturaly influence just a
little bit too far.

But is unification really always the answer?

~~~
danieltillett
The history of Europe in the 20th C. is really the long march towards a EU
with Germany at the heart. It is more than a shame that so many died to end up
exactly where we would have been if the Schlieffen Plan had worked [1].

1\.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieffen_Plan](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieffen_Plan)

~~~
tallanvor
Right... Except, of course, that the EU is a voluntary union rather than an
attempt at conquest.

~~~
danieltillett
I think you should ask the Greeks how voluntary the EU is these days.

I am actually not opposed to the EU, I am just making the point of how little
wars or personalities matter in the end.

~~~
tallanvor
Your comment about Greece can easily be turned around: ask the British how
voluntary the EU is.

~~~
bainsfather
It became voluntary for the British only because our Prime Minister was weak
and (foolishly?) gambled on a referendum in return for strengthening his
personal support among some of his eurosceptic MPs.

Leaders of other EU countries are unlikely to make the same mistake of letting
their populations vote on the issue.

~~~
rtpg
How are leaders of EU countries decided?

Hint: it's by a similar mechanism to referendums

~~~
candiodari
> How are leaders of EU countries decided?

Same way as the structure of the EU itself is decided. Governments fight to
keep things away from a vote. Regularly a vote is called anyway because some
politician uses the promise of a vote as a way to get elected. Then the EU
loses the referendum, election, ... that is called, and then the result is
ignored.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_related_to_the_Eur...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_related_to_the_European_Union)

Direct quote from Wolfgang Schauble (according to Yanis Varoufakis) :
"elections cannot be allowed to set economic policy for the EU".

That sums up the attitude of the EU, and is the attitude that permeates both
the EU itself and the basis of it's support. This is a quote from a private
conversation I had with a Dutch judge. "What would have happened if we had let
elections decide ? Norway would be driving on the left and we wouldn't have
the Euro anywhere". The EU is seen by the local elites (the non-businessmen.
Lawyers, teachers, doctors, ...) as a way to impose what they consider good
policy.

The EU institutions itself are importantly not the real basis of power in the
EU. Politicians get sent off to the EU to have a cushy, but faraway, job. It's
where political careers go to die (especially the parliament). EU politicians
are perceived to have less power than the local ones, even though the opposite
is true. And that's what's really happening in Europe : power is shifting more
and more locally. Barcelona's increased independence is big. The real power
base of the Belgian and Dutch governments is specific cities (Antwerp and the
Hague). Outside of those cities, things are going very wrong and support for
the government is nonexistent.

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aaron-lebo
Interesting article, though the answer in the title seems pretty obvious:
Germany was offering a previously hostile neighbor of the US land as long as
they'd enter the war. No matter whether that was transmitted in secret, in the
open, or through diplomatic channels, that's virtually a declaration of war.

Even without unrestrained submarine warfare, that alone might have been enough
to bring the US into the war in 1915. It took some restraint from Wilson to
prevent an earlier entry, anyway.

~~~
mafribe

        virtually a declaration of war.
    

Have you reflected properly on why Germany felt a need to defend itself
against the US?

~~~
chiph
Because they were already in a stalemate with France, the UK, and Russia. And
their allies the Austro-Hungarian Empire were more concerned with Serbia and
Italy than France, etc. So this was a move intended to counter the US should
we enter the war ("give them something besides Germany to worry about" was
likely the thinking)

~~~
ap3
They basically needed a WW2 Japan in WW1

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noir-york
Thanks for posting this! That knowledge is power is not in doubt. We in the
West would be fools to hamstring our own intelligence services in their
mission to defend national security.

Is privacy important - absolutely - but the correct mechanism to protect not
just privacy but against abuse is not to reduce the agencies intel
capabilities but strengthen our democratic means of oversight.

