It’s against this backdrop that the controversy took on a new dimension this week related to international intelligence sharing. CNN reported that the U.K. is no longer sharing intelligence with U.S. officials about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean, “because it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal.” From the report:

For years, the UK, which controls a number of territories in the Caribbean where it bases intelligence assets, has helped the US locate vessels suspected of carrying drugs so that the US Coast Guard could interdict them, the sources said. That meant the ships would be stopped, boarded, its crew detained, and drugs seized. The intelligence was typically sent to Joint Interagency Task Force South, a task force stationed in Florida that includes representatives from a number of partner nations and works to reduce the illicit drug trade.

That cooperation, however, is now apparently on hold. The report added that British officials began its “intelligence pause” more than a month ago......

Earlier this year, Shane Harris had a related report in The Atlantic that raised the same point: “Several foreign intelligence officials have recently told me that they are taking steps to limit how much sensitive intelligence they share with the Trump administration, for fear that it might be leaked or used for political ends.”

Two months into the president’s second term, as the White House took steps to align U.S. foreign policy with the Kremlin, NBC News reported: “Some U.S. allies are considering scaling back the intelligence they share with Washington in response to the Trump administration’s conciliatory approach to Russia. ... The allies are weighing the move because of concerns about safeguarding foreign assets whose identities could inadvertently be revealed, said the sources, who included a foreign official.”

Now, it appears the problem has metastasized: Foreign officials haven’t just expressed concern about the Trump administration’s reliability with sensitive intelligence, but they also have reportedly concluded that the administration might use intelligence to launch legally dubious military strikes against civilian targets.