For the Swedish weekly Fokus, I have written about Germany’s recent spy scandal, in which August Hanning, the former head of its intelligence service, the BND, has been accused of treason and espionage.
Much of the story will be familiar to international readers, but the conclusion might be worth quoting here in translation:
With his private consultancy and a seat on the board of the failed Latvian bank PNK Banka—which also counted former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen among its directors—August Hanning is also emblematic of a growing, potentially problematic class of people: former senior digures in politics, government, the police and intelligence services who have detached themselves from their national contexts and make a living as a kind of globe-trotting salesmen of security expertise and geopolitical analysis. Such individuals […] have grown accustomed to a life funded by banks and consulting firms, and may be tempted to exploit both old co…
