Wie Amerikas Verbündete uns die Intelligenz steigern und warum Trump diese Zusammenarbeit bedroht

[SS from essay by David V. Gioe, British Academy Global Professor of Intelligence and International Security at King’s College London and a former CIA analyst and operations officer.]

Intelligence diplomacy—“liaison” is the term of art—is a key, if often hidden, element of national power. Washington has more liaison partners than is publicly known, because countries and even nonstate groups that do not wish to be seen engaging with American officials still speak with the United States government via clandestine channels. Traditionally, liaison relationships are unaffected by international politics and shifts in foreign policy; administrations come and go, and the intelligence flows uninterrupted. But occasionally, political developments are so dramatic that they intrude on intelligence liaison.

In the early 1970s, the Nixon administration temporarily reduced intelligence sharing with the [United Kingdom](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/regions/united-kingdom), thanks to London’s decision to prioritize relations with European countries aiming to join the European Economic Community, the precursor to the European Union, and American frustration with the British lack of support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War. More recently, in 2013, when a former National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden, revealed among other things that the United States had collected signals intelligence on the leaders of some of its European allies, effectively eavesdropping on them, several European countries briefly soured on their clandestine contacts with Washington. Now, the second Trump administration could trigger a new disruption of routine intelligence sharing between Washington and its allies.