Slow and Unsteady Progress with North Korea Helps Kim Jong Un

by COL David Maxwell

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 on North Korea, lead...

Changing Security Course Critical for Global Maritime

by Don Hepburn Deputy Assistant Director, International Operations Division, FBI

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 CAPT Evan D. Robinson, USN (Ret) In...

Machine Learning and Tracking Terrorists

by Joel T. Meyer

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 trial, hostile vehicle mitigation equipment,...

Companies Must Invest in More Robust Insider Threat Programs

by Chuck Alsup

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 Musk, serve as a stark...

North Korea's Denuclearization: Is Cuba a Better Model than Libya?

by Ambassador Gary Grappo

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 Bolton’s dead-on-arrival “Libya...

The Tasks & Opportunities Facing Gina Haspel

by Gen. (ret.) David H. Petraeus

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 served as DD/CIA and...

South Korea Has Reassessed the Value of its American Alliance

by Tim Willasey-Wilsey

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 perfect Korean settlement is simple: North Korea should denuclearise...

With Influence Activities Exposed, the Kremlin Acts Even More Boldly

by Mikk Marran

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 in fact, interfere with U.S. Elections. The...

How the U.S. Can Fight for Tokyo Too with Kim Jong Un

by Thomas Cynkin

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 photo op. During the...

What if the Insider Threat Is You?

by Karl Wagner

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 that we ignore the lessons of...