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Calder Walton recounts how Russia and China are using their intelligence agencies to reverse the outcome of the Cold War

CIPHER BRIEF INTEL REPORT — During a recent visit to Kyiv centered around The Cipher Brief’s Kyiv Economic and Security Forum, a small Cipher Brief delegation met with a variety of representatives from government, business, and civil society, who conveyed a consistent and compelling message of unity and determination to win the war that Russia started in 2014 with the invasion of Crimea, and since February 24, 2022, when it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The arguments in favor of the United States' declaring that the only purpose of its nuclear weapons is to deter others who possess them from using theirs — in other words, that in no circumstances will this country use nuclear weapons first — are far stronger than the arguments against this stance. It must be hoped that the next US administration will take this no-first-use step promptly.

Over the past quarter century, nearly all major efforts at establishing a durable post–Cold War order on the Eurasian continent have foundered on the shoals of Ukraine. For it is in Ukraine that the disconnect between triumphalist end-of-history delusions and the ongoing realities of great-power competition can be seen in its starkest form.

Recently declassified documents reveal a heated debate within the Clinton administration about how to enlarge the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to Central and Eastern Europe and when.