Gabbard Is Wrong: Climate Change Is a National Security Threat

Every year, the heads of the key US intelligence agencies take part in a ritual called the worldwide threat brief, testifying before Congress at an unclassified level about the biggest perils facing the nation. In general, we know what to expect: warnings on China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, cybercrime, terrorism and other usual suspects.

But this year things turned out very differently, in two ways. First, the debate was hijacked — appropriately — by the uproar over the inadvertent release to a journalist, through the communications app Signal, of details concerning strikes against Houthi terrorists. The director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe spent much of their time parrying tough questioning from Democratic senators.