Hoover Institution fellow Amy Zegart notes that the threat environment the United States confronts today is unprecedented.

Condoleezza Rice has openly criticised the Obama administration for signing a nuclear arms deal with Iran calling it a “$100bn pact to destabilise the Middle East”.

Vladimir Putin has embarked on Russia’s first military action outside the former Soviet Union, and he must now convince Russian people that his intervention in Syria is necessary and in Russia’s best interests. In his three previous propaganda-driven military ventures—the second Chechen war, Georgia and Crimea/East Ukraine—Putin has gained popularity. The Russian president must be counting on Syria to maintain his current ratings, an all-time high of near 90%.

National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command Director Admiral Michael Rogers spent the day in Pittsburgh on Monday, making stops at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh as well as the National Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance. Kiron Skinner, Hoover Institution fellow and director of the Institute for Politics and Strategy at CMU, moderated the conversation. “It was an open, unscripted dialogue about privacy, security (and) civil liberties, all of the issues that have popped up in our national conversation since the Edward Snowden leaks,” she said.