INTRODUCTION

The National Security Strategy of the United States seeks to defend the peace by fighting terrorists and tyrants, to preserve the peace by building good relations among the great powers, and to extend the peace by encouraging free and open societies on every continent.

These fundamental objectives of our great Nation are not easily won. The terrorists and tyrants, the opponents of peace and freedom, are not passively watching from the sidelines. They are actively engaged in efforts to undermine the United States and our allies, and these efforts include some dimension of intelligence activities directed against us. Specifically, foreign adversaries seek to:

· penetrate, collect, and compromise our national security secrets (including sensitive information, plans, technology, activities, and operations) to advance their interests and defeat United States objectives.

⚫ manipulate and distort the facts and reality presented to United States policymakers by manipulating the intelligence we gather, and by conducting covert influence operations.

· detect, disrupt and counter national security operations including clandestine collection and special activities, special operations, other sensitive intelligence, and military and diplomatic activities.

· acquire critical technologies and other sensitive information to enhance their military capabilities or to achieve an economic advantage.

Collectively, these foreign intelligence activities present a threat to the Nation's security and prosperity. The United States requires national, systematic, and well-defined policies to counter them. A key to success in defeating these threats is a strategic counterintelligence response that supports the National Security Strategy.

The National Counterintelligence Strategy of the United States has four essential objectives:

· Identify, assess, neutralize, and exploit the intelligence activities of foreign powers, terrorist groups, international criminal organizations, and other entities who seek to do us harm.

• Protect our intelligence collection and analytic capabilities from adversary denial, penetration, influence, or manipulation.

To achieve these objectives, we will draw upon the full range of counterintelligence capabilities including counterespionage, counter-deception, and offensive operations against hostile intelligence activities. Each of these national security tools must be strategically driven and employed to protect the United States from foreign threats, and to advance our national interests.

This document sets forth the national counterintelligence strategy of the United States in the context of our broad national security objectives and the foreign intelligence threats we face.

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COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY

America faces substantial challenges to its security, freedom and prosperity. To meet them we must defeat global terrorism, counter weapons of mass destruction, ensure the security of the homeland, transform defense capabilities, foster cooperation with other global powers, and promote global economic growth. Our ability to meet these challenges is threatened by the intelligence activities of traditional and non-traditional foreign powers. Foreign intelligence services and others (e.g., terrorists, foreign criminal enterprises, cyber intruders, etc.) use clandestine activities and operations to harm and disadvantage U.S. national security interests. Counterintelligence is a key strategic national security tool that we use to defeat these foreign threats.

I. We will extend the safeguards of strategic counterintelligence to the Global War on Terrorism.

During the Cold War, our adversaries gained access to vital secrets of the most closely guarded institutions of our national security establishment. These included the clandestine, technical, and analytic directorates of the CIA; the counterintelligence division of the FBI, sensitive National Security Agency operations; Naval intelligence operations; nuclear weapons information; cryptographic keys for our secure communications; operational war plans for the defense of Europe; and plans for ensuring the survival of United States leadership in the event of war.

These peacetime losses resulted in grave damage in terms of secrets compromised, intelligence sources and methods degraded, and lives lost. Moreover, these compromises could have had even greater consequences had we been forced to go to war. Today we are engaged in a war on terrorism which has invaded our shores and threatens Americans around the globe. In this war, the potential consequences of counterintelligence failures are more immediate than during the Cold War, and put in jeopardy our combat operations, deployed forces, intelligence officers, diplomats, and other U.S. citizens.

Terrorist groups gain significantly when they have the support of state sponsors, which means that the intelligence services of these regimes can be links in the global terrorist support network. In Afghanistan and Iraq, we have seen limited examples where enemy intelligence operations have enabled terrorists to target Americans. In addition, Al Qaida and other terrorist organizations have employed classic intelligence methods to gather information, recruit sources, and run assets. In order to operate clandestinely, terrorist groups often act like intelligence organizations by conducting pre-operational planning, compartmented operations, covert communications, and training. The global

war on terrorism requires an effective counterintelligence strategy to help counter these hostile activities.

II. U.S. counterintelligence will shift from a reactive posture to a proactive strategy of seizing advantage.

If the purpose of intelligence operations and analysis is to understand an adversary's plans and intentions, the purpose of counterintelligence is to be aware of and exploit the adversary's intelligence operations. We need to be aggressive and creative in exposing the activities of foreign intelligence services. Utilizing a proactive counterintelligence strategy can help identify specific intelligence collection techniques, and gauge an appropriate response to counter the interests of an adversary. This requires a tighter coupling between organizations that collect foreign intelligence, and counterintelligence organizations, in order to fully exploit collection, analysis, and offensive operations. We need to incorporate counterintelligence considerations into strategic and tactical planning, operations, and training. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which created a Director of National Intelligence, with a National Counterintelligence Executive under the Director, takes a significant step toward increasing community-wide coordination.

Since 1985, nearly 80 Americans have been arrested for crimes related to passing classified information to foreign governments. These spies were able to operate undetected for too long with disastrous results.

• The Walker ring in the Navy - over 17 years.

• The Conrad group in the U.S. Army - over 18 years.

• The Ames case in CIA- over 9 years.

• The Hanssen case in the FBI - over 21 years.

• The Montes case in DIA - over 15 years.

Although each of these cases represents an individual success in terms of a criminal prosecution, taken as a whole they reveal a larger systemic vulnerability in our national security. In the past, a comprehensive focus was lacking in the intelligence community's approach to protecting secrets. The counterintelligence mission must be transformed into a more coordinated, community-wide effort to help neutralize penetrations of our government. Within the United States, we must transform both our operational and analytical focus from a case-driven approach to a more strategic assessment of an adversary's presence, capabilities and intentions. Strategic

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counterintelligence analysis must drive operations. This requires looking beyond customary targets, such as known intelligence officers, to a larger population of foreign visitors and others whose activities suggest they might be involved in intelligence collection activities against the United States.

III. U.S. counterintelligence will help protect the sensitive technologies that are the backbone of our security.

The U.S. national defense strategy is based on a continuous transformation that utilizes cutting-edge capabilities, and places a premium on sensitive technologies that provide an advantage. Plans that ensure strategic superiority can be jeopardized if essential secrets are stolen and incorporated into an adversary's weapons systerns. The United States spends billions of dollars developing weapons systems, which often rest on essential technological secrets. If foreign intelligence services steal these technological secrets, both our resource investment and our national security advantage are lost.

Today, more than 90 countries target sensitive U.S. technologies. Many employ collection techniques that extend beyond simple clandestine operations, and include tasking visiting businessmen, scientists, foreign students, trade shows, and debriefing visitors upon their return home. Counterintelligence planning and execution must proceed from a national counterintelligence strategy and be an inherent part of the mission at research laboratories, defense establishments, and with partners in industry. Counterintelligence and security considerations should not be an afterthought imposed on scientists, researchers, and those who develop sensitive technology. Coordinated and integrated counterintelligence information and analysis will be made available to senior government leaders, and, when appropriate, to security managers in the private sector.

Comprehensive risk management, valid security practices, and an informed strategic worldview are among the best guarantors of success against foreign intelligence threats. We will reach out to the private sector, especially those in the science and technology community, to increase intelligence threat awareness by providing threat information, and educating these audiences to the variety of ways our adversaries acquire and steal information.

The departments and agencies charged with protecting the homeland are building new channels for information sharing across government, including at the state and local level, with private industry, and with foreign partners. We must ensure our adversaries do not exploit these new arrangements, which could defeat the very goal of information sharing. In the global war on terrorism, we have entered into partnerships with foreign governments and international organizations whose many views and interests may be different from our own. We must ensure that intelligence sharing is measured against potential risks and that sensitive intelligence sources, methods, and operations are safeguarded.