A Look at the U.S. Army’s Future Mission
Thousands of people are virtually gathering this week as the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) kicks off its annual conference focused on the […] More
Perspectives & Culture
Global Knowledge Warfare: Using Strategic Imagination to Harness Uncertainty and Fear
Eric Shiraev, Political Psychologist, George Mason University “The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even […] More
Xi’s Awful Arithmetic
CIPHER BRIEF EXPERT VIEW — Mark Kelton is a retired senior Central Intelligence Agency executive who retired in 2015 with 34 years of experience in intelligence […] More
NATO Imagines Future Warfare
Innovation is a key component of readiness when it comes to future threats. NATO’s Innovation Hub recently commissioned a short story from author August Cole, […] More
The Latest
Afghanistan’s Hard Lessons. A British Perspective.
Tim Willasey-Wilsey is a former senior British diplomat and now a Senior Visiting Fellow at King’s College London’s Department of War Studies. The probability is […] More
U.S. Loses Seat at the Table with Climate Accord Withdrawal
The current Administration’s top leadership on defense, diplomacy and intelligence – the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, and Director of National Intelligence – all […] More
Comey to INSA: Privacy and Security “Crashing Into Each Other”
FBI Director James Comey was the guest of honor at an Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) Leadership Dinner Wednesday in Alexandria, Virginia. INSA is […] More
State of Play Review – The Americans, Season V
Season 5 of the acclaimed FX Series The Americans has returned after a 9-month hiatus, and it might be hard to follow if you start […] More
Kiefer Sutherland as the Designated Survivor
Actor Kiefer Sutherland may not be returning to Fox’s new iteration of its hit show “24” (more on that in a future column), but he […] More
Review: AMC's The Night Manager
It’s the year 2011 and the “Arab Spring” has begun in Cairo, Egypt. Guests at a nearby hotel are panicking and desperate to leave, and […] More
The Americans are Coming…
…or is it the Russians? The popular FX series premieres episode one of season four on Wednesday. In case you’re not already read in on […] More
How Will the Next President Take the Daily Intelligence Brief?
Upon entering the Oval Office, every president since Harry Truman has faced a seemingly mundane decision with huge implications: how to take his daily intelligence […] More
The Dead Drop
TRUMP THIS: A group of more than 100 national security experts signed an open letter this week pledging to work “energetically to prevent the election […] More
Review: The President’s Book of Secrets
The Central Intelligence Agency has many missions, of which keeping the President – America’s top national security decision maker – well informed is one, if […] More
Alex Berenson and The Wolves
I’m a firm believer that in order to be able to imagine what’s coming, you have to be able to understand what’s possible. That’s probably […] More
Sports Diplomacy
Known to many as the ultimate rejector of the basketball, NBA legend Dikembe Mutombo has also taken many under his humanitarian wing. Mutombo has used […] More
The Dead Drop
THE CURSE OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS. Several Dead Drop sources told us how surprised they were to see several news items recently about an Inspector General’s investigation into a […] More
The Dead Drop
READY FOR HILLARY – The Dead Drop is very reliably informed that optimism in the Hillary Clinton camp is reaching epidemic proportions. Why? Because the Republicans […] More
The Dead Drop
Should I Stay or Should I Go? Dead Drop insiders tell us there is much speculation going on inside the Obama Administration over who will […] More