What the U.S. loses when our allies stop sharing intelligence

Intelligence sharing between the U.S. and its allies has long been a powerful national security tool. But recently, some allies have stopped sharing key intelligence with the United States. What does that mean for U.S. national security?

Dan Lomas, assistant professor in International Relations at the University of Nottingham. He specializes in the history, present, and future of the UK intelligence and security community.

Jan Goldman, professor of intelligence and security studies at The Citadel Military College of South Carolina. Editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence.

The version of our broadcast available at the top of this page and via podcast apps is a condensed version of the full show. You can listen to the full, unedited broadcast here:

Part I  

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: Since September 2nd, the United States military has launched 21 strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific Ocean. Here's President Trump.

DONALD TRUMP: The way you look at it is every boat that we knock out, we save 25,000 American lives. So every time you see a boat, and you feel badly, you say, wow, that's rough.

It is rough, but if you lose three people and save 25,000 people, these are people that are killing our population.

CHAKRABARTI: Thus far, the U.S. military has killed 83 people in the boat strikes. Many international law and human rights experts have questioned the legality of these strikes and whether the boats were even carrying narcotics.

President Trump was asked by reporters on October 15th how the U.S. could confirm that the people on the boats were in fact narco traffickers.

TRUMP: We know before, we know when they go out, we know we have much information about each boat that goes out. Deep, strong information.

CHAKRABARTI: But where does this deep, strong information come from?

It comes from intelligence, of course, and not just the U.S.' But a network of intelligence sharing from American allies. That information sharing system is beginning to break down.

(CLIP PLAYS)

WOLF BLITZER: Just into the situation room, the United Kingdom is suspending some intelligence sharing with the United States because of the Trump administration strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.

CHAKRABARTI: CNN's Natasha Bertrand broke the news last week.

BERTRAND: Previously the UK had been a very important intelligent sharing partner for the U.S. in the Caribbean. Because of course the UK has a number of territories in the Caribbean. They have an interest in helping to stop the flow of drugs to the United States and to elsewhere in the Caribbean.

And so they would often share intelligence. But that changed when the U.S. military started actually blowing up these boats, using lethal force against these vessels. The UK was deeply uncomfortable with that. Felt that it violated international law. And for that reason, it suspended that intelligent sharing with the U.S. just over a month ago, we're told.

CHAKRABARTI: Now this is a major break with history and trust between two nations that have been sharing intelligence since World War II, but U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pushed back.

RUBIO: I did see a CNN report yesterday. I'm not gonna go into great detail, and to say that's it's a false story. It's a fake story. And what's happening now is people with a business card that has a government email on it, become sources because they're not even in the know. So they either have an agenda or they wanna make themselves important.

And it's been a plague of story after story that's either inaccurate or misleading. And that falls in the category of both. That story does. But again, going back, look, this is a counter-drug operation. The president's ordered it in defense of our country. It continues, it's ongoing. It can stop tomorrow if they stop sending drug boats.

CHAKRABARTI: We reached out to CNN's Natasha Bertrand to get her response to the secretary's claims that her reporting is quote "a false story." She said she stands by CNN's reporting. We also made a request to the Pentagon to confirm whether or not allied nations have pulled back on intelligence sharing. A Pentagon spokesperson said via email that they had no comment since, quote, this pertains to intelligence matters. End quote.

The British government gave us a similar response. Via email, a UK government spokesperson said: It is our longstanding policy to not comment on intelligence matters. End quote. Other nations though regarding intelligence sharing have followed suit. They have been public about reducing how much intelligence they are sharing with the United States.

Last week, Columbia's president, Gustavo Petro, said that in response to the strikes, he is directing all public security forces to, quote, suspend the sending of communications and other dealings with U.S. security agencies. End quote. And that quote: The fight against drugs must be subordinated to the human rights of the Caribbean people. End quote.

In the Netherlands, Eric Akerboom, director of the Dutch Intelligence and Security Service, and Peter Resnick, director of Dutch Military Intelligence, gave a joint interview to the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. They told the paper that the increasingly autocratic course of the Trump administration has raised alarms within Dutch intelligence.

Resnick said, quote: That we sometimes don't tell things anymore. That is true. Akerboom added that sharing is now considered on a case-by-case basis. We are very alert to the politicization of intelligence and to human rights violations.

And both men told the paper that this is the first time political developments within the United States are directly shaping Dutch intelligence ties.

And that is a break from decades of close cooperation the Dutch had with the CIA. And NSA. So this hour, we want to explore the history of intelligence sharing with the United States and what this current erosion of that sharing could mean for this country's national security. So let's start today with Dan Lomas.

He's an assistant professor in international relations at the University of Nottingham. He specializes in the history, present, and future of the UK intelligence and security community, and he joins us from Nottingham in the UK. Professor Lomas, welcome to On Point.

DAN LOMAS: Thanks for having me on.

CHAKRABARTI: So give us more context about what is known within the United Kingdom about the dimension, the nature of what is being shared and what's not being shared with the U.S. anymore.

It's interesting that you have the views of Secretary of State Rubio before the UK Foreign Secretary of Yvette Cooper has been questioned about this case as well, and has suggested that the UK continues to share intelligence with our allies, the United States, and adopted a similar line, perhaps not in the same language as the Secretary of State put out.

But the suggestion was that the UK continues to share information. In terms of what we know, the UK intelligence community has been quite clear in recent years that it is committed to international law. There is a transition period between what we might describe as the 9/11 wars period following the attacks in September 2001, where we saw the U.S. intelligence community alongside the UK engage in issues like extraordinary rendition. The targeting of terrorist suspects overseas and there has been an effort by the UK intelligence community to show an image of professionalism. And one that is deeply embedded within a bind with international law, an illegal and an ethical framework. And UK intelligence officials have always been clear recently about the norms in the international system.

What it seems from this story is that although more broadly intelligent sharing is continuing on the broader range of issues that listeners can think about. In this case, UK intelligence officials alongside UK government lawyers have posed significant questions about the legality of U.S. strikes against alleged trafficking boats across the Caribbean.

The UK has, as you made clear, has had a longstanding arrangement with the United States, alongside a coalition of allies in the Caribbean to engage in counter narcotics activity. The UK has a number of assets in the region, Naval vessels, diplomatic footprint.

And this information that's being collected and shared along with our allies has been previously used to good effect to interdict drug flows that come into the United States that harm U.S. nationals. So there is a clear positive from the sharing of this stuff, but what's clear is the UK is unsure or clear really that the killing of the targeting of individuals is not compliant with international law.

And therefore, a decision has been made to halt information that could be used for targeting of drug boats.

CHAKRABARTI: I see. So professor though, let me back up for a second and ask you. Where  intelligence meets politics meets public information, i.e. the statements, the formal statements from a secretary of state or a foreign secretary. It is to be expected that the words they choose continue to emphasize a strong relationship, the historical alliance, I should say, between the United States and the UK, and that everything is pressing on as normal.

I think also the public is right to be skeptical of those statements. Give me your honest assessment about whether the foreign office and the UK intelligence services do consider this, like just no change and everything going on as normal in intelligence sharing.

LOMAS: I think the big message of this is quite a damning one. That the UK intelligence services, the foreign office, and indeed government lawyers view U.S. strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean as illegal under international law. And they're echoing the views of other European states. The French government has also made similar statements or as referred to their similar concerns about this.

The UK intelligence services, the foreign office, and indeed government lawyers view U.S. strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean as illegal under international law.

Dan Lomas

I think in terms of what this sets as an example, I think it sets clearly to our allies that there are red lines in what even the UK will share with our U.S. counterparts. Because there are concerns that by sharing information with the United States, we are somehow complicit in the killing of individuals and international waters.

And that therefore opens up the potential for UK intelligence services to be caught up in litigation further down the line.

CHAKRABARTI: Can I just jump in here one more time professor, because you mentioned something earlier that deserves more discussion just for the next minute or two before our break.

And that is there is a history of UK intelligence being used by the United States to target individuals. It's like now almost a 25-year-old history. How much is that, first of all, elaborate on that and how much is that still haunting the UK intelligence services?

LOMAS: I think that the period of the 9/11 war, there was some, initially, some naivety over the United States robust response to terrorist activity in 2001. The idea that the CIA goes out there and captures and kills Al-Qaeda suspects. I think it was this element of naivety around what was happening and the sharing of that information.

And I think one of the key things that comes out in the 9/11 wars is that sharing information with an ally, you lose control over potentially how that information is used, even if you have caveats on there, on what you should and shouldn't do for that. And I think there is a legacy really of the 9/11 wars that the UK intelligence community are trying to get over today.

When we turn more to state threats, that the UK intelligence community abides by international law, it abides by ethical codes of conduct. And if you read the speeches of the heads of MI5, MI6, and GCHQ, they talk about the legal constraints and the ethical dimension to international spying.

And I think that's a message that's important to uphold and maintain today.

Part II

CHAKRABARTI: Can you take us back to, I guess, the 80-year history now of intelligence sharing between our two nations? What is the origin story of that particular relationship?

LOMAS: Yeah, so essentially, we're going back here to 1940, 1941. The origins of U.S. involvement in the Second World War, when British and American code breakers are viewing the mutual threat of Japan in the far East and Nazi Germany and Europe.

And they're initially coming together to swap information on code breaking activities against mutual threats. And really what we see is today's transatlantic special intelligence relationship harks back to the days of the Second World War. When we see perhaps the most extensive, the most intimate levels of cooperation between both sides during the second World War, over the mutual of the mutual threats that we faced, and that relationship that's forged during the midst of a World War leads in 1946 initially to signals intelligence cooperation between the United States and UK in a peace time setting.

So we see the emergence of what's called the ... arrangement in March 1946. That sets really the terms and conditions of future cooperation in peace time between our two intelligence communities.

And that is also built on by the CIA, it's formed in 1947. That begins a joint partnership with Britain Secret Intelligence Service, SIS, or MI6 in 1948. And beyond them, we see really the threat of the Soviet Union that brings the U.S. and the UK together. And really, the relationship we see today is forged just during the Second World War, but during the Cold War.

And although there's times when we fallout, we are tied together by that mutual threat of the Soviet Union. And indeed, during the 9/11 wars, the UK is sharing significant amounts of intelligence with the United States that safeguards the lives of U.S. nationals. And the thing to remember is that this is a highly resilient relationship.

It is one that works on multiple levels, depending on different types of intelligence. It's a relationship that it is officials working alongside each other, sometimes in the most testing of situations. And these are officials who develop friendships, they develop relationships, even. They are working closely together.

And what we see really is the emergence of a transatlantic intelligence alliance that binds our two countries together.

CHAKRABARTI: And how has the UK benefited from this intelligence sharing relationship, because we've obviously been focusing on how UK Intel is used in the United States, but describe the benefit to the United Kingdom.

LOMAS: It is of immense value. The collaboration between MI6 and the CIA, the collaboration between the U.S. National Security Agency and our own GCHQ certainly benefits the UK with access to technological development, with access to U.S. resources. In terms of looking at this from the bigger picture, the U.S. can bring to the table more resources.

The U.S. IC is much more bigger than the UK intelligence community, so the size and weight of the US IC means that the UK benefits from access to assessments, intelligence sourcing, shared operations. So the benefits of the UK is immense.

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah. Has a breakdown like this, whether depending on one's point of view, it might be small, it might be temporary, it might be large. I'm getting the sense from you, professor, that you see this as a significant moment, but has something like this in the previous 80 years ever happened before?

LOMAS: We see intelligence officials sometimes fallout, but usually it's around individual aspects of the broader relationship. There might be a breakdown in human intelligence relationships between SIS and the CIA, but the broader impact is less felt on other areas like code breaking. There have been moments, the Suez Crisis in 1956, notable moment where politicians don't see eye to eye, and intelligence officials blame that largely on the President and the Prime Minister.

There are examples in the 1970s where the Nixon administration tries to pressure the UK to adopt a different response to its European policy, and we do see aspects of intelligent sharing cut off. Particularly around the sharing of satellite imagery and imagery intelligence.

But then there are other parts of the relationship that, again, just blame it on the politicians. So GCHQ and the National Security Agency continue to work side by side. So I think this relationship has been highly resilient. I think what we're seeing now is, Yes, it's highly compartmentalized and it's largely around the U.S. targeting of nationals in international water and the fear that is a breach of international law.

But I think that what we're getting from this is the broader symbolic effect, I think of what it suggests that we think of U.S. policy in that part of the globe.

CHAKRABARTI: Is there any concern in the UK that President Trump, in particular, the administration writ large, has been very willing to use the tools of the U.S. government to retaliate when it decides that not only domestically, but even internationally, it doesn't like what nations are doing?

So is there any concern in the UK that perhaps the president would direct U.S. intelligence services to act reciprocally, sorry. And reduce how much the United States shares with the UK?

LOMAS: I think there has been tit for tat previously, so the example I cite in the 1970s, there was a tit for tat.

I think that if we know that the president is impulsive, we know that the president often likes knee jerk responses to a situation. In terms of the broader political relationship between the U.S. and UK, the president has a good relationship with Prime Minister Starmer.

But I think that if the president was to engage in tit for tat against the UK, I think that would be detrimental. I think that although you asked the question before of what does the UK get out of this? The United States equally gets a lot of access to geographical locations, whether that's targeting sites close to Europe for targeting maybe Russia and other countries across the Middle East as well.

But also United States gets a lot of information from the UK that is beneficial to the safeguarding security of the lives of U.S. nationals. And I think that even though the U.S. brings 80% to 90% of the budget to maybe the relationship and the bigger share of resources.

No country can collect all the intelligence it wants, and the UK has had a history of providing important information to the U.S. that safeguarded the lives of your nationals. So I think that, yes, the U.S. could potentially go down its route, but it would heavily impact on U.S. national security and would be detrimental.

CHAKRABARTI: We're going to bring in an American voice here in just a minute, but professor, there's one more question I wanted to ask you. Especially given how much has changed in the UK regarding its relationship with Europe. To put it lightly, and I'm thinking about this because as I read earlier, two Dutch Chiefs of Intelligence, when they confirmed that they're sharing intelligence with the U.S. on a case-by-case basis.

Now, later on in that interview with the Netherlands newspaper they also said they are simultaneously increasing intelligence sharing with their European partners. Now the UK is no longer part of that European partnership. So is there, I don't know, is there any sort of broader concern that there's a possibility of unasked for intelligence isolation by the UK?

LOMAS: No. I think we have to separate out the impact of Brexit from 2016 from broader intelligence sharing. Most of the UK's intelligence partnerships are bilateral. So it's between us and France's DGSE or the BND in Germany. And in terms of the broader relationship, I think there was a really good statement by the former.

The just outgoing chief of MI6 Richard Moore, who appeared with his French counterparts on a stage in Paris and talked about the virtues of the Entente Cordiale and Britain's longest serving relationship. And he was dumbing down really that in an age post Brexit.

The UK was still punching above its weight in terms of sharing information with our European partners, and I think that yes, the United States, we maintain that special intelligence relationship with the United States, but equally we also maintain close bonds with our European allies. And indeed, sorry to put this on U.S. listeners, but if we are looking at kind of the broader history of MI6 its first major relationship is not with the United States, but it's with the French Intelligence services.

So we are dumbing down really on our European partnerships.

CHAKRABARTI: No need to apologize for relating factual history, professor.

Hang on here for just a minute because as I said, we do want to bring in a U.S. voice here, and that is Jan Goldman. He's a professor of intelligence and security studies at the Citadel Military College of South Carolina.

His research focuses on ethics and intelligence operations, and he previously taught at the National Intelligence University, CIA University and the FBI Academy in Quantico. He's also the editor in chief of the International Journal of Intelligence and Counter Intelligence. Professor Goldman, welcome to you.

JAN GOLDMAN: Thank you very much. Glad to be here.

CHAKRABARTI: We're delighted to have you. Give me your, first of all, give me your response to this first sort of this trickle of a few nations saying they're gonna change their information sharing protocol with the United States.

GOLDMAN: So last week I was in Europe.

And while I was in Europe giving some lectures the news broke that the EU was looking to establish its own intelligence organization, an EU Intel agency. If you will, though they're not that far, but they're in the talking stage and I think that is indicative of where EU sees itself in its relationship of getting intelligence from the United States. U.S. will always share intelligence with the Europeans.

And it does go back to the end of World War I, when as my colleague mentioned, there was a collaboration, which was known as Five Eyes. And this group Five Eyes, which was made up of the United States and United Kingdom, as well as Canada, Australia and New Zealand. And that was because they had a common enemy, a threat if you will.

And if you look at the history of CIA, going back to when it was founded on July 26th, 1947, after World War II, the CIA had one specific mission I would say, and it was to follow the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union collapsed and then we had the onslaught of 9/11. The threat assessments changed. And so quite frankly, even our sharing of intelligence with the Five Eyes group, we were now looking at counterterrorism, counterproliferation, cyber, which is now, as well as regional and global coverage for threats.

And I think that this has worked out really well. However, over time we've run into some problems. And I want to talk about, if I may, problems in the relationship of sharing intelligence between one country and another. And the first thing I would point out is technology.

Open-source intelligence is a major player in the community. And you've got bots putting out disinformation as well. But now we have the onslaught of AI, artificial intelligence, and this is something that the U.S., which is the largest intelligence collector in the world, without a doubt.

But back in the day, and when I say back in the day, I'm talking about after World War II, up until probably as recent as 2010. U.S. had a monopoly on information collection and intelligence that seems to have dissipated. And I would say that has put strenuous tension, if you will, on our relationship with other countries who are also collecting intelligence too.

CHAKRABARTI: Professor Goldman, do you mind if I just jump in here for a second because I want to clarify some terminology here so that no one misunderstands.

GOLDMAN: Oh yeah, sure.

CHAKRABARTI: When you say open-source intelligence, what does that actually mean?

GOLDMAN: Information. Oh, thank you. I'm sorry for that. Open source intelligence is intelligence that you can pick up on the internet, on the web that is unclassified. When I talk about us having a monopoly, it was basically the three levels of classification. Top secret and confidential.

But now you can get information that is what we call open source, which is unclassified. And I'll give you an example. Back in the day, one of my jobs was looking at satellite photographs and basically analyzing satellite photographs to see what we were seeing, right? Those same satellite photographs now can be picked up on Google Maps.

And while my photographs were top secret, Google Maps is unclassified, and anyone can have access to it. So when I say open access, I'm talking about anyone who has a computer, a cyber connection can get intelligence.

CHAKRABARTI: So professor, hold on here for just a second because I actually, I have to let Dan Lomas go in just a quick minute here, and I wanted to have him offer us a last word.

Professor Lomas, what will you be looking at in the coming, I don't know, in the near-term future, regarding potentially other significant changes in intelligence sharing between the U.S. and the UK?

LOMAS: I think the U.S. at the moment is not afraid of having a robust approach, let's say, and to be diplomatic about some of the responses, some of the security issues out there.

I think this decision to halt intelligence sharing in the Caribbean is about threat to life and whether or not the UK intelligence community will be complicit in the killing of individuals in international waters. If the United States was to take a similar response in other parts of the globe, that would probably have a direct impact on the UK's ability to share intelligence in some of these other areas.

So I think the ball is in the court of the United States administration depending on what they're going to do next. And I think that if the U.S. goes down this robust route. European allies, and particularly the UK, will continue with this idea of maintaining international law and ethics. I think that's the clear dividing line here.

The ball is in the court of the United States administration depending on what they're going to do next.

Dan Lomas

Part III

CHAKRABARTI: We did reach out to other allies, including several within the Five Eyes Partnership, as you had mentioned earlier.

They all sent us responses that were let's call them variations on a theme. From New Zealand, the intelligence community there sent us a statement that said the Five Eyes partnership is fundamental to the work of the New Zealand intelligence community. And then said: All cooperation and intelligence sharing by the New Zealand intelligence community with international partners is subject to New Zealand's laws. Including human rights obligations.

And then from the Canadians, they sent us an email saying: We share information on a case-by-case basis in accordance with Canadian and international law. The information sharing relationship with all our allies is governed by policies and procedures, all aimed at ensuring the respect of our legal and international obligations.

Professor Goldman, there's something in that particular statement from Canada that I want to ask you about, that their first line says they share information on a case-by-case basis. That's what the Dutch also said. I quoted the Intelligence Chiefs there at the top of the show. Has that always been the case in terms of Five Eyes or just general bilateral information sharing?

That there's an agreement that it's not going to be just, they're not going to, everyone's not going to open their books, but if they think something is worthy of sharing, that's what they choose to share.

GOLDMAN: Yes. Needless to say, that if one of our partners in the intelligence community saw that Americans were in danger, you would hope that they would share that information.

Though I have to say you, you would hope. Because there were some instances where if they held that information back, they would be protecting their own sources. So it's not ironclad. You need to understand that intelligence sharing is really an asset. It's a commodity and it's perishable, which means it's timely.

Intelligence sharing is really an asset. It's a commodity and it's perishable, which means it's timely.

Jan Goldman

And, we one time, if you go back to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, the U.S. did something at that time, and this was in the winter of 2022. And then January 2023. And that was the United States shared intelligence with its European allies and the Ukrainians that Russia was going to invade.

And it seemed like the U.S. allies and the Ukrainians were not convinced. And so the U.S. did something really unprecedented. And that was, they took intelligence sharing and they made it available in open source. So that the media had now was getting this sanitized intelligence. And the reason they were getting this was because the U.S. was concerned that the Russians were going to make an excuse, which is what we call a fig leaf. To go into Ukraine for their invasion. And in fact, even after all the intelligence was exposed, the sharing was ignored.

Russia went in and then all of a sudden it became apparent. So you need to understand intelligence sharing can also be political. The fact that Denmark is taking some concerns and holding back intelligence, you don't need to be a political scientist to realize that U.S. has made some discussions, inroads into Greenland.

Intelligence sharing can also be political.

Jan Goldman

And the last thing that the Danes want is to share intelligence with the U.S. who's looking to basically do something with Greenland. So the bottom line is intelligence sharing is not cut and dry. It's not black and white. It's heavy politics really involved.

There are common interests.

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah. So this is interesting because I'd love to lean on your long-term history in the intelligence community. Some 40 years now, if I have that correct.

GOLDMAN: 42.

CHAKRABARTI: 42. Okay. Thank you.

GOLDMAN: Who's counting?

CHAKRABARTI: So when you look across the current state of intelligence sharing with the U.S., how would you describe it? Good, bad, not good?

GOLDMAN: Intelligence sharing between the U.S. and allies have been because of a common threat. And basically, we have been in the past more than willing to share intelligence.

Now there's different levels of sharing, right? Needless to say, that's why we have top secret, and confidential and secret in between. But we have been sharing intelligence. I think what we're seeing now, which we have not seen in the past, is that some of our allies are concerned because our foreign policy has been, and to use a term, erratic.

Is that they're not quite sure. We're talking about the Caribbean; we're talking about Venezuela, Greenland. And it used to be the Soviet Union and then Russia and now, China is on our doorstep. And technology and this thing called AI. And the U.S. intelligence community tends to be, from what I have in my discussion with my colleagues, I have not seen this many changes, if you will since the late 1990s. When Clinton was the president and we were looking at the peace dividend. Because the wall came down, the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union no longer existed. And a lot of my colleagues were retiring or getting out, teaching.

And then all of a sudden, 9/11 hit and now that was a major hit to the intel community. And now we're seeing it change again.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So let me put a finer point on it. You, at the very top of the show, and also in your conversation with our producer prior to today. You've said, and please correct me if we misinterpreted you, but you've said that in terms of other countries sharing their intel with the U.S., you've said this is the worst I've seen it in this tenuous relationship of sharing intelligence in the 40 years that you've been involved in the intelligence community. Yes?

GOLDMAN: Yes. But I'm going to caveat that. Number one is, as I mentioned previously, it deals with our foreign policy being erratic. And some of our allied countries that we shared with are not so sure. We've never had a foreign policy that borders on being unstable, if you will.

But here's the other thing. Because as I mentioned earlier, technology and because politicalization of intelligence has always existed at a lower level. We can go back to the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But when I teach my students about politicalization of intelligence, I actually include the Gulf of Tonkin, which we got into the Vietnam War, which reports came out a couple weeks ago, if not a couple months ago.

That the ship that was supposedly fired upon, never really was fired upon, but was the reason for us to get into Vietnam. These are all things that politicalization has always existed.

CHAKRABARTI: Professor, if I could just jump in here. Because I think you're leading to a very important point.

You are absolutely right. And we have, for people who weren't alive during Vietnam. Absolutely. The Iraq War, et cetera, provided a perfect exhibit on how intelligence itself can and has been politicized. But what I'm interested in this case is I keep going back to what the Dutch Intelligence Chiefs told one of their national newspapers.

In an on the record interview, that this is the first time political developments, not the intelligence, but actual politics in the United States, were shaping what the Dutch decided to share with us. That's something different than intelligence being politicized.

This is politics just preventing intel from coming to the United States, i.e. these nations are saying, we just can't trust the White House with the intel that we give them anymore. That seems to be a profound break to me.

GOLDMAN: And that goes back to my previous statement that if you have an erratic foreign policy, there's no stabilization that one can look at.

And I would say just to look at a call ... look at our economic policy. We have tariffs of 100%, and then they drop the next day down to 10%. And so if you're a shop owner, do you import or do you wait until the tariffs to come down? If you're dealing with national security, you're getting intelligence and you're providing it too, or sharing.

How do you know that in that intelligence is not going to come back and bite you? So I mean that's just common sense. And we never had that. We never had it that openly as what we're seeing today.

CHAKRABARTI: So let me go back then to something else that you said and there is a very perhaps powerful contrarian point of view here. Is that you said so much of intelligence right now is essentially open source, right? It's just like out there in the digital world. And that we don't necessarily, or don't even at all, have to rely on human intelligence or more localized intelligence gathering in other countries as much anymore.

So given that, is this change from the UK, from the Dutch, et cetera? Will it actually have a big impact or not really on how much the NSA or the CIA can scoop up?

GOLDMAN: Let me just make a correction there. I did say that a lot of the information, as much as 80%, 85%, 90% of information is out there, open source, unclassified.

But that is the assumption that all that information is correct. Where classified intelligence comes in is having a person on a staff, having a human involved in an organization. When you look at, intelligence breaks down, intelligence sharing actually breaks down into two components, right?

Capabilities and intentions. Capabilities is basically, what do you have? And then in intentions is how you're going to use it. And really you can fly over and take all the photographs you want.

And you could count tanks or missiles. But if you don't have somebody on the inside who can tell you whether they're going to use that or not, or what their plans are, and then of that 80% of the information that's available, how much of it is actually true? Remember I did mention about bots. I did mention that AI exists. And the concern I have is we're inundated. We're inundated with information, which is not just the U.S., but our allies are inundated with information.

Where sharing of intelligence comes in is each country uses their own assets, their own sources to verify with other countries that this is exactly true and that some type of action needs to be taken. Otherwise, we are just flooded with information. So sharing is called, you have collaboration.

We are the largest intelligence enterprise in the world, United States. But there are some countries, Africa or Asia, that they have other countries have better intel sources than we do. We can fly over the satellites, but we don't have the people in there speaking the language that are moles, that are agents, that are answering to another country and then that country can tell us what's going on.

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah. Yeah. So professor, we only have unfortunately, just like a minute or so left, and I should have gotten to this earlier, but bottom line for Americans is they're wondering if this new era of reduced intelligence sharing, will it weaken U.S. national security?

GOLDMAN: It can, I think absolutely.

Look, even though we have the greatest Intel community. And we can suck up all this information from space. The bottom line is that it really does, intelligence comes down to people. And as I mentioned about capabilities, it really gets into people's head. And other countries are well placed to tell us what's in other people's heads that we cannot get to.

CHAKRABARTI: And so therefore, that wouldn't just have an impact on, let's say, Americans abroad, but it could actually be dangerous here.

GOLDMAN: I think it could be, it is across the board. I just think that when other countries are concerned about what another country's foreign policy is going to be, and that they're not, they're going to hold back some intelligence. I think there's something that we should all be concerned about.

The first draft of this transcript was created by Descript, an AI transcription tool. An On Point producer then thoroughly reviewed, corrected, and reformatted the transcript before publication. The use of this AI tool creates the capacity to provide these transcripts.