Community Engagement
The Cipher Brief interviewed Pia Wanek, Director of Humanitarian Assistance at Global Communities, to assess how West African countries responded to, and are being affected […] More
From Bad to Worse
Professor Ming Sing of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology discussed with The Cipher Brief Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement and its impact on the […] More
The Umbrella Movement: One Year Later
The democracy movement in Hong Kong is still alive, but the energy that brought almost one hundred thousand people to the streets last year has […] More
Bumpy Road Ahead
On September 28, protesters marked the anniversary of the start of last year’s Umbrella Revolution, in which 200,000 Hong Kongers took to the streets to […] More
Resiliency and Risk
Just one year ago, in the midst of the “Umbrella Protest Movement,” it seemed that Hong Kong’s position as the most business-friendly place in Asia […] More
The Future of Geospatial Intelligence
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency may be the most massive intelligence organization you’ve never heard of. While rarely making headlines, NGA is the lead federal agency […] More
Leadership Profile: Sue Gordon, Deputy Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Sue Gordon’s mission to help forge the future of The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is no small task. Consider that she leads a team of […] More
Growth of Satellite Technology
Q&A with Walter Scott, Founder of DigitalGlobe One of the major commercial satellite companies is DigitalGlobe. The Cipher Brief sat down with its founder, Walter […] More
Succeeding in the Open
Q&A with NGA Director Robert Cardillo on “Succeeding in the Open” The Cipher Brief sat down recently with NGA Director Robert Cardillo to ask about […] More
American Involvement in Syria
A fifty-year veteran of American intelligence recently told me how once, as a young officer, he had blurted out that a situation he had been […] More
A Wicked Problem
A fifty-year veteran of American intelligence recently told me how once, as a young officer, he had blurted out that a situation he had been […] More
The Future of Kurdistan
Kurdistan is a transnational patchwork quilt of territories spread across Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq. Though only six million out of a total of 32 […] More
Spirits in Space
There may be water on Mars, but there’s definitely liquor in orbit. Over the last couple of years, there have been a number of people […] More
The Dead Drop
Got a secret? Welcome to the The Dead Drop. Each week we pass along news and gossip from the world of national security and intelligence. […] More
Review: Netflix’s Narcos
Pablo Escobar’s childhood dream was to be a millionaire by the time he was 22. It is unclear if he met that specific goal, but […] More
Putin’s Syria Gambit
There has been no shortage of speculation about the motives behind Russia’s recent military deployment to Syria following the September 28 meeting between Russian President […] More
Don’t Negotiate with Assad
The recent infusion of Russian weapons and other military materiel into Syria has gotten the chattering class in Washington in a tizzy. “Inside-the-Beltway” policy experts, […] More
Chinese Expansion in Latin America
Latin America and the Caribbean’s (LAC) relationship with China has passed through many stages in the last few decades. It is only after the 1990s […] More