George P. Shultz, the late Secretary of State, regularly reminded me and my Hoover Institution colleagues that in diplomacy, “trust is the coin of the realm.” Trust is even more critical in intelligence sharing. Without it, even the most sophisticated satellites, signals intercepts, and cyber tools are just expensive toys.

For decades, the Five Eyes alliance—the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—has relied on trust as its currency across oceans and governments. Born of World War II code-breaking cooperation and formalized in the UKUSA Agreement of 1946, the network of English-speaking nations and bilingual Canada became the world’s most durable intelligence partnership, fusing shared values with shared secrets. But the trust account now looks overdrawn on our side of the ledger. The shortfall isn’t just an accounting technicality—it threatens the alliance’s utility and credibility. READ MORE