The Cipher Brief

CEOs of major corporations need to make hugely consequential decisions every day, but many start their mornings in fragmented and reactive information environments. Compare that to the President and other senior US national security leaders who often begin their day when their intelligence briefer delivers the President’s Daily Brief (PDB). The PDB briefer provides a curated engagement to help their principal understand the issues of the day; the briefer might share insight on the motivations of

Sometimes the only thing more frightening than Afghanistan’s problems is the Taliban’s solutions and the recently signed Russia-Taliban military-technical agreement may be the most alarming one yet. The partnership signals that Afghanistan’s security architecture is being rebuilt without the United States, and increasingly by America’s rivals. Washington should pay close attention because the deal hands one of the world’s most repressive regimes a pathway to becoming more capable and deeply entr

The June 2026 events in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) are the most recent example of a larger governance issue rather than a singular political crisis. Authorities banned the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JKJAAC) on June 5–6, detained dozens of activists, interfered with internet and mobile services, and asked for more security guards in advance of a long march and strike that was scheduled to take place throughout the region (Pakistan Today, 2026a; Express Tribune, 2026a; Express T

The Epidemic of PatriotismHow war, intelligence, technology, and state competence are building a new nationalism in the Gulf.There is an old idea in political theory that war makes the state. The pressure of external threat forces governments to centralize, to coordinate, to invest in systems that work. States that survive conflict emerge more capable than they entered it. The ones that don't fracture. What nobody talks about is what comes next. When the state performs, when it absorbs the shock

The Kremlin Files: For many in the West, Russian information warfare still conjures images of hacked emails, troll farms, and social media manipulation during the 2016 U.S. election and the Brexit vote in the UK. But those operations were not isolated incidents. They were part of a much older Russian playbook—one refined over a century by Soviet and later Russian intelligence services. Today, that same machinery is evolving again, becoming more aggressive, more technologically sophisticated with

For years, Qatar has positioned itself in Washington as a trusted American partner: a host to major U.S. military assets, a mediator in hostage negotiations, and a wealthy Gulf state capable of talking to nearly everyone in a turbulent region. At the same time, Doha has earned a reputation for exerting influence by illicit means, such as the bribes that secured it the right to host soccer’s 2022 World Cup. Less recognized is the Qatari regime’s employment of an artificial media platform that pos

Sadly, few in the U.S. and Europe know the complicated history of the Kremlin’s actions in the years leading up to Hitler’s Invasion of the USSR. This is partially a result of Moscow’s emphasis on some facts, twisting other facts and effort to ignore it to suppress critical facts that threaten and undermine the Kremlin’s propaganda and cognitive warfare narratives. Just a few reminders:Putin’s “historians” often forget to mention the fact that in 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland, the Soviets not

“He [President Trump] felt it was imperative that Iran not be able to establish a conventional shield that they were building with massive number of drones and missiles, and they were on their way to getting double what they had, and if they reached the point where they had so many missiles and so many drones plus their naval capabilities that existed at the time, Iran would then say to the world there's nothing you can do about our nuclear program because if you do we will overwhelm your defens

As tensions between Israel and Iran continue to evolve following a weekend Iranian ballistic missile attack against Israel, policymakers and markets alike are grappling with a complex and uncertain landscape. A very fragile ceasefire, ongoing disruptions to maritime traffic in and around the Strait of Hormuz, threats of new escalation by the Houthis in the Red Sea and continued diplomatic engagement between Washington and Tehran underscore the highly complex military, economic, and political dyn

Sir Alex Younger died earlier this week at the age of 62. He had been fighting cancer for some time. Alex was Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, more popularly MI6) from 2014 to 2020. For most past and present MI6 officers, he was the best-loved Chief anyone had known. One reason for this was that Alex had risen through the ranks. A good MI6 head does not need to have done so. But there is an undoubted advantage in a humint service to have a leader like Alex who has spent years opera

I don't want to write about Sir Alex Younger, my predecessor as Chief of SIS.I want to write about my friend.I had known about Alex's cancer from the outset, while I was still Chief. He treated it with his customary irreverence and wit. He nicknamed his tumour "Putin". At one stage he took to sporting a lapel badge bearing the words "I'm not dead yet". Sarah, his wife, persuaded him not to wear it to the memorial service of a former agent.I knew he had become dangerously ill in Boston last week.

Welcome to The Iron Triangle, the Cipher Brief column serving Procurement Officers tasked with buying the future, Investors funding the next generation of defense technology, and the Policy Wonks analyzing its impact on the global order.On January 12, 2026, Secretary Hegseth's office published a memo that ought to be hanging in every PEO's office: "No longer a loose federation. They are the Office of the Secretary of War's innovation operating system." The memo took six previously-warring fiefdo

THE BLUF: Working with partners is a key intelligence tool. While the US has one of the best if not the best intelligence organizations in the world, it still cannot collect and analyze all global trends. The US sets intelligence priorities based on threats against the nation and the American people. Trends and anomalies in areas that may not have a direct impact on the US are of a lesser priority. Other countries do the same. If we share our analysis and collection among allies and partners, we

There's a moment in every intelligence officer's career when they realize something uncomfortable: to be effective at their job, they must genuinely connect with people whose values, beliefs, or actions they might find repugnant. Not pretend to connect. Not manipulate. Actually connect.This realization runs counter to everything we typically believe about empathy. We're taught that empathy flows naturally toward people we like, people who share our values, people who we think of as "good." But i

China’s summit with Russia last month and the reported likely upcoming visit of President Xi Jinping to North Korea are tactical moves that ignore the historical tensions between China, Russia and North Korea.That tension threatens a meaningful strategic partnership.The meeting between Mr. Xi and Russian ruler Vladimir Putin, convened immediately after President Trump’s summit with Mr. Xi, resulted in a joint statement highlighting a strategic partnership between Russia and China. Meanwhile, it

The hybrid threat challenge facing Europe today is reminiscent of the terrorist threat challenge of the post-9/11 Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) era. Because of that similarity, the alliance should adapt the counterterrorism cooperation model developed over the last twenty years.As European security partners grapple with Russia’s gray-zone activities—operations conducted below the threshold of war to create confusion and hesitation—the recently released U.S. counterterrorism strategy makes a not

Put the Next Generation to Work: Digital Transformation Has Only Just BegunWe are witnessing a historic bottleneck in the technology sector. According to recent data, unemployment among new computer science graduates has climbed to 6.1%. While many point to AI as the singular cause of this displacement, the reality is more nuanced: the industry has stopped hiring "apprentices" because it has temporarily lost sight of the value of human-led systems integration.We are currently operating under a d

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — We are currently witnessing a mobilization of technical ambition reminiscent of the Manhattan Project, a realization that data and compute are the new defining elements of national power. I am deeply energized by recent bold moves in Washington, specifically the White House’s launch of the "Genesis Mission" this past November—an initiative designed to federate vast federal scientific datasets for integrated AI training—alongside the real-world deployment of GenAI.mil.Yet, wh

War doesn’t always look like war anymore. Hybrid non-kinetic warfare is an increasingly popular means for threat actors to orchestrate prolonged campaigns aimed at achieving political and security objectives by destabilizing the adversary, eroding its strength and social cohesion, while avoiding the creation of a pretext for military retaliation. The goal is to wreak chaos with invisible hands from an anonymous cloak, absent a military, uniforms or declaration of war.The Iranian conflict is a re

Events have moved faster than doctrine. Part 1 of this series diagnosed the rise of synthetic asymmetry, an era where technological convergence allows small actors to impose disproportionate costs on states and institutions. Unlike the guerrillas of the past, today's asymmetric threats are engineered by design. This essay asks the harder question: How should democracies respond to a threat that is diffuse, deniable, and constantly mutating?The Failure of Traditional DeterrenceThe foundational fl