The Trump administration said on March 5 that it has paused intelligence sharing with Kyiv, a significant step in light of other recent actions to halt or reduce overall security assistance to Ukraine. The decision appears to be part of a broader effort to put pressure on Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy to negotiate a peace deal with Russia to end the war that President Vladimir Putin started. Senior U.S. officials have suggested the pause is temporary, however, and that sharing could resume, ostensibly if Ukraine takes unspecified steps.
Pausing intelligence sharing with foreign partners is not unprecedented. It can occur for various reasons, including counterintelligence concerns, human rights violations, or—as appears to be the case in this instance—material changes to US policy.
What are the national security and foreign policy implications?
It deprives Ukraine of critical intelligence to defend itself from Russian attacks.
This is the most serious consequence of pausing intelligence sharing with Ukraine, even temporarily. For the past three years, U.S. intelligence has provided Ukraine with tactical and strategic warnings about Russian attacks. This has enabled Ukraine to take life-saving defensive measures—activating air defenses, relocating critical assets, sounding air raid sirens and sending mobile alerts to civilians so they can seek shelter.
While the scope of the current intelligence sharing pause with Ukraine is unclear—hopefully the administration has granted exceptions to continue passing information warning of imminent Russian strikes—even marginal reductions or pauses in intelligence sharing during wartime can significantly impair a nation’s ability to defend itself.
It reduces pressure on Russia, while increasing escalation risks.
Halting the sharing of any tactical or operational intelligence—for example, data on the location of Russian offensive forces or weapons caches—that the United States may be sharing with the Ukrainian military would diminish Kyiv’s ability to undertake targeted actions against Russian forces. The fact that Russian officials have publicly indicated the harmful effects of U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine suggests Moscow would view any pause as reducing pressure on Russia as it works to achieve its military objectives.
Without critical U.S. intelligence, Ukraine may also be operating with a less clear targeting picture, increasing the risks of missed signaling, hitting civilian targets and potentially leading to unintended escalation with Russia.
The United States may receive less, and lower quality, intelligence from Ukraine.
Intelligence sharing is a two-way street. As a general matter, the greater the quantity and quality of intelligence the United States shares with a foreign partner, the more likely it is that the partner will share more valuable intelligence with Washington. The opposite is also true. Any changes to the scope or nature of a sharing arrangement affects what the partner shares. In this case, the United States may stand to lose access to valuable intelligence on Russian activities in and outside of Ukraine–intelligence that Ukraine is uniquely positioned to collect.
U.S. intelligence liaison relationships with Ukraine – and other key allies – may suffer.
At its core, strong intelligence relationships are built on trust. That’s because the nature of the relationship can at times require both sides to take extraordinary risks to advance a shared goal. When that trust is broken, the relationship suffers. It can be repaired, but only with time and effort. While the bilateral relationship between the United States and Ukraine is strong, it’s easy to imagine that the U.S. decision to halt intelligence sharing has reduced trust in the eyes of Ukrainian intelligence officials. That could have larger ramifications in the future if, for instance, the United States needed Ukraine’s assistance on a separate intelligence issue unrelated to the current war with Russia.
Beyond Ukraine, the decision to pause intelligence sharing may alienate key U.S. allies in Europe and elsewhere – including in NATO, the European Union, and the critical Five Eyes Alliance – who may view the move as leaving the Ukrainian people far more vulnerable to Russian attacks. This could prompt other U.S. intelligence partners to reduce their own intelligence sharing with the United States or engage in unauthorized disclosures of U.S.-provided information to Ukraine. All of that redounds not to the benefit of the United States, and instead may undermine key intelligence-sharing and liaison relationships in the long term.
The decision may prompt other states to view the United States as an unreliable partner.
Usually, decisions to terminate, pause, or substantially alter intelligence sharing agreements are due to significant concerns over a nation’s ability to protect classified information or their use of such information in ways that are inconsistent with either domestic or international humanitarian law, such as engaging in human rights abuses. While intelligence sharing is always subject to U.S. national security and foreign policy objectives, previous U.S. administrations of both parties historically have been careful not to use intelligence sharing as a policy bargaining chip given the time and effort it takes to build trust and cooperation between services.
If other states begin to view the United States as an unreliable partner, they may take steps to downgrade the nature of their intelligence cooperation with the United States, including decisions of whether to share information and or run joint operations. (Indeed, this was already a concern with the Trump administration before the recent provocative action against Ukraine.) Of course, any decision by countries to do so would have to be weighed against the significant benefits of intelligence cooperation with the United States. But at a time when threats from China, Iran, North Korea, transnational terrorism, drug cartels, and technology are compounding and growing more complex, the United States needs stronger–not weaker–intelligence liaison relationships.
Editor’s note: This piece is part of the Collection: Just Security’s Coverage of the Trump Administration’s Executive Actions