The USA probably doesn't worry much, our Dutch government and related services all run on AWS and Microsoft Office/Azure. All internet access flows through the same cable the NSA has access to. Radio traffic is intercepted in multiple locations in The Netherlands.
So sure, there are probably some signals the USA won't receive, but they still get the bulk of it.
> our Dutch government and related services all run on AWS and Microsoft Office/Azure
And this is already being criticized over and over again. With various German government organizations now actively moving away from Microsoft and demonstrating that you don't need Outlook & Office 365 to run a government, I would be quite surprised if the possibility of doing the same here won't at least be discussed any time something needs an overhaul.
The Dutch IRS just doubled down on M365 though saying they couldn't find any alternative. Strange detail though is that they were not on a cloud service until now. It's a bit of a weird time to decide to migrate to a US cloud service when most places are trying to get away from them.
As with every large Microsoft migration, the problem isn't figuring out what's necessary to run a government.
People in high places only know Microsoft and they don't want to risk having to learn something new. National security isn't as big of a deal as having to spend a few afternoons of training, after all.
People in high places have assistants to operate Word for them. If anything, the money Microsoft pours into lobbying is a bigger threat to gaining independence - the killing of the LiMux project[0] made that quite obvious.
I don't disagree but the world then and the world now are different places and people pushing for less of a dependency on american tech companies have a real chance to make some headway with The Orange One(TM) sitting on his throne over the pond and Microsoft seemingly determined to make themselves (more) unpopular with techies generally not entirely sure what they are doing with Windows 11 but after 3 decades of running a microsoft OS I don't have one in the house (in fairness windows hung in for gaming for the last 20 odd years, I've been linux for everything else since the millenium).
That won't ever happen at a large enough scale in Germany itself because of the Ramstein military base (and other such US military bases located on German soil). Playing "we're independent!" it's just a futile game as long as the military US presence in Germany is an ongoing thing.
Well if you were ever planning on evicting those bases you’d probably want to start by getting off of other infrastructure controlled by the owner of said bases, right?
Even before getting off of MS Word, Germany would have to start by having a military capable of self-defense since leaving the country undefended would be very foolish. Ironically the imperial overlord USA which would hypothetically be getting evicted is the main party urging them to do this.
> Ironically the imperial overlord USA which would hypothetically be getting evicted is the main party urging them to do this.
I always found the framing on this funny. Europeans will talk about data sovereignty and decreasing reliance on the Americans and simultaneously cry foul when the Americans threaten to take their ball and go home.
Don't underestimate the AIVD/MIVD. They have quite the history infiltrating Russian networks and operations and operate a rather useful satellite listening post.
That said, the current American administration probably doesn't see Russia as a threat.
America has always been spying on Europe, making it a bit harder by not willingly providing intel is a step in the right direction at least.
It'd be risky if Russia-friendly folks start telling Moscow the intelligence that the Dutch gathered, and some of the current American administration seem very Russia-friendly..
Somebody might even say that the administration sees russia as a useful tool to force europeans into paying a protection tol, not sure it's limited to this administration either
> That said, the current American administration probably doesn't see Russia as a threat.
That's just pabulum for the masses which you're better off not repeating so as not to appear so easily fooled. Keep your friends close and your enemy closer [1] rings a bell I assume?
If Dutch intelligence is failing to encrypt their data to the point that AWS / the US government could see it then they deserve to lose every byte of it.
Don't worry, these agencies seem to be appropriately paranoid. As an example: each intelligence worker gets three desktops PCs with various levels of security / airgapping.
The current dutch (demissionary) PM is the former head of the Dutch intelligence services. To say that Trump isn't trusted by EU intelligence services would be a vast understatement.
Palantir installing their kit on your on prem network doesn't give them anymore magical ability to exfiltrate data than installing Microsoft office would.
Indeed, that wasn't a great decision. But... there is a serious lack of alternatives that makes it very hard to get around the United States and Israel when it comes to this kind of software. Of course the Dutch should have rolled their own but give that we can't even get our tax software sorted out (I think they've been at it for 30 years), had our digital notary services hacked and a number of other noteworthy items I think that maybe 'buy' instead of 'build' was the right decision.
It's very tricky, I would definitely not be able to claim that in his shoes I would have done better. As a prime minister he's done a fair job given the absolutely impossible situation in our government right now, and this decision is one of those where at least he's willing to make a stand (unlike many other EU countries).
This level of governing is always going to be an exercise in endless compromises.
Palantir might be an American company, but if you hire them it's not like a bunch of Americans come and take over your IT systems. There entire business model is "forward deployed engineers" who by necessity are locals and come help setup things on your own infrastructure.
Russia and China still exist and are pre-eminent dangers. The US has gone crazy but we still need to work together to discourage wars related to invading taiwan or Europe. I am terrified the US won't come back to being an actual democracy that follows the rule of law. At the same time, we can just stop surveilling our citizens in the democratic free world. We can just decide to do that.
The original interview clearly states that the US can no longer be trusted to do the right thing with data concerning Russia, and the spy services explicitly say that they are keeping a close eye on the potential of intelligence being politicized or used to violate human rights. There is no need to guess why that is the case, it is painfully obvious to anyone paying even the slightest attention to US politics.
Regarding "their loss": the self-destruction of the US on the international stage is directly leading to a "massive scale-up" of the way various European agencies work together. If anything, I'd call that a win.
> Regarding "their loss": the self-destruction of the US on the international stage is directly leading to a "massive scale-up" of the way various European agencies work together. If anything, I'd call that a win.
It's going to take time and resources to match what any sort of "lost" cooperation with the US had, assuming they even can match the capabilities. That's a naturally bad thing for intelligence agencies in the interim.
The 2000s / early 2010s US is definitely leaving behind some big shoes to fill, no doubt about that. I'm not going to pretend it won't be a painful transition - Europe has been relying on the US far too much since the Second World War.
On the other hand, 2025 US has a president who seems to flips sides in the Ukraine conflict every other week. Considering that the main threat in Europe right now is Russia, that significantly reduces the value of US intelligence. Who needs enemies when your "friends" are just as likely to help you as they are to feed you misinformation?
Well... taking into account that Trump was screaming and swearing at Zelenskyy to surrender to Russia or Putin will destroy Ukraine just yesterday... I don't see why the Dutch would stop sharing intel with the US
No, they want to avoid being accessory to violation to human rights and the weaponization of such information for political purposes. That's fairly clear.
I don't think they care nearly as much about that as many suspect.
Trump's a loudmouth idiot and the Dutch government has to look like they're doing something about it. Telling a nation that they're "not" going to share intelligence is one way to "do" that.
The only problem is, spies are born liars and the world of espionage is inherently opaque to the public, so what this really means for US-Dutch intelligence sharing is probably going to depend on what the intelligence is, what the Dutch have to gain from sharing it, and what could be prevented should it be shared.
If the Dutch government thought that they could benefit from what Trump's doing, they'd go through with it, humanitarian consequences be damned. Nations don't have values, they have interests. People in Amsterdam aren't going to stop drinking coffee en masse because of the coffee trade's reputation for economic exploitation of the global south, and they're not going to stop talking with the US if they can get to draw benefit from it, either.
Seriously though, the article doesn't say why they're more "critical" but say that intel sharing remains "excellent". That's a lot of words without saying anything, these kinds of articles are fantastic for one thing and one thing only: reinforcing pre-existing beliefs.
The article they cite from De Volkskrant does mention the reasoning why some information is being restricted; the politicizing of information, and the violation of human rights.
I'm a subscriber of De Volkskrant and follow Huib Modderkolk. He is an investigative journalist in the area of (Dutch) intelligence services. He has uncovered that the Dutch agencies were involved in hacking Natanz, specifically in the last mile part of the operation. He also uncovered a strange motor accident of the alleged agent in the Middle East (out of my head Qatar or Dubai I don't remember and mix some of these countries up, mea culpa). He's done several interviews with former agents and has build up a network of sources.
That the leaders of AIVD and MIVD give this broad interview to him is unique, and a sign that they want to inform the voter before the election on 29th of October. These guys and services are normally very reluctant to share any information because they know the enemy reads it as well. After all, as you asserted elsewhere any idiot can use Google Translate which works quite well with Dutch for a very long time (since forever?).
That's a paywall, and I don't speak Dutch, what precisely are the human rights violations they're accusing the US of?
And these kinds of accusations go both ways, free-speech is under constant attack in the EU, the ruling class doesn't want citizens informed or even able to inform one another of critical political processes and actions without their thumbs in everyone's mouth, that much is clear.
They're very careful in not making any real political statements, which makes sense considering it's the heads of both the military intelligence service and general intelligence service. Here's the relevant quotes thrown through Google Translate:
*Are you more cautious about sharing certain information?*
Reesink: “I can’t comment on what that relationship is like now compared to before. But it’s true that we make that assessment and sometimes don’t share things anymore.”
*That’s a striking shift. What has been the most important change?*
Akerboom: “We don’t judge what we see politically, but we look at our experiences with the services. And we are very alert to the politicization of our intelligence and to human rights violations.”
*What does it mean in practice if there are risks in those areas?*
Akerboom: “Sometimes you have to consider each case individually: can I still share this information or not?”
That doesn't really clarify anything, but if I read between the lines, they're saying "we don't share information if we determine it will help (Trump) politically"
On one hand, this is the modus operandi of every political institutional from the CIA, to the CCP to city states to small towns in California, everyone acts in their own self-interest all the time. They're claiming nebulous "human rights" violations but don't state what they are. Could they mean blowing up boats suspected to be carrying drugs or precursors? I'd like to see Trump stop that myself, it's a pretty dangerous game he's playing.
On the other hand, I would expect the CIA/NSA have much greater potential value for the Dutch intel agencies than the reverse, so them prodding an administration after he was nearly assassinated twuce and many of his closest political officers and supporters were arrested and subjected to lawfare over the last 4 years doesn't seem like a particularly wise course of action. It's true this iteration of Trump is a lot more in tune with the way DC works so I wonder how wise the statement even is, they can accomplish what they're doing without announcing it, except now they announced what they're really up to and should probably expect some kind of retaliation.
I would expect anyone on this particular website right here to be able to let their browser do the translation. For Google Chrome that would even be the default, if it is setup knowing your language(s). The quality of the translation is excellent these days. There is no excuse.
The Dutch governments haven't exactly shown a lot of interest into their Caribbean links over the last few decades. The actions of the US regarding Venezuela are barely getting mentioned in the Dutch news, and the physical proximity to Aruba/Bonaire/Curacao is not even mentioned in passing.
Everything's for sale. The Dutch were still buying natural gas from Russia as late as 2020 [0] despite 6 years of irregular warfare in the Donbas at that point and 12 years of South Ossetia in Georgia. Hell, they still might be through some sort of third-party reseller.
Compared to the early years of the Donbas invasion, having a leader full of hot air is small potatoes.
There's always room for spies to get what they want. It's just a matter of what that will be.
The main reason for the Dutch dependence on Russian gas is the rapid shutdown of the Slochteren field for political reasons[0], while there weren't yet any LNG terminals available to import it from outside Europe. Considering Europe didn't yet view Russia as a genuine threat it's not exactly surprising that importing Russian gas was seen as a viable short-term strategy.
[0]: The Slochteren field still has plenty of gas remaining. It was shut down due to pushback from the inhabitants of Groningen, whose houses were being destroyed by earthquakes - caused by soil subsidence as a result of gas extraction. If there were to have been a serious war with Russia at that point, The Netherlands could've trivially shut off all gas imports by scaling the extraction back up.
Am I the only one that doesn't really think of most of Europe as an ally anymore? If it wasn't for shared opposition to Russia and China I would support us cutting most of these ties anyways.
Well, if it helps, plenty of us Europeans don't think of the US as allies anymore. The current administration has made it quite clear.
The only hope is that the next administration will be a bit less eager to cut ties with all its allies and might fix some of the self-inflicted damage.
The only actual hope is a common European defence policy (and industry) independent of NATO. The day Germany agrees to it, the dominos might fall, and the USA might realise what it has lost.
Well, if it helps, plenty of us Americans don't think of the Europeans as allies anymore, but rather freeloaders (with notable exceptions). The next European administrations might fix some of the self-inflicted damage.
Not that many Americans are worried about whether Europeans are allies. Only people who have fallen into some kind of information black hole, like the kind of people who email around 30 times forwarded jpegs of newspaper articles about the conspiracy behind covid or something. Sadly this has happened to many of the 80+ year old scions of my own family.
Anyway, I don't see this among the Americans who are still actively connecting with the world, the kind of people who aren't focused on ivermectin not taking vaccines or similar priorities.
Pretty sure lots of smart-minded europeans would love a chance for europe to detach and be actually allowed to develop its own services sector. Seems to me the US wants europe to be a contributing ally when it suits, and an open market to dump services into when it doesn't
I mean kind of? I feel like other than allies of necessity (to counter other great powers) there isn't really a point in pretending to be friendly to countries that are different to us in practically every way.
I'd say many people in the EU have similar views and ideas to about 2/3rds of the US (maybe I'm being generous on the US size), the half of the US that doesn't think the world is flat, that global warming might be happening, that following the rule of law is a good thing and we don't need to destroy the US to fix it.
I guess this might be a matter of conditioning. You might live in an environment where concepts around the stem "social" has become a pejorative. In that way it is understandable that a term like "social democrat" is interpreted as "communist". There does not exist anything you imagine like that.
What is different is that there is more opposition and cultural resistance to hyper capitalism. Think monopolies, corporatism, live-to-work, hustle-culture.
With regards to any messaging about "freedom" in the USA, be vigilant, I do think people will be unpleasantly surprised about what has been transacted away. Personal freedoms are indeed extremely important, so zero Schadenfreude here. And yes, those lobby groups in the EU fail to get their stupid anti-encryption laws passed, but they keep trying, so it is frightening. Citizens and visitors of the Five Eyes have lost any privacy already, but we need all of us to fight back.
TLDR: it is better to cooperate around common causes than to fight imaginary opponents. We are in the same boat.
Those don't seem like the best reasons. European and American economics are pretty close. Europe isn't socialist, it has broader welfare system than the US, but the US has significant welfare systems as well.
I've lived in the US and in Europe and the UK. Shared culture is still very significant. If anything, maybe even closer now than in the 90s.
There's probably other reasons to think about the why and how of alliances than these.
This is just American nonsense. Literally every single country in Europe is capitalist. Socialism is the democratic ownership of the means of production. Nowhere do we have that in Europe. Frankly this is the real problem with America, about half the population are extremely poorly educated and yet extremely arrogant. A deadly combination, clearly, as it’s led to the very sudden decline and fall of the American Empire.
You stated something objectively wrong (that European countries are socialist) and then get called out and your reply is just to get upset, literally no information content whatsoever. It's very on brand, I suppose, reminds me a lot of that fraudster, convicted rapist and known paedophile currently in the White House.
Regardless, I agree we are going in separate directions, indeed the USA is no longer even a Western country. We had some good times, the American Empire was pretty great whilst it lasted, I wish you all the best.
My entire point is that many Europeans love to call Americans stupid and uneducated about politics while acting the exact same way themselves, all without noticing the blatant hypocrisy. The difference between you and me and that I know and accept that I am an uneducated idiot about most things. I wish you all the best as well. Hopefully everything works out for the best for everyone involved.
There's nothing wrong with being stupid at all. I just don't understand why you have such strong opinions on something you clearly know nothing about. So: you don't like Europe, USA's oldest and most important allies because they're socialists. OK but Europe is not even socialist, literally all European countries are capitalist (objectively, it's an undeniable fact). Now what? Any reflection, reevaluation? No, you just get offended and tell me once again that you don't like me because I'm European and that's it.
The enlightenment is dead in the USA, knowledge and facts no longer matter. Feelings over facts really won.
First, you failed to read past the first entry in my list of reasons, second you still do not seem to understand what I am saying. You tell me about how half the population of the country that I live in is poorly educated, stupid, and arrogant while you probably do not even live there and then tell me I remind you of a rapist because of that. You do not seem to notice that, if what you are saying is true, you come off as all of those things as well (not the rapist part though lol) because you are doing the exact same thing that I am, talking about something you have little to no direct experience in.
I genuinely can't tell whether you are serious or trolling. Please tell me more about how Europe is socialist.
Or what does that even mean to you. Is socialism when state exists? You are not first American to say that, and every time it happens, I'm genuinely surprised. (I mean, rhetorical question. I suppose that's what socialism is to you. And you are a part of a problem too, because you are growing up internally people who genuinely believe that socialism is good because it means healthcare and higher education. Words no longer have meaning to you in America.)
I meant more that most European countries seem to be on a path towards socialism with popular opinion being much more in favor of it than it is in the US (more in line with my cultural gap statement). If you consider democratic socialism socialism like I do, you have plenty of examples to pick from in government.
> ...inter-agency relations between Dutch and American intelligence organizations remain “excellent”.
While I highly doubt that Dutch Intelligence is significantly more accountable tothat the American ones are, and therefore don't assume that any meaningful intelligence will actually be withheld (or at least, if is being withheld, it isn't because of the decision being discussed in this piece), BUT it is at least interesting that they made this announcement, which suggests some element somewhere in the European deep state is at least trying to pressure Washington in some way.
The USA probably doesn't worry much, our Dutch government and related services all run on AWS and Microsoft Office/Azure. All internet access flows through the same cable the NSA has access to. Radio traffic is intercepted in multiple locations in The Netherlands.
So sure, there are probably some signals the USA won't receive, but they still get the bulk of it.
> our Dutch government and related services all run on AWS and Microsoft Office/Azure
And this is already being criticized over and over again. With various German government organizations now actively moving away from Microsoft and demonstrating that you don't need Outlook & Office 365 to run a government, I would be quite surprised if the possibility of doing the same here won't at least be discussed any time something needs an overhaul.
The Dutch IRS just doubled down on M365 though saying they couldn't find any alternative. Strange detail though is that they were not on a cloud service until now. It's a bit of a weird time to decide to migrate to a US cloud service when most places are trying to get away from them.
Bullshit, Belastingdienst has been on Azure for a very long time.
Source: I was inside one of their offices for a few Azure trainings.
Source: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/239890/ook-fiscus-kan-geen-eu-al...
De Belastingdienst, met daarnaast ook de Douane en de Dienst Toeslagen, gebruikt momenteel eigen software voor kantoorautomatisering.
This is M365 so is not Azure.
I've been hearing about the German government moving to Linux from the days when I installed Red Hat Linux 7, I think https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/09/news/it-managers-cite-sec...
We will probably have fusion power first.
As with every large Microsoft migration, the problem isn't figuring out what's necessary to run a government.
People in high places only know Microsoft and they don't want to risk having to learn something new. National security isn't as big of a deal as having to spend a few afternoons of training, after all.
People in high places have assistants to operate Word for them. If anything, the money Microsoft pours into lobbying is a bigger threat to gaining independence - the killing of the LiMux project[0] made that quite obvious.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux
I don't disagree but the world then and the world now are different places and people pushing for less of a dependency on american tech companies have a real chance to make some headway with The Orange One(TM) sitting on his throne over the pond and Microsoft seemingly determined to make themselves (more) unpopular with techies generally not entirely sure what they are doing with Windows 11 but after 3 decades of running a microsoft OS I don't have one in the house (in fairness windows hung in for gaming for the last 20 odd years, I've been linux for everything else since the millenium).
The bribes also make a difference.
It's easy enough to wrap some open source software in GUIs that closely resemble proprietary software (cf. LibreOffice as an example).
That won't ever happen at a large enough scale in Germany itself because of the Ramstein military base (and other such US military bases located on German soil). Playing "we're independent!" it's just a futile game as long as the military US presence in Germany is an ongoing thing.
Well if you were ever planning on evicting those bases you’d probably want to start by getting off of other infrastructure controlled by the owner of said bases, right?
Even before getting off of MS Word, Germany would have to start by having a military capable of self-defense since leaving the country undefended would be very foolish. Ironically the imperial overlord USA which would hypothetically be getting evicted is the main party urging them to do this.
> Ironically the imperial overlord USA which would hypothetically be getting evicted is the main party urging them to do this.
I always found the framing on this funny. Europeans will talk about data sovereignty and decreasing reliance on the Americans and simultaneously cry foul when the Americans threaten to take their ball and go home.
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Please elaborate.
Don't underestimate the AIVD/MIVD. They have quite the history infiltrating Russian networks and operations and operate a rather useful satellite listening post.
That said, the current American administration probably doesn't see Russia as a threat.
America has always been spying on Europe, making it a bit harder by not willingly providing intel is a step in the right direction at least.
It'd be risky if Russia-friendly folks start telling Moscow the intelligence that the Dutch gathered, and some of the current American administration seem very Russia-friendly..
That is very literally the accusation that is being made for the record.
Somebody might even say that the administration sees russia as a useful tool to force europeans into paying a protection tol, not sure it's limited to this administration either
> That said, the current American administration probably doesn't see Russia as a threat.
That's just pabulum for the masses which you're better off not repeating so as not to appear so easily fooled. Keep your friends close and your enemy closer [1] rings a bell I assume?
[1] https://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/keep-your-friends-close-...
> The USA probably doesn't worry much
No, if they did, they'd know about certain attacks or planned attacks earlier [1]. So they should but they don't.
[1] https://www.amazon.nl/Het-oorlog-maar-niemand-ziet/dp/946381... - not an affiliated link, just the first one I could find.
If Dutch intelligence is failing to encrypt their data to the point that AWS / the US government could see it then they deserve to lose every byte of it.
Don't worry, these agencies seem to be appropriately paranoid. As an example: each intelligence worker gets three desktops PCs with various levels of security / airgapping.
If they were truly paranoid, there would be a lot more they would do. I would call it naive, but then again, they are.
Is it fair to say the US has been a bit erratic lately? Seems to me its hard to maintain trust in these circumstances.
> Is it fair to say the US has been a bit erratic lately?
More than usual? Not really
so they say.. perhaps they detected leaks and just doing some a/b testing now
Good
Smart move.
The current dutch (demissionary) PM is the former head of the Dutch intelligence services. To say that Trump isn't trusted by EU intelligence services would be a vast understatement.
Well, that's the same guy that planted Palantir in the Dutch government, since 2011.
Palantir installing their kit on your on prem network doesn't give them anymore magical ability to exfiltrate data than installing Microsoft office would.
Yes, so?
Indeed, that wasn't a great decision. But... there is a serious lack of alternatives that makes it very hard to get around the United States and Israel when it comes to this kind of software. Of course the Dutch should have rolled their own but give that we can't even get our tax software sorted out (I think they've been at it for 30 years), had our digital notary services hacked and a number of other noteworthy items I think that maybe 'buy' instead of 'build' was the right decision.
It's very tricky, I would definitely not be able to claim that in his shoes I would have done better. As a prime minister he's done a fair job given the absolutely impossible situation in our government right now, and this decision is one of those where at least he's willing to make a stand (unlike many other EU countries).
This level of governing is always going to be an exercise in endless compromises.
Palantir might be an American company, but if you hire them it's not like a bunch of Americans come and take over your IT systems. There entire business model is "forward deployed engineers" who by necessity are locals and come help setup things on your own infrastructure.
It would be glorious to see Five Eyes fall apart, but that is much bigger ask. Canada would be wise to kick it off before the US annexes it.
Because what we all need is to see the Ministry of State Security be the most capable intelligence agency in the world . . . wait, no we don't.
Russia and China still exist and are pre-eminent dangers. The US has gone crazy but we still need to work together to discourage wars related to invading taiwan or Europe. I am terrified the US won't come back to being an actual democracy that follows the rule of law. At the same time, we can just stop surveilling our citizens in the democratic free world. We can just decide to do that.
five eyes falling apart now seems like a "be careful what you wish for" situation where we'd start losing long-held alliances?
I think you might be putting the cart before the (stampeding) horse here.
I think we all know whose fault that is.
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The original interview clearly states that the US can no longer be trusted to do the right thing with data concerning Russia, and the spy services explicitly say that they are keeping a close eye on the potential of intelligence being politicized or used to violate human rights. There is no need to guess why that is the case, it is painfully obvious to anyone paying even the slightest attention to US politics.
Regarding "their loss": the self-destruction of the US on the international stage is directly leading to a "massive scale-up" of the way various European agencies work together. If anything, I'd call that a win.
> Regarding "their loss": the self-destruction of the US on the international stage is directly leading to a "massive scale-up" of the way various European agencies work together. If anything, I'd call that a win.
It's going to take time and resources to match what any sort of "lost" cooperation with the US had, assuming they even can match the capabilities. That's a naturally bad thing for intelligence agencies in the interim.
The 2000s / early 2010s US is definitely leaving behind some big shoes to fill, no doubt about that. I'm not going to pretend it won't be a painful transition - Europe has been relying on the US far too much since the Second World War.
On the other hand, 2025 US has a president who seems to flips sides in the Ukraine conflict every other week. Considering that the main threat in Europe right now is Russia, that significantly reduces the value of US intelligence. Who needs enemies when your "friends" are just as likely to help you as they are to feed you misinformation?
It is a two-way system, and this article is about the information flow from NL to USA.
It's probably the guy who has repeatedly and publically stepped on every rake, over and over again.
Biden's been out of office for a while now.
Well... taking into account that Trump was screaming and swearing at Zelenskyy to surrender to Russia or Putin will destroy Ukraine just yesterday... I don't see why the Dutch would stop sharing intel with the US
</sarcasm>
Where did you see this? I haven't read that anywhere.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/10/19/8003438/
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No, they want to avoid being accessory to violation to human rights and the weaponization of such information for political purposes. That's fairly clear.
I don't think they care nearly as much about that as many suspect.
Trump's a loudmouth idiot and the Dutch government has to look like they're doing something about it. Telling a nation that they're "not" going to share intelligence is one way to "do" that.
The only problem is, spies are born liars and the world of espionage is inherently opaque to the public, so what this really means for US-Dutch intelligence sharing is probably going to depend on what the intelligence is, what the Dutch have to gain from sharing it, and what could be prevented should it be shared.
If the Dutch government thought that they could benefit from what Trump's doing, they'd go through with it, humanitarian consequences be damned. Nations don't have values, they have interests. People in Amsterdam aren't going to stop drinking coffee en masse because of the coffee trade's reputation for economic exploitation of the global south, and they're not going to stop talking with the US if they can get to draw benefit from it, either.
Seriously though, the article doesn't say why they're more "critical" but say that intel sharing remains "excellent". That's a lot of words without saying anything, these kinds of articles are fantastic for one thing and one thing only: reinforcing pre-existing beliefs.
The article they cite from De Volkskrant does mention the reasoning why some information is being restricted; the politicizing of information, and the violation of human rights.
https://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/nederlandse-diensten-de...
I'm a subscriber of De Volkskrant and follow Huib Modderkolk. He is an investigative journalist in the area of (Dutch) intelligence services. He has uncovered that the Dutch agencies were involved in hacking Natanz, specifically in the last mile part of the operation. He also uncovered a strange motor accident of the alleged agent in the Middle East (out of my head Qatar or Dubai I don't remember and mix some of these countries up, mea culpa). He's done several interviews with former agents and has build up a network of sources.
That the leaders of AIVD and MIVD give this broad interview to him is unique, and a sign that they want to inform the voter before the election on 29th of October. These guys and services are normally very reluctant to share any information because they know the enemy reads it as well. After all, as you asserted elsewhere any idiot can use Google Translate which works quite well with Dutch for a very long time (since forever?).
That's a paywall, and I don't speak Dutch, what precisely are the human rights violations they're accusing the US of?
And these kinds of accusations go both ways, free-speech is under constant attack in the EU, the ruling class doesn't want citizens informed or even able to inform one another of critical political processes and actions without their thumbs in everyone's mouth, that much is clear.
They're very careful in not making any real political statements, which makes sense considering it's the heads of both the military intelligence service and general intelligence service. Here's the relevant quotes thrown through Google Translate:
*Are you more cautious about sharing certain information?*
Reesink: “I can’t comment on what that relationship is like now compared to before. But it’s true that we make that assessment and sometimes don’t share things anymore.”
*That’s a striking shift. What has been the most important change?*
Akerboom: “We don’t judge what we see politically, but we look at our experiences with the services. And we are very alert to the politicization of our intelligence and to human rights violations.”
*What does it mean in practice if there are risks in those areas?*
Akerboom: “Sometimes you have to consider each case individually: can I still share this information or not?”
That doesn't really clarify anything, but if I read between the lines, they're saying "we don't share information if we determine it will help (Trump) politically"
On one hand, this is the modus operandi of every political institutional from the CIA, to the CCP to city states to small towns in California, everyone acts in their own self-interest all the time. They're claiming nebulous "human rights" violations but don't state what they are. Could they mean blowing up boats suspected to be carrying drugs or precursors? I'd like to see Trump stop that myself, it's a pretty dangerous game he's playing.
On the other hand, I would expect the CIA/NSA have much greater potential value for the Dutch intel agencies than the reverse, so them prodding an administration after he was nearly assassinated twuce and many of his closest political officers and supporters were arrested and subjected to lawfare over the last 4 years doesn't seem like a particularly wise course of action. It's true this iteration of Trump is a lot more in tune with the way DC works so I wonder how wise the statement even is, they can accomplish what they're doing without announcing it, except now they announced what they're really up to and should probably expect some kind of retaliation.
> and I don't speak Dutch
I would expect anyone on this particular website right here to be able to let their browser do the translation. For Google Chrome that would even be the default, if it is setup knowing your language(s). The quality of the translation is excellent these days. There is no excuse.
Yes, it is a paywall but here on HN it is allowed to share circumventions. I'm not aware of any Dutch platform which does.
Someone already archived it here [1]
[1] https://archive.ph/lNxuX
Tensions in Venezuela and Dutch interests in the Caribbean. That's the explanation and its public posturing that likely doesn't reflect reality.
The Dutch governments haven't exactly shown a lot of interest into their Caribbean links over the last few decades. The actions of the US regarding Venezuela are barely getting mentioned in the Dutch news, and the physical proximity to Aruba/Bonaire/Curacao is not even mentioned in passing.
Everything's for sale. The Dutch were still buying natural gas from Russia as late as 2020 [0] despite 6 years of irregular warfare in the Donbas at that point and 12 years of South Ossetia in Georgia. Hell, they still might be through some sort of third-party reseller.
Compared to the early years of the Donbas invasion, having a leader full of hot air is small potatoes.
There's always room for spies to get what they want. It's just a matter of what that will be.
[0] https://www.gasunie.nl/en/gas-infrastructure/blog-247-energy...
The main reason for the Dutch dependence on Russian gas is the rapid shutdown of the Slochteren field for political reasons[0], while there weren't yet any LNG terminals available to import it from outside Europe. Considering Europe didn't yet view Russia as a genuine threat it's not exactly surprising that importing Russian gas was seen as a viable short-term strategy.
[0]: The Slochteren field still has plenty of gas remaining. It was shut down due to pushback from the inhabitants of Groningen, whose houses were being destroyed by earthquakes - caused by soil subsidence as a result of gas extraction. If there were to have been a serious war with Russia at that point, The Netherlands could've trivially shut off all gas imports by scaling the extraction back up.
The Dutch did extend Groningen for a time after the Russians invaded Ukraine.
The problem with earthquakes is no one wants to be held accountable when a house is destroyed and people die.
Not to mention the downing of MH17, with 193 Dutch citizens aboard, by the Russians in 2016.
Am I the only one that doesn't really think of most of Europe as an ally anymore? If it wasn't for shared opposition to Russia and China I would support us cutting most of these ties anyways.
Well, if it helps, plenty of us Europeans don't think of the US as allies anymore. The current administration has made it quite clear.
The only hope is that the next administration will be a bit less eager to cut ties with all its allies and might fix some of the self-inflicted damage.
The only actual hope is a common European defence policy (and industry) independent of NATO. The day Germany agrees to it, the dominos might fall, and the USA might realise what it has lost.
Well, if it helps, plenty of us Americans don't think of the Europeans as allies anymore, but rather freeloaders (with notable exceptions). The next European administrations might fix some of the self-inflicted damage.
Not that many Americans are worried about whether Europeans are allies. Only people who have fallen into some kind of information black hole, like the kind of people who email around 30 times forwarded jpegs of newspaper articles about the conspiracy behind covid or something. Sadly this has happened to many of the 80+ year old scions of my own family.
Anyway, I don't see this among the Americans who are still actively connecting with the world, the kind of people who aren't focused on ivermectin not taking vaccines or similar priorities.
Pretty sure lots of smart-minded europeans would love a chance for europe to detach and be actually allowed to develop its own services sector. Seems to me the US wants europe to be a contributing ally when it suits, and an open market to dump services into when it doesn't
Yes, you are the only one that thinks that.
I mean, without mentioning Russia or China, why should we?
Without a positive suggestion of who our allies should instead be, the question is incomplete. Surely you don’t think we should have none?
I mean kind of? I feel like other than allies of necessity (to counter other great powers) there isn't really a point in pretending to be friendly to countries that are different to us in practically every way.
I'd say many people in the EU have similar views and ideas to about 2/3rds of the US (maybe I'm being generous on the US size), the half of the US that doesn't think the world is flat, that global warming might be happening, that following the rule of law is a good thing and we don't need to destroy the US to fix it.
Yes. And the current US government not opposing Russia, it's actively helping Russia destroy democracies
Why?
Different ideas on economics (socialism vs capitalism) and personal freedoms, lack of a shared cultural background anymore, etc.
I'm genuinely curious, could you elaborate?
Which European countries would you consider to be socialist? Or perhaps a better question is what makes a country socialist?
Which personal freedoms are different in the US vs Europe?
I've lived in both US and Europe, and have an opinion on this, but really would like your take.
Europe is also capitalist. The last time I checked we had stock exchanges, corporations, and private property laws.
What is different is that there is more opposition and cultural resistance to hyper capitalism. Think monopolies, corporatism, live-to-work, hustle-culture.
With regards to any messaging about "freedom" in the USA, be vigilant, I do think people will be unpleasantly surprised about what has been transacted away. Personal freedoms are indeed extremely important, so zero Schadenfreude here. And yes, those lobby groups in the EU fail to get their stupid anti-encryption laws passed, but they keep trying, so it is frightening. Citizens and visitors of the Five Eyes have lost any privacy already, but we need all of us to fight back.
TLDR: it is better to cooperate around common causes than to fight imaginary opponents. We are in the same boat.
What countries in Europe are not capitalist? Genuine question. And who has less personal freedoms in your opinion?
Those don't seem like the best reasons. European and American economics are pretty close. Europe isn't socialist, it has broader welfare system than the US, but the US has significant welfare systems as well.
I've lived in the US and in Europe and the UK. Shared culture is still very significant. If anything, maybe even closer now than in the 90s.
There's probably other reasons to think about the why and how of alliances than these.
You are correct in terms of economics and culture, but the UK has turned extremely authoritarian and jails people for social media posts frequently.
The UK is nowhere near as authoritarian as the USA currently is so I don't understand your criticism. If anything it could bring us together!
> Different ideas on economics (socialism vs capitalism) and personal freedoms, lack of a shared cultural background anymore, etc.
In other words, you mean there isn't any country that you think could be an ally to the US?
Can you name any?
This is just American nonsense. Literally every single country in Europe is capitalist. Socialism is the democratic ownership of the means of production. Nowhere do we have that in Europe. Frankly this is the real problem with America, about half the population are extremely poorly educated and yet extremely arrogant. A deadly combination, clearly, as it’s led to the very sudden decline and fall of the American Empire.
[flagged]
It is better to clarify what they misunderstood about you and what you misunderstood about them.
You stated something objectively wrong (that European countries are socialist) and then get called out and your reply is just to get upset, literally no information content whatsoever. It's very on brand, I suppose, reminds me a lot of that fraudster, convicted rapist and known paedophile currently in the White House.
Regardless, I agree we are going in separate directions, indeed the USA is no longer even a Western country. We had some good times, the American Empire was pretty great whilst it lasted, I wish you all the best.
My entire point is that many Europeans love to call Americans stupid and uneducated about politics while acting the exact same way themselves, all without noticing the blatant hypocrisy. The difference between you and me and that I know and accept that I am an uneducated idiot about most things. I wish you all the best as well. Hopefully everything works out for the best for everyone involved.
There's nothing wrong with being stupid at all. I just don't understand why you have such strong opinions on something you clearly know nothing about. So: you don't like Europe, USA's oldest and most important allies because they're socialists. OK but Europe is not even socialist, literally all European countries are capitalist (objectively, it's an undeniable fact). Now what? Any reflection, reevaluation? No, you just get offended and tell me once again that you don't like me because I'm European and that's it.
The enlightenment is dead in the USA, knowledge and facts no longer matter. Feelings over facts really won.
First, you failed to read past the first entry in my list of reasons, second you still do not seem to understand what I am saying. You tell me about how half the population of the country that I live in is poorly educated, stupid, and arrogant while you probably do not even live there and then tell me I remind you of a rapist because of that. You do not seem to notice that, if what you are saying is true, you come off as all of those things as well (not the rapist part though lol) because you are doing the exact same thing that I am, talking about something you have little to no direct experience in.
I genuinely can't tell whether you are serious or trolling. Please tell me more about how Europe is socialist.
Or what does that even mean to you. Is socialism when state exists? You are not first American to say that, and every time it happens, I'm genuinely surprised. (I mean, rhetorical question. I suppose that's what socialism is to you. And you are a part of a problem too, because you are growing up internally people who genuinely believe that socialism is good because it means healthcare and higher education. Words no longer have meaning to you in America.)
I meant more that most European countries seem to be on a path towards socialism with popular opinion being much more in favor of it than it is in the US (more in line with my cultural gap statement). If you consider democratic socialism socialism like I do, you have plenty of examples to pick from in government.
It's called social democracy, and much to the chagrin of real socialists this political tradition fully embraces capitalism.
> ...inter-agency relations between Dutch and American intelligence organizations remain “excellent”.
While I highly doubt that Dutch Intelligence is significantly more accountable tothat the American ones are, and therefore don't assume that any meaningful intelligence will actually be withheld (or at least, if is being withheld, it isn't because of the decision being discussed in this piece), BUT it is at least interesting that they made this announcement, which suggests some element somewhere in the European deep state is at least trying to pressure Washington in some way.
“The European Deep State”?