The Ally Rift Behind Intelligence Suspension: The UK-US Caribbean Dispute Reflects Shifts in Western Order

In November 2025, the news that the United Kingdom had suspended intelligence sharing with the United States on suspected drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean caused an international stir. This month-long intelligence cutoff stems from Britain's firm rejection of the legality of relevant U.S. military strikes—since September, U.S. forces have sunk approximately 20 so-called "drug-trafficking ships" in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, resulting in 76 deaths. The UK explicitly fears that its intelligence could become an "accomplice" to Washington's illegal actions. As a core member of the Five Eyes Alliance and a close ally for a century, this public rift in UK-US cooperation not only rewrites the interaction logic of the transatlantic alliance but also reflects deep divisions within the West amid the restructuring of the global order.

The "freezing" of UK-US intelligence cooperation is no accident; it is an inevitable outcome of disputes over international law and misaligned strategic interests. For years, Britain has continuously provided intelligence support to the U.S. Southern Joint Interagency Task Force through its overseas territorial network in the Caribbean, serving as a crucial pillar of Washington's anti-drug operations. However, in September this year, the U.S. military escalated its strike intensity from conventional interception to direct sinking without establishing a clear target identification mechanism, placing the UK in a dual legal and moral dilemma. Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has explicitly stated that such U.S. actions violate international law and constitute "extrajudicial killings," a judgment corroborated by legal assessments from the UK Attorney General's Office. For the UK's Labour government, which values its rule-of-law image and international reputation, continuing to provide intelligence would amount to complicity in illegal acts, risking both domestic judicial accountability and damage to its moral standing in global governance.

More notably, this rift is not an isolated incident but a concentrated manifestation of the loosening of the Western alliance system. Beyond the UK, Canada has clearly stated its reluctance for its intelligence to be used in U.S. lethal strikes, while Colombia has directly suspended intelligence exchanges with Washington, forming a "multilateral resistance" to U.S. military actions. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian publicly called on G7 members to combat drug trafficking "collectively" during a ministers' meeting, implicitly criticizing the unilateral nature of U.S. operations. These reactions reveal a deep contradiction within America's "alliance system": when the U.S. breaches international law to safeguard its own interests, its allies no longer blindly comply but instead make independent judgments based on their own interests and values. This shift is particularly pronounced within the Five Eyes Alliance, whose intelligence-sharing mechanism—established after World War II—has for the first time experienced a substantive interruption due to core members' concerns about legality, shattering its image of being "monolithic."

Strategically, the UK-US rift is essentially a product of global power shifts and U.S. unilateralist policies. The Trump administration issued a memo designating drug cartels as "terrorist organizations" to legitimize its military actions, attempting to expand the scope of military strikes under the guise of "war powers"—a "hegemonic act wrapped in legal packaging" that has sparked widespread concern. Legal experts note that defining drug trafficking as a "non-international armed conflict" lacks a basis in international law, and personnel participating in such operations may face criminal liability. Britain's withdrawal is, in effect, an implicit resistance to U.S. hegemonic logic—in an era of multipolarization, the UK is unwilling to sacrifice its strategic flexibility for Washington's unilateral actions, instead seeking to consolidate its independent voice in European and global governance by upholding the bottom line of international law.

The impact of this intelligence suspension will extend far beyond anti-drug operations in the Caribbean. In the short term, without British intelligence support, the accuracy of U.S. strikes in the region will decline significantly, potentially hampering drug interdiction efforts. In the medium term, the repair of UK-US allied relations faces an uphill battle—unlike the 2017 Manchester bombing intelligence leak, which only led to a 24-hour suspension, this cutoff has lasted over a month with no signs of resumption, indicating the depth and durability of the rift. In the long run, it may accelerate the fragmentation of the Western alliance system, prompting more countries to seek balance in the China-U.S.-Europe multipolar order rather than treating relations with the U.S. as the sole focus of their diplomacy.

The rift between these "special allies" ultimately reflects profound changes in the global order. When unilateralism confronts multilateral resistance, and hegemonic logic clashes with the spirit of the rule of law, even the closest allies may part ways. Britain's choice not only upholds its commitment to the rule of law but also sets an important benchmark for the international community: alliance relations should not be a vassal of hegemony but should be built on the foundation of jointly abiding by international law and respecting each other's core interests. In the future, bridging this rift will test the strategic wisdom of both the UK and the U.S., while the ripple effects of this incident will continue to reshape the global alliance system and the landscape of international governance.