American people deserve to hear from the leaders of the intelligence community. Director haines, continue the second category is a set of more intense in unpredictable transnational challenges, such as climate change, corruption, Or Codex Trafficking held security, terrorism, and cybercrimes cyber crime that often interact with traditional statebased political, economic, and security challenges. And the third category is regional and localized conflicts that have farreaching and at times cascading implications not only for neighboring countries, but also for the world and all three challenges are affected affected by trends in new and emerging technologies, environmental changes, and economic strain that are stoking instability and making it that much more challenging for us to forecast developments and their implications. These dynamics are putting unprecedented burdens on the institutions and the relationships that the United States relies on to manage such challenges. And perhaps more than ever, frankly, highlight the need for sustained us leadership to uphold the rulesbased order. And ill just touch on these three categories of challenges, starting with strategic competition in china in an effort to provide some context didnt highlight some of the intersections. President xi continues to envision china as a leading power on the world stage. And chinese leaders believe it is essential to project power globally in order to be able to resist us pressure for their convinced that the United States will not tolerate a powerful china nevertheless, the prc seeks to ensure china can maintain positive ties to the United States, will likely continue to do so this year as they see stability in our relationship is important to their capacity to attract foreign direct investment. Boosting the domestic economy is a fundamental priority for president xi. Yet he appears to be doubling down on a longterm Growth Strategy that will deepen public and investor pessimism over the near term. With Youth Unemployment around 14. 9 , no major stimulus aimed at consumption, forthcoming massive local debts and a Property Market contraction 2024 is likely to be another difficult year for chinas economy all against the backdrop of an aging and shrinking population and slowing Economic Growth im president xi is counting on chinas investments in technologies such as advanced manufacturing and robotics. Artificial intelligence, High Performance computing to drive Productivity Gains and spur future growth yet he is increasingly concerned about the United States ability to interfere with chinas technological goals consequently, in an effort to protect and promote chinas capacity to compete technologically, which President Xi Views as fundamental to his longterm Growth Strategy. Prc leaders modified their approach to economic retaliation against the United States over the last year and posing at least some tangible costs on us firms, even as they continue to moderate such actions to avoid domestic costs in chinese leadership is furthermore, pursuing a strategy to boost chinas indigenous innovation and technological selfreliance, expand their efforts to acquire steel or compel the production of Intellectual Property and capabilities from others including the United States and can tinubu to engage in coercive behavior, to control critical Global Supply chains of relevance. In the meantime, president xis emphasis on control and central oversight is unlikely to solve the challenges posed by chinas economic and endemic corruption demographic decline, and structural economic constraints. And over the coming year, tension between these challenges and chinas aspirations for greater geopolitical power will probably become all the more apparent given its ambitions, beijing will continue to use its military forces to intimidate its neighbors and to shape the regions Action Trends in accordance with the prcs priorities, we expect the pla will feel more advanced platforms, deploy new technologies, and grow more competent in joint operations with a particular focus on taiwan and the western pacific. And the role intended for chinas growing Nuclear Forces and Cyber Capabilities in this effort and the ultimate intent behind unprecedented growth in these areas remain a priority for us in the ic and they are not unrelated to actions of russia. President putins War Of Aggression against ukraine continues unabated. Ukraines retreat from a vika and their struggle to stave off further territorial losses in the past few weeks have exposed the erosion of ukraines military capabilities with the declining availability of external military aid. The assistance that is contemplated in the supplemental is absolutely critical to ukraines defense right now. And without that assistance, it is hard to imagine how ukraine will be able to maintain the extremely hard advances it has made against the russians, especially given the sustained surge in russian ammunition production and purchases from north korea and iran meanwhile, President Putin is increasing Defense Spending and russia reversing his longstanding reluctance to devote a High Percentage of gdp to the military, as he looks to rebuild in many ways, this is prompted by the fact that russia has paid an enormous price for the war in ukraine, not only has russia suffered more military losses that in any time since world war ii, roughly 300,000 casualties and thousands of tanks and armored combat vehicles, setting them back years. It is also precipitated. Finland and swedens mens membership in nato, which putin believes requires an expansion of russias ground forces. Putin continues to judge the time is on his side, and almost certainly assumes that a larger, better equipped military will also serve the purpose of driving that point home to western audiences. Such messaging is important because putin strategic goals remain unchanged. He continues to see nato enlargement and western support to ukraine as reinforcing his longheld belief that the United States and europe seek to restrict russian power and undermine him of course, in the meantime, russia continues to modernize and fortify its Nuclear Weapons capabilities. Even though it maintains the largest and most diverse Nuclear Weapons stockpile, we remain concerned that moscow will put at risk longstanding global norms against the use of asymmetric or strategically destabilizing weapons, including in spain base and in the cyber domain. Another critical intersection we are monitoring is the relationship as a Vice Chairman noted between government of russia, china, north korea, and iran, which is evolving as these four countries expand collaboration through a web of bilateral and in some cases, trilateral arrangement instruments. This Growing Cooperation and willingness to exchange aid and military economic, political, and Intelligence Matters enhances their individual capabilities, in enables them to cooperate on competitive actions, assist them to further undermine the rulesbased order and gives them each some insulation chun from external International Pressure nevertheless, we assess these relationships will remain far short of formal alliances, or a multilateral axis, parochial interests desire to avoid entanglements and wariness of harm, and instability from each others actions will likely limit their cooperation and ensure it advance answers incrementally absent direct conflict between one of these countries in the United States nevertheless, the Power Dynamics are shifting among them. And this is creating new challenges. In particular, russias need for support in the context of ukraine has forced it to grant some longsought concessions to china, north korea, and iran with the potential to undermine, among other things, longheld nonproliferation norms and as i noted in the beginning, intensifying transnational challenges are intersecting with these more traditional threats. For example, with the advent of Generative Ai states and nonstate actors who are interested in conducting foreign malign influence operations no longer need to master a language which to create potentially believable false content. The threat of malign actors exploiting these tools and technologies to undercut us interests in democracy is particularly potent as voters go to the poll in more than 60 elections around the globe this year is chairman noted. We have also seen a massive increase in the number of Ransomware Attacks globally which went up roughly 74 in 2023 from what it was in 2022. And us entities were the most heavily targeted. Many of these are conducted by nonstate actors with the russiabased Cyber Criminal Group lockbit remaining the most popular ransomware as a service provider. Lockbit was responsible for nearly a quarter of all oh, claimed attacks worldwide leading to a joint effort by 11 countries to seize its resources and take down its online domains Transnational Criminal Organizations and Human Smuggling Operations increasingly exploit migrants for extortion, kidnapping, and Human Trafficking and in particular, the threat from illicit drugs remains at historic levels with Mexican Transnational Criminal Organization supplying and moving large amounts of synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl into the United States. More than 100,000 americans have died from drug related overdoses during the past year. And most of those deaths have been attributed to elicit fence and as such, the threat from fentanyl and other synthetic drugs to the health and welfare of Everyday Americans remains a top priority for the intelligence community. In the third category, we have multiple regional conflicts with farreaching implications, perhaps nowhere more obviously than in the middle east. This crisis and gaza is a stark example of how regional developments have the potential for broader and even Global Implications now, having lasted for more than five months, the Gaza Conflict has roiled the middle east with renewed instability, presenting new Security Paradigms and humanitarian challenges while pulling in a range of actors the conflict has prompted new dynamics, even as it has entrenched old ones. We continue to assess that his bowl in iran do not want to cause an escalation of the conflict that pulls us or them into a fullout war. Yet the houthis entered the war and were willing to do so without iran acting first, becoming one of the most aggressive actors in the conference . Plucked and the iranian maligned Militia Groups in iraq and syria that have been attacking our forces and had been more focused on the United States and israel using the conflict as an opportunity to pursue their own agenda moreover, the crisis has galvanized violence by a range of actors around the world. And while it is too early to tell, it is likely that the Gaza Conflict will have but generational impact on terrorism both alqaeda and isis, inspired by hamas, have directed supporters to conduct attacks against israeli and us interests. And we have seen how it is inspiring individuals to conduct acts of antisemitism and islamophobia, terror worldwide in this third category of regional and localized conflicts, we have made more, we might discuss including haiti and sudan and what is happening in the eastern democratic republic of congo. And the list goes on and this finally brings me to 702 of the foreign Intelligence Surveillance act, which will expire on april 19th without congressional action. The intelligence gathered pursuant to section 702 was essential in preparing this annual threat assessment. And hes absolutely fundamental to every aspect of our work. As i know, you know . 702 provides unique insights into foreign intelligence targets such as foreign adversaries, terrorist organizations, and being hamas weapons proliferate or spies, malicious cyber actors. Fentanyl trackers, traffickers, and he does so at a speed and reliability that we simply cannot replace with any other authority now as Congress Pursues reauthorization, we understand there will be reformed and we support those that bolster the compliance and oversight regimes in place while preserving the operational agility that is vital to keeping the nation saves. Thank you for your patients and we look forward to your questions. Thank you, director haines. Let me go for members. I appreciate it. I know we dont normally do these on monday. I appreciate everybody coming in. We will be conducting a close session after this open session so members should hold any questions on a classified nature until after that and after the chair and Vice Chair Go through our first round of questions, will then recognize members in line and director of national intelligence, avril haines, as shes briefed, members of the Senate Intelligence committee on threats to the United States. Were of course going to keep monitoring what questions she and others on the panel or asked. But briefly reviewing some of her remarks, you went through a series of overall threats to the United States, including strategic competition but china, the ongoing russian invasion of ukraine. And we should note the conflict in gaza. It struck me that during the beginning of her remarks, she was interrupted by a protester demanding a ceasefire in gaza. She specifically said that that conflict is prompted complications and the dynamics across the middle east. And she said that it would have a generational impact on terrorism. Obviously, a lot of threats to go over, a lot of hotspots around the world. Thats right. And she went on to talk about russia and ukraine. She said that when it comes to vladimir putin, his strategic goals remain unchanged, that he continues to see natos enlargement and western support to ukraine is reinforcing his longheld belief that us and the us and europe are trying to restrict russian power that theyre trying to undermine him. And she, before congress was making the point that this aid to ukraine is critical, that theyre not going to be able to remain where they are in the war if they dont get it. Yeah significant point we expect will come up over and over again. Lets dig into what weve heard so far with some key voices, we have Alex Marquardt and beth sanner with us. Thank you both for joining us. Beth first to you, you were comparing some of the remarks that we heard in this annual briefing of members of the senate two last year. And he specifically pointed out that there was a difference this year in the way that the dni connected some of the adversaries to the United States being russia, china, north korea, and iran that is significant painting that picture, right . Exactly. And marco rubio made the same point in his opening remarks. And so i think that this is something really important for people to understand. It was missing last year last year, was kind of a country by country thing and the sea or she really did say, look, this combined effort and collaboration between our adversaries is making each one of them stronger. And i think that thats, thats something that were really going to have to Pay Attention to for a long time what stood out to you, alex . Well, i mean, just generally this is such a rare opportunity to see all these top officials who speak. I can count on one hand the number of times we hear from them publicly each year to have them all together. Such a rare opportunity. So to some extent, it is going to be a laundry list of the various threats that the us is facing from nationstate actors, nonstate actors, but then other things like climate change, a health the economy, that kind of thing. And i think two to beths point will be very interesting to see how they bring all of this together. Now, i think theyre really going to dig into the meat of these various subjects in the queue. When a, when the senators get to ask the questions, then as we just heard from haines, theres going to be a classified briefing afterwards, but this is two days tomorrow. Theres a house version of this of really a rare glimpse into what these people are thinking. And so what i really want to hear is their assessment of what has happened in the past year and what they expect to come in the coming year, specifically, these two wars that are raging in ukraine and in gaza, their assessment of where they think russia is going to go in the coming year on the ukrainian battlefield. But also in other, various other fora like cyberspace and interfering with our elections, a lot of this will be through the prism of american politics. Of course, the senate did approve a supplemental funding for ukraine that is someth