Reader Request – US Intelligence Estimate

A long-time reader sent me a link to an interesting document and asked me to comment. How could I refuse? The document was the unclassified “Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community”. It was presented by the Director of National Intelligence at an open hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 8^th, 2022. The short summary is that the world still is, and will continue to be, a dangerous place.

Background

But first, a bit of personal background, to explain my biases. I did a brief stint on the fringes of tactical intelligence in a Battalion S-2 while stationed in Berlin in the late 70’s and early 80’s. I also frequently interacted with one of the most unusual Brigade level intelligence shops while I worked in G3 Operations in the same Command. And, I had a couple of interesting interactions with the counter-intelligence folks at the same place and time. So, I am not an intelligence expert, but I have watched some experts play the game.

Overview

First and foremost, remember that the Intelligence Community (IC) does not ‘know’ anything. They see bits and pieces of varying degrees of verisimilitude and make extremely educated guesses (assessments) from that data. Their job is to identify potential threats and future adversarial actions so that the operational folks have the proper plans and forces in place to adequately deal with those actions.

Their reports are colored by what they know, what they think they know, what they know that they don’t know, and what they don’t know that they don’t know. And each and every portion of the IC has a different set of ‘knows’. See the discussion about the “COVID-19 Origins Assessment” on page 18 of the report about how this knowledge problem affects intelligence reporting.

Finally, the greatest sin in the IC is having to say: “We did not see that coming…” The second greatest sin is having to reply to “But you said this would happen and it did not…”

Okay, really, two final points. The report was published on February 7^th based upon information available through January 21^st. Not much has changed in the world since those two dates (SIGH).

Russia

In view of the ‘Special Military Operation’ being conducted in Ukraine, I think that the section of this report (pgs 10 to 14) devoted to Russia is very instructive. Here is the pull quote from page 10:

“We expect that Moscow will remain an influential power and a formidable challenge to the United States amidst the changing geopolitical landscape during the next decade. It will continue to pursue its interests in competitive and sometimes confrontational and provocative ways, including pressing to dominate Ukraine and other countries in its “near-abroad,” while exploring possibilities to achieve a more stable relationship with Washington.”

And two other interesting comments:

“Russia uses corruption as an effective foreign policy tool to further its geopolitical goals and buy influence in other countries; however, it also serves as a long-term domestic vulnerability as well as a drag on Russia’s economic performance and ability to attract investment (emphasis added).”

“Moscow has the wherewithal to deploy forces in strategically important regions, but the farther it deploys from Russia, [emphasis added] the less able it probably will be to sustain intensive combat operations.”

In hindsight, it seems odd that the corruption issue was not specifically identified as a factor in potential military deployments as far away as… across the border in Ukraine?

Cybersecurity

The document includes multiple discussions of cybersecurity threats from China (pg 7), Russia (pg 12), Iran (pg 15), North Korea (pg 17), and Transnational Criminal Organizations (pg 24). Nothing new in any of those presentations and certainly nothing actionable. To be fair, this document is not designed to provide actionable intelligence information it is just an overview of the threats.

Final Thoughts

As a picture of where the world sits today and is heading in the near future, this document provides a very unfocused view. And it was intended to be unfocused. Part of that is because this is an unclassified document, but even the classified version of this document is only going to be a broadly painted version of how the intelligence community views the world. Every element of the IC is going to see the current state of the world from a different perspective and are going to come up with frequently conflicting assessments of what may happen. And, many of those assessments are going to be different next week when new information becomes available.

So read this document as it was intended. It is an overview to allow non-professionals an idea of what things to look out for in the not-too-distant future. It is not, and was never intended to be, a prediction of what is going to happen.