Slow and Unsteady Progress with North Korea Helps Kim Jong Un
Cipher Brief Update: On August 23, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a Special Representative for North Korea. Steve Biegun will “direct all U.S. policy […] More
Strategic View
Changing Security Course Critical for Global Maritime
Don Hepburn is a former senior CIA and FBI official and is currently President of Boanerges Solutions. He wrote this column with significant contributions from […] More
Machine Learning and Tracking Terrorists
As the accused accomplices of terrorist Mohammed Merah stood trial in France in October 2017, aggregate web page traffic related to the location of the […] More
Companies Must Invest in More Robust Insider Threat Programs
The most infamous spies, moles, and saboteurs have come from intelligence and military organizations. However, recent allegations made against an employee by Tesla CEO Elon […] More
The Latest
North Korea’s Denuclearization: Is Cuba a Better Model than Libya?
A revised and improved “Cuba model” for denuclearizing North Korea might have gotten a more receptive ear from Pyongyang than US National Security Adviser John […] More
The Tasks & Opportunities Facing Gina Haspel
Gina Haspel assumes the position of D/CIA admirably prepared in all possible respects — in general, of course, given 33 years with the agency, and specifically, having […] More
South Korea Has Reassessed the Value of its American Alliance
As they strolled on the beach at Dalian earlier this week, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un had a lot to discuss. China’s idea of the […] More
With Influence Activities Exposed, the Kremlin Acts Even More Boldly
Russian influence operations were thrust into the public limelight in the West in 2017 with the findings of the U.S. Intelligence Community that Russia did […] More
How the U.S. Can Fight for Tokyo Too with Kim Jong Un
Within moments of greeting President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in mid-April, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe clinched a key strategic objective for their meeting: a […] More
What if the Insider Threat Is You?
Sometimes we’re the threat, whether to ourselves or others, without even realizing it. Insider threats trace back to humans, thus, it’s at our own peril […] More
Leveraging Accountability to Fix Cybersecurity
When accountability is used as innovation, it not only drives social change but also helps solve seemingly intractable problems. Cybersecurity is an industry that can […] More
There is No Such Thing as Cyber Deterrence. Please Stop.
History suggests that applying the wrong operational framework to an emerging strategic environment is a recipe for failure. During the World War I, both sides […] More
NATO Observer Group: Keeping Watch on Moscow from the US Senate
As the U.S., NATO and other allies move against Russia over an alleged nerve agent attack against a former Russian spy in Britain, bipartisan moves […] More
The Saudis Want a Nuclear Program. The Israelis Are Concerned.
In an unexpected turn of events, the sequence of dramatically different policies of the Obama and Trump Administrations has exacerbated the problem of nuclear proliferation […] More
Firing McCabe Is a “Gut Punch” and “Blow to What is Right”
Such is the world in which we now live that I cannot say I was surprised to learn late Friday that former FBI Deputy Director […] More
How South Korea – and North Korean Intel Chiefs – Got Trump to Say Yes
The key to understanding the remarkable developments over North Korea in recent weeks is that the two Koreas have been working jointly to manage the […] More
The Iranian People “Appear to be Losing their Fear”
The state of dissatisfaction within Iran today suggests that the regime is in deeper trouble than any time since the fall of the Shah – […] More
Mueller’s Indictments: Working Up to the “Head of the Snake”
There’s been a lot of chatter in the public forum since Special Counsel Robert Mueller announced his indictments of 13 Russians and three Russian organizations […] More
Staying Competitive in a Crowded Open Source World
Technological advancements in the past 30 years have in many ways democratized access to information and disrupted countless industries – from journalism to national security. […] More