“Among my greatest pleasures as director are my relationships with foreign counterparts who come to visit. And I made it a tradition that when … foreign heads of service visit Langley, Virginia, and sit with me in my office, I send them away with a bottle of very fine Kentucky bourbon. And we are moving through a number so far.”

CIA Director Gina Haspel — University of Louisville (Sept. 24, 2018)

CIA Director Gina Haspel addresses the audience at the University of Louisville, Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, in Louisville, Ky.

Monday September 24 2018 — CIA Director Gina Haspel gave a speech at her Alma Mater — the University of Louisville —  in which she made clear the new direction the agency will head into under her tenure. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

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Director Haspel shared her perspective on leading the Agency and laid out her 6 strategic priorities.

Strategic Priority 1: Diversity & inclusion. Our global mission demands that we recruit & retain America’s best & brightest, regardless of gender, race, or cultural background.

Strategic Priority 2: Invest more heavily in collecting against the hardest issues. CIA’s heavy emphasis on counterterrorism is vital, but we are sharpening our focus on nation-state rivals as well.

Strategic Priority 3: Steadily increase the number of officers stationed overseas. Our mission—as a foreign intelligence agency—lies abroad, & having a larger foreign footprint allows for a more robust posture.

Strategic Priority 4: Investing in foreign-language excellence as a core attribute for our officers. We’re strengthening our language training to ensure that our people are more capable & better attuned to the cultures in which they operate.

Strategic Priority 5: Build stronger partnerships at CIA across US Government, IC, & with our foreign counterparts as well. Teamwork is the only effective way of dealing with the range of complex global threats.

Strategic Priority 6: Invest more heavily in our counternarcotics effort abroad. Narcotics have killed more Americans than any terrorist group. No foreign threat has had a more direct & devastating impact on families & communities than the flow of opioids & other drugs into US.

CIA Director Gina Haspel Comments On Agency’s New Direction | NBC News 

REFERENCES

CIA director says agency focused on nation state rivals — CNBC

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CIA Director Gina Haspel : Agency Must Focus on Nation State Rivals