Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Welcome! Log in to stay connected and make the most of your experience.

Input clean

Effective but Insufficient: Drone Strikes in Counterterrorism

“Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training, and deploying against us?”

That was the question posed by then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to his staff in 2003. If answering this question has proven difficult in the 13 years since, it is because evaluating individual counterterrorism tools such as drone strikes, one of the defining features of U.S. counterterrorism efforts during this period (and quite possibly the most controversial), is extremely difficult.

Keep reading...Show less
Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.

Related Articles

Report for Wednesday, July 2, 2025

7:47 America/Chicago Wednesday, July 2 [...] More

The Golden Dome is Missing a Key Focus

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE / OPINION – On January 27, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order aimed at defending the U.S. against an attack by [...] More

Getting NATO to Be Able to 'Fight Tonight'

EXPERT Q&A — Last week’s NATO summit in The Hague was largely seen as a success, with all members (except Spain) agreeing to raise the alliance’s [...] More

Report for Tuesday, July 1, 2025

8:18 America/Chicago Tuesday, July 1 [...] More

Covering the Blaze the World Forgot

BOOK REVIEW: Fuji Fire: Sifting Ashes of a Forgotten U.S. Marine Corps TragedyBy Chas Henry / Potomac BooksReviewed by: Bill HarlowThe Reviewer — [...] More

The Math Behind Trump's $1 Trillion Defense Budget

OPINION — “The President's FY ‘26 [Fiscal Year 2026] National Defense Budget requests $1.01 trillion, which is a 13 percent increase from FY '25 [...] More

An Urgent Call to Close the Loopholes on Chips and China

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE / OPINION -- The core lessons from the Cold War should guide us as we face the new “Axis of Aggressors” today. First among these, [...] More

Report for Monday, June 30, 2025

8:29 America/Chicago Monday, June 30 [...] More

A Good NATO Summit, Though Russia Won a Round

EXPERT Q&A — NATO leaders convened in The Hague this week for a summit aiming to strengthen the alliance's defenses, with the ever encroaching threat [...] More