WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama talks often by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel — at least five times over the past month. But he can no longer be as certain as he once was that he knows what she’s thinking, really thinking, at a time like this.

The crisis in Ukraine is just the type of situation in which the U.S. intelligence community might once have monitored Merkel’s private phone conversations for insights beyond what she might share directly with Obama.