Cache Me If You Can

Europe’s Cyber Deterrence Dilemma: Countering Russia in the Gray Zone

In this episode of Cache Me if You Can, we explore how cyber conflict and hybrid warfare are reshaping the European security landscape. As Russian operations increasingly blur the line between peace and war, Europe faces mounting pressure to rethink how it approaches deterrence, resilience, and competition in the digital age. Our guest, Dr. Alexander Klimburg, joins us to discuss his recent report, Enter Europe’s Cyber Deterrence, and unpack the evolving nature of Russian hybrid campaigns. We examine how cyber operations, disinformation, sabotage, and information warfare work together to erode political cohesion and apply persistent pressure below the threshold of conventional conflict. The conversation explores Europe’s current response strategy—built around norms, regulation, resilience, and limited punishment—and why these tools may be insufficient against compellence-oriented adversaries. We also discuss the growing uncertainty surrounding long-term U.S. support for European security and what Europe’s dependence on American cyber capabilities means for the future of deterrence. Finally, we examine Klimburg’s proposal for a European Cyber Operations Group (ECOG), a coalition-based model designed to strengthen Europe’s ability to conduct coordinated counter-hybrid operations and operate more effectively in the gray zone.

Innovation to Deployment: Fixing the Pentagon’s Acquisition Gap

In this episode of Cache Me if You Can, we examine a core challenge at the heart of U.S. technology competition: the Pentagon’s struggle to procure and field emerging technologies at the speed of innovation. Our guest, Jerry McGinn, joins us to unpack the Department of Defense’s latest push to transform its acquisition system, an effort aimed at accelerating how the military identifies, buys, and deploys capabilities in areas like AI, cyber, and autonomous systems. We explore why traditional procurement processes, built for slow-moving hardware programs, are ill-suited for today’s software-driven technologies, and what that means for U.S. competitiveness. The conversation also breaks down the Pentagon’s proposed reforms, from prioritizing commercial solutions to overhauling regulatory barriers, and assesses whether they can meaningfully close the gap between technological innovation and military deployment. Finally, we examine the broader implications for the defense industrial base, emerging tech companies, and U.S. allies, asking a central question: can the United States adapt its acquisition system fast enough to compete in an era defined by rapid technological change?

SpaceX vs. Huawei: Innovation, Power, and the New Tech Rivalry

In this episode of Cache Me if You Can, we examine how two of the world’s most influential companies, SpaceX and Huawei, are increasingly shaping the trajectory of global technology competition. Once operating in entirely separate domains, space infrastructure and telecommunications, these firms are now converging across critical frontiers, including AI, connectivity, and data ecosystems. Our guest, Eva Dou, is an award-winning journalist and the author of House of Huawei. Drawing on years of reporting on China’s political economy and technology sector, Eva unpacks how Huawei’s rise and its rivalry with U.S. firms offer a powerful lens into broader geopolitical competition. In this episode, we explore how space-based connectivity is challenging traditional terrestrial networks, why companies like SpaceX may be redefining infrastructure from orbit, and how both firms are becoming central to surveillance and data systems. This episode looks beyond individual companies to ask a bigger question: what do SpaceX and Huawei reveal about how the United States and China build, scale, and compete in the technologies that will define the future?

Iran’s Cyber Threat: What’s Real, What’s Noise and What Comes Ahead

In this episode of Cache Me if You Can, we examine Iran’s evolving cyber strategy and what recent activity reveals about the role of cyberspace in modern conflict. While headlines often highlight disruptive attacks and hacktivist activity, the reality of Iran’s cyber operations is more complex—blending state-backed actors, proxy groups, and information campaigns to shape perceptions, signal resolve, and complement activity across other domains. Our guests, Lauryn Williams, Deputy Director and Senior Fellow with the Strategic Technologies Program at CSIS; Dr. Nikita Shah, Senior Fellow with the Intelligence, National Security, and Technology Program at CSIS; and Lieutenant General (Ret.) Maria Barrett, former Commander of U.S. Army Cyber Command, bring deep expertise from government, military, and strategic policy roles. Together, they unpack how Iran calibrates cyber operations alongside information warfare, economic pressure, and geopolitical signaling. We discuss the distinction between high-volume cyber activity and operations that create meaningful strategic effects, including reported attacks on financial systems and the growing use of AI-enabled influence campaigns. The conversation also explores how cyber operations intersect with other tools of statecraft, why cyber activity alone rarely determines the trajectory of conflict, and what indicators may signal escalation in the months ahead.

From Cloud to AI: Engineering Next-Gen Data Centers

In this episode of Cache Me if You Can, we explore how artificial intelligence is driving an unprecedented expansion of data center infrastructure. While the cloud era transformed digital services, AI workloads are fundamentally changing how data centers must be designed, powered, and cooled. Our guest, Ty Schmitt, Vice President and Dell Fellow in Dell Technologies’ Infrastructure Solutions Group CTO organization, brings more than three decades of experience in server hardware, thermal design, and data center engineering. Drawing on his work shaping Dell’s data center technology and sustainability strategy, Ty explains why AI infrastructure is scaling so rapidly and what makes it technically different from the cloud systems that came before.   We discuss the engineering challenges behind high-power AI chips, the industry’s shift from air to liquid cooling, and how data center builders are adapting to rising energy demands and community concerns as AI infrastructure expands.