Trump Disrupts the Western Spy Alliance

Source: Observer | January 22, 2017 | John R. Schindler

Our new president’s rumored Kremlin ties are panicking our espionage partners

For three-quarters of a century it’s ranked among the world’s most important secrets. The American-led global spy alliance, born in the early years of the Second World War, is beyond question the most effective partnership in espionage history. Now, it’s all starting to come unraveled.

This remarkable hush-hush story began in the summer of 1940, in the dark days after the fall of France to the Wehrmacht, when Britain stood alone against Hitler, who occupied most of Europe. With his ally Stalin, the Nazis and Soviets had divided much of the continent between them, and it seemed only a matter of time before Britain gave in—as several ministers in Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s cabinet were counseling, so bleak did London’s odds appear.

…..

Unknown to the public, FDR also dispatched experts across the Atlantic to assist the British in the SpyWar. British and American spies began sharing secrets in the late summer of 1940, and in January 1941 U.S. intelligence officers were sent in secret to assist British code-breakers with ULTRA. Here, American know-how paid dividends, and months before the United States was officially in the Second World War, its spies were serving on its clandestine front lines.

So was born history’s greatest spy alliance. Anglo-American signals intelligence cooperation in the ULTRA secret, which soon encompassed Canada, Australia, and New Zealand too, played a role on all fronts in the global conflict and made possible numerous Allied victories. That ULTRA shortened the Second World War by months and perhaps years is not in doubt.

This secret alliance was so successful that the Anglosphere SIGINT partnership continued after Allied victory, and would soon prove vital in the budding Cold War too. The Five Eyes family, as it’s called, eventually expanded into other kinds of intelligence, but code-breaking remained its heart. Anglosphere SIGINT played a key role in keeping the Cold War from going hot, and it’s continued to the present day, keeping global peace while tracking terrorists and other international malefactors such as nuclear proliferators and narco-thugs.

After 9/11, intelligence-sharing became more important than ever and it’s no exaggeration to term the American-led spy alliance the secret shield that keeps the West safe from jihadists. In a high percentage of cases, operations to take down terrorists before they kill innocents begin with a tip, usually from SIGINT, that’s shared among intelligence partners rapidly, leading to successful disruption “left of boom” as the spies say.

Unfortunately, newly-inaugurated President Donald Trump is threatening the whole Western intelligence system with his brusque comments about our spies and worrisome ties to Moscow. For the first time, an American president is causing our allies and partners to wonder if Washington can still be trusted.

….

It’s not just Washington that’s worried. Throughout the Western spy alliance, intelligence agencies are pondering the previously unthinkable: Is the American president compromised? On several occasions over the decades, the IC had to reduce spy-links, usually only temporarily, to various partners when a new government contained too many cabinet ministers with Moscow linkages. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and it’s the American government that seems to have a Kremlin problem.

….

If President Trump doesn’t explain his shady Kremlin ties soon, the impending Senate Intelligence Committee investigation, which will have subpoena powers, will explain them for him. Our allies and spy-partners are watching with baited breath. If they don’t get answers soon, the 75-year-old American-led Western espionage alliance will start breaking down, with ominous real-world consequences. The public won’t hear much about the collapse of the West’s spy alliance, which works hard to keep itself out of the newspapers, but if terrorist attacks are suddenly on the rise, with innocents dying in greater numbers, you will know it’s happened.

Tagged: , ,

Viewing 1 post (of 1 total)
Viewing 1 post (of 1 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic.