President Donald Trump’s war against Iran in alliance with Israel, a war which appears to be stalled as Trump seeks diplomatic off-ramps, is testing old partnerships for the United States. Our alliances can be fairly said to be in flux. But what makes a country a good ally?
At a minimum, a good ally must offer reliability and power, including hard military power, buttressed by softer yet important forms of power (for instance, capabilities in diplomacy and intelligence gathering). Shared values certainly help; common culture and national habits buttress any alliance. Convenient geography must not be underestimated either. But do we need to rethink our alliances?
Some say the answer is “yes.”
Take Mark Dubowitz, for example. CEO of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, one of Washington’s most pro-Israel think-tanks, Dubowitz recently suggested jettisoning the U.S.’s legacy alliances. As he put it on X: “Five Eyes was built for another era. We get diminishing value from four partners, and ties with [the United Kingdom] are at a low point. Time to rethink the alliance around those actually delivering intelligence value — Israel, Poland, Ukraine, UAE, Japan, [South Korea] and other serious partners.”
“Five Eyes” is the Anglosphere intelligence alliance dating to World War II, led by the U.S., and includes the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It’s true that Five Eyes is under strain these days, given tensions between Trump and much of the Anglosphere. Still, Dubowitz doesn’t understand the intelligence world. In reality, Five Eyes remains the most powerful intelligence partnership in history. It underpins Washington’s global role in a manner that few Americans understand. Jettisoning the Five Eyes would be an act of monumental security foolishness.
This isn’t to say all is well within the Five Eyes.
The U.K., for all its mounting troubles, remains the U.S.’s top ally in practical terms. But that status is waning and may not endure much longer. While our intelligence partnership with London remains second-to-none, the U.K.’s once-impressive military is increasingly dilapidated. Decades of underfunding and foolish defense decisions have painfully landed. The British Army would be hard-pressed to sustain a single heavy brigade deployed overseas for very long, while the Royal Navy, for centuries celebrated as the “wooden walls of England,” has shrunk to just two dozen warships, few of which can go to sea.
Much the same can be said for Canada. Its military is in even worse shape. Trump’s casual talk of annexing our neighbor has outraged many Canadians and stirred discussion of bolstering the armed forces, but so far, that’s much more talk than action. However, Ottawa’s intelligence partnership with Washington remains impressive through Five Eyes. Above all, Canada is our neighbor, and the long-standing boast that we share the world’s longest undefended border remains true. Simply put, any military threat to Canada would automatically represent one to the U.S., which is why Ottawa has gotten away with allowing its military to decline: they know we will defend Canada if needed. Our air forces remain functionally united in defense of North America, as has been the case since 1958.
Australia also remains a top ally. Canberra’s intelligence alliance with Washington is important and mutually beneficial. Unlike Canada, Australia takes national defense seriously. Indeed, the country is in the midst of its largest military boost since WWII, including the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines as part of a major naval buildup. Canberra is also increasing its military bases and posture in the country’s sparsely populated yet strategically vital far north. This is all about the rising threat of an aggressive China.
The final Five Eyes partner, New Zealand, poses the biggest challenge. Chinese influence over successive New Zealand governments has led this ally to be viewed with increasing concern by its Five Eyes counterparts.
What about the other U.S. allies that Dubowitz mentions?
Well, Dubowitz is correct to suggest that Poland deserves an upgrade in its alliance with Washington. Warsaw over the past dozen years has emerged as the rising military powerhouse in European NATO. Warsaw takes national defense seriously because it borders Russia, a country that has invaded and occupied Poland numerous times. Poland is in the midst of a massive military buildup, which will result in a standing army of six divisions (to compare, the U.S. Army has 10 active divisions). If all of NATO took defense as seriously as Poland does, there would be no serious Russian military threat to Europe. Also, Poland’s politics remain broadly pro-American. MAGA fans should note, however, that Warsaw’s support for the U.S. didn’t prevent it from rebuffing Trump’s request for military help against Iran.
Next up, Japan, which represents the other linchpin of the U.S.’s defense posture in East Asia to deter China. The robust U.S.-Japan Security Treaty was formed not long after Tokyo’s defeat in 1945 and has remained unchanged since 1960. Japan is a reliable U.S. ally and its current defense spending spree, the biggest in the country’s postwar history, will lift Japan into the first rank of global militaries. Our bases in Japan underpin the Pentagon’s position in East Asia and are indispensable to U.S. defense planning. Our intelligence partnership with Tokyo is likewise close, though not quite as cozy as Five Eyes. The close partnership between U.S. and Japanese intelligence will only grow closer in the coming years.
Finally, there’s Israel.
To be blunt, Dubowitz’s positing that Israel is now America’s foremost ally is simply untrue. The intelligence relationship between the U.S. and Israel is close but less cordial and trusting than Dubowitz claims. While the U.S. intelligence community does partner with Israel in many areas, some of them important, there’s suspicion in Washington, too. That’s because, year in and year out, that country ranks among the top four or five espionage threats to the U.S. This is an undisputed truth in U.S. counterintelligence circles, if one seldom mentioned by our politicians.
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Indeed, Israel knows it will face no serious consequences when it is caught engaged in aggressive spying on U.S. soil. The country has even, and especially under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership, shared sensitive technologies with China that have strengthened the People’s Liberation Army. It so hardly inspires confidence or trust that Trump’s ambassador to Israel recently hosted one of the most notorious turncoats in recent American intelligence history, a mole for Israel.
America has many allies, each with its strengths and weaknesses. But throwing the Five Eyes alliance into the trash would be idiotic.
John R. Schindler served with the National Security Agency as a senior intelligence analyst and counterintelligence officer.