Intelligence agencies meet to assess worldwide threats

Personnel representing several government entities delivered a worldwide threats assessment during recent open and closed Congressional committee sessions.

Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Director Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, joined Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, as well as the heads of the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in briefing the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

“From a military perspective, we do due diligent research to discover who is behind a product, but as supply chains become more complicated, the process is increasingly difficult,” Ashley said.

He specifically noted the practice of white labeling products to hide the original manufacturer presents an opportunity for the Chinese to infiltrate the military supply chain.

During the briefing, Coats described a mix of regional and state actors, failed states and non-state actors using a variety of tools to achieve goals. The actions of Russia, Iran, North Korea, transnational terrorist groups and China generated the most attention among the committee members, he reported.

“In the last decade and a half, China has been advancing through theft of intellectual property and technology,” Coats said. “Russia’s approach relies on misinformation and deception to undermine the post-World War II world order. We assess Russia will continue to leverage social media to interfere with U.S. elections.”