U.S. Intelligence Report Names 2024 Global Threats

The U.S. intelligence community in its 2024 report on worldwide threats placed a strong emphasis on an “ambitious but anxious” China and a “confrontational” Russia.

“During the next year, the United States faces an increasingly fragile global order strained by accelerating strategic competition among major powers, more intense and unpredictable transnational challenges, and multiple regional conflicts with far-reaching implications,” according to the annual threat assessment of the U.S. intelligence community released this.

Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, told Congress on Tuesday that the U.S. “faces an increasingly complex and interconnected threat environment.”

She named three categories of challenges: accelerating strategic competition with major authoritarian powers, intensifying and unpredictable transnational challenges, and regional and localized conflicts with far-reaching effects.

“And all three challenges are affected by trends in new and emerging technologies, environmental changes and economic strain, that are stoking instability and making it that much more challenging for us to forecast the developments and their implications,” Haines said during a committee hearing.

The assessment is not intended to be an exhaustive assessment of all global challenges.

“It addresses traditional and nontraditional threats from U.S. adversaries, an array of regional issues with possible larger, global implications, as well as functional and transnational challenges, such as proliferation, emerging technology, climate change, terrorism, and illicit drugs,” the U.S. intelligence community wrote in the report.

Here are details on the three main challenges:

Strategic Competition With China, Russia

Haines said that major authoritarian powers “are actively working to undermine the rules-based order and the open international system that the United States and our partners rely on for trade, commerce, the free flow of information and accountability to the truth.”

She specifically named China and Russia as two players.

“We expect the [People’s Liberation Army] will field more advanced platforms, deploy new technologies and grow more competent in joint operations with a particular focus on Taiwan and the Western Pacific,” Haines said. “The role intended for China’s growing nuclear forces and cyber capabilities in this effort and the ultimate intent behind unprecedented growth in these areas remain priorities for us in the [intelligence community], and they are not unrelated to the actions in Russia.”

Territorial losses from Ukraine in recent weeks “have exposed the erosion of Ukraine’s military capabilities and the declining availability of external military aid,” according to Haines.

“The assistance that is contemplated in the supplemental is absolutely critical to Ukraine’s defense right now,” she said of funds proposed by the Biden administration for Ukraine that have been stalled in Congress. “And without that assistance, it is hard to imagine how Ukraine will be able to maintain the extremely hard fought advances it has made against the Russians, especially given the sustained surge in Russian ammunition production and purchases from North Korea and Iran.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin “continues to judge that time is on his side and almost certainly assumes that a larger, better equipped military will also serve the purpose of driving that point home to Western audiences,” Haines added.

She said that the U.S. intelligence community is monitoring the evolving relationships among the governments of Russia, North Korea, China and Iran as they prove more willing to cooperate with each other in military, economic, political and intelligence matters. These actions “further undermine the rules based order and gives them each some insulation from external international pressure.” But the intelligence community assesses that these relationships remain “far short” of any kind of formal alliance.

Intensifying and Unpredictable Transnational Challenges

These challenges include “climate change, corruption, narcotics trafficking, health, security, terrorism and cybercrime,” according to Haines.

Specifically, Haines pointed to artificial intelligence and ransomware attacks, which are increasing globally with U.S. entities the most heavily targeted.

Additionally, she noted that transnational criminal organizations and human smuggling operations fall into this category, adding that they increasingly exploit migrants through extortion, kidnapping and human trafficking.

Regional and Localized Conflicts

Haines emphasized the crisis in Gaza as a “stark example of how regional developments have the potential for broader and even global implications.”

“Now having lasted for more than five months, the Gaza conflict has roiled the Middle East with renewed instability presenting new security paradigms and humanitarian challenges while pulling in a range of actors,” she said.

The intelligence community continues to assess that Hezbollah and Iran do not want a wider conflict. But the Houthis, she said, have become “one of the most aggressive actors in the conflict.” The implications could be widespread.

“Moreover, the crisis has galvanized violence in a range of actors around the world, and while it is too early to tell, it is likely that the Gaza crisis will have a generational impact on terrorism,” Haines said.