Members Only As China Looks to Allies, Taiwan Does the Same
ANALYSIS/INTERVIEW — Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen is U.S.-bound this week, with scheduled stopovers in New York and Los Angeles. The visit is an unofficial one, […] More
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Members Only After Moscow, What is China’s Next Move?
ANALYSIS/INTERVIEW — Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin ended talks in Moscow this week by declaring that their alliance was driving geopolitical change […] More
Members Only Intelligence in the Age of New Global Alliances
ANALYSIS/INTERVIEW — Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow this week demonstrates Beijing’s strongest support yet for Russian President Vladimir Putin and the China-Russia alliance, […] More
Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Chief Predicts How War Will End
Kyiv, Ukraine – As Ukraine announces a planned counteroffensive in the Spring, the head of the country’s Main Intelligence Directorate, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, is […] More
Members Only Is China Coming to Russia’s Rescue in Ukraine?
BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said at an annual parliamentary session in Beijing this week, that China is actively working to […] More
Each week, we deliver tidbits of national security gossip for our members.
This Week’s Dead Drop: March 24
BAER FACTS: The last time former CIA officer Robert Baer was mentioned in The Cipher Brief was when three former counterintelligence chiefs dismantled arguments he made in his recent book, The Fourth Man. Now, we hear he has decided to become an unpaid agent/lobbyist of the Ukrainian government. According to a filing made with the Department of Justice earlier this month, Baer plans to “Help Ukraine navigate through arm purchases, including political lobbying in the House and Senate, make public realtime geolocation of Russian intelligence operative (sic) as part of a psyop no fees, no expenses.” He also said he would consult with members of Congress and the intelligence community. Baer has been a paid consultant for CNN for years, though spies tell us that [...]
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Establishing an Independent Open Source Agency Without Security Clearances OPINION — Disclaimer: Integrating the Intelligence Community (IC) after the failures of 9/11 was the challenge [...] More
The Pentagon’s fiscal 2024 budget shows that the U.S. – as a late starter — has fully entered the hypersonic weapons arms race with China [...] More
OPINION — Like many Americans who came of age in the 1980s, I have lasting childhood memories of the Space Shuttle program. The Shuttle program [...] More
OPINION — I raise that question after having heard Air Force General Anthony J. Cotton, the relatively new Commander of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), last [...] More
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Director of The Intelligence Project at Harvard University's Belfer Center
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Former CIA Chief Of Station