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Picking up the pieces of a planet shattered by World War II, the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand formally banded together to pool their intelligence.
This Anglophone arrangement dubbed the Five Eyes—an elaborate web of intelligence capabilities pitted against threats—has seen its members through the many decades since.
But in a matter of days, President Donald Trump and his top officials have shredded the order that has dominated for 80 years. Upending U.S. foreign policy, slapping tariffs north of the border and splattering America's allies with disdain, the new administration has had those relying on Washington asking whether they can trust the U.S. to provide vital and sensitive capabilities.
Little is more sensitive than the Five Eyes, its gaze long fixed on Moscow and Beijing. It is the "most important intelligence sharing agreement in history," said Calder Walton, a historian specializing in national security and intelligence at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
There are now pressing concerns over whether Trump will pull the U.S. from the alliance as part of his broader brush-off of America's allies—and whether the remaining Five Eyes nations could survive it. One potential scenario could see the White House stymie what it shares with allies. In another, the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand could deem the U.S. an untrustworthy confidant and limit the intelligence it shares with Washington.
American allies have watched with deepening unease the apparent rapprochement between the White House and the Kremlin. Some are now discussing reeling in the intelligence they share with the U.S. because of the administration's Russia stance, NBC reported on March 6, citing four anonymous sources with knowledge of the debates.
"As long as Trump is president, the Five Eyes doesn't have value," a U.S. military official told Newsweek.
What Is The Five Eyes?
The Five Eyes brings intelligence agencies together in a 24-hour rolling operation. It covers various types of information, including signals intelligence led by cooperation between the U.S.'s National Security Agency, Britain's GCHQ, the Australian Signals Directorate, Communications Security Establishment Canada, or CSE, and New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau.
Newsweek reached out to the NSA, GCHQ, the Australian Signals Directorate and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service for comment.
The Five Eyes can also pass on distilled or redacted intelligence to its other allies, and there had been chatter about broadening out the alliance to include other countries with specialized knowledge of China, like South Korea or Japan, although ex-intelligence officials are skeptical about the appetite and practicality of this.
The alliance is "absolutely extraordinary in the history of intelligence and national security," credited with helping steer the world away from nuclear conflict throughout the Cold War, historian Walton said. "We're really on a knife-edge here."
The NSA and GCHQ are so intertwined, he said, that they can act as backups for one another. "The U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand are literally hardwired into each other," Walton said. "They are part of the same system."
Could U.S. Gaze Turn Elsewhere?
The Five Eyes, while a product of the early Cold War, "still brings incredible value," said Christopher Johnstone, a partner at The Asia Group strategic advisory firm who served as director for East Asia in the National Security Council under President Joe Biden. "If it were to break down, it would have real consequences for all five parties," he told Newsweek, but stressed that he didn't believe it to be "an immediate risk."
"But I do think there's a risk of an erosion of the cooperation that, over time, could be quite harmful," he said.
In a hint of Five Eyes fractures, the Financial Times reported in late February that one of Trump's top officials, Peter Navarro, had lobbied for the U.S. to remove Canada from the alliance. Navarro swiftly denied this, telling the media that the U.S. "would never, ever jeopardize our national security, ever, with allies like Canada." But it heightened worries over how the new administration would handle the U.S.'s role in the Five Eyes and how belligerent its attitude would become toward its allies in the intelligence realm.
The U.S. could, theoretically, force out Canada, "effectively sabotaging the alliance from within," Walton said. The U.S. military official described this scenario as unlikely but added, "stranger things have happened."
For now, Walton said, we are in uncharted territory.
'Cause To Be Worried'
"There is some cause to be worried" about the future of the Five Eyes, a former U.S. intelligence official told Newsweek. Much of the intelligence sharing—particularly with signals intelligence and imagery—is done automatically, but there is a risk that the Five Eyes countries "may become more restrained in sharing the most sensitive intelligence" if they lose confidence in how the U.S. would handle it, the official said.
Trump has repeatedly railed against America's spy and intelligence agencies. Tulsi Gabbard, his director of national intelligence, publicly parroted Kremlin talking points before committing to "refocus" the intelligence community after being sworn in. It is unclear how.
During Trump's first term he reportedly shared "highly classified information" with Russia's foreign minister and ambassador at a White House meeting. Trump "revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies," an anonymous U.S. official described as familiar with the matter told the Washington Post in 2017. H.R. McMaster, Trump's then-national security adviser, described the report as "false" at the time. McMaster in recent days has said that Trump was being "played" by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin "could not dream of doing better than having the Five Eyes alliance undermined and sabotaged from within," Walton said. "Whether Trump knows it or not, he's doing Putin's bidding for him."
Early in March, the White House turned off the tap to Ukraine of U.S.-derived intelligence, with huge implications for Kyiv's military effort against Russia and opaque consequences for detecting incoming threats. Signals intelligence provided by GCHQ and the NSA "are the big engine rooms of intelligence gathering, collection and dissemination," Walton said.
"Without intelligence, information, we might go blind," the head of Ukraine's foreign affairs committee, Oleksandr Merezhko, told Newsweek before the U.S. resumed aid and intelligence-sharing following high-ranking meetings with Ukraine on March 11.
Trump had suspended U.S. military aid to Ukraine, including supplies waiting just miles from its border. It followed Trump and Vice President JD Vance publicly scolding Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelensky from the White House, accusing him of ingratitude.
"Trump is seeking alignment with Putin," Gabrielius Landsbergis, former Lithuanian foreign minister, said in a post to X, formerly Twitter, on March 6, referring to U.S.-led Russia-Ukraine peace talks.
"The Trump-Putin Pact already exists, and we should act accordingly."
Some Five Eyes nations were among those throwing their weight behind Zelensky in the wake of the disastrous White House meeting, but they also publicly doubled down on the stability of the intelligence-sharing network.
Senior intelligence officials are likely split in the behind-the-scenes meetings, said Bob Ayers, a retired intelligence officer with the Pentagon and other agencies like the NSA, currently working as an international security expert.
Some will lobby to limit America's access to intelligence on topics like Russia, while others will try to push a limited approach to information sharing, he told Newsweek. A select group will be pushing for business as usual—a view unlikely to have a long shelf-life, Ayers added.
'Strategic Interest'
A British defense official told Newsweek on March 5 that the Five Eyes cooperation was holding "very, very strong," despite the turbulent rhetoric and public discomfort between the U.S. and its closest allies in recent days. The U.K. is still keen to project an impression of unity, with British Defense Secretary John Healey visiting Washington on March 12, as the nation plowed on with attempts to portray America as a stalwart ally.
A spokesperson for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said Ottawa "deeply values its partnership with the United States, and we believe that it is in the strategic interest of both countries to continue our strong national security cooperation."
"While we are always alive to the geopolitical environment, strong bilateral collaboration will continue as it is mutually beneficial and keeps both our countries safe," the spokesperson added in a statement to Newsweek. "Our alliance, which includes partnerships in intelligence and national security, remains strong. This is especially true in the face of growing global threats." Echoing this, a spokesperson for Canada's CSE told Newsweek that U.S.-Canadian "collaboration extends well beyond transactional support into a very comprehensive intelligence-sharing framework."
It is unclear just how much of the Five Eyes' intelligence comes from the U.S., but it is a "significant and major" contributor, likely eclipsing what smaller countries like New Zealand can generate, Walton said. "The sheer size of the U.S. intelligence community means that it is the big dog within that relationship," he added.
The strongest signals intelligence capabilities lie with the U.S. and the U.K., while America is the only one able to leverage its satellites to scoop up intelligence and imagery, said Ayers. The rest of the Five Eyes are dependent on the U.S. for this, he said.
But the intelligence burden is too vast for any one nation—even the U.S.—to handle alone, Walton said. "The United States government needs the Five Eyes alliance in order to collect intelligence on China," he said.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told European allies in February that the U.S. "is prioritizing deterring war with China in the Pacific, recognizing the reality of scarcity, and making the resourcing trade-offs to ensure deterrence does not fail."
Without Five Eyes, the U.S. risks being cut out of intelligence on what the Chinese and Russian leadership are doing and where they're cultivating influence, the former U.S. intelligence official said. American allies "bring a lot to the table," they added. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service said that it was a "significant contributor to the Five Eyes" and a "trusted intelligence partner that brings unique capacities to the table."
Australia inked the AUKUS security agreement with the U.S. and U.K. in 2021 to work "hand-in-glove to preserve security and stability in the Indo-Pacific," as London's Downing Street phrased it at the time. Canberra is well-positioned to provide intelligence on the region.
'Safety Valve'
But should the White House withdraw from the Five Eyes, the remaining members could beef up bilateral agreements on intelligence sharing, which underwrite the Five Eyes.
Such agreements would likely stay in place, even if there was a seismic shift to the formal alliance, experts say. This is a "safety valve" of sorts, the former U.S. intelligence official said.
But there is also the sense, according to former U.S. officials, that much of the meaningful intelligence sharing is done by employees more toward the middle of the food chain in these agencies. Should mandates pull away from the spirit of sharing, it could be these officials who keep the flow of information running.
U.S. allies outside the Five Eyes would likely respond to its breakdown by strengthening their intelligence relationships with individual Five Eyes countries, said Johnstone.
It could present an opportunity for nations like Japan or South Korea, he said, but a fraying of the Five Eyes would likely also be seen as "a symbol of a fracturing international system that poses risks for them."
