Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

cipherbrief

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

Input clean

Defense

Unique Risks of AI Adoption in Developing Economies

The U.S. must set dominance of global AI sector as a strategic economic and national security priority. If the PRC becomes the dominant provider of [...] More

The Latest

The Military’s Race to Operationalize AI

“I feel as though I was catapulted into a dystopian future in which the battlefield (or ‘kill zone’ as Ukrainians call it) is dominated by drones and [...] More

The Authority We Cannot Keep

Washington announced permanent control of Greenland on Friday. The two governments that must ratify it announced, in the same breath, that the text [...] More

Will Physical AI Underpin the Reindustrialization Win that Western Allies Need?

Having spent most of my life working in “advanced nations” that have strategically accentuated financial and professional services growth while [...] More

We Are In An Unpredictable War Of Attrition

We are squarely in the target sights of ‘Unintended Consequences.’What do I mean by this? Think of it as a broad spectrum of possible consequences [...] More

Can America’s All-Volunteer Force Survive the Next War?

“It made sense for the United States to transition from this mixed force of conscripts and professionals to an All-Volunteer Force. It has enabled us [...] More

The AI We Cannot Deploy — And What Is at Stake

Last week, I argued in these pages that the United States is buying an army it cannot command — writing procurement checks at a scale its adversaries [...] More

The New Economics of Warfare: David vs Goliath

The most important lesson emerging from the Iran conflict may not actually be about Iran. It is about the changing economics of warfare and what [...] More

The Nuclear Umbrella is Bent, Not Broken

Why Extended Nuclear Deterrence Still Matters Jennifer Lind and Daryl Press make a compelling argument in a recent article about the future [...] More

The Cost of Squandering America’s Reputation

Make no mistake: the United States is weaker today than it was yesterday, and the day before that.Many of our closest allies have moved from fear to [...] More

Blowing up Boats: The Numbing Effect of Repetitive Illegality

Operation Southern Spear, the U.S. campaign against alleged drug trafficking small boats off the coast of several South American nations, continues [...] More

America Is Buying an Army It Cannot Command

The U.S. Army has committed to a million small drones by 2028. The Department of Defense has not decided who will authorize how they fire.That is not [...] More

The Growing Cost of Keeping U.S. Submarines Idle

“Inactive idle time describes when a [U.S. Navy] attack submarine designated for decommissioning cannot be inducted into a dry dock in a shipyard. As [...] More