Countries Which Want to Rein In NSA Spying Collectively Have Bigger Economies than the U.S. and Its Spy Buddies

Posted on October 26, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog

21 Nations Line Up Behind UN Effort To Stop NSA

Foreign Policy reports that 21 nations have joined the push for the adoption of a United Nations General Resolution protecting internet privacy against NSA spying.
They include the following nations:  Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, France, Germany, Guyana, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Norway, Paraguay, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, and Uruguay.
Those names don’t mean too much in a vacuum … so let’s look at the size of their economies (using International Monetary Fund figures for 2012):

COUNTRY	RANK (WORLD’S BIGGEST ECONOMIES)	GDP ($USD IN MILLIONS)
Germany	4th	3,429,519
France	5th	2,613,936
Brazil	7th	2,253,090
India	10th	1,841,717
Mexico	14th	1,177,398
Indonesia	16th	878,536
Switzerland	20th	631,183
Sweden	22nd	523,804
Norway	23rd	499,633
Argentina	26th	475,211
Austria	28th	394,868
South Africa	29th	384,315
Venezuela	31st	381,286
Hungary	58th	125,660
Ecuador	63rd	84,040
Cuba	70th	60,806
Uruguay	77th	49,920
Bolivia	93rd	27,232
Paraguay	95th	26,073
Liechtenstein	149th	5,113
Guyana	157th	2,828

TOTAL: $15,866,168 (remember: all figures in this post are in millions.)

In comparison, the U.S. – the world’s largest economy – has a GDP of $16,244,575 … larger than the 21 countries.
But we can’t look at this fight in a vacuum … the rest of the “Five Eyes” of allied spies – Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand – are backing the U.S.  As is Israel (and see this).
So let’s add them to the U.S. side of the ledger:

COUNTRY	RANK	GDP
U.S.	1st	16,244,575
United Kingdom	6th	2,476,665
Canada	11th	1,821,445
Australia	12th	1,541,700
Israel	39th	257,480
New Zealand	55th	169,831

TOTAL: $22,511,696

But China and Russia hate NSA spying so much that they have joined the  new BRICS consortium – along with India, Brazil and South Africa – which is building its own Internet infrastructure to avoid NSA spying.
So let’s add them to the total opposing NSA spying:

COUNTRY	RANK	GDP
21 Countries		15,866,168
China	2nd	8,221,015
Russia	8th	2,029,813

TOTAL: $26,116,996

The bottom line is that there is currently more money aligned against U.S. spying than for it.

Notes: The above analysis is admittedly over-simplified.  But it still shows the general shift of economic power away from American spy imperialism.

For example, concentration of economic power is important.  The U.S. – as the world’s largest economy – would presumably have more power than several nations whose GDP cumulatively equals the U.S.

Japan – the world’s 3rd largest economy – has been a close ally of the U.S. for some time.   Japan hasn’t weighed in on the spying issue, but if we count Japan’s GDP onto the U.S. side, it would swing the economic balance in favor of the U.S.

In addition, the U.S. has by far the world’s largest military, which – for now – gives it additional influence.

Technical note: For the couple of nations for which IMF figures were not available, we used the CIA Factbook.