Critical Releases in Homeland Security: March 9, 2022

From the Foreword: "In the coming year, the United States and its allies will face an increasingly complex and interconnected global security environment marked by the growing specter of great power competition and conflict, while collective, transnational threats to all nations and actors compete for our attention and finite resources. These challenges will play out amidst the continued global disruption resulting from the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic, contention over global efforts to deal with a changing climate, increasingly powerful non-state actors, and rapidly evolving technology, all within the context of an evolving world order where the continued diffusion of power is leading actors to reassess their place and capabilities in an increasingly multipolar world. These challenges will intersect and interact in unpredictable ways, leading to mutually reinforcing effects that could challenge our ability to respond, but also introducing new opportunities to forge collective action with allies and partners against both the renewed threat of nation-state aggression and emerging threats to human security. The 2022 Annual Threat Assessment highlights some of those connections as it provides the Intelligence Community's (IC's) baseline assessments of the most pressing threats to U.S. national interests, while emphasizing the United States' key adversaries and competitors. It is not an exhaustive assessment of all global challenges and notably excludes assessments of U.S. adversaries' vulnerabilities. It accounts for functional concerns, such as weapons of mass destruction and cyber, primarily in the sections on threat actors, such as China and Russia."

From the Executive Summary: "President Biden came into office facing the worst public health crisis in more than a century. COVID-19 [Coronavirus Disease 2019] was wreaking havoc on our country - closing our businesses, keeping our kids out of school, and forcing us into isolation and lockdown as our first line of defense. Americans lacked the tools we needed to protect ourselves and our families. Our country needed an emergency response that was worthy of the crisis we faced. A response that would leave no stone unturned, that would leverage the full force of the federal government, the innovation of the private sector, and the determination of the American people. On President Biden's first full day in office, he released the first-ever comprehensive 'National Strategy for the COVID Response' [hyperlink]. This strategy focuses on building a response to this virus that would give people the tools they needed to protect themselves, reopen our schools, and get our economy moving again. [...] Today, the U.S. government is releasing an update to our National Strategy -- the National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan -- which will help move America forward safely. This plan lays out the roadmap to help us fight COVID-19 in the future as we move America from crisis to a time when COVID-19 does not disrupt our daily lives and is something we prevent, protect against, and treat."