Everyone spies on everyone else. They usually just don’t talk about it. It’s a fact of international relations and helps keep wars from getting out of hand.
“and helps keep wars from getting out of hand.”
A FAR more solid case can be made that it causes them, makes them worse, and causes more misery in the world.
Spying CAUSES far more misery than it ever prevented. Ten fold at least.
Not the least of the damage it does is to make us into a nation people regard as wormy, as a sneak, as dishonest. As in individuals, that reputation damages you far beyond the value of what you may learn.
Spying is basically the ethics of the coward.