The Cipher Brief

CIPHER BRIEF REPORTING – When Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump meet at the White House Monday, they will bring different ideas for resolving two of the most important and difficult conflicts in the Middle East. Netanyahu continues to push a no-holds-barred war in Gaza and an uncompromising position on Iran and its nuclear program; Donald Trump is looking to make deals on both fronts.

Publicly, Trump and Netanyahu will no doubt cheer the success of recent strikes against Iran and the coordination that was evident between the two nations during that 12-day war. In the wake of those attacks, Trump offered to negotiate with Iran, and he has repeatedly urged Israel and Hamas to accept what he calls a “final proposal” for a Gaza truce.

These are the latest in a series of efforts the President has made to make peace on the global stage. As a candidate, Trump promised quick solutions to the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, and since his second inaugural, he has expended significant diplomatic efforts on Iran and global trade disputes as well. And other than a few trade agreements, he has made no major deals as yet. Might the Netanyahu visit change that?

Experts say the hurdles involve domestic pressures on the Israeli Prime Minister, who has shown little interest in deals that don’t suit the right-wing nationalists in his government.

“For Netanyahu, there are domestic political concerns that are influencing his enthusiasm about proceeding with a ceasefire [in Gaza] or formal negotiations with Iran,” Jason Campbell, Senior Fellow at The Middle East Institute, told The Cipher Brief. “I think that will continue to be a flashpoint in his discussions with President Trump.”

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Ambassador Gary Grappo, whose diplomatic career included high-level postings in Oman, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, said that Trump’s decision to attack Iran’s nuclear program – something Netanyahu clearly wanted the U.S. to do – may help him press the Israeli leader to halt his campaign in Gaza.

“Donald Trump jumped into a fray that initially he was very reluctant to join, and had said so publicly before Israel started its first series of attacks on Iran,” Amb. Grappo said. He expects Trump to use that “big favor to Israel,” as he called it, in his discussions with Netanyahu.

A rare rift

Although President Trump has boasted frequently of his close relationship to Israel – the country “has never had a better friend in the White House,” he said during his first term. But he has stymied Netanyahu several times since his return to office.

The last time the Israeli Prime Minister came to the White House, Trump refused to give him a green light for attacking Iran, and just days before Israel’s strikes last month, he said publicly that such attacks would be “inappropriate.”

Earlier this year, Netanyahu was reportedly furious to learn that the Trump administration had negotiated directly with Hamas to free U.S. hostages, and that the White House had ended its campaign against Houthi militants without informing Israel. It didn’t help matters that when Trump took his four-day visit to the Middle East in May, he chose to leave Israel off the itinerary.

After that trip, former White House Middle East adviser Dennis Ross told The Cipher Brief that “the Israelis are learning that President Trump is going to do what he decides is in our interests – we've seen a pattern recently of, ‘We'll do what we want, and it doesn't necessarily mean we feel their interests have to be taken into account.’”

It wasn’t a rupture of the relationship, Ross said, but it was highly unusual for a self-proclaimed “best friend” of Israel.

The June 22 U.S. bunker-buster strikes – which some referred to as a “favor” to Israel – appear to have swung the U.S.-Israel pendulum back in a more favorable direction. Netanyahu said as much last week, thanking Trump for his “steadfast stance” on Iran and his overall support of Israel. “I thank him for his consistent support of our country,” he said.

Deal or no deal, part one: The Gaza war

Since the strikes against Iran, Trump has been pressing Netanyahu hard – demanding almost, that he finalize a proposed 60-day ceasefire deal with Hamas.

This week, Trump wrote on social media that Israel had “agreed to the necessary conditions to finalize” the ceasefire, “during which time we will work with all parties to end the War.” The outlines of the deal include the release of the hostages – there are about 50 remaining in Gaza, and authorities believe fewer than half of them are still be alive. A return would happen in five phases during the 60-day truce, in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. Israel would pull back troops from Gaza, and negotiations would continue over those 60 days to bring about the end of the war.

Hamas says it is weighing the proposal. Its prime demand is for assurances that the process produces an end to the war – but Israel hasn’t agreed to the plan either. Netanyahu has yet to commit to a final resolution to the war, only a temporary ceasefire, and he and his government are insisting on a complete dismantling of Hamas – both its military wing and government.

“There will be no Hamas,” Netanyahu said recently. “We will free our hostages, and we will defeat Hamas.”

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Meanwhile, two powerful members of Netanyahu’s coalition, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Ministry Itamar Ben-Gvir, are reportedly working to sabotage the deal, holding out for their demands that most of Gaza’s population be forced from the territory, and that an Israeli military government be established there.

Amos Harel, the military and defense analyst for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, wrote recently that Netanyahu was being forced to choose between repaying a debt to Trump and bowing to his coalition partners.

“Netanyahu, who owes Trump a considerable debt after the president mobilized on his behalf in the Iran campaign after defying the majority of his base in the Republican Party,” Harel wrote, “is still looking for a way to preserve his fragile coalition.”

Grappo believes the U.S. strikes against Iran may have changed the political dynamic in Israel, by allowing Netanyahu to show his right-wing cabinet that it pays to follow a U.S. lead.

“What has really changed is Iran,” Amb. Grappo said, “and specifically the decision of Donald Trump to enter the war as he did with the dropping of those bunker-buster bombs. And that is going to factor into the conversation they have about Gaza.”

The families of the Israeli hostages appear to understand the Iran connection. Several family members set up tables on Friday outside the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, calling for "One Big Beautiful Hostage Deal."

Former hostage Keith Siegel, an Israeli-American who was freed earlier this year, told the gathering, "The leader who achieved a cease-fire with Iran can also deliver the deal of all deals in Gaza," adding, "This is our moment, the families are waiting. The 50 hostages are waiting."

Deal or no deal, part two: What's next for Iran?

Trump and Netanyahu will no doubt compare notes on the damage done by their strikes on the three Iranian nuclear sites. Trump’s insistence that the Iranian nuclear program was “obliterated” is not a view shared by the intelligence services of either country – and the Israelis in particular see the Iran issue as unfinished business.

“Item one on the agenda will be collaborating on the current status of the Iranian regime and its nuclear capabilities, and from that to assess how best to approach this in the near to medium term,” Campbell said. “What are the near and medium-term objectives? Can we come to some sort of an understanding or agreement there on how to pursue them?”

Campbell believes Trump will seek “some path to negotiation” on Iran, but he added that “it will remain to be seen the degree to which Netanyahu and Israel agree on the steps to be taken.”

While Trump sees the attacks on Iran as a potential opening for a deal – with the big “if” involving how Iran responds – Netanyahu and his right-wing cabinet members see a chance to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions and missile programs once and for all. In this view, it’s a time to deliver knockout blows, not a moment for diplomacy.

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For this reason, Cohen says, Netanyahu wants U.S. backing for possible additional strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“We've bought time [with the damage done to Iran’s nuclear program], and from the Israeli perspective, they want to make sure that that time actually extends out as long as possible,” Cohen said. “My guess is Netanyahu is also going to be pushing to maintain the sanctions on Iran, and Trump has sort of shown a little bit of softness or openness to relaxing some of those. I don't think that's what Netanyahu would want.”

“There is some distance between the positions of Mr. Trump and the Israeli government, including Mr. Netanyahu, on Iran,” Amb. Grappo said. “And don't forget Mr. Trump has his right wing to answer to as well. It was known from the outset that some of his more hardline supporters were very much opposed to the American intervention in Iran and still are…They also see a real danger of the Americans being further entrapped in another Middle East war if the Israelis decide to press the advantage.”

The Saudi factor – and the Gaza “Riviera”

Beyond Gaza and Iran, President Trump’s “big, beautiful” Middle East deal involves another major power in the Middle East: Saudi Arabia. Trump’s singular foreign policy achievement during his first term was the so-called Abraham Accords, which produced peace agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco. And he has made clear his wish to bring Saudi Arabia into those agreements.

The Biden administration was pursuing a Saudi-Israeli rapprochement as well, but all progress on that front ended abruptly with the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and the war on Gaza that followed. Saudi Arabia has insisted on a peace deal in Gaza and a plan for a Palestinian state as prerequisites for entering into any deal with the Israelis. Trump would love to be seen as the architect of this new and potentially critical piece of the Abraham Accords, and certainly the Israelis would love to see it happen.

“For Mr. Trump, this still remains his ace in the hole,” Amb. Grappo said. “It's something that Bibi Netanyahu very, very much wants to have. It would be a signature achievement to have normalization of Israeli-Saudi ties, but that's going to require an acceptable solution to the war in Gaza. And so that's an ace in the hole for Trump if he decides to play it.”

One thing is clear, as Netanyahu heads for Washington: Trump’s last big plan for Gaza – the idea that the U.S. would take over the territory and create a real-estate bonanza on the “Riviera” – is no longer in the conversation.

“I think it's been forgotten,” Amb. Grappo said. “Or at least it's been put on the shelf, and that shelf has over the years, become a library of plans for settling the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.”

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To Counter China, Reform U.S. Intelligence for the Digital Age

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE / OPINION -- The United States is facing a quiet and rapidly growing threat across the digital landscape, an unseen mathematical space of binary code and shadowy actors. This landscape demands more, not less, attention, and urgently, if the U.S. is to win the strategic competition of this generation.

The most sophisticated and ambitious of our adversaries is the government of the People's Republic of China in Beijing, which is pursuing an aggressive national strategy to undermine America's digital future.

More than 20 years have passed since the last major reorganization of the U.S. intelligence community. In that time, the adversarial threat landscape has changed dramatically, and technology has become central to the intelligence mission. With ever-increasing demands being placed on the Intelligence Community (IC) in a time of fiscal constraint, it is right to ask whether it is optimized for the emerging threats of tomorrow. It is not.

Given these stakes, lawmakers and national security leaders debating the most significant reforms since 2004 face a critical choice: focus on the real challenges posed by China's digital strategy or become mired in bureaucratic reshuffling.

The current debate in Washington, focused on the Intelligence Community Efficiency and Effectiveness Act of 2025, exemplifies this risk. It proposes substantial cuts and a restructuring of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which has indeed grown beyond its envisioned size and narrow mission. While ODNI's future size and structure merit discussion, that topic should not distract policymakers with arguments over bureaucratic power, resources, and prestige while missing the bigger, more urgent picture.

The true measure of reform should not be judged by organizational charts, which rarely impact mission success. The core issues are aligning skills and resources with our most pressing challenges, eliminating bureaucracy that fails to contribute meaningfully to the mission, and unleashing American innovation. Importantly, it is also the candid acknowledgment that espionage demands audacity, agility and risk in the field and in the technical ops center, the so-called pointy end of the spear. Yet institutional incentives often discourage the calculated risks essential to effective intelligence work, creating structural barriers to the bold action required in today's digital intelligence mission.

A central challenge faced by the IC is the PRC's aggressive national digital strategy, which explicitly aims for global dominance in artificial intelligence by 2030. Beijing views AI as critical infrastructure for national security and geopolitical influence, backing it with extensive state investment and a military-civil fusion program to weaponize civilian technology. To effectively counter this, the U.S. IC must achieve and maintain dominance in all digital domains where China's advancements are most pronounced.

Cyber Collection and Defense: China increasingly leverages AI-driven automation to conduct sophisticated cyber espionage, systematically compromising critical U.S. infrastructure, intellectual property, and defense-related information. Yet our current cyber capabilities are hampered by antiquated acquisition processes that treat software like hardware, sometimes taking years to field capabilities that adversaries deploy on rapid timelines.

Artificial Intelligence: Beijing uses powerful AI algorithms to analyze vast datasets, including the personal and biometric data of Americans, to significantly enhance the precision and scale of its espionage. Meanwhile, IC agencies struggle with bureaucratic barriers that prevent rapid adoption of commercial AI tools and make it difficult to partner with smaller tech companies who are leading innovation in this space.

Strategic Data Acquisition: China's comprehensive data strategy treats information as a strategic asset, harvesting it from commercial, governmental, and individual sources to fuel its AI systems. Naturally, the IC’s ability to leverage open-source data is limited by its available budget, but this is an area worthy of modest additional investment to benefit the mission of all IC members.

Information Operations: Chinese state actors utilize generative AI tools, including advanced deepfakes and social media manipulation, to propagate disinformation, deepen societal divisions, and reshape the global digital landscape to align with China's objectives. The IC must quickly improve its ability to identify and counter such efforts at scale and at machine speed, which will require investment in sophisticated technical capabilities now, not someday.

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Real reform demands breaking and rebuilding an outdated acquisitions process designed for analog-era weapon systems. Consider this reality: while China can deploy new cyber capabilities on rapid timelines, the IC can take up to two years to procure and field comparable digital tools due to processes designed for a bygone analog era. Creating fast-track authorities means establishing dedicated pathways where software and digital services can be evaluated, tested, and deployed within weeks rather than following traditional procurement timelines. This also requires a concerted effort to drive genuine partnerships between government and private industry, the true engines of innovation, by creating new pathways for tech talent to serve short tours in government and streamlining how the IC adopts commercial technology.

Critics rightfully worry that rapid acquisition could compromise security or oversight. The solution is not slower processes, but smarter ones that leverage new AI capabilities by creating streamlined security reviews specifically designed for software, implementing continuous monitoring instead of front-loaded approvals (the one-and-done approach), and building accountability mechanisms that match the speed of digital threats.

The goal of intelligence reform should be clear: promote a culture of bold risk-taking, eliminate bureaucracy where it merely perpetuates itself, ruthlessly drive efficiency to free up precious resources, and reallocate those resources to the challenges of the future rather than the structures of the past. This requires immediate action from Congress to establish new acquisition authorities, from IC leadership to restructure internal processes, and from the private sector to engage more deeply with national security missions.

It would be a mistake to squander precious time in debates over bureaucratic power while our adversaries move forward aggressively. The United States must match and surpass their speed, innovation, and audacity, focusing exclusively on the real challenges ahead to secure America's digital future. This is a moment for bold action.

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Expert Q&A: Former CENTCOM Commander on U.S. Troops in the Middle East

EXPERT Q&A — The American force posture in the Middle East — some 40,000 troops spread across the region — came into focus following the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, and the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. U.S. forces are deemed potential targets of retaliation and one U.S. airbase in Qatar did come under attack, albeit a largely symbolic one.

The Cipher Brief spoke with General Frank McKenzie (Ret.), who oversaw U.S. forces in the Middle East as the head of U.S. Central Command from 2019 to 2022, about the mission and vulnerability of U.S. troops in the region, and what might happen if they were to leave. Our interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

The Cipher Brief: The Iraq War is long over. The United States - in a coalition - defeated ISIS some time ago. The Afghan War is over. What is the mission or are the missions of all those troops that remain in the Middle East?

General McKenzie: I would argue that the fight against ISIS still goes on. We don't actually fight that fight ourselves, but we do support our partners both in Iraq and in Syria who continue to conduct operations against ISIS, which is now newly flourishing based on the turmoil in Syria. That may correct itself over the next few months with the new government, which I think is a good thing. So we're still in that fight a little bit. But to your basic question, our forces are there to train our partners in the region, to work with them, to provide assurance of American presence, and that's largely focused on Iran. Iran remains a singular threat in the region, and we've seen over the last few months, why we need to be very aware and alert to the threat from Iran.

The other thing is that while we do have a lot of forces in the region, they are distributed. We defended ourselves very effectively against an Iranian attack a few days ago. And forces also provide assurance to our neighbors while they deter action by our potential opponents. Our friends in the region can't leave. They're stuck there, so the fact that U.S. forces are there actually adds to their level of assurance that we'll be a reliable partner should Iran attack them.

The Cipher Brief: A good many of those American troops are there at the invitation, if not the request, of some of the Gulf states. That's of course not the case for different reasons in Iraq and Syria. To what extent is the U.S. presence, in your view, an answer to those kinds of requests? And to what extent is it strategically smart for the United States?

General McKenzie: It’s a combination of both. It certainly serves our interest to maintain a presence in the region. It certainly serves the interests of the Gulf States and other states that we be there in order to give them additional stability as they confront the threat from Iran. So I think it serves both our interests. We’re actually in Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government now. I think we have an ongoing negotiation process with the Iraqis about what our force posture is going to be. So we're in Iraq because the Iraqis want us to be there, not because we're forcing ourselves on the Iraqis.

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The Cipher Brief: Explain the distinction in terms of what the troops do between those Iraq and Syria deployments on the one hand and the Gulf State presence?

General McKenzie: First, we assure our friends that we're a reliable partner, that we're willing to help them if they're attacked by Iran. We could leave the region, and that's talked about fairly frequently. If we left the region and drew down dramatically, then that assurance component would go away and they would also be, as an effective operational matter, far more vulnerable to attacks from Iran. We've seen how willing Iran is to actually use their military to attack their neighbors over the last few months. That's the thing to cover when we look at why our forces are there: what effects do we derive? Assurance and deterrence against Iranian attacks.

I think those are all useful things because that keeps the flow of commerce through the region, moving through the Strait of Hormuz. We've reopened the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait recently. I believe commerce is eventually going to flow again, though that's going to take a little time as insurance companies test the waters about what the Houthis are going to be willing to do. But all of those things are very much in our national interest.

The Cipher Brief: Let's talk about the vulnerability of some of those forces. You've had all those forces under your command. How difficult a task is it to go from whatever the baseline force protection is to us now attacking the nation of Iran? What's the ramp up like in terms of security?

General McKenzie: We have exquisitely rehearsed and prepared plans to protect our forces. As the CENTCOM commander, you begin every day worrying about the force protection level of U.S. forces in the region, our embassies in the region, our American citizens in the region, as well as our friends and partners. So you look at that every day and you balance it against what the Iranians are doing. We have very good ways of knowing what the Iranians are thinking about and what they plan to do. So as we saw recently, we are typically able to adjust and prepare for that. The risk is always that you'll get it wrong or they'll get lucky, and we know and understand that. But we work very closely with forces in the region to ensure they're prepared for these types of things. It's a battle drill. It is an onerous thing to do. You're leaving the comfortable places you live. You're going to places that are certainly less comfortable, albeit for a short period of time, but it's one of the best ways we can effectively save the Iranians from themselves. If they were to attack us and cause significant U.S. casualties, then the potential for upward escalation is very high. We always say the Iranians own the lower steps on the escalation ladder. We own all the higher steps on the escalation ladder. Every CENTCOM commander spends a lot of time looking at that.

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The Cipher Brief: What would go away for the United States if those troops were to come home or go elsewhere?

General McKenzie: It's a careful calibration. You may not need as much as you've got right now. You need the ability to flow them back in very quickly if you elect to pull forces out. But what we have right now is an Iran that is effectively deterred. They chose not to launch a massive attack on us. Instead, they launched a very choreographed attack, and if we're to believe reporting, that was telegraphed well in advance because they did not want to get into significant combat with the United States — because they know and understand our capabilities. That's what these forces bring. To draw down precipitously would possibly undo that deterrent effect.

On the other hand, and this is something that really only the president of the United States can balance, he's a president who has struck Iran twice — [Quds Force Commander, General] Qassem Soleimani back in 2020, and now this most recent attack. President Trump possesses extraordinary credibility with the Iranians because he's taken bold action two times, which puts him in a unique position that no other American president has had going back several administrations.

The Cipher Brief: Do you think that President Trump might have some success in bringing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a place that looks more like a ceasefire in Gaza and a deal in Iran?

General McKenzie: Short answer is, I don't know. I do know that we and Israel both share the same objective with Iran. We don't want them to have a nuclear weapon, and I'm sure there's going to be a lot of discussion on that, a lot of assessment. How effective were the strikes? Where are we? What needs to be done? I would assume they're going to spend a fair amount of time talking about that. But I would also say the same thing I said about President Trump and Iran. That same credibility probably extends to his relationship with Israel and the way going forward. So I'll watch with great interest to see what comes out of those meetings next week.

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The U.S. Has 40,000 Troops in the Middle East

CIPHER BRIEF REPORTING -- Recent U.S. strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities propelled the 40,000 American forces in the region into the spotlight over fears of retaliation and sparked fresh debate about the scope and nature of their deployments.

Writing in The Washington Post, Dan Caldwell, a former Senior Adviser at the Department of Defense and an Iraq war veteran, and Jennifer Kavanagh, the Director of Military Analysis at Defense Priorities, a defense-focused think tank, argue that the recent strikes “should be a wake-up call” for the White House about the role and vulnerability of U.S. troops in the region. “U.S. military forces in the Middle East bring more risks than benefits, and it’s time to get most of them out for good.”

Other experts think that’s a shortsighted approach, given the range of missions those forces carry out in the region.

“There's an assumption underlying that general argument of, ‘Well, if only the United States was to pull out of the region, suddenly the world will be a better place’ – I don't buy it,” Raphael Cohen, Director of the National Security Program at the RAND School of Public Policy, told The Cipher Brief. Cohen and others see particular value in the rapid-response capability the U.S. bases provide in a volatile region.

General Frank McKenzie, who oversaw U.S. forces in the Middle East as the head of U.S. Central Command from 2019 to 2022, told The Cipher Brief that while a reevaluation of the force posture was needed, a rapid drawdown would harm U.S. interests.

“It certainly serves our interest to maintain a presence in the region,” Gen. McKenzie said. “And it certainly serves the interests of the Gulf states and other states as well that we be there in order to give them additional stability as they confront the threat from Iran.”

The focus on the U.S. presence in the Middle East comes early on in an administration that has indicated it may want to pivot from a focus on the region and shift attention toward Asia. But testifying just prior to the U.S. attack in Iran, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, who was confirmed just this week as the new CENTCOM commander, said he sees no reason to draw down now.

“Our approach today is to assess and move forward on a conditions-based assessment,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I think, given the dynamic nature of what's happening today, that assessment in the future could look different than it does today, perhaps, and if confirmed, I'm committed into my tenure to continue to assess what our posture needs to look like and make recommendations.”

What are U.S. Troops Doing There

For decades, the United States has kept tens of thousands of military personnel in the Middle East, spread across bases from Syria to the Persian Gulf.

Among the largest are the Al -Udeid Air Base in Qatar, home to the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing and the forward headquarters of CENTCOM – with some 10,000 troops – and the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet base in Bahrain, where 9,000 Americans are deployed. 13,500 U.S. service members are stationed at bases in Kuwait and another 5,000 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Maritime deployments that followed the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023, added a few thousand troops to the overall number. Finally, roughly 3,000 Americans are stationed at bases in Iraq and Syria, vestiges of the anti-ISIS operations that were carried out a decade ago.

Proponents of the current force posture see a smart distribution of troops that matches U.S. interests and furthers several key missions: the ability to respond quickly to crises; countering the Iranian threat; bolstering the defense of Israel; helping secure maritime commerce in the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz; maintaining U.S. relations with key Gulf allies; and ensuring that ISIS and other groups do not reconstitute themselves and threaten U.S. interests.

“There are multiple missions at play,” Cohen said, beyond the current operations against Iran. “Some of this is a legacy of the global war on terrorism. We have soldiers in Syria and Iraq, doing primarily counter-ISIS missions, some stabilization missions as well. But we also have the major air bases in Bahrain for the Air Force and the Navy, managing air operations and the naval forces in the region. And what that means in practice, is we are concerned about the free flow of commerce through places like the Strait of Hormuz, and making sure that the Houthis don’t interfere with global maritime traffic there as well.”

Those arguing for a drawdown say that a force of 40,000 is far too costly, and that the stated missions are either outdated or could be accomplished with a much smaller number of troops.

“My longer-term view – even before the Iran strike – of the forces in the Middle East has been that when you have 40,000 forces in a region, anything that happens in that region implicates the United States, even things that actually aren't in U.S. interests,” Kavanagh, the Defense Priorities director, told The Cipher Brief.

“To the extent that we can get those forces out and limit unnecessary entanglements, I think that would be a smart move,” she said. “And that doesn't necessarily mean that you could never operate in the Middle East if there were actually a threat. Air power and naval power is something that's very mobile, and if you had the support of the Gulf countries, you could operate from those bases again.”

The war against ISIS

Officially, U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria serve as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, which began as a U.S.-led coalition in 2014 to dismantle the Islamic State (ISIS). Although that campaign was declared a success in Iraq (in 2017) and in Syria (2019), the U.S. maintains nearly 3,500 troops in the two countries.

Those bases are also considered the most vulnerable to outside attack, and well before the recent U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran, analysts and policymakers were questioning the wisdom of keeping them there.

After Israel launched its war on Hamas in October 2023, these bases – along with a smaller outpost in Jordan – were attacked hundreds of times by rocket strikes that reportedly caused dozens of traumatic brain injuries among U.S. troops. In January 2024, three Americans were killed and dozens were injured at the small “Tower 22” base in Jordan. As The Cipher Brief reported then, the deadly strike prompted calls for ending the Iraq and Syria deployments.

Bernard Hudson, a former director of counterterrorism at the CIA, told us then that U.S. troops in those countries were “folks in harm’s way who can’t be protected and are surrounded by Iranian elements in both countries.”

Today, the case for staying in Syria and Iraq imagines a different nightmare: the Americans leave, and conditions are restored for a resurgent ISIS that could do more damage in the region and beyond.

“I would argue that the fight against ISIS still goes on,” Gen. McKenzie said. “We don't actually do that fight ourselves, but we do support our partners both in Iraq and in Syria who continue to conduct operations against ISIS, which is now newly flourishing based on the turmoil in Syria.”

Cohen concurred. “ISIS is beaten down,” he said. “It is not gone, though. And the concern is if you begin to take forces away, ISIS will sprout back up. There are also concerns that if we pull out, particularly out of Syria, we will risk abandoning the Kurds, who've been a long-time partner. So, there's an argument for keeping troops there for a host of both counterterrorism reasons, but also for regional stability issues.”

Kavanagh countered that the threat to the U.S. was minimal, and not worth the investment in U.S. military force.

“ISIS is not a threat to the United States – at least not the ISIS that's operating in the Middle East,” she said. “Some people argue that ISIS-K is becoming a more global threat, but they're not in Iraq and Syria. And our intelligence community has been very effective at uncovering plots before they happen. So, I'm not convinced that you need a military presence to protect the United States from that threat.”

The Defense Department has been conducting a “posture review” of the Iraq and Syria deployments for more than a year. The Iraq Higher Military Commission, which was tasked with preparing a U.S. withdrawal plan from that country, hasn’t met since September, according to Defense One. Recently, Maine Senator Angus King returned from a visit to Iraq and said that officials there had asked for the American troops to remain.

“They have an election coming up this fall, and that's been one of the significant dangers,” Sen. King said, referring to potential threats from Iran-backed militias in Iraq. “It seems to me, given the renewed volatility…it’s not a good time to be drawing down our forces, because they are viewed as stabilizing forces in all of those countries in the Middle East.“

A rapid-reaction force – and the costs

Many experts say that the brief war with Iran – and the tensions that linger in its aftermath – are only the latest examples of a longstanding reality: crises in the Middle East come with regularity. And that, they say, is reason enough for maintaining the American air and naval bases in the Gulf states.

Proponents of the U.S. posture also note that those Gulf allies want the Americans there. The U.S. has mutual defense agreements and commitments with Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain. An abrupt exit, they argue, could undermine relationships with those countries.

“There's a geopolitical bent here in that the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, they all value having a U.S. presence in the region,” Jason Campbell, Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute, told The Cipher Brief. “It provides them both a certain level of added security from Iran, as well as additional access for their respective militaries to training and certain types of equipment that are of use to them. So, there are both security and geopolitical reasons for the presence in this part of the world.”

Detractors point to the costs – particularly of the larger bases in the Gulf. Sustaining U.S. forces in the Middle East is expensive, north of $20 billion per year. Kavanagh and Caldwell argue that U.S. personnel in the region require more extensive defenses than those based at home, including hardened facilities and advanced air defenses, to protect them from Iranian-backed drone and missile attacks.

Meanwhile, each uptick in tensions has meant shifts to a high-alert status that carry their own costs. When the U.S. made the decision to strike Iran, most of the aircraft at the al-Udeid base in Qatar were moved out, and ships stationed at the U.S. naval base in Bahrain were sent out to sea as a security precaution.

“There is a heightened level of threat there,” Campbell said. “They'll move some of their naval ships out of Bahrain and out to sea to keep them safer…These are typical things we see, leading up to and enduring periods of tension in the region.”

Ultimately, none of those measures mattered much in the recent war; the Iranians were clearly not interested in escalation, and their public retaliation – for now at least – has been limited to a single well-telegraphed strike against the Al-Udeid base, which President Trump said had come with advance warning.

But Caldwell and Kavanagh argue that the costs and the vulnerability of these bases alone make the case for a drawdown, or at least a consolidation of U.S. forces in the region to one or two locations.

“The ‘12-Day War’ fortunately did not cost any American lives,” Caldwell and Kavanagh wrote in the Post, “but it highlighted our vulnerabilities in the region and underlined how our existing force posture was superfluous to achieving our aims. The war’s end provides an opportunity for the United States to do what it has tried and failed to do for the better part of a decade: rationalize and downscale its presence in the Middle East.”

What comes next

All the past calls for a drawdown of American military power in the region ultimately ran into the same roadblock: It’s hard to disengage from the Middle East.

President Donald Trump ran for a second term on a foreign policy platform that would decrease American involvement in the Middle East and pivot towards growing challenges in the Indo-Pacific. He referred to himself as the “candidate of peace,” with promises to extricate the U.S. from entanglements in the region. He may still do so; but like many of his predecessors, he has found it difficult to stay out of the region’s turbulence.

“I'm optimistic that once things stabilize, at least some of the air and naval power will move out of the region, because I do think there are strong voices in the Pentagon and elsewhere who really would like to concentrate more on Asia,” Kavanagh said. “And you can't do that when all your air and naval assets are tied up in the Middle East.”

Even those experts who support the deployments say they welcome the discussions about their future.

“There's certainly debate to be had for the number of installations required,” Campbell said. “How many forces should indeed be there and what specific purpose should they serve? I think those are all fair questions, but again, the geopolitical costs of removing forces completely from the region could be higher than many realize.”

Campbell added that a complete damage assessment of the strikes against Iran – which is not yet complete – will likely dictate the way forward, and that until then, there is a “near-to middle-term utility of having forces and resources in the region just from a more operational standpoint.”

Cohen agrees, noting that despite Trump’s claim that the nuclear sites in Iran had been “obliterated,” questions remain about the damage done and what may come next.

“There's an open question about how much destruction we actually did to the nuclear program with that strike,” Cohen said. “And if you were to have a more sustained [U.S.] offensive, and if you actually wanted to do something somewhat larger that would actually have potentially a more permanent effect, you would need a bigger operation.” And that, he said, would surely involve the American bases in the Gulf.

Gen. McKenzie, the former CENTCOM commander, said he welcomes the coming “posture review,” and the overall debate about U.S. forces in the Middle East.

“That's a national policy decision that we're going to have to make,” he said. “How much do we want to leave in there? It's a careful calibration. You may not need as much as you've got right now, but you need the ability to flow them back in very quickly if you elect to pull forces out.”

Ultimately, he said, “We could leave the region, we could certainly do that, and that's talked about fairly frequently.” But he added that in the short term, that would hurt the U.S. deterrent effect against Iran, the ability to secure safe maritime commerce, and the relationship with those Gulf allies.

“I think that's the thing to cover when we look at why are our forces there, what effects do they give, what effects do we derive from the fact that they're there – I think those are all useful things. All of those things are very much in our national interest.”

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The Peacewalkers: How the West Went to War in 2022

“The protagonists of 1914 were sleepwalkers, watchful but unseeing, haunted by dreams, yet blind to the reality of the horror they were about to bring into the world.”

C.Clark, ‘’The Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to war in 1914”

OPINION — This article is a homage to the aforecited Christopher Clark’s seminal work, where he meticulously details how Europe’s leaders, blinded by their own complex, interlocking alliances, and convoluted diplomatic manoeuvres, stumbled into the catastrophic Great War of 1914.

This article is also a mirror for present-day leaders and decision makers, offering a disturbing reflection of morbidly similar, if not at all the same, pre-war developments, attitudes, and sentiments, that have once again led the West to a precipice, this time – with Russia.

Finally, this article is both a wake-up call and a final announcement for those, who still hesitate and doubt that “our Europe is mortal, it can die”, as Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, put it in his speech last year on April 24 at the Sorbonne University.

Don’t look around!

In 2006, when a former FSB officer and critic of Putin, Alexander Litvinenko, was poisoned with Polonium-210 on British soil, there were very few doubts as to who was behind the attack. Litvinenko’s resulting death from acute radiation syndrome significantly strained relations between the UK and Russia, leading to diplomatic expulsions and increased scrutiny of Russian activities in the UK.

As much as this event became pivotal in the relationships between London and Moscow and called for a major reassessment of the Kremlin’s intentions and capabilities on European soil, it was still regarded by the rest of Europe mostly as a matter of Russia’s internal issues — Litvinenko was Russian, he ardently criticised the Russian leadership and he was a high-ranking defector. Therefore, he was targeted by the Russian special services. The consensus in the West was that Russia targeted its own renegade citizens, and not citizens from European countries.

This proved to be a rather comfortable position for the political leadership of the EU at that time (primarily German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy), which was in the middle of exploring deeper economic ties and a more intertwined commerce with Russia.

This position allowed the economic and political powerhouses of Europe to safely qualify Moscow’s explicitly hostile actions around the same time towards countries like Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Georgia as mere quarrels between the former Soviet republics. The Kremlin’s distribution of Russian passports in Latvia in 2004; the Kremlin’s blockade of rail and ports and manipulation of theDruzhba pipeline oil supply in retaliation for losing the bid for Lithuania’s only oil refinery Mažeikių Nafta; or Russia’s complete ban of imports of Georgian wines as a punishment for Tbilisi’s pro-Western stance in 2006 – all these events were disregarded as merely regional tensions between the former USSR cohabitants.

The Swedish airspace incursion that happened the same year, when a Russian military aircraft without active transponders flew simulated attack runs near Gotland, didn’t match this story, but was mainly ignored as an unfortunate mistake in the then non-NATO sky.

In 2007, when the websites of Estonia’s government, parliament, banks, ministries, newspapers, and broadcasters websites faced the most massive cyber-attack in history, which coincided with a dispute with Russia over the relocation of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn, a Soviet-era monument paramount for the Kremlin’s WW2 mythology, the same whispering was heard in EU high cabinets – “it’s a matter of Russia’s backyard”. Nobody would dare to openly call an independent EU state “Russia’s backyard”, but the reaction towards this incident, widely considered the first major state-on-state cyberattack, was telltale.

The same year, Putin gave his notorious ‘Munich speech’ —‘’The speech in which Putin has told us who he was”, as Politico has put it. Among his disturbing and grim messages, one was particularly ominous: ‘Whether we should be indifferent and aloof to various internal conflicts inside [other] countries? Of course not.’

This message didn’t take long to materialize. In 2008 Russia invaded Georgia under the pretext of protecting Russian citizens and peacekeepers in the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. This was the climax of the “Russia’s backyard” attitude. Numerous former members of Mikheil Saakashvili’s team, the then-president of Georgia, said that in private conversations with Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Condoleezza Rice and their teams, these foreign leaders and their advisors articulated the futility of resistance and the need to accept the reality imposed by the Kremlin. “Accepting this reality” would mean recognizing that Russia does indeed hold a claim on Georgia, which naturally derives from the common soviet history. (Later in 2014 some representatives of the EU behind closed doors were promoting the same thought regarding Crimea).

Unfortunately, these and many other hostile actions failed to seriously alarm both the American and European political elites of that period, who were seriously engaged in a “Russian reset”. In 2009 Russian military aircraft again violated Swedish airspace, Moscow cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in the dead of winter (affecting also European countries dependent on gas transiting through Ukraine), and Kremlin-backed hackers attacked the German government.

In the 2010s Russia, either directly or through its proxies, effectuated cyber attacks on the German and Finnish governments, as well as on energy distribution networks in Sweden; sabotaged arms depots in Czechia; stirred up ethnic tensions in Germany with the ‘Lisa Case’; hacked TV5Monde and manipulated social media to encourage chaos during Yellow Vests protests in France; infiltrated the Aviation Sector and the Spiez laboratory in Switzerland; attempted to assassinate an arms dealer in Bulgaria; and targeted US and Canada diplomats in Cuba and later in other countries (the ‘Cuba syndrome’).

Moscow supported anti-fracking movements in Romania to prevent it from developing its own natural gas resources; attempted a coup in Montenegro; jammed Finland’s and Norway’s GPS signals; backed the hacking of the World Anti-Doping Agency; and attempted to sabotage the global internet infrastructure by exploring vulnerabilities in undersea Internet cables connecting Europe and North America.

Closer to the 2020s Russian operatives attempted to intercept secure military communications from a French military satellite; the Kremlin imposed trade restrictions on Moldovan agricultural products and manipulated energy prices in response to Kishinev’s increased engagement with the EU; and Moscow manipulated the energy market in Bulgaria by restricting gas supplies.

Russia systematically meddled in top tier popular voting across the globe, with the following being subjects of major investigations for alleged Russian interference: the 2016 UK Brexit referendum, 2016 US presidential elections, 2017 French presidential elections, 2017 German federal elections, 2018 Finnish presidential elections and the 2019 European parliament elections.

The amount of money and effort spent by the Kremlin to fund and cultivate separatist, xenophobic, anti-Western, Eurosceptic, anti-Americanist, radical, extreme and divisive parties, movements, groups and organizations across the Transatlantic community since Putin came to power is overwhelming.

The impenetrable depth of peace

It looked like all these events were mainly ignored in the West, disregarded as something accidental, if not marginal, which hardly meant anything within the context of the long and deep peace that Europe had seen since the end of WWII.

Appearing initially as a bitter reminder of the brutality of war, the 8th of May slogan “Never again” has evolved over decades from a yearly admonishment of human tragedies to a concept that was to be enforced literally. For any war to be “never again” meant that peace must be “forever”. Hence, attaining peace morphed from a righteous and pragmatic complex objective into a quasi-religious ideology that rejects the mere plausibility of conflict – “a deep peace”.

A "Deep peace" is not merely a state of prolonged absence of war. The doctrine posits that the very discussion of potential martial threats or military readiness could, paradoxically, invoke the specter of war itself. This ideology has been perpetuated by a sustained period of peace which, rather than being seen as a delicate, demanding and maintained state, is viewed as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This means that for ‘peacewalkers’, the modern-day political apostles of this new security cult, peace is self-reinforcing. The longer they can keep the peace, the stronger on their opinion it gets, and the less probable war is. Hence the obsession with preserving peace at all costs, even if such costs are clearly whetting the appetite of the predator, who never really bothered to camouflage his hostile intentions. This almost irrational refusal to accept any possibility of another conflict on the continent, as if it were a fantasy, a fairytale, a myth, has been ruling out the very discussion of the flaws of current peace and its disproportions, as these very discussions were believed to invite war.

It seems that only at the Munich Security Conference of 2025 western leaders finally realized that war is now not just at their doorstep – it has already rung the bell.

This state of “deep peace” is precisely the reason why all the signals of hostility from Russia have been ignored by the peacewalkers. This was seen in the reaction of the major western governments’ defence budgets to the overt military interventions conducted by Russia in Georgia, in the Middle East and in Ukraine before 2022—the increase of defense spending was literally marginal.

Both European and American defense spending remained disproportionately low. The European Union's defense budget gradually declined from 4% of GDP in 1960 to a historic low of 1.3% of GDP in 2014. It wasn't until 2020 that European defense spending saw a “noticeable” increase of 0.3% - up to 1.6% of GDP.

A similar trend was observed in the United States, where defense spending as a share of GDP stagnated and mostly declined throughout the 2010s, following the peak of the War on Terror. U.S. military expenditure steadily fell from around 4.5% of GDP in 2010 to 3.2% by 2017, even as Russia ramped up its global assertiveness under Putin’s second presidency. It wasn’t until 2020 that U.S. defense spending rebounded to 3.7%, reflecting a shift in priorities as geopolitical tensions escalated.

The fact that both European and American defense spending remained stagnant for most of the 2010s, suggests that the West did not perceive even Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine as a serious enough threat to warrant an immediate military buildup. This delayed response underscores the extent to which policymakers in both Europe and the U.S. underestimated the long-term implications of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas, as much as Russia being a direct threat.

Once again, the pervasive—almost sacrosanct—belief in the enduring power of 'deep peace' has led to the deliberate overlooking of clear signals of impending conflict. This illusion of unassailable peace, fostered by decades of relative stability and economic interdependence, has engendered a dangerous complacency among western, but mainly European, nations.

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False Idols

In order to start thinking about how to fix this situation, we first need to understand how we got here. What beliefs guided decision makers? Within what ideological framework did they operate?

The first reference point is the perception of national security through the lens of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The evolution of the role and, more importantly, the capabilities of NATO in the minds of its members happened under the influence of a prolonged peace on the European continent, with some successful military interventions of its members in the 1990s and 2010s, as well as of a certain image of a hi-tech undefeatable army produced by American pop-culture.

As a result, NATO has become more of a religious icon, rather than a real military force. The belief in NATO’s capacity has become unconditional and it has fastened the religion of “deep peace” (which is indeed very similar to a religion because of its irrationality), by providing an image of an almighty protector, which will always intervene in case of trouble.

The truth is, however, a bit different. While NATO might have proven itself successful in regional conflicts like Yugoslavia or the Middle East, it was never ready to face a full-scale war with a proper adversary like Russia or China. It was even less prepared to face hybrid warfare, with war being waged not only with bombs and bullets, but with information and narratives.

The reliance on nuclear power was paramount in NATO’s deterrence strategy. The war Russia has launched against Ukraine, however, has shown that nuclear weapons deter only the use of other nuclear weapons – not conventional ones.

One might argue that the aggression against Ukraine is very different from a hypothetical aggression against NATO, and if Russia were to invade a member of the Treaty the retaliation would be dramatically different. Perhaps. How can, however, the nuclear arsenal defend even member countries against ‘the green men’, the scam referendums, the total blackouts due to cyber-attacks, the skirmishes with emigrants along the borders, arson of ammunition stores and further hybrid tactics? This begs a clear answer.

Therefore, a NATO membership can hardly serve as a justification for not having a powerful military able to defend one’s country against an invasion. This, however, was precisely the belief of the ‘peacewalkers’ for decades: ‘NATO will take care of us, and it has nukes. We’re safe’.

Russia has proved them wrong. And now the new White House administration is considering a major NATO policy shift, where the U.S. might not defend a fellow NATO member that is attacked, if the country doesn’t meet the defense spending threshold. Given the alternative view on global security the new U.S. leadership has taken, the moment Washington refuses to invoke Article 5 following a hypothetical encroachment on a member-state – the world as we know it is finished.

Another belief where Russia has proved everyone wrong is the naïve idea that it can be deterred by trade. And yet, even the current U.S. administration seems to be falling into this trap once again.

This illusion has deep roots. Since the early 2000s, the dominant Western orthodoxy held that deeper trade and economic interdependence with Russia would tame its aggressive instincts and gradually bind it to the liberal international order. From Germany’s embrace of Wandel durch Handel to the U.S. push for Russia’s WTO accession in 2012, the assumption was always the same: prosperity would soften Moscow, and mutual gain would deter aggression.

It did the opposite.

The trick is that the fruits and benefits of trade relations are used very differently in democracies and autocracies. While democracies invest the spoils of trade into raising the quality of life of their citizens—because that is the social contract at the heart of their legitimacy—autocratic regimes like Russia spend those same profits on the quality of oppression: strengthening their propaganda machines and expanding the coercive reach of their security services. These are the twin pillars of modern authoritarian rule.

In the 2000s, as Russia reaped massive windfalls from energy exports, it poured resources into rebuilding and modernizing its military. Military spending jumped from just $9 billion in 2000 to over $60 billion by 2014. At the same time, Putin’s regime systematically increased funding for the security services and domestic repression apparatus. By 2025, Russia will allocate a staggering 6.3% of its GDP—over $145 billion—to defense, surpassing even Cold War-era levels. In parallel, the budget for internal security, which includes the FSB and National Guard, accounts for over 10% of the federal budget, while state propaganda organs like RT and VGTRK are receiving $1.4 billion annually, an increase of 13% over the previous year.

Meanwhile, spending on social programs in Russia is projected to fall by 16% in 2025. The regime is not interested in improving the lives of its citizens—it is interested in controlling them.

Hence, while Russia has been methodically preparing for war, both externally and internally, the West spent the same decades investing in the illusion of a deepening peace. Defense budgets shrank, armies were downsized, and strategic industries were allowed to atrophy. Europe, in particular, funneled billions into Russian energy infrastructure like Nord Stream, while simultaneously allowing itself to become strategically dependent on the very regime it hoped to pacify.

In the end, the West was trading with Russia under the illusion that it was exporting stability. In reality, it was importing vulnerability.

Epilogue: the trench of the Saints

In the end, however, it is not doctrines, nukes, trade or alliances that hold the gates. It is the trench of the saints—where exhausted, ordinary Ukrainians still stand between us and the abyss.

And yet, instead of standing behind them as one would behind the gates of a besieged city, much of the West regards their resistance with fatigue, irritation, even suspicion—treating Ukraine not as a rampart, but as a liability. The war, they whisper, drags on. The costs are too high. Perhaps it’s time to talk peace, meaning: surrender something, accept something, pretend that nothing essential is lost.

But what is being lost is everything.

The trench of the Ukrainian soldier is not only a physical line against Russian advance. It is the symbolic front line of a deeper war—between freedom and tyranny, law and brute force, future and regression. Just as in the 20th century, when the free world had to rally to crush the Nazi regime not with half-measures but with full moral clarity, so too must the West now realize: Ukraine is not the cause of this war’s duration. Ukraine is the reason we still have time.

If we abandon that trench—or fail to fully support it—we are not avoiding war. We are inviting a greater one.

“On both sides they imagined that ‘bluffing’ would suffice to achieve success. None of the players thought that it would be necessary to go all the way. The tragic poker game had begun.”

C.Clark, ‘’The Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to war in 1914”

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Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

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Iran is a Terrorist State

OPINION — Since 1984, Iran has been designated a state sponsor of terrorism. The designation is justified, given Iran’s continued support of proxies and criminal organizations that kill and terrorize innocent people. That behavior continues today, with the government of Ali Hosseini Khamenei surveilling, harassing, and detaining thousands of Iranians for allegedly aiding Israel -- and offending the morality police, who enforce Iran’s dress code for women.

The U.S. – Israel bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites in Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow was more than justified. Iran was enriching uranium at 60% purity, a few weeks away from 90% purity for nuclear weapons. And given Iran’s stated intent to destroy Israel, the bombing of these nuclear sites made imminent sense, especially given the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) recent report that Iran was concealing information on its nuclear program, to include weaponization.

Terror Abroad

Iran has a long history of using terrorism as a tool of asymmetric warfare against the U.S. and its allies.

In April 1983, Iran was found guilty of supporting their proxy, Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad Organization, a terrorist organization, for the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut that killed 63 and wounded 34, to include eight CIA officers. One of those officers was the visiting Director of the Office of Near East and South Asia Analysis, Robert C. Ames.

In October 1983, the Iranian government was found responsible for the Beirut barracks bombing by the Islamic Jihad Organization, which killed 241 U.S. service members, 58 French soldiers and 6 civilians, injuring 60.

These two terrorist bombings apparently emboldened Iran into thinking that terrorism can be effective in eroding U.S. resolve. Thus, Iran continued to support their proxies – Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen, and Shiite groups in Iraq and Syria – in its war with the U.S. and Israel.

In June 1996, Iran was behind the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 airmen and 498 U.S. and international military and civilian members injured. A U.S. court ruled that Iran – and its proxy Hezbollah Al-Hejaz -- was responsible for the attack, providing the funding, support and direction.

This was the very overt Iran, confident in perpetrating these bold acts of terrorism.

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Terror at Home

What was less visible, however, was the government’s harsh treatment of its own people. The international community saw some of this in 2009, when the government ensured that incumbent Mahmood Ahmadinejad was reelected president, despite opposition leader, Mir -Hossein Mousavi, having widespread support from the public, promising hope and change. This “Green Movement” galvanized the Iranian people, resulting in protests, demonstrations and civil disobedience. The regime’s response was predictable: using brutal force to suppress the demonstrations and arrest the protesters.

This has always been the regime’s response to peaceful protests: suppressing and arresting the protesters. We saw this in September 2022 when Jina Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian -- died in police custody; arrested by the so-called morality policy for improperly wearing her Hijab headscarf. Eyewitnesses reported that Amini was severely beaten and died because of police brutality.

The Iranian people were irate with the brutal death of Amini. Protests erupted throughout Iran. Iran Human Rights reported that at least 476 people were killed by security forces. Amnesty International reported that Iranian security forces fired into groups with live ammunition and killed protesters by beating them with batons.

Amini’s death gave rise to the global movement of: Woman, Life, Liberty.

The regime is now conducting a war against its own people, with widespread arrests of anyone protesting human rights abuses and corruption of the regime in power.

We would be remiss if we think the Ayatollah has given up on the use of terrorism to intimidate and deal with critics in opposition to his leadership. We would also be remiss if we think the theocracy will cease pursuing a nuclear weapons capability. The regime wants sanctions relief, and they’re prepared to eschew nuclear weapons to get this relief. Eventually, however, they will pursue their nuclear weapons program. We should be prepared.

This column by Cipher Brief Expert Ambassador Joseph DeTrani was first published in The Washington Times

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The Cipher Brief's Hottest Summer Reading

CIPHER BRIEF FEATURE REPORTING -- With the 4th of July holiday fast approaching, now is a good time for our annual summer list of recommended beach reads. Since we are The Cipher Brief, our favorites include not only thrillers and realistic, fast-paced novels – but some notable works of non-fiction on matters of national security, intelligence and foreign policy. And there’s a cookbook thrown in for good measure.

We’ve carefully combed through the books that we’ve recently had reviewed by experts who have lived the spy or spy-related life - and we’ve singled out some titles we think you might enjoy at the beach or wherever you’re taking refuge from the summer heat. (And just a note: if you do click and buy using links, we might make a small commission. At least enough to pay for the paper this was printed on.)

Let’s get cooking, shall we?

Cookbook / Whiskey Category

Yep, you read that right. Leading our list of summer reads is one that has taken over the #1 spot in Amazon’s whiskey and alcoholic spirits categories, A Spy Walked Into A Bar: A Practitioner's Guide to Cocktail Tradecraft by former senior CIA Officers Rob Dannenberg and Joseph P. Mullin Jr. Think of it as a real-life guide to spies and their favorite cocktails. Based on experiences from their clandestine operations backgrounds, Rob and Joe have collected, curated and perfected the cocktails that were enjoyed while celebrating milestone events during their CIA careers. From the drinks they ordered after successfully recruiting assets, to marking the end of a major operation, this book features real life stories and homegrown photos by the authors themselves.

Novels

Appropriate for summer, is a new spy novel from Tess Gerritsen, The Summer Guests: A Thriller. This is Tess’ second spy book, after her very successful TV series a few years ago called Rizzoli and Isles. Gerritsen talked with Cipher Brief CEO & Publisher Suzanne Kelly about her journey from the popular TV series to spy author in the Cover Stories podcast – that was just after her first book, The Spy Coast was released. Veteran CIA officers Jay and Anne Gruner reviewed her latest book about four retired CIA officers living in Maine. The Gruners tell us it is a “gripping account of a complex set of murders, a possible recent kidnapping, and a secretary who was missing for 50 years.” talking about her previous spy-themed book.

Former U.S. counterterrorism officer and cybersecurity executive Neal Pollard broke the code on Ken Dekleva’s novel, The Russian Diplomat’s Wife. In his review, Neal says while the book ostensibly is a spy novel set in Vienna, it’s really a love story between two spies. Author (and frequent Cipher Brief contributor) Dekleva draws on his experience as a psychiatrist working for the State Department in many of the locales central to the book and his understanding of human motivation seems to bring his stories to life. We know because we also interviewed the author for the Cover Stories Podcast.

Speaking of Dekleva, we tapped his expertise to review several books by other authors this year. One worthy of special mention is The Poet’s Game: A Spy in Moscow by Paul Vidich. Dekleva calls the novel is a terrific read about a former CIA station chief in Moscow, now working as an investor in a private equity market in Moscow. The chief was called back to duty though to exfiltrate a former agent who claims to have explosive kompromat regarding America’s president. Navigating between two perilous worlds, those of Moscow and Washington, the storyline seems to offer proof that the cold war never really ended.

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Going back even further in time, Dekleva also reviewed Assignment in Saigon: A Cold War Thriller by former senior CIA officer Bill Rapp. In his review, Dekleva says that to truly understand the intelligence war in Vietnam, fiction may offer more to the reader and Rapp’s novel is a most worthy read.

Spy mastery is the theme of retired senior CIA officer Jim Lawler’s latest novel, The Traitors Tale: A Novel of Treachery within the CIA. We turned to another seasoned Agency officer, and Cipher Brief expert, Joe Augustyn, to review it. Augustyn told us: “Jim Lawler has written an intriguing and captivating novel that should satisfy the appetite of any spy novel enthusiast. His character descriptions are impressive, his knowledge of the Agency, its bureaucracy and its inner workings is deep, and his operational savvy is on display throughout. Impressive too is his understanding of the dynamics of personal relationships, both professional and personal, which he calls the “metaphysics” of spying.” You can learn more about Lawler and his book from this Cover Stories Podcast interview.

Non- Fiction

While we have reported on a ton of fine fiction over the past six months, real life stories, history and analysis have played an even larger role in our coverage. Among the books we’d like to invite (or re-invite) to your attention here are: Secret Servants of the Crown: The Forgotten Women of British Intelligence by Claire Hubbard-Hall and reviewed for us by Cipher Brief expert Tim Willasey-Wilsey, a real-life former member of the British Foreign Office. Willasey-Wilsey called it a “marvelous book and a valuable addition to what is known about the early days of the British secret services.” We were lucky to have the author join us on a Cipher Brief Cover Stories podcast as well, describing the untold tales of women who silently served – including Katleen Pettigrew who was the inspiration for Ian Fleming’s “Miss Moneypenny” in the James Bond novels.

For an American take on unsung women in intelligence, there is Propaganda Girls: The Secret War of the Women of the OSS by Lisa Rogak. The former director of the CIA’s Office of Public Affairs, Tammy Kupperman Thorp reviewed the book that focuses on four women who played significant roles in the Office of Strategic Service (OSS) influence campaigns during World War II. She writes that women members of the OSS were in charge of “black propaganda” primarily a “series of believable lies designed to cause the enemy soldiers to lose heart and ultimately surrender.”

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There is also a good read out there about the spouses and families of intelligence operatives who serve as well. For a fascinating look at that life, check out Story of a CIA Wife: Married to the Craft by Rosie Mowatt-Larssen. Veteran journalist and contributing Cipher Brief editor Elaine Shannon reviewed that one for us and lauds the author’s “razor wit” and tales of life in numerous overseas posts including time in Moscow where she helped slip KGB tails, serviced dead drops and lived a life that at times was the stuff of spy thrillers. For more on Rosie – check out her interview with us for the Cover Stories podcast.

We also have several books about action in World War II that we’d recommend. Let’s start with Nothing But Courage: The 82nd Airborne’s Daring D-Day Mission and Their Heroic Charge Across the La Fière Bridge by James Donovan. We went to a subject matter expert to review that one – retired Army Major General Jack Leide. The book tells of one of the most operationally important but lesser-known stories of World War II. Leide praised the author for providing “incredibly insightful and intricate descriptions and actions of, not only the allied and German military forces arrayed against each other, but how the operation affected many of the local French residents and resistance forces as well.”

For a far less heroic view of some of the events in that war, there is The Traitor of Arnhem: The Untold Story of WWII’s Greatest Betrayal and the Moment that Changed History Forever by Robert Verkaik. Recently declassified British MI-5 documents help animate this story of a strategic failure that delayed Allied victory in the war and came at a steep human cost. CIA veteran (and Cipher Brief expert) Martin Peterson reviewed the book for us and writes that the author makes a strong circumstantial case that Anthony Blunt, one of Russia’s British agents, played a vital role in passing intelligence to the Germans that damaged the Allies chances of success.

For a story about operational and intelligence success, there’s Taking Midway: Naval Warfare, Secret Codes and the Battle that Turned the Tide of World War II by Martin Dugard. Had the Battle of Midway turned out differently, Hawaii and the west coast of the United States stood vulnerable to Japanese attack. The battle was won by the U.S. though through a combination of steely leadership by Admiral Chester Nimitz, and brilliant cryptological work led by a quirky Lieutenant Commander named Joe Rochefort. Normally, our go-to source for book reviewers are gray-haired subject matter experts. For this one, we tried something different and gave the mission to Jack Montgomery, a U.S. Navy ensign currently serving on a Japan-based ship. Montgomery, whose master’s degree thesis was on the Solomon Islands Campaign, notes that the author’s writing style with short punchy sentences makes the book a quick, enjoyable and informative read. Dugard joined us for a Cover Stories podcast recently in which he explained how he developed his story-telling style and researched the book.

Another book sure to fascinate many Cipher Brief readers is The Determined Spy: The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner by veteran journalist Doug Waller. Wisner’s story sounds like fiction. Standout track star in college, lawyer, innovative leader in the OSS during World War II, one of the founders of the CIA, author of successful and unsuccessful covert actions, prominent player in the Georgetown social set – but victim of what would now be called bipolar disorder – an illness that eventually led to his taking of his own life. Former senior CIA officer (and Cipher Brief expert) Mike Sulick reviewed the book for us noting that the bio was long overdue and “an invaluable contribution to understanding the rewards and pitfalls of covert action as a tool of American foreign policy.” Waller joined us in a Cover Stories podcast to share some of the secrets of writing about this trailblazing figure of U.S. intelligence.

A trailblazer of a different kind was Major General Jack Leide whose book, Professional Courage: My Journey in Military Intelligence Through Peace, Crisis and War, was featured in a January review. Leide has been inducted into four different military halls of fame. The stories he tells – and the lessons learned in Vietnam, in China during Tiananmen Square, and as Central Command Director of Intelligence during Desert Shield and Desert Storm make it a valuable read. He also kindly joined us for a Cipher Brief Cover Stories podcast where he told us about the challenges of telling a demanding boss what they need to know rather than what they want to hear.

For a completely different kind of book, there is Zero Sum: The Arc of International Business in Russia by Charles Hecker. It is a look at the wild world of global commerce launched from Russia following the fall of the Soviet Union. Cipher Brief expert Nick Fishwick, a veteran of nearly thirty years with the British Foreign Office, reviewed it for us – calling it a “grizzly odyssey” and one “full of crisp soundbites.” Hecker addresses the question of why the west was so wrong in its analysis of the post hammer and sickle Russia.

Our tech savvy followers might particularly be interested in Chasing Shadows: Cyber Espionage, Subversion, and the Global Fight for Democracy, by Ronald Deibert. Jean-Thomas Nicole, a policy advisor with Public Safety Canada and a frequent reviewer for us, says the book “offers an enlightening and terrifying glimpse into the ubiquitous and murky world of mercenary spyware and digital transnational repression.”

To wrap up our summer books newsletter, what would be more appropriate than a book about books? We are referring to The Admiral’s Bookshelf, by retired Navy Admiral (and Cipher Brief expert) James Stavridis. This spring, the admiral published his 15th book, and this one is about 25 books (a mixture of fiction and non-fiction) that he credits with having helped guide his career and life. Former CIA officer (and author himself) Jim Lawler reviewed it for us and praised the way Stavridis candidly discusses not only his successes – but also his stumbles during his long career and how the books on his bookshelf can help all of us avoid some heartache and frustration. Suzanne hosted the Admiral on a Cover Stories podcast where he explained how leaders can learn not only from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War but also Mario Puzo’s The Godfather.

We’ve only touched on some of the books reviewed in 2025 in The Cipher Brief. You can find all of our reviews here.

One of the things that makes Cipher Brief reviews of books so valuable is that our reviewers are experts in their own right. If you think you may have the chops to be a Cipher Brief book reviewer, check out our guidelines – and if you still think you’d be a good fit – drop us a note at undercover@thecipherbrief.com to toss your hat in the ring. Let us know your particular interests and areas of expertise. Whenever possible, we try to marry up expert reviewers with forthcoming books. We try to get the reviewers advance copies – and aim to publish reviews right around the time a book is goes on sale.

We’re wishing you happy summer reading!

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The Golden Dome is Missing a Key Focus

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE / OPINION – On January 27, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order aimed at defending the U.S. against an attack by ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles as well as other advanced aerial attacks; the Golden Dome initiative. The Pentagon moved out smartly to fulfill this order. Industry lined up with ideas on how to defend the U.S. and Department of Defense bureaucrats convened and developed a strategy. All the work that has happened is needed. But we need more.

We need to build the technology to support defensive systems to secure the homeland from adversary advanced aerial attacks. But we are missing a crucial part of the equation which could be happening now with only limited additional resources.

The U.S. needs to be moving out diligently to put in place the best collection capability to provide early warning regarding U.S. adversaries. Too often, the U.S. jumps to a solution and forgets that we must start with intelligence to put the building blocks in place to address the solution.

In this case, the Executive Order asks for a study of adversary threat but that is all. There is nothing about developing intelligence for early warning on adversary intent. This is an important oversight. The U.S. must focus on developing warning that lets decisionmakers know when our adversaries are planning a launch. The important satellite tracking mechanisms that will follow the launches should only be used if the intelligence community misses the early warning.

To ensure the U.S. is using its resources to its best ability in building the Golden Dome, the entire intelligence infrastructure of collection, technology to support the collection, and ability to exploit the collection - to include analytical experts - must be synergized to provide early warning that an adversary is considering an aerial attack.

The literature regarding golden dome focuses on interception and tracking missiles once they are launched. There is a lot of discussion about the need for a defensive system. All of this is warranted, and it is the area where the most money needs to be spent. However, the literature is much less focused on what the U.S. needs to put in place prior to launch to buy time for developing options to counter an attack and limit the risk regarding that decision making process.

Without the platforms that can collect on adversary intent, capability, movement, and other anomalies, decisionmakers could be left with rushed choices on the use of defensive systems that could result in catastrophic consequences if the technology detects missiles too late or misreads that aerial attacks are coming our way when they may not be.

Time is the important variable for decision makers. The earlier the intelligence community can present them with analysis and reporting of adversary intent, the better and likely less risky the consequences are for the US.

For example, if the Intelligence Community (IC) can provide the President with information that an adversary has given an order to prepare an aerial attack against the U.S. - while the attack is being planned but prior to launch - then there are more options to stop that attack.

The IC is then alerted to track adversary movements so that decisionmakers know how much time they have to decide on an option and which option will work best under the circumstances. In this scenario, U.S. decision makers have days instead of hours, to plan. This allows for a wide range of options to stop a launch - from diplomacy, to sanctions, to military action.

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The current Golden Dome literature talks a lot about tracking these aerial devices and calls for a new look at radars, both space and ground based. As I stated, a reliance on this architecture risks being too late in the decision cycle. Kudos to the Army for recognizing the need for smart warning by integrating artificial intelligence into their Integrated Battle Command system, but even this initiative does not hit the early warning collection issue head on.

LTG Gainey, commanding general of the United States Army Space and Missile Defense Command (USASMDC) hinted at the issue during a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing in April when he said the Golden Dome also includes left-of-launch operations, providing deny, delay, disrupt and degrade missile defeat effects in coordination with global combatant commands, the Intelligence Community, Joint Staff, interagency, and Office of the Secretary of Defense. This still does not highlight the need for early warning.

The U.S. can detect missile launches with its existing Space-Based Infrared System satellites in geosynchronous orbit. These satellites can tell where a ballistic missile is going and where its warheads are likely to fall, but the United States wants to develop better warning and tracking by creating a Custody Layer — satellites that will watch where all the other guy’s stuff is — and a Tracking Layer that could also determine where more sophisticated weapons, like hypersonic missiles, are headed.

Fred Kennedy, the inaugural director of the U.S. Space Development Agency and a former director of DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office, shares in Aerospace America, his vision of a Custody Layer: "a constellation that would be equipped with moving target indicator radar, imaging radar and other sensors, to keep tabs on an adversary’s offensive 'internet of things.' …..These satellites would be the equivalent of Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System and U-2 aircraft, but in space. To strike a missile, you have to know where it could be launched from, after all. Complementing the Custody Layer was the Tracking Layer, the satellites that would detect and track hypersonic or ballistic weapons after launch."

This is all important work and needed but note, it is all focused on launch.

If decisionmakers are being told by the space-based interceptors that attacks are on the way—there is only one option, to intercept. But what if those interceptors misread the information or what if they did not read the tracking in time? In either scenario it could be the beginning of a catastrophic event that is based on a mistake.

For that reason, we need to start with the intelligence and put as much effort into that as we are on the interceptors. Collaboration with the Pentagon and other agencies that track satellite imagery is key. I would also add that the Defense Intelligence Agency needs to play a primary role in this initiative which must include increased human intelligence and all forms of open source to include commercial data.

With the intelligence community and department of defense getting smaller, we need to work together more than ever. Defending our nation is a team sport that requires strong intelligence to set up decision makers and operators to make the best decisions possible, helping to mitigate risk. This cannot happen without the defense and intelligence communities working together to provide the first warning—way before launch. Now is the time to push the intelligence community to upgrade technologies that track missiles by providing warning of aberrations in patterns before launch.

By using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to synthesize critical technical collection with anomalies in open source (OSINT), commercial (CAI), and personal (PAI) data, we could have the cultural breakthrough we need to change how the intelligence community uses technical collection fused with OSINT, CAI, PAI and AI. Against this national security backdrop, we could have our first big win in changing how we process intelligence and safeguard the US. NGA’s Maven program is a big step in the right direction of fusing intelligence to support DoD and the rest of the national security establishment. This practice needs to be more widespread.

Now is the time to use proven technology with expert analysis to provide decision makers increased time and space to counter aerial attacks on the homeland. The resources involved, compared to the amount needed for satellites and lasers to shoot down the missiles, is minimal. This action can be started now, the technology exists. Putting in place early warning buys time for the US to develop the rest of the Golden Dome security.

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Getting NATO to Be Able to 'Fight Tonight'

EXPERT Q&A — Last week’s NATO summit in The Hague was largely seen as a success, with all members (except Spain) agreeing to raise the alliance’s defense spending target to 5% GDP up from 2%. NATO also put on a show of unity and recommitted to collective defense.

The Cipher Brief spoke with Lieutenant General Ben Hodges (Ret.), who served as commanding general, U.S. Army Europe, about what the alliance has to do post-summit to ready defenses for a “fight tonight” posture.

Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity. You can also watch the full conversation on The Cipher Brief's YouTube channel.

The Cipher Brief: We know that President Trump and some of his top national security aides have been deeply, openly skeptical of the NATO alliance, and there have been real questions as a result about American support. I was struck by how effusive, really, President Trump was in his praise of what happened at The Hague and very clear in his commitments. What's your take on how that all played out?

Lt. Gen. Hodges: I think I’m more relieved than surprised. I'm biased because I’ve been a NATO officer my whole Army life, as all Army officers are part of the Alliance. I recognize its importance for America's strategic interests. I'm glad that the president did what he did. There was a huge sigh of relief in the Hague that he even showed up. There was some anxiety about that, or that he might blow it up somehow. So the best outcome did happen. He was there. He stayed for the entire thing. He met with President Zelensky. We got an agreement on 5% across the alliance, with one exception, and then a public affirmation of American commitment to the alliance by the president. That's pretty good.

The Cipher Brief: You’re referring to Article 5 of the NATO charter, which says an attack on any member must be met by all other members. There’s been a kind of rallying cry among some Trump supporters that the idea that American soldiers would fight for Estonia, for example, that’s never gonna happen — that's not America first. Talk a bit about the significance of that specific commitment, because it seems to put to rest what's been said before on that front.

Lt. Gen. Hodges: Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which created NATO, says an armed attack on one shall be considered an armed attack on all. That commitment to collective security has been the glue that held the alliance together. The Soviet Union for decades, now Russia and other adversaries, see this commitment of now 32 nations that if one is attacked, all the other nations would consider it an armed attack on themselves. That was such a powerful part of the deterrence when it's backed up by real credible capabilities.

For the first time in my life, in his last administration, the president called that into question. I was horrified. That sort of opens a door to a terrible miscalculation by Moscow that maybe the U.S. would not be so committed. Then the Russians could achieve what has always been their dream, which is to break the alliance, to see that members would not respond, and also to continue driving a wedge between Europe and North America. So it was important that the president affirmed it very strongly, clearly and publicly.

Now, some people ask why would we have American soldiers dying for Estonia? It's an absolutely ridiculous assertion because that is people not understanding why the alliance is so important for us. By the way, this Article 5 has only been invoked once in the almost 80 years of history of NATO, and that was after 9/11, when you had Estonians who came and died because of the United States.

Our economic interests are tied to a very prosperous Europe, so we need Europe to be stable and secure and prosperous because it affects our economy. Secondly, the access that we have in Europe from the UK all the way to Turkey and everywhere in between enables us to project power, not only in Europe, but also into the Middle East and down into Africa.

And of course, even the United States does not have enough capability to do everything that needs to be done to protect all of our interests around the world. We need allies, and all of our best and most reliable allies come from Europe, as well as Canada and Australia.

The Cipher Brief: Do you think this whole NATO-U.S. rift, whatever one calls it, is that all over behind us?

Lt. Gen. Hodges: NATO, the most successful and longest alliance in the history of the world, has 32 nations now. There are going to be huge disputes between nations all the time. France kicked NATO out back during the time of de Gaulle. They left the military structure of NATO for several decades, but came back. The U.S. had huge debates with the UK and France after the Suez crisis. Turkey and Greece have been almost at war throughout. So, there are always challenges inside any sort of a coalition or alliance for all kinds of obvious reasons.

The thing that kept us together was always American leadership and the commitment of several nations to say, look, this is too important for us to lose this collective security because of some argument over an economic thing or past grievance. And there's a reason that there are nations still in a queue wanting to join NATO, because they know that their security is so much better if they're part of this alliance.

The Cipher Brief: The core takeaway seems to be this pledge that all the members except for Spain have made to spend 5% of their GDP on military or military-related stuff. How big a deal is this?

Lt. Gen. Hodges: It's an expectation. It's a commitment that everybody achieves this 5% threshold for investment in defense: 3.5% for traditional, what we would consider defense investments, equipment, training, ammunition, personnel; and then 1.5% for infrastructure, rail, ports, cyber protection, all the things necessary to be able to move alliance capabilities around.

Obviously these things will be exploited in some countries. That would not shock me. But the key was that nations are going to invest in infrastructure, which is badly needed, and the cyber protection of this transportation infrastructure. But also, 3.5 % of GDP, that's almost double for every country from what it was 10 years ago. The United States is not even at 3.5 right now, by the way. So this is going to be a real increase.

Having said all that—and I do believe in the importance of a metric like that—the most important thing, of course, is capability. Do we have the actual capability to do what we're supposed to do? That’s what will deter the Russians, not a sign on the board that says, hey, we're 3.5. It’s real capability: units that are properly trained, fully manned and have lots of ammunition, aircraft that fly, ships that sail. That's got to be the focus. So I'm glad we got this done, but now we've got to make sure that we turn that money into real capability.

The Cipher Brief: Do you mean how they spend it?

Lt. Gen. Hodges: That is a part of it. Where does it go? Germany has a lot of money out there, but the processes are still several years behind. So they've got to fix things internally to take all these euros and turn them into combat formations and capability. They've got the right leadership now to do that in Chancellor Merz.

But also, I think it's important that we emphasize the importance of readiness to be able to fight tonight. This is a mindset thing. It's not just about buying new planes and equipment and hundreds of thousands of drones. Are you ready to actually deploy on very short notice and fight tonight? Can you get there and do you have what you need? To me, that has got to be job one for every secretary of defense, ministers of defense— readiness.

The Cipher Brief: On that “fight tonight” point, it is worth noting that these pledges are to be met by 2035. That's 10 years from now. And obviously, some of the stuff we're talking about takes a long time to manufacture and get out to the battlefield. How concerned are you about that time frame?

Lt. Gen. Hodges: It took us 10 years to get where we are now from Wales. A lot of nations are now spending more than they have since the end of the Cold War. So, of course, I don't like it. We should already be there, including the United States. But I think what we'll see is different leaders, including the American president, continue to track every year. You can't do what they call a hockey stick, where you stay where you are for eight years and then expect that you'll get credit for jacking it up at the end. So there's going to be continued pressure.

But honestly I don't think too many nations are going to need that pressure. What we're seeing in Germany and in the UK, Finland all the way down to Romania. They're not confused about who the enemy is — it's Russia. These countries were already moving well beyond 3.5% before this summit. So, I think we're on the right arc and right direction in most places, just not all.

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The Cipher Brief: For the last several years, for obvious reasons, the war against Ukraine has been front and center at these summits. It suddenly seemed a little bit on the back burner. What are your thoughts on how Ukraine comes out of this summit?

Lt. Gen. Hodges: This is my biggest disappointment from this summit. Ukraine was exactly, what you said, put on a back burner. I'm glad that President Zelensky showed up, that he was invited and that he attended. I'm glad that President Trump met with President Zelensky for about 45 minutes or so. While the president did not reveal a lot of the details, he was more positive about Ukraine than I'd heard from him in quite some time.

Now, to be candid, the president changes his mind all the time but I hope that this signals that he is more willing and open to helping Ukraine as most of our European allies are. I had hoped that this summit would be another affirmation by the Alliance that we're going to do everything we can to help Ukraine. The organizers shortened it in hopes of making sure that President Trump would stay for the whole thing. And so Ukraine was kind of taken out of the agenda.

Nonetheless, what's most important is that there seems to have been a positive meeting there. And most of our European allies are even more committed to helping Ukraine defeat Russia.

The Cipher Brief: You've made the point that Russia is incredibly weakened militarily right now with casualties, the economy, and so forth. And it doesn't seem, in that sense, to be much of a threat. Of course, everything we're talking about and what they were talking about at the summit is all about the Russia threat. So how should we understand the nature of that threat given how weak the country is today?

Lt. Gen. Hodges: This is a great question. Russia, I was certain, would not have made it this long. Given the casualties that they have suffered, the effects of some sanctions on them, and now it looks like they've probably lost Iran as an ally or a source of drones. But China has picked up some of the slack. North Korea continues to provide ammunition. And Russia right now has transitioned to a wartime economy because of course they don't have to worry too much about whether or not the peasants are unhappy that they can't get a new refrigerator. Putin does not have to respond to this sort of thing the way any other democratic leader would have to respond. So he's putting a lot of resources into this.

That would be over if we could figure out how to stop Russia from exporting oil to China and India. But as long as they can keep doing that, and as long as oil prices stay up, then Russia can keep doing what they're doing for quite some time. At the recent economic forum that Russia hosts each year, President Putin sort of downplayed the economic situation challenges they have. But his own people publicly were saying that they're almost in recession, that they are in fact in trouble.

What I am sure of is that if Ukraine capitulates or fails, or if we turn our back on Ukraine and Russia is able to take a couple of years to rebuild and fix what is broken, they will be knocking on the door of Moldova and probably of Latvia. Their objective is to break the alliance, to show NATO that nations are not really willing to fight against Russia over a piece of Estonia or Latvia. That would be their terrible miscalculation. So to make sure that the Russians never make that terrible miscalculation, we have to get back to where we were in the Cold War days of spending what's necessary, being prepared so that you can have another 40-50 years of no war with Russia.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals.

Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

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The Math Behind Trump's $1 Trillion Defense Budget

OPINION — “The President's FY ‘26 [Fiscal Year 2026] National Defense Budget requests $1.01 trillion, which is a 13 percent increase from FY '25 enacted [as authorized but not yet funded by Congress] levels. This [FY ‘26] includes $848.3 billion for DoD's [Defense Department’s] discretionary budget and $113.3 billion in mandatory funding for DoD via [the FY ’25] reconciliation [bill now before the Senate] totaling $961.6 billion total for the Department of Defense.”

That was a Senior DoD Official briefing reporters last Thursday, on newly-released details of the Trump administration’s defense budget request for the fiscal year 2026, which begins October 1, 2025 and ends September 30, 2026.

In the best of times, the DoD budget process is difficult to understand, but this year it is even more complicated than most. The final defense budget figure depends not only on passage of the FY 2026 Appropriations Bill, but also on the FY 2025 reconciliations bill.

In addition, there are some interesting differences among the Pentagon, House and Senate on how the money is to be spent.

Ideally, a President sends his annual budget proposal to Congress early in the year—late January for example. Congress holds authorization hearings followed by appropriation hearings, and the bills get marked up and passed before the next federal government fiscal year begins on October 1.

But when it comes to defense, for 11 of the past 12 fiscal years, DoD has had to operate under continuing resolutions (CRs) for some months because Congress in those years was unable to pass the necessary defense appropriations bills until after the new fiscal year began.

From DoD’s point of view, that has caused problems because under CRs spending levels normally remain the same as the previous year. CRs also prohibit new starts, disrupt production schedules and generally interfere with defense planning. The situation becomes even more complicated in years of presidential transition.

The fiscal 2025 defense budget was originally put together under the Biden administration. Congress, after President Trump was elected, delayed passage of the Biden fiscal 2025 defense spending plan, approving two short-term CRs. Finally, after Trump became president, Congress approved a full year CR in mid-March 2025. That put DoD funding for this current fiscal year at $852 billion, just one percent above what it was in FY 2024.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration was working with DoD officials on the FY 2026 defense budget, which the Biden administration back in 2024, had projected would be $876.8 billion.

Then, on April 7, 2025, during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump, after mentioning that he had built up the U.S. military during his first term in office, suddenly said, “We have great things happening with our military.”

Trump went on to say something that he had not said publicly before: “We also essentially approved a budget…you'll like to hear this, of a trillion dollars, $1 trillion and nobody's seen anything like it. We have to build our military and we're very cost conscious, but the military is something that we have to build and we have to be strong because you got a lot of bad forces out there now. So, we're going to be approving a budget and I'm proud to say, actually the biggest one we've ever done for the military.”

Trump’s statement about $1 trillion for defense in FY 2026 then became the marching order, but how to do it was the question. A month later, the answer appeared publicly in the form of the FY 2025 reconciliation bill.

Since the January presidential inauguration, the Trump administration and Republican leadership had been working on this reconciliation bill in order to change much of the Biden FY 2025 budgeting by aligning all spending, taxes, revenue, and the debt limit with a new, agreed-upon FY 2025 Trump budget.

Among many features of this FY 2025 Trump reconciliation bill was the insertion of a $150 billion lump sum for defense programs, to be paid out of U.S. Treasury funds available through 2029. There had been no congressional hearings—the number just appeared.

In early May, when Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released its full government fiscal 2026 ‘skinny’ budget, public mention was first made of the $150 billion defense package in the reconciliation bill -- and that some $113 billion of it was to be earmarked for the Pentagon’s fiscal 2026 budget.

That meant DoD’s FY 2026 base budget remained near FY 2025’s $852 billion, but you reached Trump’s announced $1 trillion for overall defense spending by adding the $113 billion in the reconciliation bill along with funds for nuclear weapons paid for by the Energy Department.

Back in May, at the time of that OMB announcement, Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said, “For the defense budget, OMB has requested a fifth year straight of Biden administration funding, leaving military spending flat, which is a cut in real terms…I have said for months that reconciliation Defense spending does not replace the need for real growth in the military's base budget.”

He was joined at that time by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, who said, “Make no mistake: a one-time influx reconciliation spending is not a substitute for full-year appropriations.”

On May 22, in a 215-to-214, largely party-line vote, the House passed its version of the FY 2025 reconciliation bill, containing the $150 billion defense package. The reconciliation bill is now up for debate in the Senate. An advantage for the Trump administration in the reconciliation process is that Senate rules allow for a simple majority vote (51 votes) for reconciliation bills, bypassing the usual 60-vote threshold on controversial measures needed to overcome a filibuster.

Meanwhile, House and Senate Armed Services and Appropriations Committees have held hearings on the Trump fiscal 2026 DoD budget request with mixed results.

On June 12, the House Appropriations Committee passed its version of the FY 2026 DoD funding bill that followed the OMB May proposal, keeping the numbers close to the FY 2025 level and reaching the $1 billion Trump goal by adding the earmarked $113 billion in the pending FY 2025 reconciliation bill.

However, questions were raised at the June 18 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was one of the witnesses.

Chairman Wicker said, “What we have in front of us is an inadequate budget request with precious little detail and no follow on data about fiscal years 2027, 2028, or 2029. We must assume, and in fact we have heard, that OMB intends to maintain defense spending at $893 billion across the four years of this administration. So even with a one-time $150 billion [fiscal 2025] reconciliation [bill] infusion, this would leave us at 2.65% of GDP by 2029, below 3 percent of GDP and well below the 5 percent of GDP that we really need.”

Wicker went on, “I understand that if you put reconciliation and the budget request together for this year [FY2026] it exceeds 3 percent, but if we go back to that same baseline for the next three years, after that we'll be under 3 percent. Do you intend to fix that?”

Hegseth agreed that going below 3 percent would be very dangerous, adding, “So does the President of the United States which is why this budget increases from FY25 1.3 percent [if you include reconciliation bill’s $113 billion] and puts us at 3.5 percent of GDP on defense.”

President Trump recently returned from the NATO summit at The Hague where he took credit for the allies adopting a 2035 goal of 3.5 percent for member countries’ core defense spending. It could be embarrassing for the President to find himself below that amount back home.

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Another question raised at Wednesday’s Armed Services hearing was exactly how the reconciliation bill defense money would be spent. At issue was the tradition known as “congressional intent,” for Congress to designate spending amounts for specific defense items in legislation.

At the June 18 Armed Services hearing, Wicker asked, “We will put funds in the reconciliation bill, working with the House and working with the Administration, to get the [President’s] signature on the bill. And we will make clear alongside that the specific congressional intent [on defense items]…Mr. Secretary [Hegseth] do you commit to following congressional intent unequivocally on reconciliation.”

After Hegseth gave a qualifying answer, Wicker demanded, “Do you commit to following congressional intent unequivocally in reconciliation?” This time, Hegseth answered, “Yes.”

I mention this because last Wednesday, Chairman Wicker released what he called an “updated legislative text of the defense reconciliation bill.” It showed his committee had cut down to $1 billion the $3.3 billion it had previously allocated to deployment of military personnel in support of border operations.

However, the next day, Thursday, at a Pentagon press conference called to discuss the FY 2026 defense budget, details of which had just been made available, a Senior Defense Official made clear the figure DoD had for the reconciliation bill was different. He said, “The $5 billion we're requesting [from the reconciliation bill] is for border security for our troops to actually be there as well as for detention support.”

The Defense Official added of the reconciliation funding, “It's the first time the Department of Defense has received mandatory money like this. It's ten-year money with a lot more flexibility than the average discretionary dollar provides.” Remember, under traditional circumstances, congressional intent language in statutes determines how defense money is to be spent.

Under the original reconciliation bill, DoD had 90 days after the legislation became law to send the House and Senate Armed Services and Appropriations Committees their plans for spending the $150 billion. What was to happen thereafter is not spelled out, but it’s clear the “flexibility” that the Defense Official has seen is not recognized by Sen. Wicker and, I expect, others on Capitol Hill.

Will today’s complex circumstances be repeated?

I saw a hint in something the Senior Defense Official said to reporters last Thursday. Asked about the top defense budget figure for FY 2027, he said, “We have not yet discussed what that will look like for [FY] '27. But unless the president's tone changes, I imagine we'll stick with $1 trillion for national defense spending.”

After the June 18, Armed Services hearing, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said, “As I understand it, OMB is saying we are going to have a flat defense budget for the next four or five years. Are we playing reconciliation every year from now on?”

The answer is maybe.

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The Downward Spiral of Western Counterintelligence

OPINION — Counterintelligence is one of the most vital functions of the intelligence community, helping protect against foreign threats. Counterintelligence was heavily emphasized during the Cold War, as spying and unregistered foreign agents were at an all-time high across various regions. Over the past several years, numerous investigations, scandals, and reports have surfaced across North America and Europe revealing how foreign governments have influenced politicians and placed agents in key areas of intelligence and daily life, subverting Western counterintelligence efforts.

The signs are clear that counterintelligence is in a downward spiral, leading to major security failures and breaches. How and why is this happening?

A New Axis and Effective Hybrid Warfare

Over the past decade, numerous figures in Europe and America were investigated or found to have major ties to foreign intelligence agencies. Unregistered foreign agents became even more evident in 2022 as the Russian invasion of Ukraine became a full-scale war.

Russia is at the forefront of a new axis that is leading hybrid and information warfare efforts—pushing disinformation and placing agents across various Western institutions to dissuade a united front against the Kremlin’s goals.

Russian influence and sabotage operations have gained steam since 2016, as numerous populist movements—such as Brexit, the American isolationist movement, and far-right parties in Europe— have surged, many of which have allegedly received funding from the Kremlin itself.

Through hybrid warfare, the Kremlin seeks to control the narrative. One method Russia uses is trafficking migrants from Africa and the Middle East and sending them to Europe via the Mediterranean or Eastern borders of the continent. The Kremlin aims to overwhelm the European social system by trafficking migrants towards hot spots such as Finland and Lithuania and propping up juntas in Africa that force migrants to flee to Italy, Spain, and Greece. From there, anti-immigration parties and populist movements gain momentum and come to power. Hungary, Slovakia, Germany, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Austria, and France all face a wave of populist movements with governments with alleged ties to the Kremlin. China and Iran also have growing influence, particularly in Hungary, which is quickly becoming a potential “Trojan horse” within the EU and NATO.

A Breakdown of Infiltration by Foreign Governments

Numerous scandals, saboteur acts, and links to Russian foreign intelligence have been recorded in the UK, Spain, Germany, Czechia, Poland, Bulgaria, Albania, and Montenegro. Recent FBI and DOJ documents show how Russian information warfare can spread misinformation and disinformation in the US via alternative media channels.

German politicians in the pro-Russian AfD, SPD, and CDU have come under fire for potential influence related to Russian energy, and the ruling Fidesz party of Hungary has all but isolated the Central European nation due to its close ties with the Kremlin.

The Chinese government has ramped up foreign intelligence operations by placing unregistered foreign agents and intelligence operatives who target dissidents in the United States. They also seek to influence day-to-day policies, as seen with the arrest of Linda Sun, a major former aide to NY Governor Hochul.

Pro-Mullah Iranian agents have also been active in Europe, America, and Western-aligned countries in the Middle East—targeting dissidents and potentially using information warfare to further inflame tensions amid Israel’s ongoing wars against Hamas and Hezbollah. A recent kidnapping and murder of a prominent Chabad Israeli rabbi in the UAE has only heightened the sense of urgency for the need for more counterintelligence operations.

What Went Wrong With Counterintelligence?

The beginning of the U.S. government's negligence toward counterintelligence efforts started when the Soviet Union fell, after which there was no true rival to the United States until China's sharp economic and military boom in the early 2000s.

Another major turning point was the U.S. invasion of Iraq. When the world saw WMD lies by various Western heads of state to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, citizens started to lose faith in their governments, allowing foreign rivals to use information and hybrid warfare to subvert democracies. Against the backdrop of governments' and media organizations' lack of faith, rival countries such as Russia, China, and Iran have invested in media misinformation and disinformation. Today, media organizations such as RT have been flagged by the West for being an arm of the Kremlin, and TikTok is currently being discussed in a potential ban for Beijing-linked spyware and disinformation.

Likewise, allied countries are also allegedly subverting Western counterintelligence capabilities, such as Turkey, which is accused of targeting dissidents in Europe and the United States. NYC Mayor Eric Adams faces charges related to working with the Turkish government and acting on influence, such as digressing away from Armenian Genocide recognition in the city. Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia are also allegedly subvert counterintelligence to target dissidents, seen, for example, in Riyadh’s brutal murder of Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi and Qatar's alleged influence in university protests in the U.S.

Potential Solutions

Now more than ever, Western governments should renew their emphasis on funding and growing counterintelligence capabilities to thwart foreign interference, alongside enhancing ongoing joint intelligence efforts through allies such as Five Eyes,

A main factor of infiltration of foreign governments includes using our own freedom of rights against us. With investigations taking years to conclude due to legislative pushbacks or measures, rival agencies look to subvert this.

A comprehensive counterintelligence focus is needed as the world enters a period of potential global conflict. Perhaps the West should again utilize counterspy doctrines of the Cold War era to mitigate looming threats and enhance counterintelligence efforts.

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Beijing’s Rare Disclosure on DF-5B Missile Signals Shift in Nuclear Messaging

CIPHER BRIEF REPORTING -- China’s state television put a rare public focus on Beijing’s DF-5B intercontinental ballistic missile earlier this month, revealing key details that mark a significant shift in Beijing’s nuclear messaging amid rising global tensions and in the midst of unraveling key arms control agreements.

According to state broadcaster CCTV, the upgraded DF-5B missile is reportedly capable of carrying up to 10 independently targetable warheads, each with a destructive yield estimated to be 200 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. Exact figures remain difficult to verify, as independent assessments vary. But CCTV claims that the missile’s range is approximately 12,000 kilometers (7,460 miles), putting most of the continental United States and Europe within reach. So, why does this matter?

While the details of the DF-5B match some already disclosed details, the notion that state television is putting such a public focus on this is “unusual and perhaps speaks to a willingness on China’s part to begin signaling its nuclear growth in a more public manner,” according to Matt Korda, Associate Director at the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project.

“China has not traditionally commented on the details of its weapon systems and instead almost always sticks to high-level talking points. Perhaps this portends a shift in the country’s communications strategy,” Korda, who also serves as Associate Senior Researcher for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Program, tells The Cipher Brief.

While the original DF-5 missile, developed during the Cold War, was outfitted with a single warhead, the DF-5B’s multi-warhead capacity—alongside its purported accuracy within 500 meters— represents a significant leap in China’s second-strike capability and nuclear survivability.

Andrew Erickson, a professor of strategy at the Naval War College and visiting China-focused scholar at Harvard University, believes that the renewed focus on this issue “is part of a comprehensive effort to attempt to coerce and intimidate its adversaries regarding the military scenarios about which Beijing prioritizes most.”

“Beijing’s goal is to show that it can match or exceed its adversaries on each rung of the escalation ladder; and also has the capability to utilize rungs, or combination of rungs, that its adversaries either do not possess or are more hesitant to use,” he explained.

Andrew Scobell, Distinguished Fellow for China at the United States Institute of Peace, said, “China’s communist rulers are feeling more insecure than usual, and this disclosure is their way of signaling ‘don’t mess with Beijing’ to Washington and other capitals.”

“The message is: China’s nuclear weaponry and delivery systems are more capable today than ever before with a longer reach and greater accuracy,” he tells The Cipher Brief.

A Rapidly Expanding Arsenal

China’s nuclear arsenal remains smaller than those of Russia or the United States, but it is growing at an unprecedented rate. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reports that China has increased its warhead count by about 100 in the past year, rising from 500 in 2024, to over 600 by January 2025.

The SIPRI report notes that China is “expanding its nuclear arsenal faster than any other nuclear-armed state.” Experts estimate that by 2035, if current trends continue, China could possess as many as 1,500 nuclear warheads—a threefold increase that would still place it behind the United States and Russia, which together hold nearly 90 percent of the global stockpile.

But Multiple Independently target-able Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs) —allow a single missile to carry several nuclear warheads, each aimed at a different target. This dramatically complicates interception, as the warheads can overwhelm defenses by arriving on separate trajectories, making coordinated response far more difficult and costly.

“Current U.S. missile defenses are unable to meaningfully defend against Chinese ICBMs, whether they carry multiple warheads or not,” Korda said. “Having MIRVs certainly complicates that challenge and demonstrates the age-old problem for missile defenses: that offense will always be easier and cheaper than defense.”

Erickson believes that China’s criticism of U.S. missile-defense efforts like the Golden Dome, “and collaboration with Moscow on hypocritical arms control grandstanding rings hollow when Beijing remains silent on, or tacitly condones, Russia’s development of dramatic space control measures,” the most worrisome and threatening of which, is what would be the world’s first satellite-based nuclear weapon according to Erickson.

Projections derived from open-source satellite information and imagery, published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, note that China has nearly completed close to 350 new ICBM silos that are spread across multiple deserts and mountainous regions, including in Gansu and Inner Mongolia. Depending on deployment strategies, this could enable China to deploy several ICBMs comparable to those of Russia or the United States by the decade’s end.

Implications for Deterrence and Stability

China’s shift comes as the framework for nuclear arms control faces significant strain. With New START, the last remaining treaty limiting Russian and U.S. strategic nuclear arsenals, set to expire in early 2026, and no successor agreement in place, the global arms control architecture appears increasingly obsolete.

Some experts warn that the world is effectively entering an era of unchecked nuclear competition and worry that the growing deployment of artificial intelligence, space-based sensors, and cyber capabilities could erode crisis stability and introduce new pathways to escalation.

Advanced systems can compress decision-making time and increase the risk of miscalculation or technical error, particularly in multi-theater conflict scenarios involving China and Russia. According to SIPRI, “the signs are that a new arms race is gearing up that carries much more risk and uncertainty than the last one.”

Strategic Consequences for the West

The implications of China’s buildup extend far beyond Asia. Despite Russia and the United States’ decades-long atomic dominance, China’s rapidly expanding nuclear missile arsenal indicates a profound shift in global strategic dynamics.

For the West, experts emphasize that China’s nuclear buildup is raising the stakes of deterrence and complicates arms control efforts. It also demands an urgent reassessment of defense postures—particularly as Beijing builds a more flexible, survivable, and modernized nuclear triad – the ability to launch nuclear weapons from land-based missiles, submarine-launched missiles, and strategic bombers. This capability enables Beijing to more credibly challenge Western military presumptions.

“Advanced nuclear weapons and delivery systems are the ultimate backstop supporting Beijing’s efforts to impose a Sisyphean sense of futility on its enemies while supporting the ultimate warfighting options should that preferred approach ultimately fail to deliver,” Erickson said.

Analysts with the Federation of American Scientists have observed that China’s expanded ICBM infrastructure enables more flexible deployment, blending fixed silos with mobile launchers and dual-use capabilities, which complicate both detection and preemption. And as the U.S. continues to serve as the primary security guarantor for Europe and the Indo-Pacific, it faces the potential challenge of confronting multiple nuclear-capable adversaries simultaneously. For example, if drawn into parallel conflicts—such as a war in Ukraine and a Taiwan Strait crisis—experts worry that its conventional forces could become overstretched, increasing a reliance on nuclear deterrence.

The Next Phase of the Nuclear Race

DF-5B represents more than just a technical advancement for Beijing; it is a calculated message to the world. China’s modernization efforts are now a tangible reflection of the leadership’s ambition to move closer to nuclear parity—particularly in capability and survivability—with the United States and Russia.

With arms control faltering and nuclear parity drawing near, the world is poised for a new era of strategic competition, marked by high stakes, blurred red lines, and faster-moving threats. So, what can Washington do?

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Scobell notes that, “America and its allies should reevaluate their deterrence strategies,” pointing out that integrated deterrence sounds good in theory but putting it into action is tougher—especially because it must work across different areas like nuclear and conventional weapons. Deterring China is already a complex endeavor that is made even more challenging in today’s tense U.S.-China environment.

Korda believe that engaging China in arms control talks will be challenging, as Beijing would “have to accept some degree of transparency to join a verifiable arms control regime, and it has traditionally preferred to rely on opacity to safeguard its smaller nuclear arsenal.”

“In addition, China is likely concerned that the United States––particularly through its ever-expanding missile defense architecture, is seeking to erode its state of mutual vulnerability with its nuclear adversaries,” he said.

According to Korda, China likely perceives time to be on its side as it continues to expand its nuclear arsenal and “will likely wait to engage in significant talks until it gains the leverage it thinks it needs to become a more equal negotiating partner.”

Erickson contends that Beijing’s strategic ambiguity remains central to its doctrine: a tactic and a message.

“China doesn’t want us to understand their deterrence strategy; that lack of clarity is baked into the ambiguity,” he notes. “For twenty years of dialogue on these issues, the Chinese government and Chinese experts outside of government did not engage meaningfully. I don’t believe the PLA wants us to understand them.” Still, others see it differently.

“Conventional wisdom in Washington holds that nuclear arms control is dead, but I do not agree. Russia is eager to get into a new agreement, especially if that was coupled with a new overall concept for security in Europe,” Lyle Goldstein, Director for Asia Engagement at Defense Priorities, tells The Cipher Brief. “I believe that Beijing could be persuaded too if afforded the right set of enticing ‘carrots,’ such as a U.S. agreement to a no-first-use accord.”

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An Urgent Call to Close the Loopholes on Chips and China

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE / OPINION -- The core lessons from the Cold War should guide us as we face the new “Axis of Aggressors” today. First among these, is that we need to win the technology race.

Advanced technology made in United States did more than just put an American on the moon, it also solidified our economic foundation, empowered long-term entrepreneurial American leadership, and protected our national interests.

Maintaining this technology leadership should continue to be our priority today. Despite the Biden and Trump Administrations trying to limit the sale of U.S. software used to design semiconductors to Chinese groups, the U.S. government simply has not taken enough meaningful action to actually protect America’s leadership position.

China is embracing loopholes and openly flaunting strategic workarounds in our export policy that allows for the continued development of high-quality semiconductor chips with U.S. technology in China, despite our efforts to restrict Chinese access to such tools.

Along these same lines, Beijing plans to expand the use of open-source chip technology such as RISC V, in order to ween off its reliance on the West and spur the development of advanced chips in China. By leveraging RISC-V, Chinese companies are using open source software derived in the West to design their own processors for AI, cloud computing, and even military applications without violating current U.S. export restrictions.

And this shift is happening now.

Chinese tech giants like Alibaba, Tencent, and Huawei have invested heavily in RISC-V research and development, looking to exploit this back-door access to western open source technology. Additionally, Chinese government-backed initiatives are pouring billions into this effort, positioning it as a national priority.

This should not have been a surprise: after all, experts have been warning for years that this day would come, and China reportedly plans to issue policy guidance to boost the use of RISC-V chips.

This has not gone completely unnoticed, though. Congress has been looking at this technology and China’s ability to exploit it, and has rightfully raised a red flag, while the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security has been ramping up export controls on advanced chip products.

But despite the alarm bells, Congressional scrutiny, and increasing export actions, the RISC-V loophole remains unclosed – and China has pressed forward and is making progress.

For example, the development of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI-powered chatbot, demonstrated that the United States may not be as far ahead as we once thought in emerging technology, and there are many more reports beginning to surface about advancements of home grown Chinese tech.

According to a recent report from the Center of Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), China’s use of open source technology will bolster its ability to produce AI chips domestically, which is key to China’s long-term AI ambitions.

Another concern about this extensive use of open-source technology by Chinese companies is that it is leading to significant cybersecurity concerns with products built on it. DeepSeek is just one recent example, with the platform coming under cybersecurity scrutiny immediately after its release, with many countries and companies restricting its use. DeepSeek is considered 11 times more likely to be exploited by cybercriminals than other AI models.

A separate CSIS report notes that chip design is intended to be at the forefront of the ongoing struggle to ensure cybersecurity and to thwart hacking and tampering efforts, not be the source of new cybersecurity challenges.

Bottomline—the more Chinese chips there are in the American market, the more vulnerable our critical systems become to potential attacks – both from criminal actors and nation states like China.

CrowdStrike recently reported that Chinese state-sponsored cyber-attacks have increased by 150%, with attacks in financial services, media, manufacturing and the industrial sectors increasing by 300%.

All of this tells us that we need to act now.

One way is to prioritize domestic investment in semi-conductor production and establish a unified approach to semiconductors and advanced technology with our allies and trusted partners. The Trump administration has already made significant strides in this realm – as evidenced by the recent $100 billion investment by TSMC in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing.

But this type of domestic investment should be just one leg of a much broader strategy. The complicated world of semiconductors and advanced tech goes much deeper.

We also need to take regulatory action that prevents U.S. companies from working with Chinese companies in open source technology forums (e.g. RISC-V International); tightens export controls to apply equally to commercial and open source semiconductor technology; and properly screens technology and semiconductors that contain Chinese IP.

Any approach should be integrated – bringing together both incentivization and regulation to protect America’s economic productivity and national security.

Chips are at the heart of all technology products and the advancement of AI platforms that they power. They are a key part of everyday life – they’re in our phones, cars, smartwatches, etc. and their applications go much further into our defense and military systems - impacting battlefield performance, information acquisition, and evaluation. Ensuring a strategic advantage in this space is crucial to protecting our national security now and in the event of a future global crisis.

In a world of such uncertainty and potential, the United States needs to maintain its lead in chips and advanced technology. In order to do so, though, we need a comprehensive strategy that looks at both our opportunities and potential vulnerabilities – and pays close attention to the threats from our adversaries.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals.

Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

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A Good NATO Summit, Though Russia Won a Round

EXPERT Q&A — NATO leaders convened in The Hague this week for a summit aiming to strengthen the alliance's defenses, with the ever encroaching threat of Russia in mind. The meeting was largely a success, with all members (barring Spain) pledging to meet a new 5% GDP defense spending target. It was also a moment for NATO to project unity and recommit to collective defense, following skepticism from the administration of President Donald Trump, who was receptive and praised the alliance — saying it is not a "rip-off" as he has previously said. Ukraine, while a key topic at previous summits in recent years, was notably on the backburner this time around.

The Cipher Brief caught up with General Philip Breedlove (Ret.), a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, for a post-summit debrief to see what positives came out of the gathering and where he is looking next, from how NATO members go about expanding defense capabilities to whether the alliance offers more support to Ukraine and pressures Russia. Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity. You can watch the full discussion at The Cipher Brief's YouTube channel.

The Cipher Brief: Did things end the way you thought they needed to end this week at the Hague?

General Breedlove: We had a great summit. Let's give some credit to Secretary General [Mark] Rutte and the members of the North Atlantic Council (NAC) because we needed unity. When the U.S. president arrived, they had come to unity on the 5% spending commitment. And I think that set the stage. Our president was the first president in the history of NATO to get the organization to seriously invest when he pushed hard on the 2%. So, it went very well.

The Cipher Brief: This felt like a summit that was almost tailor-made for the president. It was an easy pop-in, not a lot of debate, not a lot of back and forth. They knew what to expect going into it. Do you think that that helped fuel the outcome?

General Breedlove: Yes. Very few people understand how NATO works. The secretary general is actually very important, but he's not the decider. He works for the NAC, just like the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe (SACEUR) works for the NAC. Secretary General Rutte has managed the process extremely well to get everybody to where he needed them to be. We need to give him some credit for organizing all of the nations to get them to the right place.

I think their vision was to keep this short, to the point, get to the things that the U.S. president wants to accomplish, get those accomplished, and come out of this with a big unifying statement. And who is that unifying statement for? Of course, it's for all of our nations and our alliance. But the most important recipient of that message is Mr. Putin.

Mr. Putin works hard to tear NATO down. He tries to peel off individual countries and leaders. Secretary General Rutte pulled the team together, got them on the same playbook, moved out and didn't waste any time. And I think that's exactly how this U.S. president likes to work.

The Cipher Brief: It was clear going into this that Russia is the real threat to NATO. It's still a little bit unclear as to where President Trump is going to come down on Russia when it comes to how much pressure he's going to be willing to apply. We saw a little bit of movement toward the possibility of more support for Ukraine. What do you think the options are there? And if you’re the Russian president, how are you looking at the outcome of this summit in particular?

General Breedlove: I'm both encouraged and discouraged on this front. I think there are a lot of people who believe we're ready now and we should be going in with the next round of heavy sanctions on Russia, to go after fuels and the shadow fleet. Our U.S. secretary of state, in his statement, said we're not going there now because it might preclude some sort of a ceasefire or peace agreement in Ukraine. So, he's going to hold off. Russia won that round. That's what they want. Keep stalling, keep the Americans thinking there's going to be a deal, and keep attacking Ukraine. So, we've got to move past that. And I think eventually this is going to happen.

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If we learned anything from the 12-day war, it is that our president has a line. And when these parties go over that line, he will act. We hammered Ukraine. We took away their intelligence, we took away their support. We gave it back pretty quick, but the bottom line is that we did damage to Ukraine to get them where we needed to get them. Now it's time to give Mr. Putin a straightforward message “Get on the program, sir, or you're gonna regret it.” It’s time to pull that stick out and use it in the same way we did on several other countries in the last three or four months. That has not happened. We look forward to that happening.

But on your other point, yes, there seems to be some understanding that possibly we're going to keep the flow, maybe even increase the flow, of supply to Ukraine.

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NATO Wins Will Have an Impact

CIPHER BRIEF EXPERT Q&A — NATO leaders convened at The Hague this week and agreed to raise the alliance’s defense spending target to 5% GDP, marking a significant pledge to expand defense capabilities. A key component is the 1.5% dedicated to defense- and security-related spending, a broad category that covers everything from critical infrastructure cybersecurity to upgrading transportation infrastructure for military logistics. Experts say this is a needed area to bolster defense posture, in addition to the traditional purchase of jets, tanks and arms.

Earlier this week, Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery urged NATO to adopt the 1.5% commitment in a piece in The Cipher Brief. He spoke with The Cipher Brief after the summit to assess the progress made and what must come next to translate those pledges into action.

Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity. You can watch the full discussion at The Cipher Brief YouTube Channel.

The Cipher Brief: What do you think of the results of the summit? Success or still a lot of work?

RADM Montgomery: I think with an alliance like NATO, there is always a lot of work. You've got 32 countries, you have 32 ideas, you have 32 threat assessments. But I actually think it went exceptionally well. It went exceptionally well because Secretary General Rutte did a great job corralling the players, with the exception of Spain. But he did a great job with 31, and then he did a terrific job managing President Trump — and that's no easy feat.

This was a landmark summit. The Hague 2025 will be remembered for a true commitment to deterring Russia, and if necessary defeating them if they were to invade a NATO state. And the five percent is certainly part of it, but the language, the direction, the focus, the corralling back in of the United States, all that happened at this summit.

Craving more expert insights into national security? Subscribe to The Cipher Brief’s YouTube channel to watch our interview with RADM Mark Montgomery.

The Cipher Brief: One thing that wasn't really discussed in any kind of depth was Ukraine. Obviously with Russia being sort of the looming cloud over NATO, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that.

RADM Montgomery: I fully support Ukraine and I think we should do as much as we can to help them. I recognize, though, that this 5 percent and the discussion of whether Article 5 applies really was about signatory states. There's a deep, deep issue there that we have to be agreed that we're going to defend Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, particularly. I think they're the four most vulnerable states if they're attacked.

Separate from that is the issue that right now the European country in combat with Russia that was illegally invaded by Russia, Ukraine, has relied heavily on NATO support because most of NATO recognizes that if you don't deter Russia here, their next ambition could be Moldova, but it could be Estonia. It could be Romania or Georgia, or it could be the Suwalki Gap and a land bridge to Kaliningrad.

So with all that in play, it was critical that Zelensky got a good reception. I think he did. And the fact that the Ukrainian section was shortened from 42 paragraphs to 10 paragraphs, I don't care. In the end it said we support Ukraine. The NATO contact group is working hard to support Ukraine. European countries are giving Ukraine a lot of money.

And here's the most important part: for the first time since his election, President Trump indicated he would keep the defense industrial base open for Ukraine or Europeans to purchase the critical air defense systems they need, and even referred to the U.S. potentially being involved in that. There is no European alternative to the Patriot line at Raytheon or to the AMRAAM line in the United States, which is the weapon that goes in their NASAMs air defense system. There's no European alternative to a million rounds a year of 155mm. You're going to need the U.S. to be involved in that. And therefore, it was critical for the president to say that these lines are available to Ukraine. And he did that on two or three different occasions. It wasn't as clean as I'd like it, but he clearly indicated that was his intention.

The Cipher Brief: Next steps for NATO. What do you think?

RADM Montgomery: First, glad to see the 5%. I was really glad that they broke it down to 3.5-1.5, mostly because they'd have never gotten a 5% on planes, tanks, and ships. You'd have had more than Spain break away then — you might've had the UK, France, and Germany. Or they'd put a due date like 2050, something that doesn't really matter. I'm disappointed it slipped to 2035. It should have been 2032 like the Eastern Europeans wanted. Most of the Eastern Europeans, by the way—Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland—are passing through 4% already and heading to 5% within the next 12 months. And that's just on aircraft, ships, and tanks kind of stuff.

What I really loved about this was the 1.5%. This is about getting cyber right and critical infrastructure protection right. It's about building your defense industrial base. But talking about cyber and critical infrastructure, when you say what's next for NATO, at the last summit, they approved a NATO critical infrastructure center. They put it at SACEUR, and that's critical because what we have to do now is take that center as it comes online in the next year, SACEUR’s war plans, and this money and build the infrastructure that's necessary for the United States to flow our forces from the United States, the UK forces from across the channel, the French forces from deep in Europe—those brigades, divisions, and even corps—to be able to flow across Northern Europe from the ports and the airfields in Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Luxembourg, France, and get to the fight. That is not protected right now. That critical infrastructure is not prioritized and protected in a meaningful way.

So, in my mind, the big NATO takeaway is 1.5 percent, the cyber center, and a SACEUR with a war plan. If we can now build ourselves the ligature to deter Russia and if Russia is foolish enough to attack, defeat Russia in an invasion of an Article Five-defended country.

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NATO Lures Trump Back - at a Cost

CIPHER BRIEF REPORTING – The stakes at this week’s NATO summit were sky-high – support for Ukraine, a shoring up of Europe’s defenses, and the viability of the alliance amid a waning U.S. commitment. On that last and arguably most important front, the gathering at The Hague produced surprising results.

By the end of the summit, President Donald Trump’s famous disdain for NATO had morphed into a gush. “This was a tremendous summit,” the president said at a news conference, “I enjoyed it very much.”

Trump spoke in glowing terms about the alliance - “I left here differently,” he said and promised U.S. support for NATO’s Article 5, which compels each member state to respond to an attack against any other, and which he had previously called into question. Trump was also clearly pleased with the summit’s main achievement – a collective pledge by members to contribute 5% of their GDP to defense, something the U.S. president had wanted for years.

Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges (Ret.), former Commander of U.S. Army Forces in Europe, told The Cipher Brief that the summit’s “best outcome” was NATO’s success at bringing Trump back into the fold.

“There was a huge sigh of relief in The Hague that he even showed up, Hodges told us. “There was some anxiety about that, or that he might blow it up somehow.”

“He was there, he stayed for the entire thing. He met with President Zelensky. We got an agreement on 5 % [spending]...and then a public affirmation of American commitment to the alliance by the president. That's pretty good.”

“I actually think it went exceptionally well,” said Rear Admiral (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, a senior member of the Cyber Initiatives Group and director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “It went exceptionally well because NATO Secretary General [Mark] Rutte did a great job corralling the players…and then he did a terrific job managing President Trump and that's no easy feat.”

The costs of placating the U.S. president included hitting that 5% figure, which may be difficult for many members to meet, and a relegating of Ukraine’s concerns to the summit’s back burner.

At The Hague, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was pleased by what he called a “long and meaningful” meeting with President Trump, and Trump himself acknowledged Ukraine’s “brave battle” in a way he hasn’t done previously. Still, some in Ukraine noted that beyond verbal support from Trump and Rutte, there was little new NATO support for Kyiv.

“The problem for Ukrainians is that we are super tired from so many words,” Oleksiy Goncharenko, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, told The Cipher Brief. He noted that June had been one of the worst months of the war in terms of civilian deaths, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin had been “emboldened” by a failure of the U.S. to hold Moscow accountable. “We want to see concrete results,” Goncharenko said. “We want this war to end as soon as possible.”

“The NATO allies made some brutal and to some extent also cynical trade-offs,” Liana Fix, a Europe expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, told The Cipher Brief. “They wanted the summit to be a success for Donald Trump and to be about defense spending to secure their own security in the long term. It was not designed to be about Ukraine.”

A Trump surprise

President Trump’s pivot didn’t just help with the atmospherics at The Hague. For the moment at least, it means that a bitter and dangerous NATO-U.S. rift has been mended.

Trump has mused out loud about ending U.S. financial and military commitments to NATO. Last week, he said he saw no reason for the U.S. to meet the very 5% spending target he had pushed for – “I don’t think we should,” he said – and on the eve of the summit he refused to commit to U.S. support for Article 5. It “depends on your definition,” he said.

All that seemed like rear-view-mirror material by the time the summit wrapped at The Hague. Rutte’s pre-summit flattering of Trump – including a leaked private message in which he praised the U.S. strikes against Iran and told the president he was “flying into another big success in The Hague” – seemed to have had the desired effect. Trump praised Rutte and the alliance, took credit for the spending pledges, and sought to put to rest any doubts about Washington’s Article 5 commitments. “I stand with it. That’s why I’m here,” Trump said when asked to clarify his position. “If I didn’t stand with it, I wouldn’t be here.”

That full-throated support allowed for a final summit communiqué that included a reaffirmation of the “ironclad commitment to collective defense as enshrined in Article 5.”

“It was important that the president affirmed it very strongly, clearly and publicly,” Lt. Gen. Hodges told us.

“Donald Trump committed to Article 5, but European NATO members paid a high price for that,” Fix said. “The whole summit was about offering 5% to Donald Trump, flattering him and making sure that he stays in the alliance. Of course, it's also in the interest of European NATO allies to increase their defense spending, but they would have never come up with this 5% target. That was specifically for Donald Trump, and it worked.”

Rutte also managed to achieve near consensus among the NATO members – 32 of them – with the exception of Spain – committed to the 5 % ask; ultimately it was split into 3.5 % for core military elements – troops, missiles, ammunition – and another 1.5 percent for “militarily adjacent” spending that nations may devote to infrastructure and cybersecurity.

That drew praise from Rear Adm. Montgomery, who had advocated for the additional commitment.

“What I really loved about this was the 1.5 %,” he said. “This is about getting cyber right and critical infrastructure protection right.”

Beyond the detailed spending targets, experts saw value in the unified message put forth at the summit, given recent transatlantic tensions.

“The degree to which the alliance acts in a unified voice, utilizes consensus, agrees on broad positions, that's a win for the alliance and a big defeat for Putin,” Admiral James Stavridis, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, told The Cipher Brief.

The skeptics – and the hurdles ahead

For all the post-summit cheering, there was also skepticism about the implementation of the new 5 % commitments.

While Poland and the Baltic states are already spending nearly 5% of their GDP on defense, other NATO members hover close to 2% and will face political and economic challenges in meeting the new targets. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez refused to sign on, saying his country would spend 2.1 percent of its GDP on defense, “no more, no less.” Slovakia and Belgium pledged to meet the target but said it would be difficult to do.

Experts noted that in the push to placate President Trump, NATO’s European members had agreed to more than double their military spending at a time when many are already struggling to balance their budgets. Politically, these governments – particularly those in Western Europe, where the Russia threat is less palpable – may have trouble convincing their constituents that military spending should spike at the expense of outlays for social programs.

“To what extent will populists in Europe make defense spending a topic?” asked Fix. “Do they come up with claims like, ‘Why should we spend for defense just to please Donald Trump? We could spend for social welfare and make a deal with Russia.’”

Then there is the timetable.

The NATO communique calls for members to meet their 5% target by 2035. Experts and some intelligence agencies have warned that while Russia’s military and economy have been weakened, new Russian threats to Europe may arise within three to five years of an end of the Ukraine war.

Hodges and Montgomery both said they were disappointed by the long timeline. The Ukrainian president did too.

“This is slow,” Zelensky said of the NATO timeline. “We believe starting in 2030, Putin can have significantly greater capabilities. Today, Ukraine is holding him up, he has no time to drill the army.”

Finally, there is the question of how the money will be spent. As The Cipher Brief has reported, European defense production has often been slowed or thwarted by continent-wide regulations. And while overall defense strategy and standards have been set by NATO commanders, national military budgets and planning are decided by individual nations. Experts stressed the need for NATO’s European members to spend their 5% in a strategic and coordinated fashion.

“The most important thing, of course, is capability,” Lt. Gen. Hodges said. “Do we have the actual capability to do what we're supposed to do? Because that's what will deter the Russians, not a sign on the board that says, Hey, we're at 3.5 percent. You know, it's real capability, units that are properly trained, fully manned, that have lots of ammunition, aircraft that fly and ships that sail. That's got to be the focus.”

Ukraine on the “back burner”

Russia’s full-scale of invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was the catalyst for a unified NATO front that had eluded the alliance since the end of the Cold War. This week, with the focus on NATO’s overall defense spending, the recent strikes against Iran, and the wish to please President Trump, support for Ukraine took a back seat.

The good news for Ukraine came in the 50-minute meeting Trump held with Zelensky on the summit’s sidelines. Trump spoke of the bravery of Ukrainians and said he would consider providing more Patriot missiles to Ukraine to counter Russian air strikes. "We are going to see if we can make some of them available," Trump said. He also did not reject the idea of approving more U.S. military aid to Kyiv.

But there were no fresh commitments from NATO, only a general pledge of “continued support” for Ukraine. The communiqué made no promise of Ukraine’s future membership in the alliance, which was taken as another concession to Trump, who opposes inviting Ukraine to join NATO. And Fix noted that NATO did not publish a Russia strategy at the summit, presumably over a concern that the U.S. would object – given the Trump administration’s refusal to recognize Russia as the aggressor in the Ukraine war.

“This is my biggest disappointment from this summit, that Ukraine was put on a back burner,” Lt. Gen. Hodges said. “I'm glad that President Zelensky showed up, that he was invited and that he attended. I'm glad that President Trump met with President Zelensky…and he was more positive about Ukraine than I'd heard from him in quite some time. But I had hoped that this summit would be another affirmation by the alliance that we're going to do everything we can to help Ukraine.”

Goncharenko and other members of the Ukrainian parliament were particularly exasperated by the Trump administration’s rationale for not imposing fresh sanctions against Russia. Trump threatened such sanctions following Russia’s recent military strikes and Putin’s intransigence at the negotiating table, but on the eve of the summit, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said sanctions were off the table for now.

“If we come in and crush them with more sanctions, we probably lose our ability to talk to them,” Rubio said.

“I really can't understand it,” Goncharenko said. “So, in the case of Iran, to make them go to the negotiating table, their nuclear facilities were crushed by American bombing. And it looks like it worked, at least it looks like that for the moment. In the case of Russia, they say, if we crush them, we will lose the possibility to negotiate. I can't understand.”

Goncharenko argued that the opposite would be a more logical approach. “If you want to have Russia at the negotiating table with seriousness, you need to crush them first,” he said. “They don't understand any language except the language of strength.”

Montgomery was more hopeful – for Ukraine and for Europe’s overall posture toward Russia.

“The Hague 2025 will be remembered as where there was a true commitment to deterring Russia, and if necessary, defeating them if they were to invade a NATO state,” Montgomery told us. “And the 5 percent is certainly part of it, but the language, the direction, the focus, the crawling back of the United States, all that happened at this summit.”

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North Korea’s Sticking Points: Abduction and Uranium Enrichment

OPINION — In September 2002, North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong-il, admitted to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that North Korea had abducted thirteen Japanese citizens — saying that eight were dead and five could visit Japan and return to North Korea. The Japanese public was shocked. Eight dead? At Japan’s request, North Korea returned the remains of two, Megumi Yokota and Kaoru Matsuki to Japan for forensic analysis. The analysis determined the remains did not belong to either person.

In October 2002, President George W. Bush sent Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia/Pacific Affairs, James Kelly, to Pyongyang for meetings with North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok Ju. During their meeting, Mr. Kang admitted that North Korea had an active gas centrifuge program to enrich uranium for use in nuclear weapons. He rhetorically asked what the U.S. was prepared to do about such a program. The meeting then ended abruptly.

These are the two issues that continue to poison relations with North Korea. The Mr. Koizumi visit to North Korea was done in the spirit of improving relations; the ideal outcome was North Korea apologizing and returning all the Japanese citizens they abducted and adhering to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and other nuclear commitments, given that in 1998 North Korea launched a long-range Taepo Dong missile that flew over Japan. Mr. Koizumi’s meeting with Mr. Kim was not the success it was meant to be. The Japanese public was irate with the results of the visit.

To date, the abductee issue continues to be unresolved, with a mandate from the people that there be closure on this sordid chapter of Japan-North Korea relations. Yokota Sakie, the mother of Yokota Megumi, who was a first-year junior high school student when she was abducted in 1977, recently had a press conference imploring the government to bring back the abductees. Ms. Sakie is the only surviving parent of the government-recognized abductees who remain unaccounted for.

Japan recognizes seventeen citizens abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 80s; five returned to Japan in 2002, but the other twelve are unaccounted for. There are other estimates that there were hundreds of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea during that period.

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North Korea’s highly enriched uranium program continues to be the major stumbling block in resolving the nuclear issue with North Korea. When North Korea was confronted in 2002 with intelligence indicating a clandestine uranium enrichment program for nuclear weapons, Mr. Kang did not deny it; rather, he apparently made it clear that there was nothing the U.S. – and others – could do about it. It also speaks to North Korea’s long-held determination to be a nuclear weapons state. So, despite the Agreed Framework of 1994 that was meant to end North Korea’s quest for a nuclear weapon, Pyongyang decided to pursue a clandestine program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

Indeed, North Korea is now quite open about this uranium enrichment program. The failure of the 2019 Hanoi Summit was due to Mr. Kim’s unwillingness to include his uranium enrichment sites, in addition to the Yongbyon plutonium site, in a deal to lift sanctions in return for a halt in all nuclear programs. In fact, Mr. Kim recently visited another enrichment site, apparently at Yongbyon, where he was shown pictures of shining centrifuges.

North Korea continues to produce fissile material – plutonium and enriched uranium – for nuclear weapons, while enhancing their ballistic missile capabilities, with a Hwasong-18, a solid fuel Intercontinental missile (ICBM) capable of targeting the whole of the U.S. Most recently, Mr. Kim talked about North Korea’s goal of having a blue water navy, which would give North Korea considerable reach in international waters, an obvious threat to Japan and other neighboring countries.

North Korea’s enhanced nuclear and missile programs and their mutual defense treaty with Russia, with over 11,000 North Korean troops in Russia for the war with Ukraine – in addition to ballistic missiles and artillery and rocket launchers – requires immediate attention.

On June 26 there will be an online symposium in the United Nations on the abduction issue. I and hopefully many others will tune in to this symposium, given that it’s an “ongoing problem and an international challenge that requires immediate resolution.”

This column by Cipher Brief Expert Ambassador Joseph DeTrani was first published in The Washington Times

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Can Europe Really Defend Itself?

CIPHER BRIEF REPORTING – As NATO leaders gather in The Hague this week, they face questions that not long ago would have seemed unthinkable: Can Europe defend itself against a growing threat at its doorstep, as its most powerful member wavers in its commitment to the alliance?

That NATO power is the United States, and since President Donald Trump’s second inaugural, the U.S. has made sharp shifts towards Moscow and away from its longtime European allies. President Trump said in March that the U.S. could not guarantee its support for any NATO nations deemed to be spending too little on defense; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the U.S. is no longer the “primary guarantor” of European security; and the Trump administration has shown a warmth towards the Kremlin unseen anywhere in Western Europe.

These developments have led to a sea change in European security and defense policy – what Lt. Gen. Sean Clancy, head of the European Union’s military committee, recently called a “global reset.” NATO members have agreed ahead of this week’s summit to boost defense spending to 5% of GDP, a huge jump from a 2% target that many in the alliance had struggled to meet. That change is an acknowledgement of both the growing Russian menace and Trump’s threat to withhold support from NATO nations who miss the 5 % mark.

Trump has also made clear that the U.S. plans to reduce its financial and troop commitments to NATO, and he has shown disdain for the alliance’s European members. Last week, Trump argued that the 5 % NATO target wouldn't apply to the U.S. – “I don’t think we should,” he said, “but I think they should.” And as Europe worked a diplomatic channel to bring Iran to the negotiating table, Trump said Friday that "Iran doesn't want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this one."

“Europe is facing a decision point, a crossroads,” Doug Lute, a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO, told The Cipher Brief. “And the decision is, will Europe stand up as one of the poles in this new multipolar international system?”

Another former U.S. Ambassador to NATO, Kurt Volker, said he believes the U.S. commitment to Europe will remain strong, but only if NATO’s European members make good on their new pledges to boost defense spending.

“What I see is a tremendous U.S. push to strengthen NATO,” Amb. Volker said. “The U.S. has responsibilities globally and especially in Asia and wants to be able to dedicate more resources there. But it can only dedicate more resources and attention if Europe steps up to do more of its own role in securing Europe and in preparing for the defense of Europe, which they are doing.”

The question, then, for Europe, as the NATO leaders meet: When it comes to defense and security, can Europe go it alone? Or, as Amb. Lute put it, “Can [Europe] assemble the hard power it needs in a rapid, emergency basis under the pressure of time? Can it assemble the hard power required to stand by itself?”

What Europe is saying – and doing

Recent European pledges and military budgets would suggest that at a minimum, the European “reset” is underway – and that the continent is taking significant first steps to bolster its own defenses.

To win consensus on the new 5 % spending target, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte split the commitments into 3.5% for core defense and 1.5% for “defense-related” items including infrastructure and cybersecurity.

5 % may seem a small figure, but it represents a quantum leap for the alliance. Today only 23 of the alliance’s 32 members have met the previous 2% target. (NATO estimates that the U.S. spent around 3.4% of its GDP on defense in 2024.) The percentages of defense spending were higher during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union posed a clear and regular threat to Western Europe from its side of the Iron Curtain. The numbers dropped precipitously after the Soviet state met its demise in 1991.

“After the fall of the Soviet Union, everybody cashed in and defense spending in Europe fell,” Amb. Volker said. Today, he added, “everyone recognizes that Europe has taken too much of a peace dividend and they're not prepared. So that's why they're willing to agree to this 5 % target now.”

NATO has also pledged to boost its surface-to-air defense capabilities, an area in which the alliance has depended heavily on the U.S. And in March, the European Union took steps of its own to boost military spending, creating a 150 billion Euro ($170 billion) “combat readiness” fund for weapons procurement.

Meanwhile, that 1.5 % allotment for infrastructure and cybersecurity is an “underappreciated component” of the European commitment, according to Rear Admiral (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, a senior director at the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation (CCTI) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. In a piece for The Cipher Brief titled “Nato’s Critical 1.5 %,” Montgomery said those funds would be “fundamental to NATO’s ability to project power and sustain forces to fight and win wars.”

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“I actually see a lot of very good progress,” former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Philip Breedlove told The Cipher Brief. He said that a recent tour of eight European countries had convinced him of a broad commitment to spending for “long-term readiness” on defense.

“Most capitals have determined [that] Mr. Putin is not a partner, he's an enemy,” Gen. Breedlove said. “He has now three times amassed an army and marched across internationally recognized borders and invaded his neighbors, and we're going to have to deal with him.”

Beyond the alliance-wide hikes in defense spending, several European countries have made dramatic moves to bolster their own militaries. Earlier this month the British Defense Ministry announced an overhaul of its procurement approach, shifting from a focus on heavy armor to smaller, high-tech weaponry. Germany’s chancellor Friedrich Merz has promised to build “the strongest conventional army in Europe,” and earlier this year Germany made its first permanent foreign deployment since World War II, stationing a 5,000-strong brigade in Lithuania.

“Germany's economy has awakened to this new military-industrial demand signal, especially under new Chancellor Merz,” Amb. Lute said. “There are step-by-step indicators that Europe has changed its perception of the threat, the direct threat to Europe, but also this change in the transatlantic relationship.”

For all the pledges, problems abound. Experts warn that a morass of national and continent-wide regulations may thwart or delay efforts to build a potent European defense force. Overall strategy and standards have traditionally been set by NATO commanders, but national military budgets, planning and purchasing are the purview of individual nations. And Amb. Lute warned that European political swings may also hamper efforts to jump-start military production.

“The government [in Germany] can't simply demand that Rheinmetall, for example, begin to produce where it hasn't produced in the last 30 years,” he said. “You actually have to enter into the capital marketplace. And that counts on a significant and reliable year-after-year demand signal, which has not been the case over the last three decades.”

Geography matters

The most concrete signs of a continent on a war footing can be found along the eastern edges of NATO, in places where proximity to Russia has driven defense policy. While Spain, which sits in southwest Europe, far from any Russian border, spent only 1.3 % on defense last year, Poland – which shares a long border with Ukraine as well as a powerful enmity towards Moscow – has nearly reached the 5 % threshold already. Meanwhile, NATO’s two biggest military spenders per capita are the Baltic nations of Estonia and Lithuania; Latvia is close behind.

“The most fundamental observation here is that geography still counts,” Amb. Lute said. “So the closer you are with a land border to Russia and now a newly aggressive, revanchist, neo-imperialist Putin's Russia, the more these hard defensive measures count.”

Such measures reach beyond military spending. This month NATO held its annual Baltops military exercises, with troops from 20 NATO nations including newly-minted alliance members Sweden and Finland. This year’s drills carried two main aims, NATO officials said: to test NATO’s readiness for a Russian attack, and put on a show of force that might deter the Kremlin from future aggression.

Meanwhile, five European nations—Finland, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania—are withdrawing from the international treaty that bans the use or production of anti-personnel landmines, again citing the Russia threat. And Poland has gone so far as to request that NATO nuclear weapons be stationed on its soil.

“Doesn't surprise me at all,” Gen. Breedlove said of the landmine decision and Poland’s remarks about nuclear weapons.

“Remember, these nations now are really trying to decide, is America a reliable ally or not?” he said. “And if they're going to have to go it alone, they're going to have to take some pretty tough measures to make sure that they can hold, should Russia do what they seem to be continuing to do…and they're going to start taking these more drastic measures because you just can't bet your national sovereignty and existence on a hope.”

The missing pieces in a European defense

A recent report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates that it would take Europe 25 years and nearly $1 trillion to replace U.S. military support if Washington withdrew from the continent.

The report found that key gaps for NATO members would involve aircraft, naval forces, and command infrastructure. NATO officials have also warned that current air defenses may be inadequate to protect against the range of threats that have featured prominently in the Ukraine war – high-tech drones, missiles, and fighter aircraft.

The IISS report makes clear – and many experts agree – that for all the commitments to boost European defenses, the continent remains heavily reliant on U.S. capabilities.

“Where America is absolutely the key is all of the enablers, all of the things that make an army potent – long-range precise fires, deep technical intelligence, developing kill chains and target folders in order to strike,” Gen. Breedlove said. He said he sees minimal immediate risk to Europe, given a badly weakened Russian military, but that in the longer term, the Europeans will need to manufacture or obtain a long list of high-end hardware on their own.

“There are a few things that really only America can do,” Gen. Breedlove said, listing rapid aerial transport, high-performing air defenses such as Patriot missile batteries, and sophisticated intelligence systems. “They really don't have the kind of strategic lift that America brings.”

“We're not talking about tank brigades or ships at sea and so forth,” Amb. Lute said. “We're talking about things like a high-end missile and air defense. Think of the Patriot missile system, which really doesn't have a European rival…the intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, and in particular, space-based ISR capabilities. We're talking about air-to-air refueling and that strategic mobility, which is the combination of air-to-air refueling and large-body transport aircraft. So systems like that, for which Europe has relied on the United States, are going to have to become increasingly European owned and operated.”

Lute and others say a fundamental problem for Europe will be that even if the will and funding are there, none of these systems can be produced quickly. It may be that in the short term, while manufacturers in Europe reboot, they will need to spend their money on purchases from American defense firms.

Amb. Volker said he remains optimistic about Europe’s defense future, provided it maintains its current level of resolve.

Filling the gap “is not rocket science, it's easy to do,” he said. “Europe needs to be strategic about this.”

Volker said that while those high-end “enablers” should be a long-term aspiration, Europe’s near-term focus should be on more nuts-and-bolts defense capabilities — troops, armor, artillery, ammunition, aircraft, and so forth.

Ultimately, he said, while some countries will reach the 5 % spending target more quickly than others, the consensus on the gravity of the threat is a good sign.

“The fact that they are agreeing to the target means that there is a recognition that it's needed,” Volker said. “That means there will also be movement toward that target. It will be an iterative process as to how we get there. But no one in Europe is contesting the notion that we need to get there.”

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Former CIA Director on the Priority Intelligence Requirement in Iran

EXPERT INTERVIEW – Tehran’s response on Monday to U.S. attacks against its nuclear facilities over the weekend was measured and possibly calibrated to what appears to be growing impatience by U.S. President Donald Trump over demands for the country to give up its nuclear program.

A social media post by President Trump – also on Monday – that a ceasefire had been reached between Israel and Iran didn’t explain what the parameters of the agreement might be as Iranian missiles continued to fall on Israel.

Iran also fired missiles at a U.S. airbase in Qatar earlier in the day, describing the attack as a “devastating and powerful” response. U.S. officials reported no injuries or deaths in the attack that Iran had warned was coming.

As military commanders continue to assess the total damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities from the weekend attack, U.S. officials say they are still unsure of the location of Iran’s near-bomb-grade uranium stockpile.

We spoke with former CIA Director General David Petraeus (Ret.) about the military mission that seems to have brought a change in behavior from Tehran and about the priority intelligence requirement for the U.S. Intelligence community. Our interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

General David Petraeus (Ret.)

General David Petraeus served more than 37 years in the U.S. military with six consecutive commands, five of which were combat, including command of the Multi-National Force-Iraq during the Surge, U.S. Central Command, and Coalition and U.S. Forces in Afghanistan. He is a partner in the KKR global investment firm and chairs the firm’s global institute.

The Cipher Brief: The U.S. had the element of surprise in the weekend bombing raid. How important was that?

Gen. Petraeus: Surprise is always a tremendous advantage if it can be achieved, and it does appear that this was the case here. There certainly was no air defense fire. Certainly, no aircraft from Iran tried to oppose those that were flying through their airspace. And they even hit two of the sites with submarine-launched ballistic missiles. 25 or so of those were used against the first two sites at Isfahan and Natanz, Natanz being the main enrichment site, of course, that was already hit by the Israelis. A very impressive operation, without question. And again, absolutely no opposition from the ground or from the air.

All of this was done in 25 minutes from entering the airspace to leaving it, having flown all the way from the middle part of the United States, seven apparently B-2 bombers, each carrying two of the massive ordnance penetrators, those 30,000 pound mountain busters, really, bunker buster doesn't quite do it justice, with 5,000 pounds of explosive after they've already burrowed through rock or concrete or what have you.

There are questions, however, after all of this, and I think we have to be very cognizant of them, the most significant is really how much damage actually was done. And you don't know until the BDA - the bomb damage assessment - process has been concluded and intelligence has determined whether or not the facilities were completely destroyed with all of the centrifuges and with all of the highly enriched uranium that was stockpiled at these different sites. Did some of it get moved in the days before? Did some of the centrifuges as well as the HEU get displaced? Is there a hidden site? There have been rumors about that, as you know, I'm sure.

And so how much of the nuclear enterprise is left at this point? And here, we would talk just not about the enriched uranium, the highly enriched uranium - the IAEA said they saw some particles that were enriched to as high as 83%, recently noting that 90%-plus is weapons grade - how many centrifuges are left? Are they operational? Could they enrich the HEU, further to weapons grade? And do they have the expertise left to do all of this, noting that I think it's approaching two dozen of the leading nuclear scientists have now been killed by Israel.

Those are some of the very significant questions that remain to be answered. But without question, this was a very impressive operation carried out by over 125 aircraft, if you count all of the refueling aircraft, you count the F-22 stealth fighters, the F-35 stealth fighter bombers and so forth that escorted them through the airspace, the submarines, the seven B-2 bombers plus jammers, air surveillance, undoubtedly drone surveillance, this was a well-orchestrated effort that shows our men and women in uniform really at their very best.

The Cipher Brief: Talk to us a little bit about how the bomb damage assessement – the BDA - works. I'm assuming when they're assessing the damage from this bombing, they're using a lot of overhead images. You served as director of the CIA. I would assume there would be some human intelligence from sources on the ground that would be woven into that. What are the components of the damage assessment? How does it work?

Gen. Petraeus: Every element of intelligence will be employed in this case. Of course, it will include various forms of imagery intelligence. There will be various forms of signals intelligence if they can get it, cyber intelligence; and as you noted, human intelligence. Measurement and Signals, MASINT, is another whole element; even open-source intelligence, if it can be mined and you can find something. There may be people taking photos of this and we’ve seen repeatedly how useful cell phone videos can be in just seeing what took place. So, the bottom line is that every element, every type of intelligence that can be gathered, will be gathered. That’s the science and then the art, of course, is in the fusion of all of this.

The Cipher Brief: You actually oversaw exercises around this very scenario while you were in Command. I'm wondering if you can talk us through some of the challenges that the U.S. military could have run into as part of this operation. How difficult is an operation like this to actually pull off?

Gen. Petraeus: An operation like this is difficult even without an enemy. 125 aircraft engaged in this - it's a real minuet. Everything is timed out. The fact that it flew from the middle part of the United States all the way across the ocean, across many of the Gulf states and so forth from the Mediterranean to get to Iran and then had to link-up with the F-22s and the F-35s that were presumably already in bases around the region. There are jammers, electronic warfare aircraft. There are aircraft that are performing surveillance tasks, both air surveillance and then others that undoubtedly were looking at the actual targets themselves before and after.

This was a very complicated operation even without any enemy. We did actually do a rehearsal of a plan to destroy Iran’s entire nuclear program. This operation hit just three sites, of course. The rehearsal was formulated after the September 2009 release of information by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Fordow existed. This was known in intelligence circles prior to that but that was a catalyst for the development of a plan to destroy the entire program, and the means for retaliation and the air and ballistic missile defenses and all the rest of this.

That was an enormous plan, even bigger than what was carried out over the weekend. We did rehearse that one time in the continental United States. This is all publicly known. And that meant that we flew laps of the U.S. with the B-2 bombers, given how far their route would be if they took off from the U.S., as appears to be the case in this particular situation. And even then, it was very challenging.

The Cipher Brief: It's fascinating. What can you tell us in terms of what would it take to completely destroy Iran's nuclear program?

Gen. Petraeus: A lot more than this, because there are many other sites. To be very clear about it, all you have to do is look at the various maps of what the Israelis have taken out over the past nine days or so, and you'll see what it was that we were envisioning destroying. Now, some of those are new or more developed than they were back at that time. The air ballistic missile defenses are much more capable or were much more capable until Israel destroyed them than what we faced at that time. So, obviously the situation has evolved, but it was a very substantial operation, and very likely would not have been achievable within a single sortie of aircraft, however large. And there would've been a lot of follow-up operations required to ensure that you got everything. And then also to go after what they could have used to retaliate against energy infrastructure, freedom of navigation in the Gulf, our bases and forces and so forth.

The Cipher Brief: There are fears that Iran may mine the Strait of Hormuz. Once the military operation is over, you mentioned that there are rumors that there may be a hidden site, and one would assume that the intelligence component to this goes into overdrive now. What can you tell us about what is likely happening on the intelligence side?

Gen. Petraeus: I'm sure that the intelligence side has been in overdrive for weeks, if not months, as this has all been contemplated. That's their job. And of course, sharing with the Israelis and taking what they are getting, because their sources and methods and years of experience and expertise are really unmatched. But now there is a crucial task. The priority intelligence requirement is to identify whether all of the highly enriched uranium has been destroyed, whether all of the centrifuges have been destroyed, and what other human expertise is still alive that could restart a program or continue what they were doing with whatever is left at this point in time.

That is a huge, huge question. I'm not sure that at the end of the day that they'll be able to answer that with complete certainty. That has always been a challenge.

The Cipher Brief: You mentioned these aren't really bunker buster bombs, they're mountain buster bombs. How likely do you think it would be if these bombs were successfully dropped in the right place, which it looks like they were - how would they work?

Gen. Petraeus: No other country has this 30,000lb bomb. No other country has an aircraft that can carry this size bomb. What you would typically do is launch one and try to see what the effect was, and others are going to follow. The same is true of Natanz. You have to burrow down through the subterranean chambers to get to the very bottom, which is where the so-called mission spaces were at Natanz. The Israelis did do that already, and I suspect that the combination of the submarine-launched ballistic missiles and MOPs used there will have finished that off.

With respect to Fordow, the bomb will penetrate quite a distance. There's plenty out there in publicly available information that shows how far; it depends though on the particular rock, how dense it is, or concrete or what have you. But eventually it burrows all the way down, and then it literally blows up the 5,000 pounds of explosive that are in the warhead portion of the bomb. And again, if you need to, you just pile drive your way all the way down into the center of that structure.

We'll see what it is that our various imagery intelligence and other forms of intelligence can tell us about how successful this was. There are concerns about photos online, showing trucks outside Fordow in the days leading up to this attack. It’s hard to say how old they were and what was really was going on with them. But that does inject a bit of uncertainty into whether or not all of the HEU was still there, and whether all of the centrifuges were still there. That's going to be a key question for the intelligence community.

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What Was Trump Thinking When He Ordered the Strike on Iran?

OPINION / FINE PRINT — “I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we’ve gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel. I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they’ve done.”

That was President Trump last Saturday night during his announcement of the U.S. attacks earlier that evening on three of Iran’s nuclear sites.

It should remind people how important Netanyahu and the Israeli military were in Trump’s off-and-on military and diplomatic decision-making during the weeks leading up to the attack.

Perhaps one key was Trump’s acceptance of Netanyahu’s claim that Iran was very close to having a nuclear weapon, which was done publicly last Tuesday. On Air Force One heading home from the G7 meeting, Trump was asked how close he thought Iran was to getting a bomb and he replied, “Very close.”

At that time, the U.S. intelligence community had assessed that Iran, although increasing the level of uranium enrichment to over 60 percent – with 90 percent needed for a bomb – had not decided to build a bomb.

When Trump was told that his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard had two months earlier testified to Congress that Iran had not yet decided to build a bomb, he replied, “I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having it.”

For me that was another Helsinki moment – taking me back to the July 2018 press conference in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin, after the two leaders had met together. Trump was asked if he believed his own intelligence agencies or the Russian president when it came to the allegations of Moscow meddling in the U.S. 2016 elections.

Trump replied, "President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be." And Trump still believes it today.

The Cipher Brief has been talking with the foremost experts on the region since the surprise U.S. strike on Iran's nuclear facilities- including former National Intelligence Manager for Iran at ODNI and energy expert Norm Roule and former CIA Director General David Petraeus (Ret.) - about what comes next in Iran. Watch the interviews exclusively on The Cipher Brief's YouTube Channel and subscribe to make sure you stay up to date on how the experts see events unfolding.

Another key to the close Trump/Netanyahu partnership, I believe, is the timing of Israel’s initial unilateral attacks on Iran, beginning on June 13.

Back in March, Trump announced that he had written a letter to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying he wanted to start new nuclear negotiations with Iran. But, Trump warned, that failure to reach agreement within 60 days once negotiations began could result in serious military consequences for Tehran.

Those negotiations began on April 12, and after five rounds of talks, on June 9, Iran rejected the Trump administration's proposal for a new nuclear deal which prohibited Iran from domestic uranium enrichment, removed Iran’s current stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, and the set conditions for lifting sanctions on Iran.

During that April-to-June two-month negotiating period, things were going on secretly. In Israel, its military and intelligence agencies were preparing complex plans for attacking Iran’s top military personnel, offensive missile units, air force and air defenses and radar systems.

Joint Chief Chairman Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, during a Sunday press conference, talked about the U.S. preparation activities.

“In just a matter of weeks, this [bombing Iran nuclear sites] went from strategic planning to global execution,” Caine said. He added, “More than 125 U.S. aircraft participated in this mission, including seven B2 stealth bombers, multiple flights of fourth and fifth generation fighters, dozens and dozens of air-refueling tankers a guided-missile submarine, and a full array of intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft.”

Another indication that U.S. planning for the Iran attack went on during the nuclear negotiations came from what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said when he appeared with Caine at Sunday’s press conference.

“Iran found out that when POTUS [President of the United States] says 60 days that he seeks peace and negotiation, he means 60 days of peace and negotiation. Otherwise that nuclear program, that nuclear capability, will not exist,” Hegseth said.

On June 13, one day after the Trump negotiation deadline, Israel attacked Iran with

fighter-bomber aircraft and armed drones that had been smuggled into Iran. They incapacitated many of its air defenses and offensive missile system and killed top generals and scientists. In a telephone interview with Reuters, Trump said, “We knew everything [about the Israeli attack], and I tried to save Iran humiliation and death. I tried to save them very hard because I would have loved to have seen a deal worked out.”

Caine said on Sunday, “Israel had an incredible military success especially at the beginning and ongoing in degrading Iranian capabilities in degrading Iranian launchers...It's been incredible to watch what our ally Israel has been able to do.”

He later added, with reference to the U.S. bombing in Iran, “We took advantage of some of the preparatory work [by the Israelis] that's been done over the past week and a half in terms of axis of approach” to Iran targets. He added, “I won't get into the particulars, but as the secretary [Hegseth] said, it was a U.S. strike. We made sure we were not in the same piece of airspace…That was the extent of it.”

Another aspect of events surrounding the attack, is the impact on future diplomacy by some of Trump’s actions.

For example, the strike plan was largely in place when Trump issued his statement last Thursday about how he might take up to two weeks hoping to get back to negotiations before he decided to go to war with Iran. At the time, U.S. Air Force refueling tankers and fighter jets had been moved into position, and the military was working on providing additional protection for American forces stationed in the region.

There is talk that Trump had the option of calling off the attack at the last minute. But it’s more likely that the President saw the two-week negotiation statement as his attempt to distract the Iranians from U.S. military preparations.

It’s also worth noting Trump’s use of Truth Social harsh messaging when he claims to be seeking negotiations. For example, on last Tuesday, June 17, Trump wrote, “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there — we are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.”

That is not likely to bring Iran negotiators to the table. Nor would another message Trump sent out the same day: “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”

There was one lighter, but interesting, moment during Sunday’s Hegseth/Caine press conference.

Since April, the acting Defense Department Inspector General has been reviewing Hegseth’s use of Signal messaging to describe U.S. military strikes against Houthi militants in Yemen to non-military individuals.

In his opening statement, Caine said at one point, “I am particularly proud of our discipline related to operational security [secrecy of plans], something that was of great concern to the President, the [Defense] Secretary, [Central Command Commander] General [Erik] Kurilla and me. And we will continue to focus on this.”

The IG report is due out shortly.

Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

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Will Anything Stop Iran's Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons?

OPINION -- The weekend bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites in Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow surprised the leadership in Tehran. It shouldn’t have, given Iran’s cavalier behavior and their initial dismissive response to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) censure of Iran for “not complying with nonproliferation obligations” and Tehran’s response that ‘Iran would launch a new enrichment center in a secure location and replace the first generation of machines with more modern equipment.”

Israel’s response was quick and deadly: bombing the three principal Iranian nuclear sites and killing leaders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The speed and accuracy of the U.S. and Israeli attacks obviously surprised Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Perhaps Mr. Khamenei thought he had more time. He was wrong. Mr. Khamenei may have thought Iran’s 2023 membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2023, and the March 2025 joint military exercise with Russia and China may have tempered Israel’s reaction to Iran’s flaunting of Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty obligations. Or perhaps they thought the January 2025 Iran-Russia Strategic Cooperation Agreement would have provided some cover. Or that Iran’s close relationship with China, certainly since the 2021 China-Iran twenty-five-year strategic agreement on energy and geopolitical issues, would have helped them. But this didn’t happen.

What Iran got were mere statements of support.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, is now in Moscow meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to plead for Russia’s support. Mr. Putin has already said that “There was no justification for the U.S. bombing of Iran and that Moscow was trying to help the Iranian people.” China’s response to the U.S. bombing was equally predictable, “China strongly condemns the U.S. attacks on Iran and bombing their nuclear facilities … calling for an immediate cease fire.”

Russia is occupied with the war of aggression in Ukraine and the massive casualties and economic devastation it has created. China has severe economic issues that must be addressed, in addition to negotiations with the U.S. on tariffs. Russia relies on Iran for drones and other military support for the war in Ukraine while China is Iran’s largest trading partner and importer of Iranian oil.

Although not a member of the SCO, North Korea continues to have a close relationship with Iran. Indeed, North Korea provided Iran extensive assistance with its liquid-fuel ballistic missile fleet; several Scud short-range models and the No Dong medium-range models (Shahab-3) are based on North Korean technology; and reportedly, North Korea is helping Iran with its Intermediate-range and long-range ballistic missile programs.

There is unconfirmed media reporting that North Korea may be providing nuclear assistance to Iran and a Congressional Research Service report (which cited Jane’s Defense Weekly) on North Korea constructing underground nuclear facilities for Iran.

North Korea could be the outlier in the current Israel-Iran conflict. Their relationship with Iran goes back decades, and much of it dealt with providing Iran with ballistic missiles and conventional weaponry for its war with Iraq. Many of these transactions were for money, something North Korea continues to pursue, either through the sale of conventional weapons or missiles or from its extensive illicit activities program: counterfeiting cigarettes and pharmaceuticals, or its sophisticated cyber theft program, making billions of dollars for the leadership in Pyongyang.

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North Korea also has nuclear weapons and an active fissile material program to produce these nuclear weapons. Iran could seek North Korea’s assistance with the provision of one or more nuclear weapons or fissile material for a dirty bomb.

The Iran-North Korea relationship goes back decades, with North Korea providing Iran with unique military capabilities. But North Korea has been told, and we must continue to tell their leader, Kim Jong-Un, that the sale of nuclear weapons or fissile material for a dirty bomb to Iran – or any other rogue state or terrorist organization -- is a red line that must never be crossed. If crossed, the consequences would be intolerable.

Closely monitoring North Korea’s interaction with Iran is important, especially now.

This also may be the time to reach out to Mr. Kim to resume a dialogue with North Korea, something that hasn’t happened since the failed February 2019 Hanoi Summit and President Trump’s brief meeting with Mr. Kim at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in June 2019.

With the new Lee Jae-Myung government in South Korea, and recent confidence building gestures between the two Koreas, this may be an opportune time to reach out to Mr. Kim to reengage.

In the final analysis, Iran may continue to pursue a nuclear weapons capability. In the interim, Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism, may continue to attack U.S. and Israeli military personnel and civilians, working with the IRGC and their proxies. We should be ready.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals.

Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief

Could Iran's Judiciary Chief Be the Next Supreme Leader?

OPINION — As Israel's unprecedented military campaign and targeting of Iranian military leaders and scientists wreaked havoc across Iran last week, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei retreated to a bunker and initiated deliberations over his successor. With the 2024 death of a former leading contender, President Ebrahim Raisi, and Khamenei’s recent sidelining of his son, Mojtaba, the powerful head of Iran’s judiciary and former intelligence minister, Gholam-Hoseyn Mohseni-Ejei, is likely a serious candidate for the role of the Islamic Republic’s next Supreme Leader.

Mohseni-Ejei possesses formidable credentials for ensuring the survival of the Islamic Revolution, the regime’s highest strategic goal. A longtime insider, his career bridges the two most critical organs of internal regime preservation: the judiciary and the Ministry of Intelligence. He had deep-rooted ties to Raisi, his predecessor as judiciary head, and to the current intelligence minister, Esmail Khatib. These relations reflect decades of institutional collaboration, trust building, and ideological alignment. All three men cut their teeth in the judiciary and intelligence bureaucracy, sharing not only a hardline outlook but close connections with Khamenei. With Raisi gone and the regime under siege, Khamenei may view Mohseni-Ejei as the most experienced and dependable successor to steer the Islamic Republic through a moment of existential peril. If so, he almost certainly will make this known to the Assembly of Experts, the body of clerics that chooses the Supreme Leader.

Mohseni-Ejei’s ascent is not based merely on his personal ties. It also reflects the growing centrality of the intelligence-security-judiciary triad in safeguarding the regime’s continuity. More recently, as the Israel-Iran war has intensified, Iranian leaders have shifted their focus further inward— ramping up internal surveillance, searching for traitors, and shutting down communications with the outside world. In this context, his control over the judiciary and having a friend head the Ministry of Intelligence potentially provide Mohseni-Ejei unrivaled leverage over the members of the Assembly of Experts and other powerful figures among Iran’s political factions.

Under Mohseni-Ejei’s leadership, the judiciary embraced expansive interpretations of national security law to suppress political unrest, ethnic dissent, and defiance of intrusive morality laws. Khatib’s MOIS has worked in tandem, deploying aggressive surveillance and conducting wide-scale arrests to suppress dissent. To relieve some pressure from a public angry about Iran’s failing economy and petty repressive measures such as mandatory hijab, the judiciary has reduced enforcement of some restrictions over the past year. Nonetheless, the collaboration between Mohseni-Ejei and Khatib since 2021 represents one of the most coordinated periods of state repression during the regime’s four-plus decades of existence.

Crucially, Khamenei’s recent decision to provide the Assembly of Experts with three preferred names—an unprecedented move in the Islamic Republic’s history—suggests a pragmatic urgency favoring survival over process. If Khamenei values institutional loyalty, ideological orthodoxy, and the machinery of domestic control, Mohseni-Ejei may be the logical choice. His past leadership of the MOIS and current control of the judiciary give him operational experience in both managing crises and protecting the Islamic revolution. Moreover, his long-standing ties to Khamenei himself—dating back to his early years monitoring potential “deviation” within the intelligence services—suggest trust built over decades of mutual survival.

Critics may cite Mohseni-Ejei’s role in past abuses, including the post-2009 Green Movement crackdown and his promotion of a crackdown on dress code infractions that led to the Mahsa Amini protests of 2022. However, within the current regime such episodes are not stains but qualifications. With the United States now directly involved in the war, Iran’s leadership may gravitate toward a man whose entire career has been defined by countering sedition, exposing conspiracies, and upholding ideological discipline through the courts and the intelligence apparatus.

In Iran’s increasingly closed and militarized political sphere, the path to supreme authority may not lie in clerical scholarship or charisma, but in institutional command and operational loyalty. Mohseni-Ejei, a consummate enforcer, may well be the last man standing when the Assembly of Experts makes its fateful choice.

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The Intelligence Behind the Strike: Was Everyone Wrong About Iran’s Nuclear Program?

OPINION — On June 13, 2025, just after midnight, Israel launched a military operation against Iran, citing an urgent need to halt Tehran’s march toward nuclear weapons capability. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu justified the strike by claiming that "if not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. It could be a year. It could be within a few months”. This justification however is at odds with the consensus held until that point by the U.S. intelligence community and most international nuclear experts. For years, that consensus had held firm: Iran was expanding its civil nuclear program, and continued to enrich uranium but had not made the political decision to build a bomb. If Netanyahu’s claim, echoed by Donald Trump, is accurate then Israel and the USIC must have obtained game-changing intelligence that eluded every major intelligence agency to date. But if the longstanding assessments of the U.S. intelligence community and independent experts still hold true, then the justification for the strike raises the troubling prospect of a politicization of intelligence on a scale not seen since the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion.

Israel’s Strike and Its Rationale

Just before dawn on June 13, Operation Rising Lion roared to life as more than 200 Israeli warplanes—including F-35I stealth fighters alongside F-16s and F-15s—took to the skies. In a matter of hours, they unleashed over 330 precision-guided bombs on roughly 100 carefully selected targets across Iran. The strike hit some of the most sensitive and heavily fortified sites in the country: the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, underground nuclear bunkers near Isfahan, missile installations near Tabriz and Kermanshah, and key Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRCG) command centers outside Tehran.

Crucially, the success of the air campaign rested not only on airpower but on an intricate web of clandestine intelligence operations. In the weeks leading up to the strike, Mossad agents reportedly infiltrated Iranian territory, deploying smuggled drones, decoys, and explosive devices to quietly sabotage critical air defense systems, missile batteries, and radar installations. These covert actions—guided by highly specific intelligence on Iranian military infrastructure and response protocols—crippled Iran’s ability to detect or repel the incoming assault. As a result, Israeli fighter jets were able to penetrate deep into Iranian airspace with minimal early resistance, striking high-value targets with precision and speed.

The consequences were swift and severe. Estimates of fatal Iranian casualties range from 224 confirmed to over 400, including high-ranking officials—most notably IRGC commanders Hossein Salami and Mohammad Bagheri—and a number of nuclear scientists. Iran has since retaliated with a barrage of missiles and drones targeting Israeli cities—Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem—resulting in dozens of civilian and military fatalities and marking the clearest military exchange between the two states on record.

The scale and precision of Operation Rising Lion made one thing immediately clear: Israel had gathered remarkably detailed intelligence on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and military command. Dozens of deeply buried or dispersed facilities were hit simultaneously, demonstrating not only technical and military capability but intimate knowledge gained through intelligence of the locations of key Iranian individual targets and facilities.

Yet this operational success—and Iran’s response—has in many ways overshadowed the central question of the justification of the operation. On the night of the strike, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the mission was essential to “roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival,” warning that Tehran was only a year—possibly even months—away from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Israeli military officials echoed this urgency, claiming they had obtained evidence of concrete progress in Iran’s efforts to build weapons components, including a uranium metal core and a neutron initiator—technologies central to assembling a functioning nuclear bomb. In short, Israel’s message was unequivocal: this was not a preventive strike based on a theoretical future threat, but a preemptive action against a near-term, tangible nuclear danger.

But this justification stands in sharp contrast to what most intelligence agencies and nuclear experts believed until now. For years, the broad consensus—shared by the U.S. intelligence community, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and many independent analysts—was that Iran had not yet taken the step toward building a nuclear weapon.

The Intelligence Picture: What We Knew Before the Strike

In the lead-up to Israel’s strike, the prevailing view among international intelligence agencies and nuclear experts was that Iran’s nuclear program, while increasingly advanced, had not crossed the threshold into weaponization. Tehran has consistently insisted that its nuclear activities are peaceful and that it has never sought to build a bomb. While a decade-long investigation by the IAEA concluded that Iran conducted work related to nuclear weapons between the late 1980s and 2003—under the now-defunct “Project Amad”—it found that those activities were halted and that there were “no credible indications” of weapons development after 2009.

The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed by Iran and six world powers, sought to freeze any weapons pathway by placing strict limits on uranium enrichment and allowing intrusive IAEA inspections in exchange for sanctions relief. That agreement was significantly undermined when the United States withdrew in 2018 under President Donald Trump, reimposing sanctions and prompting Iran to gradually escalate its nuclear activities in retaliation. By 2021, Iran had resumed enrichment at its once-restricted Fordo underground facility, reaching 60% purity—a technically significant step but still short of weapons-grade (90%).

Most importantly, even amid these breaches, Western intelligence agencies and the IAEA maintained that Iran had not made the political decision to develop a nuclear weapon. Their assessments emphasized growing concern over reduced transparency and faster enrichment, but stopped short of declaring that a bomb was imminent. Just days before the Israeli strike the IAEA’s board of governors passed a resolution formally declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations—a sign of mounting frustration, but not a definitive confirmation of weaponization. While it is clear that Iran’s nuclear trajectory had become more worrisome in the last few years, the intelligence picture did not suggest that a weapon was imminent—nor that any “point of no return” had yet been crossed.

This restrained view was echoed in the most recent Annual Threat Assessment published by the U.S. intelligence community in March 2025. The report concluded unequivocally: “We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so.” It added that “in the past year, there has been an erosion of a decades-long taboo on discussing nuclear weapons in public that has emboldened nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decisionmaking apparatus.” In a public hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 25, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard supported that view, declaring that Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon.

The IAEA’s own reporting, released just a week before the Israeli strike, aligned broadly with this perspective. The 22-page declassified report warned that the agency could no longer verify the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program, citing a lack of cooperation and unresolved questions about past undeclared activities. However, it did not assert that Iran was actively developing a nuclear weapon or that a threshold had been crossed. While concerns about Iran’s enrichment levels and transparency had undoubtedly intensified, neither the IAEA nor the U.S. intelligence community had concluded that Iran was on the brink of building a bomb. That, until Israel’s operation, remained the shared judgment.

In a surprising turn on 20 June, Tulsi Gabbard eventually backed President Netanyahu’s claims. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Gabbard joined the White House Situation Room during U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites and clarified later on social media that “America has intelligence that Iran is at the point it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly”. This shift followed public criticism from Trump—who initially dismissed the ODNI’s testimony and the assessments of the intelligence community as “wrong”.

Forceful public assessments like those made by Netanyahu, Trump and Tulsi Gabbard are rarely issued in isolation. In democratic states, such high-stakes declarations—particularly those that pave the way for military action—are almost always grounded, at least in part, in classified intelligence briefings. Operation Rising Lion demonstrated the extraordinary precision and reach of Israeli intelligence, particularly the capabilities of Mossad and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), suggesting that Israel may indeed have uncovered new and highly specific information that shifted its threat perception. This critical intelligence would no doubt have been shared with the USIC. But these statements raise the critical question of knowing what intelligence exactly did Israelis collect to support such a stark depiction of the Iranian threat. And more broadly, what role did that intelligence play—not just in shaping internal decision-making, but in constructing the public justification for war.

A Failure to See—or a Case Built to Convince?

If Israel’s and US - revised - assessments are accurate, then the world has just witnessed one of the most significant failures of intelligence assessments by Western agencies in a very long time. It would suggest that Tehran had quietly advanced past a critical threshold, undetected or underestimated by most intelligence agencies in the world, most notably the U.S. intelligence community. Such a lapse would not only expose a blind spot in monitoring Iran—it would also cast doubt on the broader credibility and responsiveness of the institutions charged with tracking global nuclear threats. After having it right in February 2022 about Russia’s intentions to launch a full scale invasion of Ukraine, did the U.S. intelligence community have it all wrong about assessing Iran’s nuclear capabilities?

But if the prevailing consensus was correct—that Iran had not yet made the decision to build a bomb—then the implications are even more disturbing. In that case, the Israeli and US strikes do not point to a failure of intelligence gathering by western intelligence agencies for several years, but to a serious politicization of intelligence. It would suggest that Operation Rising Lion and Operation Midnight Hammer were not launched in response to an imminent nuclear threat, but rather as the culmination of long-planned military objectives—justified before and after the fact by selectively framed intelligence designed to fit a pre-existing decision for war. It is the kind of political maneuver that will no doubt be scrutinized and debated by intelligence historians for many years.

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NATO's Critical 1.5 Percent

OPINION -- This week's NATO Summit will focus on the proposal that each member raise its overall defense spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). This makes absolute sense because the security investments by America’s European allies, particularly its Western European allies, since the end of the Cold War have been apathetic. In stepping up to properly resource its defense establishments, Europe has to be sure to prioritize more than just planes, tanks, and ships — but also to invest in the military mobility of NATO forces as well.

At the summit, leaders of each NATO member state are expected to commit to eventually spending 3.5 percent of their GDP on traditional defense expenditures and another 1.5 percent on defense-related outlays. This defense-related spending is principally infrastructure protection and cybersecurity — and it is every bit as critical as the euros spent on weapon systems. This underappreciated component of defense spending is essential — moving troops and equipment efficiently over land, sea, and air is fundamental to NATO’s ability to project power and sustain forces to fight and win wars — and nothing moves if the trains do not run and the power does not work.

The Alliance’s authoritarian adversaries — particularly Russia and China — know that compromising critical infrastructure through cyber and physical attacks would impede the ability of the United States and its NATO allies to deploy, supply, and sustain military forces. This is why Chinese cyber operators, dubbed “Volt Typhoon,” have prepositioned destructive capabilities in energy, transportation, and communications systems to degrade America’s ability to respond to its aggression against Taiwan. This is why Moscow targeted satellite communication systems to degrade Kyiv’s command and control capabilities as Russian forces crossed Ukraine’s border.

In the United States, the Pentagon relies on commercially owned transportation networks to move soldiers, supplies, and military equipment. Private and municipally owned electricity, water, and telecommunications utilities supply American military bases. Across Europe, it is the same. NATO forces rely on critical infrastructure owned and operated by local governments and companies. Military readiness depends on asset owners spending resources to ensure reliable, secure infrastructure wherever NATO forces operate.

The difference between the United States and NATO is that while the Pentagon has identified the 18 commercially owned strategic seaports, the 70 civilian-owned airfields, and 40,000 miles of commercially owned rail lines it will need to move forces, there is less recognition and agreement within Europe about which transportation networks are most strategically significant. The Supreme Allied Commander Europe’s critical infrastructure priorities are actually straightforward: NATO must be assured that its ability to flow U.S., UK, and French forces into and through Europe is uninterrupted.

In the face of Russian and Chinese cyber threats, countries across Europe are now starting to rack and stack their cyber resilience investments based on their own assessments of what are the most systemically important entities — those critical infrastructures upon which their nation’s public health, economic prosperity, and national security rely. However, NATO needs its members to prioritize and invest 1.5 percent of GDP in the cyber and physical security of the assets NATO specifically needs — the rail lines that will move forces, the power generation facilities that serve its military bases, and the communications networks that ensure secure command and control. These two lists of infrastructures – individual member states and NATOs - are sometimes not the same.

Once properly prioritized, the 1.5 percent of GDP invested in critical infrastructures will enhance the ability of governments to provide rapid, actionable information about cyber threats so that operators can thwart attacks. But it is not just better information sharing and response actions. NATO members will also need to provide state funds to small and medium size owners and operators of infrastructure who cannot otherwise make needed, preventative cybersecurity upgrades. And NATO member states will have to identify devices — including routers, batteries, and optical displays — made by adversaries like China that could cause infrastructure disruptions, ripping them out of sensitive systems if uninterrupted operation cannot be guaranteed and banning their use moving forward.

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In parallel, the Alliance needs to continue prioritizing critical infrastructure disruption scenarios in tabletop exercises, field training exercises, and wargames so that NATO can identify investments that mitigate the impact of cyber and physical attacks on critical infrastructure. When it is operational, NATO’s forthcoming Integrated Cyber Defense Center can play a key role in both information sharing, strategic planning and asset prioritization.

For far too long, many NATO allies have ignored Russia’s rapaciousness, China’s authoritarianism, Iran’s terrorism, and North Korea’s bellicosity. They failed to invest in the alliance — or even their own defense — and warnings by successive Republican and Democratic presidents went unheeded. Fortunately, President Trump’s vocal complaints about lackluster European defense spending and Vladimir Putin’s violent military aggression against Ukraine have finally convinced NATO members to step up to the plate.

As member states undertake these significant plus ups in their security budgets, they must remember that airfields, ports, and railways across Europe are strategic military assets. So are pipelines, liquid natural gas terminals, and the power grid. This week’s Summit should serve as a reminder to NATO countries that if they do not invest in the physical and cyber security of these critical infrastructures, their forces might look ready, but only on paper.

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Ukraine's Defense Export Pivot Is A Game-Changer

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE/OPINION -- Ukraine may have just fundamentally shifted the global defense landscape. On June 21st, Ukraine unleashed its "Build with Ukraine" program, an initiative poised to redefine security for both the United States and European defense technology ecosystems. No longer merely a recipient of aid, Ukraine is transforming into a formidable contributor to global security, commencing arms exports this summer.

This strategic imperative will establish production lines for potent Ukrainian-developed weapons—drones, missiles, and artillery—directly within allied nations, starting with Europe, but with a clear potential for expansion to other partners, including the United States. This strategic move not only bolsters Ukraine's defenses but also empowers partners to forge their own security through in-country manufacturing of cutting-edge military hardware.

For the European Ecosystem, the implications are profound. The "Build with Ukraine" program offers a significant pathway to fortify and integrate the continent's defense industrial base.

Many European nations have historically relied heavily on United States defense imports or struggled with fragmented domestic production capabilities. This Ukrainian initiative provides a compelling alternative: direct access to battle-tested, innovative defense technologies that have proven their efficacy in modern conflict. By establishing production lines on European soil, allied countries can achieve several critical objectives.

First, it significantly enhances defense self-sufficiency and resilience. Producing weapons systems like drones, missiles, and artillery domestically means reducing reliance on external supply chains, which can be vulnerable to geopolitical disruption. This aligns perfectly with the growing European push for strategic autonomy and more robust common security and defense capabilities. European countries can tailor production to their specific needs, ensuring a more consistent and responsive supply of critical armament.

Second, the program fosters deeper industrial collaboration and integration within Europe. Participating countries will not only be producing Ukrainian designs but will inevitably engage in technology transfer, joint research and development, and will share other expertise, such as manufacturing, by virtue of closer relationships. This could lead to the emergence of new defense industrial clusters, driving innovation and creating highly-skilled jobs across the continent. Such integration would also streamline logistics, maintenance, and training, contributing to greater interoperability among European militaries.

Third, it presents a unique opportunity to fast-track technological advancement. Ukrainian defense innovations, forged in active conflict, often possess cutting-edge features that can be highly valuable. By integrating Ukrainian designs into their own production, European industries can absorb new methodologies, improve domestic manufacturing, and potentially develop incrementally more advanced iterations. This knowledge transfer will inevitably spill into other sectors, boosting overall technological competitiveness.

Finally, we should not ignore the strong economic dimension. President Zelenskyy's emphasis on a $43 billion defense industry budget for Ukraine in 2025, coupled with his hope for partner countries to allocate 0.25% of their GDP to support Ukraine's defense industry and domestic production, underscores the significant economic incentives. For European economies, participation could translate into substantial investments in manufacturing infrastructure, job creation, and export opportunities for components and services, improving economic growth and stability.

While the immediate focus of the "Build with Ukraine" program is Europe, the phrase from Zelenskyy’s announcement, "and possibly beyond," strongly suggests potential avenues for collaboration with the U.S. and the implications are multifaceted.

Partnering with the U.S. would offer opportunities for new defense cooperation and technology sharing. The U.S. has provided significant military aid to Ukraine and this program could evolve into joint ventures where American defense companies partner with Ukrainian counterparts to produce advanced systems. Such partnerships could leverage Ukrainian innovation and battlefield experience with American industrial scale and technological depth, leading to hybrid systems or enhanced capabilities beneficial to both sides.

It could also diversify the global arms market and strengthen supply chains. An independent Ukrainian arms export capability, especially one that enables production in allied nations, reduces over-reliance on a few dominant defense producers. This diversification will enhance global security by making critical defense technologies more widely available among allies, thereby bolstering collective deterrence and defense postures. For the U.S., this means allies are better equipped, potentially reducing the burden on American military resources in future contingencies.

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The program also highlights Ukraine's evolving strategic role. Kyiv's shift from aid recipient to a significant defense technology provider reshapes its geopolitical standing. For the U.S., this means a stronger, more self-reliant partner in Eastern Europe, capable of contributing actively to regional and global security. This elevated status may lead to deeper strategic alliances and more robust coordinated efforts on numerous future security challenges.

There are obvious lessons for U.S. defense innovation here. Ukraine's rapid development and deployment of effective, often unconventional, defense technologies in a high-intensity conflict offers tremendous insights into agile development, rapid prototyping, and adapting commercial technologies for military use. The U.S.’ defense industrial base, while powerful, has faced criticism surrounding the pace of innovation and acquisition. Engaging with the "Build with Ukraine" program could provide a direct conduit for incorporating "lessons from the battlefield" into U.S. defense research and development, as well as acquisition strategies, fostering greater agility and responsiveness.

While the U.S. defense industry is vast, partnerships with Ukraine's program could open new market opportunities and stimulate much-needed competition. American defense firms might find avenues for co-production, technology licensing, or even acquiring stakes in Ukrainian defense companies. Increased competition, spurred by access to new, battle-proven technologies, may also drive innovation and efficiency within the U.S. domestic defense sector.

Ukraine's "Build with Ukraine" program is more than just an arms export initiative; it is a strategic repositioning that will reshape defense industrial cooperation and technology transfer.

For Europe, it promises enhanced self-sufficiency, deeper integration, and technological uplift. For the United States, it opens doors to new partnerships, diversified supply chains, valuable insights into agile defense innovation, and a stronger, more capable ally.

This program marks a significant step towards a more interconnected and resilient Western defense ecosystem, where innovation is shared, production is localized, and collective security is paramount. The full implications will unfold over time, but the foundation for a transformative new era in global defense collaboration is clearly being assembled.

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Experts Assess Iran Strikes, Response and What Comes Next

EXPERT SUMMARY -- Given this weekend’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and the incredible fast pace at which events are unfolding, The Cipher Brief wanted to share a few key highlights from some of The Cipher Brief conversations we had today with deeply experienced military and intelligence experts. This is the first in a series of special coverage all this week on the U.S. strikes on Iran and what will follow.

THE CONTEXT:

Operation Midnight Hammer was a highly classified mission that delivered precise U.S. strikes against three Iranian nuclear facilities. Very few in Washington were briefed on the mission before it was carried out.
Before U.S. aircraft entered Iranian airspace, “a U.S. submarine launched more than two dozen tomahawk land attack cruise missiles against key surface infrastructure targets,” according to the Department of Defense.
U.S. B2 bombers dropped multiple GBU massive ordinance penetrator bombs on nuclear sites, dropping a total of approximately 75 precision guided weapons.
U.S. officials assess that determining the final extent of damage from the operation will take some time, but initial estimates suggested “extremely severe” damage and destruction.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

General David Petraeus (Ret.)

On the Military Mission: The mission demonstrated overwhelming U.S. military precision with no Iranian resistance, but it remains unclear if Iran’s nuclear capabilities were completely destroyed until thorough bomb damage assessments (BDA) are completed.
The Primary Intelligence Focus: The primary intelligence focus now is to verify if Iran retains highly enriched uranium, operational centrifuges, or undisclosed nuclear sites, which would determine if the nuclear program can be quickly restarted.
Iran's Potential Response: Iran may feel the need to respond, possibly targeting U.S. bases, energy infrastructure, or mining the Strait of Hormuz, though their retaliatory capabilities appear significantly degraded.

Norman T. Roule

Norman Roule is a geopolitical and energy consultant who served for 34 years in the Central Intelligence Agency, managing numerous programs relating to Iran and the Middle East. As NIM-I at ODNI, he was responsible for all aspects of national intelligence policy related to Iran, including IC engagement with senior policymakers in the National Security Council and the Department of State.

Iran’s Oil Strategy Post-Strikes: Iran has ramped up oil exports and repositioned floating storage near China, possibly to hedge against the potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Potential Gulf Closure Scenarios: Iran could disrupt the Strait using mines, GPS jamming, speedboats, and coastal missiles, but would likely be unable to keep it closed for more than a few weeks due to rapid multinational military response.
Internal Stability Warning Signs: Roule is closely watching for signs of internal fragmentation in Iran, such as regions falling out of government control or systemic failures within security forces, which could signal deeper regime instability.

Ralph Goff

Ralph Goff is a 35-year veteran of the CIA where he was a 6-time Chief of Station with extensive service in Europe, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia including several war zones. He served as Chief of Operations for Europe and Eurasia. Goff also served as Chief of CIA's National Resources Division, working extensively with "C Suite" level US private sector executives in the financial, banking, and security sectors. Goff is reportedly being considered as one of the candidates for deputy director of the CIA.

Immediate Focus: Damage Assessment and Anticipating Retaliation: Israel and the U.S. are prioritizing battle damage assessment to determine the success of the strikes and preparing for various forms of Iranian retaliation, from missile strikes to cyberattacks.
Iran’s Limited Options and Proxy Weakness: Iran’s traditional proxies, particularly Lebanese Hezbollah, have been severely weakened by Israeli operations. While the proxy threat remains, Iran’s best remaining avenues for retaliation may now lie in asymmetric gray zone operations.
Gray Zone and Global Threat Vigilance: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) could intensify gray zone operations, including potential assassination plots and cyberattacks. Close monitoring of Iranian operatives abroad, signals intelligence, and coordination with international allies are critical to preventing future attacks.

Glenn Corn

Glenn Corn is a former Senior Executive in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who worked for 34 years in the U.S. Intelligence, Defense, and Foreign Affairs communities. He spent over 17 years serving overseas and served as the U.S. President’s Senior Representative on Intelligence and Security issues. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of World Politics.

Iranian Proxy Threats and Hezbollah's Weakened State: Hezbollah has been significantly degraded by Israeli operations and is currently unlikely to engage in large-scale retaliation. However, Corn cautioned about the possibility of rogue or fringe elements conducting isolated attacks, which still pose a serious threat.
Regional Political Complexity and U.S. Leverage: Lebanon is under international pressure to disarm Hezbollah, but its leaders argue that political solutions and rebuilding efforts must accompany disarmament. U.S. aid may be contingent on Lebanon’s progress in weakening Hezbollah’s influence.
Global Implications and Russian Calculations: Corn suggested that Russia is likely both impressed and concerned by the precision of Israeli and U.S. operations. He anticipates that Putin may be recalibrating his understanding of U.S. red lines, particularly as Russia relies on Iranian drones in Ukraine. Corn emphasized that the U.S. strike signals unpredictability under President Trump, potentially forcing adversaries to rethink their strategies.

Ambassador Joseph DeTrani

Ambassador Joseph DeTrani served as the U.S. Representative to the Korea Energy Development Organization (KEDO), as well as former CIA director of East Asia Operations. He also served as Associate Director of National Intelligence and Mission Manager for North Korea, was the Special Envoy for the Six-Party Talks with North Korea, and served as the Director of the National Counter Proliferation Center, ODNI. He currently serves on the Board of Managers at Sandia National Laboratories.

North Korea’s Validation and Opportunity: The U.S. strikes on Iran reinforce North Korea's decision to maintain nuclear weapons and present an opportunity for Pyongyang to flex its military muscle and potentially deepen ties with Iran.
China’s Discomfort and Limited Influence: China is unhappy with North Korea’s growing alignment with Russia and the potential for nuclear escalation but has limited ability to control Pyongyang’s actions, positioning North Korea as an unpredictable wildcard in the regional power balance.
Danger of Iran-North Korea Cooperation: DeTrani warned of potential North Korean assistance to Iran in missile technology and even in providing nuclear materials that could be used for dirty bombs, emphasizing that this axis needs to be monitored closely to prevent catastrophic escalation.

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How Resilient is the Energy Market in Midst of Middle East Crisis?

EXCLUSIVE EXPERT PERSPECTIVE -- One would have thought that the outbreak of a major war between Iran and Israel with daily missile salvos, would have immediately led to an energy crisis, but trauma in the market that once would have seemed extraordinary, barely makes the headlines today. So, what does this tell us about how today’s energy markets are responding to the potential of violence in a chokepoint where 20 million barrels of crude oil and oil products move through the Strait of Hormuz each day?

“Countries and traders have learned that tectonic developments that don’t impact supply or demand products often produce only short-term fluctuations in the market,” says energy expert Norm Roule, who, since retiring from ODNI as the National Intelligence Manager for Iran, has been routinely traveling the region meeting with senior leaders.

“The chronic turbulence in Europe and the Middle East, particularly since the 2019 attack on Abqaiq, appears to have baked geopolitical risk resilience into the market. Energy markets are well supplied. U.S. production remains significant, despite predictions of modest declines in 2026.

In a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ exclusive interview, we talked with Roule about demand, the overall global market and the impact of Chinese stockpiles.

Norman T. Roule

The Cipher Brief: The President has given Iran two weeks to accept a diplomatic solution to demands that it give up its ambitions to develop a nuclear weapon, which the U.S. and Israel insist is the focus of the country’s nuclear program. What energy-related developments do you expect to be occurring behind the scenes over the next two weeks?

Roule: The U.S. is almost certainly working with the Saudis and Emiratis, who will use their diplomatic channels with Iran to discourage escalation, to manage OPEC, and to prepare their oil sectors for increased production and export through alternative channels to replace any oil lost due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz (SoH). I would also expect that the U.S. is working with these countries to provide support for their air defenses. Washington will be busy when it comes to working with other regional partners to prepare the region for what could be a sharp conflict.

The two-week delay in a U.S. attack will provide welcome time for planning with key economic partners to discuss potential releases from their strategic oil stockpiles. On this last point, our strategic needs differ significantly from those of decades past, given our robust domestic production. Nonetheless, this crisis reinforces the need to avoid drawdowns of our strategic oil stockpile for political reasons alone, as some have claimed was done in the recent past.

The Cipher Brief: What is the near-term outlook for oil prices then, and how do you expect higher oil prices to impact the global economy?

Roule: As long as the threat of a U.S. attack on Iran remains a possibility, prices are likely to remain in the upper 70s, with possible further spikes driven by dramatic moments in the conflict. Depending on the intensity of the conflict, prices could reach $120 or $140. If the conflict is brief, the impact is likely to be minimal. But longer and higher oil prices bring a mix of issues. Oil-producing countries, including the United States, will benefit from higher oil revenues, while developing countries and those with limited energy import reserves are likely to suffer. Higher oil prices will contribute to higher inflation, constraining growth and will sharpen the call for interest rate cuts. President Trump has already complained that this crisis has pushed up oil prices and complicated his efforts to bring down inflation.

The Cipher Brief: Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz multiple times over the past few years, knowing that is a powerful way to gain the attention of the world’s diplomats and media. As we see this threat resurface, which countries are most likely to be affected if Tehran makes good on the threat?

Roule: The oil from the SoH reaches global consumers, but the vast majority goes to Asian markets. China, India, South Korea, Pakistan, and Japan are the primary purchasers.

The U.S. imports little crude oil and condensate from the SoH. In 2024, our imports from the region reached around 500,000 b/d, or only around seven percent of our total crude and condensate imports. So, a decision by Iran to shut the SoH would not directly hurt the U.S., and they know it.

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The Cipher Brief: What are the alternatives to move oil outside of the region if the Strait of Hormuz is closed?

Roule: Up front, we need to remind ourselves that we are talking about replacing an artery that moves around fifteen per cent of global crude oil supply and 20% of liquefied natural gas. That speaks of the importance to the global economy, but it is just as important to think about this in terms of volume and frequency of the quantity of energy shipped, the number of distribution points involved, and the shipping architecture needed to move the energy. In terms of national source, I believe over a third of the oil that transits the SoH is produced by the Saudis.

We shouldn’t ignore the impact closure of the SoH would have on the economies of the Gulf countries which import a tremendous amount of food and other commodities that sustain their populations and economies. The region’s ports are critical to region. Jebel Ali Port, for example, is the tenth largest container port in the world.

However, sticking to oil and other energy exports, there are additional routes we could use, but they cannot replace the SoH in terms of quantity. However, the use of these options could provide some relief, both in terms of exports and costs. Ships using these outlets would save on delivery costs and avoid the high insurance premiums associated with war zones. Of course, Iran could choose to attack these routes in the event of a conflict using missiles, drones, or even terror groups. Gulf Arab states have worked hard with the U.S. and other partners to build domestic defenses against such threats as well as to establish system redundancies to restore operations in the case of a successful attack.

The most important would be the Saudi East-West Pipeline. This 1,200-kilometer pipeline connects Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province oil fields and facilities at Abqaiq to an export terminal in Yanbu on the Red Sea. The pipeline has a capacity of around five million barrels per day. I believe it carries only a tenth of that today. In 2019, Riyadh converted some of the system's natural gas lines to handle crude oil, which allowed the route to handle around seven million barrels. So, if necessary, we should feel confident the Saudis will be creative with their domestic pipeline architecture to maximize exports. Using this route would add distance to those destined for Asia and would require shipments to pass through Yemen, thus exposing them to Houthi attacks.

We also have the Emirati outlet in Fujairah. This line fluctuates between 1.5 and 1.8 million barrels per day, to a point outside the SoH that is home to the world’s largest underground oil storage facility. Abu Dhabi uses a 400-kilometer pipeline to ship Murjan crude from the Habshan oil fields. This line can carry about 500,000 b/d of crude. We are already seeing increased interest by Asian buyers in contracts for loads from this source, as well as Omani crude, which also loads outside the SoH.

Last, Iran would try to use Jask Port. Opened in 2021 on the Gulf of Oman, the port could allow Iran to export around 300,000 b/d from a pipeline that begins at Goreh in the north. However, the output here is modest to the global market. Iran’s priority at this point certainly isn’t maintaining export revenue or market share. I don’t see the U.S. putting an oil blockade, but if that ever happened, it wouldn’t be difficult to halt exports from this outlet.

The Cipher Brief: How would Iran try to close the SoH, and how difficult would it be for U.S. forces to respond?

Roule: My sense is that none of the actors involved in the current conflict, including Iran, want to see the war expand into the Persian Gulf. Israel’s focus will be on Iranian energy targets. Tehran may believe it has no choice but to attack U.S. bases in the wake of a U.S. strike on Fordow, or it could believe actions in the Gulf would pressure the U.S. and Europe to end the conflict. This strategy works only if Tehran believes its targets will respond by pressuring Israel to end hostilities.

The problem for Iran is that whereas the threat of action against the Gulf has diplomatic value, the reality is Tehran can do little damage to Israel in these waters. Closure of the Gulf will hurt Tehran as much as its adversaries. Iran depends on the waterway not only to export its own oil, but for a significant amount of its food imports. Shutting the Strait would damage the world economy in the short term. For Tehran, the diplomatic cost would be severe. It would put an end to the détente that has shaped Iran’s relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council. The economic damage to emerging economies of an oil price spike would be tough to bear, costing Tehran’s diplomatic support at the United Nations. Finally, the action could even contribute to the demise of the regime as countries unite to open the waterway and turn on Iran’s military at a time when Israeli’s actions seem to undermine the regime’s hold on power in Tehran and other cities.

Nonetheless, Tehran has a number of disruption options. At the low end, the actions are meant to message Iran’s potential power to support its threat messaging. For example, We’ve already seen reports of GPS jamming interference, which makes it difficult for ships to navigate the crowded waters and could lead some to cross into Iranian-claimed territory inadvertently. Cyber-attacks against ships and regional energy entities are a potential option for Tehran. Gulf Arab states have worked hard to defend against Iranian cyber attacks but the pool of potential economic and human cyber targets is vast.

Next on the escalation ladder, we have the potential for harassment by drones, military guards in speed boats, calls for sanitary inspections, claims of smuggling, or intrusions into national waters. U.S. and partner forces could assist by accompanying vessels. Gulf countries and their commercial partners have reduced traffic to the Gulf to minimize exposure to Iranian attacks.

As your readers will agree, the extreme case would be if Iran chose to mine the SoH or use its submarines or use coastal or ship-borne missiles against tankers or oil platforms. The U.S. would respond quickly of course, drawing upon existing regional naval and air units as well as those brought by our carrier task forces. Washington would also likely seek partners.

The United Kingdom is already on site, and burden sharing would extend to Gulf naval partners as well as India. New Delhi has strong strategic interests in keeping the waterway open, and there is a precedent here. In 2019, India escorted its oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz during a period of heightened tensions with Iran. If Iran did undertake mining the Gulf or threatening traffic with coastal missile or small naval operations, restoring shipping operations would likely require a several-week military campaign.

My sense is that in the near term, Iran’s rhetoric on a potential Gulf threat will continues, but all parties will do what they can to prevent incidents in the Gulf region that could escalate into open conflict. The U.S., British, and other partners in the region have prepared for years for such this threat and our regional military leadership is traditionally among the best our nation has to offer. Further, recent experiences against the Houthis have only sharpened preparedness of a force that has spent years dealing with Iranian harassment of vessels. If conflict in the Gulf does erupt, we shouldn’t doubt that Iran will disrupt shipping, but we should be well-equipped to deal Iran a devastating response to Iran’s military capabilities throughout the Gulf.

The Cipher Brief: Given the overproduction in OPEC+, wouldn’t the group be able to replace oil lost through a closure of the SOH?

Roule: The challenge is that whereas much of OPEC’s spare capacity could be brought on within a few weeks, the bulk would be locked in the Persian Gulf. It probably would be better to think about the market rebalancing through a combination of increased OPEC production, shifted distribution, and strategic reserve releases designed to deal with what the world would hope would be a relatively short conflict.

The Cipher Brief: What about potential strategic surprises from China?

Roule: Perhaps the only surprise about China in this crisis is that some expected it to behave differently from the way it has in the past. Iran is a key component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the BRICs, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. However, China has avoided involvement in regional security issues, leaving that to the United States and its partners. China also remains the primary buyer of Iranian oil at deeply discounted rates. These purchases are significant to its smaller refineries, which would be unwilling to pay the full price demanded by any Emirati or Saudi replacement oil. China’s diplomacy has not played a role in shaping the global response to this developing crisis and once again underscored the limits of its influence in the region. Beijing opposed the recent International Atomic Energy Agency censure of Iran, condemned Israel’s attacks, and held a few ministerial meetings. China likely evacuated some of its citizens from Iran. It seems highly unlikely that Beijing would take any steps to involve itself militarily.

Beijing likely believes that it can stand out of this conflict and still retain its influence with Iran, its role as Iran’s chief energy customer, a key place in Iran’s economy (and nuclear industry), while letting the U.S. pay the diplomatic and financial costs of maintaining regional security. The conflict may even bring benefits to China. Beijing’s military has been able to watch Israel operate U.S. weaponry in action and the U.S. naval and air operations in the region have provided similar intelligence gathering opportunities. Beijing will likely use these lessons as it plans to deal with U.S. defense of Taiwan.

Even in an extreme scenario where the Islamic Republic could fall and be replaced by a pro-U.S. government, China has little incentive to intervene. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are pro-U.S. and yet they remain essential and profitable partners for Beijing. There is no reason to think a pro-U.S. Tehran would be any different.

The Cipher Brief: What potential wild cards do you see?

Roule: Every crisis produces secondary and tertiary impacts. The natural gas story seems the most likely to cause such consequences here. Qatar produces approximately 20 percent of the world's LNG, and all of its product must transit through the Strait of Hormuz (SoH). Violence in the Gulf will threaten this important energy source for many countries.

It was recently reported that Israel conducted a drone strike against a refinery in the 2-200-mile South Pars Gas Field shared by Qatar and Iran. The attack had no impact on Qatari operations or even any significant impact on Iranian operations. Yet it made headlines. But it shows that any military operations touching that that field will touch the markets immediately. Closer to the region, Iranian attacks on Israel’s gas industry will impact Egypt and Jordan. Israel exported around ninety percent of the production of its Chevron-operated Leviathan gas field – its largest – to these two countries in 2024. These are critical imports: Egypt depends on Israel for 15 to 20 percent of it natural gas. Israel closed exports when its war with Iran began. The halt caused Egypt to almost immediate halt fertilizer production. After the decline in Iranian missile attacks and negotiations with Egyptian officials, Israel just agreed to restore gas to Cairo.

Updated on June 21 adding additional details.

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The Next War Won’t Target Cities, It Will Target Choke Points.

OPINION — In the age of strategic disruption, critical infrastructure is both the terrain and the target. The West’s optimization of systems for efficiency and scale has inadvertently created a landscape of chokepoints. These points of failure are deeply embedded in our cloud ecosystems, energy corridors, undersea cables, and satellite constellations. They are invisible until they fail, but when they do, the consequences are significant.

From Ukraine’s reliance on Starlink to the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack and the use of the ubiquitous SolarWinds as an ingress point for intelligence services, we are witnessing a new form of conflict, one that prizes disruption over destruction.

Strategic Infrastructure as a Conflict Domain

Russia’s war on Ukraine has exposed more than battlefield vulnerabilities. With terrestrial networks degraded, Ukraine has leaned heavily on Starlink for everything from military coordination to civilian communications. But Starlink is not a national or multilateral infrastructure. It’s privately owned and largely unaccountable. This effectively places a geopolitical chokepoint in the hands of a single executive.

That same private provider now underpins crew and cargo transport for the International Space Station. Following the retirement of the U.S. Space Shuttle and the eventual possible dissolution of joint operations with Roscosmos, the continuity of one of the world’s most symbolically unifying scientific efforts will depend entirely on a single company’s launch manifest.

And the vulnerabilities don’t stop in orbit.

China’s Volt Typhoon advanced persistent threat (APT) has compromised critical infrastructure across the West’s energy, transportation, communications, and water sectors, positioning itself to disrupt these services. Meanwhile, Salt Typhoon, though primarily focused on espionage, has targeted telecommunications in ways that could just as readily be weaponized for disruption.

The 2021 Colonial Pipeline attack paralyzed fuel distribution across the Eastern Seaboard. The 2022 Amazon Web Services outage rippled across the U.S. economy, disrupting transit, banking, and government operations. In the 2020 SolarWinds hack, a single point of failure allowed foreign intelligence agencies into countless critical government and private sector providers to collect intelligence. That access could have just as easily been used to disrupt or degrade service at any time. Each of these failures was enabled not by enemy bombs, but by our own centralization.

These are not one-off incidents; they are previews.

From Kinetic Threats to Systemic Shocks

Western military doctrine still leans heavily on deterrence theory, emphasizing kinetic parity and power projection. But adversaries, state and non-state alike, have embraced disruption: cheap, deniable, and disproportionately effective.

Disruption doesn’t just break infrastructure. It breaks continuity and system trust. A fiber cut can cascade through supply chains. A GPS spoofing attack can ground aircraft or misguide autonomous systems. A corrupted DNS entry can unplug and undermine public trust more effectively than propaganda.

China, Russia, Iran, and cybercriminal cartels understand this well. They aren’t planning to storm Washington or London. They’re aiming to quietly unplug them.

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The West Needs a Doctrine of Resilience

While we have national defense strategies, cyber strategies, and even climate resilience frameworks, we lack a coherent doctrine for infrastructure survivability in the face of hybrid warfare. This is the gap.

We need a strategic shift: one that places redundancy, diversification, and graceful degradation at the heart of national security planning.

Here’s where we start:

● Diversify Critical Dependencies: No nation should rely on a single internet connection, launch provider, cloud vendor, or data exchange. Resilience begins with optionality.

● Map and Understand Chokepoints: Governments and corporations must identify and test which cables, corridors, and cloud dependencies could paralyze operations if taken offline for 24 hours.

● Enforce Resilient-by-Design Architecture: Estonia’s “digital twin” model offers a blueprint for mirroring state functions in secure offshore environments. Redundancy is not waste, it’s defense.

● Embed Graceful Degradation: Systems must be designed to degrade gracefully under duress. Total failure should never be the first mode of collapse.

● Integrate Resilience into Alliances: NATO and EU collective defense cannot stop at tanks and treaties. Infrastructure interdependence demands shared risk maps, failover protocols, and decentralized defense capabilities.

Friction Is the New Firepower

Strategic deterrence in the 21st century is not just about overwhelming force, it’s about resilience. Survivable systems don’t break cleanly. They resist, reroute, absorb shock, and continue functioning under strain. That’s friction. And friction, in this context, is power.

We are not preparing for the next war. We are living in its early chapters. Cyberattacks, infrastructure sabotage, and platform capture are no longer theoretical, they are operational tools being used in real time.

If we want to maintain continuity, legitimacy, and deterrence in the years ahead, we must stop treating infrastructure as a given and start defending it like a frontline.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals.

Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief

The Rampant Leadership Corruption Plaguing China and Russia

OPINION — In March 2025 the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) published an unclassified report on “Wealth and Corrupt Activities of the Leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).” It was an insightful analysis of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign. It was also a primer on the excessive wealth of Mr. Xi and other former and current senior officials. Indeed, it was an expose on the hypocrisy of the leaders of the CCP.

The same can be said for the Russian Federation. Former Russian anti-corruption opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in February 2024 in a Russian penal institution, documented the excessive wealth of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a few of his close associates – Sergei Shoigu, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation and Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council.

China and Russia have active anti-corruption organizations that in fact do remove some senior and many low-level officials convicted of corruption. China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspections found over 4.7 million officials guilty of corruption. The irony, however, is that little is said about the wealth of Mr. Xi or former Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao. Journalistic research going back to 2012 found that the family of Mr. Wen and the then-incoming president, Mr. Xi, had both amassed significant wealth.

As for Russia, according to Mr. Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, Mr. Putin’s Party is “full of crooks and thieves.” Mr. Navalny’s 2021 You Tube film, which amassed over 100 million views in its first week, showed Mr. Putin’s extravagant palace that cost the state $1 to $1.4 billion. And Mr. Shoigu “practically openly created a corrupt network of charitable foundations through which they collected bribes from oligarchs and built palaces and vacation homes.” And then-Prime Minister Medvedev “profited from a complex business network which collected bribes by using offshore schemes and charity foundations.”

Mr. Wen’s family – mother, wife, son and siblings – controlled assets of at least $2.7 billion in 2012. Mr. Xi’s siblings, nieces and nephews reportedly held assets worth over $1 billion in business investment and real estate. And as of 2024, Mr. Xi’s family retains millions in business interests and financial institutions. It is possible – and likely – that these holdings are managed indirectly on Mr. Xi’s behalf.

According to the ODNI report: “Nearly every senior Chinese party official has moved part of their ill-gotten gains overseas for safe keeping, mostly to English-speaking countries, like America, Canada, and Australia, that enjoy the rule of law. Or to tax havens like the British Virgin Islands, Panama, or the Cayman Islands. The Panama Papers in 2016 exposed offshore companies linked to relatives of Politburo members, like Mr. Xi’s brother-in-law and Mr. Wen’s son. Hard numbers are hard to come by, but it’s known that China is hemorrhaging trillions of dollars as officials and others seek safe havens to stash their cash.” The same Panama Papers traced $2 billion to Mr. Putin, with estimates of over $200 billion available to Mr. Putin, from oligarchs and other sources, to dole out to his cronies.

A Rand June 2024 report said: “corruption in Russia is not a problem that can be eradicated by a change of policy or personnel, it is a feature of the system itself.”

Corruption is like a cancer that slowly eats away at leadership credibility. In 1858, reportedly during the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Abraham Lincoln said: “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Eventually, the people will demand transparency and openness from their governments and demand unwavering integrity from their leaders.

The Wall Street Journal June 7^th Peggy Noonan column – Republican Sleaze, Democratic Slump -- mentioned: “Charges of influence peddling, access peddling --$TRUMP coins, real-estate deals in foreign counties, cash for dinners with the president, a pardon process involving big fees for access to those in the president’s orbit….” If this is the perception of some people, then these concerns must be addressed.

The U.S. is the “shining house on the hill.” All nations look to the U.S. for hope and freedom from tyranny, hunger, wars, injustice; where the rule of law governs and all people have the unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Indeed, the U.S. is the model for other countries, especially China and Russia, where corruption is rampant and the leaders are enriching themselves.

This column by Cipher Brief Expert Ambassador Joseph DeTrani was first published in The Washington Times

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief because National Security is Everyone’s Business.

Amid Crisis, A Lesser-Told Story of US-Iran Similarities Holds Some Hope

OPINION — As experts studiously debate what the latest Israel-Iran fighting will lead to, including a possible Iranian collapse, one enduring but less understood reality goes mostly untreated: Iranians and Americans are more alike than they are different, and that likeness holds hope for a friendlier future. A new Iranian revolution would bring significant uncertainty and risk. But it would also bring to the fore Iranian ideals that, in many ways, are also very American.

A Palpable Likeness

A few years ago, while enjoying a relaxed dinner with a senior Iraqi officer, he proceeded to lecture me and a few other Americans on why he thought that America and Iran were destined to come together. He delivered a monologue about the similarities between the American and Iranian people, which I initially doubted but subsequently vetted with numerous Iran experts who largely agreed. His premise, which I now believe to be mostly accurate, boiled down to three commonalities between Americans and Iranians: we are imbued with a revolutionary spirit and national pride, we are unyielding entrepreneurs, and we are bureaucratic in our official decisionmaking, sometimes to a fault.

Revolutionary Spirit - Americans love their revolution. We celebrate it regularly, and we beckon it in almost every national speech and theme. I don’t have to prove this to the Western reader because it’s ever-present. Nevertheless, polling consistently shows America as among the most, if not the most, “patriotic,” and our revolutionary zeal is at its center. For Iranians, their identity has been centered on revolution since 1979. That connection to the revolution has diminished, if not depleted, but the spirit of revolution as an ideal, even for those opposed to the current regime, is foundational. My dinner guest made this point clear: it’s not the 1979 revolution that has endured, but the underdog attitude that perseveres, inspiring Iranians to define their own destiny — a drive that makes Iranians and Americans so alike.

Unyielding Entrepreneurship – America is the core of entrepreneurship in the world. Efforts to rank such traits list the US as second or third, and the US is second only to China in patents; however, the US has led global innovation for the last century. As for Iran, the country consistently punches above its weight in such categories. Indeed, Iranians, like Americans, take pride in their innovative prowess. Iran regularly ranks among the top performers for innovation in the Near East, and it outpaces the vast majority of its competition as a middle-income country. Experts on Iran are keen to observe that, absent Western sanctions, Iran has the potential to become a technology powerhouse. Indeed, the very reason Iran is under sanctions, its nuclear ambitions and advancement, is demonstrable of its technological know-how.

Bureaucratic Decisionmaking – Although the shared proclivity for making official decisions in a bureaucratic fashion may not appear the most compelling category on the surface, it demonstrates a shared, ingrained respect for rigor and order. For all our revolutionary zeal, ironically, that zeal falls by the wayside in our approach to governing, which also has a long tradition in Iran. We appear different on the surface; the US is democratic, and Iran is theocratic, creating significant philosophical differences. However, both are bureaucratic in practice and structure. My dinner guest was adamant on this point, noting that, as an Iraqi caught between two rivals, he regularly endured our entrenched structural similarities.

An AI-generated comparison of Iranian and American government structures, albeit simplistic, highlights the regimented bureaucracy that, at best, characterizes both countries’ careful and considerate decisionmaking and, at worst, leads to sloth. (Author-prompted AI-generated graphic)

Commonalities Could Become Bridges

These similarities are more than just quaint observations; they are core characteristics that inspire a nervous hope that our two countries will come together. A primary Israeli objective is regime change, the fallout of which could be destructive and violent. If regime change were in the offing, Washington would do well to understand and anticipate how the US-Iranian similarities could quickly become affinities influencing any path forward. In this environment, Iranian outreach, diaspora pressure, and US ally assistance would emerge as critical vectors for US action.

Iranian Outreach – A new revolution in Tehran would almost certainly spur greater outreach toward Washington. This may seem counterintuitive, given that Iranians have held unfavorable views of the US for years, but our similarities might serve as a counterforce. Indeed, even amid Iranian disdain for Americans, they express a strong desire to normalize relations and for democracy. Furthermore, Washington’s apparent effort to dissuade Israel from its military offensive may position the United States as a more approachable adversary. Washington would almost certainly be situated for some quick wins with the youth who would be at the center of any new movement. Not to be flippant, but soft power gestures, such as facilitating a concert by the locally popular Lionel Richie, are the type of normalization gestures that Washington should consider.

Diaspora Pressure – The Iranian diaspora in the United States would be a source of information and pressure in Washington amid a new Iranian revolution. I have retold my dinner story to members of the diaspora, and they are the most fervent that it’s correct; on one occasion, it brought an Iranian-born American to tears as she insisted on its accuracy. The US is home to the largest Iranian population in the world after Iran itself; the census puts the numbers between 400,000 and 570,000, depending on ethnic mix. Further, that diaspora is politically engaged and informed. Washington would do well to measure the diaspora advice; on the one hand, they have the best interests of Iran in mind and are likely to return and hold posts of influence; on the other hand—and as we learned during the US invasion of Iraq—diaspora sources can lead with the hearts, understandably, and so relying on multiple sources of information in decisionmaking would be all the more critical.

Ally Assistance – Like my Iraqi acquaintance, American allies are likely to desire and push for a US-Iran rapprochement in the face of a new Iranian revolution. Some allies are well-connected and more respected in Tehran and could serve as a springboard for Washington. Further, Iranian desires to normalize relations are less applicable to Israel, leaving Washington to play a cleanup role if it wants a renewed Iran to emerge as relatively friendly. The UK, which maintains an embassy in Tehran and appears eager to demonstrate its loyalty to the US, would likely be quick to offer assistance. France also has a diplomatic presence and probably would step up to encourage stability. The ever-ambitious Turkey, home to a large diaspora population and a strong Muslim affinity—Iran's theocratic status will make religion something to navigate—would be an essential ally in the cause. Canada, which helped the US safely depart Tehran after its last revolution, has recently experienced tension with Iran, but it hosts the second-largest diaspora population after the US and would be a logical option for trilateral or multilateral engagement.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals.

Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief

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