The National 

Counterintelligence 

Strategy of the 

United States

Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive 

March 2005 

National Counterintelligence Strategy 

of the United States 

PREFACE

The Counterintelligence Enhancement Act of 2002 (50 USC 401) directs that the 

Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive produce, on an annual basis, a 

strategy for the counterintelligence programs and activities of the United States 

Government. This is the first national counterintelligence strategy promulgated pursuant 

to that Act. President George W. Bush approved The National Counterintelligence 

Strategy of the United States on March 1, 2005. 

Counterintelligence, as defined in the National Security Act of 1947, is 

“information gathered and activities conducted to protect against espionage, other 

intelligence activities, sabotage, or assassinations conducted by or on behalf of foreign 

governments or elements thereof, foreign organizations or foreign persons, or 

international terrorist activities.” 

As used in this Strategy, counterintelligence includes defensive and offensive 

activities conducted at home and abroad to protect against the traditional and emerging 

foreign intelligence threats of the 21st Century. 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

 

PREFACE ........................................................................................................................ i

INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 1 

COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY............................... 3 

I. We will extend the safeguards of strategic counterintelligence to the 

Global War on Terrorism. ....................................................................................... 3

II. U.S. counterintelligence will shift from a reactive posture to a 

proactive strategy of seizing advantage............................................................... 4

III. U.S. counterintelligence will help protect the sensitive technologies 

that are the backbone of our security. .................................................................. 5

IV. U.S. counterintelligence will safeguard the integrity of intelligence 

operations and analysis, and defeat foreign intelligence operations........... 6

V. U.S. counterintelligence will seek to ensure a level economic playing 

field so that business and industry are not disadvantaged by foreign 

intelligence operations. ............................................................................................ 6

VI. The intelligence community will ensure that counterintelligence 

analytic products are available to the President and his national security 

team to inform decisions. ......................................................................................... 7

BUILDING A NATIONAL COUNTERINTELLIGENCE SYSTEM................... 9 

CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................. 13 

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INTRODUCTION

The National Security Strategy of the United States seeks to defend the peace by 

fighting terrorists and tyrants, to preserve the peace by building good relations among the 

great powers, and to extend the peace by encouraging free and open societies on every 

continent. 

These fundamental objectives of our great Nation are not easily won. The 

terrorists and tyrants, the opponents of peace and freedom, are not passively watching

from the sidelines. They are actively engaged in efforts to undermine the United States 

and our allies, and these efforts include some dimension of intelligence activities directed 

against us. Specifically, foreign adversaries seek to: 

• penetrate, collect, and compromise our national security secrets (including 

sensitive information, plans, technology, activities, and operations) to advance 

their interests and defeat United States objectives. 

• manipulate and distort the facts and reality presented to United States policymakers by manipulating the intelligence we gather, and by conducting covert 

influence operations. 

• detect, disrupt and counter national security operations including clandestine 

collection and special activities, special operations, other sensitive intelligence, 

and military and diplomatic activities.

• acquire critical technologies and other sensitive information to enhance their 

military capabilities or to achieve an economic advantage. 

Collectively, these foreign intelligence activities present a threat to the Nation’s security 

and prosperity. The United States requires national, systematic, and well-defined policies 

to counter them. A key to success in defeating these threats is a strategic 

counterintelligence response that supports the National Security Strategy. 

The National Counterintelligence Strategy of the United States has four essential 

objectives: 

• Identify, assess, neutralize, and exploit the intelligence activities of foreign 

powers, terrorist groups, international criminal organizations, and other entities 

who seek to do us harm. 

• Protect our intelligence collection and analytic capabilities from adversary denial, 

penetration, influence, or manipulation.

National Counterintelligence Strategy of the United States 1
• Help enable the successful execution of our sensitive national security operations. 

• Help safeguard our vital national security secrets, critical assets, and technologies 

against theft, covert foreign diversion, or exploitation. 

To achieve these objectives, we will draw upon the full range of 

counterintelligence capabilities including counterespionage, counter-deception, and 

offensive operations against hostile intelligence activities. Each of these national security 

tools must be strategically driven and employed to protect the United States from foreign 

threats, and to advance our national interests. 

This document sets forth the national counterintelligence strategy of the United 

States in the context of our broad national security objectives and the foreign intelligence 

threats we face. 

2 National Counterintelligence Strategy of the United States 
COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY

America faces substantial challenges to its security, freedom and prosperity. To 

meet them we must defeat global terrorism, counter weapons of mass destruction, ensure 

the security of the homeland, transform defense capabilities, foster cooperation with other 

global powers, and promote global economic growth. Our ability to meet these 

challenges is threatened by the intelligence activities of traditional and non-traditional 

foreign powers. Foreign intelligence services and others (e.g., terrorists, foreign criminal 

enterprises, cyber intruders, etc.) use clandestine activities and operations to harm and 

disadvantage U.S. national security interests. Counterintelligence is a key strategic 

national security tool that we use to defeat these foreign threats. 

I. We will extend the safeguards of strategic counterintelligence to the 

Global War on Terrorism. 

During the Cold War, our adversaries gained access to vital secrets of the most 

closely guarded institutions of our national security establishment. These included the 

clandestine, technical, and analytic directorates of the CIA; the counterintelligence 

division of the FBI; sensitive National Security Agency operations; Naval intelligence 

operations; nuclear weapons information; cryptographic keys for our secure 

communications; operational war plans for the defense of Europe; and plans for ensuring 

the survival of United States leadership in the event of war. 

These peacetime losses resulted in grave damage in terms of secrets 

compromised, intelligence sources and methods degraded, and lives lost. Moreover, 

these compromises could have had even greater consequences had we been forced to go 

to war. Today we are engaged in a war on terrorism which has invaded our shores and 

threatens Americans around the globe. In this war, the potential consequences of 

counterintelligence failures are more immediate than during the Cold War, and put in 

jeopardy our combat operations, deployed forces, intelligence officers, diplomats, and 

other U.S. citizens. 

Terrorist groups gain significantly when they have the support of state sponsors, 

which means that the intelligence services of these regimes can be links in the global 

terrorist support network. In Afghanistan and Iraq, we have seen limited examples where 

enemy intelligence operations have enabled terrorists to target Americans. In addition, 

Al Qaida and other terrorist organizations have employed classic intelligence methods to 

gather information, recruit sources, and run assets. In order to operate clandestinely, 

terrorist groups often act like intelligence organizations by conducting pre-operational 

planning, compartmented operations, covert communications, and training. The global 

National Counterintelligence Strategy of the United States 3
war on terrorism requires an effective counterintelligence strategy to help counter these 

hostile activities. 

II. U.S. counterintelligence will shift from a reactive posture to a 

proactive strategy of seizing advantage. 

If the purpose of intelligence operations and analysis is to understand an 

adversary’s plans and intentions, the purpose of counterintelligence is to be aware of and 

exploit the adversary’s intelligence operations. We need to be aggressive and creative in 

exposing the activities of foreign intelligence services. Utilizing a proactive 

counterintelligence strategy can help identify specific intelligence collection techniques, 

and gauge an appropriate response to counter the interests of an adversary. This requires 

a tighter coupling between organizations that collect foreign intelligence, and 

counterintelligence organizations, in order to fully exploit collection, analysis, and 

offensive operations. We need to incorporate counterintelligence considerations into 

strategic and tactical planning, operations, and training. The Intelligence Reform and 

Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which created a Director of National Intelligence, with 

a National Counterintelligence Executive under the Director, takes a significant step 

toward increasing community-wide coordination. 

Since 1985, nearly 80 Americans have been arrested for crimes related to passing 

classified information to foreign governments. These spies were able to operate 

undetected for too long with disastrous results. 

• The Walker ring in the Navy – over 17 years. 

• The Conrad group in the U.S. Army – over 18 years. 

• The Ames case in CIA – over 9 years. 

• The Hanssen case in the FBI – over 21 years. 

• The Montes case in DIA – over 15 years. 

Although each of these cases represents an individual success in terms of a 

criminal prosecution, taken as a whole they reveal a larger systemic vulnerability in our 

national security. In the past, a comprehensive focus was lacking in the intelligence

community’s approach to protecting secrets. The counterintelligence mission must be 

transformed into a more coordinated, community-wide effort to help neutralize 

penetrations of our government. Within the United States, we must transform both our 

operational and analytical focus from a case-driven approach to a more strategic 

assessment of an adversary’s presence, capabilities and intentions. Strategic 

4 National Counterintelligence Strategy of the United States 
counterintelligence analysis must drive operations. This requires looking beyond 

customary targets, such as known intelligence officers, to a larger population of foreign 

visitors and others whose activities suggest they might be involved in intelligence 

collection activities against the United States.

III. U.S. counterintelligence will help protect the sensitive technologies 

that are the backbone of our security. 

The U.S. national defense strategy is based on a continuous transformation that 

utilizes cutting-edge capabilities, and places a premium on sensitive technologies that 

provide an advantage. Plans that ensure strategic superiority can be jeopardized if 

essential secrets are stolen and incorporated into an adversary’s weapons systems. The 

United States spends billions of dollars developing weapons systems, which often rest on 

essential technological secrets. If foreign intelligence services steal these technological 

secrets, both our resource investment and our national security advantage are lost. 

Today, more than 90 countries target sensitive U.S. technologies. Many employ 

collection techniques that extend beyond simple clandestine operations, and include 

tasking visiting businessmen, scientists, foreign students, trade shows, and debriefing 

visitors upon their return home. Counterintelligence planning and execution must 

proceed from a national counterintelligence strategy and be an inherent part of the 

mission at research laboratories, defense establishments, and with partners in industry. 

Counterintelligence and security considerations should not be an afterthought imposed on 

scientists, researchers, and those who develop sensitive technology. Coordinated and 

integrated counterintelligence information and analysis will be made available to senior 

government leaders, and, when appropriate, to security managers in the private sector. 

Comprehensive risk management, valid security practices, and an informed 

strategic worldview are among the best guarantors of success against foreign intelligence 

threats. We will reach out to the private sector, especially those in the science and 

technology community, to increase intelligence threat awareness by providing threat 

information, and educating these audiences to the variety of ways our adversaries acquire 

and steal information. 

The departments and agencies charged with protecting the homeland are building 

new channels for information sharing across government, including at the state and local 

level, with private industry, and with foreign partners. We must ensure our adversaries 

do not exploit these new arrangements, which could defeat the very goal of information 

sharing. In the global war on terrorism, we have entered into partnerships with foreign 

governments and international organizations whose many views and interests may be 

different from our own. We must ensure that intelligence sharing is measured against 

potential risks and that sensitive intelligence sources, methods, and operations are 

safeguarded.

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IV. U.S. counterintelligence will safeguard the integrity of intelligence 

operations and analysis, and defeat foreign intelligence operations. 

Intelligence is vital to the formulation and execution of U.S. national security 

policy and to the Nation’s security. Today, the integrity of our intelligence is 

increasingly challenged as adversaries seek to deny us insight into their plans and mislead 

our decision-makers. Therefore, ensuring the reliability of intelligence becomes a key 

function of counterintelligence and is a necessary precondition to its very usefulness. 

Foreign intelligence services have acquired significant amounts of our classified 

information, including sensitive U.S. intelligence capabilities. As a result of this 

knowledge, some countries have become very adept at deceiving and misleading us. 

These foreign powers attempt to present a false picture of reality through denial and 

deception operations which increases our uncertainty about their capabilities and 

intentions. It is the goal of counterintelligence operations and analysis to pierce that false 

picture, and the threats posed by these adversaries.

An intelligence capability is only as strong as the counterintelligence practices 

that ensure its integrity. Significant failures in counterintelligence can result in 

significant failures in positive or foreign intelligence. For example, while a given 

collection system may yield a wealth of intelligence, it may be useless and misleading if 

it has been corrupted to show only what an adversary wants us to see. While there are no 

guarantees that our intelligence collection efforts and our analysis are always accurate, 

we must establish rigorous procedures to help ensure the integrity of the intelligence that 

reaches decision-makers. Counterintelligence can supply techniques by which the 

reliability of a collection system, the bona fides of an asset, or the accuracy of an analytic 

judgment can be validated to ensure its integrity. 

V. U.S. counterintelligence will seek to ensure a level economic playing 

field so that business and industry are not disadvantaged by foreign 

intelligence operations. 

The United States is a nation of commerce and we value the freedom of trade as 

both a personal liberty and a cornerstone of national wealth. However, if adversaries can 

exploit the technological accomplishments of industry and gain an unfair advantage, not 

all trade inures to the Nation's good. While most foreign economic competition is open 

and lawful, it is not exclusively so. Some business competitors, supported by foreign 

intelligence services, employ classic intelligence methods in an attempt to gain an 

advantage over American companies. The outflow of sensitive trade secrets and 

proprietary information erodes our comparative economic advantage, and undermines 

national security. Foreign companies that unlawfully acquire U.S. technology are able to

6 National Counterintelligence Strategy of the United States 
compete unfairly against U.S. firms, which bear heavy research and development costs 

associated with innovative technology. 

As our economy moves toward dependency on the benefits of information 

technology and networked data systems, our economic well-being and our national 

security could become vulnerable to foreign intelligence intrusion and manipulation of 

our cyber systems. We must ensure that we identify, understand, and counter these 

threats. 

We will seek to identify foreign intelligence operations conducted against U.S. 

business and industry and we will provide the appropriate threat information to enable 

them to take such risk mitigation measures as they deem prudent. 

VI. The intelligence community will ensure that counterintelligence 

analytic products are available to the President and his national security 

team to inform decisions. 

To the extent we can observe them, the intelligence activities of foreign powers 

are a window into their respective interests and plans. Insights into the foreign 

intelligence activities of others can confirm or shape the prospects for cooperation. 

Effective counterintelligence analysis can connect the seemingly detached, illuminate 

hidden relationships, and reveal patterns of activity and behavior previously not 

observed. In this manner, counterintelligence can supply unique insights into the actions 

of our adversaries and the actions directed against us, as well as provide opportunities for 

advancing our own interests. 

Counterintelligence represents a philosophic approach that can help bring 

coherence to many areas of national policy. Effective counterintelligence and security 

are integral to program efficiency, combat, and operational effectiveness, and foreign 

policy success. For each national security program, military endeavor, and foreign policy 

undertaking, there should be consideration for a corresponding counterintelligence plan 

to help ensure success. 

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BUILDING A NATIONAL COUNTERINTELLIGENCE SYSTEM

The counterintelligence capabilities of the United States evolved over time to fit 

the shape and mission of the disparate institutions in which they are housed. The defined 

missions of some counterintelligence elements are non-specific, and taken together, these 

missions do not necessarily provide a response equal to the breadth of the threats arrayed 

against the United States. Together with their parent national security agencies, these 

counterintelligence elements must transform to meet the threats of the 21st Century. 

Until recently, counterintelligence was an enterprise with no single leadership 

voice. The counterintelligence community’s structure was fragmented and too tactically 

oriented to provide comprehensive protection to the Nation. The community was not 

designed to accomplish a strategic mission; rather, the various counterintelligence 

elements were part of a loose confederation of independent organizations with narrow

and differing responsibilities, jurisdictions, and capabilities. Operations tended to focus 

on individual cases and were conducted with insufficient strategic overview of the 

potential impact of a synergistic effort. 

In the future, each member of the counterintelligence community must be 

prepared to assume new responsibilities, and join together in a unity of effort, as the

National Counterintelligence Strategy matures. To be effective, the National 

Counterintelligence Strategy requires that essential processes and features be inculcated 

into government structures and business models. A national system is needed to 

integrate, direct, and enhance United States counterintelligence in support of national 

security decision-making. The features of the National Counterintelligence System

include: 

National policy leadership and strategic direction. The Director of National 

Intelligence and the National Counterintelligence Executive, supported by the National 

Counterintelligence Policy Board, will chart the national counterintelligence mission and 

will direct and coordinate the resources of the counterintelligence community to 

accomplish a number of national-level goals including: 

• A national program for counterintelligence activities that is strategic, coordinated, 

and comprehensive in understanding foreign intelligence threats. 

• An array of strategic counterintelligence operational and informational options in 

foreign and defense policy for the President and his national security leadership 

team. 

• A comprehensive assessment and description of foreign intelligence threats and 

risks to United States national security interests. 

 National Counterintelligence Strategy of the United States 9
• The allocation of counterintelligence community resources prioritized against risk 

and opportunity. 

• Specific counterintelligence policies for attacking foreign intelligence services 

systematically via strategic counterintelligence operations. 

Facilities for cross-agency and cross-disciplinary work. Executing the national 

counterintelligence mission requires the careful orchestration and integration of many 

centers of analytic and operational expertise throughout the government. The Director of 

National Intelligence and the National Counterintelligence Executive will examine the 

need to establish a national counterintelligence center to integrate threat data, refine 

collection requirements, and provide a basis for initiating and supporting 

counterintelligence operations. 

Damage assessment process. When national security secrets are lost through espionage 

or other disclosures, we must assess the loss and impact in order to mitigate damage. In 

the past, damage assessments received too limited a distribution because of security 

concerns. We must apply the lessons learned from damage assessments to ensure future 

vulnerabilities are mitigated. This will require the counterintelligence community take a 

more centralized approach to these assessments. We will improve the process to support 

more timely and thorough damage assessments, and ensure the findings are made 

available to decision-makers with relevant responsibilities.

Resources and performance measurement. The success of any intelligence initiative, 

sensitive technology development, or national security program depends in part on 

effective counterintelligence and security. In the past, counterintelligence support was

viewed as an unfunded or underfunded mandate with little consideration of requirements or 

costs. The planning and budgeting processes should ensure that dedicated funding for 

counterintelligence and security requirements is integrated into sensitive plans and 

programs. We should seek to ensure the best use of resources is measured against the 

National Counterintelligence Strategy by including performance metrics to chart progress 

against strategic goals and objectives. 

Training and standardization of the counterintelligence cadre. The training and 

education of collectors, analysts, investigators, and operators in the counterintelligence 

community has not always been equal to the performance we have demanded of them. 

The complexity of this subject requires a mastery of many disciplines and skills. The 

counterintelligence profession needs a set of common standards across many 

counterintelligence missions. We need to reach across departments and agencies to find 

centers of training excellence, address deficiencies, and upgrade the availability and 

uniformity of training. 

10 National Counterintelligence Strategy of the United States 
Intelligence warning process. The discipline of counterintelligence, with its focus on 

patterns of and anomalies in activities and behaviors, can provide unique insights into 

foreign intelligence capabilities and intentions. We must ensure the perspectives gained 

from counterintelligence operations and analysis are incorporated into the intelligence 

indication and warning process. 

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CONCLUSION

At the dawn of the 21st Century, the prospects for freedom, peace and prosperity 

have never been brighter. Yet we are a Nation at war, and we have suffered grievous 

attacks on our homeland. The threats we face are grave and diverse, and the intelligence 

threats that accompany them are equally complex. To respond to these threats, The 

National Counterintelligence Strategy of the United States calls for a proactive response 

utilizing all of our counterintelligence resources. 

The components of this strategic response include: 

• improvements to each of our counterintelligence capabilities to meet the 

range of foreign intelligence threats: human, technical and cyber. 

• all-source counterintelligence analysis and strategic planning to drive 

operations in order to identify, assess, neutralize and exploit foreign 

intelligence activities before they can do harm to the United States. 

• coordination, integration, and strategic orchestration of the activities of the

counterintelligence elements of the government. 

• counterintelligence support to, and involvement by, all national security 

policy elements of the government. 

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NCIX Publication 

Number 2005-10007 

March 2005 
Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive 

March 2005