🇺🇸🇨🇳🇮🇷 Excerpts from the 2024 US Intelligence Community's US Annual Threat Assessment report:

China has the capability to directly compete with the United States and U.S. allies and to alter the rules-based global order in ways that support Beijing’s power and form of governance over that of the United States. China’s serious demographic and economic challenges may make it an even more aggressive and unpredictable global actor.

Local and regional powers are also trying to gain and exert influence, often at the cost of neighbors and the world order itself. Iran will remain a regional menace with broader malign influence activities, and North Korea will expand its WMD capabilities while being a disruptive player on the regional and world stages.

President Xi Jinping envisions China as the preeminent power in East Asia and as a leading power on the world stage. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will attempt to preempt challenges to its reputation and legitimacy, undercutting U.S. influence, driving wedges between Washington and its partners, and fostering global norms that favor its authoritarian system. Most significantly, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) will press Taiwan on unification, an effort that will create critical friction points with the United States.

China seeks to become a world S&T superpower and to use this technological superiority for economic, political, and military gain. China remains committed to becoming a world-class space leader and continues to demonstrate its growing
prowess by deploying increasingly capable space systems and working towards ambitious scientific feats.

Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device. Since 2020, however, Tehran has stated that it is no longer constrained by any JCPOA limits, and Iran has greatly expanded its nuclear program, reduced IAEA monitoring, and undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.

There is a low risk of full-blown war between Armenia and Azerbaijan despite the lack of a bilateral peace treaty. The US Intelligence Community estimates that, if a conflict breaks out, it will be of a short duration and intensity.

The US Intelligence Community notes an increased risk of interethnic conflict in the Western Balkans in Kosovo and Bosnia blaming nationalist leaders using ethnic tensions for political gain which may negatively impact EU-NATO interests in the region.

Foreign states are advancing digital and physical means to repress individual critics and diaspora communities abroad, including in the United States, to limit their influence over domestic publics. States are also growing more sophisticated in digital influence operations that try to affect foreign publics’ views, sway voters’ perspectives, shift policies, and create social and political upheaval.

📎 DNI Annual Assessment
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-2024-Unclassified-Report.pdf