Online Analysis9th May 2025
Trump’s moment to reform the US intelligence community
Twenty years after the creation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Trump’s advisers have a rare chance to restructure America’s intelligence community to confront Beijing – if they can convince the president.
In his confirmation hearing on 15 January 2025, CIA Director John Ratcliffe was clear: China presents a ‘once-in-a-generation challenge’. This call to arms was reinforced just a few months later by Tulsi Gabbard, the new director of national intelligence (DNI), when she set out the intelligence community’s assessment that ‘China is our most capable strategic competitor’.
Ratcliffe’s appointment as director of the CIA, Gabbard as the DNI and Kash Patel as director of the FBI are seen by some as evidence of United States President Donald Trump’s fraught history with what he has called the ‘deep state’. These traditionally non-partisan posts are now held by individuals who share Trump’s view that government insiders have allegedly conspired against him. Notably, however, the appointments also provide Trump with an opportunity to make China the ‘organising principle’ for intelligence, and they signal an intention to impose a reorganisation of the intelligence community from the top down.
The impetus for reform
The demand for intelligence reform – something Republicans, Democrats and intelligence practitioners largely agree is overdue – is driven by the perception that the current structure, established over the past two decades and influenced by post-9/11 needs, is not equipped to effectively address the rapidly evolving threats of today, particularly from nation-state adversaries and in the cyber domain. This is compounded by internal bureaucratic challenges (such as requiring that approved National Intelligence Program funds be directed to priority areas) and resource challenges (such as managing personnel within multi-agency mission centres).
In 2004, Congress enacted the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which created the position of director of national intelligence. The aim was to improve information-sharing among the intelligence community and ensure better integration of intelligence reporting and analysis. To its critics, however, the act has not delivered the empowered DNI with the control over the intelligence community’s budget that its architects envisaged. Although the DNI was handed sweeping authorities, real budget and personnel levers remained with the executive departments that house the agencies comprising the intelligence community – not least the Department of Defense. Successive DNIs have had to rely on informal influence and the goodwill of presidents to prise open institutional silos. Nevertheless, agencies still answer first to their departments, and even community‑wide initiatives such as joint‑duty tours have been taken forward only after protracted negotiation.
https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/online-analysis/2025/05/trumps-moment-to-reform-the-us-intelligence-community/
