Mark Kelton retired from CIA as a senior executive with 34 years of experience in intelligence operations including serving as CIA’s Deputy Director for Counterintelligence. He is currently a partner at the FiveEyes Group and is Board Chair of Spookstock, a charity that benefits the CIA Memorial Foundation, the Special Operations Warrior Foundation and the Defense Intelligence Memorial Foundation.
EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — I hope CIA has an agent like Dmitry Polyakov operating in Moscow right now. A Major General in Soviet Military Intelligence (the […] More
Mark Kelton, Former Deputy Director, CIA’s Counterintelligence, National Clandestine Service Cipher Brief Expert Mark Kelton is a retired senior Central Intelligence Agency executive with 34 […] More
When the PRC decides to move on Taiwan, it is unlikely to move in a manner that makes a US decision on intervention clear cut. […] More
In 1937, Winston Churchill contrasted the “two rival religions” of Nazism and Communism then afflicting the world. Those fascist and communist “infernal twins”, he wrote, […] More
OPINION — A recent email from the current Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Chief of Counterintelligence (C/CI), wherein Agency retirees were reminded of their life-long obligation […] More
This expert-driven national-security insight can’t be generated for free. We invite you to support quality content by becoming a Cipher Brief Level I Member . Joining […] More
This expert-driven national-security insight can’t be generated for free. We invite you to support quality content by becoming a Cipher Brief Level I Member . Joining […] More
This expert-driven national-security insight can’t be generated for free. We invite you to support quality content by becoming a Cipher Brief Level I Member . Joining […] More
This unique national-security focused expert insight can’t be generated for free. We invite you to support this kind of quality content by becoming a Cipher Brief […] More
This unique national-security focused expert insight can’t be generated for free. We invite you to support this kind of quality content by becoming a Cipher Brief […] More
This is Cipher Brief Level I Member Only content. It can be accessed via login or by signing up to become a Cipher Brief Member. […] More
This is Cipher Brief Level I Member Only content. It can be accessed via login or by signing up to become a Cipher Brief Member. […] More
This is Cipher Brief Level I Member Only content. It can be accessed via login or by signing up to become a Cipher Brief Member. […] More
In the version of Aesop’s fable, “The Farmer and the Viper,” as recounted by Roman fabulist Gaius Julius Phaedrus, a farmer finds a viper freezing […] More
President Donald Trump is not the first American public figure to go to war with the press, nor is he the most extreme in his […] More
This is Cipher Brief Level I Member Only content. It can be accessed via login or by signing up to become a Cipher Brief Member. […] More
There is no adjective to which I have a greater aversion than “unprecedented.” Such language is most often intended to describe challenges more daunting than […] More
Vladimir Putin is smiling because he thrives on chaos, particularly in the camp of the “Main Enemy,” a term the Soviet and Russian intelligence services […] More
This is Cipher Brief Level I Member Only content. It can be accessed via login or by signing up to become a Cipher Brief Member. […] More
The Cipher Brief asked our network member Mark Kelton, the former CIA Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service for Counterintelligence, for his impressions of […] More
Two summers ago, I made a $5 wager with my son that the United States would be exchanging shots in anger with China within five […] More
Amid ongoing debate over encrypted communications, hinging, as it does, on striking a balance between the need to defend America and the need to ensure […] More
This is Cipher Brief Level I Member Only content. It can be accessed via login or by signing up to become a Cipher Brief Member. […] More
“The important thing to know about an assassination,” Eric Ambler wrote in A Coffin for Dimitrios, “is not who fired the shot, but who paid […] More
