OODAcon 2025’s Annual Global Threat Brief opened with an unflinching warning: the most dangerous disruptions reshaping the world are no longer confined to distant adversaries or geopolitical flashpoints: they are unfolding inside the systems we rely on every day.

In a fast-moving, scenario-driven session, intelligence expert Jen Hoar and former DIA Chief of Staff Johnny Sawyer reset the room’s situational awareness, outlining how internal polarization, AI-accelerated information warfare, and competing techno-economic models are redefining national security.

The message was unmistakable: in 2025, America’s greatest vulnerability is not an external foe, but the accelerating fracturing within its own society (a trend that technology is amplifying at unprecedented speed).

Annual Global Threat Brief

Introduction (Context and Framing)

The 2025 threat landscape is defined not only by adversary capabilities but by the speed at which technology amplifies societal division, obscures truth, and compresses decision-making cycles.

The Annual Global Threat Brief at OODAcon 2025 – led by intelligence professional Jen Hoar and former DIA Chief of Staff Johnny Sawyer – provided a sharp, scenario-driven assessment of the world’s most urgent and emerging risks. Positioned early in the conference, the session served as a geopolitical “situational awareness reset” for leaders navigating accelerating instability across political, technological, and economic domains.

Framed explicitly for an audience of executive decision-makers, the discussion emphasized that today’s global threats no longer live exclusively in the realm of nation-states. Instead:

• The most consequential risk vectors now span internal polarization, AI-accelerated information warfare, competing techno-economic systems, and the fragmentation of democratic governance; and
• Sawyer underscored a sobering core message: the greatest vulnerability to U.S. national security is not external; it is the fracturing within.

This session built on three years of trendline analysis at OODAcon. Many earlier predictions made by Sawyer—particularly around super-empowered individuals, polarization, and synthetic influence – have accelerated faster than expected.

Key Takeaways

Internal Stability, Democratic Integrity, and National Coherence

• National Fracturing Is the Greatest Threat: Polarization and loss of shared truth undermine national security more than external adversaries.
• Technology Accelerates Division: AI and social media amplify polarization and enable mass misinformation by individuals.
• Democratic Erosion and Authoritarian Drift: Societies under stress shift toward centralized authority, threatening democratic norms.
• AI, Governance, and Democracy Face a Stress Test: Democracies must strengthen information integrity and digital literacy to withstand AI-driven disruption.
• National Coherence as Deterrence: A unified and informed society provides stronger deterrence than any single capability.
• The Human Element Remains Central: Ethics, imagination, trust, and cooperation remain decisive despite rapid technological acceleration.

Great-Power Competition and Strategic Adversaries

• Russia as Strategic Disruptor: Russia destabilizes through gray-zone tactics, cyber operations, and political interference rather than conventional power projection.
• China as Technological and Strategic Challenger: China seeks dominance in AI, biotech, quantum, and global digital standards through civil-military fusion.
• Navigating the China Relationship: Western companies must treat China as both a market and a strategic risk, aligning operations with national security concerns.
• Future of the Global Order Is Up for Grabs : Regional blocs, new governance models, and competing data regimes will define the next geopolitical era.
• Crisis Cycles Are Historical and Inevitable: Today’s fragmentation is part of a recurring global cycle that will eventually resolve into a new order.

Non-State Actors, Hybrid Threats, and Regional Instability

• Non-State Actors and Hybrid Threats Are Rising: Cartels, extremists, illicit finance systems, and cyber-mercenaries destabilize entire regions.
• AI Is Both Weapon and Tool: Non-state actors can weaponize AI for influence operations, but AI can also enable predictive insights and risk forecasting.

Geo-Economics, Supply Chains, and Systemic Vulnerabilities

• Geo-Economics as Defense Strategy: Onshoring, nearshoring, and hemispheric manufacturing strengthen U.S. strategic resilience.
• Systemic Vulnerabilities Require Re-Regionalization: Nations are asserting control over data, energy, supply chains, and industrial capacity as globalization fractures.
• Corporate Leadership Is National Security Leadership: Boardroom decisions on supply chains, IP protection, and global operations directly affect national resilience.
• Security Must Be Holistic: Security must permeate culture, governance, operations, and technology, not sit in a silo.

Ethical Technology, Trust, and Leadership Imperatives

• Trust Is Strategic Capital: Credibility and transparency underpin alliances, innovation, and global influence.
• Ethical Technology as National Strength: Ethical AI and secure infrastructure are competitive differentiators against authoritarian models.
• Collaboration Over Isolation: Public-private coordination and collective intelligence are essential to navigate modern threats.
• Strategic Patience and Adaptive Leadership Are Essential: Leaders must think long-term, embrace uncertainty, and adapt to nonlinear change.

Core Themes

Around the world, populations facing uncertainty are shifting toward strongman governance models. Sawyer noted this trend is historically cyclical – but democracies must survive the crisis intact to reemerge strong.

• Internal Division as a National Security Threat: Sawyer argued that America’s greatest vulnerability is domestic incoherence. Without shared truth and social trust, the U.S. cannot execute long-term strategy, maintain global partnerships, or deter authoritarian competitors. AI-accelerated fragmentation creates strategic paralysis, policy whiplash, and weakened national resolve.
• The Rise of Competing Technological Systems: The U.S. and China now represent two incompatible models of governance, data regulation, and technological development. China’s civil-military fusion and authoritarian data architecture challenge the open-innovation system that fueled U.S. technological leadership. Economic statecraft (not just military competition) defines this new rivalry.
• Re-Regionalization and Geo-Economics as Strategy: Globalization is fracturing into regional blocs centered on supply chain security, data sovereignty, and energy independence. The Western Hemisphere (particularly Mexico) is becoming a critical manufacturing and strategic hub. Geo-economics and industrial policy are emerging as frontline tools of national defense.
• Hybrid and Non-State Threats in a Fragmented World: Criminal syndicates, extremist networks, and cyber-mercenary groups exploit unstable regions amid weakening nation-states. These actors blur the lines between criminality and geopolitics, creating persistent gray-zone challenges that undermine governance.
• Democratic Stress, Authoritarian Drift, and Future Governance: Around the world, populations facing uncertainty are shifting toward strongman governance models. Sawyer noted this trend is historically cyclical – but democracies must survive the crisis intact to reemerge strong. The West’s defining advantage remains openness, diversity, and ethical accountability.

Concept Summaries: 2025 Annual Global Threat Brief

National Fracturing

The document highlights national fracturing as the single most consequential threat. The U.S. faces a crisis of internal legitimacy driven by polarization, algorithmic information distortion, and eroding shared reality. Without coherence, the nation cannot project power, maintain alliances, or lead in technology. AI didn’t create division – it amplified underlying societal fractures into an existential security challenge.

Technology, AI, and Acceleration

AI and social platforms dramatically accelerate the pace of influence operations, misinformation, and societal sorting. The threat environment is no longer nation-state-only; individuals can now run operations once reserved for foreign intelligence services. Without governance, literacy, and ethical standards, AI becomes a force multiplier for instability.

Russia, China, and Great Power Dynamics

Russia operates as a spoiler (leveraging gray-zone tools and nuclear deterrence) but lacks global leadership capacity. China, by contrast, seeks to dominate global standards, supply chains, and technological ecosystems. Its civil-military fusion model gives it structural advantages in certain domains but creates vulnerabilities tied to authoritarian control.

Non-State Actors and Hybrid Networks

The briefing underscores rising threats from cartels, extremist groups, and illicit finance systems. These networks increasingly influence geopolitical outcomes and destabilize regions vital to U.S. interests. The U.S. response is shifting toward hemispheric security, economic partnerships, and supply chain hardening.

Systemic Vulnerabilities, Geo-Economics, and Fragmentation

Re-regionalization is emerging as the central organizing principle of the next global order. Nations are reclaiming control over data architectures, manufacturing, energy, and supply chains. Regulatory volatility (caused by political polarization) creates significant systemic fragility for businesses and governments.

Corporate Leadership and National Resilience

Sawyer emphasizes that corporate boardrooms now shape national security. Executives must integrate ethics, supply chain security, technological governance, and cross-sector collaboration into strategy. Trust, transparency, and ethical AI are strategic differentiators – essential for maintaining U.S. influence.

Closing Remarks: Collective Intelligence, Corporate Leadership and National Resilience

“No one is smarter than all of us. We collectively have to find solutions to the problems that we see in our world.”

The OODAcon 2025 Global Threat Brief closed with a powerful reminder that in a fragmented global landscape, corporate leadership is now inseparable from national resilience. Sawyer stressed that boardrooms (not just federal agencies) sit at the front lines of geopolitical risk:

• The decisions organizations make about supply chains, data governance, technology adoption, partnerships, and ethical AI shape not only competitive advantage but the strategic posture of the country itself.
• In this environment, trust and transparency are not abstract values; they are strategic assets with real operational and geopolitical consequences.
• Executives must therefore reimagine their responsibilities: integrating security into organizational culture, embedding ethical principles into technology roadmaps, and aligning global operations with the realities of systemic competition and accelerating AI-driven risk.
• Corporate leaders are now stewards of critical infrastructure, custodians of sensitive data, and participants in a broader security ecosystem that spans governments, industries, and civil society.
• Their willingness to collaborate – to share intelligence, coordinate responses, and support trusted technology – will directly influence national resilience.

Sawyer’s closing message underscored the session’s unifying theme: the complexity of today’s threat environment demands collective intelligence: “No single actor, whether government, business, or individual, can navigate these nonlinear risks alone. National strength now flows from coherence, shared situational awareness, and the ethical application of technology. The path forward requires humility, openness, and a commitment to rebuilding trust across sectors and communities.”

Additional OODA Loop Resources

Geoeconomic Futures: The Americas, The Northern Frontier of Mexico, The Arctic, and Africa: This era of polycrisis, defined by intertwined risks and accelerating feedback loops, is reshaping the strategic architecture of entire regions. This integrated assessment explores how these transformations are unfolding across the Americas, the Northern Frontier of Mexico, the Arctic, and Africa, drawing from recent OODA Loop analyses.

The New Strategic Economy: Geoeconomics and the Architecture of Influence: – How Statecraft, Finance, and Technology Are Reshaping Global Power in the Era of Polycrisis: The global economy is no longer a neutral playing field of markets and efficiency – it has become a weaponized domain where states use finance, trade, technology, and energy as instruments of power. This shift, known as geoeconomics, marks a decisive break from the late-20th-century era of neoliberal globalization.

The OODAcon 2024 Annual Global Threat Brief: In what has become a much anticipated annual event at OODAcon,  (find the full OODAcon 2024 agenda here), the OODAcon 2024 Annual Global Threat Brief is Johnny Sawyer (renowned for his ability to contextualize global risks and convey their nature in ways that can inform, educate, and drive decisions) in an interview format with corporate intelligence and investigations expert Jen Hoar – who facilitated a discussion with Johnny that provided expert analysis of the global threat environment, covering topics such as cybersecurity, geopolitics, and technological disruption. 

OODAcon Global Risk Briefing for 2023: The annual OODA Global Risk Briefing was the penultimate session at OODAcon 2023. Jen Hoar spoke with Johnny Sawyer about the strategic prism business leaders need to apply to the geopolitical risk environment.