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New Zealand is conducting covert surveillance operations against some of its strongest trading partners and has obtained sophisticated malware to infect targeted computers and steal data, newly released documents reveal. The country’s eavesdropping agency, Government Communications Security Bureau, or GCSB, is carrying out the surveillance across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond as part of its membership in the Five Eyes, a spying alliance that includes New Zealand as well as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. The documents, revealed on Tuesday by the New Zealand Herald in collaboration with The Intercept, expose more details about the scope of New Zealand’s involvement in the Five Eyes, and show that the agency’s reach extends far beyond its previously reported eavesdropping on at least ten small South Pacific nations and territories. According to secret files from the National Security Agency, obtained by The Intercept from whistleblower Edward Snowden, GCSB is targeting about 20 different nations and territories in total and sharing the intercepted data with the NSA. A top-secret document dated from April 2013 notes that the New Zealand agency “provides [the NSA with] collection on China, Japanese/North Korean/Vietnamese/South American diplomatic communications, South Pacific Island nations, Pakistan, India, Iran, and Antarctica.”

Aside from eavesdropping on communications through traditional interception methods, such as by capturing signals as they are passing between satellites or phone cables, the New Zealand agency has also become directly involved in more aggressive methods of spying and cyberwar. The newly revealed documents show that it has obtained a malware tool that is part of a platform named WARRIORPRIDE, used by the NSA and other Five Eyes agencies to hack into computers and smartphones, infect them with a bug, and then steal data. The documents note that GCSB “has a WARRIORPRIDE capability that can collect against an ASEAN target.” ASEAN, or Association of Southeast Asian Nations, may be a reference to New Zealand’s operations targeting Vietnam. The surveillance being conducted by the GCSB shines light on a secret variant of New Zealand’s foreign policy that contrasts with its official public foreign policy. Vietnam, for instance, has friendly relations with New Zealand and is a growing trading partner. The New Zealand government describes its relationship with Vietnam as having “flourished in the last 15 years.” The country poses no security or terrorist threat to New Zealand, the traditional explanation for GCSB operations given to the public. Yet its government is still on the GCSB spying list and its diplomatic communications have been eavsedropped on, likely in violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention of Diplomatic Relations, an international treaty ratified by New Zealand that says diplomats’ correspondence is “inviolable.”

Russia plans to transform its auxiliary naval base in Tartus, Syria, into a permanent Russian military base. Situated at the eastern Mediterranean coast, the permanent base would not only increase Russia’s presence in the Mediterranean but help circumvent the Bosporus bottleneck in NATO member State Turkey. The decision comes against the backdrop of a widening Middle East war and tensions over Crimea.

Pankov’s announcement about Russia’s plans for Tartus came only days after the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it was considering to re-establish a presence at military bases it used before the discontinuation of the Soviet Union. Talks between Russia and Vietnam are reportedly ongoing, as part of the Russian Federation’s new posture. The Deputy Chairman of  the international affairs committee of Russia’s State Duma (parliament), Alexey Chapa also called for restoring Russian military bases in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa. The naval base in Tartus at the northwestern coast of Syria is currently used as auxiliary bas. That is, as a logistics supply base for Russian vessels and as a base to support Russian operations in Syria via the Hmeymim Air Base in Latakia province. Russia recently deployed S-400 surface to air missile batteries in Tartus. The State Duma on October 7 ratified a Russian-Syrian agreement on the open-ended deployment of the Russian air group in Syria. The agreement was signed in Damascus on August 26, 2015. Nearly a year later President Vladimir Putin submitted it to the State Duma for consideration. The Federation Council will consider the agreement on October 12.

The  establishment of a permanent naval presence in Tartus involves political posturing, An unequivocal sign that Russia, as already forecast by this author in 2012, draws a red line in the Syrian sand. The transformation of Tartus into a permanent Russian base has, however, geopolitical and strategic implications within a wider context than Syria. The Russian Black Sea fleet in Crimea would have to pass through the Bosporus and the narrow Dardanelles to reach the Mediterranean. This “choke point” is controlled by NATO member Turkey. Moreover, NATO member States have increased their naval presence in the Black Sea since the eruption of the crisis in Ukraine and Russia’s annexation of Crimea, or Crimea’s accession into the Russian Federation. Which of the two constructs one considers as valid largely depends on whether one interprets international law to the effect that self-determination has primacy over territorial integrity or whether territorial integrity has primacy over self-determination. The outcome is the same; The Russian Black Sea fleet and its access to the Mediterranean has been threatened by the escalation of the situation in Ukraine.