Show Notes
Vulnerability disclosure is no longer just a technical process—it’s a diplomatic act. As cyber vulnerabilities become currency in the geopolitical marketplace, decisions about whether to patch or exploit are reshaping alliances, sowing distrust within coalitions, and forcing a reckoning with the norms of responsible state behavior. This post explores the inner workings of the U.S. Vulnerabilities Equities Process (VEP), coalition frictions over zero-day handling, and how cyber risk management choices are warping traditional diplomatic trust structures.
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Read in isolation, today's news is a single, unattributed incident: UKMTO reports a projectile struck a vessel transiting the Strait of Hormuz, starting a fire and forcing an evacuation, with Iranian state media saying one crew member died and three were injured (Reuters 2026; Anadolu Ajansı 2026). Read against the last six months, it is the latest data point in something considerably larger — and the framing that matters is not "what happened today" but "what happened to the workarounds."
Europe is counting incidents. The number that actually matters is the one Moscow still hasn't crossed.
The SVR's final volume covers détente through the Soviet collapse and its own 1991 rebirth — and reveals its own tell: an institution that judges its Cold War record by counting Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, and the Walker family rather than by the state it was actually protecting.
Volume V of the SVR's official history covers 1945–1965 as a story of institutional whiplash — four service reorganizations, a self-inflicted purge under Beria, and a run of marquee human assets whose Cold War careers ended the same way: betrayed from within, not out-spied from without.