Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, February 9, 2016

Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, February 9, 2016 (2016)
by James R. Clapper
2593865Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, February 9, 20162016James R. Clapper

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Statement for the Record

Worldwide Threat Assessment
of the
US Intelligence Community

Senate Armed Services Committee

James R. Clapper

Director of National Intelligence

February 9, 2016

STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD

WORLDWIDE THREAT ASSESSMENT
of the
US INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

February 9, 2016

INTRODUCTION

Chairman McCain, Vice Chairman Reed, Members of the Committee, thank you for the invitation to offer the United States Intelligence Community’s 2016 assessment of threats to US national security. My statement reflects the collective insights of the Intelligence Community’s extraordinary men and women, whom I am privileged and honored to lead. We in the Intelligence Community are committed every day to provide the nuanced, multidisciplinary intelligence that policymakers, warfighters, and domestic law enforcement personnel need to protect American lives and America’s interests anywhere in the world.

The order of the topics presented in this statement does not necessarily indicate the relative importance or magnitude of the threat in the view of the Intelligence Community.

Information available as of February 3, 2016 was used in the preparation of this assessment.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

GLOBAL THREATS


Cyber and Technology 1
Terrorism 4
Weapons of Mass Destruction and Proliferation 6
Space and Counterspace 9
Counterintelligence 10
Transnational Organized Crime 11
Economics and Natural Resources 12
Human Security 13



REGIONAL THREATS


East Asia 16
China 16
Southeast Asia 17
North Korea 17
Russia and Eurasia 17
Russia 17
Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova 19
The Caucasus and Central Asia 19
Europe 20
Key Partners 20
The Balkans 20
Turkey 21
Middle East and North Africa 21
Iraq 21
Syria 22
Libya 23
Yemen 23
Iran 24
Lebanon 25
Egypt 25
Tunisia 25
South Asia 26
Afghanistan 26
Bangladesh 27
Pakistan and India 27
Sub-Saharan Africa 27
Central Africa 27
Somalia 28
South Sudan 28
Sudan 28
Nigeria 28
Latin America and Caribbean 28
Central America 28
Cuba 29
Venezuela 29
Brazil 29

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).

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