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Pentagon urged to wage counterintelligence warfare against China, Russia
The Washington Times ^ | October 3, 2025 | Bill Gertz

Posted on 10/03/2025 12:00:11 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum

Foreign spy services from China, Russia and elsewhere are engaged in low-level warfare targeting the U.S., and American counterspies should be “operationalized” to defeat them, according to a counterintelligence adviser to the Pentagon.

Shane McNeil, now studying for a doctorate at the Institute of World Politics, said the U.S. government needs to stop using counterintelligence (CI) against foreign spies as a legal compliance back office.

“In today’s battlespace, CI isn’t a support function — it’s a warfighting discipline,” Mr. McNeil, a counterintelligence adviser to the military’s Joint Staff at the Pentagon, stated in an online article.

If the Pentagon wants to survive a war with a nation such as China, “it needs to start thinking of counterintelligence not as a protective layer but as an offensive tool — one capable of achieving real effects,” he stated in the article made public last month.

“In other words, we need to start putting information warheads on enemy spy foreheads,” he wrote.

Foreign intelligence services, including China’s Ministry of State Security and Russia’s GRU military spy agency, are not simply collecting secrets. They are conducting military operations to shape the battlespace in preparation for future crises or conflict.

“Chinese and Russian intelligence campaigns aren’t isolated intrusions; they’re strategic efforts to undermine the United States through sabotage, influence, supply chain compromise and cognitive manipulation,” Mr. McNeil said. “This is unrestricted warfare, and CI needs to respond in kind — not reactively, but offensively.”

The comments from the Pentagon adviser come as Rep. Rick Crawford, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, is promoting legislation to require major changes to what he called a “disjointed” American counterintelligence system.

Mr. Crawford, Arkansas Republican, added provisions to the pending intelligence authorization bill that would seek to remedy counterintelligence problems through a new national counterintelligence center,...

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 10/03/2025 12:00:11 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Fine, but not another dime! Europe is collapsing because their debt and lack of Defense funding which is going to social programs.

We are following their path, lean out the social programs and fat. ALL nations that have collapsed were due to their debt. The U.S. is no different.


2 posted on 10/03/2025 12:25:09 PM PDT by delta7
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Be nice if they spied on them over there for a change instead of U.S. Citizens over here... Their priorities are absolutely backwards.


3 posted on 10/03/2025 1:07:44 PM PDT by Openurmind (AI - An Illusion for Aptitude Intrusion to Alter Intellect. )
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

That might not be such a good idea. After all we aren’t talking some small country the US is used to taking on, where lobbing precision missiles from far away ships and drones from thousands of miles away will intimidate them into anything. These are countries that can shoot our targeting satellites out of the sky and nuke our countries, even if we nuke them back.


4 posted on 10/03/2025 6:57:25 PM PDT by rottweiller_inc (Lupus urbem intravit. Fulminis ictu vultures super turrem exanimat.)
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To: rottweiller_inc

Sod off, Troll.


5 posted on 10/11/2025 9:42:34 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: grey_whiskers

Yeah well. Arrogance is not what wins wars.


6 posted on 10/11/2025 10:01:02 PM PDT by rottweiller_inc (Lupus urbem intravit. Fulminis ictu vultures super turrem exanimat.)
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To: rottweiller_inc

Still less is preemptive surrender which appears to be your counsel.

If you have better ideas, please let’s hear them.


7 posted on 10/11/2025 10:09:06 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: grey_whiskers

My council is not to provoke wars you A.) can’t afford to fight, B) would be wholly unnecessary if the US could live with other countries reaping the benefits of technology and not trying to throttle their advancement because we fear what they might become.
I don’t feel it is the best thing to try to always be the top dog. The big problem with the USA is it can’t stand for other countries to being anywhere near a peer to us, a position that is ultimately untenable as other countries will advance whether you want them to or not and the way the US has dealt with the these countries thus far will determine how they deal with us once the reach peer status.


8 posted on 10/11/2025 10:25:32 PM PDT by rottweiller_inc (Lupus urbem intravit. Fulminis ictu vultures super turrem exanimat.)
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To: rottweiller_inc

The US should not have sent all its manufacturing and much of its chemical stocks to China.

We do need to restore self sufficiency, and prosecute the Free Traitors.


9 posted on 10/12/2025 10:20:57 AM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: grey_whiskers

Good old fashioned greed and hubris. It’s not only the big business that has been doing it. There’s a cabal that both wants and has been very successful at intertwining economies in such as way so as to create mutual dependence and thus avoid war(so the theory goes). There is no quick fix to this and it will take years, if not decades, to get our economy to even a facimilie of the war time economy we had before WW2.

Time we do not have.
Meanwhile the USA struts around the world provocatively stirring up wars while a civil war is brewing at home. Too late you may find that Rosie the Riveter is now Rosie the Saboteur because they don’t agree with government.


10 posted on 10/12/2025 10:30:02 AM PDT by rottweiller_inc (Lupus urbem intravit. Fulminis ictu vultures super turrem exanimat.)
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To: rottweiller_inc

You smell like a glowie.


11 posted on 10/12/2025 11:03:33 AM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: grey_whiskers

Well, if things continue as they are I’m sure you’ll see a lot of things glowing.


12 posted on 10/12/2025 11:16:21 AM PDT by rottweiller_inc (Lupus urbem intravit. Fulminis ictu vultures super turrem exanimat.)
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To: rottweiller_inc

This is the reason we should become self-sufficient as soon as possible.

Don’t know if it’s “too late”.


13 posted on 10/12/2025 2:31:14 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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