The Short-Sightedness of Obama-Era Cyber Operations Policy

by James Van de Velde

The Trump Administration is likely deliberating now the U.S. Department of Defense’s role in defending US interests via cyberspace – specifically, whether to continue President Obama’s...

How Journalists Pin Down the President

by Walter Pincus

Journalists need to find a way to pin down President Trump, and his June 10 press conference in Singapore provided a clear example of one way to do it. The subject was whether Trump had brought up...

The President's Summit Adventure Through an Intelligence Lens

by David Priess

OPINION: The eyes of an intelligence officer are trained to look for what a person’s behavior uncovers about his or her motivations and aspirations, which can then help predict future...

N. Korea, the U.S. and the Strange Path to Singapore

by Admiral Sandy Winnefeld

  One wonders what the alien creature Griffin, portrayed by Michael Stuhlbarg in Men in Black III, and capable of seeing all possible futures, would see in the range of outcomes for the upcoming...

Why Cyber Norms are Dumb and Serve Russian Interests

by James Van de Velde

  During the Cold War era, there was an adage that arms controllers hated but proved prophetic, “When relations are bad, you don’t want arms control; when relations are good, you don’t...

Why Protecting Sources and Methods Really Matters

by Josh Mayers

In my thirty-four years in law enforcement, I met with many confidential human sources working against terrorism, counter intelligence and violent crime targets.  I met them in inner city...

In Defense of the CIA's Moral Compass

by Steven A. Cash

In a recent op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, titled ‘At the CIA, Immorality Is Part of the Job’, a retired lawyer and former commissioner for Major League Baseball, Mr. Fay Vincent,...

Banning Transgender Soldiers Will Damage National Security

by Jenny Hall

“Who is a Homo?” ponders an internal CIA document written in 1980 to help investigators identify and purge gay CIA officers. “The homosexual is a complex, intelligent, interesting, and mixed-up...

In Defense of the FBI – and Comey – from One of their Own

by Frank Montoya Jr.

Like some of you, perhaps, I have spent an inordinate amount of time consumed with the revelations about the latest tweet, or twist in the Russia investigation, or tempestuous rant coming from an...

President Trump, Remove Assad From Power, or You’re Just Like Obama

by Emile Nakhleh

In response to the “barbaric” chemical attack by the “animal” Assad on Douma, a suburb of Damascus, over the weekend, President Donald Trump has promised that Assad and his patrons Russia and...