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David Priess Profile picture
Mar 12 9 tweets 3 min read Read on X
THREAD: Something interesting this way comes in the new US intelligence community annual threat assessment testimony, as briefed to the Senate today.

It’s about Russia. And nukes. And things left unsaid in the submitted text.

Here we go:


1/9c-span.org/video/?534027-…
First of all, if you’re unfamiliar with the long tradition of unclassified worldwide threat briefings to Congress, catch up with this podcast episode I hosted 4+ years ago with Michael Hayden, Jim Clapper, and Andrew McCabe.

Deep experience here:


2/9lawfaremedia.org/article/lawfar…
The Russia section last year had this interesting line: “Moscow will become even more reliant on nuclear, cyber, and space capabilities as it deals with the extensive damage to Russia’s ground forces.”

See here:



3/9odni.gov/files/ODNI/doc…
Since then, we’ve had the recent revelation that Moscow is developing antisatellite weapon that reportedly includes deploying nuclear weapons in space—as assessed expertly by @aaronbateman here:


4/9foreignaffairs.com/russian-federa…
What does the text this year say?

First:

“Moscow will continue to employ all applicable sources of national power to advance its interests and try to undermine the United States and its allies.”

5/9
And then in the brief subsection on space, this bulleted text:

“Russia is investing in EW and directed energy weapons to counter Western on-orbit assets and continues to develop ground-based ASAT weapons capable of destroying space targets in LEO.”

6/9
In testimony today, DNI Haines added a bit: “We remain concerned that Moscow will put at risk long-standing global norms against the use of asymmetric or strategically destabilizing weapons, including in space and in the cyber domain."

Still nothing specific on the nexus.

7/9
Important note: This is the UNCLASSIFIED threat testimony. A classified briefing is also provided, in closed session.

It seems likely that a lot more on the intersection of Russia, space, and nukes will be delivered there.

8/9
Like every year, there’s more about myriad threats in the entire public document.

Please read it fully to both gain some insight and recognize the extensive collection and analysis that goes into this annual product that thankfully is made public.


/endintelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/…

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More from @DavidPriess

Mar 5
THREAD: Speculation has started in earnest about what will happen this year to the tradition of classified intelligence briefings for the major party presidential candidates.

And a lot of what’s being said is wrong, or at least incomplete.

Here’s ground truth —>

1/12
Major-party POTUS candidates have been offered intel briefings during the campaign since 1952.

(Not to be confused with the heavy intel support presidents-elect get—including, since the President’s Daily Brief began in the mid 1960s, a copy of the outgoing POTUS’s PDB.)

2/12
The tradition began in 1952, when President Truman—reflecting on his sudden succession to the presidency in April 1945—offered classified briefings to both candidates (Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson) seeking to succeed him.

No statute required it. Just a courtesy.

3/12
Read 12 tweets
Apr 4, 2023
THREAD: Tonight in Fredericton, New Brunswick, at a public event about US presidents and intelligence, I got a question I hadn’t heard in hundreds of engagements on the topic:

“Who are the oddest people to ever show up in a PDB briefing?”

Buckle up. Strange things ahead.

1/9
Usually, for more than half a century, the President’s Daily Brief goes only to POTUS and a close circle of senior national security officials—like vice presidents, national security advisors, secretaries of state and defense, and folks one step removed.

Usually.

2/9
But it ain’t always that way.

The PDB was born in 1964, for Lyndon Johnson—and within a few short years, this most secretive document was going to, among others … Press Secretary Bill Moyers.

3/9
Read 9 tweets
Mar 9, 2023
THREAD: My quick reactions to the U.S. intelligence community’s Annual Threat Testimony, released and briefed to the Senate Intelligence Committee today.

Some surprises, and some disappointments. Let’s go—

1/13
First, appreciate that this annual testimony from intel leaders has a rich history—described in this 2020 episode of the Lawfare Podcast that I hosted with former DNI Jim Clapper, former DCIA and DirNSA @GenMhayden, and former DD/FBI Andy McCabe:

2/13
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…
Now for this year. Here are things that strike me upon first reading.

First, China. Wow.

More than ever, the PRC isn’t only front and center but interwoven throughout the assessment. And the judgments = blunt.

Don’t believe me? Read it yourself:

3/13
odni.gov/files/ODNI/doc…
Read 13 tweets
Dec 31, 2022
THREAD: As each year ends, I look back at the books I’ve read/re-read or listened to across 12 months.

I’ve read a lot this year—and thought I’d share my list in categories, alphabetically by author within each.

I recommend every one of these books and thank all authors.

1/12
Books I read in 2022 (history, part 1):

Lincoln and the Fight for Peace by @JohnAvlon

SPQR by @wmarybeard

Grant by Ron Chernow

Washington by Ron Chernow

The Cabinet by @lmchervinsky

Behold, America by @sarahchurchwell

The Wrath To Come by @sarahchurchwell

2/12
Books I read in 2022 (history, part 2):

The Craft: How Freemasons Made the Modern World by @JohnDickie1

Lincoln by David Herbert Donald

The Future History of the Arctic by @charlesemmerson

Adams vs. Jefferson by John Ferling

The Field of Blood by @jbf1755

3/12
Read 12 tweets
Oct 5, 2022
Hi. It’s the President’s Daily Brief guy again.

I’m here to explain how Mark Meadows’s newly reported remark about presidents and the PDB is woefully wrong—and reveals why he never should’ve been chief of staff in the first place.

Grab a drink. Let’s take a PDB journey.

1/13 Image
First, the remark. In her new book “Confidence Man,” @maggieNYT writes that during the transition Mark Meadows asked Ron Klein, “How many days a week is Vice President Biden gonna want this daily brief?”

Klain was "dumbstruck by the question.”

2/13
penguinrandomhouse.com/books/668293/c…
After Klain said Biden wanted to be briefed every day—saying that was how Biden had done it as vice president—Meadows countered,
"No president ever does that. That’s never happened.”

[This is where your narrator takes a deep breath. And another one. And another one.]

3/13
Read 13 tweets
Sep 2, 2022
Hey, everyone hyperventilating about #EmptyFolders

Slow down. Breathe.

Yes, the inventory lists empty folders with “CLASSIFIED” banners or marked "Return to Staff Secretary/Military Aide.”

This almost certainly doesn’t mean what you think.

Here’s a sanity check.

1/6
Classified documents, and most unclassified docs that are nevertheless sensitive, are usually carried between offices in places like the White House *in folders*.

Why? In large part, to keep prying eyes (or enterprising press photographers) from seeing them during transit.

2/6
So it is natural that boxes containing hundreds of classified/sensitive documents would also have the very folders that the docs had once been carried in and left in on a principal’s desk.

You need not list which folder each doc was in, if was in a folder at all when found.

3/6
Read 6 tweets

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