Today: 2023 Assessment Release & Hearing
The US Intelligence Community conducts and releases an Annual Threat Assessment as an easily readable public document every year. This year’s was released just today.
The announcement is posted here, and the 40-page report PDF is here.
As I write this, the Intel Community is presenting this assessment to the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The hearing is being broadcast live online here.
Missing: The Domestic Violent Extremism Threat
Of note, the report only has this to say about internal strife and domestic unrest in general, from page 35:
“INTERNAL STRIFE. Domestic unrest—whether grounded in social divisions, competitive political ideologies, or an inability of the state to deliver on basic human services—can fuel cycles of violence, insurgencies, and internal conflict. The consequences often are felt beyond the borders of the affected area, sometimes spreading discord to other countries, and expanding the scope and scale of the security challenges. Whether these are bouts of violence or long-term insurgencies and civil wars, these instances of internal strife can erode governing institutions, entrench internal divisions, and deplete state resources, as well as challenge the United States’ and Allies’ ability to effectively partner with these nations. Below we highlight a few of the countries and regions struggling with violence, unrest, and insurgencies.”
Of note, that is a general statement about domestic strife in any country — not internal US unrest specifically. There is a bit more related to domestic violent extremism (DVE) in the section on page 33 about “Transnational Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists” (RMVE), but only notes a limited influence of this RMVE activity on domestic violent extremism.
In fact, this report doesn’t appear to directly address domestic violent extremism within the US at all.
Overall, the report’s failure to address the domestic threat speaks volumes; coming from the world’s most powerful intelligence community (IC). To be fair, the IC wasn’t set up to deal with domestic terrorism and threats. However, we need to make some pivots to focus on that threat and it doesn’t appear as if we are positioning ourselves to do so.
You have to be able to see the threat and to talk about it to deal with it. There’s no sign that we’re doing that effectively yet as a country. That’s a problem. Given the preponderance of insurrection-backers and election deniers serving in the US House and US Senate, it’s not likely that we’ll be aggressively dealing with the DVE threat anytime soon. To do so, either the Biden Administration or the Congress or both would need to be able to talk about that threat clearly and coherently. Yet this is the biggest threat assessment of the year — and that’s missing.
No doubt defenders would say that this assessment’s focus is intended to be on worldwide threats and not domestic, but how is a domestic threat not included in “worldwide?” Any serious internal threat to US security certainly seems to fall within that scope. Plus, you know, the US is in the world. The law requiring this annual threat assessment doesn’t appear to exclude domestic threat analysis (search on the page for Section 617):
“Annual Reports. — Not later than the first Monday in February 2021, and each year thereafter, the Director of National Intelligence, in coordination with the heads of the elements of the intelligence community, shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report containing an assessment of the intelligence community with respect to worldwide threats to the national security of the United States.”
Report Summary
Below is the report’s entire Foreword, to give you a sense of what else is in it:
“During the coming year, the United States and its allies will confront a complex and pivotal international security environment dominated by two critical strategic challenges that intersect with each other and existing trends to intensify their national security implications. First, great powers, rising regional powers, as well as an evolving array of non-state actors, will vie for dominance in the global order, as well as compete to set the emerging conditions and the rules that will shape that order for decades to come. Strategic competition between the United States and its allies, China, and Russia over what kind of world will emerge makes the next few years critical to determining who and what will shape the narrative perhaps most immediately in the context of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, which threaten to escalate into a broader conflict between Russia and the West. Second, shared global challenges, including climate change, and human and health security, are converging as the planet emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic and confronts economic issues spurred by both energy and food insecurity. Rapidly emerging or evolving technologies continue to have the potential to disrupt traditional business and society with both positive and negative outcomes, while creating unprecedented vulnerabilities and attack surfaces, making it increasingly challenging to predict the impact of such challenges on the global landscape.
“These two strategic challenges will intersect and interact in unpredictable ways, leading to mutually reinforcing effects that could challenge our ability to respond, but that also will introduce new opportunities to forge collective action with allies and partners, including non-state actors. The 2023 Annual Threat Assessment highlights some of those connections as it provides the IC’s baseline assessments of the most pressing threats to U.S. national interests. It is not an exhaustive assessment of all global challenges. This assessment addresses both the threats from U.S. adversaries and functional and transnational concerns, such as weapons of mass destruction and cyber, primarily in the sections regarding threat actors, as well as an array of regional issues with larger, global implications.
“Russia’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine has highlighted that the era of nation-state competition and conflict has not been relegated to the past but instead has emerged as a defining characteristic of the current era. While Russia is challenging the United States and some norms in the international order in its war of territorial aggression, China has the capability to directly attempt to alter the rules-based global order in every realm and across multiple regions, as a near-peer competitor that is increasingly pushing to change global norms and potentially threatening its neighbors. Russia’s military action against Ukraine demonstrates that it remains a revanchist power, intent on using whatever tools are needed to try to reestablish a perceived sphere of influence despite what its neighbors desire for themselves, and is willing to push back on Washington both locally and globally. Besides these strategic competitors, local and regional powers are seeking to exert their influence, often at the cost of neighbors and the world order itself. Iran will remain a regional menace with broader malign influence activities, and North Korea will expand its WMD capabilities while being a disruptive player on the regional and world stages.
“At the same time, as the nations of the world strive to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, they are beset by an array of shared, global issues. The accelerating effects of climate change are placing more of the world’s population, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, under threat from extreme weather, food insecurity, and humanitarian disasters, fueling migration flows and increasing the risks of future pandemics as pathogens exploit the changing environment. Efforts by Russia, China, and other countries to promote authoritarianism and spread disinformation is helping fuel a larger competition between democratic and authoritarian forms of government. This competition exploits global information flows to gain influence and impacts nearly all countries, contributing to democratic backsliding, threats of political instability, and violent societal conflict through misinformation and disinformation.
“Regional and localized conflicts and instability will continue to demand U.S. attention as states and non-state actors struggle to find their place in the evolving international order, attempt to navigate great power competition, and confront shared transnational challenges. Regional challengers, such as Iran and North Korea, will seek to disrupt their local security environment and garner more power for themselves, threatening U.S. allies in the process. In every region of the world, challenges from climate change, demographic trends, human and health security, and economic disruptions caused by energy and food insecurity and technology proliferation will combine and interact in specific and unique ways to trigger events ranging from political instability, to terrorist threats, to mass migration, and potential humanitarian emergencies.
“The 2023 Annual Threat Assessment Report supports the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s transparency commitments and the tradition of providing regular threat updates to the American public and the United States Congress. The IC is vigilant in monitoring and assessing direct and indirect threats to U.S. and allied interests. As part of this ongoing effort, the IC’s National Intelligence Officers work closely with analysts from across the IC to examine the spectrum of threats and highlight the most likely and impactful near-term risks in the context of the longer-term, overarching threat environment.
“The National Intelligence Council stands ready to support policymakers with additional information in a classified setting.”
Hoo boy. Where to begin? I’ll start with something you wrote: “You have to be able to see the threat and to talk about it to deal with it.” Amen. This report makes it glaringly clear that we are so far from identifying the threat, saying it out loud, that there is no way the government can actually address it. You point out that it is an assessment of “worldwide threats”—and then ask, “…how is a domestic threat not included in ‘worldwide’?” Amen again!
I want to point out from the Foreword of the document itself: “At the same time, as the nations of the world strive to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, they are beset by an array of shared, global issues… Efforts by Russia, China, and other countries to *promote authoritarianism and spread disinformation* is helping fuel a larger competition between democratic and authoritarian forms of government.” (my emphasis)
The single paragraph (excerpted above) points out why it is so important for us to acknowledge the threats from within! Who has their eyes on the efforts occurring right here in these United States to promote authoritarianism and spread disinformation—and what role are these domestic actors playing on the international stage?
If the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is not the appropriate forum for addressing our internal threats, then what agency is? And what coordination is occurring between that agency and those focused on our role internationally? Despite the right words coming out of Biden’s mouth about the threats to our democracy, this report leaves me feeling that our intelligence community is not taking the threat seriously, and that’s pretty scary.
Evelyn, you are so right on. You so often say the things that I'm thinking but don't quite get to words. It's good to hear I'm not the only one alarmed by this report.
The Office for the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) was specifically created after 9/11 to help better coordinate intel between all of the intel agencies. It's their entire job. Your question or point about that underscores the entire problem here. If they're not doing it, who is?
I know from prior national security and intelligence strategies from when they were created that they have in the past had their eye on domestic issues. For example, ODNI was working pretty deeply on supply chain issues for a while toward the end of the Obama administration. That was in response or reaction in part to Superstorm Sandy and I think to the 2008 recession. While that's worldwide, it's also domestic. They also had some strategies for dealing with domestic disasters even though the primary lead for that is DHS and especially FEMA. It's not out of their bailiwick (ODNI's) to do domestic stuff. I'm not sure why it's so specifically excluded here. The fact that it is is *very* unsettling.