The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released the 2023 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community. The report highlights the vulnerabilities of supply chains and cyber infrastructure to adversaries, as well as some under appreciated environmental, demographic and domestic political threats.
Below a summary of the relevant findings; the unclassified assessment is available here.
China will remain the top threat to U.S. technological competitiveness, as Beijing targets key sectors and proprietary commercial and military technology from U.S. and allied companies and institutions.
Rapid advances in dual-use technology, including bioinformatics, synthetic biology, nanotechnology, and genomic editing, could enable development of novel biological weapons that complicate detection, attribution, and treatment, according to the report. The convergence of emerging technologies is likely to create potentially breakthrough technologies not foreseeable by examining narrow science and technology areas, which could lead to the rapid development of asymmetric threats to U.S. interests.
Moscow will continue to employ an array of tools to advance what it sees as its own interests and try to undermine the interests of the US and its allies. These are likely to be military, security, malign influence, cyber, and intelligence tools, with Russia’s economic and energy leverage probably a declining asset.
Russia will remain a top cyber threat as it refines and employs its espionage, influence, and attack capabilities. Russia continues to train its military space elements, and field new antisatellite weapons to disrupt and degrade U.S. and allied space capabilities.
Iran also remains committed to developing surrogate networks inside the United States, an objective it has pursued for more than a decade. Iran probably will seek to acquire new conventional weapon systems, such as advanced fighter aircraft, trainer aircraft, helicopters, air defense systems, para-naval patrol ships, and main battle tanks. Iran’s growing expertise and willingness to conduct aggressive cyber operations make it a major threat to the security of U.S. and allied networks and data.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un remains strongly committed to expanding the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal and maintaining nuclear weapons as a centerpiece of his national security structure. [In Cyber domain] Pyongyang probably possesses the expertise to cause temporary, limited disruptions of some critical infrastructure networks and disrupt business networks in the United States.
Climate change will increasingly exacerbate risks to U.S. national security interests as the physical impacts increase and geopolitical tensions mount about the global response to the challenge. High-and middle-income countries still have not met their 2015 Paris Agreement pledges to provide $100 billion per year to low-income countries by 2020, and low-income countries want more assistance with adapting to climate effects.
Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing practices, globally, are contributing to the decline of marine fisheries—eroding food and economic security in coastal areas, particularly in Africa and Asia. Eighty-five percent of worldwide fish stocks are fully exploited, overexploited, depleted, or recovering from depletion. Overfishing, habitat degradation, and climate-driven ocean changes will continue to harm fisheries.
In the Western Hemisphere, push and pull factors that drive migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean to the United States—such as deteriorating socioeconomic and security conditions in certain countries, misperceptions of U.S. policies, and employment opportunities in the United States—probably will persist through 2023.
Worldwide, the number of people displaced by conflict, violence, and natural disasters within their own national borders and into other countries continues to increase, straining governments’ abilities to care for domestic populations and mitigate any associated public discontent. Meanwhile, a growing gap between humanitarian needs and the provision of international financial assistance has the potential to exacerbate migration flows.
Individuals and cells adhering to ideologies espoused by ISIS, al-Qa‘ida, or the transnational Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists (RMVE) movement pose a significant terrorist threat to U.S. persons, facilities, and interests. ISIS’s insurgency in Iraq and Syria will persist as the group seeks to rebuild capabilities and replenish its ranks. Transnational RMVEs have plotted attacks and encouraged violence against government officials in Australia and throughout Europe, including in Belgium, France, Germany, and Iceland.
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