NSA ENDS DEPUTY DIRECTOR DROUGHT: After a notably long stretch without a permanent senior civilian at Fort Meade, the National Security Agency has announced Tim Kosiba as its next deputy director — the agency’s top civilian and de facto chief operating officer. The move ends questions inside and outside NSA about how long one of the government’s most consequential intelligence agencies could operate without a permanent second-in-command. Kosiba is no outsider. A 33-year intelligence community veteran, he previously ran some of the agency’s most sensitive cyber and signals intelligence operations, including holding senior roles tied to computer network operations and NSA Georgia, its largest field site. The previous NSA Deputy Director, Wendy Noble, was removed from the position along with the Director, Gen. Timothy Haugh, in April 2025 because a social media influencer didn’t like them. It’s absurdity at its finest - but with NSA and U.S. Cyber Command navigating leadership transitions amid intensifying cyber competition with China, Russia, Iran, and others, the absence of permanent leadership had become a lingering anomaly. Kosiba’s arrival doesn’t solve every challenge facing the agency — but it does finally confirm a civilian adult in the room. As we reported in December, several news organizations said the administration had sent to the Senate the nomination of Army Lt. Gen Joshua Rudd for promotion to four stars and assignment as head of NSA and the Cyber Command. Almost a month later, however, the White House has yet to confirm their plan to nominate Rudd.
ALL BOXED IN: For years, the idea of hiding missiles and bombs inside shipping containers lived somewhere between defense-conference hypotheticals and thriller novels and movies. Tom Clancy’s “The Sum of All Fears” comes to mind. Now, according to a new War on the Rocks analysis, some of those fears are growing. U.S. planners are said to be treating containerized missile systems less like sci-fi and more like a near-term operational headache — especially in any conflict involving China. Yes, navies have used merchant ships for surprise before — this is an old trick with new packaging. But what’s changed is scale and context: millions of identical steel boxes moving nonstop through chokepoints that matter, paired with modern precision missiles that don’t need much warning or ceremony. What used to be theoretical is now showing up in real planning scenarios, forcing commanders to wonder whether the next threat looks less like a “big beautiful battleship” and more like something waiting for customs clearance. The result is strategic ambiguity on steroids: how do you deter, inspect, or defend against something designed to blend perfectly into global commerce without breaking the global economy in the process? When war fits inside a standard container, even deterrence needs a tracking number.
MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROSPECTS GOING DOWNHILL: In a plot twist nobody had on their bingo card, the latest U.S.-backed peace initiative between Israel and Syria involves…ski lifts. Yes, really. According to the Jerusalem Post, U.S. envoys are encouraging plans for a joint Israeli-Syrian ski resort on Mount Hermon, right along the Golan Heights. The paper says that planning is already underway, with talk of joint civilian management, cross-border cooperation, and Druze communities running hospitality services. Translation: fewer surface-to-air missiles, more surface-to-snowplow coordination. If everything works out (which it seemingly almost never does in the region) the various sides may be lobbing snowballs instead of grenades at each other in the future. Energy, agriculture, and healthcare cooperation could follow to boot. Skeptics, however, note that the Golan remains one of the region’s most militarized zones, making this a slippery slope in more ways than one.
THE END OF AMES: Many of our friends in the national security community are buzzing on the news that Aldrich Ames, who sources describe as the worst traitor in CIA history, has died in prison at the age of 84. Want to know more about what caused Ames to spend the last third of a century in custody? Look no further than the story on the front page of today’s Washington Post written by The Cipher Brief’s Senior National Security Columnist Walter Pincus - who worked for the Washington Post for about 40 years. During that time – Pincus extensively covered Ames and was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 and the George Polk Award in 1978. Ames, however, won no such accolades. He is believed to have caused the deaths of at least 10 people who were either working for - or with - the CIA. Why? He wanted money. It was a big price to pay for those who lost their lives of course, explaining why many in the national security community will not be mourning his loss.
GRADING ON THE CURVES — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a six-month review of the “operational effectiveness” of women in ground combat roles, some ten years after the Pentagon opened all combat jobs to women. A memo obtained by NPR says the study will examine the roughly 3,800 women who are serving in infantry, armor, and artillery, with the Institute for Defense Analyses tasked to assess readiness and deploy-ability. Hegseth has previously made his views clear, telling senior officers that women must meet the “highest male standard” and that any standards altered since 2015 should revert to earlier benchmarks. Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Wilson says the review is about maintaining standards, noting that “the weight of a rucksack or a human being doesn’t care if you’re a man or a woman.” Some critics are skeptical. Former Army officer and West Point graduate Khris Fuhr points to a 2018–2023 Army study showing women performed well in ground combat units, sometimes outperforming men, calling the review “a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.” Another West Point grad, Ellen Haring, was blunter speaking of Hegseth: “He’s against women in combat and he’s going to get them out.” Hegseth says no one is barred — for now — but if women can’t meet the standard, “it is what it is.” We kinda wish that Pentagon officials would spend more time talking publicly about the skills needed to fight and win the next war - not the last one.
KIM’S GARDEN OF REMEMBRANCE — Kim Jong Un marked the construction of Pyongyang’s new war memorial honoring North Korean soldiers who were killed fighting for Russia in Ukraine by planting some trees. UPI says the site bears the somewhat cumbersome title of ”Memorial Museum of Combat Feats at Overseas Military Operations.” In remarks, Kim praised the sacrifice of his troops as an “eternal cornerstone” of the DPRK, while images of the event showed him joined by wife Ri Sol Ju and daughter Kim Ju Ae - fueling further speculation about the daughter’s status as heir apparent. The museum is North Korea’s first dedicated to soldiers who were killed overseas, a public acknowledgment of a deployment Pyongyang initially denied. Convenient. Estimates of how many North Korean soldiers have been deployed to support Russia’s Ukrainian war and how many have been killed vary widely. The Korea Times reported that “more than 10,000 troops” have been sent and “thousands” are believed to have been KIA.
TAKE OUT AT “PAPA DON’S” – Perhaps you heard that there was a flurry of activity over the weekend as President Trump was making comments on Air Force One suggesting that Colombia, Cuba, or Greenland might be next on the menu following Saturday’s extraction of Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela. Where do you turn for indicators and warnings when more military action may be on order? For some folks – they closely read the thoughts of former CIA senior executives - for others, the answer might be in the Pizza Prediction Report and similar sites that purport to track increased ordering from pizza restaurants near the Pentagon. Such spikes are believed by some to portend impending action being coordinated by nearby military planners. Sunday night there was said to be a spike in ordering – just like late night Friday prior to the U.S. carrying out the President’s takeout order on Maduro. But not everyone is buying it. Some online observers are yelping that the index is bogus and that there are plenty of food suppliers inside the Pentagon thereby rendering the index meaningless. We’re ambivalent about the best way to predict new actions from the President but, no doubt, POTUS would welcome a Nobel Pizza Prize. We apologize if this extra cheesy post gives you indigestion.
PYONGYANG CLEARS ITS THROAT (WITH BALLISTIC MISSILES) -- North Korea kicked off the new year the only way it knows how: by lobbing ballistic missiles into the sea and daring everyone to notice. Reuters reports that the launches came just ahead of South Korea’s president heading to China — a helpful reminder from Kim Jong Un that diplomacy should never proceed without a weapons test as background music. Pyongyang also used the moment to denounce the U.S. operation that removed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro from the country, calling it proof of American “lawlessness.” And we all know how much Kim respects the rule of law.
PREDICTION MARKET NOSTRADAMOS TURNS $32K INTO $400K – Somewhere in America, a very lucky — or very informed — trader rang in the New Year by making more than $400,000 betting on Nicolás Maduro’s downfall… just days before U.S. forces actually made it happen. The Wall Street Journaland other news organizations noted that the bets were placed on Polymarket, the crypto-based prediction site that functions like Vegas for new nerds. Odds were long, timing was exquisite, and the account appeared shortly before the strike — which has naturally triggered questions about insider knowledge, lucky guesses, or the world’s best gut instinct. Some anonymous user set up an account around Christmastime and bet about $32,000 that Venezuela would soon say adios to Maduro. On January 3, that prescient prognosticator collected more than $400,000. As it turns out, current regulations do not prohibit having inside information and trading on that for fun and profit on the crypto market. Maybe that’s why the administration didn’t want to tell Congress about the strike in advance. Too many poly-marketeers and the payouts might go down.GOT NEWS TO SHARE? SEND IT OUR WAY: Editor@thecipherbrief.com
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