Defense Intel Agencies Use AI to Counter Advances by Iran, China

Top defense intelligence leaders said their organizations are using AI to speed acquisition and analysis in order to keep up with Iran, China, North Korean and Russian militaries.

These countries are cooperating and sharing information about countering U.S. operations. Intelligence community leaders outlined the scope of these challenges and strategic agency priorities to counter them at the AFCEA/INSA National Security Summit on Thursday.

The pace of change from adversary actions and technological developments has accelerated in the last year, said Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. James Adams.

Adversaries are becoming more confident in adopting new technologies and methods to challenge the U.S. and its allies, Adams said.

“Our adversaries are adapting. They’re coordinating. They’re becoming very brave in their attempt to move the world forward in a way that kind of runs counter to what our goals and desires are, and they’re leveraging new technology, they’re leveraging themes in our system,” Adams said.

The U.S. has also been involved in major combat operations against Iran resulting in asymmetric attacks. “That has really stressed our system,” Adams said. He added that understanding how to defeat these threats from a target analysis perspective has been a challenge.

“The landscape that we are faced with today is immensely complex, and it’s moving so quickly and so fast,” said National Security Agency Deputy Director Tim Kosiba.

This is partly due to the rapid advance of AI technology. “What we’re faced with today is absolutely transformational from a technological perspective,” he said.

Because the landscape is changing so rapidly, the U.S. must adapt with speed, Kosiba said. This must be done at an unprecedented pace because adversaries are using advanced tools to win their strategic goals.

“We absolutely have to win this, and we are prepared to win, and we have everything in place to be able to do so,” Kosiba said.

Asymmetric Warfare Lessons

The intelligence community is responding to adversary use of asymmetric warfare techniques.

Adams noted that the most important weapon system in the War Department is the individual human. Empowering DIA personnel is vital to countering asymmetric threats.

“We need the tools to enable, empower and improve the abilities of the individual analyst, the individual warfighter, the individual policy maker,” he explained.

Key to matching asymmetric methods is understanding how to organize data in a way that eliminates analysts’ need to conduct many rote tasks that machines can perform. This would free up the analysts to focus their energy and mental agility to their analytic work, Adams said.

Walter Trynock, director of strategic initiatives at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, said NGA is shifting its acquisition strategy away from large, rigid, monolithic programs to an agile acquisition posture. Commercial systems must be compatible with an open architecture and must manage the transition to operations in classified spaces.

Commercial firms can also take advantage of NGA’s capabilities to test their systems. Trynok noted that the agency has a data lake containing more than 200 terabytes of information that can be used for tests and evaluations.

Leveraging AI

NSA is surging its acquisition and development of AI systems to meet executive order requirements for national security and cybersecurity. But while the agency is expanding its AI capabilities, it has been using AI and integrating it into systems for decades, Kosiba said.

“The transformative change that we’ve seen today is what these models can actually do, and we want access to all models, and we’re going to take advantage of that,” he explained.

Because so many users rely on NSA’s data and analysis, compliance for AI standards and governance is vital. Humans are vital for managing NSA’s AI compliance. While rules can govern some machine activities, NSA’s people provide final approval to ensure AI systems comply with laws and regulations.

The agency’s goal for AI is to help enhance its analysts’ capabilities, but not to replace them, Kosiba said.

“That creative thought process cannot be replaced by a model,” he said.

Using AI to Find needles in Bigger Haystacks

The National Reconnaissance Office is using AI to test its spacecraft, calibrate equipment and speed up operations, said Principal Deputy Director William Adkins.

Such capabilities are helping the NRO expand its satellite constellation in a more responsive fashion, he explained. As operational requirements call for bigger constellations to provide more coverage, AI is becoming useful to operate and manage them as an overall system.

AI tools help optimize intelligence community requirements, needs and priorities. These changes come at a time when the NRO is transforming many of its system to a more distributed capability for resiliency and coverage.

This expansion also meets growing customer demand for imagery at faster rates.

“We’re trying to find more needles in bigger haystacks, and we don’t have enough humans to go through all this. We have to figure how we leverage tools like AI to be able to get through that data at speed and at scale to [provide] support,” Adkins said.