Talk:Five Eyes

I just removed a bunch of excessive links, mostly wikilinks to countries. In general we dont link to countries per WP:OVERLINK, please dont re-link them. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 07:07, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I think discipline is needed to keep articles about IC leaks, controversy, and conspiracies separate from a topic that should be tidy, factual, historically focused, and well sourced. There is so much room on the internet for the tinfoil hat folks to do their WP:SYNTH thing, it doesn’t have to be here.

It is absolutely possible to have an article about the IC that cites Antonio Mendez or Robert Wallace more than it does some disaffected hipster who gave the Russians a backpack full of US state secrets.

I mean hey, if the countries involved have admitted on the official record to a bizarre collective insider-trading of mass citizen data, or published a “targets” list in the lobby of their HQ, I’m all for including that stuff. Jasphetamine (talk) 06:53, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

:[https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3087229/britain-lobbies-five-eyes-allies-share-burden-possible-hong Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab lobbies Five Eyes allies to ‘share burden’ of possible Hong Kong exodus]. Kaihsu 13:08, 3 June 2020

{{ping|Konli17}}{{ping|116.98.161.55}}{{ping|Konli17}}{{ping|TurquoiseEllipse}}{{ping|2406:3400:218:c980:a8ff:34e6:2642:48c4}} to avoid an edit war, I suggest we bring out the concerns that you and other editors may have about the introduction on this article. My view is that it needs to briefly sketch out the history and the common ground that have brought Five Eyes nations together. Views? Concerns? Please share? Erasmus Sydney (talk) 00:04, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

:There are only five countries in the world that share these three attributes; white-majority, English-speaking, and Protestant-majority. While many other countries share one or two of these, only these five have all three. My attention was brought to this when a user blanked a reference to the only one of these shared attributes noted in the article. I don't understand why they'd do that. Konli17 (talk) 01:15, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

::It seems that some users are trying to rewrite history. The introduction is correct regarding the nations that had common ground to found the Five Eyes concept. I agree with Erasmus Sydney's view above. I cannot see how we can alter facts. David J Johnson (talk) 10:29, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

:::I don't understand what you mean about rewriting history. The current introduction ignores their common ground. Konli17 (talk) 10:41, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

::::Hi {{ping|David J Johnson}}; hi {{ping|Konli17}} and thank you for making me look at something I had never considered before. The correlation of Protestantism and the Western alliance system. You forced me to research and I'm grateful for that. However what I found, especially after looking through some reports from the excellent Pew Research Center is that Protestantism has its most vital populations in Africa. Take Anglicanism for example. There are more Anglicans in Ghana than there are in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States (where they are known as Episcopalians) combined. In terms of countries with raw majorities of Protestants you'd be looking at the Solomon Islands, Botswana, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, South Africa and Namibia. None of these countries are part of Five Eyes. An interesting thread to pull on, but this alliance ain't about religion or race. Erasmus Sydney (talk) 10:43, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

::::: It is also worth stating that all the countries in the Five Eyes alliance have multi-racial populations. It appears to me that some "contributors" are trying to introduce a racial element into this discussion. Regards, David J Johnson (talk) 10:52, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

::::::You seem to be missing my main point; there are only five countries in the world that share these three attributes; white-majority, English-speaking, and Protestant-majority. I'm not talking about countries that have just one or two of them. You may as well accuse me of introducing a religious or linguistic element. You could use quotation marks. Konli17 (talk) 11:18, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

:::::::Oh, I absolutely understand your point, and I think it's a genuinely interesting observation - and in my mind I'm seeing a Venn Diagram regarding ethnic origin, religion and language group. However, I could equally argue that the Five Eyes are a collection of nations where there is a popular consumption of anchovy paste on toast, or Earl Grey Tea. It wouldn't be hard for me to build the data. But it still wouldn't prove that this is what Five Eyes is really about. An interesting excursion, but I believe it's time to return to the main track.Erasmus Sydney (talk) 09:15, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

::::::::I don't recall saying that's what they're about, which is an unusual way to characterise my recent edits. You certainly could equally argue about tea and paste, and if I thought your findings were relevant to international relations articles I'd be in favour of their use. But when considering relevance to international relations, alliances etc., I'd guess tea and paste would be well behind language, race and religion in most people's view. Konli17 (talk) 11:20, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

:::::::::{{ping|Konli17}}Why don't we look at what the members of the grouping themselves say? What do they say the affinity is all about? I found the minutes of a meeting of the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Five Eyes Intelligence Oversight and Review Council and, I was disappointed to see no mention of fish paste or Earl Grey Tea. Equally as deflating nothing about white-ness or protestantism. What does come up is "shared values" and "democratic statecraft." If we're going to spot a binding idea for this group, I think that's probably a good start. https://www.dni.gov/files/ICIG/Documents/Partnerships/FIORC/Executive%20Summaries/2019/Executive%20Summary%20-%20FINAL.pdf Erasmus Sydney (talk) 12:16, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

::::::::::By all means let's look, as long as that doesn't preclude us from looking at what they don't say. OK, shared values. Do they list any values that no other countries apart from these five have? Now, democratic statecraft. That's a puzzler. Surely they realise they're not the only democracies? If they've neglected to realise how unique they are, or are shy about it for some reason, that's no barrier to us noting it. Konli17 (talk) 13:46, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

:::::::::::{{ping|Konli17}}You're right, the Five Eyes members are not the world's only democracies. My working assumption is that its shared history that has bound them - knowing of course that all members belong to other security alliance systems too, such as NATO, the RIO Pact and EU Defence. I would like to do some more research on this and make some suggestions. I think we all know the entire article needs improving. Needs deeper research and a better structure.Erasmus Sydney (talk) 23:07, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

::::::::::::Yes, it's their shared history that has led to the unusual distinctions of the membership of Five Eyes. It's Britain and the four largest of its white-majority, Protestant-majority former colonies. Konli17 (talk) 15:01, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

:::::::::::::I never contributed to this discussion when it first occurred, but I was suddenly reminded of it by [https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/12/10/where-economists-focus-their-research this article], which refers to these five countries as simply "the rich English-speaking countries". (Apparently another connection between them is that they historically have gotten the lion's share of economics research.) That term might work as a more concise description, though it does conspicuously leave out Ireland. Or, if you wanted to be cheeky, I think you could also accurately describe them as "Britain and the former British colonies in which the majority of the native population was replaced by colonists".--Shmarrighan (talk) 06:41, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

https://www.statewatch.org/news/2020/august/five-country-ministerial-official-communique-short-on-substance/

Could an explanation of the initialism be provided (duly sourced, of course)? Is it simply a construction to approximate to the pronunciation that looks right among other acronyms? Is it an attempt to save resources by removing 5 keystrokes? Has a back formation been applied? (Five Viewers for Every Yawn? Finding Various Excuses Yearly?)

When did it come into use? etc etc Kevin McE (talk) 08:15, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

:Since it's used in five eyes official documentation it's likely just to save letters. If you have to write out the name of the organisation thousands of times across hundreds of documents having a shorthand name saves time. HamNCheeseSandwich (talk) 13:28, 2 April 2025 (UTC)