變革的世界和情報的作用
美國中央情報局局長威廉·伯恩斯發表迪奇利年度演講
2023 年 7 月 1 日
https://www.cia.gov/static/62739354dfed5cc1942997d3f1899d94/DCIA-Ditchley-Remarks-01-July-2023.pdf
導演威廉·伯恩斯發表迪奇利年度演講
7 月 1 日星期六，美國中央情報局局長威廉·J·伯恩斯 (William J Burns) 發表了迪奇利的第 59 屆年度演講，主題為“變革的世界和情報的作用”。
下午好。 非常感謝您的熱情介紹，並歡迎回到迪奇利。
1979 年，我第一次來到這裏，當時我還是一名年輕的牛津大學馬歇爾學者，身上的現金隻夠租一條出席正式會議晚宴的黑色領帶和買一張公交車票。
我必須承認，我對這次會議本身的記憶是模糊的，但它對我的影響是深遠的。 它讓我對跨大西洋聯盟的力量和宗旨以及英美夥伴關係的特殊意義有了持久的認識。
十年後，我成為一名職業美國外交官，為國務卿詹姆斯·貝克工作。 這是曆史上罕見的“塑料時刻”之一，每個世紀隻出現幾次。 冷戰即將結束，蘇聯即將解體，德國即將統一，薩達姆入侵科威特即將失敗。
這是一個美國無可爭議的主導地位的世界。 曆史的潮流似乎無情地朝著我們的方向流動，我們的思想的力量推動著世界其他地區緩慢但不可抗拒地走向民主和自由市場。 我們有時傲慢的自信似乎在權力和影響力的現實中是有根據的，但它也掩蓋了其他聚集的趨勢。
我們在冷戰後的統治地位永遠不會成為永久狀態。 曆史並沒有結束，意識形態的競爭也沒有結束。 全球化給人類社會帶來了巨大的希望，數億人擺脫了貧困，但也必然產生反壓力。
在 1992 年底我為即將上任的克林頓政府起草的一份過渡備忘錄中，我試圖捕捉到未來挑戰的模糊輪廓。 “雖然五十年來我們第一次沒有麵對全球軍事對手，”我寫道，“但可以想象的是，俄羅斯回歸威權主義或咄咄逼人的敵對中國可能會複活這種全球威脅。”
盡管不完美，我還是試圖強調民主國家和自由市場在經濟全球化的世界中不可避免地麵臨的風險，但正如我當時所說，“國際政治體係正在精神分裂地走向更大的碎片化。” 我盡力勾勒出氣候變化和全球健康不安全已經構成的共同全球威脅，特別是肆虐的艾滋病毒/艾滋病流行。
在接下來的四分之一個世紀裏，我仍然是一名自豪且非常幸運的美國外交官，主要在俄羅斯和中東任職，並在華盛頓擔任高級職務。 隨著美國單極時刻的消退，我在外交上分享了兩次成功，也犯了一些錯誤，而我在很久以前的過渡備忘錄中試圖預見的一些內容開始顯現。
今天，作為中央情報局局長，我不敢說，我現在已經生活和服務了足夠長的時間，足以麵對另一個可塑的時刻——在一個比我經曆過的世界更加擁擠、複雜和充滿爭議的世界中。 三十年前，作為一名年輕外交官的那些令人興奮的日子。 在這個世界上，美國不再是地緣政治區塊上唯一的大孩子，在這個世界上，人類既麵臨危險，又麵臨希望。
我現在的工作是幫助拜登總統和高級政策製定者了解和塑造一個變革的世界。 因此，今天下午我想做的就是概述我們麵前的新格局的主要特征，以及它對智能的作用意味著什麽。
----------------------------
改變的世界
----------------------------
正如拜登總統提醒我們的那樣，我們正處於一個拐點。 後冷戰時代肯定已經結束。 我們的任務是塑造未來——投資於我們的基礎優勢，並與我們無與倫比的聯盟和夥伴關係網絡共同致力於共同事業——為子孫後代留下一個更加自由、開放、安全和繁榮的世界。
這是一個非常艱巨的任務。
我們的成功將取決於我們駕馭這個具有三個鮮明特征的世界的能力。
首先是來自崛起中、雄心勃勃的中國和俄羅斯的戰略競爭挑戰，俄羅斯不斷提醒我們，衰落的大國至少可以像崛起的大國一樣具有破壞性。
其次是沒有護照的問題，例如氣候危機和全球流行病，這些問題超出了任何一個國家的能力所能解決，並且變得越來越極端和存在。
第三是技術革命，它正在改變我們的生活、工作、戰鬥和競爭方式，其中的可能性和風險我們尚無法完全把握。
這些獨特的挑戰有時會相互衝突，而在共同的全球問題上的合作既更加重要，也更加困難，往往成為戰略競爭的受害者。 技術革命既是這種競爭的主要舞台，也是一種現象，在這種現象中，一些基本的夥伴關係對於製定道路規則、最大限度地發揮新興技術的好處並最大限度地減少其危險至關重要。
當今國際秩序麵臨的最直接、最尖銳的地緣政治挑戰是弗拉基米爾·普京對烏克蘭的全麵入侵，這是自溫斯頓·丘吉爾坐在迪奇利的臥室裏向富蘭克林·羅斯福口述戰時信息以來歐洲最大規模的戰爭。 3
過去二十年的大部分時間我都在試圖理解和應對普京所體現的不滿、野心和不安全感的易燃組合。 這段經曆不僅導致了所有這些白發，而且還導致了這一現象。 這也讓我在武斷地談論普京和俄羅斯時保持了一定的謙遜。
我學到的一件事是，低估普京對控製烏克蘭及其選擇的執著總是錯誤的，因為他認為，如果沒有這些，俄羅斯就不可能成為一個大國，他也不可能成為一位偉大的俄羅斯領導人。 這種悲慘而野蠻的執著已經給俄羅斯帶來了恥辱，暴露了它的弱點，並喚起了烏克蘭人民驚人的決心和決心。
普京經常堅稱烏克蘭“不是一個真正的國家”，它軟弱且分裂。 嗯，正如他發現的那樣，真正的國家會反擊。 這就是烏克蘭人以非凡的勇氣和堅韌所做的事情，正如我在戰爭期間頻繁前往基輔所看到的那樣。 他們不會心軟，我們所有支持烏克蘭的人也不會。
普京的戰爭對俄羅斯來說已經是一場戰略失敗——它的軍事弱點暴露無遺； 其經濟在未來幾年遭受嚴重損害； 普京的錯誤正在塑造其作為中國的初級夥伴和經濟殖民地的未來； 它的複仇野心被日益強大的北約削弱了。
上周六的這個時候，我們都被葉夫根尼·普裏戈任對俄羅斯國家的武裝挑戰的場景所吸引，瓦格納準軍事部隊短暫占領了羅斯托夫，並在返回之前向莫斯科移動了三分之二的路程。 正如拜登總統明確表示的那樣，這是俄羅斯的內政，美國過去和將來都不會參與其中。
令人震驚的是，普裏戈任在采取行動之前對克裏姆林宮入侵烏克蘭的虛假理由以及俄羅斯軍事領導層的戰爭行為提出了嚴厲的控訴。 這些言論和行動的影響將持續一段時間，生動地提醒人們普京的戰爭對他自己的社會和政權的腐蝕作用。 右
俄羅斯的侵略是一個嚴峻的考驗。 但中國是唯一一個既有意願重塑國際秩序，也有越來越多的經濟、外交、軍事和技術實力來重塑國際秩序的國家。
過去五年中國的轉變非同尋常。 這是中國人民應得的功勞，也是我們兩國支持的轉變，因為——正如英國外交大臣克萊弗利四月份在英國大廈雄辯地指出的那樣，“一個穩定、繁榮與和平的中國有利於英國，也有利於英國”。 世界。”
因此，問題不在於中國的崛起本身，而在於隨之而來的行動。 習近平主席即將開始他的第三個任期，他的權力比毛澤東以來任何一位中國領導人都多。 他並沒有利用這種力量來加強、振興和更新促成中國轉型的國際體係，而是尋求重寫它。 4
在情報行業，我們仔細研究領導人的言論。 但我們特別關注他們的所作所為，習近平主席在國內日益加強的鎮壓和在國外的侵略性——從他與普京的無限夥伴關係到他對台灣海峽和平與穩定的威脅——是不容忽視的。
不容忽視的是，在這個新時代，我們的競爭是在經濟相互依存和商業聯係緊密的背景下進行的。 這對我們的國家、我們的經濟和我們的世界非常有利，但它也給我們的安全和繁榮造成了戰略依賴、嚴重脆弱性和嚴重風險。
新冠疫情向各國政府表明了依賴任何一個國家提供救生醫療用品的危險，就像普京對烏克蘭的侵略向各國政府表明了依賴一個國家提供能源供應的風險一樣。 在當今世界，沒有一個國家願意發現自己在關鍵礦產和技術方麵受到一個卡特爾的擺布——特別是一個已經表現出加深這些依賴並將其武器化的意願和能力的國家。 解決這個問題的答案不是與中國這樣的經濟體脫鉤，這將是愚蠢的，而是通過確保有彈性的供應鏈、保護我們的技術優勢和投資工業產能來明智地降低風險和實現多元化。
在一個更加動蕩和不確定的世界裏，權力更加分散，對衝中間人的影響力在經濟、政治和軍事上都在增長。 民主國家和獨裁國家、發達經濟體和發展中經濟體、南半球國家和全球其他地區的國家都致力於實現關係多元化，以擴大戰略自主權並最大限度地增加選擇。
這些國家在一夫一妻製的地緣政治關係中看到的好處很少，而且風險很大。 相反，我們可能會看到更多的國家追求比我們在冷戰後幾十年的單極時期所習慣的更加開放的關係。 如果以過去為先例，我們應該關注所謂的中等強國之間的競爭——這些競爭往往會引發大國之間的衝突。
我們沒有選擇專注於單一的地緣政治威脅。 我們麵臨著共同或跨國挑戰對國際秩序乃至我們人民的生命和生計的同樣威脅，其中氣候危機構成了最明顯和最現實的危險。 我們不能再用將來時態談論“臨界點”和“災難性氣候影響”。 他們此時此地，正在危及我們的星球、我們的安全、我們的經濟和我們的人民。
上個月在華盛頓特區，由於加拿大各地數百場野火產生的煙霧，從位於弗吉尼亞州蘭利的中央情報局總部看不到波托馬克河對岸，或者在肺部不接觸有害物質的情況下呼吸。 氣候變化是典型的“威脅倍增器”——加劇能源、健康、水和糧食不安全，阻礙我們在經濟和人類發展方麵取得的進展，加劇曆史上已經最嚴重的被迫流離失所和移民時期，並進一步加劇不穩定 以及地緣政治緊張局勢和熱點。 5
這兩種威脅——地緣政治威脅和跨國威脅——是不可能分開的。 我們必須誠實，正如我之前指出的那樣——許多方麵的競爭使合作變得更加困難。 但我們必須兩者都做。
為了戰勝我們的對手並應對共同的挑戰，我們的領導人將需要應對另一種極其強大的力量：比工業革命或核時代的黎明更為深刻的技術革命。
從芯片到量子再到人工智能，計算相關技術的進步正在帶來規模和範圍顯著的突破。 自去年 11 月 ChatGPT 的第一個公開版本推出以來的短短幾個月內，我們已經看到新模型在研究生入學考試以及醫療培訓項目中醫生與患者的參與度評估中超越了人類。
我們一次又一次地看到這種“曲棍球棒”趨勢線，超出了我們的期望、想象力和管理強大技術使用的能力——無論是好還是壞。 這一點在生物技術和生物製造領域最為明顯——它們可以帶來非凡的氣候和健康解決方案並促進我們的經濟發展，但其濫用和誤用可能會導致災難。
技術和創新的領先地位支撐了我們的經濟繁榮和軍事實力。 這對於製定維護我們的利益和價值觀的規則、規範和標準也至關重要。 我們的中國競爭對手和其他人一樣明白這一點，因此他們大力投資新興技術，將其作為我們戰略競爭的核心維度也就不足為奇了。
戰略競爭、共同的跨國需求以及人類曆史上前所未有的技術革命，構成了極其複雜的國際格局。 它無疑讓我對外交和政策製定的懷舊情緒得到了控製，但它也讓我更加關注改變我們在這個變革的世界中處理情報角色的方式。
---------------------------------
智能轉型
---------------------------------
中央情報局和美國情報界正在努力以緊迫感和創造力迎接這一時刻。 讓我舉幾個例子，從與俄羅斯和中國的戰略競爭的挑戰，到利用新興技術的舉措、投資激勵中央情報局的人員，以及建立將塑造我們未來的情報夥伴關係。
我為中央情報局和我們在美國情報界的合作夥伴為幫助拜登總統和高級政策製定者，特別是烏克蘭人自己，阻止弗拉基米爾·普京對烏克蘭的侵略所做的工作感到自豪。 我為我們與英國盟友的密切夥伴關係感到自豪，特別是由我的朋友理查德·摩爾爵士領導的秘密情報局的男女成員，我對他懷有最大的敬意。
我們共同對即將到來的戰爭提供了早期、準確的預警——這是任何情報部門的基本職能。 2021 年 11 月初，當總統在戰前派我前往莫斯科時，我發現普京和他的高級顧問們對我們對他計劃的清晰了解不為所動，他們堅信他統治烏克蘭的機會之窗正在關閉。 我離開時比來時更加煩惱。
良好的情報幫助拜登總統動員並維持強大的國家聯盟來支持烏克蘭。 良好的情報幫助烏克蘭以如此非凡的勇氣和決心保衛自己，並發動目前正在進行的關鍵反攻。
作為總統和高級政策製定者製定的新穎而有效戰略的一部分，對我們的一些秘密的仔細解密有助於否認普京的虛假敘述，而我過去經常看到他發明這些虛假敘述，這讓他陷入了不舒服的境地。 以及不習慣的後腳位置。
在國家宣傳和鎮壓的持續影響下，對戰爭的不滿將繼續侵蝕俄羅斯領導層。 這種不滿情緒為我們中央情報局創造了千載難逢的機會，我們的核心是人類情報部門。
我們不會讓它白白浪費。 我們最近使用社交媒體——事實上，我們在 Telegram 上發布的第一個視頻——讓勇敢的俄羅斯人知道如何在暗網上安全地聯係我們。 第一周我們的瀏覽量就達到了 250 萬次，我們對業務非常開放。
如果說普京在烏克蘭的戰爭是戰略競爭中最直接的挑戰，那麽習近平領導下的中國則是我們最大的地緣政治和情報競爭對手，也是最重要的長期優先事項。
過去幾年，我們在中央情報局一直在組織自己，以反映這一優先事項。 我們建立了一個新的任務中心——該機構的十多個組織基石之一——專門關注中國。 它是中央情報局唯一的單一國家任務中心，它提供了協調中國任務工作的中央機製，該機製如今已延伸到中央情報局的各個部門。
我很久以前就知道，除非預算遵循優先事項，否則它們是不真實的。 這就是為什麽我們將更多資源集中在有關中國的情報收集、行動和分析上——僅在過去兩年裏，我們支持中國活動的總體預算百分比就增加了一倍多。 我們正在招聘和培訓更多講普通話的人。 我們正在世界各地加緊努力與中國競爭，從拉丁美洲到非洲再到印度太平洋地區。
我們還試圖悄悄加強與中國的情報渠道，包括通過我自己的旅行。 這些謹慎的渠道是確保避免不必要的誤解和無意衝突的重要手段，也是對政策製定渠道的補充和支持，例如布林肯國務卿最近對北京的訪問。 7
盡管俄羅斯和中國吸引了我們的大部分注意力，但我們不能忽視當今新的複雜形勢中的其他緊迫挑戰，從反恐到地區不穩定。 幾乎每天我都會想起中央情報局是一個具有全球責任和全球影響力的機構。 當我們今天下午在這裏開會時，我們的官員正在世界各地艱苦的地方從事艱苦的工作，經常在陰影中行動，在看不見和心不在焉的情況下，他們所冒的風險和做出的犧牲很少被人充分理解。
去年夏天，美國對基地組織聯合創始人和前領導人艾曼·紮瓦希裏的成功打擊提醒人們，美國仍然有能力和決心應對恐怖主義威脅。 在未來的許多年裏，我們將必須采取微妙的平衡行動，應對新一輪的大國競爭和各種其他挑戰。
與此同時，我們正在改變解決新興技術問題的方法。 我們創建了第二個新的任務中心，專注於技術和跨國挑戰。 它已經在顯著擴大我們與私營部門的合作夥伴關係，否則我們將無法跟上中國等情報競爭對手的步伐，或保持領先地位。 我們還設立了一個新的首席技術官職位，這在 CIA 中尚屬首次。 中央情報局實驗室是另一個新項目，支持與學術和私營部門合作夥伴進行關鍵技術的研究和開發。
我們的內部人才仍然非常出色。 60 多年前，中央情報局率先利用 U-2 偵察機進行技術收集。 我們是現在稱為 Google 地球的技術的早期投資者。 我們的專家還開發了為當今智能手機供電的鋰離子電池的前體。 我們不斷尋找下一個突破。
我們還正處於冷戰以來間諜活動最深刻的變革之中。 在智慧城市和無處不在的技術監控時代，間諜活動是一項艱巨的挑戰。 對於在敵對國家海外工作的中央情報局官員來說，與冒著自身安全危險向我們提供信息的消息來源會麵，持續監視是一件非常危險的事情。 但有時對我們不利的技術——無論是挖掘大數據來揭示我們的活動模式還是龐大的攝像頭網絡——也可以為我們服務，並對抗我們的競爭對手。
技術收集平台在當今的情報世界中非常重要。 但總會有一些秘密需要人類來收集，以及一些隻有人類才能執行的秘密行動。
這需要密集的培訓、支持運營的密集團隊努力、以及巨大的創造力和風險承受能力。 然而，它仍然是我們使命的核心。 人工智能和機器學習領域正在進行的革命，以及當今世界大量的開源信息，為我們的分析師創造了新的機會。 如果利用得當，人工智能可以在大量開源和秘密獲取的數據中發現人類思維無法發現的模式和趨勢，從而使我們的官員能夠專注於他們最擅長的事情：就對政策製定者最重要的事情提供合理的判斷和見解 ，以及 8 對我們的利益最重要的意義。 我們的對手正在快速行動以利用開源信息，我們必須比他們做得更快更好。
另一個關鍵優先事項，也是我作為局長最重大的責任，是對我們機構的人員進行投資。 雖然對新興技術的掌握將在很多方麵塑造我們的未來，但中央情報局核心的傑出男女將永遠推動它向前發展。 自 9/11 恐怖襲擊以來，二十多年來，他們一直以令人難以置信的速度運作，我們決心為他們提供所需和應得的支持。
我們徹底重組了我們的內部醫療團隊，派遣了更多的醫療官員到現場，加強了針對家庭和雙職工夫婦的計劃，並任命了我們有史以來第一位首席福利官。 我們還在尋找更多方法來吸引和留住技術人才，改善薪酬方案並鼓勵更靈活的職業模式，以便官員可以進入私營部門，然後返回中央情報局。
我們還在充分利用美國社會的豐富性，在勞動力更加多元化方麵取得進展。 對於一個橫跨非常多元化世界的情報部門來說，這不僅對美國人來說是正確的事情，而且也是明智的事情。 去年，我們在雇用女性和少數族裔官員方麵達到了曆史最高水平。 也許更重要的是，我們將女性和少數族裔軍官提拔到高級職位，這是我們 75 年曆史上最高的比例。
我們在這個新時代的最後一個優先事項是深化我們在世界各地的情報夥伴關係，並重申我們對情報外交的承諾。 從本質上講，情報職業是關於人際互動的，沒有什麽可以替代直接接觸來加深與我們最親密盟友的聯係，與我們最凶猛的對手溝通，並培養中間的每個人。 在擔任總監的兩年半時間裏，我進行了近四打海外旅行，我經曆了所有這些關係和挑戰。
有時，情報官員更方便地穿越困難的地形或與曆史上的敵人打交道，在這些情況下，外交接觸可能意味著正式承認。 這就是為什麽總統於 2021 年 8 月下旬派我前往喀布爾，在我們最終撤軍之前與塔利班領導層接觸。 有時，情報關係可以在充滿政治起伏的關係中起到穩定作用。 有時情報外交可以鼓勵利益融合，支持政策製定者和外交官的努力，並增強競爭優勢。
我們的盟友，從五眼網絡到北約和印度太平洋地區的其他條約夥伴，是我們情報外交的基石。 沒有什麽關係比我們與英國和 SIS 的聯盟更牢固、更值得信賴。 最近幾個月，我和我的朋友“C”在蘭利和沃克斯豪爾舉行的兩次不同尋常的聯合市政廳討論中向我們的員工強調了這一點。
自從多年前我從牛津巴士艱難地來到迪奇利公園以來，我就經曆過這個現實。 我把它視為一名外交官，在我們與英國外交官和情報官員的合作中，說服穆阿邁爾·卡紮菲放棄恐怖主義活動，並9放棄他的基本核計劃——這是一次充滿半夜奇怪會議的冒險 與卡紮菲一起在沙漠中央，卡紮菲是我迄今為止見過的最奇怪的領導人。
我在與伊朗人的秘密核談判以及伊拉克和阿富汗的複雜危險中看到了這一點。
我在普京發動烏克蘭戰爭之前看到了這種非凡的情報合作關係，我們兩個人都感到有點孤獨，在我們對即將到來的風暴的公開預測中陷入了困境。
共同麵對這個變革的世界，並在我們改變服務的過程中互相學習，是令人欣慰的。 我很榮幸能夠在迪奇利強調這種合作關係，跨大西洋精神在這裏迸發出火花。
非常感謝。
On Saturday 1st July, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William J Burns delivered Ditchley's 59th Annual Lecture on the topic of A World Transformed and the Role of Intelligence.
Good afternoon. And thanks so much for that kind introduction, and for welcoming back to Ditchley.
I first came here in 1979, as a young and unformed Marshall Scholar at Oxford, with just enough cash to rent a black tie for the formal conference dinner and buy a bus ticket.
I must admit that my memory of the conference itself is hazy, but the effect it had on me was profound. It gave me an enduring appreciation of the power and purpose of the Transatlantic Alliance, and of the particular significance of Anglo-American partnership.
A decade later, I was a career American diplomat, working for Secretary of State James Baker. It was one of those rare "plastic moments" in history, moments which come along only a few times each century. The Cold War was ending, the Soviet Union was about to collapse, Germany would soon be reunified, and Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait would soon be defeated.
It was a world of uncontested American primacy. History's currents seemed to flow inexorably in our direction, the power of our ideas driving the rest of the world in a slow but irresistible surge toward democracy and free markets. Our sometimes overbearing self-assurance seemed well-founded in the realities of power and influence, but it also obscured other gathering trends.
Our moment of post-Cold War dominance was never going to be a permanent condition. History had not ended, nor had ideological competition. Globalization held great promise for human society, with hundreds of millions of people lifted out of poverty, but it was also bound to produce counter-pressures.
In a transition memo that I drafted for the incoming Clinton Administration at the end of 1992, I tried to capture the dim outlines of the challenges ahead. "While for the first time in fifty years we do not face a global military adversary," I wrote, "it is certainly conceivable that a return to authoritarianism in Russia or an aggressively hostile China could revive such a global threat."
I tried, however imperfectly, to highlight the risks that democracies and free markets would inevitably face, in a world in which economies were globalizing but, as I put it at the time, "the international political system was tilting schizophrenically toward greater fragmentation." And I tried, as best I could, to sketch the shared global threats already posed by climate change and global health insecurity, especially the raging HIV-AIDS epidemic.
For the next quarter-century, I remained a proud and very fortunate American diplomat, serving mostly in Russia and the Middle East, and in senior positions in Washington. I shared in 2 diplomatic successes, and made my share of mistakes, as America's unipolar moment faded, and some of what I had tried to foresee in that long-ago transition memo began to unfold.
Today, as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, I’m afraid to say that I’ve now lived and served long enough to face another plastic moment –in a world that is far more crowded, complicated and contested than the one I experienced in those heady days as a young diplomat three decades ago. It is a world in which the United States is no longer the only big kid on the geopolitical block – a world in which humanity faces both peril and promise.
My job now is to help President Biden and senior policymakers understand and shape a world transformed. So what I’d like to do this afternoon is sketch the main features of the new landscape before us, and what it means for the role of intelligence.
----------------------------
A World Transformed
----------------------------
We are, as President Biden reminds us, at an inflection point. The post-Cold War era is definitely over. Our task is to shape what comes next -- investing in our foundational strengths, and working in common cause with our unmatched network of alliances and partnerships -- to leave for future generations a world that is more free, open, secure and prosperous.
That is a very tall order.
Our success will depend on our ability to navigate a world with three distinctive features.
First is the challenge of strategic competition from a rising and ambitious China, and from a Russia which constantly reminds us that declining powers can be at least as disruptive as rising ones.
Second are the problems without passports, like the climate crisis and global pandemics, which are beyond the reach of any one country to address, and are growing more extreme and existential.
And third is the revolution in technology, which is transforming how we live, work, fight and compete, with possibilities and risks we can't yet fully grasp.
Those singular challenges sometimes conflict with one another, with cooperation on shared global problems both more vital and more difficult, too often the victim of strategic competition. And the revolution in technology is both a main arena for that competition, and a phenomenon in which some basic partnership is crucial to set rules of the road, to maximize the benefits of emerging technologies and minimize their dangers.
The most immediate and acute geopolitical challenge to international order today is Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine -- the biggest war in Europe since Winston Churchill sat in his bedroom here at Ditchley, dictating wartime messages to Franklin Roosevelt. 3
I've spent much of the past two decades trying to understand and counter the combustible combination of grievance, ambition and insecurity that Putin embodies. That experience has not only contributed to all this gray hair; it has also given me a healthy dose of humility about pontificating about Putin and Russia.
One thing I have learned is that it is always a mistake to underestimate Putin's fixation on controlling Ukraine and its choices, without which he believes it is impossible for Russia to be a major power or him to be a great Russian leader. That tragic and brutish fixation has already brought shame to Russia and exposed its weaknesses, and evoked the breathtaking determination and resolve of the Ukrainian people.
Putin often insists that Ukraine is "not a real country," that it is weak and divided. Well, as he has discovered, real countries fight back. And that is what Ukrainians have done, with remarkable courage and tenacity, as I have seen in frequent travels to Kyiv over the course of the war. They will not relent, nor will all of us who support Ukraine.
Putin's war has already been a strategic failure for Russia – its military weaknesses laid bare; its economy badly damaged for years to come; its future as a junior partner and economic colony of China being shaped by Putin’s mistakes; its revanchist ambitions blunted by a NATO which has only grown bigger and stronger.
This time last Saturday, we were all riveted by the scenes of Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s armed challenge to the Russian state, with Wagner paramilitary forces briefly seizing Rostov and moving two-thirds of the way to Moscow before turning back. As President Biden has made clear, this is an internal Russian affair, in which the United States has had and will have no part.
It is striking that Prigozhin preceded his actions with a scathing indictment of the Kremlin’s mendacious rationale for its invasion of Ukraine, and of the Russian military leadership’s conduct of the war. The impact of those words and those actions will play out for some time, a vivid reminder of the corrosive effect of Putin’s war on his own society and his own regime. R
ussia's aggression poses a formidable test. But China is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do so.
China's transformation over the past five decades has been extraordinary. It is a transformation for which the Chinese people deserve the credit, and one which our countries supported because -- as Foreign Secretary Cleverly eloquently said in April at Mansion House, "a stable, prosperous and peaceful China is good for Britain and good for the world."
The issue, therefore, is not China's rise per se, but the actions which accompany it. President Xi is embarking on his third term with more power than any Chinese leader since Mao. And rather than use that power to reinforce, revitalize and update the international system that enabled China's transformation, he seeks to rewrite it. 4
In the intelligence profession, we study carefully what leaders say. But we pay special attention to what they do, and here President Xi's growing repression at home and his aggressiveness abroad -- from his no-limits partnership with Putin to his threats to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait -- are impossible to ignore.
What's also impossible to ignore is the fact that, in this new era, our competition is taking place against the backdrop of thick economic interdependence and commercial ties. That has served our countries, our economies and our world remarkably well -- but it has also created strategic dependencies, critical vulnerabilities, and serious risks to our security and prosperity.
COVID made clear to every government the danger of being dependent on any one country for life-saving medical supplies, just as Putin's aggression in Ukraine has made clear to every government the risks of being dependent on one country for energy supplies. In today's world, no country wants to find itself at the mercy of a cartel of one for critical minerals and technologies -- especially a country that has demonstrated the will and capacity to deepen and weaponize those dependencies. The answer to that is not to decouple from an economy like China's, which would be foolish, but to sensibly de-risk and diversify by securing resilient supply chains, protecting our technological edge, and investing in industrial capacity.
In a more volatile and uncertain world, in which power is more diffuse, the weight of the hedging middle is growing -- economically, politically and militarily. Democracies and autocracies, developed and developing economies, and countries from the Global South and other parts of the globe, are intent on diversifying their relationships in order to expand their strategic autonomy and maximize their options.
These countries see little benefit and lots of risk in monogamous geopolitical relationships. Instead, we're likely to see more countries pursue more open relationships than we were accustomed to over several post-Cold War decades of unipolarity. And if past is precedent, we ought to be attentive to rivalries between so-called middle powers -- which have often been the match that ignited collisions between major powers.
We do not have the option of focusing on a single geopolitical pacing threat. We face an equal threat to international order and indeed to the lives and livelihoods of our people from shared or transnational challenges, of which the climate crisis poses the most clear and present danger. We can no longer talk about "tipping points" and "catastrophic climate impacts" in the future tense. They are here and now, imperiling our planet, our security, our economies, and our people.
Last month in Washington DC, you could not see across the Potomac River from CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, or take a breath without subjecting your lungs to hazardous materials because of smoke from hundreds of wildfires across Canada. Climate change is the quintessential "threat multiplier" -- fueling energy, health, water and food insecurities, setting back our progress on economic and human development, turbocharging what is already the worst period of forced displacement and migration in history, and further exacerbating instability and geopolitical tensions and flashpoints. 5
These two threats -- geopolitical and transnational -- are impossible to disentangle. We have to be honest, as I noted before -- competition in many ways makes cooperation more difficult. But we’re going to have to do both.
To outcompete our rivals and still deliver on shared challenges, our leaders will need to deal with another immensely powerful force: a revolution in technology more profound than the industrial revolution or the dawn of the nuclear age.
Advances in computing-related technologies -- from chips to quantum to artificial intelligence -- are leading to breakthroughs of remarkable scale and scope. In just a few short months since the first public version of ChatGPT debuted last November, we’ve seen newer models outperform humans in graduate level entrance exams, and in assessments of doctor-to-patient engagements in medical training programs.
We see this "hockey stick" trendline time and again, outstripping our expectations, imaginations and capacity to govern the use of enormously powerful technologies -- for good or for ill. Nowhere is that more evident than in biotechnology and biomanufacturing -- which can unlock extraordinary climate and health solutions and boost our economies, but whose abuse and misuse could lead to catastrophe.
Leadership in technology and innovation has underpinned our economic prosperity and military strength. It has also been critical to setting rules, norms and standards that safeguard our interests and our values. Our Chinese rivals understand that as well as anyone, and it is therefore no surprise that they are investing heavily in emerging technologies, as a central dimension of our strategic competition.
Strategic competition, common transnational imperatives and a revolution in technology without precedent in human history make for a hugely complicated international landscape. It certainly keeps my nostalgia for diplomacy and policymaking under control, but it also sharpens my focus on transforming how we approach the role of intelligence in this transformed world.
---------------------------------
Intelligence Transformed
---------------------------------
Across the CIA and the U.S. intelligence community, we are working hard to meet this moment with the urgency and creativity it requires. Let me offer a few examples, from the challenges of strategic competition with Russia and China, to initiatives to harness emerging technologies, invest in the people who animate the CIA, and build the intelligence partnerships which will shape our future.
I'm proud of the work that CIA and our partners across the U.S. intelligence community have done to help President Biden and senior policymakers, and especially Ukrainians themselves, thwart Vladimir Putin's aggression in Ukraine. And I'm proud of our close partnership with our British allies, in particular the women and men of the Secret Intelligence Service, led by my friend Sir Richard Moore, for whom I have the greatest respect. 6
Together, we provided early and accurate warning of the war that was coming -- the essential function of any intelligence service. When the President sent me to Moscow before the war, in early November of 2021, I found Putin and his senior advisors unmoved by the clarity of our understanding of what he was planning, convinced that the window was closing for his opportunity to dominate Ukraine. I left even more troubled than when I arrived.
Good intelligence has helped President Biden mobilize and sustain a strong coalition of countries in support of Ukraine. Good intelligence has helped Ukraine defend itself with such remarkable bravery and resolve, and to launch the crucial counter-offensive that is now underway.
And the careful declassification of some of our secrets, part of a novel and effective strategy shaped by the President and senior policymakers, has helped deny Putin the false narratives that I have watched him so often invent in the past -- putting him in the uncomfortable and unaccustomed position of being on his back foot.
Disaffection with the war will continue to gnaw away at the Russian leadership, beneath the steady diet of state propaganda and practiced repression. That disaffection creates a once-in-ageneration opportunity for us at CIA, at our core a human intelligence service.
We're not letting it go to waste. We recently used social media -- our first video post to Telegram, in fact -- to let brave Russians know how to contact us safely on the dark web. We had 2.5 million views in the first week, and we’re very much open for business.
If Putin's war in Ukraine is the most immediate challenge in strategic competition, Xi Jinping's China is our biggest geopolitical and intelligence rival, and most significant long-term priority.
We've been organizing ourselves at CIA over the past couple years to reflect that priority. We've set up a new mission center -- one of the dozen or so organizational building blocks of the Agency -- focused exclusively on China. It is the only single-country mission center we have at CIA, and it provides a central mechanism for coordinating work on the China mission, which extends today to every part of CIA.
I learned long ago that priorities aren't real unless budgets follow them. That's why we've concentrated substantially more resources on intelligence collection, operations and analysis on China -- more than doubling the percentage of our overall budget supporting China activities over just the last two years. We're hiring and training more Mandarin speakers. And we're stepping up efforts across the world to compete with China, from Latin America to Africa to the Indo-Pacific.
We've also sought to quietly strengthen intelligence channels with China, including through my own travels. These discreet channels are an important means of ensuring against unnecessary misunderstandings and inadvertent collisions, and complementing and supporting policymaking channels, such as Secretary Blinken's recent visit to Beijing. 7
Even as Russia and China consume much of our attention, we can't afford to neglect other pressing challenges on today's new and complicated landscape, from counter-terrorism to regional instability. Hardly a day goes by when I'm not reminded that CIA is an agency with global responsibilities and global reach. As we meet here this afternoon, our officers are doing hard jobs in hard places around the world, often operating in the shadows, out of sight and out of mind, the risks they take and the sacrifices they make rarely well-understood.
The successful U.S. strike last summer against Ayman al-Zawahiri, the co-founder and former leader of al-Qaeda, was a reminder of the capability and determination still focused on terrorist threats. For many years to come, we will have to perform a delicate balancing act, juggling renewed major power rivalry with all sorts of other challenges.
Meanwhile, we're transforming our approach to emerging technology issues. We've created a second new mission center, focused on technology and transnational challenges. It is already significantly expanding our partnerships with the private sector, without which we will not be able to keep pace with intelligence rivals like China, or keep ahead of them. We've also established a new Chief Technology Officer position, a first for CIA. And CIA Labs, another new program, supports research and development in crucial technologies with academic and private sector partners.
Our in-house talent remains superb. More than 60 years ago, CIA pioneered the technical collection capabilities of the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. We were an early investor in the technology you now know as Google Earth. And our specialists also developed the precursors to the lithium-ion batteries that power your smartphones today. We're constantly looking for the next breakthrough.
We're also in the midst of the most profound transformation of espionage tradecraft since the Cold War. In an era of smart cities and ubiquitous technical surveillance, spying is a formidable challenge. For a CIA officer working overseas in a hostile country, meeting sources who are risking their own safety to provide us information, constant surveillance is a very risky business. But the same technology that sometimes works against us -- whether it's mining big data to expose patterns in our activities or massive camera networks -- can also be made to work for us, and against our rivals.
Technical collection platforms are enormously important in today's intelligence world. But there will always be secrets we need a human to collect, and clandestine operations that only a human can execute.
That requires intensive training, an intensive team effort to support operations, and immense creativity and appetite for risk. It still, however, remains central to our mission. The ongoing revolution in artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the avalanche of open source information in today's world, creates new opportunities for our analysts. When harnessed properly, AI can find patterns and trends in vast amounts of open source and clandestinelyacquired data that the human mind can't, freeing up our officers to focus on what they do best: providing reasoned judgments and insights on what matters most to policymakers, and what 8 means most for our interests. Our adversaries are moving fast to exploit open source information, and we have to do it faster and better than they do.
Another key priority, and my most profound responsibility as Director, is to invest in the people of our Agency. While mastery of emerging technologies will shape our future in many ways, it is the remarkable men and women at the heart of CIA who will always drive it forward. They have been operating at an incredible tempo for more than two decades, since the terrible attacks of 9/11, and we're determined to provide them the support they need and deserve.
We've completely revamped our in-house medical team, sent more medical officers out to the field, strengthened programs for families and two-career couples, and appointed our first-ever chief wellbeing officer. We're also looking for more ways to attract and retain technological talent, improving pay packages and encouraging more flexible career patterns, so that officers can move into the private sector and later return to CIA.
We're also making progress toward a more diverse workforce, taking full advantage of the richness of American society. For an intelligence service stretched across a very diverse world, that is not only the right thing to do for Americans, but also the smart thing. This past year, we reached historic highs in hiring women and minority officers. Perhaps even more importantly, we promoted into our senior ranks the highest percentages of women and minority officers in our 75-year history.
Our final priority in this new era is to deepen our intelligence partnerships around the world, and renew our commitment to intelligence diplomacy. At its core, the intelligence profession is about human interactions, and there is no substitute for direct contact to deepen ties with our closest allies, communicate with our fiercest adversaries, and cultivate everyone in between. In the nearly four dozen trips I've taken overseas in my two and a half years as Director, I've run the gamut of those relationships and challenges.
Sometimes it's more convenient for intelligence officers to navigate difficult terrain or deal with historic enemies, where diplomatic contact might connote formal recognition. That's why the President sent me to Kabul in late August of 2021, to engage the Taliban leadership just prior to our final withdrawal. Sometimes, intelligence ties can provide ballast in relationships full of political ups and downs. And sometimes intelligence diplomacy can encourage convergence of interests, support the efforts of policymakers and diplomats, and enhance competitive advantages.
Our allies, from the Five Eyes network to our other treaty partners across NATO and the IndoPacific, are the bedrock of our intelligence diplomacy. No relationship is stronger or more trusting than our alliance with Britain and SIS. That's a point that my friend "C" and I have reinforced to our workforces in two unusual joint town hall discussions in recent months, in Langley and in Vauxhall.
I've experienced that reality ever since I trudged up to Ditchley Park from the Oxford bus all those years ago. I saw it as a diplomat, in our collaboration with British diplomats and intelligence officers to persuade Muammar Qaddafi to get out of the business of terrorism and 9 give up his rudimentary nuclear program -- an adventure full of strange meetings in the middle of the night in the middle of the desert with Qaddafi, to this day the strangest leader I've ever met.
I saw it during secret nuclear talks with the Iranians, and in the tangled dangers of Iraq and Afghanistan.
And I saw that remarkable intelligence partnership in the run up to Putin's war in Ukraine, where it got a little lonely for the two of us, way out on a limb in our public predictions of the coming storm.
It is comforting to face this transformed world together, and to learn from one another as we transform our services. And it is an honor to highlight that partnership here at Ditchley, where so much of the Transatlantic spirit found its spark.
Thanks so much.
