Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

cipherbrief

Welcome! Log in to stay connected and make the most of your experience.

Input clean

Columns

The Space Age Needs New Rules

Kelly Bissell

The Space Age Needs New Rules

Space is no longer a place we visit to plant flags. It is where the global economy and national security now live — and our rulebook is nearly sixty [...] More

The Latest

America's Empty Counterterrorism Chair

Dexter Ingram

America's Empty Counterterrorism Chair

The world's counterterrorism chiefs are meeting in New York this week. We brought a list of demands and not much else.A plot hatched in a chat room [...] More

Don’t Permit Iran to Enrich Uranium

Ambassador Joseph DeTrani

Don’t Permit Iran to Enrich Uranium

Ideally, Iran should not be permitted to enrich uranium, even at the 3.67% low enriched uranium level, enough for nuclear reactors to generate [...] More

Ambassador Joseph DeTrani

From Bombing Iran to Negotiating: Trump Explains His Red Line

Walter Pincus

From Bombing Iran to Negotiating: Trump Explains His Red Line

“I had to stop them [the Iranians] because if they had a nuclear weapon, they would use it. And you want to see bedlam, let them blow up a couple of [...] More

Walter Pincus Fine Print

Cuba’s New Spy Array Raises Concerns for U.S. Security

Renee Pruneau Novakoff

Cuba’s New Spy Array Raises Concerns for U.S. Security

BLUFF — On 18 June, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) researchers released a new study that says Cuba has completed construction [...] More

Renee Pruneau Novakoff

The Deal That Should Not Have Happened

Chip Usher

The Deal That Should Not Have Happened

The announcement of a ceasefire between the United States and Iran surprised many observers. The underlying conditions appeared unfavorable to an [...] More

Chip Usher

Before the IC Trusts AI, It Needs to Prove It Can Assure It

Gloria Glaubman

Before the IC Trusts AI, It Needs to Prove It Can Assure It

Artificial intelligence is moving quickly into national security work. That is not a future trend. It is already happening in analysis, collection [...] More

Gloria Glaubman

Learning Velocity: The Next Strategic Advantage

Bob Pearson

Learning Velocity: The Next Strategic Advantage

Entrepreneurs realize that speed compresses learning. They know some of their initial assumptions will be wrong or only partially right, so going [...] More

Tech/Cyber

The Forty-Year Cyber Policy Failure Congress Refuses to Address

Matt Stern

The Forty-Year Cyber Policy Failure Congress Refuses to Address

Late last month, the former deputy assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division testified before the House Homeland Security Committee that the [...] More

A Historic Summit between China and North Korea

Ambassador Joseph DeTrani

A Historic Summit between China and North Korea

There was no absence of Chinese and North Korean media coverage of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to North Korea for meetings with Chairman Kim [...] More

China Ambassador Joseph DeTrani Asia

AI Is Speeding Up Intelligence, But Not the System Around It

Geof Kahn

AI Is Speeding Up Intelligence, But Not the System Around It

AI is compressing parts of the intelligence cycle, but modernization is occurring unevenly across collection, analysis, validation, dissemination, [...] More

Can the Pentagon Buy Faster Before the Next War Arrives?

Walter Pincus

Can the Pentagon Buy Faster Before the Next War Arrives?

“The reasons why DoD (the Defense Department) accepts flawed business cases are both structural and cultural in nature. Poor acquisition decisions [...] More

Walter Pincus Fine Print

Economic Security in an Age of Strategic Competition

Calder Walton

Economic Security in an Age of Strategic Competition

There is a growing perception among long-standing US allies that they need to expand commercial relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). [...] More

Calder Walton