Leadership Dinner

On November 14, 2024, more than 300 intelligence and national security professionals gathered in McLean, VA for a Leadership Dinner with Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. View event photos!

In his prepared remarks, General Kruse addressed how the U.S. is not just in an era of strategic competition, but also of strategic change. He presented three macro-level trends that both government and industry must address. First, there has been a dramatic shift from a rules-based international environment to one based on raw power. Second, is a “shift from a unipolar world to the multiverse,” which refers to the constantly changing nature of multipolar actors and a shift from a fact-based reality to a manufactured or aspirational reality brought forward by AI. The final macro trend reflects the shift from efficiency to resiliency as it applies to networks, supply chains, critical infrastructure, space, and even our workforce. There is a need for both government and industry to reorganize how we design, build, and secure each of these domains.

Director Kruse addressed DIA’s goals, focusing on strategic competition, advanced technology, high-end adversaries, multi-concurrent regional conflicts, shifting alliances, and new war-fighting communities. He also addressed a desire to drive public awareness on threats, noting how DIA has published unclassified publications on space, North Korea, Iran, and China. Director Kruse announced an unclassified paper on Russian Military Power, which DIA intends to publish by the end of the year.

General Kruse finalized his remarks by addressing some of DIA’s Emerging Strategic Objectives. The first element of their emerging strategy is to outpace strategic competitors by delivering insights and capabilities that apply to a full spectrum of competition, crisis, and combat. The second objective is what he refers to as “sustained global overwatch,” which is a safety net that provides an understanding into other emerging threats that might not have been the core focus in the past. The third objective focuses on advancing enterprise integration. On October 3, DIA was designated as the enterprise lead to manage a unified intelligence picture. Additional objectives focus on partnerships, developing a world-class workforce, and securing interoperable digital foundations.

He closed by answering the question, “What keeps me up at night?” He explained that it is not the threat of a specific adversary, instead, it is about how we secure our networks, data, and people. The solution to this comes from partnerships with industry and academia, as well as all our national security organizations.

Following dinner, General Kruse sat down with INSA Chairwoman Letitia A. Long for a moderated Q&A. The conversation touched on network security, strategic competition with Russia, China, and North Korea, space-based threats and commercial imagery, partnerships with industry, integration of AI on JWICS and IT Modernization, the Common Intelligence Picture Project, and more.