Cold war 2.0: US intelligence agencies put new emphasis on China and Russia
Officials see rival nations providing deeper challenges to spy agencies that have largely focused on Islamic terrorist groups in the Middle East since the September 11 attacks
As the intelligence community shifts its primary focus from counterterrorism to threats from Russia and China, some leaders voice a sense of déjà vu and even eagerness at the challenge.
“It has been a sort of reawakening of times of old, I will say,” said Deputy Director Justin Poole of the National Geospacial-Intelligence Agency, one of the 17 agencies and offices that make up the US intelligence community. “It’s a little more cold warrior-y.”
President Donald Trump singled out China this past week for what he said was intent to interfere in upcoming midterm elections. In separate speeches, the national intelligence director and the CIA director also emphasised the shift in strategy toward China and Russia.
For veteran intelligence officials, the refocusing evokes the more than four decades of the cold war when intelligence analysts and spies peeled back the capabilities of the Soviet bloc and sought to decipher how it intended to use its weaponry.
“Cognitive psychologists are going to have a very important role going forward in terms of being able to understand intent. We’re almost going back to the good old days, in some regards,” said Ellen McCarthy, an intelligence veteran who is the Trump administration nominee to lead the State Department’s intelligence branch.