DNI Clapper delivers the IC’s worldwide threat assessment

On February 26, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper delivered the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community to the Senate Armed Services Committee. The following is an excerpt from his introductory remarks:

Two overall comments at the outset: one, unpredictable instability is the “new normal.” The year 2014 saw the highest rate of political instability since 1992, the most deaths as a result of state-sponsored mass killings since the early 1990’s, and the highest number of refugees and internally displaced persons, or IDPs, since WWII. Roughly half of the world’s currently stable countries are at some risk of instability over the next two years.

The second comment is this pervasive uncertainty makes it all the harder to predict the future. 2014 and early 2015 saw a number of events that illustrate this difficulty: the North Korean attack on Sony (the most serious and costly cyber attack against U.S. interests to date), the Ebola epidemic, and the small-scale, but dramatic terrorist attacks in Austrailia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, and the United States.

Director Clapper’s prepared statement for the record is available here.

To read his opening remarks as delivered, go here.

Source: DNI