The US Congress is considering changes to the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing alliance of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US, but expanding it would be worse than a mistake.
US Representative Ruben Gallego, the chairman of the US House Intelligence and Special Operations Subcommittee, added language to the fiscal 2022 US National Defense Authorization Act, calling for the inclusion of Germany, Japan, India and South Korea to the alliance.
Gallego called Five Eyes “outdated,” adding that its scope should be expanded and “shouldn’t just be an Anglophile view of [intelligence] sharing.” The revised provision asserts that “the threat landscape has vastly changed since the inception of the Five Eyes arrangement, with primary threats now emanating from China and Russia.” Accordingly, the alliance should “expand the circle of trust to other like-minded democracies.”
There are two good reasons not to make Five Eyes into “Nine Eyes.”
First, expanding the alliance would not help counter threats from China and Russia. Rather, it could potentially exacerbate them. Journalist Michael Weiss, who has written extensively on intelligence matters, told me that “the unwritten provision of the agreement is that we do not spy on another or recruit another’s citizens.” Yet, as Weiss points out, Germany and India have had members of their political and financial elite penetrated by hostile foreign intelligence services, as have Japan and South Korea. National security analyst Tom Rogan said that Seoul also “shares the French DGSE’s [Directorate-General for External Security’s] predilection of spying on US economic targets.”
Germany in particular has long been a playground for foreign intelligence services — including that of the US. High-profile German politicians, such as former chancellor Gerhard Schroder, have gone to work for companies with close ties to Russian intelligence services.
Perhaps more importantly, the terms and spirit that underpin Five Eyes would not lend themselves to an expansion to the countries in question. Promising to cease intelligence operations in India, Germany and the rest would be a promise that the Five Eyes allies could not — and should not — keep. It would hinder intelligence gathering and warp intelligence analysis.
Additionally, Weiss said that “we can be allied with these countries without being willfully blind fools about what goes on in them.” Yet, if the principles that underlie the intelligence pact are extended to the proposed countries, this would be exactly what would happen — and it would be unnecessary. Indeed, all of the current signatories to the arrangement maintain close intelligence relations to the countries being considered.
The US and the UK, for example, have a long history of working closely with the German Federal Intelligence Service. The Japanese Public Security Intelligence Agency was created with heavy involvement from US occupation authorities, and is, to some extent, modeled after Britain’s legendary MI5. As the Council on Foreign Relations has documented, the CIA also “assisted in the creation of” the Indian Research and Analysis Wing.
Indeed, in the past three years, the US has agreed to share military communications and bases with India. Such capabilities have long existed in Germany, Japan and South Korea. Although there have been some bumps on the road — notably India was long suspicious of the close relationships of the US and the UK with its rival Pakistan — all countries have maintained close ties with those already in Five Eyes.
Additional layers of bureaucracy can hinder intelligence gathering and analysis. Put simply: Expanding Five Eyes would be an unnecessary risk.
Sean Durns is a Washington-based foreign affairs analyst.
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