Inside the Ring: CIA director battle

Neither Mr. Vickers nor Mr. Brennan could be reached for comment. Both failed to return emails asking about their candidacies for the CIA post.

China military analyst sought

The Defense Intelligence Agency is looking for a senior analyst to move to Hawaii’s U.S. Pacific Command headquarters to focus on the issue of China’s rapidly expanding military.

The new DIA analyst would advise the agency’s more than 12,000 military and civilian employees worldwide and will hold one of two senior positions as “principal China intelligence adviser and senior expert on China military operations and capabilities” for the Pacific Command’s director of intelligence, known as J-2, and the Joint Intelligence Operations Center. A second analyst focuses mainly on “China strategic issues.”

“These two [analysts] collaborate to provide integrated, authoritative advice to military commanders, senior Department of Defense (DoD) officials, and other US government agencies and US allies and partners on wide-ranging issues related to China and Taiwan,” states the Defense Department’s unusually candid announcement advertising for the position.

The new official will develop intelligence analysis on Chinese military operations and capabilities “including complex assessments that may be predictive in nature.”

The analyst also will prepare and present briefings to senior decision-makers and intelligence leaders on issues and programs “that may be considered controversial due to their precedent-setting nature.”

That wording, according to U.S. officials, is an oblique reference to the ongoing debate inside U.S. intelligence agencies on Chinese military developments and specifically Beijing’s strategic intentions.

Most China hands currently in the intelligence community are known to share the “benign China” outlook that argues that China poses little or no threat, is only nominally a nuclear-armed communist state, and must be shielded from anti-communist conservatives who want to turn it into a Cold War enemy.

However, more “realist” intelligence officials are gaining influence in government, having long ago abandoned the “benign China” view. They see China as the most serious national security challenge and one that the U.S. military urgently needs to take steps now to deter and defeat in a future conflict.

Other missions for the new DIA China analyst will include developing and leading collaboration on Chinese military operations and capabilities among the Pacific Command, other intelligence agencies and U.S. military commands and allies.

The new analyst also will collaborate with the Pentagon, other government agencies and foreign and other U.S. partners “to fill intelligence gaps and resolve analytic differences on critical issues.”

“Intelligence gaps” is code for what U.S. officials say are the numerous shortcomings in finding out about the Chinese military’s weapons programs, and strategy and tactics.

Several intelligence officials are vying for the slot that comes with the added perk of living in Hawaii.

The Pacific Command is known to be a major target of Chinese intelligence operations.

Story Continues →

© Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.