Annual Threat Assessment of the Director of National Intelligence (PDF; 178 KB)
Source: Office of the Director National Intelligence

We know that the nation requires more from our Intelligence Community than ever before because America confronts a greater diversity of threats and challenges than ever before. Globalization, the defining characteristic of our age, mandates global intelligence coverage. Globalization is not a ìthreatî in and of itself; it has more positive than negative characteristics.

But globalization does facilitate the terrorist threat, heightens the danger of WMD proliferation, and contributes to regional instability and reconfigurations of power and influenceóespecially through competition for energy. Globalization also exposes the United States to mounting counterintelligence challenges. Our comparative advantage in some areas of technical intelligence, where we have been dominant in the past, is being eroded. Several nonstate actors, including international terrorist groups, conduct intelligence activities as effectively as capable state intelligence services. A significant number of states also conduct economic espionage. China and Russiaís foreign intelligence services are among the most aggressive in collecting against sensitive and protected US targets.

This array of challenges to our national security is shaped by dramatic advances in telecommunications, technology, new centers of economic growth, and the consequences of crises within traditional cultures.

As a result of these and other challenges exacerbated by globalization, many nation states are unable to provide good governance and sustain the rule of law within their borders. This enables non-state actors and hostile states to assault these fundamental building blocks of international order, creating failed states, proxy states, terrorist safehavens, and ungoverned regions that endanger the international community and its citizens. More to the point, it threatens our national security and support for freedom and democracy, notably in Iraq and Afghanistan, where our troops and those of our allies are helping to defend freely elected governments and sovereign peoples against determined insurgents and terrorists.

Annual Threat Assessment to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
See also: Annual Threat Assessment to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (PDF; 148 KB)

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 20th, 2007 at 6:03 pm and is filed under Government and politics, International Relations, Military and defense, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.