The ongoing lecture series. Russell took office as acting director in august, but its not his first, second or third time in the building. Hes held many other leadership positions including counselor to the director, chief data officer. Hes held positions at the Defense Intelligence agencies, the National Security council, the u. S. Army, joint chiefs of staff. So were thrilled that hes been able to carve time out of his busy schedule and spend some time with us today to talk about Counter Terrorism in an era of competing priorities. Russell will deliver some opening remarks from the podium and then well sit down for a little fireside chat. Ill ask the first few questions and then i will open it up to all of you who are here to ask some questions and we welcome all of you who are watching via livestream or via cspan, thank you for joining us today. Russell, the podium is yours. So, thanks very much, matt. Its a great pleasure to be here to talk about Counter Terrorism in an era of competing resources. I happen to testify earlier this week and was talking to a friend of mine yesterday and she said that a colleague of hers had seen the testimony and he characterized my performance as that of a thoughtful nerd. I am hoping to aspire to something more than nerddom here this afternoon. We are now almost two decades past 9 11 and if we continue to proceed in protecting against attacks against the homeland, i think the notion of competing priorities is going to get more challenging, as it should. Ever since former secretary mattis issued the National Defense strategy last year, theres been an ongoing, at least implicit discussion about risk. How does the threat track up as opposed to other threats. Along with terrorism, they laid out a dizzying array of different kinds of threats, election security, counter intelligence, intellectual property theft, organized crime which kills more americans than terrorism will. And it is completely understandable that terrorism may no longer be viewed as the number one threat to the country, but i dont know what that means and i think it begs a host of questions. I offered three. What does the National Risk equation look like as the country confronts a very complex interNational Security environment. Secondly, how do we optimized resources in the best interest of the country when departments and agencies may have differing priorities. And if were going to reduce efforts against terrorism, how do we do so in a manner that doesnt inadvertently reverse some of the gains from the past 18 years. I would like to walk you through a road map of the issues that i think need to be considered. Theme number one, good news. Let me say at the outset, terrorism is not, never has been, an existential threat to the country unless it changes who we are. It holds out the the potential of killing a very large number of people. And as history has shown, it can occupy the countrys attention for a very lock time. Fortunately weve made a lot of progress on the terrorism front. The last significant al qaeda attack was five years. The last centrally directed isis attack in the west, was the turkish nightclub, three years ago, and before that, paris and brussels. Attacks are down. The u. S. Has had one this past year and roughly a half dozen in europe, both numbers lower than previous years. While capabilities ebb and flow, weve seen isis struggle to sustain success. Theres been tremendous military and intelligence efforts in iraq and syria to eliminate the caliphate. Many operatives have been captured and killed and that has had many second order effects. Its not just iraq and syria. We have removed leadership from around the globe. Dhs, fbi and state have pushed borders out and made the homeland much less hospitable to terrorists. Weve seen global efforts to improve border security. Weve seen a growing partnership with the private sector to make cyber space less hospitable and services around the globe are working together against terrorism. U. S. Continues to pass on Lessons Learned to interested foreign parties with a robust exercise program that addresses information sharing and cooperation. And we are seeing Capacity Building in other countries. Improvements in cooperation, enhancements in information sharing that can mitigate the impact of terrorist attacks. You compare the kenyan response in 2013 and the hotel earlier this year, it was dealt with far faster with far fewer casualties. So we will never eliminate terrorism. But a tremendous amount of good work has been done and that actually allows for this conversation about comparative risk and that brings me to theme two which is a concern for the potential for complacency. We do need to be careful. When i started working Counter Terrorism after 9 11, we were overwhelming focused on al qaeda and a centrally directed threat emanating from one piece of real estate. 18 years later we see a diverse threat that spans the globe. The primary islamist threat in many of our countries has been home grown extremism. Despite the elimination of the caliphate, we have an insurgency in syria and iraq. Some are very small, others have thousands of people. Nine of them have pledged allegiance to the new isis leader over the past week. We have al qaeda that has received less attention, but it too retains a command structure and we see growing connections and coordination between and among its affiliates. There are also a full range of shiarelated threats, also a growing concern for the militant groups in iraq. If the various strands werent complicated enough, were seeing a global threat of particularly extreme rightwing related terrorism. More on that later. Terrorists around the globe are proving very cable of exploiting technology, theyre good at it. The use of cryptic communications for planning, social media to spread propaganda and transfer knowledge between and amongst individuals and networks. Drones for swarm attacks, explosive delivery means and even assassination attempts. Highquality documents that undermine screening and threaten border security. Cryptocurrencies to Fund Operation and is the potential terrorist use of chemical and biological weapons has moved from low probability to something that is considered much more likely. Its outpaced the policy framework to deal with the threat. Looking out five years, we are particularly concerned with the impact encryption will have on our Counter Terrorism efforts and this is a key point. We cant freeze our thinking in 2019. We always need to be looking to the future. Finally, both al qaeda and isis have shown themselves to be successful at radicalizing vulnerable populations around the globe. Sometimes they establish people to organize a group, sometimes an emissary is already present with ties or personal connections. Sometimes its done remotely via social media or letters, and sometimes a group deploy to an emissary to an isis core. They are innovative and bolstering their ranks. And that brings me to theme three which is the feed fneed fr focus on prevention. By my standard, there are far more radicalized people now than there were at 9 11. Some think tanks suggested that were looking at four times the number of radicalized individuals and our own database has grown by a factor of almost 20. Unless you believe this fervor will burn itself out, we will faced with a problem around the globe. We believe a mix of personal, group, community, social, political factors contribute to the radicalization of sunni youth. We are gradually as a world accumulating more data. The United NationsDevelopment Program evaluated 718 active or former african extremists to identify the reason that individuals are radicalized at the person level. The most important factor cited was Human Rights Violations by Security Forces but also poverty, the nature of religious education, stable families and government corruption. But its just not about poverty and being downtrodden. As we saw in sri lanka, the individuals are well educated but radicalized by hate preachers. Theres a great deal of Fertile Ground in countries and were facing radicalization in prisons and even amongst young children. There are various initiatives associated with messaging, deradicalization, defection programs, reintegration, offramping, as well as broader programs focused on good governor nance. If the numbers of radicalized people around the globe keeps growing, i do not like our odds of identifying the right people to capture, kill, keep out of the country. And there are second and third order effects. As Climate Change takes its toll, were seeing greater forced migration. And its giving further rise to rightwing violence. Brings me to theme four, the need to focus on identities, people of concern. Terrorist threats revolve around people and networks and while tracking identities is pretty arcane stuff, not as interesting as talked about the future of isis or the latest strike, it is incredibly important. Our terrorist identities underpins much of the screening architecture that evaluates 3. 2 Million People a day and this is where we failed the country on 9 11. Two of the hijackers were allowed to get visas, live in the country and get on airplanes because we were insufficiently stitched together. An enormous amount of effort has been expended over the past 18 years. We have pushed borders out, creating a multilayer defense to identity individuals with terrorist connections at the earliest possible point and we have continually improved building richer dossiers, making use of better technology, classified screening to support unclassified watch lists and making use of bio metrics. This will never be a riskfree proposition, but the system has overall performed extraordinarily well. Nctc working with our partners is responsible for compiling the u. S. Government database of ksts and the data is used to support screening partners. There has been some confusion on this point and when we talk about ksts, precision is very important. Each day, approximately three individuals seek permission to come to the country. This is not to say that they intend to conduct an attack, simply that theres information that warrants scrutiny. Upwards of another 7 watch listed individuals per day may have connections to ksts, but we lack the information to consider them known or suspected terrorists. As you might imagine, when 3 Million People per day are screened, drawing conclusions about any one particular individual can be fraught with challenges. But over the course of 16 years, the system has stood the test of time. In some cases, refugees, for instance, extra levels of scrutiny are provided. We have no indication that foreign terrorist groups have attempted to exploit the program. Over the past two decades the past decade, there have only been two individuals who arrived at refugees and went onto conduct attacks in the homeland, both radicalized after traveling to the United States. Our track record is pretty good. However, we cant rest on our laurels. There are some warning signs. As we saw in the case of the paris and brussels attacks, many of the individuals were known to Security Services but they had highquality fake passport. Lists are on the wrong side of history. We saw this in Northern Syria where captured foreign fighters routinely gave fake names. They focused on biometrically enrolling as many people as we can. How do we process the volume of information and ensure high quality databases . In my opinion we should be treating this period much like we did that after 9 11. What are we trying to accomplish and how are we going to get there . We have a lot of piece matters and we need to ensure they are properly stitched together. The vision should be a near realtime bio metric screening against all information to determine if an individual is known or suspected terrorist. This would involve greater focus on collection, integration and sharing of bio metrics as well as business process and technology improvements. The benefits would support screening against other categories of threats. That brings me to theme five, the need for robust intelligence. None of this happens unless we maintain a robust, integrated intelligence capability. There is no question that the Counter Terrorism enterprise is the best part of the Intelligence Community. Weve been doing it as a community for a very long time. But as good as we are and as well resourced there will be significant challenges Going Forward. A globally dispersed and diffuse Intelligence Network places great pressure on our intelligence services. We need to evaluate the threat at multiple levels and determine when they pose a growing threat. The first level was not a high priority before last easter. The most hard line group had denounced isis in 2016 and that spawned a much smaller entity, ntj that was responsible. It had been known for attacks on buddhist statues, not associated with isis, we didnt recognize the threat. One step up from that would be local indigenous islamic insurgencies around the world. Consider the longstanding insurgency in northern mozambique. Extrapolate that to the 20odd current and budding isis affiliates around the world, you get some sense of the intelligence challenge. And then one level higher. We need to have sufficient insight into these insurgencies to determine when they may be expanding to a threat that may threaten the homeland. In 2009 we thought of al qaeda in the peninsula as a regional threat. And on Christmas Day of 2009, northwest flight 253 was attempted to be blown up. And we reviewed t think about the broad array of people and networks and their ability to exploit technology and we have more than a few challenges. At the macro level as we adjust to priorities to other threats, there is no question that intelligence resources, collection and analystic, will be shifted away from terrorism to other priorities. Actions have consequences. What do we stop focusing on . What is the associated risk . And as we draw down military forces, we have less assets capable in theater. There will be less liaison with on the ground partners. With those facts come a degree of risk and well need to determine how great that risk is, whether it can be compensated for and so forth. And then at the national level, we need to ensure that we have the right constellation of organizations and authorities. This is a very large enterprise. There is duplication, there will need to be rationalization Going Forward to ensure that we are using resources wisely. And that brings me to theme seven. The need to get the electrons right. If were going to get the intelligence right, we need to get the electrons right. Data is everything. Whether were looking for strategic trends or conducting analysis associated with individuals and networks, data is the life blood of the Counter Terrorism community. The data challenges we face are complex, particularly when were dealing with information that is incomplete, ambiguous and often wrong. Ten years ago this month, a father walked into the embassy and said his son may be related to extremists in yemen. That cable was available to everybody in the government, it got no attention. Other data existed, but the relationships werent obvious and we did not connect the dots. I have spent my entire career working analytic issues and will say that Counter Terrorism has the worst single to noise ratio to any discipline which ive ever been associated. If i put you in the shoes of an analyst, he or she has seen a quarter of a million threats. Ov overwhelmingly they were bogus, but when they come in, how do you know . We average about 300 threats to our embassies and consulates abroad every year. Almost one a day. To get even a little more concrete, we receive in excess of 10,000 reports a day through which they need to sift and they contain 16,000 names daily. All our services are challenged by the need to process ever expanding amounts of data in order to uncover potential terrorist threats. With the growth of captured media on the battlefield or the explosion of social media, the magnitude of that problem only goes. Terrorists have to communicate, they have to move money, they have to travel, but strictly speaking, these data sets arent terrorism information so they can implicate legal, policy, privacy and operational equities that limit the sharing of such data. Determining which information is relevant and addressing the competing equities remains a work in progress. I will never have enough analysts to process the available information so Artificial Intelligence isnt nice to to have, its an imperative. The National Security commission on Artificial Intelligence chaired by eric shift. With respect to data, the government is well positioned to collect useful information from its Worldwide Network of sensors but much of that data is unlabelled, hidden or inaccessible to the government. Even more data is simply expelled as, quote, exhaust because it is not deemed to be immediately relevant. And the infrastructure is woefully inadequate to process this information. We have a very long ways to go to realize the benefits. And in the case of terrorism, the problem is particularly difficult because so much of our data is unstructured. And its all unstructured in different ways. That makes it very difficult for machines to help our analysts. Harking back to what i said about the evolving nature of the threat, its all about individuals and networks and as we have seen with home grown violent extremists, it can be difficult to uncover these individuals. The haystack has continued to grow and the needles are increasingly subtle. We are seeing this problem across the western world where partners may be dealing with 10s of thousands of radicalized individuals. This brings me to theme seven. Wh