Christopher Miller: The Counterterrorism Expert Shaking Up the Trump Administration

With his superior strengths in hand, military officer Miller has just been appointed by US President Donald Trump as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). According to observers, this move is considered to contribute significantly to changing the intelligence community and counterterrorism strategies of the US.

Substitute

Before being appointed to the position of Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), Christopher Miller served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Counterterrorism. Miller will assume the role previously held by Joseph Maguire. Maguire led the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) before being appointed as Acting Director of National Intelligence. However, Maguire resigned from that position in February due to disagreements with President Donald Trump. Replacing Maguire as Director of National Intelligence is US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, a strong supporter of Trump's policies.

US President Donald Trump at a press conference in Washington DC, USA, March 13. Photo: THX/TTXVN

Faced with such a rapid change in personnel, public opinion is questioning whether the “replacement” Christopher Miller has any basis to stay with the Trump administration for a long time. And how much weight will this character have on the intelligence community as well as America’s special, secret counter-terrorism operations?

Born and raised in Iowa City, Iowa, Mr. Miller began his career as an enlisted infantryman in the Army Reserve in 1983. He then served in the District of Columbia National Guard as a military policeman. In 1987, he was commissioned as an infantry officer through the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), earning a Bachelor of Arts in History from George Washington University.

In 1993, he transferred to the Special Operations Forces and served in various positions from staff to command. Notably, he was the commander of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group (SFG). Mr. Miller also participated in initial combat operations in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. In addition, he was assigned to many other campaigns related to both of these theaters, accumulating a wealth of experience. In 2014, after retiring, Mr. Miller worked for more than 2 years as a defense contractor specializing in consulting and providing technical support to the Department of Defense's secret intelligence and special operations units.

Christopher Miller - Director of the US National Counterterrorism Center. Photo: US Army

Prior to joining NCTC, Miller held a variety of intelligence-related positions, including serving as special assistant to the president for counterterrorism at the National Security Council (NSC), as well as as an intelligence oversight official from March 2018 to December 2019. In this role, Miller was responsible for formulating and implementing strategic-level policy and providing senior leadership support to the NSC and the White House. Most notably, Miller completed the White House’s counterterrorism strategy, which expanded the scope of threats facing the United States to include Iran, Hezbollah, and domestic terrorist groups. For his tireless work, he has received numerous awards, including the Legion of Merit and three Bronze Stars.

Is the wind favorable?

According to the official announcement of the White House, Mr. Miller's main task in his new role - Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) will be to focus on policies related to US counterterrorism. Specifically, "in this role, Mr. Miller builds guidance and supervises the implementation of all Department of Defense policies, strategies and plans related to special operations and counterterrorism". Areas include military information support activities, irregular warfare risks, direct operations, special reconnaissance plans, foreign defense, sensitive special operations, human or hostage recovery issues, hunting down al-Qaeda remnants, putting pressure on the Islamic State organization IS...

The logo of the US National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). Photo: NCTC

It should be noted that the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) was established shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Notably, it is part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, with the role of unifying domestic and foreign counterterrorism intelligence and promoting whole-of-government action to protect the country from attacks. It is also noteworthy that Mr. Miller's predecessor, Joseph Maguire, had to resign after President Trump expressed dissatisfaction with an intelligence official who held a briefing on the security of the 2020 US presidential election with the House Intelligence Committee, in which he said that Russia had "interested" in Mr. Trump. That means, just one different move in views or ideas, and another Director Miller will have to go!

Furthermore, Nicholas J. Rasmussen - who led the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) from 2014 to 2017 commented that the most important thing for Mr. Miller or anyone else in this position is to protect the integrity and independence of the NCTC as an intelligence organization. Recently, when the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS) has declined, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is considering cutting funding and personnel for the National Counterterrorism Center, shifting focus to other priorities such as China, Iran or Russia.

Mr. Christopher Miller participated in the Afghanistan battlefield in 2001. In the photo: US Army in the Afghanistan battlefield. Photo: US Army

Currently, NCTC consists of about 1,000 members whose main task is to collect, synthesize and analyze information from different sources, thereby providing overall data and proposing anti-terrorism policies for each stage to the government. And according to many opinions, this reality needs to be adjusted when terrorist targets have changed and declined.

Therefore, one of the challenges for the new Director Miller is to establish a strong independent voice on the future development model of this agency in the coming period. However, maintaining financial resources and human resources in the context of the US facing many challenges such as the pandemic, other geostrategic competitions, this is probably a proposal that President Trump will find difficult to approve. Whether it is the new Director Christopher Miller or anyone!