A Strategy and Legacy Inspired by 9/11

Posted: September 11th, 2018

By Daniel Hoffman

Daniel Hoffman is a former senior officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, where he served as a three-time station chief and a senior executive Clandestine Services officer. Hoffman also led large-scale HUMINT (human intelligence gathering) and technical programs and his assignments included tours of duty in the former Soviet Union, Europe, and war zones in the Middle East and South Asia. Hoffman also served as director of the CIA Middle East and North Africa Division. He is currently a national security analyst with Fox News.

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, the late Senator John McCain argued in favor of maintaining a military presence in Iraq, which he called “a very volatile part of the world where al qa’ida is training, recruiting, equipping, and motivating people.” McCain was articulating the late Charles Krauthammer’s strategy of “forward defense”, where we confront our enemies “over there” rather than allow them to plan and execute attacks on our homeland from ungoverned space.

The United States is protected by two great oceans, and enjoys mostly productive relationships with our neighbors to the south and to the north. Throughout our history, there has been a strong desire not to become overly entangled in world affairs. But McCain and Krauthammer were proponents of a globalist national security strategy, which entailed forward deployed intelligence collection, diplomacy, and when justified, military engagement.

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.

Subscriber+