The world order is becoming increasingly fragile, according to the 2024 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.
The report, which uses unclassified assessments from 18 U.S. organizations including the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense, looks at national security risks for the coming year and is based on information compiled through January 22.
In 2024, the U.S. will experience “accelerating strategic competition among major powers, more intense and unpredictable transnational challenges and multiple regional conflicts with far-reaching implications,” the report said, as China, Russia and Iran continue to challenge longstanding international rules and the U.S. role in maintaining them.
Emerging technology, climate change, terrorism and illicit drugs are also adding to the strain with harder-to-forecast impacts.
“The world that emerges from this tumultuous period will be shaped by whoever offers the most persuasive arguments for how the world should be governed, how societies should be organized and which systems are most effective at advancing economic growth and providing benefits for more people,” the report said.
While the report did not state which threat was most significant, it said China contributes to instability because it can compete directly with the United States and its allies to alter the global order and favor Beijing’s power and type of government. China’s recent population declines and economic troubles “may make it an even more aggressive and unpredictable global actor,” it said.
Russia’s two-year-old war on Ukraine “underscores that it remains a threat to the rules-based international order,” the report said.
Iran too is trying to gain influence, acting in Israel's war on Gaza as “a regional menace with broader malign influence activities," as is North Korea, which is working to expand its weapons of mass destruction capabilities.
The competition between democratic and authoritarian governments is being amplified by the use of artificial intelligence, biotechnology, microelectronics, quantum computing and other emerging technologies “to gain stronger sway over worldwide narratives affecting the global geopolitical balance, including influence within it.”
Countries that promote authoritarianism and spread disinformation are hobbling cooperative efforts to address global issues “at the same time the world is beset by an array of shared, universal issues requiring cooperative global solutions.”
The report said multiple states are managing increasing levels of debt they may not be able to sustain. Increasing costs for extreme weather events are only adding to the strain, as are food security issues.
The effects of climate change, as well as food and water insecurity, are particularly acute in low- and middle-income countries and may lead to large migrations that could increase the risk of future pandemics.
All of the threats in the 2024 assessment “require a robust intelligence response, including those where a near-term focus may help head off greater threats in the future.”
