Five eyes dimming

And the Deep State takes it on the chin

The “Five Eyes” intelligence sharing arrangement has put the United States’ hundred billion dollar+ intelligence budget at the service of the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, vastly benefitting the intelligence agencies of Anglosphere allies.

Image by Ezequiel3585 public domain

But, to the shock of many, the Trump administration is cutting them out of key areas of interest. Politico’s European edition reports:

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is blocking America's closest intelligence allies from receiving updates on Russia-Ukraine peace talks in a shock move that upends decades of tight cooperation.

That effectively cuts America's Five Eyes partners — the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — out of the loop, stunning the intelligence community that has relied on the network since the end of World War II.

In a July 20 directive signed by Gabbard, reported by CBS, the U.S. intelligence community was given orders to classify all analysis and information related to the Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations as "NOFORN," or no foreign dissemination, meaning the information cannot be shared with any other country or foreign nationals.

There is no love lost between President Trump and the collective Deep State of the Anglosphere.

In concert with Deep State operatives embedded in the US intel community, spooks from half of the other four members collaborated in trying to bring down President Trump’s first campaign and then successfully hobble his first term in office.

Remember Trump campaign aide young George Papadopoulos being set up -- to provide an excuse for electronic surveillance of the Trump campaign – in a night of “heavy drinking” in a posh London wine bar? In that operation, top level Aussie diplomat/politician/spook Alexander Downer was joined by a comely undercover female FBI agent who called herself Azra Turk, who has never been publicly identified. Thefemme fatale delivered the question that yielded the statement that became the alleged basis for spying on the 2016 Trump campaign. (A New York Times 2017 article that has not aged well, deadpanned:

It was not, as Mr. Trump and other politicians have alleged, a dossier compiled by a former British spy hired by a rival campaign. Instead, it was firsthand information from one of America’s closest intelligence allies.

That was the very beginning of Russia, Russia, Russia as a global conspiracy to prevent Donald Trump from becoming President of the United States, and once elected, to sabotage his presidency. It was a collaboration of agencies from 3 of the 5. When the spooks decided to control who got to be president, half of the other 4 eyes were in on it from the start.

But beyond any animus, there is absolutely no strategic reason for President Trump to favor the other four eyes when it comes to complete and honest intelligence sharing. That’s something of great value and making it a “gimme” for other Anglo-Saxon players diminishes our bargaining leverage.

President Trump never gives up bargaining leverage.

I am sure we get some information of value from New Zealand, but how can it compare to the sheer volume of data provided by our intelligence community? Given the sizable sums spent on space and electronics alone, we can supply or deny an endless array of data.

Any other nation that wants the benefits of our national security capabilities has to realize that Uncle Sam is “Daddy”.

Mark Rutte used humor to express an unpleasant reality to the Europeans of NATO: all the leverage is in Trump’s hands; he’s calling the shots. Get used to it. Lots of people on the left call this hegemony, but that’s a whole other topic.

With President Trump conducting the presidency as a series of transactions, everything is connected. Our intelligence capabilities are no longer automatically available to anyone else for any reason. In every deal, there is no limit to what President Trump brings to the table as bargaining chips.

Five Eyes won’t cease to exist tomorrow, of course; Most of the routines will continue until further notice. And no doubt there is plenty of benefit to the US. But those other four aren’t automatically seeing everything.

It’s the end of an era.

Thomas Lifson is the retired founder, editor, and publisher of American Thinker.