The American President HAS moved to get rid of those in the American Intelligence community that do N OT cater to his whims….
This from a man that very community has NEVER trusted outright since he assumed office the first time….
And American President that seems enamoured of the Russian President and willing to break the rules to cultivate closeness HAS given other countries worries…
Is the American President a ‘Security Risk’ for a Europe that Putin seems to want to co-op?
But?
In the end?
American Intel capabilities STILL are SO extensive?
Europe WILL try to wrk with it….
And be wary…
“America remains the global security superpower with more intelligence capabilities than anybody else put together,” said a former senior British official who worked closely with U.S. spy agencies. But the anxieties across Europe “are real,” the official said, because “America has decided to voluntarily plunge its own security agencies into crisis.”
U.S. officials said European worries are unfounded. A CIA spokesman said the agency “takes its international intelligence partnerships incredibly seriously and under Director [John] Ratcliffe is actively deepening them to further U.S. national security, counter adversaries around the world, and promote international stability.”
Anticipating an era of transatlantic uncertainty, European officials have adopted a dual strategy: doing what they can to preserve the U.S. relationship and keep the intelligence flowing, while embarking on the daunting task of finding ways to reduce their dependence on it.
In Germany, a country that has deliberately constrained the powers of its security services to safeguard against Nazi and Soviet-era abuses, the new coalition government led by Chancellor Friedrich Merz — who will meet with Trump at the White House on Thursday — has signaled plans to boost spending on spy agencies and remove certain barriers to more aggressive operations….
…
European security officials said their fears of an abrupt cutoff from U.S. intelligence have subsided since March, when the administration shocked allies by temporarily withholding satellite images and other wartime data from Ukraine. Instead, European officials said their concerns have shifted to how much damage U.S. spy agencies might sustain amid perceived purges being carried out by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — who had not previously held a senior national security position — and other Trump loyalists.
In April, Trump fired a four-star general who had served as director of the National Security Agency, the nation’s premiere cyberespionage service, at the urging of a far-right activist who once called the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks an “inside job.” A month later, two of the nation’s top intelligence analysts were forced out after producing a classified assessment that undercut Trump’s rationale for using a rare national security law to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members….
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“Everybody is trying to think through contingencies,” said a senior official with the intelligence service of a Baltic nation. Even if there is no formal White House directive to reduce cooperation, the official said, there is fear that distractions and departures will mean that warnings and tips European services have come to expect “might kind of disappear.”
At an April gathering of European intelligence chiefs in Brussels, officials weighed mostly meager options for managing the U.S. partnership, according to participants.
“There’s a tension there,” said a European diplomat. The Trump administration’s volatility “makes it difficult to chart a clear course,” the diplomat said. But given shared interests and unmatched U.S. capabilities, there is no choice but “to continue to cooperate.”….
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