A Conversation With Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines

Avril Haines discusses strategic competition with China and the operations of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, including her focus on collaboration with the private sector and the intelligence community’s recruitment needs.

For those attending virtually, log-in information and instructions on how to participate during the question and answer portion will be provided the evening before the event to those who register. Please note the audio, video, and transcript of this meeting will be posted on the CFR website.

FROMAN: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome. It’s a pleasure to see all of you here. I’m Mike Froman, president of the Council. In addition to the 150 or so people we have here we have another 200 online. You’re very popular. Very popular.  

HAINES: It’s out of whack. Did you tell them somebody else was coming? (Laughter.) 

FROMAN: It’s really a great pleasure to have an old friend, a former colleague, and, of course, the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines with us. She is the seventh Senate-confirmed DNI. She’s worked at the White House, National Security Council, deputy director of CIA, even Columbia University.  

HAINES: I know. That’s— 

FROMAN: I was going to say, that’s been sort of expunged from your record. Is that— 

HAINES: Definitely that’s the highlight for you. No—(laughs)—not at all. 

FROMAN: No? Not at all. But it’s great to—it’s great to it’s great to have you here today. And thank you for making time with everything going on in the world.  

HAINES: It’s really nice to see you, Mike, honestly, and to be here.  

FROMAN: Let’s start. It’s about—it’s around the twentieth anniversary of the bill that created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence after 9/11, bringing eighteen agencies of the intel community under one umbrella to try and address some of the coordination problems. Some skeptics out there still say, does it have a function? Is it worth it? What’s its value add? What are you most proud of, of what you’ve been able to do as DNI? And what do you wish you could have done that you haven’t been able to get done?  

HAINES: Oh, good questions. Well, so this is always a hard question to answer in a very quick way that helps people understand the value of what the institution does. And so maybe one way to do it is to sort of give you a sense, if you’re a policymaker or somebody in the government, like, why is it that you want to have an ODNI? And then sort of bring it to what it is that we’ve done to try to continue that trend line, essentially, and what I think can be done moving forward in the future.  

I mean, one of the key reasons that it was set up to begin with was really sort of classically called connecting the dots, right? That basically there was information that FBI had and CIA had that hadn’t been shared effectively, and that that was part of something that would have led to insights that would have allowed us to better, essentially, provide indication of warning with respect to 9/11. And, of course, it wasn’t the first time that you saw that there was information in the community that hadn’t been brought together in order to help people see the comprehensive picture. And in fact, there are a whole series of blue ribbon commissions done over the years before the IRTPA, before the law that established—that sort of said, you really need somebody who kind of pulls all of this information together, that ensures that there’s sufficient integration across the community to allow for that. And you also will have seen a number of scenarios in which there are differences within the community on a particular analytic issue that is being, you know, discussed and debated, and that is part of a policy conversation.  

And a lot of what we do—so one piece that you would see, I think, value from in the context of ODNI, is that we have a number of taskings—really, I’d say, like, on an annual basis probably well over a thousand taskings—that we get from the White House or from other policy institutions that are asking us questions at ODNI because they want to see what a coordinated perspective is. And you’re both identifying where there are differences, but also sometimes bringing in analysts who are in different parts of the community who have kind of special expertise or experience that can lend itself to getting to an answer that is more sophisticated then as a consequence. And sort of being greater than the sum of your parts, you know, bringing this all together, but also kind of highlighting for you what are the different issues that are being debated, even within the community, on a key issue. And ensuring that the sort of intelligence sharing is happening in a way that makes sense.  

Another aspect of it—and part of what the law did, and it’s sort of an interesting aspect of it, is trying to figure out how do you, as a government, align your intelligence community against national priorities? This is sort of a fundamental issue. And when you look at the different elements that are part of the IC, there’s eighteen of them, including the ODNI, right? Nine of them are in the Department of Defense. And then there are—basically, there’s the CIA, there’s ODNI, and then there’s a whole series of other elements that are in other parts of the government—in State, and the Department of Energy, and Treasury, in the Department of Justice, in DHS, right? And when you’re thinking about how do you actually ensure that they’re working towards what are national priorities, you can see how that actually is a complicated issue because it’s very easy for your elements to be focused, in a sense, on the nearest client and sort of serving those issues right, but without necessarily bringing it together in a way that helps you make kind of a comprehensive effort against certain things.  

And that’s especially true—and this gets into the kind of detail of our work—but when you’ve got different elements that are doing different types of intelligence, right? So you’ve got a functional manager for HUMINT, which is the CIA. You’ve got a functional manager for geospatial intelligence. That’s NGA, right? You have a functional manager for signals intelligence, it’s NSA. And I can go on, but the point is that all of these different types of intelligence really have to be brought together in order to provide a comprehensive picture to the policymaker, to the decisionmaker, to a war fighter, etc. And so you really want somebody who’s able to help integrate these different areas, bring them together, provide that kind of information, and ensure that we’re leveraging each other appropriately.  

So you’ve got the National Reconnaissance Organization, which is within the intelligence community. They are designing, building our satellites, basically so that we can collect intelligence. And some of that intelligence is geospatial. Some of that is signals intelligence. You want to make sure that they’re working together to actually maximize what it is that can be done in this space. But you also want it to be for purpose for the rest of the intelligence community, and ultimately to serve the policymakers that are giving us guidance. So all of that is part of what we do in a whole range of different areas. And I’m sorry I went on too long, but it just gives you a sense of the different issues.  

And then in terms of what have we done to sort of further that, I’ll give you some just concrete examples of how, you know, I think in the last few years you see this manifesting itself. So one of the challenges, as I mentioned, is that sort of making sure that we’re focused on national priorities. And sometimes you will see a disconnect between what the community is doing and what the president or the, you know, National Security Council and Homeland Security Council are focused on. And one of those examples would be in the context of counternarcotics, right, where there’s a big demand signal that—recognizing that counternarcotics is, obviously, an enormous challenge for the country but also that, basically, there’s a fair amount of fentanyl that’s coming from, you know, precursors that exist in China that are being basically pulled through different countries into the United States, and illegal trafficking, and a whole variety of issues that are associated there. 

So there are two things about that that are relevant to what I was just talking about. One is the sharing of information across the community, right. So DEA has an element—the Drug Enforcement Agency. FBI is also an element within the intelligence community. 

But a lot of the intelligence that they may want to be connecting to what they’ve collected, essentially, and what they’re bringing through their own investigations to foreign intelligence that may be of use that then allows us to get a better sort of comprehensive picture and actually take action to disrupt, for example, some of the, you know, illegal trafficking that we’re seeing coming across our border is stuff that’s in other elements, right? 

And so what we’re trying to do is bring it together and you want to see that kind of integration occur and you also want to see the sort of analysis that you’re doing and you want to see the focus because this is sort of an unusual area for us where the—you know, it’s not the sort of classic foreign intelligence national security challenge so you really have to push the community to recognize this is critically important. 

And so we have a number of great, obviously, heads of elements that are focused on this. But we set up a counternarcotics executive at ODNI, and that came through a recommendation that was a sprint team that was done across the community and with other agencies, and they’ve set up an office. And it’s really a very small number of people, frankly. It’s less than ten in this one. But it’s—it really helps to actually move the whole community to be able to deliver what it is that the policy folks are asking for in that scenario. 

And there’s a lot of other examples. Biosecurity is another space where, you know, both Congress and the policy makers in the executive branch said we really need to do more in this area and they basically pushed us to, you know, develop more effort in this space and we effectively—we had renamed in one of our—in the statute our National Counter Proliferation Center as the National Counter Proliferation and Biosecurity Center and that is a center that is really helping to ensure that we’re actually delivering what’s needed across the community, and there’s just other examples along those lines that help. 

FROMAN: Great. We’re, obviously, at this interesting moment of transition between administrations. How worried are you about a foreign actor taking advantage of the transition—people leaving, people not necessarily being in their seats on day one in terms of a national security threat—and what can you say about the dialog that you’re having with the incoming administration? Do you feel like the lines of communication are open and that this transition is going smoothly?  

HAINES: Yeah. I couldn’t speak for the whole transition, obviously.  

What I can say about sort of the work that we typically do going into a transition and the way we think about it in terms of how it is that other actors—foreign actors—could take advantage of the situation, that’s a classic issue and sort of there are a couple of things that we focus on.  

One would be there are certain actors that are trying to preposition themselves, you know, for a next administration. They’re making judgments about what they think the policy will be and they’re looking to sort of put themselves into a position to better position themselves for that incoming administration.  

And what we do in that scenario, to your question about how we try to prepare the next administration, our analysts write pieces about this. They try to provide that to the next administration as well as this administration during this period, and just to highlight those issues so that they can incorporate that into their thinking.  

Another aspect is, as you’re indicating, they sort of see the potential for us to be distracted so they sort of think, OK, well, maybe this is the moment to push in a certain area or to escalate and will there be a counter—that type of thing. 

And so we also, again, highlight that across the transition, try to make sure that people understand that. There’s other things where they may, you know, wish to sort of—like, typically, for example, the DPRK engages in some provocative action during transitions. This is sort of one of the classic things. We’re constantly looking at what might those actions be so that we can ensure that folks are focused—that type of thing. But yeah. 

FROMAN: On the axis of whatever you want to call it, autocracies aggrieved—China, Russia, Iran, North Korea—how much of a threat to U.S. interests do you think the axis is? Is it a marriage of convenience or a fundamental realignment of interests, and what do you think the most effective way is for us to counteract it?  

HAINES: Yeah, it’s a really—I mean, this is something we could spend an hour on and it’s fascinating, and I’m always trying to find kind of another way to frame it so that I can say something that’s useful and insightful for people. But here’s sort of the broader guidelines, and then maybe we can get into a few issues that might be of interest. First of all, we try to be very careful about talking about, you know, if you’re looking at DPRK, China, Iran, and Russia, which is typically what we’re discussing in this scenario, they’re not acting as a bloc, right? We don’t see them as a sort of a four-part alliance, or something along those lines.  

What we are seeing, without question, is increased cooperation on a bilateral and sometimes trilateral level, right? And so that’s sort of what we’re trying to break it down. Our analysts would also caution, in the context of a policy discussion, that we don’t see them likely as becoming allies in the same way that we are allies with our NATO partners, for example. That kind of level of interoperability and sort of military collaboration and so on. At the same time, there’s no question that this is of concern to U.S. interests and European interests, other, you know, global partners’ interests during this period. And, you know, it sort of defies an easy categorization.  

But there are a couple of broader points that are still worth making, I think. One is it is leading to scenarios where it is more challenging for us to protect, in a sense, certain international norms. So if you look at counter proliferation, for example, with respect to nuclear weapons, you know, this is a place where historically China and Russia have actually cooperated with the United States to some extent, and with European allies and others, to try to protect certain international norms that they are a party to. Whether it be through the national—you know, through the NPT, or through other mechanisms—and pushed back against, you know, Iran, for example, or the DPRK in the context of U.N. Security Council resolutions that might sanction them for activity or things along those lines, right?  

That’s a place where I think it has gotten much harder for us to actually work with them to effectively do that. And in large part, that’s because Russia is now beholden, to some extent, to both the DPRK and to Iran for advanced weapons, for other—you know, for ammunition, for things that they need in the context of their fight with Ukraine. And as a consequence, they’re less interested in pushing back against either Iran or the DPRK in this context and are not going to take a sort of strong position in the U.N. Security Council in that scenario, but also, even may go further. And of course, we’ve been watching the degree to which they actually, for example, accept DPRK as a nuclear weapon power, things like that. And it is changing, I think, the landscape, to some extent, and making it harder for us to manage those types of issues.  

Another sort of obvious, I suppose, element of concern is just the degree to which we’re seeing exchange of technology or other types of cooperation that both can effectively allow different actors within the four to evade sanctions, or other types of efforts that are being made by us and other allies and partners to prevent them from doing illegal or sort of undermining different stability or interests in different parts of the world. And so that’s one piece of it. But also, it’s adding to their capacity to compete in different areas. So in the context of strategic competition, because obviously, again, Russia is more beholden to China in this context, they’re willing to potentially put more on the table with China, to give them things that could actually make China sort of leapfrog in certain technology areas or in other spaces that are of concern to us. So there’s a variety of different ways in which this is concerning. And it would take a lot longer to continue to go down the road of different aspects of it, but I think absolutely of concern.  

FROMAN: Let’s say on—if we can—on the Russia-Ukraine example for a minute. One of the more innovative things that the Biden administration did at the beginning of the war, before the beginning of the war, was to declassify key intelligence to make it more difficult for Russia to mount a false flag operation, and to build support among the allies and domestically for support for Ukraine. It was viewed somewhat controversially, including by the intelligence community. Some of our former colleagues who were critical of it, saying this could lead to the politicization of intelligence. How do you think about the tradeoffs of declassification in that regard? And how do you respond to the concern that if it’s going to be used as a tool for building support for a policy that it could become a more politicized community?  

HAINES: Yeah. I don’t dismiss the concerns, to be honest. And this is one of the things I think we have to think about as we’re moving down this road. But let me start by saying, so, intel diplomacy existed well before I walked into office. In other words, this is something that we've done in different times over the history, you know, of the intelligence community. And it’s just that it was at a level and a scale I think that was obviously not seen previously, I’d say. And that, I think, brought attention to it in a particular way.  

But also, you know, as we move through it, I think in addition to sort of garnering support and trying to counter disinformation that Russia was putting out, another thing that it helped with was sort of providing for the basis for preparation between our partners and allies and us for what we would do about a possible invasion. And the reason I point that out is because in the context of the work, the way it’s sort of happened—and it’s helpful to describe it, I think, to explain some of the choices that we had to make during this period, and gets to some of your question—we started off by, obviously, providing the intelligence first of all to our own policymakers and, you know, decision-makers. And even within the intel community, before we, you know, started pushing the analysis out, there was some skepticism—right?—about just is Putin actually going to do a large-scale invasion, does this really make sense, you know, this type of thing.  

And certainly with our policymakers, they had a lot of questions. They wanted to make sure that they understood that this was what we were saying and why, and you know, how this could evolve, and so on. 

And then when they said, OK, well, let’s start talking to allies and partners about it—and the president really pushed us all out, essentially the policy first community to say, OK, you need to talk to the Europeans, we’ve got to talk to, you know, our Indo-Pacific allies, we’ve got to think this through and discuss how we might respond if this happens, right? And as Tony and Jake and Lloyd and others started going out, they encountered even greater skepticism about this, right? And basically, you know, I still have a memory of a moment where the president was like, all right, you’ve got to get out there and start talking to our allies and partners, because they have so much skepticism. We want to make sure that they’re seeing what you’re seeing and that they’re actually ready to have the conversation about planning.  

They weren’t really even ready to engage in the planning because they were concerned that we were kind of trumping this up, and as a consequence, they thought that through planning, we would actually create the problem we were saying was going to happen, right? And so that was the first kind of piece of this. 

And in many ways, that was less public, right? That was really more about downgrading, getting things out to allies and partners and to start talking about it, but still intel diplomacy in its sort of classic form. And as we started to do that, we thought about, well, how do we do this in a way that avoids, essentially, us being seen as a tool of the policy community, right? Because we’re basically going out there and we’re saying, here’s what’s happening, and then, you know, the policymakers there.  

So we did a couple of things, and they may seem, you know, small to you, but they were meaningful, at least to us. So one is never cleared my talking points with the policy community, right? Basically, took my talking points from the analysts and provided the analysis. And when I went to, for example, NATO to provide a brief, brought with me a very senior military analyst who was able to answer questions directly, so they could hear from the community directly.  

And that’s a sort of a manifestation of what we were trying to do across the board. We sort of had a whole series of expert engagements across our community with different intelligence services, across allies and partners, so that they could really engage together in the discussion.  

The second piece of this was also that when I went to NATO to do a brief, we had a discussion, should I be doing it with Tony or with Lloyd, for example? And we said, no, no, let’s do it separately. We’re just the IC giving the brief, and then they’ll have separate discussions about policy. And we tried to continue to sort of maintain those distinctions, so that it was clear when I was answering questions, I was doing so based on our analysis. And they could ask what they wanted, we would tell them what we were able, and we would leave it at that.  

And then the final thing to point out is that we actually learned a tremendous amount through that process, and I think that also was something that was really useful. And, you know, as the planning began to engage, we were getting asked a lot of questions. If we do this, is it likely to deter? Is it likely to change Putin’s behavior? How would the reaction be? What would be the implications, those types of things?  

And you really want to work that through with your colleagues in the community to understand how they’re thinking about it, and it sets up for better policy conversations moving forward on a whole series of issues. So I found it to be really quite remarkable.  

We can’t do that in every case. I mean, I think you know, fundamentally—and this is probably obvious to everybody—but you know, if we’re not able to protect our sources and methods, we’re not going to be very effective at our jobs. So we absolutely had to find ways to do this that would protect sources and methods. And you know, this is not going to be something that we’ll be able to do in every scenario, but nevertheless, I think it’s worth trying and looking at the different options. And we’ve learned a lot through the process that we’re trying to bring back in to get better at how we might do this going forward. 

FROMAN: As DNI, you laid out one of your objectives was to increase public trust in the intelligence community.  

HAINES: Yeah. 

FROMAN: How do you think it’s gone, and how do you go about building trust when you can’t talk about most of what you do?  

HAINES: I know. It’s really hard. It’s hard, but it’s not. Like and I should say too, it is absolutely accurate that I put that as one of the main goals. And you know, it’s sort of on our website, building trust and confidence and everything else.  

But I want to also just note that many of my predecessors had the same perspective, and actually I built on the work that they did. So, you know, Jim Clapper, when he was DNI, set up a whole transparency council. Dan Coats when he was DNI also set up a whole series of things. He did an historical panel that would look at different areas where we might do declassification. He had a series of other steps that he took, and I really built on their work and others, essentially in trying to promote transparency.  

And in large part, here’s how I think about it. One is, there is a lot we can say about what we do that isn’t classified. And, obviously, you know, we’re having this discussion today, but there really is more than I think people may realize even about the stories we can tell. And like the CIA has got, I think, what’s it called, like the Langley legacy, or other things like that. There’s a whole series of things that you’ll find on different elements, websites that talk about different stories about what kinds of activities they’ve engaged in, and you know, give you a sense of the kind of things that the IC does. And I think that’s important so that people have a sense of who we are, of the kinds of things that we’re supposed to be doing.  

It is not—I find that when I go around the country to talk to university audiences or others to try to help, you know, students think about and be inspired by the work that we do, there’s a lot of misinformation. There’s a lot of just you know, questions about the kind of work that we do, and I think that’s very helpful.  

I also think it’s really important in a democracy to try your best to have as sophisticated a conversation as possible in the public sphere so that people understand why their leaders are taking the decisions that they’re taking—right?—and to begin to understand what are sort of the facts that they’re dealing with in the context of their thinking and decision-making.  

And increasingly, national security and foreign policy affects everyday Americans, and that is just a trend line that’s been true for quite some time. And one of the challenges that I see is that sometimes we find that what we’re telling our policymakers and saying, here’s a threat that we’re concerned about, or here’s an issue that we’ve identified, it may be a very different conversation than what’s happening in the public. And this is an area where we’ve tried to focus. Where we see that kind of disconnect, what we try to do is push out analysis at a level that allows us to be public about these issues without, again, endangering sources and methods so as to allow the American public to see what it is that we’re saying on different issues.  

And you’ll see on our website, we’ve really increased the reading rooms and the capacity to look at our analysis on a variety of issues. And one of the advantages of it for us is, honestly, academics tend to be the ones who read. I mean, so it’s not necessarily the average person that is, you know, reading the work on our website. 

FROMAN: People at think tanks, perhaps. 

HAINES: People at think—it’s possible. Maybe at the Council of Foreign Relations, I’m hoping. Anyway, and they come back and they say, you know, we think you’re wrong, you know, or have you considered this or, you know, to sort of look at that. And I think that’s critically important to actually have that sort of discussion.  

And we’ve, obviously, for a long time—and particularly in the National Intelligence Council, which is in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—we’ve done a lot to do outreach with academia and with think tanks and to have those types of discussions, and have reviewers who can come in, and whoever you know, have, you know, a clearance, and are able to read classified work and so on, and think that’s important. 

But actually making some of it public and pushing that out allows us to have an even broader conversation, and not necessarily always with the same people that we’re going to on a regular basis. So I think it’s been really productive in a lot of ways. And I do think the question of how is it going, that I will say the final piece of it that we also spend a fair amount of time on is the part that’s the hardest, which is we’ve been trying, increasingly, to identify areas where there’s controversy and to push out, basically, frameworks that help people understand the sort of lines within which we operate. 

So I’ll give you an example of this, commercially available information. This was very controversial when I came in. This was something people were very concerned about. How does the U.S. intelligence community acquire commercially available information? How do they, you know, assess it? How do we treat it, that sort of thing, from a privacy and civil liberties perspective? And other things like that.  

And so we decided as a community to actually build a framework. We put down principles. We have a process through which we acquire, and disseminate, and use this information. It is now publicly available. It’s on our website. This is something anybody can access. We have reports that we do to Congress. That’s something that I think is really important. It’s really hard. I mean, I knew it was controversial coming in and something that we wanted to do. It still took us over two years to do it. It takes time. But it is worth doing, in my view. And it’s something where it allows for us to continue to have a conversation.  

Not everybody’s happy with what we ended up with as our framework, but it allows them to at least come at us and say, OK, we think this makes some sense, but we disagree with this, and here’s why. And then we can have a discussion. And that’s, I think, a better way to be. And, you know, I sort of—it’s very hard for me to judge whether or not trust and confidence has improved as a consequence of these types of moves, but I definitely find that we have grown as a consequence. And I see in the conversation with the Congress, basically, that—you know, from the feedback I get from some of them, and from different groups that come in to talk to us about how we’re doing, that they perceive those as useful things, even if they don’t agree with what we’re ultimately saying in these spaces.  

FROMAN: Great. I’ve got a ton more questions, but let me open it up to the group here. This young woman in the first row. (Laughter.) If you can identify—this is on the record. 

Q: Oh, yes. I’m Jane Harman. I’m the grandmother of the ODNI legislation, with Senator Susan Collins. And I would just point out that it was passed after two massive intelligence failures where we didn’t connect the dots, on 9/11 and with respect to Iraq WMD. And it was modeled after the Goldwater-Nichols legislation, which coordinated the Defense Department under the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And I congratulate you, Avril, on a super job.  

So my question is about liaison relationships. In addition to the picture that the ODNI with all of its parts paints, we rely heavily on the Five Eyes and other intel services to give us a fuller picture. Depending on who the next DNI is, is there a risk that those relationships could dry up, or some of them? And what would that do to our ability to paint a full picture?  

HAINES: Yeah. It is hard for me to believe that anybody coming in wouldn’t want to maintain those relationships. And historically, they have certainly been maintained on a bipartisan basis. And there’s tremendous bipartisan support for them, frankly, in our oversight committees. And that’s something that I see. So I wouldn’t think of them as being at significant risk. I certainly hope that will continue. I could not agree more, though, with your bottom line, which is to say that we rely just enormously on our relationships with others. And it’s both because we’re sharing intelligence that we’re collecting, it’s also because we’re growing together and we’re working together in ways that allow us to do more than we could, frankly, separately.  

It is also because we learn from each other. They have different interests and focus. It is also true in the context of intelligence diplomacy, where sometimes we’re not the voice that’s the best voice to go out to talk about a threat to another country. It can be another partner. And there are just so many ways in which we rely on our partners. And I very much hope that will continue to grow. And I think that’s something, yeah, I’ve really been the beneficiary of.  

FROMAN: We have a question online. 

OPERATOR: We will take our next question from Tom Nagorski. 

Q: Hi, Director. It’s great to be with you. And thanks for doing this. I have a question. It’s Tom Nagorski with the Cipher Brief. 

Could you assess the so-called gray zone or hybrid activities have been attributed to Russia in Europe? How serious are they, in your view? And do you think enough is being done to deter or counter those? Thank you. 

HAINES: Absolutely. We actually did an NIE on gray zone activities, which there’s a—kind of the summary judgments of which are available on the website. And what you’ll see is that we see them as increasing across the board. And it’s also—you know, I feel like everybody has their own definition of gray zone. So it’s worth taking a moment on some of that. And maybe I’ll just focus in on Russia, pursuant to your question, and talk about different forms of gray zone challenges that we’ve seen with them, which I do think continue to be a significant challenge. So—(laughs)—that’s the short answer to your question.  

The longer answer is as follows: I mean, if you look at, for example, information operations, and even just take the election security issue, we consistently, in all of our updates leading up to the election, indicated that Russia was our most persistent and active threat, from an election influence effort perspective. And this is something that we’ve just seen them increasingly invest in. I will say that Iran also has done so. And so those were really in the top tier of those efforts. But Russia has just invested money, you know, personnel, just an extraordinary amount of effort in this area, and I think will continue to do so. And even though I think we are getting little bit better at disrupting some of this activity, we’re certainly not—I think, we’re—it makes anybody really comfortable that we’re able to counter it as effectively as we’d like to, that’s for sure.  

Secondly, then there’s cyber activities, right, which we all see the challenges that we’re facing from a cyber perspective. And while often it’s China that we’re talking about these days, the fact is Russia also is a significant cyber challenge. And part of the challenge that Russia poses is that, in many respects, Russia creates the opportunity by not going after companies that reside in Russia who are engaging in this kind of activity. In other words, attacks, ransomware, other types of things against U.S., or European, or other partners. Does not crack down on them. Like, gives them kind of a safe space within which to operate. And that creates its own problem, in addition to what they may do as a state actor to support cyber activities in these spaces.  

In addition, we’ve obviously talked about some of the sabotage issues that Russia has engaged in, in particular in Europe, that we’ve seen some activity there. And that is another area. And largely, we judge that to be focused on trying to ultimately deter NATO and certain countries from providing assistance and getting more involved in the Ukraine conflict in support of Ukraine. And so there’s just a whole series of different things. And, in fact, our—you know, our assessments go into a whole range of different types of gray zone activities, but that’s just a few that I think are particularly pernicious.  

FROMAN: Yes. David Ensor. 

Q: Director, Congresswoman Harman just talked about two big intelligence failures that she identified as being the argument behind creating your job. There is consideration now, and conversation in the press, about the idea that Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy might propose abolishing it. What, in your view, would be the greatest loss were they to do that? And so, what is the most important thing—have you been able to—are we safer because your job exists? 

HAINES: I mean, I definitely—obviously, I am a biased—(laughs)—you know, just to state the obvious. But I do think we’re safer as a consequence of the institution that I have the privilege to lead right now. And I think it’s—you know, I sort of went through the key things that, you know, ultimately, as a policymaker and decisionmaker, you would rely on us to do. But it is exactly—you know, Jane, as usual, puts it in the sort of sharpest relief. Which is to say, if we’re not connecting the dots, right—(laughs)—if we’re not bringing intelligence together, then we may actually miss the next 9/11, right? We’re going to have a situation where we’re not going to see what the threat picture is, not provide the kind of indication and warning that’s needed, not be as successful at countering the national security threats that we face today. 

And it’s just increasingly important, in my view, even than it was twenty years ago, because the landscape has just become so much more complex and sophisticated. And when we did our National Intelligence Strategy for the intelligence community, which we do roughly every four years, and I went back and I looked at the first one that was done by, you know, my—the first director of national intelligence, John Negroponte. And he said, you know, we’re charged with three things. And I find even though we were very focused on counterterrorism, those three things are still relevant today, right? 

He talked about the importance of bringing together domestic and foreign intelligence to ensure that we can actually fill the gaps to provide the indication and warning and the threat picture that is needed for policymakers, warfighters, decision-makers.  

He next said we have to focus on increasing the depth and accuracy of that intelligence picture, right? And that is crucial in the context of the kind of integration and leveraging of each other’s, you know, work across the community that I described, right? 

And the third was about stewarding our resources in a way that’s effective. And that’s very much in line with the third point that Jane was making, you know, which is essentially you actually have to bring together these resources and not only ensure that we are—you know, given a bunch of constraints in this world that we’re spending them appropriately and we’re not duplicating in a whole bunch of spaces and that we’re actually, you know, working together to accomplish that but also that you have sort of a strategic picture of what you’re investing in because one of the differences between counterterrorism and strategic competition, right, is that you don’t have the same counter intelligence threat that you have in counterterrorism that you do with a China or a Russia or a different—right?  

It is you have to build platforms. You have to ensure that you’re investing in ways that are sustainable over the long term that are going to allow you to do the kind of collection that you need to do while protecting it from competitors, adversaries, others, in this context and much more sophisticated actors in that sense, and that really requires a whole of IC approach to things. 

So I do think it’s fundamental but—yeah. 

FROMAN: Yes, Miriam? 

Q: Thank you. Miriam Sapiro, senior advisor nonresident at CSIS. 

I wanted to ask you—you did such a terrific job laying out the breadth and depth of the responsibilities of the director, which are enormous. Based on your time in the role, nearly four years, and all of the other directors that you know what do you think are the most important kinds of experiences in areas of expertise that can help make the director successful?  

HAINES: Wow. That’s a hard question, Miriam. That’s a great one. I mean, what’s interesting to me is all of the different heads of, you know, intelligence agencies and departments within our community are really extraordinary and they have very different backgrounds and experiences as they sort of pull together in their different areas and it is—and so I don’t know that there’s a one-size-fits-all model, essentially, across, certainly the community for the different jobs that exist.  

I would say that I have benefited—maybe that’s sort of the best way to think about this. I have benefited both from, obviously, my experience within the community as a prior deputy director of the CIA and in working in the national security space to better understand how intelligence is used by policymakers and operators and warfighters in that context and find that that in particular for ODNI is just an especially important aspect of the work because a lot of what we’re trying to do is say—I don’t know if this will make sense to everybody but it’s very easy for you as somebody in a different part of the community, and I’m subject to this myself, to get very excited about being able to collect something that’s really exquisite and extraordinary and, you know, nobody else could get this information and it’s really important. 

But, in fact, it’s completely irrelevant unless you actually can bring it to somebody who actually can use it in a form and at a time that helps them make a better decision, right? And connecting things in that way is crucial.  

And so understanding the landscape, understanding what the intelligence is going to be used for and understanding how you can actually bring together the community to deliver that in a way that’s going to be effective is a fundamental aspect of the work.  

But the other part of it is really—it is in addition to, hopefully, you know, understanding that and the sort of national security landscape that we’re facing today so that you can get ahead of issues and, you know, sometimes even when you’re not asked the question prompt it so that people will start focusing on what you think is important for the future is really the management side of things.  

And I really—when you look at our National Intelligence Strategy, you will see that of the six goals, really, five of them—(laughs)—like, it’s extraordinary how much of it is focused on actually, you know, clear goals recruiting, developing, and retaining a challenging and diverse workforce that is fundamental to our future. If we do not have the right people in these jobs and participating within the community, we are not going to be able to solve the problems that are coming at us for the future. It is about ensuring that we are interoperable; that we’re able to innovate; that we’re bringing in technology in a way that makes sense; that we have the right expertise; and that it’s not just in stovepipes, it’s actually integrated into our work across our functional and regional areas so that we’re able to bring that in. 

There’s just so many aspects of managing these institutions, and helping them be healthy, and ensuring that, frankly, the people that you hopefully do attract—and I could not be prouder of the people within the intelligence community. It’s absolutely an extraordinary workforce, that you’re actually supporting them so that they can do the best job that you know they can do, both from a sort of very standard, at-your-desk, technical kind of perspective to, you know, they’re getting the sort of workforce support that’s needed, the flex, whether it's telework, other things that are important to their lives to ensuring that they actually want to continue to be working in the intelligence community and bringing the benefit that they—all of those things are also really important. So it’s a combination of substance and process and management that I think, you know, you want to bring together in these leaders. 

OK. 

FROMAN: Director Haines, Avril, we’ve been so fortunate to have you in this critical role at this critical time. Please join me in thanking the director— 

HAINES: No, thank you. Thank you so much. (Applause.) 

FROMAN: —for being here. 

HAINES: Thank you. (Applause.) 

(END) 

This is an uncorrected transcript.