A ngela Merkel’s phone is tapped and the transatlantic world seems to be in a shambles. The National Security Agency eavesdropping scandal involving the German chancellor has caused a significant loss of trust and credibility among America’s main allies in Europe and elsewhere.

Of course, this is not the first time we have faced a serious rift: Iraq, Guantánamo and climate change are a few issues that have triggered emotional reactions on both sides of the Atlantic in recent years.

But what makes the NSA scandal different is the fact that it directly targets the political elites of some of America’s closest allies. In previous crises, even leaders who officially disagreed with Washington on a given issue would often provide behind-the-scenes support. For example, while Gerhard Schr?der, Ms Merkel’s predecessor, won re-election on a populist anti-war platform in 2002, his centre-left government gave far more support – including intelligence sharing and flyover rights – to the intervention in Iraq of George W?Bush’s administration than they dared to admit in public.