The then head of Germany’s foreign-intelligence service arrived in Kyiv on February 23rd 2022, to meet Ukraine’s leaders. BRUNO KAHL was certain that the Russians would not invade. He never saw them. Around 4am the next morning Russian forces lunged for Kyiv. Mr Kahl had to be exfiltrated from his hotel, with the help of allied spooks, weaving through the throng of refugees heading for Poland.
Underlying everything is President Donald Trump’s disdain for allies. Indeed, some worry America itself could be a direct threat given Mr Trump’s trade war and musings about annexing Canada, Iceland and (until recently) Greenland.
At least one ally is making contingency plans in case America severs intelligence-sharing, says a former American intelligence official.
His suspension of intelligence for Ukraine last year, albeit brief, set off alarm bells.
Japan unlearned much of its tradecraft after the end of the second world war. Its spooks cannot operate undercover abroad and are restricted in chasing foreign spies at home. Disparate bodies share intelligence ad hoc, relying on paper copies. The body nominally in charge of them, the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office (CIRO), has typically been entrusted to former domestic security-police officers. Next, the Japanese government wants a fully-fledged foreign intelligence agency. It is also drawing up new domestic anti-espionage laws to counter the growing threat from China, Russia and North Korea. Previous efforts faced resistance owing to the legacy of Japan’s imperial-era secret police. Parliament is expected this week to debate reforms that would strengthen the BND’s ability not only to watch but also to act. Some want more European integration. The more widely secrets are shared, the less likely they are to remain secret. And Five Eyes, an alliance of countries with a common language and a history of fighting and spying together, cannot readily be replicated by others. Yet urgent need can overcome mistrust, as happened with counter-terrorism. EU intelligence cells now synthesise ever more analysis from members, though turf battles in Brussels are a headache.
A Japanese writer once called it a house-cat compared with the CIA “tiger”. This summer Japan launched the National Intelligence Council, a “control tower” for its intelligence efforts, and the National Intelligence Bureau, a beefed-up version of the CIRO, to consolidate information from all sources, akin to Australia’s Office of National Intelligence, which is helping with the transformation. The agency will be able to, say, hack opponents or even use “kinetic means” abroad (without deliberately harming people) to make foes “feel the pain”, in the words of Martin Jäger, the BND chief. If the changes are adopted, Mr Conrad says, “We will go from being vegetarian to maybe flexitarian in a world of carnivores. In 2024, Sauli Niinisto, a former Finnish president, proposed “a fully-fledged intelligence co-operation service” at the EU level. The Dutch government and the German defence minister have called for a European version of “Five Eyes”. That is easier said than done. When it comes to raw intelligence, “sharing at the level of NATO or the EU is almost impossible,” says Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven, a former BND deputy chief.
A parliamentary committee in Canada is studying whether it too needs a dedicated foreign-espionage agency after repeated shocks, including the murder of a Sikh activist by suspected Indian agents in 2023 and, more recently, the hostility of Mr Trump, whose officials have privately threatened to eject Canada from Five Eyes. Like Germany, Sweden did not predict Russia’s invasion. On his recommendation Sweden is creating a n ew foreign-intelligence agency that will begin operating next year. The main Canadian intelligence service, CSIS, is primarily focused on domestic threats, with only limited authority to collect HUMINT abroad.
“The system captures capabilities, but doesn’t capture intent,” says Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister. It will produce national assessments from secret, commercial and public sources to “widen our aperture”, explains Mr Bildt. The foreign ministry’s “global security reporting programme” gathers some information, but its ambiguous status between diplomacy and espionage has caused problems.
