ANNUAL THREAT ASSESSMENT OF THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
February 7, 2022
INTRODUCTION
This annual report of worldwide threats to the national security of the United States responds to
Section 617 of the FY21 Intelligence Authorization Act (P.L. 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, such as climate change and environmental degradation.
As required by the law, this report will be provided to the congressional intelligence committees
as well as the committees on the Armed Services of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Information available as of 21 January was used in the preparation of this assessment.
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................2
FOREWORD..............................................................................................................................4
CHINA .......................................................................................................................................6
RUSSIA .................................................................................................................................... 10
IRAN ....................................................................................................................................... 14
NORTH KOREA ...................................................................................................................... 16
HEALTH
SECURITY............................................................................................................... 18
Infectious Diseases and the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic ............................................. 18
Biological
Weapons.............................................................................................................. 19
Anomalous Health
Incidents................................................................................................. 20
CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION.......................................21
ADDITIONAL TRANSNATIONAL ISSUES ........................................................................... 22
Preface................................................................................................................................. 22
Innovative Use of New Technology ...................................................................................... 22
Transnational Organized Crime ............................................................................................ 23
Foreign Illicit Drugs ....................................................................................................... 23
Money Laundering and Financial Crimes ........................................................................ 24
Cyber Crime................................................................................................................... 24
Migration............................................................................................................................. 24
Global Terrorism.................................................................................................................. 25
CONFLICTS AND INSTABILITY ........................................................................................... 28
South Asia ........................................................................................................................... 28
Other Regions ...................................................................................................................... 29
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FOREWORD
In the coming year, the United States and its allies will face an increasingly complex and
interconnected global security environment marked by the growing specter of great power competition
and conflict, while collective, transnational threats to all nations and actors compete for our
attention and finite resources.
These challenges will play out amidst the continued global disruption resulting from the COVID-19
pandemic, contention over global efforts to deal with a changing climate, increasingly powerful
non-state actors, and rapidly evolving technology, all within the context of an evolving world
order where the continued diffusion of power is leading actors to reassess their place and
capabilities in an increasingly multipolar world. These challenges will intersect and interact in
unpredictable ways, leading to mutually reinforcing effects that could challenge our ability to
respond, but also introducing new opportunities to forge collective action with allies and partners
against both the renewed threat of nation-state aggression and emerging threats to human security.
The 2022 Annual Threat Assessment highlights some of those connections as it provides the
Intelligence Community’s (IC’s) baseline assessments of the most pressing threats to U.S. national
interests, while emphasizing the United States’ key adversaries and competitors. It is not an
exhaustive assessment of all global challenges and notably excludes assessments of U.S.
adversaries’ vulnerabilities. It accounts for functional concerns, such as weapons of mass
destruction and cyber, primarily in the sections on threat actors, such as China and Russia.
Competition and potential conflict between nation-states remains a critical national security
threat. Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang have demonstrated the capability and intent to
advance their interests at the expense of the United States and its allies. China increasingly is
a near-peer competitor, challenging the United States in multiple arenas—especially economically,
militarily, and technologically—and is pushing to change global norms and potentially threatening
its neighbors. Russia is pushing back against Washington where it can—locally and
globally—employing techniques up to and including the use of force. In Ukraine, we can see the
results of Russia’s increased willingness to use military threats and force to impose its will on
neighbors. Iran will remain a regional menace with broader malign influence activities, and North
Korea will expand its WMD capabilities while being a disruptive player on the regional and world
stages. Major adversaries and competitors are enhancing and exercising their military, cyber, and
other capabilities, raising the risks to U.S. and allied forces, weakening our conventional
deterrence, and worsening the longstanding threat from weapons of mass destruction. As states such
as China and Russia increasingly see space as a warfighting domain, multilateral space security
discussions have taken on greater importance as a way to reduce the risk of a confrontation that
would affect every state’s ability to safely operate in space.
The lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to strain governments and societies,
fueling humanitarian and economic crises, political unrest, and geopolitical competition as
countries, such as China and Russia, seek advantage through such avenues as “vaccine diplomacy.”
No country has been completely spared, and even when a vaccine is widely distributed globally, the
economic and political aftershocks will be felt for years. Low-income countries with high debts
face particularly challenging recoveries and the potential for cascading crises leading to regional
instability, whereas others will turn inward or be distracted by other challenges. The IC
continues to investigate the concerning incidences of Anomalous Health Incidents and the danger
they pose to U.S. personnel.
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Ecological degradation and a changing climate will continue to fuel disease outbreaks, threaten
food and water security, and exacerbate political instability and humanitarian crises. Great power
competition and disputes between wealthy and low-income nations will threaten progress on the
collective action that will be needed to meet global goals for reduction of greenhouse gas
emissions.
Other transnational challenges will pose an array of direct and indirect threats to the United
States. They will interact in complex and cascading ways with each other and with threats posed by
great power competition, increasingly empowered non-state actors, the pandemic, and climate change.
Emerging and disruptive technologies, as well as the proliferation and permeation of technology
into all aspects of our lives, pose unique challenges. The scourge of transnational organized
crime, illicit drugs, violent extremism, and endemic corruption in many countries will continue to
take their toll on American lives, prosperity, and safety. Both state and non-state cyber actors
threaten our infrastructure and provide avenues for foreign malign influence threats against our
democracy. We will see continuing potential for surges in migration from Afghanistan, Latin
America, and other poor countries, which are reeling from conflict and the economic fallout of the
COVID-19 pandemic. Economic and political conditions in Latin America continue to spark waves of
migration that destabilize our Southern neighbors and put pressure on our Southern border.
Finally, ISIS, al-Qa‘ida, and Iran and its militant allies will take advantage of weak governance
to continue to plot terrorist attacks against U.S. persons and interests, including to varying
degrees in the United States, and exacerbate instability in regions such as Africa and the Middle
East.
Regional instability and conflicts continue to threaten U.S. persons and interests. Some have
direct implications for U.S. security. For example, the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan threatens
U.S. interests, including the possibility of terrorist safe havens re-emerging and a humanitarian
disaster. The continued fighting in Syria has a direct bearing on U.S. forces, whereas tensions
between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan remain a global concern. The iterative violence between
Israel and Iran, and conflicts in other areas—including Africa, Asia, and the Middle East—have the
potential to escalate or spread, fueling humanitarian crises and threatening U.S. persons, as in
the case of Al-Shabaab, which is leveraging continued instability in East Africa and the lack of
security capacity of regional states to threaten U.S. interests and American lives.
The 2022 Annual Threat Assessment Report supports the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence’s transparency commitments and the tradition of providing regular threat updates to
the American public and the United States Congress. The IC is vigilant in monitoring and assessing
direct and indirect threats to
U.S. and allied interests. As part of this ongoing effort, the IC’s National Intelligence Officers
work closely with analysts from across the IC to examine the spectrum of threats and highlight the
most likely and impactful near-term risks in the context of the longer-term, overarching threat
environment.
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CHINA
REGIONAL AND GLOBAL OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will continue efforts to achieve President’s Xi Jinping’s vision
of making China the preeminent power in East Asia and a major power on the world stage. The CCP
will work to press Taiwan on unification, undercut U.S. influence, drive wedges between Washington
and its partners, and foster some norms that favor its authoritarian system. China’s leaders
probably will, however, seek opportunities to reduce tensions with Washington when it suits their
interests. China will maintain its statist economic policies because China’s leaders see state
direction as necessary to reduce dependence on foreign technologies, enable military modernization,
and sustain growth—ensuring CCP rule and the realization of its vision for national rejuvenation.
• Beijing sees increasingly competitive U.S.–China relations as part of an epochal
geopolitical shift and views Washington’s diplomatic, economic, and military measures against
Beijing as part of a broader
U.S. effort to prevent China’s rise and undermine CCP rule.
• The CCP is increasing its criticism of perceived U.S. failures and hypocrisy,
including the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and racial tensions in the United States.
• Beijing is increasingly combining growing military power with its economic,
technological, and diplomatic clout to strengthen CCP rule, secure what it views as its sovereign
territory and regional preeminence, and pursue global influence.
• However, China faces myriad—and in some cases growing—domestic and international
challenges that probably will hinder CCP leaders’ ambitions. These include an aging population,
high levels of
corporate debt, economic inequality, and growing resistance to China’s heavy-handed tactics in
Taiwan and other countries.
China uses coordinated, whole-of-government tools to demonstrate strength and compel neighbors to
acquiesce to Beijing’s preferences, including its territorial and maritime claims and assertions of
sovereignty over Taiwan.
• Beijing will press Taiwan to move toward unification and will react to what it views
as increased U.S.– Taiwan engagement. We expect that friction will grow as China continues to
increase military activity around the island, and Taiwan’s leaders resist Beijing’s pressure for
progress toward unification. China’s control over Taiwan probably would disrupt global supply
chains for semiconductor chips because Taiwan dominates production.
• In the South China Sea, Beijing will continue to use growing numbers of air, naval,
and maritime law enforcement platforms to intimidate rival claimants and signal that China has
effective control over contested areas. China is similarly pressuring Japan over contested areas
in the East China Sea.
Beijing will continue to promote the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to expand China’s economic,
political, and military presence abroad. Beijing will adjust its approach to BRI in response to
publicity and sustainability challenges, and diversify project selection in an attempt to improve
the initiative's brand and minimize international criticism. China also will promote new
international norms for technology and human rights,
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emphasizing state sovereignty and political stability over individual rights. It will continue to
erode the vestiges of freedom in Hong Kong.
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. Beijing uses a variety of tools, from public investment to espionage to advance its
technological capabilities.
Beijing’s willingness to use espionage, subsidies, and trade policy to give its firms a competitive
advantage represents not just an ongoing challenge for the U.S. economy and its workers, but also
advances Beijing's ability to assume leadership of the world's technological advancement and
standards.
China will continue deepening diplomatic, defense, and technology cooperation with Russia to
challenge the United States.
MILITARY CAPABILITIES
China will continue pursuing its goal of building a world-class military that will enable it to
secure what it views as its sovereign territory, establish its preeminence in regional affairs, and
project power globally while offsetting perceived U.S. military superiority.
• Beijing is accelerating the development of key capabilities it believes the People’s
Liberation Army’s (PLA) needs to confront the United States in a large-scale, sustained conflict.
The PLA Navy and Air Force are the largest in the region and continue to field advanced platforms
that
improve China’s ability to establish air superiority and project power. The PLA Rocket Force’s
(PLARF) short-, medium-, and intermediate-range conventional systems can hold U.S. forces and bases
in the region at risk. In 2020, the PLARF fielded its first operational hypersonic weapons system,
the DF-17 hypersonic glide vehicle-capable medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM), which could
challenge U.S. missile defense systems.
We expect the PLA to continue to pursue the establishment of overseas military installations and
access agreements to enhance its ability to project power and protect China’s interests abroad.
WMD
Beijing will continue the largest ever nuclear force expansion and arsenal diversification in its
history. Beijing is not interested in agreements that restrict its plans and will not agree to
negotiations that lock in U.S. or Russian advantages. China is building a larger and increasingly
capable nuclear missile and bomber force that is more survivable, more diverse, and on higher alert
than in the past, including nuclear missile systems designed to manage regional escalation and
ensure an intercontinental strike capability in any scenario.
• China is building hundreds of new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos.
• As of 2020, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) had operationally fielded
the nuclear- capable H-6N bomber, providing a platform for the air component of the PRC’s nascent
nuclear triad.
• China conducted a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) flight test that flew completely
around the world and impacted inside China.
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SPACE
Beijing is working to match or exceed U.S. capabilities in space to gain the military, economic,
and prestige benefits that Washington has accrued from space leadership.
• China’s space station began assembly and crewed missions in 2021, with full
operational capability expected between 2022 and 2024. China also plans to conduct additional
lunar exploration missions, and it intends to establish a robotic research station on the Moon and
later, an intermittently crewed lunar base.
• The PLA will continue to integrate space services—such as satellite reconnaissance and
positioning, navigation, and timing—and satellite communications into its weapons and
command-and-control systems to erode the U.S. military’s information advantage.
Counterspace operations will be integral to potential military campaigns by the PLA, and China has
counterspace- weapons capabilities intended to target U.S. and allied satellites. The PLA is
fielding new destructive and nondestructive ground- and space-based antisatellite (ASAT) weapons.
CYBER
We assess that China presents the broadest, most active, and persistent cyber espionage threat to
U.S. Government and private sector networks. China’s cyber pursuits and export of related
technologies increase the threats of attacks against the U.S. homeland, suppression of U.S. web
content that Beijing views as threatening to its control, and the expansion of technology-driven
authoritarianism globally.
• China almost certainly is capable of launching cyber attacks that would disrupt
critical infrastructure services within the United States, including against oil and gas pipelines
and rail systems.
China leads the world in applying surveillance and censorship to monitor its population and repress
dissent, particularly among minorities. Beijing conducts cyber intrusions that affect U.S. and
non-U.S. citizens beyond its borders—such as hacking journalists—to counter perceived threats to
the CCP and tailor influence efforts.
• China’s cyber-espionage operations have included compromising telecommunications
firms, providers of managed services and broadly used software, and other targets potentially rich
in follow-on opportunities for intelligence collection, attack, or influence operations.
MALIGN INFLUENCE
China will continue expanding its global intelligence and covert influence posture to better
support the CCP’s political, economic, and security goals, increasingly challenging U.S. influence.
China is attempting to exploit doubts about U.S. leadership, undermine democracy, and extend
Beijing’s influence, especially in East Asia and the western Pacific, which Beijing views as its
traditional sphere of influence.
• China will continue spreading COVID-19 misinformation and downplaying its early
failures while casting blame on the West. Its misinformation includes claims that the United
States created COVID- 19.
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• Beijing probably is reviewing publicly disclosed Russian influence operations and
gaining experience from operations that use social media and other technologies against societies
in Asia and elsewhere.
• Beijing is intensifying efforts to mold U.S. public discourse, pressure perceived
political opponents, and muffle criticism on such issues as religious freedom, suppression of
democracy in Hong Kong, and oppression of the Uyghurs as well as other minorities.
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RUSSIA
REGIONAL AND GLOBAL OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES
We expect that Moscow will remain an influential power and a formidable challenge to the United
States amidst the changing geopolitical landscape during the next decade. It will continue to
pursue its interests in competitive and sometimes confrontational and provocative ways, including
pressing to dominate Ukraine and other countries in its “near-abroad,” while exploring
possibilities to achieve a more stable relationship with Washington.
• We assess that Russia does not want a direct conflict with U.S. forces. Russia seeks
an accommodation with the United States on mutual noninterference in both countries’ domestic
affairs and U.S.
recognition of Russia’s claimed sphere of influence over much of the former Soviet Union.
• Russia’s officials have long believed that the United States is trying to undermine
Russia, weaken President Vladimir Putin, and install Western-friendly regimes in the former Soviet
states and elsewhere, which they conclude gives Russia leeway to retaliate.
Russia continues to prepare for a military attack against Ukraine, with well over 100,000 troops
massed near the Ukraine border, including Russian military forces in Belarus, occupied-Crimea, and
the separatist forces in Eastern Ukraine. Moscow is sending more forces. In mid-December 2021,
Russia issued a statement demanding that NATO provide formal security guarantees, including putting
an end to the possibility that Ukraine might join the Alliance.
We assess that Moscow will continue to employ an array of tools to advance its own interests or
undermine the interests of the United States and its allies. These will be primarily military,
security, and intelligence tools, with economic cooperation playing a smaller role. We expect
Moscow to insert itself into crises when Russia’s interests are at stake, the anticipated costs of
action are low, or it sees an opportunity to capitalize on a power vacuum.
Russia probably will continue to expand its global military, intelligence, security, commercial,
and energy footprint and build partnerships aimed at undermining U.S. influence and boosting its
own.
• In the Middle East and North Africa, Moscow is using its involvement in Syria, Libya,
and Sudan to increase its clout, undercut U.S. leadership, present itself as an indispensable
mediator, and gain military access rights and economic opportunities.
• In the Western Hemisphere, Russia has expanded its engagement with Venezuela,
supported Cuba, and used arms sales and energy agreements to try to expand access to markets and
natural resources in Latin America, in part to offset some of the effects of sanctions.
• In the former Soviet republics, Moscow is well positioned to increase its role in the
Caucasus and, if it deems necessary, intervene in Belarus and Central Asia to halt instability
after widespread anti- government protests, as it did in Belarus after the fraudulent 2020 election
and early this year in Kazakhstan.
• We expect Russia to continue to use energy as a foreign policy tool to coerce
cooperation and force states to the negotiating table, as it recently did in 2021, when Russia
stopped coal and electricity
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exports to Ukraine. Russia also uses its capabilities in COVID-19 vaccine development and civilian
nuclear reactor construction as a soft-power tool in its foreign policy.
Russia uses corruption as an effective foreign policy tool to further its geopolitical goals and
buy influence in other countries; however, it also serves as a long-term domestic vulnerability as
well as a drag on Russia’s economic performance and ability to attract investment.
• Russia has used corruption to help develop networks of patronage in countries,
including Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Ukraine, to influence decisionmaking, and help carry out
Russia’s foreign policy objectives.
• Russians regularly identify corruption as one of the country’s biggest problems, which
has been a recurrent cause of public protests and a key theme of imprisoned Russian opposition
figure Aleksey Navalnyy’s campaign against the Kremlin.
• We assess that Russia would need to reduce corruption and state control of the
economy, and improve the rule of law in Russia to attract investment and expand growth beyond 1-3
percent per year.
MILITARY CAPABILITIES
We expect Moscow to sustain military modernization and enhance its armed forces, enabling it to
defend Russia’s national security while projecting influence globally and challenging the interests
of the United States and its allies. Despite slow growth in defense spending, Russia will emphasize
the development and acquisition of new weapons that present increased threats to the United States
and regional actors while continuing its foreign military engagements, conducting training
exercises, and incorporating lessons from its involvement in conflicts in Syria and Ukraine.
• Moscow has the wherewithal to deploy forces in strategically important regions, but
the farther it deploys from Russia, the less able it probably will be to sustain intensive combat
operations.
• Vagner group and other private security companies managed by Russian oligarchs close
to the Kremlin extend Moscow’s military reach at low cost in areas ranging from Syria to the
Central African Republic and Mali, allowing Russia to disavow its involvement and distance itself
from battlefield casualties.
WMD
We assess that Russia will remain the largest and most capable WMD rival to the United States for
the foreseeable future as it expands and modernizes its nuclear weapons capabilities and increases
the capabilities of its strategic and nonstrategic weapons. Russia also remains a nuclear-material
security concern, despite improvements to material protection, control, and accounting at Russia’s
nuclear sites since the 1990s.
• Moscow views its nuclear capabilities as necessary for maintaining deterrence and
achieving its goals in a potential conflict against the United States and NATO, and it sees a
credible nuclear weapons deterrent as the ultimate guarantor of the Russian Federation.
• Moscow continues to develop long-range nuclear-capable missile and underwater delivery
systems meant to penetrate or bypass U.S. missile defenses.
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• Russia is expanding and modernizing its large, diverse, and modern set of nonstrategic
systems, which are capable of delivering nuclear or conventional warheads, because Moscow believes
such systems offer options to deter adversaries, control the escalation of potential hostilities,
and counter U.S. and allied troops near its border.
CYBER
We assess that Russia will remain a top cyber threat as it refines and employs its espionage,
influence, and attack capabilities. We assess that Russia views cyber disruptions as a foreign
policy lever to shape other countries’ decisions, as well as a deterrence and military tool.
• Russia is particularly focused on improving its ability to target critical
infrastructure, including underwater cables and industrial control systems, in the United States as
well as in allied and partner countries, because compromising such infrastructure improves and
demonstrates its ability to damage infrastructure during a crisis.
• Russia is also using cyber operations to attack entities it sees as working to
undermine its interests or threaten the stability of the Russian Government. Russia attempts to
hack journalists and organizations worldwide that investigate Russian Government activity and in
several instances, has leaked their information.
MALIGN INFLUENCE
Russia presents one of the most serious foreign influence threats to the United States, using its
intelligence services, proxies, and wide-ranging influence tools to try to divide Western
alliances, and increase its sway around the world, while attempting to undermine U.S. global
standing, amplify discord inside the United States, and influence U.S. voters and decisionmaking.
We assess that Moscow probably will build on these approaches to try to undermine the United States
as opportunities arise—Russia and its influence actors are adept at capitalizing on current events
in the United States to push Moscow-friendly positions to Western audiences.
• Moscow almost certainly views U.S. elections as opportunities for malign influence as
part of its larger foreign policy strategy. Moscow has conducted influence operations against U.S.
elections for decades, including as recently as the 2020 presidential election. We assess that it
probably will try to strengthen ties to U.S. persons in the media and politics in hopes of
developing vectors for future influence operations. Moscow almost certainly will continue these
online influence operations in the United States and in countries such as Belarus, Ukraine, and
other countries of key Russian interest. Moscow will also continue and seek out new methods of
circumventing technology companies' anti- disinformation activities to further expand its
narratives globally.
SPACE
Russia will remain a key space competitor, maintaining a large network of reconnaissance,
communications, and navigation satellites. Moscow will focus on integrating space services—such as
communications; positioning, navigation, and timing; geolocation; and intelligence, surveillance,
and reconnaissance—into its weapons and command-and-control systems, allowing Moscow to more
quickly identify, track, and target
U.S. satellites during a conflict.
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In recent years, Russia has focused its efforts on developing its civil and commercial space
capabilities. Moscow is capable of employing its civil and commercial remote sensing satellites to
supplement military- dedicated capabilities that reduce U.S. ability to perform sensitive military
activities undetected. In addition to improving its launch capability, it is working to support
human spaceflight for future deep space missions.
Russia continues to train its military space elements and field new antisatellite weapons to
disrupt and degrade
U.S. and allied space capabilities, and it is developing, testing, and fielding an array of
nondestructive and destructive counterspace weapons—including jamming and cyberspace capabilities,
directed energy weapons, on- orbit capabilities, and ground-based ASAT capabilities—to target U.S.
and allied satellites.
• Russia is investing in electronic warfare and directed energy weapons to counter
western on-orbit assets. These systems work by disrupting or disabling adversary C4ISR
capabilities and by disrupting GPS, tactical and satellite communications, and radars.
• Russia continues to develop ground-based direct ascent ASAT weapons capable of
destroying space targets in low Earth orbit.
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IRAN
REGIONAL AND GLOBAL OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES
Iran will continue to threaten U.S. interests as it tries to erode U.S. influence in the Middle
East, entrench its influence and project power in neighboring states, and minimize threats to
regime stability. Tehran will try to leverage its expanding nuclear program, proxy and partner
forces, diplomacy, and military sales and acquisitions to advance its goals. The Iranian regime
sees itself as locked in an existential struggle with the United States and its regional allies,
while it pursues its longstanding ambitions for regional leadership.
The election of President Ebrahim Raisi in 2021 has invigorated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to try
to make progress toward his long-term vision of molding Iran into a pan-Islamic power capable of
defending global Muslim causes while tightening its theocratic rule at home.
• The regime is reluctant to directly engage diplomatically with the United States on a
renewal of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), even though it still aspires to secure
sanctions relief. Iran’s hardline officials deeply distrust Washington and do not believe the
United States can deliver or sustain any benefits a renewed JCPOA might offer.
We assess that Iran will threaten U.S. persons directly and via proxy attacks, particularly in the
Middle East. Iran also remains committed to developing networks inside the United States—an
objective it has pursued for more than a decade. Iranian-supported proxies will launch attacks
against U.S. forces and persons in Iraq and Syria, and perhaps on other countries and regions.
Iran has threatened to retaliate against former and current U.S. officials for the killing of
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) Commander Qasem Soleimani in January 2020,
and has previously attempted to conduct lethal operations in the United States.
• Iran remains a threat to Israel, both directly through its missile forces and
indirectly through its support of Lebanese Hizballah and other terrorist groups.
• Iran will remain a problematic actor across the region with its backing of Iraqi Shia
militias, which is the primary threat to U.S. personnel in Iraq. Iran’s economically and
militarily propping up of a rogue Syrian regime, and spreading instability across Yemen through its
support to the Huthis—including a range of advanced military systems—also pose a threat to U.S.
partners and interests, including Saudi Arabia.
MILITARY CAPABILITIES
Iran’s hybrid approach to warfare—using both conventional and unconventional capabilities—will pose
a threat to
U.S. interests in the region for the foreseeable future. The IRGC-QF and its proxies will remain
central to Iran’s military power.
• Despite Iran’s economic challenges, Tehran will seek to improve and acquire new
conventional weaponry.
• Iran’s unconventional warfare operations and network of militant partners and proxies
enable Tehran to advance its interests in the region and maintain strategic depth.
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Iran’s ballistic missile programs, which include the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the
region, continue to pose a threat to countries across the Middle East. Iran’s work on a space
launch vehicle (SLV)—including its Simorgh—shortens the timeline to an ICBM because SLVs and ICBMs
use similar technologies, if it decided to develop one.
NUCLEAR ISSUES
We continue to assess that Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development
activities that we judge would be necessary to produce a nuclear device. In July 2019, following
the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018, Iran began resuming some activities that exceed
JCPOA limits. If Tehran does not receive sanctions relief, Iranian officials probably will
consider further enriching uranium up to 90 percent.
• Iran has consistently cast its resumption of nuclear activities as a reversible
response to the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA and messaged that it would return to full compliance
if the United States lifted sanctions and also fulfilled its JCPOA commitments.
• Iran continues to increase the size and enrichment level of its uranium stockpile
beyond JCPOA limits. Iran continues to ignore restrictions on advanced centrifuge research and
development and continues uranium enrichment operations at the deeply buried Fordow facility. Iran
has been enriching uranium hexafluoride (UF6) up to 60 percent U-235 since April 2021, and
continues to accumulate UF6 enriched up to 20 percent. The IAEA has verified that Iran is
conducting uranium metal research and development, including producing laboratory-scale quantities
of uranium metal enriched up to 20 percent U-235.
CYBER AND MALIGN INFLUENCE
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. Iran’s opportunistic approach to
cyber attacks makes critical infrastructure owners in the United States susceptible to being
targeted by Tehran, especially when Tehran believes it must demonstrate that it can push back
against the United States in other domains. Recent attacks on Israeli and U.S. targets show that
Iran is more willing than before to target countries with stronger capabilities.
• Iran was responsible for multiple cyber attacks between April and July 2020 against
Israeli water
facilities. Iran’s successful disruption of critical infrastructure in Israel—also a superior
cyber power compared with Iran—reflects its growing willingness to take risks when it believes
retaliation is justified.
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NORTH KOREA
REGIONAL AND GLOBAL OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will continue efforts to steadily expand and enhance Pyongyang’s
nuclear and conventional capabilities targeting the United States and its allies, periodically
using aggressive and potentially destabilizing actions to reshape the regional security environment
in his favor. These actions will include developing and demonstrating capabilities up to and
possibly including the resumption of nuclear weapons and ICBM testing.
• We assess that Kim views nuclear weapons and ICBMs as the ultimate guarantor of his
totalitarian and autocratic rule of North Korea and believes that over time he will gain
international acceptance as a nuclear power. He probably does not view the current level of
pressure on his regime, the economic hardships resulting from sanctions and his domestic COVID-19
countermeasures as enough to require a fundamental change in approach.
• Kim also aims to achieve prestige as a nuclear power as well as strategic dominance
over South Korea. Kim probably will continue to try to undermine the U.S.–South Korea alliance by
vacillating between periods of escalatory behavior and symbolic gestures toward the South to
exploit differences between Washington’s and Seoul’s approach to solving the Korea problem.
• We assess that North Korea continues to engage in illicit activities, including cyber
theft and the export of UN-proscribed commodities to fund regime priorities, including Kim’s WMD
program.
MILITARY CAPABILITIES
North Korea will pose a serious threat to the United States and its allies by continuing to invest
in niche capabilities that will provide Kim with a range of options to deter outside intervention,
offset enduring deficiencies in the country’s conventional forces, and coercively advance his
political objectives.
• In early 2021, in a public report to the Eighth Party Congress, Kim identified
priorities for developing new weapon systems, such as a nuclear-powered submarine, hypersonic glide
vehicles, long-range solid-propellant missiles, and multiple independently targetable reentry
vehicles (MIRV). Although some of these capabilities are longer-term projects, we assess that they
represent Kim’s commitment to expanding and diversifying his arsenal over time.
Kim is continuing to prioritize efforts to build an increasingly capable missile force designed to
evade U.S. and regional missile defenses. Kim probably will continue to order missile
tests—including of short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs), cruise missiles, submarine-launched
ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and HGVs—to validate technical objectives, reinforce deterrence, and
normalize Pyongyang’s missile testing.
• In September 2021, North Korea claimed for the first time to have tested an HGV that
probably would be capable of reaching regional targets. North Korea followed with two more claimed
hypersonic missile flight tests in January 2022, demonstrating its commitment to continued
development of hypersonic weapons.
[ 16 ]
WMD
Kim remains strongly committed to expanding the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal and continuing
ballistic missile research and development. North Korea’s continued development of ICBMs, IRBMs,
and SLBMs demonstrates its intention to bolster its nuclear delivery capability.
• Fissile material production continues in North Korea, which maintains its plutonium
program and probably is expanding it uranium enrichment program.
In January, North Korea began laying the groundwork for an increase in tensions that could include
ICBM or possibly a nuclear test this year—actions that Pyongyang has not taken since 2017. Flight
tests are part of North Korea’s effort to expand the number and type of missile systems capable of
delivering nuclear warheads to the entire United States.
• North Korea continues to seek a sea-based nuclear-strike capability. In October 2021,
North Korea flight tested a new SLBM.
North Korea’s chemical and biological weapons (CBW) capabilities remain a threat, and the IC is
concerned that Pyongyang may use such weapons during a conflict or in an unconventional or
clandestine attack.
CYBER
North Korea’s cyber program poses a sophisticated and agile espionage, cybercrime, and attack
threat. Pyongyang is well positioned to conduct surprise cyber attacks given its stealth and
history of bold action.
• Pyongyang probably possesses the expertise to cause temporary, limited disruptions of
some critical infrastructure networks and disrupt business networks in the United States.
Cyber actors linked to North Korea have conducted espionage efforts against a range of
organizations, including media, academia, defense companies, and governments, in multiple
countries.
[ 17 ]
HEALTH SECURITY
INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND THE IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed millions of people and disrupted life worldwide, with far-reaching
effects extending well beyond global health to the economic, political, and societal spheres.
Although the most severe health impacts of COVID-19 are lessening as global vaccination coverage
increases and natural immunity builds, countries worldwide will continue to grapple with COVID-19
during the next year. The socioeconomic and political implications of the pandemic will ripple
through the world for years.
The economic fallout from the pandemic is likely to continue to challenge governments and hold back
human development and wellbeing, particularly in low-income countries. Societal discontent
resulting from these conditions could worsen instability in some countries and fuel surges in
international migration, as people grow more desperate in the face of interlocking pressures that
include sustained economic downturns.
• The COVID-19 pandemic will continue to increase debt burdens, constrain government
spending by poor countries, and cause persistent job insecurity, in turn undermining economic and
political stability, particularly in low-income countries. Although global trade shows signs of
bouncing back from the COVID-19-induced slump, economists caution that any recovery this year could
be disrupted by ongoing or expanding pandemic effects, keeping pressure on many governments to
focus on internal economic stability.
• The economic fallout from COVID-19, combined with conflict and weather extremes, has
driven hunger worldwide to its highest point in more than a decade, which increases the risk of
instability. The number of people facing acute food insecurity doubled from 135 million in 2019 to
more than 270 million in 2020, and is projected to continue rising.
COVID-19 is likely to continue to strain health systems and create conditions that could facilitate
the spread of other infectious diseases globally, including to the U.S. homeland.
• The pandemic has significantly disrupted essential health services—for example,
causing healthcare worker shortages, delays in non-emergency procedures, or avoidance of healthcare
facilities because of fears of becoming infected with COVID-19—which are likely to worsen health
outcomes and continue to hamper countries’ abilities to control disease, particularly low and
middle-income countries.
• Influenza and other seasonal respiratory diseases could surge to abnormally high
levels in 2022 with the reduction of COVID-19 mitigation measures, which have dampened circulation
of these diseases since early 2020, and in turn reduced the level of population immunity to these
infections.
Countries globally remain vulnerable to the emergence of a novel pathogen that could cause a
devastating new pandemic. Drivers for disease emergence persist and are on the rise, including
deforestation and other human encroachment into unsettled land, wildlife harvesting and trade,
livestock production, and climate change. These drivers are compounded by factors that facilitate
global spread, such as international travel and trade, inadequate global disease surveillance and
control, distrust of public health authorities, health disinformation, and health system strain
brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Emerging agricultural
[ 18 ]
diseases—even those that do not harm humans directly—threaten to cause immense economic damage and
disruption to food supplies if they spread globally or into new regions.
COVID-19 Origins Assessment
The IC continues to investigate how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, first infected
humans. The IC assesses that the virus probably emerged and infected humans through an initial
small- scale exposure that occurred no later than November 2019. All agencies assess that two
hypotheses are plausible explanations for the origin of COVID-19: natural exposure to an infected
animal and a laboratory-associated incident.
• Four IC elements and the National Intelligence Council assess with low confidence that
the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection was most likely caused by natural exposure to an animal infected
with it or a close progenitor virus—a virus that probably would be more than 99 percent similar to
SARS- CoV-2. One IC element assesses with moderate confidence that the first human infection with
SARS-CoV-2 most likely was the result of a laboratory-associated incident, probably involving
experimentation, animal handling, or sampling by the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Analysts at
three IC elements remain unable to coalesce around either explanation without additional
information.
• Beijing continues to hinder the global investigation, resist sharing information, and
blame other countries, including the United States.
BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
Global shortcomings in preparedness for the pandemic and questions surrounding the origins of the
COVID-19 virus and biosecurity may inspire some adversaries to consider options related to
biological weapons developments.
• As China, Iran, and Russia continue to publicly tout individual or collaborative
efforts to improve biosecurity, they have pushed narratives that further drive threat perceptions,
including linking U.S. laboratories abroad to COVID-19 origins, breaches in biosafety,
untrustworthy vaccines, and biological weapons. This messaging probably will be amplified in the
lead up to the once-every-five-years Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons
Convention, tentatively slated to convene in mid- 2022.
• Rapid advances in dual-use technology, including bioinformatics, synthetic biology,
and genomic editing, could enable development of novel biological weapons that complicate
detection, attribution, and treatment.
[ 19 ]
ANOMALOUS HEALTH INCIDENTS
We continue to closely examine Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs) and ensure appropriate care for
those affected. IC agencies assess with varying levels of confidence that most reported health
incidents can be explained by medical conditions, or environmental or technical factors and that it
is unlikely that a foreign actor— including Russia—is conducting a sustained, worldwide campaign
involving hundreds of incidents without detection. This finding does not change the fact that U.S.
personnel are reporting real experiences, nor does it explain every report. The IC continues to
actively investigate the AHI issue, focusing particularly on a subset of priority cases for which
it has not ruled out any cause, including the possibility that one or more foreign actors were
involved.
[ 20 ]
CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION
We assess that climate change will increasingly exacerbate risks to U.S. national security
interests as the physical impacts increase and geopolitical tensions mount about how to respond to
the challenge. Meanwhile, environmental degradation will increasingly intersect with and worsen
climate change effects in many countries, particularly low- income countries.
• Geopolitical tensions are likely to grow as countries increasingly argue about how to
accelerate the reductions in net greenhouse gas emissions necessary to meet the Paris Agreement
goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5˚C since pre-industrial times. The current
trajectory of growing global greenhouse emissions, based on governments’ current policies and
pledges, would cause the global temperature rise to reach 1.5˚C around 2030, and surpass 2˚C by
mid-century.
• Countries will debate who bears more responsibility to reduce emissions and who should
pay—and countries will compete to control resources and dominate new technologies needed for the
clean energy transition. Most countries will face difficult economic choices and probably will
count on technological breakthroughs to rapidly reduce their net emissions later. China and India
will play critical roles in determining the trajectory of temperature rise.
• The increasing physical effects of climate change are likely to exacerbate domestic
and cross-border geopolitical flashpoints producing additional instability. The reduction in sea
ice already is amplifying strategic competition in the Arctic over access to its natural resources
and shipping routes. Elsewhere, as temperatures rise and more extreme effects manifest, there is a
growing risk of conflict over water and migration, particularly after 2030, and an increasing
chance that countries will unilaterally test and deploy large-scale solar geoengineering—creating a
new area of disputes.
• Scientific forecasts indicate that intensifying physical effects of climate change out
to 2040 and beyond will be most acutely felt in low-income countries, which we assess are also the
least able to adapt to such changes. These physical effects will increase the potential for
instability and possibly internal conflict in some countries, in some cases creating additional
demands on U.S. diplomatic, economic, humanitarian, and military resources. Despite geographic and
financial resource advantages, the United States and its partners face costly challenges that will
become more difficult to manage without concerted effort to reduce emissions and cap warming.
Unsustainable land use, poor water governance, and pollution will intersect with and worsen the
effects of climate change, primarily but not exclusively in low-income countries in the near term.
The combination of environmental degradation, rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns,
and other climate effects is likely to lead to an array of human challenges such as food and water
insecurity and threats to human health.
[ 21 ]
ADDITIONAL TRANSNATIONAL ISSUES
PREFACE
The pandemic and climate change highlight the challenges that a wide range of transnational issues
pose to
U.S. national security; we will now address several more priority issues. Some have a direct and
immediate impact on U.S. interests, such as narcotics trafficking and terrorism. Others seem to be
building for the future, or pose chronic, indirect challenges, such as corruption. These issues
also vary in the scope of the threats they pose, having broad, global impact or causing local, even
individual harm.
Transnational threats interact in a complex system along with more traditional threats such as
great power competition, often reinforcing each other and creating compounding and cascading risks
to U.S. national security. Underpinning many of the threats are weak or poor governance and
geopolitical competition.
During the past decade, an erosion of democracy around the world, strains in U.S. alliances, and
challenges to accepted, international norms have made it more difficult to tackle transnational
challenges such as climate change and the pandemic while creating greater opportunities for rogue
governments and groups to operate with impunity. Increasing interconnections among
countries—ranging from supply chains to social media—have also created new opportunities for
transnational interference and conflict.
Corruption illustrates the complexity of the transnational issues, the relationships among them,
and the range of their implications for U.S. interests. Corruption is a chronic challenge but
thrives particularly in poorly governed countries. It can undermine weak governments and
economies, contributing to political instability, organized crime, and disputes over migration—all
of which in turn can fuel greater corruption. Corruption in international transactions can directly
cost U.S. exporters billions of dollars in sales, give U.S. adversaries geopolitical openings, and
prop up regimes that abuse human rights. However, corruption also can be a positive—undermining
the capacity and credibility of authoritarian regimes.
Several transnational challenges stand out for the clear and direct threats they will pose to U.S.
interests during the coming years. Among these are the rapid development of destabilizing
technologies, including some that are transforming the battlefield, the threats posed by
transnational organized crime and terrorism, and the challenge of international migration.
INNOVATIVE USE OF NEW TECHNOLOGY
Multiple trends are shaping the technology landscape of the next decades. The increasing
convergence of seemingly unrelated fields and the rise of global competition to generate and lock
in advantage are leading to a global diffusion of emerging technologies, shrinking timelines for
development and maturation of technologies, and increasingly blurred lines between commercial and
military endeavors, particularly in fields with broad impact across societies and economies, such
as artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnologies, robotics and automation, and smart materials and
manufacturing.
• Emerging technologies are rapidly improving a broad range of human experiences and
capabilities, but at least in the short term, these same technologies are disrupting longstanding
systems and societal dynamics, forcing individuals, communities, and governments to adjust and find
new ways of living, working, and managing. As with any disruption, some will thrive whereas others
will struggle, potentially facing increasing inequalities and imbalances.
[ 22 ]
Novel uses of both mature and new technologies are proliferating among a growing number of state
and non-state actors, posing direct and growing threats to traditional pillars of U.S. military
power, such as secure rear-area lines of communication and mobilization, air and space dominance,
and power projection. The threats posed by new technologies will ultimately hinge on how they are
operationalized by individual actors, each driven by unique goals, perceptions, strengths, and
vulnerabilities.
• One of the most significant, ongoing trends in new military technology and weaponry is
the growing combination of high speed, long range, greater maneuverability, and pinpoint accuracy.
These advances are improving actors’ ability to strike across continents as well as regionally or
locally with UAVs, guided rockets, artillery shells, and mortars. Long-range precision strike
inventories are likely to include increasing numbers of hypersonic and highly maneuverable systems
that present a daunting challenge to those trying to develop countermeasures to detect, track, and
intercept such fast-moving and maneuverable weapons. Many technologies previously available only
to the advanced, industrial nations are trickling down to smaller and less expensive systems
thereby becoming more available worldwide, as seen in recent battlefield use of UAVs by Azerbaijan
and Ethiopia.
• Some technologies—such as hypersonic systems and nascent efforts to operationalize
military AI— probably will remain within the purview of great powers and wealthier states, but
relatively low cost and more widely available systems ranging from cyber tools to unmanned aerial
and naval vehicles could be exploited by lesser powers and non-state actors to achieve high impact
and even strategic-level effects.
• We are in the midst of a rapid expansion of state and non-state use of unmanned
vehicles in both the air and sea domains, which could disrupt the status quo in part because air
and naval defense often hinge on the assumption that the primary threat stems from a relatively
small number of crewed platforms or ground-based missiles.
TRANSNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME
Global transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) pose a direct threat to the United States
through human trafficking, the production and trafficking of lethal illicit drugs, cyber crime, and
financial crimes and money laundering schemes eroding the integrity of the international financial
system. Cyber criminals, in addition to phishing and other online fraud schemes, are also
increasing their ransomware attacks. TCO activities also indirectly threaten U.S. national
security by compounding and aggravating corruption, violence, and challenges to governance that
undermine the rule of law in partner nations, spurring violence, driving atrocities, and
contributing to migration.
• Human trafficking, including sex trafficking and forced labor, is not only a violation
of human rights and freedoms but a threat to U.S. national security and economic development and is
enabled by corrupt actors and networks that fuel the growth of transnational organized crime.
Foreign Illicit Drugs
Illicit drug trafficking by TCOs, particularly synthetic drugs, endangers the health and safety of
millions of U.S. citizens and imposes as much as one trillion dollars in direct and indirect
economic losses. The threat from illicit drugs is at historic levels, with more than 100,000
American drug-overdose deaths for the first time annually, driven mainly by a robust supply of
synthetic opioids from Mexican TCOs.
[ 23 ]
• Mexican TCOs are the dominant producers and suppliers of illicit drugs for the U.S.
market. They produce fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana in Mexico, and obtain
cocaine from South America to smuggle into the United States. Mexican TCOs probably will seek to
continue expanding their capacity to produce finished fentanyl.
• Since 2019, Mexican TCOs have shifted from importing finished fentanyl from China to
synthesizing fentanyl from precursor chemicals, primarily also from China, partly because of
China’s fentanyl class controls. Mexican TCOs are able to circumvent international controls on
precursor chemicals by changing analogues and methodologies for synthetizing and producing
synthetics.
• Turf battles among Mexican TCOs vying for drug routes and territory have resulted in
steady, high homicide rates since 2018 that are four times the rate of homicides in the United
States. In parts of Mexico, TCOs use billions of dollars of drug proceeds to intimidate
politicians and influence elections, as well as recruit and arm fighters capable of directly
confronting government security forces.
Money Laundering and Financial Crimes
TCOs exploit the U.S. financial, services, and manufacturing sectors by conducting complex money
laundering and fraud schemes.
• TCOs generate hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue by trafficking illicit drugs
and other goods and people; conducting extortion and racketeering that targets U.S. persons;
producing and selling counterfeit and stolen goods in U.S. markets; and running financial fraud
schemes.
Cyber Crime
Transnational cyber criminals are increasing the number, scale, and sophistication of ransomware
attacks, fueling a virtual ecosystem that threatens to cause greater disruptions of critical
services worldwide. These criminals are driven by the promise of large profits, reliable safe
havens from which to operate, and a decreasing technical barrier to entry for new actors.
• Many major transnational cybercrime groups have diversified business models that
engage in direct wire-transfer fraud from victims, or use other forms of extortion alongside or in
place of ransomware. In 2020, business-e-mail compromise, identity theft, spoofing, and other
extortion schemes ranked among the top five most costly cybercriminal schemes.
U.S. Government entities, businesses, and other organizations face a diverse range of ransomware
threats. Attackers are innovating their targeting strategies to focus on victims whose business
operations lack resilience or whose consumer base cannot sustain service disruptions, driving
ransomware payouts up.
MIGRATION
In the Western Hemisphere, factors such as longstanding poor socioeconomic conditions, perceived
changes in U.S. immigration policy, and employment opportunities in the United States will continue
to drive migration to the Mexico-U.S. border; a growing number of people from around the world see
transiting Mexico as a way to reach the United States. High crime rates, violence, corruption,
weak job markets, and poor living conditions remain
[ 24 ]
primary push factors for U.S.-bound migration from Central America and Haiti because origin
countries lack the capacity to address these challenges.
• Eased COVID-19-related travel restrictions and perceptions of greater job
opportunities in a recovering
U.S. economy are contributing to a rise in migration. These dynamics, along with perceptions of
U.S. immigration policies, will determine the flow of migrants this year.
Economic disparities and the effects of conflict and extreme weather will encourage internal and
international migration and refugee flows. Migration and displacement will heighten humanitarian
needs, increase the risk of political upheaval, exacerbate the risk of other health crises, and aid
recruitment and radicalization by militant groups—particularly as COVID-19 strains global
humanitarian response mechanisms.
• The number of people displaced within their own national borders continues to
increase, straining governments’ abilities to care for their domestic populations and mitigate
public discontent. Afghanistan is likely to be a growing source of global migration in 2022, as a
result of reduced international support, deteriorating economic conditions, and repressive Taliban
regime governance.
Transnational organized criminal groups exploit migrants through extortion, kidnapping, human
trafficking, and forced labor.
Conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, aggressive Russian actions on the periphery of
Europe, a possible renewal of Belarusian efforts to fuel the migrant crisis along its border with
Poland and Lithuania, and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan could trigger more migration to
Europe this year and a nationalist backlash. Countries are witnessing the rise of populist
politicians and parties campaigning on loss of sovereignty and identity.
• The UNHCR estimated that 500,000 Afghan refugees could attempt to cross into
surrounding countries if the situation in Afghanistan did not stabilize and is working with
surrounding countries to prepare for Afghan refugee arrivals.
• Conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region since November 2020 has worsened humanitarian
conditions and resulted in at least 2.1 million internally displaced persons. The ongoing conflict
has also led to refugees fleeing to neighboring countries, which could destabilize the region
resulting in additional migrants seeking to travel to Europe.
GLOBAL TERRORISM
Terrorism remains a persistent threat to U.S. persons and interests at home and abroad.
Individuals and small cells inspired by a variety of ideologies and personal motivations—including
Sunni violent extremism, racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism, and militia violent
extremism—probably present the greatest terrorist threat to the United States. ISIS, al-Qa‘ida,
and terrorists aligned with Iran such as Lebanese Hizballah, probably pose the greatest threat to
U.S. persons and interests abroad. Consistent U.S. and allied counterterrorism pressure has
degraded the external attack capabilities of ISIS and al-Qa‘ida, but they still aspire to conduct
attacks in the United States. Communal conflict, insurgency, and instability almost certainly will
provide terrorist groups continued opportunities to recruit members, acquire funds, and establish
or expand safe havens from which to plot attacks—including reviving safe havens in Afghanistan.
Local insurgencies have at times bolstered their Sunni jihadist credentials to fully assimilate
into ISIS and al Qa‘ida, allowing them to strengthen and resulting in increased attacks, lethality,
and territorial influence and
[ 25 ]
control. Terrorists remain interested in using chemical and biological agents in attacks against
U.S. interests and possibly the U.S. homeland.
ISIS
ISIS leaders remain committed to their vision of building a self-styled global caliphate
headquartered in Iraq and Syria and are working to rebuild capabilities and wear down opponents
until conditions are ripe for seizing and holding territory. The threat from ISIS against U.S.
persons and interests probably will remain greatest in regions where the group has an operational
presence; ISIS’s ideology and propaganda, however, almost certainly will continue to inspire
attacks in the West, including in the United States.
• In Iraq and Syria, ISIS probably will prioritize attacks on local military and
civilian targets to erode its opponents’ will to fight, maintain relevance among members and
supporters, and stoke religious and ethnosectarian tension. ISIS has slowed its operational tempo
in Iraq and Syria, probably because of logistical, financial, personnel, and leadership shortfalls.
The group remains intent on freeing some of the 10,000 ISIS fighters who remain in detention in
northeast Syria.
• In Afghanistan, ISIS-Khorasan is attempting to exploit an influx of funds and
personnel from prison breaks to undermine the Taliban and build an external attack capability if it
can withstand Taliban pressure.
Al-Qa‘ida
Al-Qa‘ida has increasingly devolved operational responsibility to regional affiliates as it has
shifted away from centrally directed plotting. Because of leadership and battlefield setbacks,
al-Qa‘ida is constrained in its efforts to lead a unified global movement, but it will try to
maintain its presence in Afghanistan and capitalize on permissive operating environments.
Al-Qa‘ida remains intent on striking U.S. interests; it is more capable of striking U.S. interests
in the regions where its affiliates operate rather than in the Homeland. The primary threat to the
United States abroad from al-Qa‘ida emanates from the countries where its strongest affiliates
currently operate—Yemen, Somalia, and West Africa— and will vary based on local circumstances,
including affiliate leadership priorities and battlefield conditions.
Al-Qa‘ida senior leaders lack an operational presence in Afghanistan, and the group’s affiliate,
al-Qa‘ida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) is weak. Al-Qa‘ida and AQIS praised the Taliban’s
return to power and are likely to maintain their ties to the Taliban regime.
• Al-Qa‘ida probably will gauge its ability to operate in Afghanistan under Taliban
restrictions and will focus on maintaining its safe haven before seeking to conduct or support
external operations from Afghanistan.
Hizballah
Lebanese Hizballah will continue to work with Iran to develop terrorist capabilities as a
complement to the group’s growing conventional military capabilities.
[ 26 ]
• Hizballah seeks to reduce U.S. influence in Lebanon and the broader Middle East, and
maintains the capability to target U.S. persons and interests in the region, worldwide, and—to a
lesser extent—in the United States.
Foreign Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists
Foreign Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists (REMVE) very likely will continue to
pose a threat to the United States and its allies. These actors continue to rely on transnational
ties and adapt violent extremist narratives around current events, including the U.S. and coalition
departure from Afghanistan last August.
Foreign REMVEs draw on a diverse range of ideologies, including white supremacy, neo-Nazism,
exclusionary cultural-nationalist beliefs, and racial conspiracy theories. Foreign REMVEs organize
primarily on a number of online platforms, especially podcasts, applications, and encrypted social
media platforms.
• In mid-2021, foreign REMVEs in Europe sought to exploit popular fears of a potential
Afghan refugee crisis similar to the influx of refugees from Syria in 2015 and 2016. Xenophobic
sentiments have prompted an increasing number of individuals to engage with foreign REMVE groups in
Europe.
[ 27 ]
CONFLICTS AND INSTABILITY
SOUTH ASIA
Afghanistan
The Taliban takeover is rolling back social changes of the past two decades and deepening
Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis, heightening prospects for increased migration and displacement.
• The Taliban has been organizing its new regime with a bias for longtime stakeholders.
Many of the people named to senior positions served in the Taliban’s last government and are under
international sanction. Few ethnic minorities and no women have been selected, and the Taliban is
likely to keep resisting international pressure to govern more inclusively.
• Across the country, most girls’ schools are closed, and all but a few women have been
told to stay home from work. In some areas, public punishments have returned, along with
restrictions on beard length and media controls. However, near-term prospects for
regime-threatening resistance are low because large swathes of the Afghan public are weary of war
and fearful of Taliban reprisals, and armed remnants lack strong leadership and external support.
• Taliban leaders lack the resource base and technical capacity to prevent a major
economic contraction. They probably will rely on humanitarian aid to sustain some basic services
and would rather preside over a more rudimentary economic system and tax the drug trade than accept
international conditions for additional assistance.
• A majority of Afghans are suffering food insecurity because of the effects of
conflict, drought, and COVID-19 disruptions, and further deterioration almost certainly will
increase internal displacement, which could lead to international migration. Refugee flows could
spike if the Taliban attempted to relieve pressure by allowing larger populations to leave
Afghanistan or conditions sharply deteriorated.
• Regional powers will continue to narrow their interests and seek to develop
transactional arrangements with the Taliban while proceeding cautiously with formal recognition.
They would have preferred a more inclusive government, but they are prioritizing stability and are
unlikely to intervene in ways that would significantly change Taliban behavior.
India-Pakistan
Crises between India and Pakistan are of particular concern because of the risk—however low—of an
escalatory cycle between two nuclear-armed states. Pakistan has a long history of supporting
anti-India militant groups; under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is more
likely than in the past to respond with
military force to perceived or real Pakistani provocations, and each side’s perception of
heightened tensions raises the risk of conflict, with violent unrest in Kashmir or a militant
attack in India being potential flashpoints.
[ 28 ]
India-China
Relations between New Delhi and Beijing will remain strained in the wake of the lethal clash in
2020, the most serious in decades. We assess that the expanded military postures by both India and
China along the disputed border elevates the risk of armed confrontation between two nuclear powers
that might involve direct threats to U.S. persons and interests and calls for U.S. intervention.
Previous standoffs have demonstrated that persistent low-level friction on the Line of Actual
Control (LAC) has the potential to escalate swiftly.
OTHER REGIONS
Internal and interstate conflict and instability will continue to pose direct and indirect threats
to U.S. persons and interests during the next year. Several threats, which we assess to be
particularly important, are discussed below.
Near East
The Middle East will remain a region characterized by persistent conflict, with active insurgencies
in several countries, sparring between Iran and other countries, and terrorism and protest
movements sparking occasional violence. Domestic volatility will persist as popular discontent and
socioeconomic grievances continue to rise, particularly as the region contends with the economic
fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing the risk of internal or international conflict that
would threaten U.S. persons and national security interests.
• Iran-backed Shia militias are likely to continue attacks against U.S. targets in Iraq,
and ISIS remains a persistent threat. U.S. personnel would also face danger if popular protests
against government corruption, continued dysfunction in the wake of the elections in October 2021,
and poor economic conditions took a more violent turn, or if Baghdad became embroiled in a broader
regional conflict.
• Conflict, economic hardship, and humanitarian crises will plague Syria during the next
few years, and threats to U.S. forces will increase. President Bashar al-Asad will rely on the
support of Russia and Iran and the nascent progress he has made reintegrating Syria into the region
to stall meaningful peace negotiations. U.S. forces in eastern Syria will face continued threats
from Iran, Iran-backed militias, and Syrian regime-aligned groups. ISIS and Hurras al-Din probably
will plan and could attempt to launch attacks on the West from their safe havens in the country and
increased fighting or further economic decline could spur another wave of migration.
There is some prospect to reduce conflicts that threaten U.S. persons and interests in the Middle
East. Countervailing factors—heightened fear of Iran, doubts about U.S. reliability, and economic
imperatives— are encouraging efforts to deescalate conflicts. Relations between Israel and select
Arab states continue to warm, Qatar’s isolation from its neighbors is waning, some Arab states are
working to normalize relations with Damascus and encourage its return to the Arab league, and key
Gulf states are talking with Iran, including its key rival, Saudi Arabia.
East Asia
In addition to Beijing’s provocative behavior in numerous parts of Asia, domestic developments in
some East Asian countries risk exacerbating underlying tensions with the potential to produce
unrest and violence.
[ 29 ]
• Burma’s security and economic conditions probably will continue to deteriorate because
both the regime and the opposition are relying on the use of force in an attempt to break the
ongoing political stalemate and advance their respective positions. Both sides remain entrenched
in their positions and neither are able to decisively prevail. Economic deterioration and ongoing
violence in addition to the ongoing COVID-19-pandemic will amplify the country’s deteriorating
humanitarian conditions, such as population displacement, food insecurity, and a poorly functioning
health care system.
Western Hemisphere
Latin America and the Caribbean almost certainly will see hotspots of volatility in the coming
year, undermining or distracting reliable U.S. partners from improving living conditions, tackling
illicit flows, addressing climate change, and warding off foreign influence. In many cases, the
COVID-19 pandemic has intensified high levels of public discontent with worsening longstanding poor
socioeconomic conditions and public services that manifested in large anti-government protests.
Elevated levels of U.S.-bound migration from Latin America and the Caribbean region will persist
into at least mid-2022 because the underlying economic and insecurity drivers will remain
unchanged, and migrants view the U.S. labor market and immigration policies and enforcement as
favorable.
Africa
Sub-Saharan African governments will exhibit clear agency in their foreign affairs as the
international community recognizes the importance of the region to its economic and security
interests. Large numbers of U.S. citizens will be at risk from conflict in several countries. As
the region seeks to reinvigorate its upward trajectory following the social and economic effects of
the COVID-19 pandemic, it will continue to face unstable commodities prices, poor service delivery
and endemic corruption, stresses of extreme weather events, and insecurity because of terrorism,
insurgency, sectarian violence, and political instability.
• East Africa probably will see new bouts of conflict in the coming year as the region
becomes increasingly strained by the civil war in Ethiopia, power struggles within the transitional
government in Sudan, continued instability in Somalia, and a potentially contentious election in
Kenya. In Ethiopia, the prospects for a long-term ceasefire remain slim because the belligerents
probably do not believe the other side will negotiation in good faith or have a right to be at the
table, increasing the prospects for continued conflict, atrocities, and food insecurity. Sudan is
almost certainly is starting on a protracted and fragile path towards civilian governance that will
depend on reconciliation between three opposing elements: the guarded security leadership, the
fragmented political coalition, and the mercurial street. In Somalia, leaders’ myopic focus on
politicking has led to government paralysis, widening the opening for al-Shabaab and raising the
risk of recurring outbreaks of violence in Mogadishu.
• In West Africa, a volatile mixture of democratic backsliding, intercommunal violence,
and terrorism will threaten the region’s stability. Recent undemocratic transfers of power in
Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea and Mali highlight the region’s fragility and in some cases the belief
among publics that their government are not able to effectively deliver services or managing
expanding insecurity. Some of the
leaders who remain in power are turning to autocratic, state-centric, and religious governance
practices, with some prioritizing security in key urban centers while ceding rural territory to
jihadists.
[ 30 ]
February 7, 2022
INTRODUCTION
This annual report of worldwide threats to the national security of the United States responds to
Section 617 of the FY21 Intelligence Authorization Act (P.L. 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, such as climate change and environmental degradation.
As required by the law, this report will be provided to the congressional intelligence committees
as well as the committees on the Armed Services of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Information available as of 21 January was used in the preparation of this assessment.
[ 2 ]
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................2
FOREWORD..............................................................................................................................4
CHINA .......................................................................................................................................6
RUSSIA .................................................................................................................................... 10
IRAN ....................................................................................................................................... 14
NORTH KOREA ...................................................................................................................... 16
HEALTH
SECURITY............................................................................................................... 18
Infectious Diseases and the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic ............................................. 18
Biological
Weapons.............................................................................................................. 19
Anomalous Health
Incidents................................................................................................. 20
CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION.......................................21
ADDITIONAL TRANSNATIONAL ISSUES ........................................................................... 22
Preface................................................................................................................................. 22
Innovative Use of New Technology ...................................................................................... 22
Transnational Organized Crime ............................................................................................ 23
Foreign Illicit Drugs ....................................................................................................... 23
Money Laundering and Financial Crimes ........................................................................ 24
Cyber Crime................................................................................................................... 24
Migration............................................................................................................................. 24
Global Terrorism.................................................................................................................. 25
CONFLICTS AND INSTABILITY ........................................................................................... 28
South Asia ........................................................................................................................... 28
Other Regions ...................................................................................................................... 29
[ 3 ]
FOREWORD
In the coming year, the United States and its allies will face an increasingly complex and
interconnected global security environment marked by the growing specter of great power competition
and conflict, while collective, transnational threats to all nations and actors compete for our
attention and finite resources.
These challenges will play out amidst the continued global disruption resulting from the COVID-19
pandemic, contention over global efforts to deal with a changing climate, increasingly powerful
non-state actors, and rapidly evolving technology, all within the context of an evolving world
order where the continued diffusion of power is leading actors to reassess their place and
capabilities in an increasingly multipolar world. These challenges will intersect and interact in
unpredictable ways, leading to mutually reinforcing effects that could challenge our ability to
respond, but also introducing new opportunities to forge collective action with allies and partners
against both the renewed threat of nation-state aggression and emerging threats to human security.
The 2022 Annual Threat Assessment highlights some of those connections as it provides the
Intelligence Community’s (IC’s) baseline assessments of the most pressing threats to U.S. national
interests, while emphasizing the United States’ key adversaries and competitors. It is not an
exhaustive assessment of all global challenges and notably excludes assessments of U.S.
adversaries’ vulnerabilities. It accounts for functional concerns, such as weapons of mass
destruction and cyber, primarily in the sections on threat actors, such as China and Russia.
Competition and potential conflict between nation-states remains a critical national security
threat. Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang have demonstrated the capability and intent to
advance their interests at the expense of the United States and its allies. China increasingly is
a near-peer competitor, challenging the United States in multiple arenas—especially economically,
militarily, and technologically—and is pushing to change global norms and potentially threatening
its neighbors. Russia is pushing back against Washington where it can—locally and
globally—employing techniques up to and including the use of force. In Ukraine, we can see the
results of Russia’s increased willingness to use military threats and force to impose its will on
neighbors. Iran will remain a regional menace with broader malign influence activities, and North
Korea will expand its WMD capabilities while being a disruptive player on the regional and world
stages. Major adversaries and competitors are enhancing and exercising their military, cyber, and
other capabilities, raising the risks to U.S. and allied forces, weakening our conventional
deterrence, and worsening the longstanding threat from weapons of mass destruction. As states such
as China and Russia increasingly see space as a warfighting domain, multilateral space security
discussions have taken on greater importance as a way to reduce the risk of a confrontation that
would affect every state’s ability to safely operate in space.
The lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to strain governments and societies,
fueling humanitarian and economic crises, political unrest, and geopolitical competition as
countries, such as China and Russia, seek advantage through such avenues as “vaccine diplomacy.”
No country has been completely spared, and even when a vaccine is widely distributed globally, the
economic and political aftershocks will be felt for years. Low-income countries with high debts
face particularly challenging recoveries and the potential for cascading crises leading to regional
instability, whereas others will turn inward or be distracted by other challenges. The IC
continues to investigate the concerning incidences of Anomalous Health Incidents and the danger
they pose to U.S. personnel.
[ 4 ]
Ecological degradation and a changing climate will continue to fuel disease outbreaks, threaten
food and water security, and exacerbate political instability and humanitarian crises. Great power
competition and disputes between wealthy and low-income nations will threaten progress on the
collective action that will be needed to meet global goals for reduction of greenhouse gas
emissions.
Other transnational challenges will pose an array of direct and indirect threats to the United
States. They will interact in complex and cascading ways with each other and with threats posed by
great power competition, increasingly empowered non-state actors, the pandemic, and climate change.
Emerging and disruptive technologies, as well as the proliferation and permeation of technology
into all aspects of our lives, pose unique challenges. The scourge of transnational organized
crime, illicit drugs, violent extremism, and endemic corruption in many countries will continue to
take their toll on American lives, prosperity, and safety. Both state and non-state cyber actors
threaten our infrastructure and provide avenues for foreign malign influence threats against our
democracy. We will see continuing potential for surges in migration from Afghanistan, Latin
America, and other poor countries, which are reeling from conflict and the economic fallout of the
COVID-19 pandemic. Economic and political conditions in Latin America continue to spark waves of
migration that destabilize our Southern neighbors and put pressure on our Southern border.
Finally, ISIS, al-Qa‘ida, and Iran and its militant allies will take advantage of weak governance
to continue to plot terrorist attacks against U.S. persons and interests, including to varying
degrees in the United States, and exacerbate instability in regions such as Africa and the Middle
East.
Regional instability and conflicts continue to threaten U.S. persons and interests. Some have
direct implications for U.S. security. For example, the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan threatens
U.S. interests, including the possibility of terrorist safe havens re-emerging and a humanitarian
disaster. The continued fighting in Syria has a direct bearing on U.S. forces, whereas tensions
between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan remain a global concern. The iterative violence between
Israel and Iran, and conflicts in other areas—including Africa, Asia, and the Middle East—have the
potential to escalate or spread, fueling humanitarian crises and threatening U.S. persons, as in
the case of Al-Shabaab, which is leveraging continued instability in East Africa and the lack of
security capacity of regional states to threaten U.S. interests and American lives.
The 2022 Annual Threat Assessment Report supports the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence’s transparency commitments and the tradition of providing regular threat updates to
the American public and the United States Congress. The IC is vigilant in monitoring and assessing
direct and indirect threats to
U.S. and allied interests. As part of this ongoing effort, the IC’s National Intelligence Officers
work closely with analysts from across the IC to examine the spectrum of threats and highlight the
most likely and impactful near-term risks in the context of the longer-term, overarching threat
environment.
[ 5 ]
CHINA
REGIONAL AND GLOBAL OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will continue efforts to achieve President’s Xi Jinping’s vision
of making China the preeminent power in East Asia and a major power on the world stage. The CCP
will work to press Taiwan on unification, undercut U.S. influence, drive wedges between Washington
and its partners, and foster some norms that favor its authoritarian system. China’s leaders
probably will, however, seek opportunities to reduce tensions with Washington when it suits their
interests. China will maintain its statist economic policies because China’s leaders see state
direction as necessary to reduce dependence on foreign technologies, enable military modernization,
and sustain growth—ensuring CCP rule and the realization of its vision for national rejuvenation.
• Beijing sees increasingly competitive U.S.–China relations as part of an epochal
geopolitical shift and views Washington’s diplomatic, economic, and military measures against
Beijing as part of a broader
U.S. effort to prevent China’s rise and undermine CCP rule.
• The CCP is increasing its criticism of perceived U.S. failures and hypocrisy,
including the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and racial tensions in the United States.
• Beijing is increasingly combining growing military power with its economic,
technological, and diplomatic clout to strengthen CCP rule, secure what it views as its sovereign
territory and regional preeminence, and pursue global influence.
• However, China faces myriad—and in some cases growing—domestic and international
challenges that probably will hinder CCP leaders’ ambitions. These include an aging population,
high levels of
corporate debt, economic inequality, and growing resistance to China’s heavy-handed tactics in
Taiwan and other countries.
China uses coordinated, whole-of-government tools to demonstrate strength and compel neighbors to
acquiesce to Beijing’s preferences, including its territorial and maritime claims and assertions of
sovereignty over Taiwan.
• Beijing will press Taiwan to move toward unification and will react to what it views
as increased U.S.– Taiwan engagement. We expect that friction will grow as China continues to
increase military activity around the island, and Taiwan’s leaders resist Beijing’s pressure for
progress toward unification. China’s control over Taiwan probably would disrupt global supply
chains for semiconductor chips because Taiwan dominates production.
• In the South China Sea, Beijing will continue to use growing numbers of air, naval,
and maritime law enforcement platforms to intimidate rival claimants and signal that China has
effective control over contested areas. China is similarly pressuring Japan over contested areas
in the East China Sea.
Beijing will continue to promote the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to expand China’s economic,
political, and military presence abroad. Beijing will adjust its approach to BRI in response to
publicity and sustainability challenges, and diversify project selection in an attempt to improve
the initiative's brand and minimize international criticism. China also will promote new
international norms for technology and human rights,
[ 6 ]
emphasizing state sovereignty and political stability over individual rights. It will continue to
erode the vestiges of freedom in Hong Kong.
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. Beijing uses a variety of tools, from public investment to espionage to advance its
technological capabilities.
Beijing’s willingness to use espionage, subsidies, and trade policy to give its firms a competitive
advantage represents not just an ongoing challenge for the U.S. economy and its workers, but also
advances Beijing's ability to assume leadership of the world's technological advancement and
standards.
China will continue deepening diplomatic, defense, and technology cooperation with Russia to
challenge the United States.
MILITARY CAPABILITIES
China will continue pursuing its goal of building a world-class military that will enable it to
secure what it views as its sovereign territory, establish its preeminence in regional affairs, and
project power globally while offsetting perceived U.S. military superiority.
• Beijing is accelerating the development of key capabilities it believes the People’s
Liberation Army’s (PLA) needs to confront the United States in a large-scale, sustained conflict.
The PLA Navy and Air Force are the largest in the region and continue to field advanced platforms
that
improve China’s ability to establish air superiority and project power. The PLA Rocket Force’s
(PLARF) short-, medium-, and intermediate-range conventional systems can hold U.S. forces and bases
in the region at risk. In 2020, the PLARF fielded its first operational hypersonic weapons system,
the DF-17 hypersonic glide vehicle-capable medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM), which could
challenge U.S. missile defense systems.
We expect the PLA to continue to pursue the establishment of overseas military installations and
access agreements to enhance its ability to project power and protect China’s interests abroad.
WMD
Beijing will continue the largest ever nuclear force expansion and arsenal diversification in its
history. Beijing is not interested in agreements that restrict its plans and will not agree to
negotiations that lock in U.S. or Russian advantages. China is building a larger and increasingly
capable nuclear missile and bomber force that is more survivable, more diverse, and on higher alert
than in the past, including nuclear missile systems designed to manage regional escalation and
ensure an intercontinental strike capability in any scenario.
• China is building hundreds of new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos.
• As of 2020, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) had operationally fielded
the nuclear- capable H-6N bomber, providing a platform for the air component of the PRC’s nascent
nuclear triad.
• China conducted a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) flight test that flew completely
around the world and impacted inside China.
[ 7 ]
SPACE
Beijing is working to match or exceed U.S. capabilities in space to gain the military, economic,
and prestige benefits that Washington has accrued from space leadership.
• China’s space station began assembly and crewed missions in 2021, with full
operational capability expected between 2022 and 2024. China also plans to conduct additional
lunar exploration missions, and it intends to establish a robotic research station on the Moon and
later, an intermittently crewed lunar base.
• The PLA will continue to integrate space services—such as satellite reconnaissance and
positioning, navigation, and timing—and satellite communications into its weapons and
command-and-control systems to erode the U.S. military’s information advantage.
Counterspace operations will be integral to potential military campaigns by the PLA, and China has
counterspace- weapons capabilities intended to target U.S. and allied satellites. The PLA is
fielding new destructive and nondestructive ground- and space-based antisatellite (ASAT) weapons.
CYBER
We assess that China presents the broadest, most active, and persistent cyber espionage threat to
U.S. Government and private sector networks. China’s cyber pursuits and export of related
technologies increase the threats of attacks against the U.S. homeland, suppression of U.S. web
content that Beijing views as threatening to its control, and the expansion of technology-driven
authoritarianism globally.
• China almost certainly is capable of launching cyber attacks that would disrupt
critical infrastructure services within the United States, including against oil and gas pipelines
and rail systems.
China leads the world in applying surveillance and censorship to monitor its population and repress
dissent, particularly among minorities. Beijing conducts cyber intrusions that affect U.S. and
non-U.S. citizens beyond its borders—such as hacking journalists—to counter perceived threats to
the CCP and tailor influence efforts.
• China’s cyber-espionage operations have included compromising telecommunications
firms, providers of managed services and broadly used software, and other targets potentially rich
in follow-on opportunities for intelligence collection, attack, or influence operations.
MALIGN INFLUENCE
China will continue expanding its global intelligence and covert influence posture to better
support the CCP’s political, economic, and security goals, increasingly challenging U.S. influence.
China is attempting to exploit doubts about U.S. leadership, undermine democracy, and extend
Beijing’s influence, especially in East Asia and the western Pacific, which Beijing views as its
traditional sphere of influence.
• China will continue spreading COVID-19 misinformation and downplaying its early
failures while casting blame on the West. Its misinformation includes claims that the United
States created COVID- 19.
[ 8 ]
• Beijing probably is reviewing publicly disclosed Russian influence operations and
gaining experience from operations that use social media and other technologies against societies
in Asia and elsewhere.
• Beijing is intensifying efforts to mold U.S. public discourse, pressure perceived
political opponents, and muffle criticism on such issues as religious freedom, suppression of
democracy in Hong Kong, and oppression of the Uyghurs as well as other minorities.
[ 9 ]
RUSSIA
REGIONAL AND GLOBAL OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES
We expect that Moscow will remain an influential power and a formidable challenge to the United
States amidst the changing geopolitical landscape during the next decade. It will continue to
pursue its interests in competitive and sometimes confrontational and provocative ways, including
pressing to dominate Ukraine and other countries in its “near-abroad,” while exploring
possibilities to achieve a more stable relationship with Washington.
• We assess that Russia does not want a direct conflict with U.S. forces. Russia seeks
an accommodation with the United States on mutual noninterference in both countries’ domestic
affairs and U.S.
recognition of Russia’s claimed sphere of influence over much of the former Soviet Union.
• Russia’s officials have long believed that the United States is trying to undermine
Russia, weaken President Vladimir Putin, and install Western-friendly regimes in the former Soviet
states and elsewhere, which they conclude gives Russia leeway to retaliate.
Russia continues to prepare for a military attack against Ukraine, with well over 100,000 troops
massed near the Ukraine border, including Russian military forces in Belarus, occupied-Crimea, and
the separatist forces in Eastern Ukraine. Moscow is sending more forces. In mid-December 2021,
Russia issued a statement demanding that NATO provide formal security guarantees, including putting
an end to the possibility that Ukraine might join the Alliance.
We assess that Moscow will continue to employ an array of tools to advance its own interests or
undermine the interests of the United States and its allies. These will be primarily military,
security, and intelligence tools, with economic cooperation playing a smaller role. We expect
Moscow to insert itself into crises when Russia’s interests are at stake, the anticipated costs of
action are low, or it sees an opportunity to capitalize on a power vacuum.
Russia probably will continue to expand its global military, intelligence, security, commercial,
and energy footprint and build partnerships aimed at undermining U.S. influence and boosting its
own.
• In the Middle East and North Africa, Moscow is using its involvement in Syria, Libya,
and Sudan to increase its clout, undercut U.S. leadership, present itself as an indispensable
mediator, and gain military access rights and economic opportunities.
• In the Western Hemisphere, Russia has expanded its engagement with Venezuela,
supported Cuba, and used arms sales and energy agreements to try to expand access to markets and
natural resources in Latin America, in part to offset some of the effects of sanctions.
• In the former Soviet republics, Moscow is well positioned to increase its role in the
Caucasus and, if it deems necessary, intervene in Belarus and Central Asia to halt instability
after widespread anti- government protests, as it did in Belarus after the fraudulent 2020 election
and early this year in Kazakhstan.
• We expect Russia to continue to use energy as a foreign policy tool to coerce
cooperation and force states to the negotiating table, as it recently did in 2021, when Russia
stopped coal and electricity
[ 10 ]
exports to Ukraine. Russia also uses its capabilities in COVID-19 vaccine development and civilian
nuclear reactor construction as a soft-power tool in its foreign policy.
Russia uses corruption as an effective foreign policy tool to further its geopolitical goals and
buy influence in other countries; however, it also serves as a long-term domestic vulnerability as
well as a drag on Russia’s economic performance and ability to attract investment.
• Russia has used corruption to help develop networks of patronage in countries,
including Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Ukraine, to influence decisionmaking, and help carry out
Russia’s foreign policy objectives.
• Russians regularly identify corruption as one of the country’s biggest problems, which
has been a recurrent cause of public protests and a key theme of imprisoned Russian opposition
figure Aleksey Navalnyy’s campaign against the Kremlin.
• We assess that Russia would need to reduce corruption and state control of the
economy, and improve the rule of law in Russia to attract investment and expand growth beyond 1-3
percent per year.
MILITARY CAPABILITIES
We expect Moscow to sustain military modernization and enhance its armed forces, enabling it to
defend Russia’s national security while projecting influence globally and challenging the interests
of the United States and its allies. Despite slow growth in defense spending, Russia will emphasize
the development and acquisition of new weapons that present increased threats to the United States
and regional actors while continuing its foreign military engagements, conducting training
exercises, and incorporating lessons from its involvement in conflicts in Syria and Ukraine.
• Moscow has the wherewithal to deploy forces in strategically important regions, but
the farther it deploys from Russia, the less able it probably will be to sustain intensive combat
operations.
• Vagner group and other private security companies managed by Russian oligarchs close
to the Kremlin extend Moscow’s military reach at low cost in areas ranging from Syria to the
Central African Republic and Mali, allowing Russia to disavow its involvement and distance itself
from battlefield casualties.
WMD
We assess that Russia will remain the largest and most capable WMD rival to the United States for
the foreseeable future as it expands and modernizes its nuclear weapons capabilities and increases
the capabilities of its strategic and nonstrategic weapons. Russia also remains a nuclear-material
security concern, despite improvements to material protection, control, and accounting at Russia’s
nuclear sites since the 1990s.
• Moscow views its nuclear capabilities as necessary for maintaining deterrence and
achieving its goals in a potential conflict against the United States and NATO, and it sees a
credible nuclear weapons deterrent as the ultimate guarantor of the Russian Federation.
• Moscow continues to develop long-range nuclear-capable missile and underwater delivery
systems meant to penetrate or bypass U.S. missile defenses.
[ 11 ]
• Russia is expanding and modernizing its large, diverse, and modern set of nonstrategic
systems, which are capable of delivering nuclear or conventional warheads, because Moscow believes
such systems offer options to deter adversaries, control the escalation of potential hostilities,
and counter U.S. and allied troops near its border.
CYBER
We assess that Russia will remain a top cyber threat as it refines and employs its espionage,
influence, and attack capabilities. We assess that Russia views cyber disruptions as a foreign
policy lever to shape other countries’ decisions, as well as a deterrence and military tool.
• Russia is particularly focused on improving its ability to target critical
infrastructure, including underwater cables and industrial control systems, in the United States as
well as in allied and partner countries, because compromising such infrastructure improves and
demonstrates its ability to damage infrastructure during a crisis.
• Russia is also using cyber operations to attack entities it sees as working to
undermine its interests or threaten the stability of the Russian Government. Russia attempts to
hack journalists and organizations worldwide that investigate Russian Government activity and in
several instances, has leaked their information.
MALIGN INFLUENCE
Russia presents one of the most serious foreign influence threats to the United States, using its
intelligence services, proxies, and wide-ranging influence tools to try to divide Western
alliances, and increase its sway around the world, while attempting to undermine U.S. global
standing, amplify discord inside the United States, and influence U.S. voters and decisionmaking.
We assess that Moscow probably will build on these approaches to try to undermine the United States
as opportunities arise—Russia and its influence actors are adept at capitalizing on current events
in the United States to push Moscow-friendly positions to Western audiences.
• Moscow almost certainly views U.S. elections as opportunities for malign influence as
part of its larger foreign policy strategy. Moscow has conducted influence operations against U.S.
elections for decades, including as recently as the 2020 presidential election. We assess that it
probably will try to strengthen ties to U.S. persons in the media and politics in hopes of
developing vectors for future influence operations. Moscow almost certainly will continue these
online influence operations in the United States and in countries such as Belarus, Ukraine, and
other countries of key Russian interest. Moscow will also continue and seek out new methods of
circumventing technology companies' anti- disinformation activities to further expand its
narratives globally.
SPACE
Russia will remain a key space competitor, maintaining a large network of reconnaissance,
communications, and navigation satellites. Moscow will focus on integrating space services—such as
communications; positioning, navigation, and timing; geolocation; and intelligence, surveillance,
and reconnaissance—into its weapons and command-and-control systems, allowing Moscow to more
quickly identify, track, and target
U.S. satellites during a conflict.
[ 12 ]
In recent years, Russia has focused its efforts on developing its civil and commercial space
capabilities. Moscow is capable of employing its civil and commercial remote sensing satellites to
supplement military- dedicated capabilities that reduce U.S. ability to perform sensitive military
activities undetected. In addition to improving its launch capability, it is working to support
human spaceflight for future deep space missions.
Russia continues to train its military space elements and field new antisatellite weapons to
disrupt and degrade
U.S. and allied space capabilities, and it is developing, testing, and fielding an array of
nondestructive and destructive counterspace weapons—including jamming and cyberspace capabilities,
directed energy weapons, on- orbit capabilities, and ground-based ASAT capabilities—to target U.S.
and allied satellites.
• Russia is investing in electronic warfare and directed energy weapons to counter
western on-orbit assets. These systems work by disrupting or disabling adversary C4ISR
capabilities and by disrupting GPS, tactical and satellite communications, and radars.
• Russia continues to develop ground-based direct ascent ASAT weapons capable of
destroying space targets in low Earth orbit.
[ 13 ]
IRAN
REGIONAL AND GLOBAL OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES
Iran will continue to threaten U.S. interests as it tries to erode U.S. influence in the Middle
East, entrench its influence and project power in neighboring states, and minimize threats to
regime stability. Tehran will try to leverage its expanding nuclear program, proxy and partner
forces, diplomacy, and military sales and acquisitions to advance its goals. The Iranian regime
sees itself as locked in an existential struggle with the United States and its regional allies,
while it pursues its longstanding ambitions for regional leadership.
The election of President Ebrahim Raisi in 2021 has invigorated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to try
to make progress toward his long-term vision of molding Iran into a pan-Islamic power capable of
defending global Muslim causes while tightening its theocratic rule at home.
• The regime is reluctant to directly engage diplomatically with the United States on a
renewal of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), even though it still aspires to secure
sanctions relief. Iran’s hardline officials deeply distrust Washington and do not believe the
United States can deliver or sustain any benefits a renewed JCPOA might offer.
We assess that Iran will threaten U.S. persons directly and via proxy attacks, particularly in the
Middle East. Iran also remains committed to developing networks inside the United States—an
objective it has pursued for more than a decade. Iranian-supported proxies will launch attacks
against U.S. forces and persons in Iraq and Syria, and perhaps on other countries and regions.
Iran has threatened to retaliate against former and current U.S. officials for the killing of
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) Commander Qasem Soleimani in January 2020,
and has previously attempted to conduct lethal operations in the United States.
• Iran remains a threat to Israel, both directly through its missile forces and
indirectly through its support of Lebanese Hizballah and other terrorist groups.
• Iran will remain a problematic actor across the region with its backing of Iraqi Shia
militias, which is the primary threat to U.S. personnel in Iraq. Iran’s economically and
militarily propping up of a rogue Syrian regime, and spreading instability across Yemen through its
support to the Huthis—including a range of advanced military systems—also pose a threat to U.S.
partners and interests, including Saudi Arabia.
MILITARY CAPABILITIES
Iran’s hybrid approach to warfare—using both conventional and unconventional capabilities—will pose
a threat to
U.S. interests in the region for the foreseeable future. The IRGC-QF and its proxies will remain
central to Iran’s military power.
• Despite Iran’s economic challenges, Tehran will seek to improve and acquire new
conventional weaponry.
• Iran’s unconventional warfare operations and network of militant partners and proxies
enable Tehran to advance its interests in the region and maintain strategic depth.
[ 14 ]
Iran’s ballistic missile programs, which include the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the
region, continue to pose a threat to countries across the Middle East. Iran’s work on a space
launch vehicle (SLV)—including its Simorgh—shortens the timeline to an ICBM because SLVs and ICBMs
use similar technologies, if it decided to develop one.
NUCLEAR ISSUES
We continue to assess that Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development
activities that we judge would be necessary to produce a nuclear device. In July 2019, following
the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018, Iran began resuming some activities that exceed
JCPOA limits. If Tehran does not receive sanctions relief, Iranian officials probably will
consider further enriching uranium up to 90 percent.
• Iran has consistently cast its resumption of nuclear activities as a reversible
response to the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA and messaged that it would return to full compliance
if the United States lifted sanctions and also fulfilled its JCPOA commitments.
• Iran continues to increase the size and enrichment level of its uranium stockpile
beyond JCPOA limits. Iran continues to ignore restrictions on advanced centrifuge research and
development and continues uranium enrichment operations at the deeply buried Fordow facility. Iran
has been enriching uranium hexafluoride (UF6) up to 60 percent U-235 since April 2021, and
continues to accumulate UF6 enriched up to 20 percent. The IAEA has verified that Iran is
conducting uranium metal research and development, including producing laboratory-scale quantities
of uranium metal enriched up to 20 percent U-235.
CYBER AND MALIGN INFLUENCE
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. Iran’s opportunistic approach to
cyber attacks makes critical infrastructure owners in the United States susceptible to being
targeted by Tehran, especially when Tehran believes it must demonstrate that it can push back
against the United States in other domains. Recent attacks on Israeli and U.S. targets show that
Iran is more willing than before to target countries with stronger capabilities.
• Iran was responsible for multiple cyber attacks between April and July 2020 against
Israeli water
facilities. Iran’s successful disruption of critical infrastructure in Israel—also a superior
cyber power compared with Iran—reflects its growing willingness to take risks when it believes
retaliation is justified.
[ 15 ]
NORTH KOREA
REGIONAL AND GLOBAL OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will continue efforts to steadily expand and enhance Pyongyang’s
nuclear and conventional capabilities targeting the United States and its allies, periodically
using aggressive and potentially destabilizing actions to reshape the regional security environment
in his favor. These actions will include developing and demonstrating capabilities up to and
possibly including the resumption of nuclear weapons and ICBM testing.
• We assess that Kim views nuclear weapons and ICBMs as the ultimate guarantor of his
totalitarian and autocratic rule of North Korea and believes that over time he will gain
international acceptance as a nuclear power. He probably does not view the current level of
pressure on his regime, the economic hardships resulting from sanctions and his domestic COVID-19
countermeasures as enough to require a fundamental change in approach.
• Kim also aims to achieve prestige as a nuclear power as well as strategic dominance
over South Korea. Kim probably will continue to try to undermine the U.S.–South Korea alliance by
vacillating between periods of escalatory behavior and symbolic gestures toward the South to
exploit differences between Washington’s and Seoul’s approach to solving the Korea problem.
• We assess that North Korea continues to engage in illicit activities, including cyber
theft and the export of UN-proscribed commodities to fund regime priorities, including Kim’s WMD
program.
MILITARY CAPABILITIES
North Korea will pose a serious threat to the United States and its allies by continuing to invest
in niche capabilities that will provide Kim with a range of options to deter outside intervention,
offset enduring deficiencies in the country’s conventional forces, and coercively advance his
political objectives.
• In early 2021, in a public report to the Eighth Party Congress, Kim identified
priorities for developing new weapon systems, such as a nuclear-powered submarine, hypersonic glide
vehicles, long-range solid-propellant missiles, and multiple independently targetable reentry
vehicles (MIRV). Although some of these capabilities are longer-term projects, we assess that they
represent Kim’s commitment to expanding and diversifying his arsenal over time.
Kim is continuing to prioritize efforts to build an increasingly capable missile force designed to
evade U.S. and regional missile defenses. Kim probably will continue to order missile
tests—including of short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs), cruise missiles, submarine-launched
ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and HGVs—to validate technical objectives, reinforce deterrence, and
normalize Pyongyang’s missile testing.
• In September 2021, North Korea claimed for the first time to have tested an HGV that
probably would be capable of reaching regional targets. North Korea followed with two more claimed
hypersonic missile flight tests in January 2022, demonstrating its commitment to continued
development of hypersonic weapons.
[ 16 ]
WMD
Kim remains strongly committed to expanding the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal and continuing
ballistic missile research and development. North Korea’s continued development of ICBMs, IRBMs,
and SLBMs demonstrates its intention to bolster its nuclear delivery capability.
• Fissile material production continues in North Korea, which maintains its plutonium
program and probably is expanding it uranium enrichment program.
In January, North Korea began laying the groundwork for an increase in tensions that could include
ICBM or possibly a nuclear test this year—actions that Pyongyang has not taken since 2017. Flight
tests are part of North Korea’s effort to expand the number and type of missile systems capable of
delivering nuclear warheads to the entire United States.
• North Korea continues to seek a sea-based nuclear-strike capability. In October 2021,
North Korea flight tested a new SLBM.
North Korea’s chemical and biological weapons (CBW) capabilities remain a threat, and the IC is
concerned that Pyongyang may use such weapons during a conflict or in an unconventional or
clandestine attack.
CYBER
North Korea’s cyber program poses a sophisticated and agile espionage, cybercrime, and attack
threat. Pyongyang is well positioned to conduct surprise cyber attacks given its stealth and
history of bold action.
• Pyongyang probably possesses the expertise to cause temporary, limited disruptions of
some critical infrastructure networks and disrupt business networks in the United States.
Cyber actors linked to North Korea have conducted espionage efforts against a range of
organizations, including media, academia, defense companies, and governments, in multiple
countries.
[ 17 ]
HEALTH SECURITY
INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND THE IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed millions of people and disrupted life worldwide, with far-reaching
effects extending well beyond global health to the economic, political, and societal spheres.
Although the most severe health impacts of COVID-19 are lessening as global vaccination coverage
increases and natural immunity builds, countries worldwide will continue to grapple with COVID-19
during the next year. The socioeconomic and political implications of the pandemic will ripple
through the world for years.
The economic fallout from the pandemic is likely to continue to challenge governments and hold back
human development and wellbeing, particularly in low-income countries. Societal discontent
resulting from these conditions could worsen instability in some countries and fuel surges in
international migration, as people grow more desperate in the face of interlocking pressures that
include sustained economic downturns.
• The COVID-19 pandemic will continue to increase debt burdens, constrain government
spending by poor countries, and cause persistent job insecurity, in turn undermining economic and
political stability, particularly in low-income countries. Although global trade shows signs of
bouncing back from the COVID-19-induced slump, economists caution that any recovery this year could
be disrupted by ongoing or expanding pandemic effects, keeping pressure on many governments to
focus on internal economic stability.
• The economic fallout from COVID-19, combined with conflict and weather extremes, has
driven hunger worldwide to its highest point in more than a decade, which increases the risk of
instability. The number of people facing acute food insecurity doubled from 135 million in 2019 to
more than 270 million in 2020, and is projected to continue rising.
COVID-19 is likely to continue to strain health systems and create conditions that could facilitate
the spread of other infectious diseases globally, including to the U.S. homeland.
• The pandemic has significantly disrupted essential health services—for example,
causing healthcare worker shortages, delays in non-emergency procedures, or avoidance of healthcare
facilities because of fears of becoming infected with COVID-19—which are likely to worsen health
outcomes and continue to hamper countries’ abilities to control disease, particularly low and
middle-income countries.
• Influenza and other seasonal respiratory diseases could surge to abnormally high
levels in 2022 with the reduction of COVID-19 mitigation measures, which have dampened circulation
of these diseases since early 2020, and in turn reduced the level of population immunity to these
infections.
Countries globally remain vulnerable to the emergence of a novel pathogen that could cause a
devastating new pandemic. Drivers for disease emergence persist and are on the rise, including
deforestation and other human encroachment into unsettled land, wildlife harvesting and trade,
livestock production, and climate change. These drivers are compounded by factors that facilitate
global spread, such as international travel and trade, inadequate global disease surveillance and
control, distrust of public health authorities, health disinformation, and health system strain
brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Emerging agricultural
[ 18 ]
diseases—even those that do not harm humans directly—threaten to cause immense economic damage and
disruption to food supplies if they spread globally or into new regions.
COVID-19 Origins Assessment
The IC continues to investigate how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, first infected
humans. The IC assesses that the virus probably emerged and infected humans through an initial
small- scale exposure that occurred no later than November 2019. All agencies assess that two
hypotheses are plausible explanations for the origin of COVID-19: natural exposure to an infected
animal and a laboratory-associated incident.
• Four IC elements and the National Intelligence Council assess with low confidence that
the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection was most likely caused by natural exposure to an animal infected
with it or a close progenitor virus—a virus that probably would be more than 99 percent similar to
SARS- CoV-2. One IC element assesses with moderate confidence that the first human infection with
SARS-CoV-2 most likely was the result of a laboratory-associated incident, probably involving
experimentation, animal handling, or sampling by the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Analysts at
three IC elements remain unable to coalesce around either explanation without additional
information.
• Beijing continues to hinder the global investigation, resist sharing information, and
blame other countries, including the United States.
BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
Global shortcomings in preparedness for the pandemic and questions surrounding the origins of the
COVID-19 virus and biosecurity may inspire some adversaries to consider options related to
biological weapons developments.
• As China, Iran, and Russia continue to publicly tout individual or collaborative
efforts to improve biosecurity, they have pushed narratives that further drive threat perceptions,
including linking U.S. laboratories abroad to COVID-19 origins, breaches in biosafety,
untrustworthy vaccines, and biological weapons. This messaging probably will be amplified in the
lead up to the once-every-five-years Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons
Convention, tentatively slated to convene in mid- 2022.
• Rapid advances in dual-use technology, including bioinformatics, synthetic biology,
and genomic editing, could enable development of novel biological weapons that complicate
detection, attribution, and treatment.
[ 19 ]
ANOMALOUS HEALTH INCIDENTS
We continue to closely examine Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs) and ensure appropriate care for
those affected. IC agencies assess with varying levels of confidence that most reported health
incidents can be explained by medical conditions, or environmental or technical factors and that it
is unlikely that a foreign actor— including Russia—is conducting a sustained, worldwide campaign
involving hundreds of incidents without detection. This finding does not change the fact that U.S.
personnel are reporting real experiences, nor does it explain every report. The IC continues to
actively investigate the AHI issue, focusing particularly on a subset of priority cases for which
it has not ruled out any cause, including the possibility that one or more foreign actors were
involved.
[ 20 ]
CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION
We assess that climate change will increasingly exacerbate risks to U.S. national security
interests as the physical impacts increase and geopolitical tensions mount about how to respond to
the challenge. Meanwhile, environmental degradation will increasingly intersect with and worsen
climate change effects in many countries, particularly low- income countries.
• Geopolitical tensions are likely to grow as countries increasingly argue about how to
accelerate the reductions in net greenhouse gas emissions necessary to meet the Paris Agreement
goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5˚C since pre-industrial times. The current
trajectory of growing global greenhouse emissions, based on governments’ current policies and
pledges, would cause the global temperature rise to reach 1.5˚C around 2030, and surpass 2˚C by
mid-century.
• Countries will debate who bears more responsibility to reduce emissions and who should
pay—and countries will compete to control resources and dominate new technologies needed for the
clean energy transition. Most countries will face difficult economic choices and probably will
count on technological breakthroughs to rapidly reduce their net emissions later. China and India
will play critical roles in determining the trajectory of temperature rise.
• The increasing physical effects of climate change are likely to exacerbate domestic
and cross-border geopolitical flashpoints producing additional instability. The reduction in sea
ice already is amplifying strategic competition in the Arctic over access to its natural resources
and shipping routes. Elsewhere, as temperatures rise and more extreme effects manifest, there is a
growing risk of conflict over water and migration, particularly after 2030, and an increasing
chance that countries will unilaterally test and deploy large-scale solar geoengineering—creating a
new area of disputes.
• Scientific forecasts indicate that intensifying physical effects of climate change out
to 2040 and beyond will be most acutely felt in low-income countries, which we assess are also the
least able to adapt to such changes. These physical effects will increase the potential for
instability and possibly internal conflict in some countries, in some cases creating additional
demands on U.S. diplomatic, economic, humanitarian, and military resources. Despite geographic and
financial resource advantages, the United States and its partners face costly challenges that will
become more difficult to manage without concerted effort to reduce emissions and cap warming.
Unsustainable land use, poor water governance, and pollution will intersect with and worsen the
effects of climate change, primarily but not exclusively in low-income countries in the near term.
The combination of environmental degradation, rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns,
and other climate effects is likely to lead to an array of human challenges such as food and water
insecurity and threats to human health.
[ 21 ]
ADDITIONAL TRANSNATIONAL ISSUES
PREFACE
The pandemic and climate change highlight the challenges that a wide range of transnational issues
pose to
U.S. national security; we will now address several more priority issues. Some have a direct and
immediate impact on U.S. interests, such as narcotics trafficking and terrorism. Others seem to be
building for the future, or pose chronic, indirect challenges, such as corruption. These issues
also vary in the scope of the threats they pose, having broad, global impact or causing local, even
individual harm.
Transnational threats interact in a complex system along with more traditional threats such as
great power competition, often reinforcing each other and creating compounding and cascading risks
to U.S. national security. Underpinning many of the threats are weak or poor governance and
geopolitical competition.
During the past decade, an erosion of democracy around the world, strains in U.S. alliances, and
challenges to accepted, international norms have made it more difficult to tackle transnational
challenges such as climate change and the pandemic while creating greater opportunities for rogue
governments and groups to operate with impunity. Increasing interconnections among
countries—ranging from supply chains to social media—have also created new opportunities for
transnational interference and conflict.
Corruption illustrates the complexity of the transnational issues, the relationships among them,
and the range of their implications for U.S. interests. Corruption is a chronic challenge but
thrives particularly in poorly governed countries. It can undermine weak governments and
economies, contributing to political instability, organized crime, and disputes over migration—all
of which in turn can fuel greater corruption. Corruption in international transactions can directly
cost U.S. exporters billions of dollars in sales, give U.S. adversaries geopolitical openings, and
prop up regimes that abuse human rights. However, corruption also can be a positive—undermining
the capacity and credibility of authoritarian regimes.
Several transnational challenges stand out for the clear and direct threats they will pose to U.S.
interests during the coming years. Among these are the rapid development of destabilizing
technologies, including some that are transforming the battlefield, the threats posed by
transnational organized crime and terrorism, and the challenge of international migration.
INNOVATIVE USE OF NEW TECHNOLOGY
Multiple trends are shaping the technology landscape of the next decades. The increasing
convergence of seemingly unrelated fields and the rise of global competition to generate and lock
in advantage are leading to a global diffusion of emerging technologies, shrinking timelines for
development and maturation of technologies, and increasingly blurred lines between commercial and
military endeavors, particularly in fields with broad impact across societies and economies, such
as artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnologies, robotics and automation, and smart materials and
manufacturing.
• Emerging technologies are rapidly improving a broad range of human experiences and
capabilities, but at least in the short term, these same technologies are disrupting longstanding
systems and societal dynamics, forcing individuals, communities, and governments to adjust and find
new ways of living, working, and managing. As with any disruption, some will thrive whereas others
will struggle, potentially facing increasing inequalities and imbalances.
[ 22 ]
Novel uses of both mature and new technologies are proliferating among a growing number of state
and non-state actors, posing direct and growing threats to traditional pillars of U.S. military
power, such as secure rear-area lines of communication and mobilization, air and space dominance,
and power projection. The threats posed by new technologies will ultimately hinge on how they are
operationalized by individual actors, each driven by unique goals, perceptions, strengths, and
vulnerabilities.
• One of the most significant, ongoing trends in new military technology and weaponry is
the growing combination of high speed, long range, greater maneuverability, and pinpoint accuracy.
These advances are improving actors’ ability to strike across continents as well as regionally or
locally with UAVs, guided rockets, artillery shells, and mortars. Long-range precision strike
inventories are likely to include increasing numbers of hypersonic and highly maneuverable systems
that present a daunting challenge to those trying to develop countermeasures to detect, track, and
intercept such fast-moving and maneuverable weapons. Many technologies previously available only
to the advanced, industrial nations are trickling down to smaller and less expensive systems
thereby becoming more available worldwide, as seen in recent battlefield use of UAVs by Azerbaijan
and Ethiopia.
• Some technologies—such as hypersonic systems and nascent efforts to operationalize
military AI— probably will remain within the purview of great powers and wealthier states, but
relatively low cost and more widely available systems ranging from cyber tools to unmanned aerial
and naval vehicles could be exploited by lesser powers and non-state actors to achieve high impact
and even strategic-level effects.
• We are in the midst of a rapid expansion of state and non-state use of unmanned
vehicles in both the air and sea domains, which could disrupt the status quo in part because air
and naval defense often hinge on the assumption that the primary threat stems from a relatively
small number of crewed platforms or ground-based missiles.
TRANSNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME
Global transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) pose a direct threat to the United States
through human trafficking, the production and trafficking of lethal illicit drugs, cyber crime, and
financial crimes and money laundering schemes eroding the integrity of the international financial
system. Cyber criminals, in addition to phishing and other online fraud schemes, are also
increasing their ransomware attacks. TCO activities also indirectly threaten U.S. national
security by compounding and aggravating corruption, violence, and challenges to governance that
undermine the rule of law in partner nations, spurring violence, driving atrocities, and
contributing to migration.
• Human trafficking, including sex trafficking and forced labor, is not only a violation
of human rights and freedoms but a threat to U.S. national security and economic development and is
enabled by corrupt actors and networks that fuel the growth of transnational organized crime.
Foreign Illicit Drugs
Illicit drug trafficking by TCOs, particularly synthetic drugs, endangers the health and safety of
millions of U.S. citizens and imposes as much as one trillion dollars in direct and indirect
economic losses. The threat from illicit drugs is at historic levels, with more than 100,000
American drug-overdose deaths for the first time annually, driven mainly by a robust supply of
synthetic opioids from Mexican TCOs.
[ 23 ]
• Mexican TCOs are the dominant producers and suppliers of illicit drugs for the U.S.
market. They produce fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana in Mexico, and obtain
cocaine from South America to smuggle into the United States. Mexican TCOs probably will seek to
continue expanding their capacity to produce finished fentanyl.
• Since 2019, Mexican TCOs have shifted from importing finished fentanyl from China to
synthesizing fentanyl from precursor chemicals, primarily also from China, partly because of
China’s fentanyl class controls. Mexican TCOs are able to circumvent international controls on
precursor chemicals by changing analogues and methodologies for synthetizing and producing
synthetics.
• Turf battles among Mexican TCOs vying for drug routes and territory have resulted in
steady, high homicide rates since 2018 that are four times the rate of homicides in the United
States. In parts of Mexico, TCOs use billions of dollars of drug proceeds to intimidate
politicians and influence elections, as well as recruit and arm fighters capable of directly
confronting government security forces.
Money Laundering and Financial Crimes
TCOs exploit the U.S. financial, services, and manufacturing sectors by conducting complex money
laundering and fraud schemes.
• TCOs generate hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue by trafficking illicit drugs
and other goods and people; conducting extortion and racketeering that targets U.S. persons;
producing and selling counterfeit and stolen goods in U.S. markets; and running financial fraud
schemes.
Cyber Crime
Transnational cyber criminals are increasing the number, scale, and sophistication of ransomware
attacks, fueling a virtual ecosystem that threatens to cause greater disruptions of critical
services worldwide. These criminals are driven by the promise of large profits, reliable safe
havens from which to operate, and a decreasing technical barrier to entry for new actors.
• Many major transnational cybercrime groups have diversified business models that
engage in direct wire-transfer fraud from victims, or use other forms of extortion alongside or in
place of ransomware. In 2020, business-e-mail compromise, identity theft, spoofing, and other
extortion schemes ranked among the top five most costly cybercriminal schemes.
U.S. Government entities, businesses, and other organizations face a diverse range of ransomware
threats. Attackers are innovating their targeting strategies to focus on victims whose business
operations lack resilience or whose consumer base cannot sustain service disruptions, driving
ransomware payouts up.
MIGRATION
In the Western Hemisphere, factors such as longstanding poor socioeconomic conditions, perceived
changes in U.S. immigration policy, and employment opportunities in the United States will continue
to drive migration to the Mexico-U.S. border; a growing number of people from around the world see
transiting Mexico as a way to reach the United States. High crime rates, violence, corruption,
weak job markets, and poor living conditions remain
[ 24 ]
primary push factors for U.S.-bound migration from Central America and Haiti because origin
countries lack the capacity to address these challenges.
• Eased COVID-19-related travel restrictions and perceptions of greater job
opportunities in a recovering
U.S. economy are contributing to a rise in migration. These dynamics, along with perceptions of
U.S. immigration policies, will determine the flow of migrants this year.
Economic disparities and the effects of conflict and extreme weather will encourage internal and
international migration and refugee flows. Migration and displacement will heighten humanitarian
needs, increase the risk of political upheaval, exacerbate the risk of other health crises, and aid
recruitment and radicalization by militant groups—particularly as COVID-19 strains global
humanitarian response mechanisms.
• The number of people displaced within their own national borders continues to
increase, straining governments’ abilities to care for their domestic populations and mitigate
public discontent. Afghanistan is likely to be a growing source of global migration in 2022, as a
result of reduced international support, deteriorating economic conditions, and repressive Taliban
regime governance.
Transnational organized criminal groups exploit migrants through extortion, kidnapping, human
trafficking, and forced labor.
Conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, aggressive Russian actions on the periphery of
Europe, a possible renewal of Belarusian efforts to fuel the migrant crisis along its border with
Poland and Lithuania, and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan could trigger more migration to
Europe this year and a nationalist backlash. Countries are witnessing the rise of populist
politicians and parties campaigning on loss of sovereignty and identity.
• The UNHCR estimated that 500,000 Afghan refugees could attempt to cross into
surrounding countries if the situation in Afghanistan did not stabilize and is working with
surrounding countries to prepare for Afghan refugee arrivals.
• Conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region since November 2020 has worsened humanitarian
conditions and resulted in at least 2.1 million internally displaced persons. The ongoing conflict
has also led to refugees fleeing to neighboring countries, which could destabilize the region
resulting in additional migrants seeking to travel to Europe.
GLOBAL TERRORISM
Terrorism remains a persistent threat to U.S. persons and interests at home and abroad.
Individuals and small cells inspired by a variety of ideologies and personal motivations—including
Sunni violent extremism, racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism, and militia violent
extremism—probably present the greatest terrorist threat to the United States. ISIS, al-Qa‘ida,
and terrorists aligned with Iran such as Lebanese Hizballah, probably pose the greatest threat to
U.S. persons and interests abroad. Consistent U.S. and allied counterterrorism pressure has
degraded the external attack capabilities of ISIS and al-Qa‘ida, but they still aspire to conduct
attacks in the United States. Communal conflict, insurgency, and instability almost certainly will
provide terrorist groups continued opportunities to recruit members, acquire funds, and establish
or expand safe havens from which to plot attacks—including reviving safe havens in Afghanistan.
Local insurgencies have at times bolstered their Sunni jihadist credentials to fully assimilate
into ISIS and al Qa‘ida, allowing them to strengthen and resulting in increased attacks, lethality,
and territorial influence and
[ 25 ]
control. Terrorists remain interested in using chemical and biological agents in attacks against
U.S. interests and possibly the U.S. homeland.
ISIS
ISIS leaders remain committed to their vision of building a self-styled global caliphate
headquartered in Iraq and Syria and are working to rebuild capabilities and wear down opponents
until conditions are ripe for seizing and holding territory. The threat from ISIS against U.S.
persons and interests probably will remain greatest in regions where the group has an operational
presence; ISIS’s ideology and propaganda, however, almost certainly will continue to inspire
attacks in the West, including in the United States.
• In Iraq and Syria, ISIS probably will prioritize attacks on local military and
civilian targets to erode its opponents’ will to fight, maintain relevance among members and
supporters, and stoke religious and ethnosectarian tension. ISIS has slowed its operational tempo
in Iraq and Syria, probably because of logistical, financial, personnel, and leadership shortfalls.
The group remains intent on freeing some of the 10,000 ISIS fighters who remain in detention in
northeast Syria.
• In Afghanistan, ISIS-Khorasan is attempting to exploit an influx of funds and
personnel from prison breaks to undermine the Taliban and build an external attack capability if it
can withstand Taliban pressure.
Al-Qa‘ida
Al-Qa‘ida has increasingly devolved operational responsibility to regional affiliates as it has
shifted away from centrally directed plotting. Because of leadership and battlefield setbacks,
al-Qa‘ida is constrained in its efforts to lead a unified global movement, but it will try to
maintain its presence in Afghanistan and capitalize on permissive operating environments.
Al-Qa‘ida remains intent on striking U.S. interests; it is more capable of striking U.S. interests
in the regions where its affiliates operate rather than in the Homeland. The primary threat to the
United States abroad from al-Qa‘ida emanates from the countries where its strongest affiliates
currently operate—Yemen, Somalia, and West Africa— and will vary based on local circumstances,
including affiliate leadership priorities and battlefield conditions.
Al-Qa‘ida senior leaders lack an operational presence in Afghanistan, and the group’s affiliate,
al-Qa‘ida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) is weak. Al-Qa‘ida and AQIS praised the Taliban’s
return to power and are likely to maintain their ties to the Taliban regime.
• Al-Qa‘ida probably will gauge its ability to operate in Afghanistan under Taliban
restrictions and will focus on maintaining its safe haven before seeking to conduct or support
external operations from Afghanistan.
Hizballah
Lebanese Hizballah will continue to work with Iran to develop terrorist capabilities as a
complement to the group’s growing conventional military capabilities.
[ 26 ]
• Hizballah seeks to reduce U.S. influence in Lebanon and the broader Middle East, and
maintains the capability to target U.S. persons and interests in the region, worldwide, and—to a
lesser extent—in the United States.
Foreign Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists
Foreign Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists (REMVE) very likely will continue to
pose a threat to the United States and its allies. These actors continue to rely on transnational
ties and adapt violent extremist narratives around current events, including the U.S. and coalition
departure from Afghanistan last August.
Foreign REMVEs draw on a diverse range of ideologies, including white supremacy, neo-Nazism,
exclusionary cultural-nationalist beliefs, and racial conspiracy theories. Foreign REMVEs organize
primarily on a number of online platforms, especially podcasts, applications, and encrypted social
media platforms.
• In mid-2021, foreign REMVEs in Europe sought to exploit popular fears of a potential
Afghan refugee crisis similar to the influx of refugees from Syria in 2015 and 2016. Xenophobic
sentiments have prompted an increasing number of individuals to engage with foreign REMVE groups in
Europe.
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CONFLICTS AND INSTABILITY
SOUTH ASIA
Afghanistan
The Taliban takeover is rolling back social changes of the past two decades and deepening
Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis, heightening prospects for increased migration and displacement.
• The Taliban has been organizing its new regime with a bias for longtime stakeholders.
Many of the people named to senior positions served in the Taliban’s last government and are under
international sanction. Few ethnic minorities and no women have been selected, and the Taliban is
likely to keep resisting international pressure to govern more inclusively.
• Across the country, most girls’ schools are closed, and all but a few women have been
told to stay home from work. In some areas, public punishments have returned, along with
restrictions on beard length and media controls. However, near-term prospects for
regime-threatening resistance are low because large swathes of the Afghan public are weary of war
and fearful of Taliban reprisals, and armed remnants lack strong leadership and external support.
• Taliban leaders lack the resource base and technical capacity to prevent a major
economic contraction. They probably will rely on humanitarian aid to sustain some basic services
and would rather preside over a more rudimentary economic system and tax the drug trade than accept
international conditions for additional assistance.
• A majority of Afghans are suffering food insecurity because of the effects of
conflict, drought, and COVID-19 disruptions, and further deterioration almost certainly will
increase internal displacement, which could lead to international migration. Refugee flows could
spike if the Taliban attempted to relieve pressure by allowing larger populations to leave
Afghanistan or conditions sharply deteriorated.
• Regional powers will continue to narrow their interests and seek to develop
transactional arrangements with the Taliban while proceeding cautiously with formal recognition.
They would have preferred a more inclusive government, but they are prioritizing stability and are
unlikely to intervene in ways that would significantly change Taliban behavior.
India-Pakistan
Crises between India and Pakistan are of particular concern because of the risk—however low—of an
escalatory cycle between two nuclear-armed states. Pakistan has a long history of supporting
anti-India militant groups; under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is more
likely than in the past to respond with
military force to perceived or real Pakistani provocations, and each side’s perception of
heightened tensions raises the risk of conflict, with violent unrest in Kashmir or a militant
attack in India being potential flashpoints.
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India-China
Relations between New Delhi and Beijing will remain strained in the wake of the lethal clash in
2020, the most serious in decades. We assess that the expanded military postures by both India and
China along the disputed border elevates the risk of armed confrontation between two nuclear powers
that might involve direct threats to U.S. persons and interests and calls for U.S. intervention.
Previous standoffs have demonstrated that persistent low-level friction on the Line of Actual
Control (LAC) has the potential to escalate swiftly.
OTHER REGIONS
Internal and interstate conflict and instability will continue to pose direct and indirect threats
to U.S. persons and interests during the next year. Several threats, which we assess to be
particularly important, are discussed below.
Near East
The Middle East will remain a region characterized by persistent conflict, with active insurgencies
in several countries, sparring between Iran and other countries, and terrorism and protest
movements sparking occasional violence. Domestic volatility will persist as popular discontent and
socioeconomic grievances continue to rise, particularly as the region contends with the economic
fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing the risk of internal or international conflict that
would threaten U.S. persons and national security interests.
• Iran-backed Shia militias are likely to continue attacks against U.S. targets in Iraq,
and ISIS remains a persistent threat. U.S. personnel would also face danger if popular protests
against government corruption, continued dysfunction in the wake of the elections in October 2021,
and poor economic conditions took a more violent turn, or if Baghdad became embroiled in a broader
regional conflict.
• Conflict, economic hardship, and humanitarian crises will plague Syria during the next
few years, and threats to U.S. forces will increase. President Bashar al-Asad will rely on the
support of Russia and Iran and the nascent progress he has made reintegrating Syria into the region
to stall meaningful peace negotiations. U.S. forces in eastern Syria will face continued threats
from Iran, Iran-backed militias, and Syrian regime-aligned groups. ISIS and Hurras al-Din probably
will plan and could attempt to launch attacks on the West from their safe havens in the country and
increased fighting or further economic decline could spur another wave of migration.
There is some prospect to reduce conflicts that threaten U.S. persons and interests in the Middle
East. Countervailing factors—heightened fear of Iran, doubts about U.S. reliability, and economic
imperatives— are encouraging efforts to deescalate conflicts. Relations between Israel and select
Arab states continue to warm, Qatar’s isolation from its neighbors is waning, some Arab states are
working to normalize relations with Damascus and encourage its return to the Arab league, and key
Gulf states are talking with Iran, including its key rival, Saudi Arabia.
East Asia
In addition to Beijing’s provocative behavior in numerous parts of Asia, domestic developments in
some East Asian countries risk exacerbating underlying tensions with the potential to produce
unrest and violence.
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• Burma’s security and economic conditions probably will continue to deteriorate because
both the regime and the opposition are relying on the use of force in an attempt to break the
ongoing political stalemate and advance their respective positions. Both sides remain entrenched
in their positions and neither are able to decisively prevail. Economic deterioration and ongoing
violence in addition to the ongoing COVID-19-pandemic will amplify the country’s deteriorating
humanitarian conditions, such as population displacement, food insecurity, and a poorly functioning
health care system.
Western Hemisphere
Latin America and the Caribbean almost certainly will see hotspots of volatility in the coming
year, undermining or distracting reliable U.S. partners from improving living conditions, tackling
illicit flows, addressing climate change, and warding off foreign influence. In many cases, the
COVID-19 pandemic has intensified high levels of public discontent with worsening longstanding poor
socioeconomic conditions and public services that manifested in large anti-government protests.
Elevated levels of U.S.-bound migration from Latin America and the Caribbean region will persist
into at least mid-2022 because the underlying economic and insecurity drivers will remain
unchanged, and migrants view the U.S. labor market and immigration policies and enforcement as
favorable.
Africa
Sub-Saharan African governments will exhibit clear agency in their foreign affairs as the
international community recognizes the importance of the region to its economic and security
interests. Large numbers of U.S. citizens will be at risk from conflict in several countries. As
the region seeks to reinvigorate its upward trajectory following the social and economic effects of
the COVID-19 pandemic, it will continue to face unstable commodities prices, poor service delivery
and endemic corruption, stresses of extreme weather events, and insecurity because of terrorism,
insurgency, sectarian violence, and political instability.
• East Africa probably will see new bouts of conflict in the coming year as the region
becomes increasingly strained by the civil war in Ethiopia, power struggles within the transitional
government in Sudan, continued instability in Somalia, and a potentially contentious election in
Kenya. In Ethiopia, the prospects for a long-term ceasefire remain slim because the belligerents
probably do not believe the other side will negotiation in good faith or have a right to be at the
table, increasing the prospects for continued conflict, atrocities, and food insecurity. Sudan is
almost certainly is starting on a protracted and fragile path towards civilian governance that will
depend on reconciliation between three opposing elements: the guarded security leadership, the
fragmented political coalition, and the mercurial street. In Somalia, leaders’ myopic focus on
politicking has led to government paralysis, widening the opening for al-Shabaab and raising the
risk of recurring outbreaks of violence in Mogadishu.
• In West Africa, a volatile mixture of democratic backsliding, intercommunal violence,
and terrorism will threaten the region’s stability. Recent undemocratic transfers of power in
Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea and Mali highlight the region’s fragility and in some cases the belief
among publics that their government are not able to effectively deliver services or managing
expanding insecurity. Some of the
leaders who remain in power are turning to autocratic, state-centric, and religious governance
practices, with some prioritizing security in key urban centers while ceding rural territory to
jihadists.
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