NORAD, NORTHCOM COMMANDER BRIEFS REPORTERS ON HOMELAND DEFENSE

FROM:   U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

Navy Adm. William E. Gortney, commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, briefs reporters at the Pentagon, April 7, 2015. DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Adrian Cadiz.  

NORTHCOM, NORAD Strengthen Homeland Defense, Says Commander
By Amaani Lyle
DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, April 7, 2015 – Four months into his tenure as leader of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, Navy Adm. Bill Gortney conducted a Pentagon press briefing today on priority efforts in homeland defense.

Currently the Defense Department’s only bilateral command, 58-year-old NORAD brings Americans and Canadians together, Gortney said. NORAD works in tandem with Northcom, established in 2002, to protect the homeland from external threats as well as respond to natural disasters, homeland extremists and cyberattacks, he explained.

“[The mission set] encompasses the traditional NORAD role of air defense, as well as … maritime warning,” Gortney said.

Northcom, the admiral noted, rounds out the mission set with its maritime defense and control elements and includes Operation Noble Eagle, U.S.-Canadian homeland security operations that have been ongoing since just after 9/11.

The commands’ responsibilities also include homeland ballistic missile defense and countering transnational criminal networks to thwart smugglers or others who engage in nefarious activity, he said.

Federal military forces provide defense support of civil authorities, which Gortney said has expansive functions across myriad mission requirements.

“Many people think [that support] involves Hurricane Katrina or Super Storm Sandy, an earthquake or a flood, but it encompasses much more than that,” the admiral said. “It’s helping our interagency … and law enforcement partners, predominantly homeland security, in their particular missions.”

Importance of Homeland Partnerships

Gortney described homeland partnerships as NORAD’s and Northcom’s “center of gravity,” with not only a large interagency and law enforcement presence, but some 60 senior federal and senior executive service employees whose tasks cross mission sets.

NORAD and Northcom, he added, also work with governors, the Army National Guard and Air National Guard, and the functional and geographic combatant commands. “[They all work] together to close those seams that the enemy will try and exploit to get after us,” Gortney said.

International Partnerships

Gortney said that as the unified command plan directs, his people emphasize international partnerships with Canada, the Bahamas and Mexico to assess and solve shared problems.

DoD is also “the advocate of the arctic,” Gortney said, adding that he and his team are working to better define roles and doctrine by determining operational requirements, necessary investments and partnerships that will best inform DoD plans for the region.

Focus on Professionalism, Warfighters, Families

Along with professionalism and excellence, which Gortney described as full-time jobs, he told reporters NORAD and Northcom’s people focus on warfighters and their families.

“We rely on those who wear the cloth of our nation to defend our nation,” Gortney said. “It’s both an away game and a near game, and our families are the very stitches that hold [it] together.”

CIA HEAD SAYS TERRORISM "MORPHING" INTO THEATS LIKE CYBERATTACKS

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
CIA Chief: Terrorism Morphing Into Different Threats
By Jim Garamone
DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, March 16, 2015 – Terrorism is morphing into different types of threats, including cyberattacks that can impact nations across the globe, the director of central intelligence said in New York last week.

John Brennan told the Council on Foreign Relations that terror attacks in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia show the terror threat is changing. The CIA working with foreign partners is key to defeating the terror threat, he added.
“These attacks underscore a disturbing trend that we have been monitoring for some time -- the emergence of a terrorist threat that is increasingly decentralized, difficult to track and even more difficult to thwart,” Brennan said.

Though the United States and its partners have had considerable success in attacking core al-Qaida, affiliates have risen, said Brennan, pointing to al-Qaida groups in Libya, Egypt, Somalia, Nigeria “and especially Yemen where al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has demonstrated a capability to plot attacks well beyond Yemen’s borders, including in our homeland.”

ISIL a ‘Serious Danger’ Beyond Region

But the heartland of terror, the director said, now operates in Syria and Iraq where the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is waging a campaign of unspeakable brutality against the local population and anyone who does not share its ideology.

Left unchecked, ISIL poses a serious danger not only to Syria and Iraq, but to the wider region and beyond, including the threat of attacks on the U.S. homeland and the homelands of its partners, Brennan said.

The intelligence chief echoed DoD leaders in saying the fight against ISIL will be a long one. “If there is one thing we have learned over the years, it is that success against terrorism requires patience and determination,” he said. “Clearly our country will be dealing with terrorism in one form or another for many years to come.”

Threats in the Cyber Realm

Modern communications technologies complicate the fight against ISIL and its ilk, Brennan said. “New technologies can help groups like ISIL coordinate operations, attract new recruits, disseminate propaganda and inspire sympathizers across the globe to act in their name,” he said. “The overall threat of terrorism is greatly amplified by today’s interconnected world where an incident in one corner of the globe can instantly spark a reaction thousands of miles away, and where a lone extremist can go online and learn how to carry out an attack without ever leaving home.”

The cyber domain brings tremendous benefits, but also brings tremendous dangers, he said.

“Threats in the cyber realm are an urgent national security priority, as America has no equivalent to the two wide oceans that have helped safeguard our country’s physical, maritime and aviation domains for centuries,” Brennan added.

Nations, terrorist organizations, criminals and hackers are trying to penetrate U.S. digital networks, he said.

“Government institutions are under constant assault, and private companies are spending enormous sums of money to defend against hacking attempts, denial of service attacks and other efforts to disrupt their networks,” Brennan said.
The North Korean attack on Sony last year highlighted the cyber threat, he said.
“CIA is working with our partners across the federal government to strengthen cyber defenses, to share expertise and to collaborate with the private sector to mitigate these threats,” Brennan said. “Together we have advanced our understanding of the threats in the cyber realm.”

U.S. DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SAID "THREATS MORE DIVERSE, INTERCONNECTED"

FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Cyber Tops Intel Community's 2013 Global Threat Assessment
By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 15, 2013 - National security threats are more diverse, interconnected and viral than at any time in history, the director of national intelligence said last week in a statement for the record delivered to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

"This year, in content and organization, this statement illustrates how quickly and radically the world and our threat environments are changing," James R. Clapper said in the statement's introduction.

At the top of the U.S. intelligence community's 2013 assessment of global threats is cyber, followed by terrorism and transnational organized crime, weapons of mass destruction proliferation, counterintelligence and space activities, insecurity and competition for natural resources, health and pandemic threats, and mass atrocities.

"This environment is demanding reevaluations of the way we do business, expanding our analytic envelope and altering the vocabulary of intelligence," Clapper said in his statement.

The 30-page statement, based on information complete as of March 7, also lists threats in terms of regions such as the Middle East and North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, East and South Asia, Russia and Eurasia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe.

As the top-listed global threat, cyber is discussed in terms of increasing risk to U.S. critical infrastructure, the erosion of U.S. economic and national security, information control and Internet governance, and other areas.

"We judge that there is a remote chance of a major cyberattack against U.S. critical infrastructure systems during the next two years that would result in long-term, wide-scale disruption of services such as a regional power outage," Clapper stated.

The technical expertise and operational sophistication needed for such an attack is out of reach for most actors, he added, and "advanced cyber actors like Russia and China are unlikely to launch such a devastating attack against the United States outside of a military conflict or crisis that they believe threatens their vital interests."

But, he stated, isolated state or nonstate actors might deploy less sophisticated cyberattacks as a form of retaliation or provocation.

In terms of eroding U.S. economic and national security, the director said in his statement: "We assess that highly networked business practices and information technology are providing opportunities for foreign intelligence and security services, trusted insiders, hackers and others to target and collect sensitive U.S. national security and economic data."

Such activities are allowing adversaries to close the technological gap between the U.S. military and their own, he added, slowly neutralizing a key U.S. advantage internationally.

In the area of online information control, he said, some countries, including Russia, China and Iran, focus on cyber influence and the risk that Internet content might contribute to political instability. The U.S. focus is on cyber security and the risks to network and system reliability and integrity.

This fundamental difference in defining cyber threats was a core part of discussions as countries negotiated a global telecommunications treaty in Dubai in December, Clapper said.

"The contentious new text that resulted led many countries, including the United States, not to sign the treaty because of its language on network security, spam control and expansion of the U.N.'s role in Internet governance," the director added.

Negotiations showed that such disagreements will be long-running challenges in bilateral and multilateral engagements, he said.

"We track cyber developments among nonstate actors, including terrorist groups, hacktivists and cyber criminals," Clapper noted, adding, "We have seen indications that some terrorist organizations have heightened interest in developing offensive cyber capabilities, but they will probably be constrained by inherent resource and organizational limitations and competing priorities."

In Clapper's statement to Congress, he said terrorism is divided into subcategories that include the evolving homeland threat landscape, the global jihadist threat overseas and its affiliates, allies and sympathizers in Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah.

Terrorist threats, the director observed, are in transition as the global jihadist movement becomes increasingly decentralized.

"The Arab Spring has generated a spike in threats to U.S. interests in the region that likely will endure until political upheaval stabilizes and security forces regain their capabilities," Clapper said.

The nation also faces uncertainty about potential threats from Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah, which see the United States and Israel as their principal enemies.

For al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, attacks on U.S. soil will remain part of its transnational strategy and the group continues to adjust its tactics, techniques and procedures for targeting the West, Clapper said.

The intelligence community assesses that al-Qaida-inspired homegrown violent extremists will continue to be involved in fewer than 10 domestic plots per year and will be motivated by global jihadist propaganda to engage in violent action, he added.

For core al-Qaida, the director said, "senior personnel losses in 2012, amplifying losses and setbacks since 2008, have degraded that organization to a point that the group is probably unable to carry out complex, large-scale attacks in the West ... [but] its leaders will not abandon the aspiration to attack inside the United States."

Iran, North Korea and Syria figure prominently in the statement's discussion of weapons of mass destruction.

"We assess Iran is developing nuclear capabilities to enhance its security, prestige and regional influence and give it the ability to develop nuclear weapons, should a decision be made to do so," Clapper said.

"We do not know if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons," he added.

North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs pose a serious threat to the United States and to the security environment in East Asia, a region with some of the world's largest populations, militaries and economies, the director said.

"North Korea's export of ballistic missiles and associated materials to several countries, including Iran and Syria, and its assistance to Syria's construction of a nuclear reactor, destroyed in 2007, illustrate the reach of its proliferation activities," Clapper said.

"... Although we assess with low confidence that the North would only attempt to use nuclear weapons against U.S. forces or allies to preserve the Kim [Jong Un] regime," he added, "we do not know what would constitute, from the North's perspective, crossing that threshold."

Syria has an active chemical warfare program and maintains a stockpile of sulfur mustard, sarin and the nerve agent VX. The intelligence community assesses that Syria has a stockpile of missiles, aerial bombs and possibly artillery rockets that can be used to deliver these agents, the director said.

"Syria's overall CW program is large, complex and geographically dispersed, with sites for storage, production and preparation," Clapper said.

"This advanced CW program has the potential to inflict mass casualties," he added, "and we assess that an increasingly beleaguered regime, having found its escalation of violence through conventional means inadequate, might be prepared to use CW against the Syrian people."

Some elements of Syria's longstanding biological warfare program may have advanced beyond the research and development stage and may be capable of limited agent production, the director said.

Syria is not known to have successfully weaponized biological agents in an effective delivery system, he added, but it has conventional and chemical weapon systems that could be modified for biological agent delivery.

In this threat environment, Clapper said, "... The intelligence community must continue to promote collaboration among experts in every field, from the political and social sciences to natural sciences, medicine, military issues and space."

He added: "Collectors and analysts need vision across disciplines to understand how and why developments -- and both state and unaffiliated actors -- can spark sudden changes with international implications."