U.S. counterintelligence agencies are ill-suited to confronting new and increased foreign threats from China, Russia and other adversaries, a panel of experts told the House intelligence oversight panel on Wednesday.
Frank Cilluffo, director of Auburn University’s McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure, testified that national security threats, especially from China, have expanded beyond the current capabilities of the FBI, CIA and other counterintelligence agencies.
Traditional counterspy missions of protecting secrets and neutralizing foreign spies and penetration agents remain important. But renewed efforts are needed to protect against Chinese exploitation of American engineers, researchers, startup companies, venture capital firms and supply chains, Mr. Cilluffo told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Beijing spends years targeting industries, institutions, and technologies with cyberattacks, investment, research, talent recruitment, supply chains and intermediaries, he said.
U.S. intelligence defenses, however, are spread across multiple agencies and departments and lack the ability to understand the full picture of Chinese intelligence gathering.
“The threat has changed. Our counterintelligence model must change with it,” he said.
Douglas Feith, a national security expert with the Hudson Institute, warned that China is buying up areas near U.S. military bases and could conduct covert drone attacks similar to the 2025 drone raid by Ukraine inside Russia on strategic bomber bases known as Operation Spiderweb.
U.S. intelligence agencies must leverage artificial intelligence to better confront and counter Chinese and other adversary threats, he said. “The United States needs a new counterintelligence approach for the AI age,” Mr. Feith said.
Seth Jones, head of defense and security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, testified that the U.S. is more vulnerable to threats from adversaries than ever before.
“In my view, we are not set up to deal with the evolving threat as it stands today and as it is likely to evolve in the foreseeable future,” Mr. Jones said.
Mr. Jones warned that the Chinese Communist Party is engaged in subversion inside the U.S. and is bolstering disinformation campaigns and cyberattacks with AI. “The U.S. needs to understand it is essentially in a wartime environment and I think there needs to be a fundamental shift in mindset to help make the U.S. population more resilient,” he said.
Rep. Rick Crawford, committee chairman, said the current threat environment is severe and includes whole-of-society subversion campaigns in the U.S. by Russia and China.
“Is it possible the counterintelligence equivalent of 9/11 waits undetected because we are failing to adapt a decentralized system where parochial agency interests, not national interests, determine strategy?” the Arkansas Republican asked.
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