Regime Change: What Is It Good For?
It is easy to see why regime change could be appealing to foreign policymakers. Why bother to persuade, bribe, or threaten a defiant foreign country […] More
CIA
State of Play: “American Assassin” Misses the Mark
The main problem with this latest launch of a likely movie series is not necessarily the gratuitous violence and errant gun play – although those […] More
U.S. Counterintelligence Director: Putin “Achieved His Mission”
Robert Hanssen. Aldrich Ames. Those are just two of the faces peering out from a mock-up “Wall of Shame” of double agents and leakers that […] More
CIA Director Walks the Line on North Korean Regime Change
CIA Director Mike Pompeo signaled Thursday that a key goal of the Trump administration is to “separate” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un from control over […] More
Russia Wins When U.S. Stops Arming Anti-Assad Rebels
President Trump has decided to end the CIA-sponsored program to arm Syrian anti-Assad rebels, according to a Washington Post report on Wednesday. The newspaper quotes […] More
Cipher Brief Expert: Russia Wins When U.S. Stops Arming Anti-Assad Rebels
President Trump has decided to end the CIA-sponsored program to arm Syrian anti-Assad rebels, according to a Washington Post report on Wednesday. The newspaper quotes […] More
Trump Hands Syria to Putin on a Silver Platter
The Trump Administration is ending the covert program to support Syrian rebels fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, according to the Washington Post. […] More
The Pros Chase Intel and Facts – and They Don’t Leak
The dueling Republican and Democratic talking points on Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election were on full display during the recent testimony of former […] More
The CIA’s Officer of the Future
Few were paying attention, but the CIA did something groundbreaking in 2015. For the first time since before man walked on the moon, the Agency […] More
Berenson Talks ‘Reality-Adjacent’ Spy Thrillers
Renowned espionage writer Alex Berenson says he draws some inspiration for the plots of his acclaimed spy thrillers from the headlines, but that he would […] More
Mastering the Art of Illusion and Disguise
How far-fetched are James Bond’s gadgets or shows like Mission Impossible, where under-cover agents switch into different disguises? Not as far-fetched as you think. The […] More
Can You Ask a Spy Not to Spy? TCB's Cyber Advisory Board Debates
Zero-day vulnerabilities — security flaws in commercial software or hardware for which developers haven’t devised a patch — have existed since the dawn of the […] More
Pompeo Calls WikiLeaks a “Hostile Intelligence Service”
CIA Director Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks a “non-state, hostile intelligence service” that is “often abetted by state actors like Russia” in his first public speech […] More
A Punch in the Nose for Iran
Now that President Donald Trump has demonstrated his willingness to get tough with a regional bad actor by using a cruise missile attack to punish […] More
Intel Agencies That See Something Should Say Something
Wikileaks’ “Vault7” disclosure last month of apparent CIA hacking tools marked the third recent incident in which an inadvertent public release of alleged government hacking […] More
Trump Drone Policy Taking Shape
Less than two months after taking office, U.S. President Donald Trump’s approach to drone strikes appears to be taking shape. Although the Trump Administration has […] More
State of Play Review: Homeland, “R is for Romeo”
Viewers can’t step out for popcorn while watching Homeland, or they might miss a fleeting glimpse of a person or object in a scene that […] More
“Unmasking” U.S. Citizens Found in NSA Intercepts
The process of “unmasking,” or revealing the true identities of U.S. persons who unexpectedly figure into conversations picked up by National Security Agency (NSA) foreign […] More