The Cipher Brief

Can the Pentagon’s New Innovation System Deliver?

Five months after Secretary Hegseth's sweeping innovation overhaul, the Pentagon's new acquisition architecture is beginning to take shape—but key questions about execution, speed, and strategic impact remain.

Defense Department Showcases Multi-Domain Autonomous Display In Pentagon's Courtyard

Welcome to The Iron Triangle, the Cipher Brief column serving Procurement Officers tasked with buying the future, Investors funding the next [...] More

The Open Source Report

Expert Insights

Cipher Brief Experts bring context to today’s global events

Invisible Conflict: Defending Against Hybrid Non-Kinetic Warfare

Invisible Conflict: Defending Against Hybrid Non-Kinetic Warfare

War doesn’t always look like war anymore. Hybrid non-kinetic warfare is an increasingly popular means for threat actors to orchestrate prolonged [...] More

What’s on The Cipher Brief’s Digital Channel

YOU'VE BEEN WARNED: Job offers straight from your LinkedIn DMs, sound too good to be true? That’s because they probably are. The U.S. and its Five Eyes partners recently issued a rare joint warning that China is using fake profiles and job offers on platforms like LinkedIn to target military, intelligence, and government personnel for sensitive information, not just here in the U.S., but in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as well. Agencies said operatives are posing as recruiters, relying on professional-looking job postings and financial incentives to lure people in. Now, this isn’t exactly a new tactic, there [...] More

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State Secrets

What happens when artificial intelligence, climate disruption, geopolitical rivalry, and information warfare collide?

In this episode of the State Secrets Podcast, Cipher Brief CEO Suzanne Kelly sits down with retired Admiral James Stavridis and bestselling author and former Marine Eliot Ackerman to discuss their new novel, 2084—the final installment in their acclaimed trilogy that began with 2034 and 2054.

Drawing on decades of military, intelligence, and geopolitical experience, Stavridis and Ackerman explore a future shaped by climate-driven migration, AI-powered conflict, surveillance, shifting global power centers, and the growing competition for influence in the Arctic and beyond. They explain how fiction can serve as a strategic warning, helping readers imagine future crises before they become reality.

The conversation also examines the risks of cognitive warfare, autonomous weapons, U.S.-China tensions, democratic resilience, and why—despite the challenges ahead—the authors remain cautiously optimistic about humanity’s ability to navigate the century's biggest threats.

If you care about the future of national security, technology, and global stability, this is a conversation you won't want to miss.