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anew.” The Intelligence Community maintains an incredible capacity to achieve

its mission, but both the IC and the somewhat antiquated infrastructure that supports it often place too high a priority on yesterday’s threats and methodologies

instead of trying to identify possible future threats or the methodologies that

might be needed to combat them. The IC also often spends too much time overcorrecting for past mistakes. The unintended consequences include hesitancy, groupthink, and an overly cautious approach that allows personal incentives to

drive preset courses.

The IC must be perceived as a depoliticized protector of America’s civil rights and security. The American people are understandably frustrated by the fact that those who abuse power are rarely held to account for their actions. This must change, beginning with leadership that is both committed to ensuring that these agencies faithfully execute the laws of the land under the Constitution and resolved to punish and remove any officials who have abused the public trust.

The IC must also start to look forward, not backward. A concerted, disciplined, leadership-led initiative must be undertaken to refocus and shift IC prioritization, funding, and authorities to new and emerging threats, technologies, and methodologies if the United States is to prevail against its global adversaries.* Unfortunately, America’s major strategic threat is a nation-state peer and possibly ahead of the USS. in strategic areas. An incoming President must understand that today’s intelligence competition could well require analyzing technologies the U.S. does not have or compartmentalizing certain information as was done during the Cold War because of intelligence penetration. A future President’s ability to drive the resources needed to defeat another nation-state giant should therefore be the focus of near-term IC reforms.

OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE (ODNI)

The ODNI was established in the aftermath of the attacks on 9/11 and intelligence failures leading up to the 2003 U.S. war in Iraq. The office and its functions stem from authorities established under executive orders promulgated by President George W. Bush in 2004, followed by statutory authorizations in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA).°

Proponents of an ODNI hoped to establish reforms similar to the GoldwaterNichols Department of Defense (DOD) reforms of the 1980s, which identified recurring problems within DOD’s command-and-control architecture and led to unified Combatant Commands with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the senior ranking member of the armed forces and principal military adviser to the President. The ODNI was envisioned as a small but powerful IC coordinating agency led by a Director of National Intelligence (DND. As the President’s principal intelligence adviser, the DNI would lead and provide oversight of the President’s intelligence authorities while wielding a cudgel—budget and appointment