The Cipher Brief

DNI Day Two: Building the Intelligence Community for 2045

A new DNI should refocus ODNI on enterprise leadership, modernize intelligence investment, and close the seams adversaries exploit across the national security landscape.

Author's NoteIn our first paper, DNI Day One: Three Strategic Decisions for National Security Evolution, we identified three challenges confronting [...] More

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Cipher Brief Experts bring context to today’s global events

The AI Bubble and the Growing National Security Problem

The AI Bubble and the Growing National Security Problem

The AI bubble is not a capability bubble. It is an expectation bubble. National security leaders are treating AI as a replacement for analysts, [...] More

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A RECRUITMENT INCENTIVE TO DIE FOR: Russia is reportedly having trouble finding men who are willing to die for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, and the math may explain why. According to Russian military bloggers - cited by historian Peter Frankopan in Foreign Policy - the average new Russian recruit can expect to survive between 10 days and three weeks from arrival at a training ground - to death in a combat zone. Once on the battlefield, that window narrows to somewhere between 20 and 35 minutes. Moscow is said to be offering bonuses of up to $80,000 in cash and $140,000 in debt relief. These are incentives that, measured [...] More

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State Secrets

What happens when one of Hollywood's most influential futurists sits down with a former NSA Director?

In this special State Secrets conversation, Ronald D. Moore—the creator behind For All Mankind, Battlestar Galactica, and Star Trek—joins former NSA and U.S. Cyber Command Commander Gen. Timothy Haugh to explore the increasingly blurred line between science fiction and national security reality.

From the new space race and AI-powered disinformation to cyber warfare, Russia, China, and the future of conflict, this wide-ranging discussion reveals how the stories we imagine today may become tomorrow's strategic challenges.

Are we entering a technological revolution as consequential as the space race? And who is best positioned to anticipate what's next—the intelligence community or the storytellers imagining the future?