Challenges Faced by US Intelligence Community

US Intelligence Community (IC)

The US Intelligence Community (IC) has the primary role of reducing uncertainty by identifying and providing warning about the potential threats faced by the US national security, the safety of the US citizens as well as the interests of the US around the world. Basically, there are two challenges that the intelligence community is likely to face in the next decade; the ever-increasing sophistication of the attack patterns and; the changing world of technology. As we have seen from the latest trends, the US has continued to heavily depend on information infrastructure which ranges from telecommunication to computer networks for conducting its essential daily services like businesses, military, and civilian activities. In the coming decades, these systems are likely to become more interconnected which implies that their complexity will also increase. This means that the tools and the methods of attack to the core information architecture which includes critical national security systems will also be so complex and very hard to mitigate. Therefore, in this age of cyber warfare, the US intelligence must worry about the ability of their rival intelligence agencies to develop more sophisticated attack/cyber warfare tools in the next decades[1].

Emerging Technologies

Emerging technologies will also be a major challenge to the US intelligence community. The US is one of the countries in the world that experiences a continued rapid technological advancement. In as much as technology remains to be a central factor to the economic prosperity and the social well being of the United States, it is also on the other hand introducing new potential threats[2]. The following are some of the emerging technologies that provide a challenge to the US intelligence community:

a. Artificial Intelligence

There is a lot of research being done to improve the capabilities of artificial intelligence. The US has championed the research on improving AI capabilities and looks to have a bright AI future. This can be seen in the research on producing semi-autonomous cars. However, despite the fact that the US is leading globally in AI research, other nations have also continued to invest heavily in AI research in order to enhance their AI capabilities. This implies that the threat adversaries’ abilities of using AI are very potential and broad. In the future, we are likely to have an increased exposure to attacks due to increased vulnerability to cyber attacks, we will have difficulty ascertaining the attribution and facilitation of the advances made in foreign intelligent systems and weapons. It will also be difficult for the US intelligence to ascertain the risks of accidents as well as other issues related to liability of AI systems[3].

b. Internet of Things

The world has continued to experience a widespread incorporation of Internet of thing into people’s daily operations. With the US leading in the development of smart cities and smart homes, “smart” devices have continued to be incorporated into everyday objects and have continued to change how people and machines are interacting with each other and the world around them. This has helped in improving efficiency, convenience as well as the social well-being of people (quality of life). However, the widespread adoption of IoT has also introduced a set of vulnerabilities on both the infrastructure that the IoT support and the one that relies on IoT. This in turn also affects the processes guided by IoT. IoT is an emerging technology and one weakness factor is that the design of these smart security devices rarely puts security considerations on them. If this is a trend that will continue in the next decade, then these smart devices will be used in carrying out massive distributed denial-of-service attacks. In the future, both state and non-state actors will possibly use these smart devices to support their operations like attacking a target network or collecting information before carrying out an attack[4].

c. Next Generation Semiconductors

We may wonder how semiconductors will affect the US intelligence community. Well here is the point. Over the past 50 years, there has been a continual advancement of semiconductor technologies. According to Moore’s Law, we get understand that after every two years, the overall processing power of computers will double. This has been one factor that has been the key driver of the IT revolution that has given the US the economic and security advantages. However, in the next decade, Moore’s Law might no longer apply because the fundamental limits of physics for miniaturizing transistors further will have already been reached which erodes the advantage that the US national security has always had. Furthermore, countries like China and Japan have continued to increase their efforts to improve their technology and reduce dependence on foreign semiconductor technology. This means that there are possibilities of countries like China to develop computers with more processing powers and capabilities in the future which may be a threat to the US security[5].

Bibliography

[1] Betz, David J. Cyberspace and the State: Towards a Strategy for Cyber-power. Routledge, 2017.

[2] Allen, Greg, and Taniel Chan. Artificial intelligence and national security. Cambridge, MA: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, 2017.

[3] Cath, Corinne, Sandra Wachter, Brent Mittelstadt, Mariarosaria Taddeo, and Luciano Floridi. ”Artificial Intelligence and the ‘Good Society’: the US, EU, and UK approach.” Science and engineering ethics 24, no. 2 (2018): 505-528.

”Cyber Security and the Intelligence Community.” Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Accessed December 29, 2018. https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/cyber-security-and-intelligence-community.

[4] Richelson, Jeffrey T. The US intelligence community. Routledge, 2018.

[5] Weinbaum, Cortney, Steven Berner, and Bruce McClintock. SIGINT for Anyone: The Growing Availability of Signals Intelligence in the Public Domain. No. PE-273-OSD. RAND Corporation Washington United States, 2017.