The intelligence agencies of the United States said that the country has been facing an “increasingly fragile world order” amid regional conflicts, transnational challenges and great power competition within countries as per the report released as leaders of the agency testified in the Senate.
“An ambitious but anxious China, a confrontational Russia, some regional powers, such as Iran, and more capable non-state actors are challenging longstanding rules of the international system as well as US primacy within it,” said the agencies, in their 2024 Annual Threat Assessment.
The report mainly emphasises threats from Russia and China and also talks about the risks of broader conflict in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.
The report claims that China has been extending economic and security assistance to Russia as it wages war against Ukraine by supporting the industrial base of Moscow, said the report.
The report further warned that China can use the technology to influence the US elections this year.
“[China] may attempt to influence the US elections in 2024 at some level because of its desire to sideline critics of China and magnify US societal divisions,” said the report.
The report further noted that the trade between China and Russia has been increasing since the Ukraine war started and that Chinese exports of goods which can be used by the military increased by more than threefold since 2022.
Is assistance to Ukraine important for the US?
Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines appealed to lawmakers to allow more military assistance to Ukraine. She added that it was “hard to imagine how Ukraine” could hold the territory which it had recaptured from Russia without any assistance from Washington.
Haines said that it is “absolutely critical” for the bill, which provides Kyiv $60 billion in new military assistance, to be passed by Congress.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Sunday (Mar 10) said that US former president Donald Trump would “not give a penny” to Ukraine if he becomes the president again.
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As per Orban, Trump has sketched a “detailed plan” for ending the Ukraine war.
Speaking at the Senate, CIA director William Burns said that the US intelligence assessed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not intending to negotiate for ending the conflict, even though the economic consequences are “fast making Russia the economic vassal to China.”
Burns also appealed for continued support to Ukraine. “It is our assessment that [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping was sobered, you know, by what happened … He didn’t expect that Ukraine would resist with the courage and tenacity the Ukrainians demonstrated,” he said.
(With inputs from agencies)
