America-Led Spy Network Risks Collapse Over Trump-Russia Fears
www.newsweek.com

... Picking up the pieces of a world shattered from World War II, the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand formally banded together to pool their intelligence.

This Anglophone intel-sharing arrangement, dubbed the Five Eyes, has seen its members through the many decades since, an elaborate web of intelligence capabilities pitted against threats they all agree pose a danger.

But in a matter of days, U.S. President Donald Trump and his top officials have shredded the order, and the consensus, that has dominated for 80 years. Upending U.S. foreign policy, slapping tariffs north of the border and splattering America's allies with disdain, the new administration quickly had those relying on Washington asking whether they can trust the U.S. to provide vital, and sensitive, capabilities.

Little is more sensitive than the Five Eyes, its gaze long fixed on Moscow and Beijing. It is, in short, the "most important intelligence sharing agreement in history," said Calder Walton, a historian specializing in national security and intelligence at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

But there are now pressing concerns over whether Trump will pull the U.S. from the alliance as part of his broader brush-off of America's allies -- and whether the remaining nations of the Five Eyes could survive it. One potential scenario could see the White House stymie what it shares with allies.

In another possible path, the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand could deem the U.S. an untrustworthy confidant and attempt to limit the intelligence it shares with Washington. American allies have watched with deepening unease the apparent rapprochement unfolding between the White House and the Kremlin. ...