For AIVD and MIVD, cooperation with the Americans was always the cornerstone. ‘It cannot be otherwise that developments of recent times will have consequences’

Cutbacks among supervisors on American secret services such as the CIA, FBI and NSA.

The appointment of Trump-Loyalists such as Tulsi Gabbard, John Ratcliffe, and Kash Patel at the top of the same services.

A supervisory committee in the congress that bends with the political wishes of the president and his staff in the White House.

There have been more confusing signals about perhaps the most powerful intelligence services in the world and their embedding in democracy and the rule of law. The stormy developments of the last half of the year also call up within the Dutch intelligence world about the cornerstone of the work of the AIVD and the MIVD: the decades and often very intensive cooperation with the American colleagues. Is it influenced by the Trump-troublesand if so, in what way? And how dangerous is that?

After a small journey through the history of a regularly turbulent relationship, and conversations with two former inflatable employees who work closely with the US, the conclusion is: removal between American and Dutch services seems unavoidable, which means that the chance of Western interests are not noticed in time. In the meantime, Dutch services can only do what they are always supposed to do by law: carefully, and where necessary to handle their American contacts carefully. “A bit like two sexual hedgehogs,” as Pieter Cobelens expresses it.

For the former MIVD chef (2006-2011), one thing is certain: what is now happening in the US is different than usual and goes much further than the usual change of the guard in civil service and armed forces. “The current US President is a bit busy running out democracy,” says Cobelens. “If that had happened in the Netherlands, it would have been a reason for me to resign as a head of department. A democracy, given the radical powers of the services, needs decent guarantees to prevent power abuse and to ensure that good information comes. Otherwise you cannot work as a service.”

Professionalism and neutrality

Hugo Vijver worked with American intelligence employees for about fifteen years. From 2005 this happened in the Caribbean. For the AIVD he had to estimate how serious the threat of Venezuela and his dictator Hugo Chávez towards the Antilles. In those years, Chávez made a possible attack on Aruba, Bonaire or Curaçao. That not only aroused the care of The Hague but also that of Washington. Vijver: “The Antilles are the back garden of the US. They have large economic interests and an army base in Curaçao.”

The professionalism and neutrality won is now being detracted again

Vijver stood out the professionalism of the Americans, and the political neutrality of the intelligence world that could serve both democratic and republican governments. The qualities were partly the result of major reforms, following the scandals around the CIA. It was involved in Coups in the 1970s and eighties, such as the one in 1973 against the democratically elected President Salvador Allende in Chile. Hard lessons were also drawn from not seeing the devastating attack by Al-Qaida terrorists at the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington.

Zoom in

The professionalism and neutrality won “is now being detracted again,” says Vijver. “It is only possible that the developments of recent times have consequences, or that they will soon have to cooperate with our services.”

Since 2018, AIVD and MIVD have been obliged to test their cooperation with other services for important matters such as professionalism and legal guarantees. “That will happen now, or has already happened,” says Vijver. After all, the law states that this weighting must take place ‘periodically’, and ‘if there is reason to do so’. “Nothing is noted about the result of this.”

The former analyst, now a publicist, lists the most worrying developments in fast-pace. In terms of professionalism and quality, Vijver mentions the influence of the Trump government to all CIA employees to leave with a premium. The offer was intended as a cut and purification. “For those who don’t like Trump, it’s time to leave now,” said Cia boss John Ratcliffe. Who exactly made use of the offer does not know Vijver. “But experience shows that the best of it makes use, and that this results in a brain drain.”

Then the carelessness with which Trump and his colleagues dealt with state secret material, or secret conversations. After his departure from the White House in 2021, the president took a lot of state secret material to his private domain in Mar-A-Lago and was sued for this. Tulsi Gabbard, the current intelligence chef (Director of National Intelligence) spoke private in January 2017 With the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad where only a Russian interpreter was nearby. Defense minister Pete Hegseeth left a journalist of this year in March of this year The Atlantic And watching family members in an app group where an American air raid on the Houthis in Yemen was prepared.

And finally: the neutrality of the services, or rather, the lack of it, says Vijver. “Tulsi Gabbard who first said that the Iranian atom program did not mean a threat to American interests, but that swallowed when Trump openly corrected her.” But also: the way in which the FBI is now involved in suing everyone in the government apparatus involved in the legal persecution of the people storming the Capitol, on January 6, 2021. And former president Barack Obama is now also in sight of the Trump. According to Gabbard and Minister of Justice Pam Bondi, the Democrats would have set up illegal actions to associate Trump with Russia. “That has a lot of things,” says Vijver “from a witch hunt in which the neutrality of the services disappears. Employees of Dutch services will undoubtedly notice and follow things.”

The deep-rooted institution of AIVD and MIVD employees is always: ‘We actually do not trust anyone’

Continuity

Enough worries. But what this means for the daily work of the Dutch intelligence services and their collaboration with the US is much more difficult to find out. Since the supervisor of Dutch services (CTIVD) about that collaboration started to write (from 2006), one theme often came back: that of great continuity in the relationship. This was not only due to the obvious, huge joint safety interests. It is simply much easier, the CTIVD wrote, to test new candidates for collaboration with AIVD and MIVD for criteria such as professionalism and legal statements, than to release cooperation with old trusted allies. “Testing a service at the start of a collaboration is relatively clear”, “, the regulator wrote in 2018. “However, it is more difficult to periodically recalibrate existing collaborations, partly because there is trust relationships, dependencies and operational interdependence.”

Something else is added, says former MIVD chef Cobelens. The deep-rooted institution of AIVD and MIVD employees is always: “We don’t really trust anyone.” Data, tips, information: information is shared if that is strictly necessary (the need to knowprinciple). That applies within the AIVD building in Zoetermeer and the Frederikkazerne in The Hague (MIVD), and especially in contact with employees of other countries, he says. “Also those of the US”

Cobelens’ observation is in line with what historian Cees Wiebes wrote in 2016 in his book Together with the CIA (2016): “There is rarely friendly services. (…) The Dutch services must be cautiously in the international playing field.” In addition, the Dutch also regularly faced the US. Already in the 1950s was accused of the CIA to carry out activities on Dutch soil, this outside the knowledge of Dutch services.

Half a century later, in 2005, it even came to The expulsion by the Netherlands of the CIA chef In our country, at the insistence of the AIVD. CIA agents had an outward one outside the service to place eavesdropping equipment in the house of a Dutch businessman who was also eavesdropped by the AIVD.

As soon as Americans notice that Dutch people are becoming less shooting with parts of important information – which is obvious – phone calls will immediately go to The Hague

Hard lesson of 9/11

Also in times of collisions were the common interests of CIA and AIVD to jointly protect the West against, for example, Russian influence or jihadist threats much more important, says Vijver. As a result, he will not (yet) have major changes. Moreover, the American services are not the easiest thing in dealing, he says from his own experience, which has an intimidating effect on allies and thus slowly slowing down rapid changes. “American services, more than others, are based on the principle: for what, hears something. As soon as they notice that Dutch people are becoming less shooting with sharing important information – which is obvious – phone calls will immediately go to The Hague. The Americans will respond strongly and share less themselves.”

Zoom in

Nobody gets better, concludes Vijver. “Because then you get a dangerous spiral down. The core of the intelligence work is just to try to put the right puzzle pieces next to each other. For example, that was the hard lesson of September 11. Then it turned out that all kinds of services had worked past each other in the run -up to the attacks.”

Despite the historical power of the collaboration, there is unmistakably change in the air, Oud-MIVD chef Cobelens and former AIVD analyst Vijver think. For example, it can be more cautious when sharing information about politically sensitive topics such as Iran’s atomic program or knowledge about Russia and Ukraine, countries where Dutch services traditionally also have sources.

Own satellites

Both information experts also mention technology as a domain where the changes in the relationship between the services will become visible. They point to the investments that the armed forces of the Netherlands currently makes in their own satellites, drones and other reconnaissors. “This is crucial for acquiring your own information, apart from the US,” says Vijver.

In addition, Cobelens has been working on one for eight years commercial program For the Netherlands and European partners to store data on their own servers and other digital storage spaces. Initially this happened under the flag of better security against Russian hackers and criminal gangs.

In the meantime, the political goal of ‘strategic autonomy’ has also been added, says Cobelens. In other words, less dependence on American cloud services. “The pursuit of strengthening one’s own digital infrastructure was in the previous one Election program of the VVD from 2023, “says Cobelens; he himself wrote with it. The section is in the New election program tightened, it turned out last Saturday. The VVD wants “the Netherlands and Europe to become less dependent on American software, cloud services and data centers”. The party also advocates “a strong European cooperation in the field of cyber security and intelligence”. The liberals strive for a European high -quality intelligence community (European ‘Five Eyes’) without the US.

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