Latest Columns

OPINION — After his speech at the Georgia Institute of Technology last Thursday, CIA Director William Burns was asked about the risks that President Biden [...] More

And China’s Dissemination of Russian Disinformation OPINION — On February 4th, President Xi Jinping signed a Joint Statement while in Beijing at the Winter Olympics, [...] More

Is Negotiating with Putin even possible at this point? OPINION — The war in Ukraine has now moved into its second, more protracted, and likely [...] More

OPINION — Last week, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees held five hearings associated with the fiscal 2023 defense budget. What jumped out at me [...] More

OPINION — “The beginning of wisdom”, according to a quote ascribed to Confucius, “is to call things by their proper name.”  That saying came to [...] More

OPINION — The Biden administration has made rational decisions on nuclear weapons in both policy – through the soon-to-be-release 2022 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) – [...] More

OPINION — As a long-time student of European history and a former SIS officer and senior executive in the CIA’s Directorate of Analysis, I have [...] More

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — On March 24, North Korea successfully launched an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) called the Hwasong-17.  The missile flew for 68 minutes and [...] More

OPINION — “Even if the war stops, when you look at the number of civilians and Ukrainian soldiers and others who have died; and when [...] More

Jean-Thomas Nicole is a Senior Policy Analyst at the National Search and Rescue Secretariat, Public Safety Canada. Renéo Lukic is a full professor of international [...] More

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — Over the past 2 years, since I wrote the first version of this post, we’ve had a lot of opportunity to test [...] More

By Chris Christou and Joseph Bull, Booz Allen Hamilton SPONSORED – U.S. government organizations racing to adopt 5G mobile technology must overcome significant security blind [...] More

Illicit Transaction Activity Reaches All-Time High in Value, All-time Low in Share of All Cryptocurrency Activity SPONSORED CONTENT: Cryptocurrency-based crime hit a new all-time high [...] More

OPINION — “I am told that there are responsible officials in Russia that, were he [Russian President Vladimir Putin] to push a nuclear button, they [...] More

After recent hurdles in the nearly year-long talks aimed at re-instituting the nuclear agreement with Iran known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), [...] More

OPINION — Like millions of others, I have been riveted to the unfolding tragedy in Ukraine as the world tries to make sense of this [...] More

OPINION — The United States needs to publicly respond to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s coercive threats regarding nuclear weapons. Putin’s most recent coercive nuclear threat [...] More

OPINION — Even a cyber and info war aficionado like Russian President Vladimir Putin must begrudgingly appreciate the karmic role that the slew of publicly [...] More

OPINION — Vladimir Putin is the third modern dictator, after Napoleon and Hitler to make the mistake of invading Ukraine, albeit the first to try [...] More

OPINION — China’s annual National People’s Congress (NPC) opened on March 5 with Premier Li Keqiang presenting an upbeat annual Government Work Report that stressed [...] More

Sharing opinions is important.  Opinion pieces represent the diverse views of The Cipher Brief audience and do not represent views of The Cipher Brief.  OPINION [...] More

The Cipher Brief:  Understanding that there is no clear view into what Russian President Vladimir Putin is really thinking – what do you think Ukraine [...] More

OPINION — We are in a new kind of warfare with Russia and a little-noticed House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee hearing last Tuesday showed, [...] More

As Cipher Brief Expert and former CIA Chief of the Central Eurasia Division, Rob Dannenberg writes for Subscriber+Members the way that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s [...] More