19March 2023|Office of the Director of National Intelligence
The following document is the publicly available annual national security report produced produced by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Avril Haines, the current ODNI director, submitted this report to the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on 8 March 2023.
230313_ODNI_Annual_Threat_Assessment (2023 edition)A version of the document with highlights and comments by Anthony H. Cordesman, the Emeritus Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a long-time national security official who advised former US Senator John McCain, can be downloaded here and viewed immediately below as some readers may find it of use:
230313_ODNI_Annual_Threat_Assessment (as annotated and highlighted by CSIS)The introduction of the report reads as follows:
“This annual report of worldwide threats to the national security of the United States responds to Section 617 of the FY21 Intelligence Authorization Act (Pub. L. No. 116–260). This report reflects the collective insights of the Intelligence Community (IC), which is committed every day to providing the nuanced, independent, and unvarnished intelligence that policymakers, warfighters, and domestic law enforcement personnel need to protect American lives and America’s interests anywhere in the world.
This assessment focuses on the most direct, serious threats to the United States during the next year. The order of the topics presented in this assessment does not necessarily indicate their relative importance or the magnitude of the threats in the view of the IC. All require a robust intelligence response, including those where a near–term focus may help head off greater threats in the future. Information available as of 18 January was used in the preparation of this assessment.”
According to the ODNI website “The Director of National Intelligence serves as the head of the U.S. Intelligence Community, overseeing and directing the implementation of the National Intelligence Program and acting as the principal advisor to the President, the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council for intelligence matters related to national security. The Office of the DNI’s goal is to effectively integrate foreign, military and domestic intelligence in defense of the homeland and of United States interests abroad.”
The forward of the report states that “Strategic competition between the United States and its allies, China, and Russia over what kind of world
will emerge makes the next few years critical to determining who and what will shape the narrative perhaps most immediately in the context of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, which threaten to escalate into a broader
conflict between Russia and the West.”
It further states that while “Russia is challenging the United States and some norms in the international order in its war of territorial aggression, China has the capability to directly attempt to alter the rules-based global order in every realm and across multiple regions, as a near-peer competitor that is increasingly pushing to change global norms and potentially threatening its neighbors.”