Reasons for Hope in 2025

SPECIAL REPORT – Within the final days of 2024, The Cipher Temporary turned to our community of specialists – who spend a lot of their time trying on the dangers and threats dealing with the U.S. and the remainder of world – and requested them a special query, extra according to the vacation season: What provides them hope? 

Whereas our focus – and theirs – is essentially on conflict, cyberattacks, gray-zone ways, the “Axis of Authoritarians,” and so forth, right here we requested the specialists to mirror on one particular query: What, if something, on the nationwide/international safety panorama provides you cause for hope?

Their solutions coated a spread of points and elements of the world – from the spirit of innovation to advances in AI to the Center East (sure, “hope” and “Center East” had been joined in multiple reply). Some provided a number of paragraphs; others a single sentence; one respondent – the previous Director of Nationwide Intelligence James Clapper – gave a two-word (and never so hopeful) reply.

Taken collectively, they’ve given us a lot to consider, as 2024 attracts to an in depth and the brand new 12 months beckons. We hope they add notes of hope to your vacation season as properly. 

Gen. Petraeus: The tempo of America’s technological innovativeness, the emergence of massively spectacular entrepreneurial younger leaders on this nation, and the essential qualities and attributes of the U.S. financial ecosystem are all sources of monumental hope, regardless of the return of geopolitics with a vengeance and the sheer variety of complexities within the challenges world wide.

Basic Frank McKenzie (Ret.)

Gen. McKenzie (Ret.) is Govt Director of the College of South Florida’s World and Nationwide Safety Institute. In July 2022, he additionally grew to become the Govt Director of the Florida Middle for Cybersecurity, also referred to as Cyber Florida.  He’s the previous Commander, United States Central Command. Gen. McKenzie was commissioned into the Marine Corps and skilled as an infantry officer.

Gen. McKenzie: There’s hope within the Center East, and what has occurred to Iran. The decapitation of Lebanese Hezbollah has eliminated Iran’s strategic hedge in opposition to Israel. The failure of two Iranian missile and drone assaults on Israel laid naked their offensive inadequacies earlier than the world. The Israeli response has highlighted the rising technological hole between Israel and Iran. The sudden demise of Bashar al-Assad’s Syria is a becoming finish to what has confirmed to be a disastrous 12 months for Iran. Each foundational ingredient of Iranian safety coverage has been examined — and located wanting.

John McLaughlin

John McLaughlin is the Distinguished Practitioner in Residence on the Johns Hopkins College of Superior Worldwide Research (SAIS).  He served as each Appearing Director and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Company. McLaughlin served as a U.S. Military Officer within the Nineteen Sixties, with service in Vietnam.

McLaughlin: There’s maybe a ray of hope within the weakening of Iran and the weakening of Hezbollah because of their conflicts with Israel. Neither is in a really robust place to proceed creating instability within the Center East. The collapse of the Assad authorities in Syria is said to this and could also be a supply of hope or despair, relying on what the brand new authorities chooses to do and with whom it chooses to ally. 

Nick Fishwick

Nick Fishwick CMG retired after almost thirty years within the British International Service. His postings included Lagos, Istanbul and Kabul. His tasks in London included director of safety and, after coming back from Afghanistan in 2007, he served as director for counter-terrorism. His last position was as director normal for worldwide operations.

Fishwick: 2024 was a brutal 12 months, however I discovered some comfort: first, the strategic downgrading of the capabilities of Hamas and Hezbollah should be good for regional safety within the Center East, as a result of they need to imply a decisive setback for Iran’s regional ambitions. Secondly, a 12 months in the past observers frightened about elections in 2024 and whether or not democracy was below risk, not least within the U.S. So it was one thing that elections on each side of the pond labored with outcomes that had been accepted and most of the people realizing that in the event that they didn’t just like the outcomes – properly, that’s democracy. On the identical time, continued meddling in inside politics by malicious actors – have a look at Georgia and Romania – have to be countered aggressively.

Extra broadly it appears to me that the most effective playing cards – technological, financial, political – are nonetheless in western palms. We should always believe in our values – free speech, democracy, pluralism – as a result of different international locations endure for his or her absence. We want leaders who’ve an appreciation of how energy works within the fashionable world and who will use it in defence of these values. We want western governments who will use this energy a bit extra assertively, quite than apologize for it.

Linda Weissgold

Linda Weissgold spent 37-years at CIA. Earlier than the 9/11 terrorist assaults, she was an analyst and chief of analytic applications targeted on the Center East. She served as head of the CIA’s Workplace of Terrorism Evaluation and helped to determine Usama Bin Laden’s location and the rise of ISIS. For greater than two years, she served as President George W. Bush’s intelligence briefer.

Weissgold: Whereas there may be prone to be a rising hole within the years forward between what folks demand and what governments can ship, it’s exhausting to not be optimistic about our future when interacting with the American personal sector and proficient college students. The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and properly, and if we, as a society, demand the assets, I’ve little doubt that the personal sector will reply positively and shortly. I’m already seeing indicators that the expertise is evolving to offer extra transparency for many who wish to discover different views, learn unique sources, and guarantee that pictures haven’t been doctored. I even have simply accomplished my first semester instructing at Texas A&M’s Bush College of Authorities and Public Service in Washington, DC. I can’t assist however be impressed by a brand new technology all for answering the decision for public service to make the world a greater and safer place.

Ralph Goff

Ralph Goff is a 35-year veteran of the CIA the place he was a 6-time Chief of Station with intensive service in Europe, the Center East, and Central and South Asia together with a number of conflict zones. He served as Chief of Operations for Europe and Eurasia. Goff additionally served as Chief of CIA’s Nationwide Sources Division, working extensively with “C Suite” degree US personal sector executives within the monetary, banking, and safety sectors.

Goff: The standard of younger-generation members in each the U.S. intelligence neighborhood and the U.S. Particular Navy Operations Command. They’re tech-savvy – much more so than my technology will ever be. They’re intellectually curious however much more skeptical than was my technology. This skepticism means they have a tendency to query authority – generally possibly an excessive amount of. Nonetheless, when their older technology leaders earn their belief – and their belief is earned, not merely given – they’re able to following orders and finishing up probably the most difficult duties. I’m very optimistic concerning the subsequent technology of younger leaders each in authorities and the navy in addition to within the personal sector.

Ambassador Joseph DeTrani

Ambassador Joseph DeTrani served because the U.S. Consultant to the Korea Vitality Growth Group (KEDO), in addition to former CIA director of East Asia Operations. He additionally served as Affiliate Director of Nationwide Intelligence and Mission Supervisor for North Korea, was the Particular Envoy for the Six-Get together Talks with North Korea, and served because the Director of the Nationwide Counter Proliferation Middle, ODNI.  He presently serves on the Board of Managers at Sandia Nationwide Laboratories.

Amb. DeTrani: That China and the U.S. notice that there are a myriad of world safety points on which we are able to and may collaborate: Pandemics, local weather change, drug trafficking, nuclear proliferation, worldwide organized crime, and worldwide terrorism. 

In the meantime, China’s Xi Jinping will notice {that a} navy transfer in opposition to Taiwan will not be in China’s curiosity, so long as Taiwan doesn’t declare independence. And whereas Xi Jinping’s plan to make China the preeminent international energy by 2049 will persist in propaganda, in actuality, China will face huge financial and home political points that may show tough to handle, making certain that China won’t ever be the preeminent international energy. This, whereas the U.S. economic system continues to develop, and other people in additional international locations, together with China, notice that dictatorships/autocracies don’t profit the folks or the nation. Nations will aspire to be democratic, regardless of brutal efforts by dictators and despots to cease them.

Paula Doyle

Paula Doyle served as Assistant Deputy Director for Operations at CIA, the place she oversaw worldwide HUMINT operations and actions that required using air, land, maritime, space-based and cyber applied sciences. She was the Deputy Nationwide Counterintelligence Govt from 2012-2014, the place she oversaw the official US Injury Evaluation ensuing from Non-public Manning’s 2010 unauthorized disclosures to Wikileaks and led the IC’s intensive evaluation of Edward Snowden’s unauthorized disclosures and defection to Russia. She led three CIA stations in Europe, the Levant, and Asia.

Doyle: Within the Center East, the brand new administration can set bolder insurance policies. First, shortly finish the violence in Israel, Lebanon and Gaza, and rush in huge deliveries of “made within the USA” meals, water, blankets, and shelter in order that on a regular basis folks affected by the wars can go residence — visibly seeing a proactive position by the US. Second, mount a devoted messaging marketing campaign that exposes Tehran’s lengthy monitor report of failure wherever it has gone —  e.g., power instability, wholesale destruction, human struggling, and limitless wars affecting tens of millions of on a regular basis households. U.S. messaging ought to affiliate Iran with a future that guarantees instability, destruction, and struggling. The messages ought to encourage the folks of the area to make higher selections. Third, the U.S. ought to determine elected leaders in Lebanon and Iraq who’re keen responsible Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, and Kata’ib Hezbollah for inflicting such profound hurt to their folks. As these three targets fall into place, the U.S. ought to decide to serving to trusted Iraqi and Lebanese actors confront inside corruption and terrorism, rebuild wrecked buildings and infrastructures, and restore market-based financial practices.    

In 2024, Ukraine conquered part of Russian territory and broken and/or destroyed Russian munitions depots and air airfields in ways in which ought to give Kyiv a stronger place from which to barter the return of some or all of japanese Ukraine and Crimea. If each side ought to agree to barter, Moscow and Kyiv might arrive at a ceasefire association and a inexperienced zone demarcation that UN peacekeepers might monitor and implement. Two fashionable ceasefire preparations come to thoughts as attainable fashions:  Kosovo and Cyprus.  Neither ceasefire settlement has been honest to 1000’s of separated households, misplaced properties and companies, and empty chairs at numerous tables; each ceasefires, nonetheless, have resulted in a long time of relative peace and prosperity between opponents.  

If sovereignty stays the coin of the civilized society’s realm, Russia will withdraw; nations holding frozen or ceased Russian belongings ought to be allowed to realign them to the reconstruction of Ukraine. That is extra hope than chance.

If Russia will get to maintain one inch of Ukraine, nonetheless, (because it has carried out vis-a-vis South Ossetia since 2008), sovereignty will erode and grow to be an appeasement device that may function a mannequin for China to grow to be extra aggressive with Taiwan and its ambitions within the South China Sea.  Appeasement is a coverage born of concern, fatigue, weak point, and doubt.  It’s un-American.  Sovereignty should prevail.  Slava Ukraini.

Nick Thompson

Nick Thompson is a former CIA Paramilitary Case Officer and Naval Particular Warfare Growth Group operator. With over 20 years of expertise within the nationwide safety area, Nick has performed numerous clandestine operations and fight deployments with a major focus within the Center East and Asia. He has recurrently navigated and led overseas intelligence assortment and covert motion initiatives by constructing networks with a various vary of stakeholders. He now works in Washington D.C. at Anduril Industries, a number one protection expertise firm, searching for to deliver leading edge functionality to intelligence and protection professionals alike.

Thompson: Continued, swift and enhanced multilateral cooperation. Finland and Sweden, welcome to NATO. The AUKUS (the U.S., UK, and Australia) safety partnership continues to progress and can pave the best way for formidable and floor breaking expertise to achieve finish customers at velocity. The landmark Abraham Accords between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain have grown to incorporate Morocco and Sudan. Hopefully Saudi Arabia is subsequent to hitch. South Korea and Japan, two strategically essential international locations, are shifting collectively cautiously and collaborating on intelligence and protection once more. Whereas these alliances tackle terrorism, promote financial stability and progress, and plenty of different issues, their most essential position is sending a message of deterrence to our most succesful adversaries.

Ellen McCarthy

Ellen McCarthy is Chairwoman and CEO of the Belief in Media Cooperative. She has over three a long time of nationwide safety service in quite a lot of management roles that span quite a few intelligence organizations, most lately serving because the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Intelligence and Analysis. She’s presently a senior fellow on the Belfer Middle at Harvard College.

McCarthy: Heading into 2025 there are a lot of causes to be hopeful.  The identical developments in AI that problem the data ecosystem are additionally driving breakthroughs in healthcare, science, training and protection. Improvements in AI, quantum computing and cyber safety will bolster nationwide safety capabilities, enhancing risk detection and determination making precision.  

Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper (Ret.)

Lt. Gen. James Clapper served from 2010 – 2017 because the Director of Nationwide Intelligence. He served in two administrations because the Underneath Secretary of Protection for Intelligence and directed the Nationwide Imagery and Mapping Company (NIMA), remodeling it into the Nationwide Geospatial-Intelligence Company (NGA).

Lt. Gen. Clapper: Not a lot.

Emile Nakhleh

Dr. Emile Nakhleh is a retired Senior Intelligence Service Officer, a founding director of the CIA’s Political Islam Strategic Evaluation Program and the World and the Nationwide Safety Coverage Institute on the College of New Mexico. Since retiring from the federal government, Nakhleh has consulted on nationwide safety points, notably Islamic radicalization, terrorism, and the Arab states of the Center East. He’s a life member of the Council on International Relations.

Nakhleh: On the threat of sounding pollyannish, I might flag a number of hopeful potentialities:

Donald Trump’s proclivities, and attainable insurance policies, to finish regional conflicts, notably between Russia and Ukraine and between Israel and its neighbors; a attainable path towards a two-state answer in Israel/Palestine; an surprising rapprochement between Israel and Iran and concomitantly between Iran and its Gulf Arab neighbors; and a extra steady interval of world commerce regardless of Trump’s risk of tariffs. 

Any of the above optimistic situations can be undermined by the emergence of a number of surprising and probably disruptive wild playing cards. These might embrace: Coordinated rogue use of AI and cyber warfare by non-state actors, which the present international order is likely to be unable to fight or neutralize; ascendant BRICS and different worldwide groupings that would undercut America’s affect and financial dominance regionally and globally. Trump’s risk to impose 100% tariffs on BRICS member states can be ineffective and positively dangerous to international order and worldwide commerce and banking; Israel and Iran (and their proxies) might reject all makes an attempt at rapprochement and as an alternative careen towards all-out regional conflict. 

Learn extra expert-driven nationwide safety insights, perspective and evaluation in The Cipher Temporary.