April 19, 2021
The intelligence community (IC) last week made a rare foray into public view to explain the top threats facing the United States. In a paper and in testimony before the Senate and House intelligence committees, agency heads described a complex and “cascading” set of national security challenges, with China securing a prominent position among them. A clear subtext to the report and testimony is that the IC’s priorities are shifting perhaps too slowly from a focus on counterterrorism to addressing near-peer competitors. Those competitors have robust intelligence efforts and no compunction about operating aggressively in the gray zone, for example, influencing elections and spreading misinformation. The report and testimony also featured discussions of the pandemic and climate change, and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines specifically referred to “broadening our definition of national security,” likely to incorporate issues like these that have nor
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