COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment— Overview of Issues and Further Reading for Congress

"Some observers argue the COVID-19 pandemic could be a world-changing event with potentially profound and long-lasting implications for the international security environment and the U.S. role in the world. Other observers are more skeptical that the COVID-19 pandemic will have such effects.

Observers who argue the COVID-19 pandemic could be world-changing for the international security environment and the U.S. role in the world have focused on several areas of potential change, including the following, which are listed here separately but overlap in some cases and can interact with one another:
 world order, international institutions, and global governance;
 U.S. global leadership and the U.S. role in the world;
 China’s potential role as a global leader;
 U.S. relations and great power competition with China and Russia, including the use of the COVID-19 pandemic as a theme or tool for conducting ideological competition;
 the relative prevalence of democratic and authoritarian or autocratic forms of government;
  societal tension, reform, transformation, and governmental stability in various countries;  the world economy, globalization, and U.S. trade policy;
 the characteristics and conduct of conflict;
 allied defense budgets and U.S. alliances;
 the cohesion of the European Union;
 the definition of, and budgeting for, U.S. national security;
 U.S. defense strategy, defense budgets, and military operations;
 U.S. foreign assistance programs and international debt relief;
 activities of non-state actors;
 the amount of U.S. attention devoted to ongoing international issues other than the COVID-19 pandemic; and
 the role of Congress in setting and overseeing the execution of U.S. foreign and defense policy.

Issues for Congress may include whether and how the COVID-19 pandemic could change the international security environment, whether the Trump Administration’s actions for responding to such change are appropriate and sufficient, and what implications such change could have for the role of Congress in setting and overseeing the execution of U.S. foreign and defense policy.

Congress’s decisions regarding these issues could have significant and even profound implications for U.S. foreign and defense policy, and for the status of Congress as a co-equal branch relative to the executive branch in setting and overseeing the implementation of U.S. foreign and defense policy...."
COVID-19 and international security 

A Shift in the International Security Environment: Potential Implications for Defense—Issues for Congress

"World events have led some observers, starting in late 2013, to conclude that the international security environment has undergone a shift from the familiar post-Cold War era of the past 20 to 25 years, also sometimes known as the unipolar moment (with the United States as the unipolar power), to a new and different situation that features, among other things, renewed great power competition with China and Russia and challenges by these two countries and others to elements of the U.S.-led international order that has operated since World War II.

A previous change in the international security environment—the shift in the late 1980s and early 1990s from the Cold War to the post-Cold War era—prompted a broad reassessment by the Department of Defense (DOD) and Congress of defense funding levels, strategy, and missions that led to numerous changes in DOD plans and programs. Many of these changes were articulated in the 1993 Bottom-Up Review (BUR), a reassessment of U.S. defense plans and programs whose very name conveyed the fundamental nature of the reexamination that had occurred..."
International security

Background to “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution

"Background to “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution

 “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections” is a declassified version of a highly classified assessment that has been provided to the President and to recipients approved by the President.

 The Intelligence Community rarely can publicly reveal the full extent of its knowledge or the precise bases for its assessments, as the release of such information would reveal sensitive sources or methods and imperil the ability to collect critical foreign intelligence in the future.

 Thus, while the conclusions in the report are all reflected in the classified assessment, the declassified report does not and cannot include the full supporting information, including specific intelligence and sources and methods..."
Russian hacking activities

Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, March 2008
"The strategic goal of the United States in Iraq remains a unified, democratic and federal Iraq that can govern, defend and sustain itself and is an ally in the war on terror. This goal is being pursued along political, security, economic and diplomatic lines of operation. This report measures progress toward achieving that goal during the reporting period (December 2007 through February 2008) and challenges to the Iraqi and Coalition efforts to achieve their mutual objectives."