The media typically only has enough space to focus on one big story at a time. Trump’s tariffs are dominating now. Last week it was “Signal-gate”, after a journalist was added to a White House-led group chat for attacks in Yemen. Before that, the dressing down of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. It’s not that other issues are ignored, exactly. Just that important developments can slide past outside the limelight.
Such is the case with a lower-profile controversy related to US intelligence in recent weeks. Mishandling classified material is one thing. The apparent politicisation of intelligence analysis by the Trump administration is far more worrying, a point that should truly alarm America’s allies.
The Washington Post’s David Ignatius picked up on the evidence in a recent column. Just as the Signal-gate story broke, the public version of the annual US threat assessment was released. This report carries the list of impending dangers that intelligence agencies assess to be most pressing. These documents can often suffer from a box-ticking quality and usually only warrant a background story in the media cycle. But what is so striking about the version this year is when it is laid side-by-side with the report that came before.
As Ignatius explains: “Compared with last year’s version, the assessment shows a different ordering of threats to emphasise drug criminals, a new focus on Greenland, and discussion of the Ukraine war that accords with Trump’s negotiating strategy.”
Why does this matter?
The gold standard for intelligence assessments was explained in the recent independent review of Australia’s intelligence agencies, that “neither policy nor political preferences cloud the accuracy and impartiality of judgements.”
The ideal of intelligence assessment should be unvarnished judgements about the state of the world. “Nuanced” and “independent” are the watch words. Concerns about policy or politics should be set aside, even if that means delivering views that are not well received by the policymakers the agencies aim to serve.
The gold standard for intelligence assessments was explained in the recently released independent review of Australia’s intelligence agencies, that “neither policy nor political preferences cloud the accuracy and impartiality of judgements.” The review describes the ideal of separation between intelligence assessors and intelligence consumers: “the risk of poor decisions becomes higher if governments receive intelligence assessments that always validate their preferred course of action”.
Now contrast the US reports. Greenland wasn’t mentioned in the 2024 assessment. This year, suddenly, the Danish territory that Trump wants to get his hands on appears four times amid warnings of Chinese interest. The challenge of fentanyl and other illicit drugs first appears on page 36 of the 2024 assessment. This year, it is the very first issue canvassed. As Ignatius notes, Trump made combating drugs his leading campaign issue.
Ignatius concludes: “there’s no indication [analysts] have been pressured to change any specific evidence”. He sees that Russia, China and Iran are treated consistently across the assessments. But the order of presentation does matter.
In 2024, there is an explicit sentence, stating: “The order of the topics presented in this assessment does not necessarily indicate their relative importance or the magnitude of the threats in the view of the [Intelligence Community].” That disclaimer, which was also included in the reports of previous years, is missing from the 2025 version, even though otherwise the two introductions are largely the same.
The conclusion that Ignatius draws is worrisome. “The text of this year’s threat assessment shows the analysts giving priority to Trump’s concerns but not, so far as I could tell, fudging the facts.”
For America’s partners in the “Five Eyes” intelligence network, even this subtle shift should spark concern. The perceived value of shared secrets goes beyond expanding coverage and insights – it generates a shared worldview among the partners. Intelligence collection and assessment is an expensive business. Secrets are not shared for free and are about generating influence as much as information, helping convince partners of a perspective.
Trust in this relationship is integral, which is why intelligence agencies are so often uncomfortable in the headlines. The concern given to the protection of secrets should be matched by vigilance about the integrity of the assessment process itself.
