Trump Security Policy: Not a Lot to Draw On
Donald Trump isn’t one to make detailed speeches or to offer commentary at think tanks or to post policy prescriptions. And he doesn’t have a foreign policy track-record to explore. So that leaves...
View ArticleSeeing the World As It Is: The Presidential Transition Begins
Almost a week after the election of Donald Trump, his transition team is at work, choosing the leaders who will head the many government agencies and departments in his administration. In the national...
View ArticleThe President-elect's Dismissal of CIA's Election Findings Is Not Acceptable
As the United States and the international community absorbed the news that the CIA believed Russia had interfered in the recent Presidential election to help Donald Trump’s candidacy, President-elect...
View ArticlePushing Back on Snowden: A Review of "How America Lost Its Secrets"
Edward Epstein began his career as an investigative journalist while he was still a graduate student at Cornell more than a half century ago, taking on the Warren Commission’s report on the Kennedy...
View ArticleCipher Brief Expert View: Changing NSA’s Email Collection Program
The National Security Agency (NSA) announced on Friday a change in its intelligence collection under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA). The move comes under the...
View ArticleFiring Comey: Why Now?
As FBI Director, James Comey was not only a pivotal member of the Intelligence Community (IC), but the head of an organization investigating whether Russia interfered in last year’s U.S. elections. To...
View ArticleCipher Brief Expert View: Consequences for Sharing Intel with Russia
President Donald Trump said Tuesday he had an “absolute right” to share highly classified information from a U.S. ally about an ISIS terror threat with Russia. Trump’s tweets came the morning after...
View ArticleChina: The Greatest Disruptive Force Today
Graham Allison’s ominously titled Destined for War fulfills an implied promise made by his seminal Atlantic magazine article 18 months ago. That article was labeled The Thucydides Trap: Are the US and...
View ArticlePresident Trump is Done Complaining to the Russians
In his readout of the two hour and 15 minute meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Trump repeatedly brought up...
View ArticleCutting Cyber Command’s Umbilical Cord to the NSA
Despite the many logistical and operational challenges of a transition, many acknowledge that U.S. Cyber Command must eventually separate from the National Security Agency. According to news reports,...
View ArticleBarcelona: Complex Attack Significantly More Dangerous if ISIS-Inspired
Spanish authorities said Friday the deadly attacks in Barcelona and a seaside town are linked and long-planned by a terrorist cell. While several people have been arrested in connection with the...
View ArticleBarcelona: Complex Attack Significantly More Dangerous if ISIS-Inspired
Spanish authorities said Friday the deadly attacks in Barcelona and a seaside town are linked and long-planned by a terrorist cell. While several people have been arrested in connection with the...
View ArticleTrump Changes the Game in Afghanistan
President Donald Trump laid out his new strategy for war torn Afghanistan Monday night, promising a winning formula that will include all instruments of U.S. military, diplomatic, and economic power,...
View ArticleOn Iran Deal, Trump Distances Himself from Obama
On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced he would not re-certify Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal signed in 2015, calling it “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United...
View ArticleBest Of: Trump Changes the Game in Afghanistan
Earlier this week, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, laid out a two-year plan to take back substantial territory in Afghanistan and drive the Taliban toward the negotiating...
View ArticleTrump Takes ‘America First’ to Skeptical Davos
President Donald Trump became the first U.S. president to visit the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, since President Bill Clinton in 2000. His message: America’s new tax measures are good...
View ArticleKeeping DOJ and FBI Safe from a Partisan President & Congress
The White House is deciding whether to make public a classified memo on the Russia investigation penned by House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes, R-Calif. The memo claims the FBI and Justice...
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Beating Iran With Our Carrots and Ignoring Our Sticks
A bipartisan group of 115 American national security leaders, including 49 retired flag officers of the U.S. military; 19 former members of Congress and 29 former U.S. ambassadors, including five...
View ArticleGeneral Michael Hayden on Threats Foreign and Domestic – Part One
As a best-selling author and television commentator, General Michael Hayden (ret.) has been vocal about the threats he sees – both foreign and domestic. The former head of the CIA and NSA (and member...
View ArticleGeneral Michael Hayden: ‘The Cyber Cavalry Ain’t Coming’
In a recent interview, The Cipher Brief sat down with former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden to talk about global threats, and in particular, cyber threats and efforts to address them,...
View ArticleGeneral Michael Hayden Recovering After Stroke
Cipher Brief readers are wishing General Michael V. Hayden, a speedy recovery after the former CIA and NSA director suffered a stroke last week. Hayden, who is a member of The Cipher Brief‘s board of...
View ArticleA Statement of Thanks From General Michael Hayden
The Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy and International Security released a statement Wednesday night from General Michael Hayden and his wife, Jeanine at a SPY Museum event at the Ritz...
View ArticleRemembering a True Leader through CIA Crisis and Controversy
Cipher Brief Expert General Michael V. Hayden (Ret.) is a retired four-star General in the United States Air Force; he was the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006-2009 and the...
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My Worry for America
OPINION — I was a Brigadier General 30 years ago, assigned in Europe as the head of intelligence. Most of the time I was looking at the Balkans because there was a war going on. Yugoslavia lasted for...
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