2013 Annual Threat Assessment

Good morning, Chairman Levin, Ranking Member Inhofe, and members of the committee. Thank you for this opportunity to testify and for your continued support to the dedicated intelligence professionals of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), many of whom are forward-deployed directly supporting U.S. and allied military forces in Afghanistan as well as in 141 countries and 262 locations around the world. I have been the Director of DIA for nearly eight months now, and I cannot overemphasize how proud and privileged I am to serve our nation in this capacity.

As our defense strategy highlights, our nation is at a moment of transition. The global security environment, as Director Clapper just stated, presents increasingly complex challenges and a growing list of threats and adversaries.

The demands on the U.S. intelligence system have skyrocketed in recent years, and these demands are only expected to increase.

The United States faces an uncertain security environment marked by a broad spectrum of dissimilar threats from nation-states, non-nation state actors, transnational organized criminal groups, highly adaptive transnational terrorist networks, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the ever-looming and very dangerous threat of CYBER attacks against our defense industrial base as well as against other critical components of our nation’s infrastructure. I view this latter threat as the most dangerous threat we face today.

This opening statement along with my more thorough statement for the record reflects DIA’s best analysis, and it is based on DIA’s worldwide human intelligence, technical intelligence, counterintelligence, and measurement and signature intelligence collection, as well as our world class national level document and media exploitation capabilities.

Additionally, our mission is executed in close collaboration with our Intelligence Community partners, our international coalition partners, as well as utilizing the full range of open sources available in today’s information environment.

Our customers run the gamut from the President of the United States on down to our warfighting combatant commanders; but the most important customer we serve are the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Civilians who serve our nation around the world and who are willing to stand in harm’s way to protect our country.

Without restating what Director Clapper has already addressed, I will simply say, we face a complex and interconnected global operational environment characterized by a multitude of actors.

This unprecedented array of threats and challenges include: The continuing threats from the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan; Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist organizations in the Middle East and Africa; Terrorist havens in Pakistan; The popular upheavals and their aftermath in Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere in the Middle East; Iran's sustained nuclear and missile developments; North Korea's continuing nuclear and missile provocations; The growing seriousness of CYBER threats to our defense industrial base and our nation’s critical infrastructure, government networks, and the American business community, and finally, the growth in China' s economic and military power.

All of these factors place significant demands on the Defense Intelligence Agency and the entire Defense Intelligence Enterprise.

As stated above, I believe the most pressing threat facing our country is the threat from CYBER attacks. The daily occurrences of attacks are damaging on a variety of levels and they are not only persistent and dangerous, the likelihood of serious damage to our national security is very real. Potential adversaries are increasingly more capable of conducting CYBER operations.

CYBER attacks remain an important and increasing transnational threat to the security of the United States, with state actors integrating these capabilities into their intelligence gathering methods and warfare doctrine.

One final point regarding CYBER attacks we need to remember is that, behind these CYBER attacks are human beings, some are non-state individuals, some part of state sponsored networks but all with increasing capabilities and harmful intentions doing damage to our national security.

Lastly, since DIA’s mission includes providing our Defense Department Strategic Warning, given the enduring impact of the Arab Spring, the ongoing turmoil in Syria, persistent territorial disputes globally, and emerging transnational threats previously described, all these challenges underscore the need for effective strategic warning and long-range foresight to prevent strategic surprise.

Strategic problems such as proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, state-on-state conflict, instability, resource scarcity, and terrorism remain at the forefront of U.S. warning concerns.

However, strategic surprise, not only as a goal of the deliberate deception efforts by our adversaries, but now also often stemming from human and social dynamics – those small and varied interactions with seemingly no immediate relevance to the Department of Defense – can rapidly evolve and radically alter U.S. policy.

To uncover these challenges DIA, in partnership with the Intelligence Community, our combatant commands and our closest international partners, monitors the interactions between military, political, technological, economic, and social developments.

We place the events in the context of history, culture, religion, and physical and human geography. Our ability to understand these interactions provides decision-advantage in the face of unforeseen events to anticipate surprise.

Technological change has the potential to create surprise. Less-developed countries and non-state actors may surge with innovative capabilities that could challenge or counter some U.S. military capabilities.

Proliferation of advanced technology and the rapid improvements in commercial off-the-shelf technology will aid development of new commercially enabled asymmetric threats. Improvements in communications will speed the proliferation of advanced and commercially available technologies.

In order to meet these challenges, DIA, through our Strategy and our transformative VISION2020: Driving Change through Integration project has undertaken several initiatives intended to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of DIA and the Defense Intelligence Enterprise.

The single biggest component of which is our need to take the right lessons learned from a decade of war and more closely integrate our intelligence operations with our uniformed services, our combatant commanders, our Intelligence Community teammates, and our allies and coalition partners.

To conclude, today’s focus on combat operations against insurgents and transnational terrorists does not preclude the potential that other threats will come to the fore, including conflicts among major countries that could intersect vital U.S. interests.

Defense intelligence must be able to provide timely and actionable intelligence across the entire threat spectrum.

In close collaboration with the Intelligence Community, DIA is strengthening collection and analysis and sharing more information across intelligence disciplines, and with our nation’s closest allies.

The men and women of DIA know they have a unique responsibility to the American people and take great pride in their work.

I am honored and privileged to serve with them and present their analysis to you.