"Bound" to Cooperate Intelligence Cooperation or Dependence?
			There can be absolutely no doubt about the fact that the beginnings of Austrian intelligence after WWII were marked by heavy, almost intolerable dependence on foreign influence. This was as much true of the massive interferences with the Stapo by the occupational powers in the immediate post-war years as it was of the early years of the Nagrp. For all practical purposes, Austrian military intelligence in 1955/56 was an operation run, financed and equipped clandestinely by American influence, direct or indirect. The Stapo, particularly in Vienna and up to 1947, had to operate under close scrutiny of the respective occupying powers. In the Provisional Renner Government of 1945 the Ministry of the Interior was headed by the Communist Franz Honner who quickly placed the Stapo under the leadership of Heinrich Dürmayer, a communist resistance fighter whom the Americans had liberated from the KZ Mauthausen. Dürmayer was to dominate Stapo activities and Stapo philosophy until he was sacked by the socialist successor to Honner, Oskar Helmer, in 1947.(23) From then on communist influence within the Stapo was methodically lessened and eventually almost totally eliminated.(24) Austrian military intelligence, created and dominated by American sponsorship for at least the first decade of its post-war existence, and under Kurt Fechner’s stewardship, quickly became a dependable and cooperative western instrument in the crucial period of the First Cold War.(25) Nothing substantially seems to have changed under Fechner’s successor, Alexander Buschek, notwithstanding all the official disavowals at the time of the transition of leadership in 1962. Austrian military intelligence, despite its foundation in the constitutional law of permanent neutrality of October 1955, was firmly grounded in the western camp, ideologically as much as through the medium of cooperative instruments.(26) In time the Stapo, the HNaA and the AbwA have become reliable partners in various liaison arrangements with a number of western intelligence services, foremost those of the United States, since 1995 increasingly of all EU-members. Like most small states, Austria is in need of cooperation and intelligence burden-sharing with bigger partners and has therefore entered into both bi-lateral and multi-lateral agreements of different degrees of intimacy, all of them kept very secret.(27) These cross-national intelligence liaison arrangements pertain(ed) not only to information sharing, but in the case of the transatlantic relationship with the U.S. include(d) training support, facilities access and in certain areas even collaborative operations. Apart from the sensitive and potentially embarassing issues of compromising constitutional neutrality, Austria’s cooperation with American intelligence partners ran and run the risk of being subjected to a „near-dictatorial“(28) relationship merely by the inequality of the partnership. The size of the Austrian intelligence apparatus compared to the U.S. intelligence community translates to a ratio of 1:100 whereas in the area of budgeting the ratio amounts to an astounding disparity of 1:5,000. Nevertheless, the Austro-American relationship most likely encompasses most of the characteristics of a full-fledged liaison as defined by current standards: 1. an agreed system of security classifications, code-words and procedures; 2. an exchange of special liaison officers; and 3. the existence of a special liaison office at the headquarters of each cooperating agency in each country.(29) It can be assumed that the benefit of Austrian cooperation with bigger partners, NATO-countries as well as formally non-aligned states, accrues particularly from the better access to technology, the intelligence procured by that and a greater territorial coverage or penetration.(30) However, in response to criticism of Austrian „non-neutral“ intelligence cooperation, the military intelligence leadership as well as Stapo chiefs have occasionally argued that they had been „forced to supply the Americans under the threat of an all-out intelligence embargo.“(31) Over the years the Austrian intelligence community has joined several international and regional cooperation groups, either actively or as an observer, among them the UKUSA-partnership as a member of its so-called Third Parties;(32) the Trevi (Terrorism, Radicalism, Extremism, Violence International) Group of the former European Community; the Vienna and Berne Clubs; and most likely also the so-called Kilowatt Group, an information alliance of 15 industrially advanced countries. On account of its membership in the European Union since 1995, Austria has also become involved in the diplomatic and judicial areas of the European security structure, based on the Maastricht measures as well as on the expanding intelligence functions of the Western European Union. Some of these cooperation groups reach beyond Europe and have a transatlantic dimension. Though foreign liaisons with significantly larger partners are absolutely vital to agencies of smaller states such as Austria, they also carry intrusive potential and inevitable risks as they can also be directed against a partner’s national system.(33) A long-time CIA-operator with extensive experience also in Austria, bluntly put it this way: „Primary and ultimate purpose of all liaison was/ is penetration.“(34) Furthermore, junior liaison partners are exposing themselves to possible manipulation and potentially even blackmail, as future disclosures about certain liaison arrangements may become deeply embarassing, politically at home and/or diplomatically abroad. Every country, even Austria, needs to keep secrets, even from friends. This is why there is spying even on liaison partners, not least in order to protect one’s sources. Thomas Polgar, another experienced CIA officer with Central European experience put it succinctly: „A nation does not have friends, it has interests. You spy wherever you have interests.“(35) Naturally then the terms of trade, i.e. the very nature and conditions of the liaison relationship are quite crucial, particularly to junior partners. It appears that Austrian military intelligence in particular has earned for itself a reputation for reliability and competence in the larger intelligence world, specifially – and mostly for historical reasons – in the Central and Southeastern regions of Europe. Its good standing in matters of intelligence can sometimes have positive diplomatic repercussions. Obviously, September 11, 2001 has significantly changed the nature of the intelligence cooperation game and the perceived need for liaison intelligence has dramatically increased, both internally and transnationally, regionally and globally.(36) These perceptions have led to dramatic calls for multi-lateral burden-sharing, particularly to counter non-traditional threats.(37) Therein lies a good chance for increased participation and reciprocal contribution in intelligence alliances, not least for small states like Austria.(38)		SURVEY CONTENT THE CURRENT AUSTRIAN INTELLIGENCE ORGANIZATIONS INTELLIGENCE COOPERATION OR DEPENDENCE?