OSINT Targeting Essay

Introduction. The United States is the premier superpower in the world. Since World War II the United States technology and capabilities far exceed that of any other country in the world. That distinction bears the weight of making the United States a highly sought after target for other nations who seek to gain information and knowledge about the United States for purposes such as applying that intelligence to their own military operations and capabilities or; worst case scenario, to attempt to cause damage to the United States. Three of the most formidable nations posing a threat to the United States today are China, Russia and Iran. Each of these countries and their government has their own purpose and motivation to collect intelligence on the United States, ranging from the desire to steal technology from corporations and the government to the desire to destroy the entire United States infrastructure. Of these three nations, each one poses their own distinct threat to the national security of the United States. In order to better understand which of these nations poses the greatest threat one must understand what motivation and capabilities each one possesses and then make an assessment based on the gathering of facts and critical analysis of all the collective variables. In this paper, we will examine each country to better understand how these variables make each country a threat; and determine which country poses the greatest threat to United States national security. China, Russia or Iran. Who is The Greatest Threat? It is without a doubt that each of the three nations poses a threat to US national security. Furthermore, the possibility exists that the nation which presents the greatest threat to the United States could change without any notice. Although a nation like China possesses the greatest capabilities to collect intelligence or conduct cyber warfare operations against the United States, they are currently not the biggest threat. Russia and Iran are sometimes overlooked due to the prominence of China, but they both present a more looming threat to the nation due to their recent actions on an international scale. Of these two, Iran; by a narrow margin, appears to pose the greatest threat to national security. This will not seem obvious after examining the capabilities in the five intelligence disciplines of each nation, however a further assessment of political motives will reveal why Iran is the nation the United States should be most concerned about. All three nations have highly capable cyber intelligence capabilities. China stands out as the front-runner with their abilities to conduct large scale and highly detrimental attacks on the United States; such as the hack of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) system. This attack compromised the personal information of millions of Americans would have undergone background investigations. Iran has also conducted several large scale attacks on United States information systems. Most notably, the cyber-attacks of 2012; which caused an extensive disruption of service for US based financial institutions’ websites. [1] Russia also possesses extensive cyber capabilities. They have been assessed to be on par with, and possibly set to surpass, the United States cyber capabilities and to be a bigger threat to the United States than China because there infiltration is “rarely caught” [2] OSINT collection capabilities are difficult to compare amongst the three nations. …show more content…
However, given that the information they are likely targeting is readily available to anyone with access to the internet, it is safe to say they all pose a substantial threat in the OSINT realm. What makes one nation a greater threat than the other is boiled down to the ability to process the information and the desire to utilize the collected information. Due to the extensive HUMINT capabilities possessed by the PRC, they could be considered to be the most capable threat to United States national security among all three nations due to the close link between OSINT and HUMINT. The other two nation’s HUMINT collection capabilities are thought to be limited to the regional area. Russia has capabilities that reach out into Europe and Iran has the capabilities to operate in and around the Middle East. According to Pike, Russia maintains one of the most sophisticated; and therefor dangerous, SIGINT programs in