Intelligence Community: Providing Intelligence Support for the Incoming Conservative President

Key Chapter Title List

1. Overview: The Current State and Challenges of the U.S. Intelligence Community
2. Office of the Director of National Intelligence: Power, Limitations, and Reform Pathways
3. Central Intelligence Agency: Mission Execution, Bureaucracy, and Resource Redirection
4. Covert Action: Utilization and Optimization as a Foreign Policy Tool
5. Preventing Intelligence from Being Used for Partisan Purposes: Restoring Neutrality and Credibility
6. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: Necessity for Reform and Prevention of Abuse
7. Focus on China: Transformation, Reform, and Resource Allocation
8. National Counterintelligence and Security Center: Empowering Responses to Non-Traditional Threats
9. Additional Reform Areas: Analytic Integrity, Information Sharing, and Over-Classification
10. Technical Issues: Chief Information Officer, Space Domain, and Cover in the Digital Age
11. President's Daily Brief and the National Intelligence Council: Optimizing Intelligence Product Delivery
12. An Unfinished Experiment: Returning to a Lean, Effective Governance Model

Document Introduction

This report is part of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. It aims to systematically assess the U.S. Intelligence Community for a potential future conservative president and provide comprehensive reform recommendations and an action framework. The report argues that despite significant post-9/11 reforms, the current intelligence community's structure, culture, and operational models still face multiple challenges, making it difficult to effectively address new threats in an era of great power competition led by China.

The report first analyzes the power dilemma of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) since its establishment in 2004. Although the law intended to grant the DNI authority over the entire intelligence community, its actual power has been diluted, making it more of a coordinator than a leader. This has resulted in agencies operating in silos, resource duplication, and poor integration. The report recommends clarifying and strengthening the DNI's leadership in key areas such as budgeting, personnel, and critical mission domains like cyber and open-source intelligence, potentially through revisions to Executive Order 12333, enabling it to effectively coordinate the 18 member agencies like a conductor leads an orchestra.

Regarding the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the primary agency for human intelligence and covert action, the report points to internal issues such as bureaucratic bloat, a risk-averse culture, and resource allocation to non-core ideological agendas. Reform directions include appointing strong leadership to rebuild a mission-driven culture, streamlining redundant headquarters functions, refocusing resources on high-risk, high-reward overseas missions, and reviving the adventurous spirit akin to that of the Office of Strategic Services.

The report dedicates significant space to the core issue of preventing the politicization of intelligence. Citing cases like the Russia investigation and the Hunter Biden laptop incident, it notes that partisan actions by senior intelligence officials and former officers have severely damaged the institution's credibility. Consequently, the report proposes a series of measures to strengthen norms of political neutrality, including strict punishment for leakers, reforming security clearance procedures, requiring intelligence officers to stay out of the public eye, and restricting former officials from abusing their security clearances to engage in political debates.

Facing the generational threat posed by China, the report argues that a whole-of-government approach is necessary. This requires the intelligence community not only to significantly increase budgets related to China but also to deeply integrate counterintelligence efforts across technology, economics, supply chains, and academia, while enhancing collaboration with the private sector and allies. Simultaneously, the report emphasizes the importance of rebuilding strategic analytical capabilities. It points out that the current over-reliance on short-term clandestine intelligence is insufficient for long-term competition with China. There is a need to restore the deep strategic analysis capability of the Cold War era, which could handle puzzles, not just secrets.

Furthermore, the report explores other key reform areas, including promoting mandatory sharing policies to improve the timeliness of cyber threat intelligence, addressing over-classification to accelerate declassification processes, leveraging commercial space capabilities to enhance intelligence collection in the space domain, and tackling practical challenges like protecting agent identities in the digital age.

Ultimately, the report describes the current intelligence community, particularly the ODNI structure, as an unfinished experiment. Its core recommendation is to return to the initially envisioned lean, networked coordination model. By granting leadership clear authority, insisting on political neutrality, strengthening accountability, and investing in key technical talent, the goal is to reshape an intelligence system that can effectively serve the President, defend national interests, and regain public trust.