“Often, your worst days are public, but your best days are not,” said Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence, as she reflected on her work as head of the U.S. Intelligence Community, the collection of federal agencies including the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency.
Michael McFaul ’86 M.A. ’86, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, moderated the Wednesday conversation with Haines at Encina Hall.
A former physicist and bookstore owner, Haines received her law degree from Georgetown University in 2001. She went on to serve in a number of government positions, including Deputy Chief Counsel for the Majority Senate Democrats and Deputy National Security Advisor. In January 2021, she was sworn in as the seventh Director of National Intelligence.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) was created as part of a restructuring of the U.S. Intelligence Community in the wake of 9/11. Its creation separated the Intelligence Community from the Department of Defense, giving the Director of National Intelligence the responsibility to manage their own budget and set their own priorities.
For Haines, Aug. 26, 2021 was the worst day on the job. During the long awaited U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, after two decades of military presence in the region, a devastating suicide bomber attack on the Kabul airport resulted in the death of 13 U.S. service members and over 100 Aghans. The attack was claimed by an Afghanistan-based offshoot of the Islamic State.
While retrospective investigations have concluded that the attack could not have been tactically prevented, the Biden administration and the intelligence community received strong public criticism.
Haines called the attack a “horrible, horrible moment” where she felt helpless. “You get a feel, after you work on these things for long enough, when you know that the traffic is getting to a point where something is going to happen,” Haines said. “You work to try to stop those things and when you don’t, it’s just devastating.”
Haines also reflected on the initial hesitation disagreements among allied intelligence communities ahead of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. “When we first brought to the president that we knew that Russia was considering a large-scale invasion, there was a lot of skepticism in the policy community,” Haines said. Despite this uncertainty, Haines and other members of the Intelligence Community were asked to “go out there and start talking to our partners” in order to prepare for the possibility of war.
As the head of intelligence integration, Haines was responsible for synthesizing intelligence from 18 different U.S. agencies. Convincing skeptical EU and NATO partners of the likelihood of a Russian invasion required “[pulling] together intelligence from across the community in order to make the case,” Haines said.
American intelligence was not only shared with allies, but also with the public. In January 2022, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki warned that Russia may have been fabricating a pretext for invading Ukraine. And, in February 2022, Biden revealed that U.S. intelligence had identified 150,000 Russian troops amasing on the Ukrainian border. While the U.S. has declassified intelligence in the lead up to other conflicts, this strategic declassification effort was unique in both magnitude and speed.
“The original thought was, can we deter [the invasion]?” Haines said that the largely unprecedented declassification effort attempted to convince Putin the invasion is not worth the cost.
Intelligence failures are frequently news headlines, while successes will just as often remain classified. Despite this, Haines considers a job well done when “in each engagement, I feel as if we’ve added value… contributing to a broader effort to get something done.”
Haines said that an example of adding value was during U.S. involvement in the conflict between Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in central Africa. The March 23 Movement (M23), a military group supported by Rwanda, launched an offensive in eastern Congo in 2022, capturing border towns and drawing international criticism. Fighting between the DRC and M23 escalated, threatening to expand into neighboring regions.
While traveling to the region last November, Haines secured commitments from both parties by identifying confidence-building measures and dedicating U.S. intelligence resources towards monitoring adherence to the agreed upon conditions. Her actions were able to bring the tension down, Haines said. The DRC and M23 signed a ceasefire deal in July.
Though successes of her work might not be public, Haines believes that “good days are when you bring to the president a piece of information that actually allows him to take action in ways that save lives.”
Students asked questions about the structure of the Intelligence Community and ways to pursue careers in national security. “Being able to speak to somebody at a cabinet level position is a truly extraordinary opportunity,” said Gordy Sun ’28, who attended the event.
McFaul concluded the conversation with a call to action for the students in the room. “The purpose of this meeting for me was to inspire our students to think about public service,” McFaul said. “If you’re not inspired by this, then we’ve lost you to Google.”