Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meh, countries know they spy on each other. Sometimes they even use those processes to move information, just a different version of Nixon’s “For god’s sake, would someone leak this already?”
Ok, then why punish whistleblowers so harshly? Countries should consider it a useful public service.
Nations spying on nations (even allies) feels terrible but in practice is probably a net good for all. It reduces uncertainty, and uncertainty has historically been a major trigger for armed conflict as one side feared the other side was preparing to strike, so struck first to gain the initiative in case their fears were well-founded. History has shown that judgment to be inaccurate in some significant cases. Wars have also been avoided by good intel.
On the non-kinetic side, espionage better informs policymakers as international agreements are forged and followed. Uncertainty between nations is generally a bad thing for both nations.
We badly need to address nations spying on their own citizens, especially reciprocity arrangements to circumvent restrictions on such. But pending an unlikely utopia of humans all learning how to cooperate at scale for the first time in human history, nations spying on nations is probably a good thing for the planet.