The U.S. Intelligence Community’s Annual Threat Assessment

Happy Tuesday! We can’t count the number of times in recent years we’ve heard people yearn for the halcyon days of Edward Murrow, Tom Brokaw, or Walter Cronkite, when Americans of all political persuasions could coalesce around a shared set of facts.

The realities of that era were always far more complicated, but YouGov’s annual “Trust in Media” poll released yesterday may have unearthed a modern-day bipartisan gem: The Weather Channel.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• Ukrainian officials said Monday morning the country’s air defenses shot down at least two dozen Iranian-made drones over Kyiv in one of the largest drone attacks yet in Russia’s recent aerial offensive. Falling debris injured at least five people in the Ukrainian capital, and several more were wounded in concurrent attacks on the Black Sea port city of Odessa.
• Iran hanged two men Monday convicted of blasphemy for their involvement in a channel called “Critique of Superstition and Religion” on the Telegram messaging app. The two men, Yousef Mehrad and Sadrollah Fazeli Zare, were arrested in May 2020 and subjected to months of solitary confinement. The hangings—rare in blasphemy cases—come amid a surge of executions by the Iranian regime.
• House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul threatened in a letter on Friday to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress if he does not comply with the panel’s subpoena for information about the Biden administration’s 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. McCaul is seeking an internal dissent cable reportedly sent by 23 State Department officials in July 2021 warning of the potential collapse of Kabul if the withdrawal proceeded.
• The man who drove his SUV into a group of people at a Brownsville, Texas bus stop over the weekend—killing eight people and injuring 10—was charged with eight counts of manslaughter and 10 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, Brownsville Police Chief Felix Sauceda said Monday. The 34-year-old defendant has an extensive criminal record, which includes charges of assault and driving under the influence. Police are awaiting the results of a toxicology report to determine if the suspect was intoxicated.

Threats, Threats Everywhere

A quick skim of the intelligence community’s “Annual Threat Assessment” is liable to leave you hiding wide-eyed under the covers. After perusing this year’s 40-page litany of dangers foreign and domestic, Sen. Angus King of Maine had some advice for reporters: “Don’t read it just before you go to sleep.”

Even read over morning coffee, the report offers a disquieting account of how a growing list of foes are already—or could soon be—undermining the United States’ national interests. Lawmakers pressed top intelligence officials for more details at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday, focusing on China and Russia while calling for more attention on drug trafficking and voicing concerns about reauthorizing an intelligence collection authority agencies have used to access U.S. citizens’ information.

China led this year’s threat assessment—and last week’s hearing. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told lawmakers Chinese leader Xi Jinping “would prefer to achieve unification of Taiwan through peaceful means,” but has directed his military to provide him with plans for using force to gain control of the island democracy. Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, agreed, noting the intelligence community (IC) still isn’t sure if or when China may invade. “Bottom line is he’s told his military to be ready,” Berrier said. “For what, we are not sure. When, we are not sure.” In the meantime, Haines said, the Chinese Communist Party is focused on consolidating power in East Asia and the world, and sees undermining the U.S. as essential to that task—along with economic coercion and military threats against neighbors.

Next up, another unsurprising threat: Russia. Haines and Berrier told lawmakers ammunition and manpower shortages will likely keep Russian troops from mounting a significant offensive in Ukraine this year. “If Russia does not initiate a mandatory mobilization and secure substantial third-party ammunition supplies beyond existing deliveries from Iran and others, it will be increasingly challenging for them to sustain even modest offensive operations,” Haines said, adding that Russia gained less ground in April than in the previous three months and has pivoted toward defending occupied Ukrainian territories. Berrier warned Russian President Vladimir Putin “is not seeking an offramp” for the war, but said it would take years for Russia’s ground forces to recover from their degradation in Ukraine. Both officials said they consider it “unlikely” Russia will use nuclear weapons.

The spy chiefs also unpacked the growing relationship between China and Russia, which they described as significant but not likely to reach the closeness of, say, NATO allies. “Russia is increasingly beholden to and needs China,” Haines said, telling GOP Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa that while the IC has looked for tension in the relationship, it’s unlikely the U.S. can disrupt their trajectory of increasing collaboration. Both countries, Haines said, would likely jump at the chance to portray the U.S. as dysfunctional if we default on our debts before Congress raises the debt ceiling.

China and Russia were certainly the headliners on Thursday, but lawmakers also asked about perennial nuclear and cyber threats from Iran and North Korea—and the risk of terrorist attacks, particularly after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Haines declined to specify publicly how American intelligence capabilities in Afghanistan have deteriorated since the August 2021 withdrawal, but she acknowledged that visibility is lower. In March, Gen. Michael Kurilla, the commander of U.S. Central Command, told lawmakers ISIS-K could coordinate attacks on U.S. interests or allies from Afghanistan within six months—with little to no warning. Haines said ISIS-K’s capabilities have since been degraded—though again, she didn’t publicly say how, promising to discuss further in a classified hearing—and estimated the timeline to launch attacks is now more like six months to a year. According to National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, the Taliban recently killed the mastermind of the deadly suicide bombing at the Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate as U.S. troops and Afghans evacuated. Kirby last month cited the alleged bomb planner’s killing as just one in a “series of high-profile leadership losses” ISIS-K has experienced this year.

A brief foray into the topic of intelligence leaks produced few answers about whether poor procedures—or poor adherence to otherwise adequate procedures—contributed to the recent disclosure of highly classified information. Haines cited ongoing investigations, promising updates, and called Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira’s alleged actions “extremely frustrating, obviously, and demoralizing for folks in the intelligence communities who work so hard, frankly, to put together the kind of intelligence that then gets disclosed in leaks.”

Nor did Berrier or Haines have much to say when lawmakers asked about paying more attention to drugs entering the United States through the southern border. Haines said the IC agrees “this is absolutely critical” and is trying to expand its data collection. But King, the independent senator from Maine, noted less than 2 percent of global intelligence resources are spent on the issue, calling it a “gross misallocation” of resources and suggesting Congress should dedicate more funding to United States Southern Command.

The hearing also touched on Haiti, Sudan, quantum computing, and most any other threat you can imagine—but to hear Haines tell it, the IC’s assessment of these threats could be kneecapped in future years unless Congress reauthorizes Section 702 before its December expiration date. The statute—passed in 2008 as an amendment to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978—legalizes warrantless collection of communications data from targeted foreign nationals, including both data housed on U.S. soil and communications with U.S. citizens. Haines argued this swift and relatively red-tape-free collection authority is essential to IC operations, noting 59 percent of the president’s daily briefs include information sourced under Section 702.

The statute forbids the agencies from targeting Americans, but U.S. citizens’ data gets swept up when they’re communicating with foreign actors. Government analysts can search databases using Americans’ identifiers—like names and Social Security numbers—if they believe the search will likely yield information about foreign intelligence.

But the IC has frequently pushed those limits. In 2021, for instance, the FBI made 3.4 million queries to acquire data on U.S. citizens, including a search for a member of congress and a local political party. After oversight reforms and extra training on the rules around these searches, the FBI reported 204,090 such queries in 2022. And, of course, Republicans have been particularly riled by the error-ridden FBI application to wiretap former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page—though that application wasn’t made under Section 702.

Lawmakers fret that the current policies jeopardize Americans’ privacy and risk politically motivated surveillance. Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has formed a working group to propose reforms to Section 702 and related surveillance authorities. Democrats also have critiques—Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii on Thursday told Haines “existing safeguards aren’t enough” and suggested the possibility of requiring warrants for searches related to American citizens.

The Biden administration has reportedly emphasized to lawmakers the importance of Section 702 in tracking drug traffickers and cartels, a point Haines reiterated Thursday. Still, internal reforms may not be enough to secure reauthorization from Congress. “It is incumbent upon Congress, not the Executive Branch, to codify reforms,” Turner and fellow Republican Rep. Darin LaHood of Illinois* said in an April statement. “Without additional safeguards, a clean reauthorization of 702 is a non-starter.”

Worth Your Time

• Ross Douthat is starting to worry the 2024 Republican presidential primary is going to look a lot like the 2016 Republican presidential primary. “Seven years later, it’s clear that many of the underlying dynamics that made Trump the nominee are still in play,” he writes in his latest New York Times column. “First, there are the limits of ideological box-checking in a campaign against Trump. A campaign against him won’t prosper if its main selling point is just True Conservatism 2.0. Second, there’s the mismatch between cultural conservatism and the anti-Trump donor class. Part of DeSantis’s advantage now, is that he has seemed more congenial to the party’s bigger-money donors. But many of those donors don’t really like the culture war; they’ll go along with a generic anti-wokeness, but they hate the Disney battles, and they’re usually pro-choice. This leads to the third dynamic that could repeat itself: The G.O.P coordination problem, a.k.a. the South Carolina pileup. If you have an anti-Trump donor base dissatisfied with DeSantis and willing to sustain long-shot rivals, it’s easy enough to see how rivals talk themselves into hanging around long enough to hand Trump exactly the sort of narrow wins that eventually gave him unstoppable momentum in 2016.”
• We need a Manhattan Project for artificial intelligence, Samuel Hammond argues in Politico. “It sounds fanciful, but many experts on global risk believe that a powerful, uncontrolled AI is the single most likely way humanity could wipe itself out,” he writes. “At the heart of the threat is what’s called the ‘alignment problem’— the idea that a powerful computer brain might no longer be aligned with the best interests of human beings. It’s a highly technical problem that some experts fear may never be solvable. But the government does have a role to play in confronting massive, uncertain problems like this. In fact, it may be the most important role it can play on AI: to fund a research project on the scale it deserves. There’s a successful precedent for this: The Manhattan Project was one of the most ambitious technological undertakings of the 20th century. Some eight decades later, the need has arisen for a government research project that matches the original Manhattan Project’s scale and urgency. In some ways the goal is exactly the opposite of the first Manhattan Project, which opened the door to previously unimaginable destruction. This time, the goal must be to prevent unimaginable destruction, as well as merely difficult-to-anticipate destruction.”

Speaking of Manhattan Projects…

Presented Without Comment 

C-SPAN: Former Pres. Trump Says U.S. Politicians Are Biggest Threat to Nation

“They said, ‘Who is our biggest threat? Is it China, sir? Is it Russia?’ I said, ‘No, our biggest threat are high-level politicians that work in the United States government like Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Schumer, Biden, Justice Department. Because that is poisoning our country.”

Also Presented Without Comment

Insider: Chinese Man Jailed for Scaring 1,100 Chickens to Death Amid a Feud With His Neighbor

Toeing the Company Line

• It’s Tuesday, which means Dispatch Live (🔒) returns tonight at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT! The team will discuss the news of the week and, of course, take plenty of viewer questions! Keep an eye out for an email later today with information on how to tune in.
• In the newsletters: Kevin argues (🔒) Americans should vote their consciences rather than strategically, the Dispatch Politics crew breaks down North Carolina’s gubernatorial race, and Nick predicts (🔒) a Trump-Biden rematch in 2024 will do nothing but deepen Americans’ dissatisfaction with the direction of the country. 
• On the podcasts: Damon Preston, a public advocate in Kentucky, joins David to discuss Jordan Neely’s death on the New York City subway last week.
• On the site: Drucker questions reports of Ron DeSantis’ donor exodus, Harvest investigates an American diplomat’s participation in a conference featuring a U.S.-designated terrorist, and Cliff Smith looks at the pernicious isolationism being peddled by a prominent senator. 

Let Us Know

What (or who) do you believe poses the biggest threat to the United States?

Correction, May 9, 2023: Rep. Darin LaHood is from Illinois, not Ohio.