Category: World News

I’m at the transition point between completing the big essay on the birth of the Portuguese empire, which I published August 30, and sitting down to plan the next essay in the “Big Western Imperialisms” series, the one on Spain. Astute readers of the

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Cipher Brief Expert Tim Willasey-Wilsey is a Visiting Professor at King’s College, London and a former senior British diplomat. From 1996 to 1999 he was senior advisor to the British government on overseas counterterrorism.  This piece was first published by RUSI in London. 

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Mark Kelton, Former Deputy Director, CIA’s Counterintelligence, National Clandestine Service Cipher Brief Expert Mark Kelton is a retired senior Central Intelligence Agency executive with 34 years of experience in intelligence operations. Before retiring, he served as

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In the longform essay on the birth and early decades of the Portuguese empire that I published last week, I referred to the uses the Portuguese conquistadors made of “exemplary terror” as they built their trading-forts-based global empire in the 15th and early

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As information emerges about Islamic State of Khorasan, or ISIS-K – the terrorist group that claimed responsibility for last week’s suicide attack that killed 13 US service members and more than 160 Afghans – there is an increased effort to predict how

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As information emerges about Islamic State of Khorasan, or ISIS-K – the terrorist group that claimed responsibility for last week’s suicide attack that killed 13 US service members and more than 160 Afghans – there is an increased effort to predict how

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1492? How about 1415 CE? If we’re trying to identify the start-date of the era of Western domination of world affairs that is now lurching toward a close, then the very serious moves that Portugal made, long before 1492, to build a colonial empire in West Africa and the

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If you followed most US corporate media coverage you might believe (1) that the only important news in Afghanistan today is what’s happening in and near Kabul airport; (2) that all “sane” Afghans want to leave their country; and (3) that the best way

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When The Washington Post reported this week that CIA Director William Burns slipped into Afghanistan on Monday to meet with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar, it was described as the highest-level face-to-face encounter between the Taliban and the Biden Administration. 

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Robert Dannenberg, Former Senior CIA Officer Cipher Brief Expert Rob Dannenberg is a 24-year veteran of the CIA, where he served in several senior leadership positions, including chief of operations for the Counterterrorism Center, chief of the Central Eurasia Division and

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