The Dark Age of American Intelligence

Tulsi Gabbard and the End of Intelligence Sharing

As of this past Wednesday, Tulsi Gabbard is officially the Director of National Intelligence.

Tulsi Gabbard represents a major challenge to the basic functions of American government and the long-term safety of the American people. Tulsi’s sympathies for the brutal dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad and ideological alignment with Russian media networks like RT suggest that her tenure as DNI will be characterized by an adversarial relationship to the rest of the intelligence community. The best-case scenario for the United States is that Tulsi Gabbard’s willingness to accept the narratives peddled by adversaries of America at face value is the result of poor judgement. The worst-case scenario is that Tulsi Gabbard is operating in bad-faith and actively seeking to limit American intelligence capabilities. Regardless of whichever scenario is closer to reality, the United States will face major changes in how its allies will approach the process of intelligence sharing.

We can expect that our allies will limit the amount of intelligence they share with their American counterparts and that the US will be increasingly compartmentalized within multilateral formats like Five Eyes, AUKUS, and NATO. We can also assume that the work of intel agencies involved in clandestine support efforts (such as the CIA’s support for the Ukrainian military and drone programs) will face major scrutiny and limitations in their operations. Depending on the actions taken by Gabbard and her willingness to advance the administration’s interest in supporting European far-right political actors, our allies may begin to subject American operatives to counter-intelligence measures.

Intelligence sharing allows the United States to counter threats posed by terrorists and adversarial states. With Gabbard as the head of the DNI, Americans will be facing a more dangerous world with fewer friends and less tools. While some intelligence functions may be partially insulated from Gabbard’s direct control, we can expect that her presence will lead to a considerable shift in how our allies approach cooperation with the American intelligence community for the foreseeable future.