Amid a global environment that is increasingly volatile, uncertain and complex, Army counterintelligence acts as an important “frontline defense,” said Lt. Gen. Anthony Hale, deputy Army chief of staff for intelligence, G-2.

“Lethality starts with intel,” he said Oct. 15 during a Warriors Corner on transforming counterintelligence at the Association of the U.S. Army’s 2025 Annual Meeting and Exposition. “For the last 25 years plus, the [adversaries] have been collecting [information] on us at our 288 camps, posts [and] stations around the world and anywhere else our Army soldiers are located because we were focused on counterinsurgency, and we were focused on counterterrorism.”

Since the Army’s Counterintelligence Command was stood up in 2021, the command has made 25 arrests, executed over 650 national security investigations and conducted over 70,000 counterintelligence engagements, according to Col. Richard Dempsey, deputy commander of Army Counterintelligence Command.

“Those numbers talk about what we know, the enemy, that we can see. What keeps me up at night as a leader within the command is the threat that we can't see,” Dempsey said. “And let me be clear, we are in the fight right now, every minute of every day.”

U.S. adversaries, including China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, are using innovative methods to target soldiers through LinkedIn, Indeed and Reddit, said Scott Grovatt, Army Counterintelligence Command region special agent in charge of the Northeastern U.S.

Through a command pilot program, counterintelligence agents from units across the Army can benefit from the command’s special agents and their experience. The pilot program has generated “a huge increase in … investigations,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Lance Kachermeyer, senior enlisted leader of Army Counterintelligence Command.

“We need every counterintelligence special agent engaged in that mission every day,” he said. “We can't have them waiting around and wait until the enemy brings a fight to us. We need to bring the fight to the enemy.”

— Karli Nelson