News & Analysis

Other than its open-air outlet mall, busy with shoppers from neighboring Slovakia and Hungary, there’s little memorable about the Austrian village of Parndorf. On Friday, […] More

The Cipher Brief sat down with Robert Richer, former CIA Associate Deputy Director for Operations, to talk about the Middle East refugee crisis that threatens […] More

Having begun transforming its energy sector, the Mexican government is learning the ups and downs of opening its oil resources to foreign companies.  In July, […] More

Periodically, The Cipher Brief will explore outside-the-box technologies and unusual, sometimes weird, scientific innovations. You’ll see how the boundaries between reality and fantasy are growing thinner […] More

President Barack Obama toured Alaska this week to bring more attention to the effects climate change has had on the Arctic region. President Obama, the […] More

Got a secret, can you keep it? Welcome to the The Dead Drop.  Each week we pass along news and gossip from the world of […] More

Few things are more hotly debated in Washington and other capitals than the question of how to defeat the Islamic State. Ideas are all over […] More

Over fifteen years ago, I spoke with someone in Gaza about a Hamas bomb maker who had been killed in an Israeli anti-terrorism operation. I […] More

A great deal of attention in the U.S. has understandably been paid to how ISIS promotes its ideology, with a focus on ISIS’ social media […] More

Last October, in an interview with “60 Minutes,” FBI director James Comey revealed that there were “a dozen or so” Americans fighting in Syria on […] More

Being abducted by gunmen, held for weeks or months in horrific conditions and then forced to pay colossal sums to be freed has been the […] More

Being abducted by gunmen, held for weeks or months in horrific conditions and then forced to pay colossal sums to be freed has been the […] More

The Cipher Brief spoke with Francisco Quiñones, the founder of Arcis International, a security, risk management, and crisis response consultancy based in Washington, DC.  Quinones, […] More

The Cipher Brief spoke with retired DEA agent Michael Vigil to discuss the security situation in Mexico. Vigil, who served as DEA’s Chief of International […] More

Four years after the Arab Spring, the security environment across North Africa remains dire.    “The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for […] More

After having been idled by sit-ins for four years, Tunisia’s state-owned phosphate mines are open again. Why they closed was just one example of a […] More

The Cipher Brief sat down with Haim Malka, the Deputy Director of and Senior Fellow for the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic […] More

  So what if Iran isn’t planning to build an actual nuclear weapon?  Would that affect your take on the nuclear deal?  I mean it. […] More