In Next President’s Inbox: 10 Global Nightmares

Tom Nagorski is the Managing Editor for The Cipher Brief. He previously served as Global Editor for Grid and served as ABC News Managing Editor for International Coverage as well as Senior Broadcast Producer for World News Tonight.

– As a divided nation hurtles towards the election, and officials worry about politically-driven violence, potential nightmares abound for the next commander-in-chief. Put simply, the 47th president of the United States will face an unprecedented array of global and national security threats.

Major wars are raging in Europe and the Middle East, powerful U.S. adversaries are acting in concert, China poses threats on many fronts, and fresh dangers lurk in the realms of cybersecurity and artificial intelligence as well.

In this special report, we lay out ten such threats, drawn from assessments made — in articles, public events, and at the recent Cipher Brief 2024 Threat Conference — by members of our network of experts. It’s a subjective exercise – different experts are worried about different issues – but on one point there is no disagreement: it’s a profoundly challenging inbox for the next commander-in-chief.

Soon after the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, and the Israeli invasion of Gaza that followed, intelligence agencies issued warnings of terrorism inspired by the war — in particular by the toll of dead and wounded Palestinians. One year later, more than 40,000 Gazans have been killed and nearly 100,000 wounded, and those terror warnings have proved prescient.

At the recent Cipher Brief conference, Brett Holmgren, acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), was blunt: “The Israel-Hamas conflict is emerging as the most consequential event impacting global terrorism in the last decade,” Holmgren said, citing at least 19 attacks and 21 disrupted plots in more than 20 countries, for which the Gaza war had served as “a primary motivational factor.”

Holmgren and other top U.S. officials worry that this is the tip of an iceberg, involving what Avril Haines, head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), calls “a new generation of terrorists” inspired by the war in Gaza – and now in Lebanon as well.

Former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers told The Cipher Brief last month that while the global terrorism threat had not reached “pre-9/11 levels…the conditions for it are certainly there. And now with the wars in the Middle East and the situation in Gaza, this will accelerate global jihadism again.”

Among those “conditions,” Vickers and other experts highlight the growing number of global safe havens for jihadists.

Ahmad Zia Saraj, the last head of Afghan intelligence before the 2021 Taliban takeover, told The Cipher Brief that since the U.S. withdrawal, Afghanistan has become “a utopia for jihadi groups,” thanks to Taliban support and large numbers of young and poor recruits. “The [jihadist groups] have free or very cheap manpower,” Saraj said. “So this makes Afghanistan a place where they can accomplish a lot.”

Every report we’ve done on this subject, and every new briefing from officials and experts who monitor the technology, has been more frightening than the last. A decade ago, drone weapons were limited to the arsenals of the U.S. and a few other global powers; the weapons themselves were inaccurate or unreliable or — if they performed well — prohibitively expensive. Today, advances in technology have made them cheaper and easier to obtain; and artificial intelligence has opened the way to higher-end drone weapons that can actually “communicate” with one another, in swarm-like attacks.

These weapons – high- and low-end both – have been on frequent display in Ukraine and the Middle East. And while Ukraine has created a large-scale domestic drone industry, several U.S. adversaries have as well. China dominates global drone production, and Iranian drone weapons are in play on multiple fronts – used by Russia against Ukraine, supplied to Hamas and Hezbollah to attack Israel, and provided to the Houthis in Yemen, who have used drone weapons to attack vessels in the Red Sea.

If it seems a distant threat, consider what the autonomous weapons expert Zachary Kallenborn told The Cipher Brief, when asked about scenarios that keep him up at night.

“You send a whole bunch of drones equipped with facial recognition, and search Capitol Hill for different congressmen who voted on a particular bill terrorists didn’t like,” Kallenborn said. “They could narrow the search to target only those people – no staffers, civilians, anything like that. Only those particular congressmen. Ideal, from the terrorists’ perspective.”

Kallenborn and others see a long list of such possibilities – agricultural drones “which are more or less ready-made chemical biological weapons delivery systems” is another worrisome one – and experts fear that the advances in technology and affordability may outpace the capability to defend against them.

“The bottom line is we are going to have to completely rethink the way we defend against drone armies – on land, air, sea, and undersea,” said Cipher Brief expert and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Philip Breedlove. “And I think we have a ways to go. ”

Fears of “World War III” are raised all too often these days, in different contexts and involving different parts of the world. Our list of global threats includes three scenarios that have surfaced under that heading.

In the Mideast version, the events play out like this: Iran and/or its proxy armies are joined in war against the U.S. and Israel; Russia takes the side of Iran, returning the favor of Iranian support in Ukraine; global terror threats and attacks follow; the Gulf states and others are pulled in.

There’s a range of opinions on the likelihood of such a conflagration. Pessimists worry that Israel will strike harder than it has thus far against Iran, and that Iran – after only limited responses to date – will feel it must retaliate with greater force. Last week, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that Israel now has “greater freedom of action in Iran than ever.” That sounded like a prescription for more Israeli attacks, and a possible escalatory spiral.

The more optimistic view? Israel has so degraded Iran’s proxy armies, and laid bare Iran’s own limitations in terms of air defense, that Iran may be unable (or unwilling) to climb what Cipher Brief expert Gen. Frank McKenzie, a former head of U.S. Central Command, has called the “escalation ladder” of conflict with Israel.

“Israel’s attacks…have undermined Iran’s entire regional security strategy to an extent that may not yet be appreciated,” Norman Roule, former National Intelligence Manager for Iran at ODNI, told us last week.

At the Cipher Brief Threat Conference, CIA Director William Burns warned of “the very real danger of a further regional escalation of conflict…the risk of a further escalation between Iran and Israel.” And in an interview last month, Gen. McKenzie argued that the much-feared “wider war” between Israel and Iran had already begun (and that was before Israel’s latest counterattack).

So – not “World War III” by any means, but still uncharted territory for the Middle East.

Nation-State Hacker Attacks on Critical Infrastructure

This nightmare gets less attention — much to the dismay of experts in the intelligence community who worry about it constantly. Cyber experts within the Cipher Brief community regularly sound the alarm: America’s critical infrastructure is at grave risk from hackers — some interested in ransom payments, others working for America’s adversaries — and the U.S. is unprepared to deal with the threat.

As Harry Coker, Jr., the White House National Cyber Director, put it at the Threat Conference, “We cannot lose sight of the fact that critical infrastructure is under steady attack.”

The problem, in a nutshell: because the nation’s water supply and electrical grid and other key infrastructure systems are decentralized, and only as secure as their weakest links, they are all prime targets for cyber attacks. And America’s adversaries are taking advantage.

Of particular concern: cyber criminals tied to China who have probed and occasionally breached American infrastructure – often in remote, poorly-protected areas. The fear is that these probes are meant to give China the ability, in the event of a future U.S.-China conflict, to cause havoc for millions of Americans.

Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, a Cipher Brief expert and former Executive Director of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, believes the nation’s water supply is at greatest risk.

“It combines this perfect storm of ‘not ready,’” he said, adding that recent research showed water supply systems lacked proper security, infrastructure, and public-private collaboration. “All three elements were missing,” Montgomery said. “It’s extremely vulnerable.”

There are dozens of other potential nightmares in this space, and a recent Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assessment suggested more were on the way.

“Domestic and foreign adversaries almost certainly will continue to threaten the integrity of our critical infrastructure with disruptive and destructive cyber and physical attacks,” the DHS said, “because they perceive targeting these sectors will have cascading impacts on U.S. industries and our standard of living.”

This threat is perhaps best measured by the number of experts and newly-minted organizations working to mitigate the danger. That danger is simple and profound: AI can now mimic legitimate sources of information, and U.S. adversaries will use that ability to spew disinformation and sow discord among Americans.

Last month, National Intelligence Council Acting Chair Michael Collins told The Cipher Brief that of all the issues that cross his desk, AI-driven disinformation is “the one that bothers me the most. Because at its core, what we’re talking about is the ability of an adversary to tell a different story without the same degree of accountability or standards controlling what their approach is to the truth – or the lack thereof.”

Among the scenarios: a fake video purports to show a political candidate saying something offensive to the electorate; an AI-created statement spreads false information about an act of terrorism; a replica of a trusted news organization spreads a conspiracy theory. The list is long. And many such “scenarios” are already happening.

Ellen McCarthy, a Cipher Brief expert and former Assistant Secretary of State who now runs the Trust in Media Cooperative, has argued for information standards – just as food and medicine are labeled and certified – to help mitigate the threat.

“We need to prove that if people understand what’s in the information they’re consuming, they will make different choices,” McCarthy said.

That’s the hope. The danger – given the fast pace of AI growth and all those who use it to spread disinformation – is that the good guys face an uphill climb.

The latest DHS Threat Assessment warned that “China, Iran, and Russia will use a blend of subversive, undeclared, criminal, and coercive tactics to seek new opportunities to undermine confidence in U.S. democratic institutions and domestic social cohesion. Advances in AI likely will enable foreign adversaries to increase the output, timeliness, and perceived authenticity of their mis-, dis-, and malinformation designed to influence US audiences.”

This may be the most distant threat on this list – but if and when it happens, a full-blown conflict over Taiwan would be an unprecedented nightmare. More accurately, multiple nightmares: horrors for the region; a potential U.S.-China conflict; and — given Taiwan’s role as the world’s premier manufacturer of microchips – a nightmare for the global economy as well.

“The sense on timing, given what [China’s leader] Xi Jinping is saying to his people and what he’s doing to prepare his forces and to insulate his economy…is that something is likely within single-digit years,” Rear Admiral Mike Studeman, former Commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence, told The Cipher Brief. “There’s a deep concern and it’s resulting in a lot of preparations.”

The reunification of Taiwan with mainland China has been a core tenet for Beijing since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, and Xi has suggested he may use force to make it happen. In May, China dropped language from a government paper referencing “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan, and following the inauguration of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, who is viewed by Beijing as a separatist, China launched “punishment” military drills near Taiwan. It has since held regular exercises to plan for either an invasion or blockade of the island.

The Chinese government increased its defense spending by 7.2% this year, part of a military buildup and modernization that are widely seen as preparation should Xi order an assault against Taiwan.

Bottom line: this isn’t a Day-One crisis for the next U.S. president, but it may well surface during his/her term.

This threat has made few headlines, but it certainly belongs on this list. Biosecurity experts are worried that governments haven’t done enough to limit the risk of terrorists using AI models to create biological weapons.

It’s a classic example of the tug between the good and the frightening potential of AI: on the one hand, AI holds life-changing potential when it comes to helping scientists develop new medicines and vaccines; at the same time, it may be a tool for would-be bioterrorists.

At the Threat Conference, Jennifer Ewbank, a former CIA Deputy Director for Digital Innovation, said she was “very concerned about the application of AI in biological weapons by unsavory actors.” While “everyone wants to talk” about AI and the nuclear threat, Ewbank said, the barriers to creating a bioweapon were much lower. “The ability to either jailbreak a model, or leverage an open source model in a manipulative way to understand how to create bespoke bio weapons – that is a real and genuine threat.”

A recent report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security warned that in the near future, AI models may “greatly accelerate or simplify the reintroduction of dangerous extinct viruses or dangerous viruses that only exist now within research labs.”

Thomas Inglesby, the Hopkins center’s director, told The Cipher Brief that the U.S. and other countries must create systems and guardrails against the danger.

“The concern is that these [AI] models will simplify, enable and lower the barriers toward creating very high-consequence biological constructs,” Inglesby said. “And whether that then results in accidents or deliberate misuse, that could lead to very, wide-ranging biological events – epidemics, even pandemics. That’s the concern.”

What if the worriers are right? What if Vladimir Putin, backed into a corner, with no possible route to victory, actually does resort to the tactical nuclear option? Or to an attack against NATO nations?

On the one hand, it’s a highly unlikely scenario at the moment, given recent Russian battlefield gains. And experts note that these would likely be suicidal options for Putin.

“The Ukrainians have crossed every red line that the Russians have put down,” former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus told The Cipher Brief. “I think the threat has proven to be hollow, and is still hollow.”

But losing the current war might also be suicidal for Putin, in a different way. And as Julia Davis, the creator of Russian Media Monitor, told The Cipher Brief, Kremlin-friendly propagandists have repeatedly urged Putin to use the nuclear option against Ukraine.

“They don’t actually believe that the Russian government is insane enough to start using nuclear weapons against the West,” Davis said. “However, they do believe that the Russian government might use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine if things look like they’re losing.”

“Right now I think nobody a hundred percent dismisses those threats that are coming from Putin, or some of his ‘red lines,’” Dave Pitts, a former Assistant Director of CIA for South and Central Asia, told The Cipher Brief.

And while CIA Director Burns told the Threat Conference that he doubted Putin would choose the nuclear option, he added that “Russia is the only other nuclear power in the world today, at least comparable to the United States. So we can’t take [Putin’s threats] that lightly.”

In every recent U.S. presidential transition, North Korea has ranked high on the list of global threats passed on to the incoming administration. Now North Korea is back in the headlines – for a new reason.

North Korea’s deployment of thousands of troops to Russia has stunned policymakers and experts around the world – even those who were already sounding the alarm over the North’s military aid to Moscow.

Various intelligence agencies say between 8,000-12,000 soldiers from the North have been sent to the fight. It’s the first time a third country’s forces have been deployed in the nearly three-year-old war, and their appearance in Russia’s Kursk region – where Ukrainian troops have seized 400 square miles of territory – came in the same week that North Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time this year.

Cipher Brief expert Ambassador Joseph DeTrani, a former CIA director of East Asia Operations, worries that the Moscow-Pyongyang partnership carries consequences well beyond the Ukraine war. In his view, “North Korea’s enhanced allied relationship with Russia, and leader Kim Jong Un’s decision to send troops to aid Russia in its war of aggression in Ukraine, could be the prelude to war on the Korean Peninsula.”

At last month’s Threat Conference – before the North Korean deployment was public – CIA Director Burns told us that in the past year, “one of the more troubling developments has been the strengthening of the defense partnership between North Korea and Russia, with the North Koreans supplying significant quantities of artillery munitions for Russia, desperately needed by the Russians on the battlefield. Short-range ballistic missiles as well. And of course the challenge is, this is a two-way street, because the North Koreans benefit as well from this, something we watch very carefully.”

While Cipher Brief experts and U.S. officials give varying weight to different global threats, they regularly bring the conversation back to the home-grown variety.

The DHS has warned repeatedly of threats from within, most recently of “terrorism…fueled by potential extremist responses to the November election, and ongoing turmoil in the Middle East. Lone wolves and small groups represent the greatest menace.”

Vickers, the former Under Secretary of Defense, says that for all the global dangers, his greatest worry involves divisions and potential violence on the home front.

“The thing I’m most concerned about is really the domestic basis of American power,” Vickers said. “Our political fragmentation, our social divisions, the receptiveness we seem to have for disinformation and fake news.”Already there have been two attempts made on one presidential candidate’s life; the nation is less than four years removed from the attempted insurrection at the Capitol in January 2021; and by almost any assessment, the nation is more polarized now than it was then.

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