SPECIAL REPORT — In a yr of world-changing occasions – from the Center East to Ukraine, cyberattacks to undersea cable assaults, and rather more – The Cipher Temporary was blessed to have had dozens of high U.S. nationwide safety officers and international specialists be a part of us on our stage.
That “stage” included a banner version of our annual Risk Convention, summits of our Cyber Initiatives Group, and the first-ever Cipher Temporary honors dinner – together with a gentle assortment of interviews on our digital platform.
At yr’s finish, we share beneath a listing of among the extra memorable conversations, together with hyperlinks to the complete variations. And we thank all those that gave their time and insights; and all of you for studying and offering suggestions.
A yr within the making: a dialog with the pinnacle of the CIA
Central Intelligence Company (CIA) Director William Burns doesn’t give many interviews; and when he does, they’re not often as lengthy or sweeping in nature because the dialog he had with Cipher Temporary CEO Suzanne Kelly on the stage at this yr’s Risk Convention. The 2 spoke for practically an hour, and Burns took questions afterwards from our viewers. The dialog and Q&A session spanned the globe, overlaying “long-range challenges” posed by China, Russia, the wars within the Center East, terrorism and different threats – together with Burns’ private reflections on practically 4 years on the job as head of the CIA and an extended profession as a world diplomat.
When Kelly requested which he most well-liked – the job of high diplomat or high spy, Burns didn’t hesitate.
“What I do now,” he mentioned. “I say that with nice affection for my previous establishment and my previous career, however as I mentioned, I genuinely love this job.”
Burns’s look got here precisely one yr to the day after he was to have joined us for the 2023 Risk Convention. That day occurred to have been October 7 – the date of Hamas’s assault in Southern Israel. Burns despatched his regrets then, and one yr later, he made good on his “rain verify.” The one-year anniversary of the assaults – and the wars which have adopted – hung over the CIA Director’s remarks.
Burns — who has been personally concerned in long-running ceasefire negotiations and was again in Doha, Qatar final week for the most recent spherical of talks — urged leaders within the area “to acknowledge that sufficient is sufficient, that good isn’t on the menu, particularly within the Center East,” highlighting the “human stakes” confronted by the Israeli victims and hostages and their households, and the useless and wounded civilians in Gaza.
On Ukraine, Burns warned of “monumental challenges forward” for the Ukrainian individuals, and cautioned the U.S. towards “consideration deficit dysfunction” when it comes to supporting Kyiv for the long run. When requested about Russia’s nuclear arsenal and President Vladimir Putin’s red-line threats to make use of it, Burns mentioned, “We are able to’t take that frivolously…however it’s important to watch out to not be unnecessarily intimidated” by what he described as repeated nuclear “saber rattling” by the Russian chief.
There was rather more, an you possibly can discover it right here and/or watch Burns’ look on our program The World Deciphered.
NSA Director – on the ‘best problem of our time’
CIA Director Burns topped an extended listing of nationwide safety leaders who joined our 2024 Risk Convention. Amongst them was Normal Timothy D. Haugh, who wears the twin hats of Director of the Nationwide Safety Company (NSA) and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM). Gen. Haugh supplied remarks and took viewers questions, specializing in a variety of threats emanating from China, which he mentioned pose “an unprecedented problem… the best problem of our time.” Given his place, Gen. Haugh centered on China-linked threats in our on-line world – a very well timed topic, on condition that information had simply damaged of the cyber actor now often known as “Salt Hurricane” that was discovered to have breached the networks of telecommunications firms AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen Applied sciences. The hackers, who had been traced to China, appeared to have focused the units of high officers, together with the telephone of President-elect Donald Trump, and captured details about federal wiretap investigations.
“China has the world’s largest our on-line world operations workforce,” Gen. Haugh warned, “engaged every single day in a deliberate marketing campaign to steal our know-how and goal.”
The NSA director urged better public-private sector cooperation to counter the menace — what he referred to as a “whole-of-nation response.”
“It should take actions on the a part of our total nation, authorities, trade, and academia all transferring as one to answer the sweeping strategy being carried out by PRC cyber actors.”
For extra on Gen. Haugh’s look on the Risk Convention, learn in The Cipher Temporary or watch on our YouTube channel. Additionally take a look at The Cipher Temporary’s protection of Gen. Haugh’s replace on the Chinese language cyber menace from earlier this month.
Chinese language cyberattacks are the ‘tip of the iceberg’
If Gen. Haugh’s warnings weren’t sobering sufficient, a dialog two months later gave us recent cause to pause.
This one got here on the Winter Summit of our Cyber Initiatives Group in early December, which coated the yr’s high cyber threats, points and alternatives of the yr. Right here the headline visitor was Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company (CISA) Director Jen Easterly, and whereas she supplied a evaluation of the “Salt Hurricane” breach and different cybersecurity issues, she additionally warned that “Salt Hurricane” doubtless represented solely the “tip of the iceberg” in the case of China-based cyberattacks towards U.S. vital infrastructure. These assaults, she mentioned, are aimed not solely on the theft of concepts and data; more and more, Easterly mentioned, they’re cyber probes meant to sow the seeds of future disruptions within the occasion of a U.S.-China battle.
“It is a world the place a conflict in Asia might see very actual impacts to the lives of People throughout our nation, with assaults towards pipelines, towards water services, towards transportation nodes, towards communications, all to induce societal panic,” Easterly mentioned.
Given the severity of the menace, Easterly added that she wished these cyberattacks had been given completely different names.
“I want I hadn’t ever heard any of those names, like ‘Volt Hurricane,’ ‘Salt Hurricane,’ ‘Midnight Blizzard,’ ‘Tempest Panda’… that basically glorify these villains that frankly need to do monumental hurt to the USA of America,” she mentioned. “And so, I’m on a mission to try to rename a few of these dangerous actors to issues like ‘Weak Weasel’ and ‘Doofus Dingo.’”
Learn extra of the dialog, together with Easterly’s recommendation for her successor, in The Cipher Temporary, or watch it on our YouTube channel.
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One thing worse than a ‘Chilly Struggle’ with China?
We might have stuffed this whole put up with the insight-rich conversations from the October Risk Convention, and we come again to it right here for yet one more deep dive with a high official from the U.S. intelligence neighborhood.
Few high IC officers perceive China in addition to Michael Collins, Performing Chair of the Nationwide Intelligence Council, who has spent the higher a part of three a long time engaged on East Asia. In a convention session with Cipher Temporary Managing Editor Tom Nagorski, Collins supplied a view of China and the U.S.-China relationship that married the knowledge of a scholar with the expertise of a longtime IC chief.
He mentioned the U.S.-China relationship was not but in “Chilly Struggle” territory, however was higher understood as a “nice energy competitors” or “techniques competitors.” Whereas that not-a-Chilly-Struggle-yet evaluation may need made us really feel higher for a second, Collins additionally had this to say: the present conflict with China is “extra extreme, extra advanced, even when not as militarized, as the unique Chilly Struggle,” on condition that the U.S. goes up towards a rustic with far better financial energy and worldwide clout than the Soviet Union ever had.
Learn extra from the dialog in The Cipher Temporary.
From the NCTC Chief, an “exit interview”
Christine Abizaid was sworn in as Director of the Nationwide Counter-Terrorism Middle (NCTC) in June of 2021, and gave her first public interview as director to The Cipher Temporary. Again then, she spoke concerning the altering terrorist threats to America, which she referred to as “ideologically numerous.”
It was solely becoming, then, that three years later, as Abizaid ready for her departure from the NCTC, she met with The Cipher Temporary as soon as extra, this time for an unique exit interview.
Abizaid supplied a variety of reflections on the job, and on a menace atmosphere that has modified dramatically for the reason that 9/11 assaults – and isn’t any much less advanced.
“It’s under no circumstances like what we handled instantly after 9/11,” Abizaid mentioned. “It’s very completely different than when ISIS got here onto the scene after having declared a world caliphate. It’s no easier, no much less regarding, and also you need our intelligence companies, our legislation enforcement companies, our border safety and homeland safety companies, to be centered like a laser on stopping the results of terrorism in the USA homeland and globally.”
For all of the challenges – we spoke with Abizaid amid a resurgence of the Islamic State (IS) and a documented rise in jihadist terror impressed by Israel’s conflict in Gaza – she was hopeful that her company and the nationwide safety neighborhood writ giant was in an excellent place to handle the menace.
“I hope the common American doesn’t have to consider the terrorism menace immediately as a lot as they needed to in earlier a long time, partially as a result of we’ve performed an excellent job as the USA authorities throughout successive administrations in preserving that menace at bay,” Abizaid informed us. “The best way I give it some thought is, let’s not have the general public have to fret about this — let’s make it the job of the counterterrorism enterprise to have to fret about it.”
Learn her interview in The Cipher Temporary and take heed to it on The State Secrets and techniques podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
The primary “Spy Promenade”
The Cipher Temporary held its inaugural Honors Dinner on April 18 in Washington D.C. – an occasion dubbed “Spy Promenade” by former Congressman Will Hurd, given the vary of honorees and different particular company who joined us from the Intelligence Neighborhood. The occasion acknowledged professionals from completely different backgrounds who’ve made important contributions to the nationwide and international safety dialogue.
Whereas the honorees had been all spectacular — CIA Director William Burns; Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the U.S.; Susan Gordon, former Principal Deputy Director of Nationwide Intelligence on the Workplace of the Director of Nationwide Intelligence; Cipher Temporary Senior Nationwide Safety Columnist Walter Pincus; and screenwriter Howard Gordon — we be aware right here a gap handle on the occasion given by Dr. Michael Vickers, who served as Beneath Secretary of Protection for Intelligence from 2011 to 2015.
Vickers supplied a tour of the worldwide panorama of safety dangers – what he described as a harmful world that’s getting extra harmful on a regular basis. “We haven’t confronted a world atmosphere this difficult for the reason that early Chilly Struggle,” Vickers mentioned, and by the point he’d completed his remarks, it was arduous to argue the purpose. From Russia to China to the “revolution in know-how much more highly effective than the economic and nuclear revolutions,” Vickers argued the necessity for vigilance. So much to digest at a black-tie occasion — however the proper tone for an occasion that honored those that have labored to mitigate the dangers and risks.
Learn extra from Vickers’ opening remarks right here, and discover out extra about The Honors Dinner right here. You may want to be a part of us on the 2025 version.
Apply now in your seat at The Cipher Temporary Honors Dinner, probably the most glamourous spy dinner of the yr.
Reside from Taiwan, a former Naval Intelligence Chief
For all the present threats to nationwide and international safety, China’s assertiveness and longer-term ambitions round Taiwan cling over any conversations involving international threats. In 2024, China held army workout routines close to Taiwan after the Could inauguration of President Lai Ching-te; and in mid-December, Taipei mentioned Beijing carried out its largest maritime operations within the area in nearly three a long time, days after Lai made a Pacific tour that included stops in Guam and Hawaii.
Former Rear Admiral Mike Studeman, who served as Commander of the Workplace of Naval Intelligence (ONI), is aware of China properly – and the Taiwan challenge specifically. Earlier this yr, Taiwan’s then-Vice President-Elect Hsiao Bi-Khim – who Studeman had briefed, together with former President Tsai Ing-Wen, when he was the Navy’s Indo-Pacom Director for Intelligence – invited the previous Rear Admiral to Taiwan for a sequence of high-level visits. The Cipher Temporary caught up with him throughout that journey to debate Taiwan’s defenses and the prospect of battle within the Taiwan Strait.
Among the many takeaways from his conferences was this sobering be aware: in the case of a possible Chinese language army transfer on Taiwan, “the query wasn’t whether or not. The query was when.” Studeman later joined Ambassador Joseph DeTrani, a former CIA director of East Asia operations, to debate the damaging degree of tensions, and the way a battle within the Taiwan Strait might doubtlessly be averted.
Learn extra in The Cipher Temporary, together with Studeman’s year-end “straight-talk” evaluation of China’s “silent invasion” of the U.S. homeland; and take heed to extra from him in our State Secrets and techniques podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
A view from Kyiv – throughout a yr of firsts for Ukraine
Within the third yr of Russia’s full-scale conflict towards Ukraine, there have been dramatic developments on many fronts: Russia launched its largest drone assault on Ukraine; Ukrainian forces launched an unprecedented incursion into Russia’s Kursk area; Kyiv acquired the inexperienced mild to make use of U.S.-made ATACMS and U.Ok. Storm Shadow missiles for long-range strikes into Russia; and maybe most notably, North Korean troops entered the struggle, supporting Russian troops in Kursk. And as 2024 attracts to a detailed, Ukraine and NATO are getting ready for President-elect Donald Trump’s return to The White Home, anxious over what precisely will come of his guarantees of a fast finish to the conflict.
The Cipher Temporary turned to a broad vary of specialists concerning the conflict in 2024, and we spoke a number of occasions with former Ukrainian Protection Minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk to get a high-level perspective from Kyiv. His expertise in Ukraine’s protection runs deep; along with his service as minister, Zagorodnyuk was head of the Ministry of Protection’s Reforms Mission Workplace, an advisor to the president of Ukraine for protection issues, and a member of the supervisory council of Ukraine’s Ukroboronprom protection firm.
We spoke with Zagorodnyuk concerning the Kursk incursion — which he referred to as “very important as a result of the one method for [Ukraine] to win, regardless of the political definition of victory is, is to do one thing exterior of the field”; and the North Korean troop deployment — which he mentioned confirmed that “Russia is attempting to develop the conflict.”
Learn extra in The Cipher Temporary and watch extra in our program The World Deciphered.
Ukraine’s “unprecedented” innovation
One other main story from Ukraine in 2024 concerned the nation’s exceptional tempo of innovation in its protection trade – innovation that many exterior specialists imagine is making Ukraine a world chief in protection growth.
Former CIA Director Normal David Petraeus is aware of a factor or two about this challenge, and when he joined us in 2024 – on the twentieth Yalta European Technique (YES) convention in Kyiv, at our Risk Convention in October, and on our digital platform – he repeatedly made the purpose: Ukraine has the capability to innovate for conflict wants at an “unprecedented” scale and tempo, far surpassing the progressive capability of the U.S.
“When the weapons fall silent right here,” he informed us, “Ukraine goes to be a army industrial powerhouse with the power to innovate rather more quickly than something that now we have.”
Earlier within the yr, Gen. Petraeus led a Cipher Temporary delegation to Kyiv, the place he mentioned, “There’s no query concerning the continued dedication of the Ukrainians. They’re concerned of their conflict of independence, and so they’re doing every part they probably can to make sure their continued freedom, their continued safety within the face of this brutal and unprovoked invasion by a neighbor who believes they don’t have a proper to exist.” For the remainder of the world, Gen. Petraeus had a name to motion: “We are able to’t let Ukraine fail. We are able to’t let Russia win.”
Learn extra in The Cipher Temporary and watch extra on our YouTube Channel.
Is the Protection Division prepared for an age of disruption?
Implicit in Gen. Petraeus’ evaluation of Ukraine’s progressive capability was a critique of the U.S. protection trade – for being much less agile and dynamic. He wasn’t alone in making that time on The Cipher Temporary stage this yr.
Does the U.S. army have an innovation drawback? Steve Clean, an American entrepreneur and creator of the so-called “lean startup” motion, definitely thinks so. Clean is a deeply revered voice on the earth of organizational administration, significantly in the case of disruption in giant organizations that resist change. In a chat with Cipher Temporary CEO Suzanne Kelly on the State Secrets and techniques podcast, Clean mentioned he believes that for all its good leaders and cash and apparent edge in lots of areas, the U.S. army is vulnerable to falling behind main adversaries in the case of change and innovation, particularly on this time of “disaster.”
“For those who’re not frightened, you’re not paying consideration,” Clean mentioned. “For those who exit to the combatant instructions, whether or not you’re in CENTCOM dodging Houthi missiles otherwise you’re in INDO-PACOM worrying concerning the future, it’s fairly clear that there’s a sense of disaster. However the nearer you get to that five-sided constructing, paperwork nonetheless strikes on the identical velocity that it usually strikes. And it’s not that there are good individuals who don’t perceive that, however the organizations writ giant haven’t declared that it’s not enterprise as ordinary.”
Within the dialog about how the Pentagon may finest sort out this drawback, Kelly requested Clean provocative query: What three issues would you do if the following president made you secretary of protection?
The solutions to that query and extra in The Cipher Temporary – or take heed to the State Secrets and techniques podcast (on Apple Podcasts or Spotify).
Ethan Masucol contributed to reporting.
Learn extra expert-driven nationwide safety insights, perspective and evaluation in The Cipher Temporary.
