Despite efforts by U.S. President Donald Trump to warm U.S. relations with Moscow amid negotiations for Russia to end its war in Ukraine, Russian sabotage operations, active measures and Gray Zone activities are continuing around the world. Moscow has mastered the art of engaging in operations that push right up to the edge of war, without really crossing that that line, or have they?  The Cipher Brief talks with former Senior Member of the British Foreign Office Nick Fishwick and former senior CIA Executive Dave Pitts – who spent the bulk of his time at the Agency working in clandestine operations – about this new reality – that what we are seeing is really “war by a new name”.

When Walter Parkes co-wrote the movie War Games in 1983, he had no idea what he had launched.  The movie about a teen hacker played by Matthew Broderick examined what might happen if someone breached the security systems around U.S. nuclear weapons.  As it turned out, then-President Ronald Reagan saw the movie and asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time whether it was possible.  After an investigation, the answer came back, “Sir, it’s actually worse than you think.” Eighteen months later, the president signed a directive that would lead to an overhaul of cybersecurity in the U.S. Government.  As The Cipher Brief honors Parkes with this year’s Impact Through Storytelling Award at The Cipher Brief HONORS Dinner, we sat down with him to talk about the very real power of storytelling.

In this conversation, former Senior CIA Execuvite Chip Usher discusses the recent advancements made by the Chinese AI lab DeepSeq, particularly its new AI models that rival those of American companies like OpenAI. Usher, now the Senior Director for Intelligence at the Special Competitive Studies Project, explains the significance of these developments in the context of US-China competition in technology and innovation, emphasizing the need for the US intelligence community to enhance its focus on techno-economic intelligence to avoid being caught off guard by such breakthroughs. Usher also highlights the implications of DeepSeq's model for cybersecurity and the potential risks posed by hostile actors gaining access to advanced AI capabilities.