Secrets and Spies Podcast: Espionage | Global Issues | Current Affairs
- Épisodes
- 358
- Parution
- hebdomadaire
- Dernier épisode
- 14 Nov 2026
À propos du podcast
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode unpacks global events through the lens of intelligence and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and analysts. Tune in for balanced, critical perspectives that will expand your understanding of our uncertain world, deciphering the most enigmatic professions, ideologies, and organizations that shape the global landscape. Subscribe to Secrets and Spies today on all major podcast streaming platforms. Our Hosts Host Chris Carr, driven by a teenage encounter with former KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky, brings a unique authenticity to the podcast. His deep-seated fascination with espionage is evident in his highly acclaimed short spy film The Dry Cleaner, available on Apple TV and Amazon Prime. Currently developing feature film and television scripts inspired by the podcast's themes, Chris aims to create realistic and compelling spy dramas. Joining him is Matt Fulton, a novelist and screenwriter who draws inspiration from masters of the spy genre like John Le Carré, Tom Clancy, and Graham Greene. Author of the Active Measures series of globe-trotting geopolitical thrillers, Matt brings his decades of extensive research and narrative prowess to the podcast, offering listeners a front-row seat to the thrilling world of covert operations.
Épisodes 358
Princes and Thieves | Matthew Cole
Investigative journalist Matthew Cole joins Matt to discuss his new book, Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East. Drawing on more than fifty sources …
Notes de l’épisode
Investigative journalist Matthew Cole joins Matt to discuss his new book, Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East. Drawing on more than fifty sources, Cole traces how the UAE’s ruler cultivated Kushner, starting with a December 2016 meeting at a Manhattan hotel. He follows the middlemen who carried Emirati influence into Trump’s orbit, and the 2017 blockade of Qatar that nearly became an invasion. He also reports that Dutch intelligence watched Kushner access a Gulf-funded bank account on his iPhone, an allegation Kushner denies. With Kushner back at the center of American diplomacy and a new Congress arriving in January, they ask what accountability in Washington could look like, and argue that the allies taking advantage of America may not be the ones Trump has been blaming.
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Order Princes and Thieves: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Princes-and-Thieves/Matthew-Cole/9781668095324
Follow Matthew’s Substack, The Cole Report: https://matthewcole.substack.com/
Suggested YouTube titles
How the UAE Worked Its Way Into Trump’s White House | Matthew Cole
Jared Kushner, the UAE, and the Book He Calls “Completely Insane” | Matthew Cole
Are the UAE and Saudi Arabia the Allies Taking Advantage of America? | Matthew Cole
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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
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A Democratic Congress, a Lame-Duck President | Espresso Martini
After a midterm wave handed Democrats both houses of Congress, Chris and Matt, espresso martinis in hand, ask what the result changes for American national security. Matt lays out what the new majorities gain …
Notes de l’épisode
After a midterm wave handed Democrats both houses of Congress, Chris and Matt, espresso martinis in hand, ask what the result changes for American national security. Matt lays out what the new majorities gain in January, from subpoenas to the defense budget to confirmations, and what they don’t, as the Pentagon braces for a fight over who answers for the Iran war and Pete Hegseth’s future comes into question. Chris brings the view from Europe, where relief is tempered by doubt over whether voters rejected Trumpism or just gas prices, and where capitals are weighing how to work with Congress, manage the White House and plan for what comes after. Along the way: Elon Musk, Starlink and the limits of private power over public defense, and what the transatlantic relationship can realistically become.
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Articles discussed in today’s episode"Accountability Will Come – What Should It Look Like for the Department of Defense?" by Frank Kendall | Just Security: https://www.justsecurity.org/162162/accountability-will-come-department-of-defense/
"How Americans Defeated an Autocrat-in-Waiting" by Anne Applebaum | The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/11/future-democracy/689280/
"Trump asking advisers if Hegseth should stay after midterm losses, sources say" by Jennifer Jacobs and Emma Nicholson | CBS News: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-hegseth-midterm-election-losses/
"‘Knives out’ for Hegseth, other military leaders after Iran war dooms GOP" by Dan Lamothe, Tara Copp, Noah Robertson, and Katherine Doyle | The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/11/04/knives-out-pentagon-after-unpopular-iran-war-dooms-gop-midterms/
"After the midterms: Europe's three-pronged strategy for dealing with America" Giuseppe Spatafora | European Union Institute for Security Studies: https://www.iss.europa.eu/publications/commentary/after-midterms-europes-three-pronged-strategy-dealing-america
"Time to focus on cost of living, says PM after US election results" by Kate Whannel | BBC News: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6kgl0xk8en9o
"Why Europe shouldn’t celebrate a Democratic midterm victory" by Jamie Dettmer | Politico: https://www.politico.eu/article/why-europe-shouldnt-celebrate-democratic-us-midterm-victory/
"Even if US democracy can be salvaged from Trump, Europe is moving on" by Rafael Behr | The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/nov/03/us-democracy-donald-trump-europe-trust
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Secrets & Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photos by US Congress, Anadolu/Getty, Andrew Harnik/Getty
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Moscow’s Endgame in Its Long War with Washington, American Overthrow | Keir Giles
Keir Giles has spent his career explaining why Russia does what it does, as an adviser to governments and a senior fellow in Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Programme. He returns to talk with Chris about his …
Notes de l’épisode
Keir Giles has spent his career explaining why Russia does what it does, as an adviser to governments and a senior fellow in Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Programme. He returns to talk with Chris about his new book, American Overthrow: Moscow’s Endgame in Its Long War with Washington, which reads Trump’s second term through the lens of Kremlinology. Giles argues that the administration’s choices track closely with goals Russian strategists set out decades ago. He points to concentrating power in the presidency, dismantling the offices that guarded against foreign interference, pressing Ukraine toward a ceasefire and draining US munitions in Iran. He is equally careful about what the evidence cannot yet show: the mechanism connecting Moscow’s aims to Washington’s decisions. The conversation closes on 2028, and whether Trump follows Putin’s playbook on term limits.
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Order American Overthrow: https://hurstpublishers.com/book/american-overthrow/
More about Keir Giles: https://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/our-people/keir-giles
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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
#Spies #GeoPolitics #TrumpRussiaHosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
The Pentagon's Deep-Cover Plans, Israel's Deadlock, and China's Spaceplane | Espresso Martini
Chris and Matt open with two reports, from the Washington Post and Politico, that point to a more aggressive Pentagon intelligence posture: a planned deep-cover program with officers posing as businesspeople as …
Notes de l’épisode
Chris and Matt open with two reports, from the Washington Post and Politico, that point to a more aggressive Pentagon intelligence posture: a planned deep-cover program with officers posing as businesspeople as part of economic warfare against China, and a quietly created Technology Support Office built to sabotage rivals’ military technology. The Pentagon calls the reporting “simply not true.” They weigh which model of non-official cover the Pentagon might borrow, JSOC’s or the CIA’s, and what oversight should look like. From there: MI5 Director General Ken McCallum’s annual threat update and social media’s role in radicalization; Israel’s inconclusive election, which left neither Benjamin Netanyahu nor Gadi Eisenkot within reach of a majority; Austria’s expulsion of four Russian diplomats from Vienna, long a hub for Russian intelligence in Europe; and a Defense Intelligence Agency report with the clearest image yet of China’s secretive spaceplane.
Subscribe and share to stay ahead in the world of intelligence, global issues, and current affairs.Andrew R Bird Album "Automatopia" https://music.imusician.pro/a/xfpkGB99
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Articles discussed in today’s episode"Pentagon looks to build a deep-cover spy program to confront China" by Zach Dorfman & Warren P. Strobel | The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/10/21/pentagon-looks-build-deep-cover-spy-program-confront-china/
"The Pentagon is quietly building an elite new tech sabotage agency" by John Sakellariadis, Jack Detsch & Paul McLeary | Politico: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/22/technology-support-office-dod-tech-spyware-sabotage-01100327
“Unpacking MI5’s Warning on a ‘New Era’ of Security Threats” by Farah Pandith | Council on Foreign Relations: https://www.cfr.org/articles/unpacking-mi5s-warning-on-a-new-era-of-security-threats
“Israel’s Election: When Will We Know Who Will Be Prime Minister?” by Ephrat Livni | The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/world/middleeast/israel-election-guide-netanyahu-eisenkot.html
“Spies Suspected at Russian Embassy and OSCE Mission in Vienna. Austria Orders Four Diplomats to Leave” by Katherina Poplinichenko | United24 Media: https://united24media.com/world/spies-suspected-at-russian-embassy-and-osce-mission-in-vienna-austria-orders-four-diplomats-to-leave-23759
"U.S. Intel Confirms This Is China’s Secret Spaceplane" by Joseph Trevithick | The War Zone: https://www.twz.com/news-features/u-s-intel-confirms-this-is-chinas-secret-spaceplane
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Secrets & Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photos by Eric Lee/NYT, Canva, Aaron Favila/Reuters
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
The Human Side of Counterintelligence | Pete A. Turner former US Army Intelligence
Former U.S. Army counterintelligence special agent Pete Turner joins Chris for a conversation about what human intelligence actually looks like on the ground. Turner’s career ran from post–Cold War Germany and …
Notes de l’épisode
Former U.S. Army counterintelligence special agent Pete Turner joins Chris for a conversation about what human intelligence actually looks like on the ground. Turner’s career ran from post–Cold War Germany and Bosnia through Egypt in the weeks after 9/11 to Iraq and Afghanistan, and he explains why the work turned less on stealing secrets than on access: winning over wary commanders, building rapport with sheikhs and district governors, and treating interpreters as partners rather than mouthpieces. Along the way he recounts a meeting he later learned the Taliban had called to look him over, and a colleague’s hunt for a district’s shadow governor that ended at the governor’s own door. Turner, host of the Break It Down Show, closes on what the job taught him about human nature.
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Find Pete on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PeteATurner/streams
Listen to Pete’s podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/break-it-down-show/id941689175
https://open.spotify.com/show/1FcUXypxYsB2heFD3Q4gcm
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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photo by U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Cody Quinn
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Carlos the Jackal and the Return of Terror for Hire | Joby Warrick
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Joby Warrick covered national security for the Washington Post for nearly three decades. In his new book, The Jackal, he turns to Ilich Ramírez Sánchez—Carlos the Jackal—the …
Notes de l’épisode
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Joby Warrick covered national security for the Washington Post for nearly three decades. In his new book, The Jackal, he turns to Ilich Ramírez Sánchez—Carlos the Jackal—the Venezuelan who in the 1970s and '80s was the most famous terrorist in the world. Matt talks with Warrick about Carlos’s rise, from the audacious 1975 OPEC siege in Vienna to his years as a gun for hire in the Soviet bloc, and about the book’s sharpest argument: that Carlos was less a true believer than a narcissist in love with his own legend. They close on why his story matters now as the deniable, mercenary terror Carlos pioneered is back, in the contract attacks Russia and Iran are running across the West. Only this time, the hired hands have no wish to be famous.
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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photos by Jack Guez/AFP, AFP/Getty, Marvin Joseph/WaPo
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Podcast Update | This Weekend's Episode Coming Sunday
A quick programming note: this weekend’s episode will be out on Sunday, October 18, rather than our usual Saturday release. We’re taking an extra day in the edit on Matt’s conversation with national security …
Notes de l’épisode
A quick programming note: this weekend’s episode will be out on Sunday, October 18, rather than our usual Saturday release. We’re taking an extra day in the edit on Matt’s conversation with national security reporter Joby Warrick about Carlos the Jackal, the Venezuelan-born militant who became one of the Cold War’s most wanted men. Thanks for your patience, and we’ll see you Sunday.
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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
RAF Fairford, Flydubai, and the FBI | Espresso Martini
Chris and Matt start at RAF Fairford, where the arrest of five men outside the US bomber base, their swift release on bail, and a widening inquiry into possible Iranian involvement were followed by the abrupt …
Notes de l’épisode
Chris and Matt start at RAF Fairford, where the arrest of five men outside the US bomber base, their swift release on bail, and a widening inquiry into possible Iranian involvement were followed by the abrupt return of all twelve American B-1Bs to the United States. They turn to flydubai Flight 1072, where the co-pilot attacked his captain with the cockpit crash axe en route to Tel Aviv, and to the reported red flags that didn’t follow him from one airline to the next. In Germany, former BND president August Hanning has been arrested on suspicion of espionage and treason, allegedly fed classified files by a serving insider. And ShinyHunters’ breach of the FBI’s jobs portal may have exposed the home addresses and assignments of Bureau personnel. They close with what the summer’s listener survey told them.
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Articles discussed in today’s episode
"Amateurism and organisation’: Iran’s potential role in RAF Fairford incident" by Charles Clover | Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/7a91fa6b-e908-4a28-b04f-02d5a10a6bb1
"No 10 insists RAF Fairford is safe after US withdraws its bombers from base" by Dan Sabbagh & Aletha Adu | The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/05/no-10-says-raf-fairford-safe-us-withdraws-bombers-from-base
"B-1B Bombers Make Hasty Departure From England" by Howard Altman | The War Zone: https://www.twz.com/air/b-1b-bombers-make-hasty-departure-from-england
"RAF Fairford suspects were ‘just thieves syphoning fuel’, sources" by Daniel Jae Webb | Wiltshire999s: https://www.wiltshire999s.co.uk/raf-fairford-thieves-syphoning-fuel/
"UK-Iranian dual national arrested over RAF Fairford released on bail" by Olivia Ireland | BBC News: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6d095ygggv1o
"What happened inside the Flydubai flight to Israel?" by Mitchell McCluskey & Tal Shalev | CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/30/middleeast/flydubai-israel-plane-pilot-hijacking-incident-latam-hnk-intl
"Flydubai co-pilot originally planned attack for July, investigators believe" by Jason Burke & Stephanie Kirchgaessner | The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/05/flydubai-co-pilot-originally-planned-attack-for-july-investigators-believe
"German court orders detention of former intelligence chief after spying arrest" by Kate Connolly | The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/07/germany-court-august-hanning-spying-arrest-detention-bnd
"What to Know About the Hacking Group ShinyHunters and Its F.B.I. Breach" by Chris Cameron | The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/us/politics/shinyhunters-fbi-hacking-cybercriminal-group.html
"Embarrassing Breach at F.B.I. Fuels Fears of Harm to Its Employees" by Dustin Volz, Alan Feuer, Charlie Savage & Adam Goldman | The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/28/us/politics/fbi-shinyhunters-damage.html
"What Should the U.S. Government Do in Response to the FBI Hack?" by Nikita Shah | CSIS: https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-should-us-government-do-response-fbi-hack
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Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photos by USAF/Senior Airman Colin Hollowell
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
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What the Next 10 Years Look Like: China, Russia, Europe and AI | Sam Lichtenstein RANE
Sam Lichtenstein, director of analysis at the global risk intelligence firm RANE, returns to walk Chris through RANE's 2025–2035 decade forecast: a multipolar world in which no great power has the will or the …
Notes de l’épisode
Sam Lichtenstein, director of analysis at the global risk intelligence firm RANE, returns to walk Chris through RANE's 2025–2035 decade forecast: a multipolar world in which no great power has the will or the means to set the rules. The big calls include a China turned inward by economic and demographic strain even as its coercion of Taiwan intensifies; a Europe pushed toward integration as the American security anchor weakens; a Russia that won't remain a pariah forever; intra-Sunni rivalry reshaping the Middle East; and global jihad's center of gravity settling in the Sahel. They also cover AI's disruption of white-collar work, climate change as a threat multiplier, and a splintering internet. Throughout, Sam is candid about the limits of the exercise, including why the Iran war, which dominates the present, may not define the decade.
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Read RANE’s 2025-2035 decade forecast here: https://go.ranenetwork.com/decade-forecast-overview-lp
More about RANE: https://www.ranenetwork.com/
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Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photo by Saul Loeb/Getty
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
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Russia’s worldview, disinformation, and the politics of influence | Dave Troy
Every week, the Security Council of the Russian Federation publishes a digest of world events as Moscow sees them. Investigative journalist Dave Troy has been reading them closely, and he argues they matter not …
Notes de l’épisode
Every week, the Security Council of the Russian Federation publishes a digest of world events as Moscow sees them. Investigative journalist Dave Troy has been reading them closely, and he argues they matter not because they’re accurate, but because they show the story the Kremlin tell itself and its allies. Dave returns to the show to talk with Chris about his piece "What Russia Believes." His central claim is that the Kremlin sees the war in Ukraine less as a fight over territory than as a contest over the shape of the world order itself — and its real campaign is the slow export of that worldview into the West through proxies and information warfare, a war the West has been slow to recognize as one. They also get into why Washington keeps misreading Moscow, the spiritual and conspiratorial currents Putin curates rather than invents, and how "sovereignty," disinformation, and even UFO culture serve the same end.
Subscribe and share to stay ahead in the world of intelligence, global issues, and current affairs.Read Dave’s article, "What Russia Believes: Weekly Reports Reveal the Kremlin's Distorted Worldview": https://america2.news/what-russia-believes-weekly-reports-reveal-the-kremlins-distorted-worldview/
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Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photo by Sergei Bobylev / TASS
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
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The Stay Behinds: Sweden’s Cold War Guardians | Johan Wennström
Beginning in 1949, officially non-aligned Sweden did something it kept secret for half a century: in close cooperation with the CIA and MI6, it built a clandestine civilian resistance network meant to outlast a …
Notes de l’épisode
Beginning in 1949, officially non-aligned Sweden did something it kept secret for half a century: in close cooperation with the CIA and MI6, it built a clandestine civilian resistance network meant to outlast a Soviet occupation and fight on from within. Its members were ordinary people, farmers, salesmen, gamekeepers, organized into cells that never met. In this episode, Matt talks with Johan Wennström of the Swedish Defence University, whose book The Stay Behinds: Sweden’s Cold War Guardians is the first in-depth English account of the network — the tradecraft, the human cost, and why it suddenly speaks to a Europe at war and a Sweden newly inside NATO during the alliance’s most uncertain moment in a generation.
Subscribe and share to stay ahead in the world of intelligence, global issues, and current affairs.Order The Stay Behinds: https://www.ospreypublishing.com/us/stay-behinds-9781472877567/
Read Johan’s Substack, "Our Man in Stockholm": https://johanwennstrom.substack.com/
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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photo by Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP, Johan Wennström
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
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The Nerd Reich | Gil Durán
Journalist Gil Durán spent years in political consulting before returning to reporting, and eventually, to the beat that became the subject of his book, The Nerd Reich. He joins Chris to lay out his case that a …
Notes de l’épisode
Journalist Gil Durán spent years in political consulting before returning to reporting, and eventually, to the beat that became the subject of his book, The Nerd Reich. He joins Chris to lay out his case that a corner of Silicon Valley has turned against democracy itself — an ideology he traces from the 1997 book The Sovereign Individual, through neo-reactionary blogger Curtis Yarvin, to Balaji Srinivasan’s "network state" — with Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Vice President J.D. Vance at its center. His argument, Durán insists, rests on what these men have said on the record: that democracy is obsolete, that a "cognitive elite" should rule, that crypto and AI will dissolve the nation-state. He contends the movement is losing the public even as it gains power, and that the 2026 midterms will test whether that still counts.
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Order The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy:
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Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photo by Jessica Christian/Getty, Gil Durán
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
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Ratcliffe’s Moscow Warning, Iran’s Long Reach, and an Alliance on Edge | Espresso Martini
Chris and Matt open season eleven, and Secrets & Spies’ tenth anniversary, with three stories from a busy August. First, CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s trip to Moscow, a rare visit by an agency chief since Bill …
Notes de l’épisode
Chris and Matt open season eleven, and Secrets & Spies’ tenth anniversary, with three stories from a busy August. First, CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s trip to Moscow, a rare visit by an agency chief since Bill Burns went in 2021, reportedly carrying a blunt warning against testing NATO amid U.S. assessments that a cornered Russia might attempt a limited probe of the alliance. Then, a New Yorker investigation into how Iran now reaches its critics abroad by renting the local underworld — Romanian petty criminals, teenagers recruited over Snapchat — a "cutout of a cutout" model built to defeat the way security services watch known threats. Finally, they discuss a new Foreign Affairs piece that pushes back against transatlantic-alliance fatalism.
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Articles discussed in today’s episode
"Claims Swirl Around CIA Director’s Reason For Secret Moscow Visit, Nearly All Of Them Are Terrifying" by Howard Altman & Tyler Rogoway | The War Zone: https://www.twz.com/news-features/claims-swirl-around-cia-directors-reason-for-secret-moscow-visit-nearly-all-of-them-are-terrifying
"CIA Director Ratcliffe Lands in Moscow Aboard C-17 With New Mobile SCIF" by Scott McCain | Tech Times: https://www.techtimes.com/articles/325483/20260825/cia-director-ratcliffe-lands-moscow-aboard-c-17-new-mobile-scif.htm
"Iran Is Using Foreign Criminals to Attack Its Critics Overseas" by Cora Engelbrecht | The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/iran-is-using-foreign-criminals-to-attack-its-critics-overseas
"How Alliances Survive: The Case Against Pessimism and the Path to a New Allied Order" by Kurt M. Campbell & Rush Doshi | Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/how-alliances-survive-campbell-doshi
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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photos by AP/John McDonnell & Tom Brenner
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
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A Rebel, a Traitor, and the Birth of the IRA | Rory Carroll
Before Bletchley Park, there was Reginald "Blinker" Hall, the Admiralty’s mercurial intelligence chief whose codebreakers read Germany’s wireless traffic during World War I, giving Britain a front-row seat to …
Notes de l’épisode
Before Bletchley Park, there was Reginald "Blinker" Hall, the Admiralty’s mercurial intelligence chief whose codebreakers read Germany’s wireless traffic during World War I, giving Britain a front-row seat to the plot behind the 1916 Easter Rising. His target was Sir Roger Casement: a diplomat knighted for exposing colonial atrocities, turned Irish rebel, caught after a U-boat put him ashore in Kerry. Rory Carroll, The Guardian’s Ireland correspondent and acclaimed author of Killing Thatcher, joins Chris to trace the manhunt — and Casement’s "Black Diaries," the still-contested record of his private life that Hall leaked to break a clemency campaign in an early act of information warfare. A century on, Casement’s bones and his reputation remain unfinished business between Britain and Ireland.
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Order Rory’s book, A Rebel and a Traitor: A Fugitive, the Manhunt and the Birth of the IRA: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FS44H5RZ
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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photos by Hulton Archive, Bettmann
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Ortiz’s War: The Most Decorated Marine in the OSS | Nicholas Reynolds & Katie S. Sanders
Peter J. Ortiz was the most battle-decorated member of the OSS, America’s wartime forerunner to the CIA, and one of the most decorated Marines of the Second World War. In 1944, the former French Foreign …
Notes de l’épisode
Peter J. Ortiz was the most battle-decorated member of the OSS, America’s wartime forerunner to the CIA, and one of the most decorated Marines of the Second World War. In 1944, the former French Foreign Legionnaire twice parachuted into occupied France to arm the Maquis, sabotage German lines, and feed intelligence to London ahead of D-Day. Chris speaks with former Marine and CIA historian Nicholas Reynolds and journalist Katie S. Sanders—whose grandfather, a downed airman, was among those Ortiz rescued—about their book Ortiz’s War, and the moment when Ortiz surrendered to a hundred Germans to spare a village.
Subscribe and share to stay ahead in the world of intelligence, global issues, and current affairs.Order Ortiz’s War: https://www.harpercollinsfocus.com/harper-horizon/ortizs-war/
More about Nicholas and Katie on their websites:
https://www.nicholasreynoldsauthor.com/
https://www.katiessanders.com/
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Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photos by Marine Corps History Division, Imperial War Museums
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
How GPS Became a Weapon | Katherine Dunn
GPS is the rare piece of infrastructure most of us never think about until it fails — and it is failing more often, in more places, by design. In Little Blue Dot: How GPS Shaped the Modern World, journalist …
Notes de l’épisode
GPS is the rare piece of infrastructure most of us never think about until it fails — and it is failing more often, in more places, by design. In Little Blue Dot: How GPS Shaped the Modern World, journalist Katherine Dunn traces the system from its Cold War origins — wartime radio beams, Vietnam's precision-bombing problem, the Soviet shock of Sputnik — to its current role underpinning modern life, governing not just where we are but the precise time that keeps power grids, markets, and supply chains in sync. Chris talks with Dunn about how a taxpayer-funded military tool became invisible civilian scaffolding, and how it turned into a battlefield: Russian jamming and spoofing from the Black Sea to the Baltics, ships that appear at airports, a drone war fought over the electromagnetic spectrum, and what it means when certainty itself becomes a target.
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Order Little Blue Dot: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/little-blue-dot-how-the-global-positioning-system-shaped-the-modern-world-katherine-dunn/c5ae27c07c3864a5
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1639734317
Learn more about Katherine on her website: katherinedunn.me/
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Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photo by Katherine Dunn, Canva
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Meir Dagan, Mossad, and the Art of Intelligence | Samuel M. Katz
Samuel M. Katz is a New York Times bestselling author and one of the foremost chroniclers of Middle Eastern conflict, special operations, and intelligence. His latest book, The Architect of Espionage, is the …
Notes de l’épisode
Samuel M. Katz is a New York Times bestselling author and one of the foremost chroniclers of Middle Eastern conflict, special operations, and intelligence. His latest book, The Architect of Espionage, is the biography of Meir Dagan — the Holocaust survivor turned soldier turned spymaster who reshaped Mossad from a cautious intelligence collector into a direct-action force of global reach. Chris speaks with Katz about the experiences that forged Dagan: rejection from Israel's elite commando ranks, the undercover war he built in Gaza under Ariel Sharon, and the Lebanon fighting that made him a man of war who hated war. The conversation traces his eight-year tenure as Mossad director — the covert campaign against Iran, the intelligence diplomacy that helped lay the groundwork for the Abraham Accords — and what October 7th revealed about the limits of the very apparatus he built.
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Order The Architect of Espionage: The Man Who Built Israel's Mossad into the World's Boldest Intelligence Force: https://www.amazon.com/Architect-Espionage-Israels-Boldest-Intelligence-ebook/dp/B0DV6T6XDM/
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Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photo by Rex Features, Samuel M. Katz, Canva
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
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Inside the Imperial War Museums’ Spies, Lies and Deception Exhibition | Amanda Mason
Amanda Mason is a senior curator of contemporary conflict at the Imperial War Museums, where she previously worked on the museum's acclaimed Secret War gallery. Chris speaks with her about Spies, Lies and …
Notes de l’épisode
Amanda Mason is a senior curator of contemporary conflict at the Imperial War Museums, where she previously worked on the museum's acclaimed Secret War gallery. Chris speaks with her about Spies, Lies and Deception, the IWM's major exhibition on espionage and military deception now showing at IWM North in Manchester until August 31. Drawing on more than sixty original objects, documents, and artifacts — from Operation Mincemeat's pocket litter and Noor Inayat Khan's letters from occupied France to the Portland Spy Ring's suburban cover and the Trent Park eavesdropping operation — the exhibition traces deception from the trenches of the First World War through Cold War suburbia to Bellingcat's open-source unmasking of the Salisbury poisoners and today's deepfake threats, asking not just how deception works but what it costs the people who practice it.
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Explore the IWM’s Spies, Lies and Deception exhibition: https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/spies-lies-and-deception-iwm-north
Watch this episode on YouTube to see exclusive footage from the Exhibition: https://youtu.be/WTLxI5s4qgA
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Music by Andrew R. Bird
Illustration by Katherine Tromans
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
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Political Violence on the Rise and Israel's Plot to Install Ahmadinejad | Espresso Martini
For years, according to a New York Times report, Mossad quietly cultivated former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Holocaust denier who once called for Israel's destruction, as the man it hoped to …
Notes de l’épisode
For years, according to a New York Times report, Mossad quietly cultivated former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Holocaust denier who once called for Israel's destruction, as the man it hoped to install in Tehran. The plan collapsed on the opening day of the war, when he lost his nerve in a Mossad safe house. Chris and Matt trace how a run of tactical brilliance curdled into strategic fantasy, then turn to Pickaxe Mountain — the buried nuclear site Trump keeps threatening to strike, but that even America's largest bunker-buster may not reach — and ask whether hitting it ends anything. They also examine how Japan has become a haven for Russian procurement networks supporting its war machine in Ukraine, and the forces driving political violence across the West after the killing of Ann Widdecombe, before closing on the life of the late James Woolsey, Bill Clinton's first CIA director.
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For more information about the podcast, check out our website: https://secretsandspiespodcast.comArticles discussed in today’s episode
"‘It becomes inevitable’: the toxic mix fuelling deadly political violence around world" by John Henley | The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jul/18/inevitable-toxic-mix-fuelling-deadly-political-violence-world
"Inside Israel’s Secret Operation to Cultivate Ahmadinejad" by Mark Mazzetti, Julian E. Barnes, Farnaz Fassihi & Ronen Bergman | The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/13/us/politics/israel-mahmoud-ahmadinejad-iran.html
"Israel Thought It Could Spur Rebellion Inside Iran. That Hasn’t Happened." by Mark Mazzetti, Julian E. Barnes, Edward Wong & Ronen Bergman | The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/22/us/politics/iran-israel-trump-netanyahu-mossad.html
"Trump’s Threat To Strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain Bunker’s 'Front Door' Underscores Targeting Challenges" by Joseph Trevithick | The War Zone: https://www.twz.com/news-features/trumps-threat-to-strike-irans-pickaxe-mountain-bunkers-front-door-underscores-targeting-challenges
"How Putin Turned Japan Into a Den of Spies" by Jane Bradley, Michael Schwirtz & Adam Goldman | The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/12/world/asia/russia-spies-japan-war-drones-electronics.html
"A Russian Spy, Suddenly Cast Into the Spotlight, Flees Japan" by Michael Schwirtz, Adam Goldman & Jane Bradley | The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/23/world/asia/russian-spy-flees-japan.html (published after recording)
"James Woolsey, CIA director under Bill Clinton, dies at 84" by Bob Drogin | The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2026/07/21/james-woolsey-cia-director-under-bill-clinton-dies-84/
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Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photos by Fatemah Bahrami/Anadolu, Ebrahim Noroozi/APSecrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
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Putin’s Survival Machine | Sean Wiswesser
Every few months, a rumor or prediction suggests Vladimir Putin is finally cornered — a purge, a battlefield setback, a grim Victory Day parade. Former senior CIA officer Sean Wiswesser, author of Tradecraft …
Notes de l’épisode
Every few months, a rumor or prediction suggests Vladimir Putin is finally cornered — a purge, a battlefield setback, a grim Victory Day parade. Former senior CIA officer Sean Wiswesser, author of Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks, says the West keeps mistaking Russia's elite infighting for weakness. Drawing on his recent Foreign Policy and Cipher Brief essays, he joins Matt to map the authoritarian machine Putin built to survive exactly these moments — the layered security state, the loyalty he fosters rather than assumes, and why the 2023 Wagner mutiny revealed his regime's strength rather than its cracks. Then the question the survival playbook never answers: what happens the morning Putin is gone, and why the West is watching the wrong people.
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Order Sean’s book, Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks: Russian Intelligence and Putin’s Secret War: https://www.amazon.com/Tradecraft-Tactics-Dirty-Tricks Intelligence/dp/1682476014/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0
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Read Sean’s writing on Putin’s regime
"Don’t Fall for Rumors of Putin’s Weakness" in Foreign Policy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/05/12/russia-putin-opposition-war-ukraine-fsb-security-services-dissidents-dissent-dictator-authoritarianism/
"After the War and After Putin: Three Potential Succession Scenarios for Russia’s Modern Tsar" in The Cipher Brief: https://www.thecipherbrief.com/after-the-war-after-putin
"Confronting Putin's continual escalation — between deterrence now or greater conflict later" in Tomorrow's Affairs: https://tomorrowsaffairs.com/confronting-putins-continual-escalation-between-deterrence-now-or-greater-conflict-laterPlease share this episode using these links
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Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photo by Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik/Reuters, Alexander Nemenov/AFP, Sean Wiswesser
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Germany Rewrites the Rules for its Spies | Florian Flade
For most of its history, Germany's foreign intelligence service was built to watch, not to act — a constraint rooted in the country's experience of the Gestapo and the Stasi. A sweeping draft law would change …
Notes de l’épisode
For most of its history, Germany's foreign intelligence service was built to watch, not to act — a constraint rooted in the country's experience of the Gestapo and the Stasi. A sweeping draft law would change that, letting the BND conduct sabotage, covert interference, and offensive cyber operations for the first time. Chris speaks with German investigative journalist Florian Flade, among the first to report on the draft, about what's driving the overhaul — Russia's war and hybrid campaign, and eroding trust in Washington under Trump — and the unease that lingers around empowering services that once served dictatorships.
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Articles by Florianhttps://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/ndr-wdr/bnd-gesetz-befugnisse-100.html
https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/ndr-wdr/bnd-gesetz-befugnisse-102.html
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Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photo by Christophe Gateau/AP
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Britain's Next PM, AI's Counterintelligence Problem, and Ukraine's Warrior-Witches | Espresso Martini
Britain is changing prime ministers again: Keir Starmer is out after two years, with Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham the favourite to replace him — inheriting an underfunded defence plan and the wreckage …
Notes de l’épisode
Britain is changing prime ministers again: Keir Starmer is out after two years, with Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham the favourite to replace him — inheriting an underfunded defence plan and the wreckage of Peter Mandelson's Epstein-tainted appointment, all of it driven by the fear of Reform. Chris and Matt then ask what happens when the mole is a machine, using Anthropic's Claude blackmail experiment and Melissa Graves's Lawfare essay to reframe AI in intelligence work as a counterintelligence problem. Finally, Ken Harbaugh's Atlantic report on Ukraine's "warrior-witches" — women running honeypots and directing drone strikes from occupied ground, where the oldest tradecraft still wins.
Trigger Warning: In the last story after the second AD Break there is mention of violence against women in the Russian War on UkraineSubscribe and share to stay ahead in the world of intelligence, global issues, and current affairs.
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Articles discussed in today’s episode
"Keir Starmer to step down as prime minister two years after historic election victory" by Pippa Crerar | The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/22/keir-starmer-resigns-as-prime-minister
"How UK's Keir Starmer went from election landslide to downfall" by Jill Lawless & Pan Pylas | Associated Press: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/how-uks-keir-starmer-went-from-election-landslide-to-downfall
"Andy Burnham soft-launches his premiership" by Dan Bloom | Politico Europe: https://www.politico.eu/article/andy-burnham-uk-soft-launches-his-premiership/
"Starmer backs 5 billion drone overhaul for UK forces in DIP" by George Allison | UK Defence Journal: https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/starmer-backs-5-billion-drone-overhaul-for-uk-forces-in-dip/
"The Next Counterintelligence Problem Is Artificial" by Melissa Graves | Lawfare: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-next-counterintelligence-problem-is-artificial
"The Warrior-Witches of Ukraine’s Resistance" by Ken Harbaugh | The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/06/underground-intelligence-network-russia-ukraine/687578/
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Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photos by Alamy, UK Government
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
The Guru, the Loyalist, and the DNI After Gabbard | Shane Harris
For most of her career, Tulsi Gabbard may have been taking direction from a reclusive Hawaii guru — the allegation at the center of a Washington Post investigation that shadowed her out of office as Director of …
Notes de l’épisode
For most of her career, Tulsi Gabbard may have been taking direction from a reclusive Hawaii guru — the allegation at the center of a Washington Post investigation that shadowed her out of office as Director of National Intelligence. Her replacement, federal housing-finance official Bill Pulte, arrived with no national security background and, as The Atlantic's Shane Harris reports, may be holding the job unlawfully. Two directors in two months. Matt speaks with Shane — who's been reporting both stories — to trace them to a single fault line: an office built after 9/11 to coordinate the spy agencies has proven uniquely easy to politicize, and a bipartisan chorus, including veterans of the community itself, now wants it cut down or scrapped. Which leaves the harder question: whether an office this easy to bend should exist at all.
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"Tulsi Gabbard, her guru and the mysterious messages that helped shape her political career" by Jon Swaine | The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2026/06/21/tulsi-gabbard-her-guru-mysterious-messages-that-helped-shape-her-political-career/
"Trump Has a Bill Pulte Problem" by Shane Harris & Vivian Salama | The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/06/bill-pulte-unlawful-intelligence-director/687684/
"Tulsi Gabbard’s Office Shouldn’t Exist" by John Sipher | The Bulwark: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/tulsi-gabbard-office-shouldnt-exist-director-national-intelligence-9-11
More of Shane’s reporting for The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/author/shane-harris/
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Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photos by Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg, Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP Photo & ODNI
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Iran Survived. Now What? | Espresso Martini
Chris and Matt dig into the fine print of the U.S.-Iran memorandum signed this week by President Trump in Versailles, separating what Tehran banks immediately — sanctions relief, frozen funds, an open Strait of …
Notes de l’épisode
Chris and Matt dig into the fine print of the U.S.-Iran memorandum signed this week by President Trump in Versailles, separating what Tehran banks immediately — sanctions relief, frozen funds, an open Strait of Hormuz — from what's still contingent on a future nuclear settlement, and why claiming victory now looks premature. From there, a Foreign Affairs piece reframes the war's aftermath: rather than breaking the Islamic Republic, the campaign may have hardened it, elevating a younger, more nationalist generation around Mojtaba Khamenei whose pragmatism is tactical rather than moral — and inviting an uneasy comparison to Putin's Russia. They close on new reporting that the Pentagon has quietly raised Israel to a "critical" counterintelligence threat, working through allegations of bugged DIA offices and eavesdropped negotiations against the longer history of allies spying on allies.
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Articles discussed in today’s episode
"Read the 14-point draft agreement between the US and Iran" by Alayna Treene, Kevin Liptak & Mostafa Salem | CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/17/middleeast/us-iran-war-mou-text-intl
"Experts react: The US and Iran just announced an interim peace deal. Here’s what we know so far." by Nate Swanson, Matthew Kroenig, Landon Derentz, Josh Lipsky, Victoria J. Taylor, Danny Citrinowicz, Daniel B. Shapiro | The Atlantic Council: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/dispatches/experts-react-the-us-and-iran-just-announced-an-interim-peace-deal-heres-what-we-know-so-far/
"Donald Trump’s Iran deal met with anger, relief and incredulity" by Jonathan Yerushalmy | The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/18/donald-trump-iran-deal-reactions-anger-relief-incredulity
"Iran’s New Grand Strategy: How a Remade Islamic Republic Will Reshape the Middle East" by Narges Bajoghli & Vali Nasr | Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/redeem/mTPNp3YLFpg
"Pentagon Sees Growing Espionage Threat From Israel" by Julian E. Barnes & Eric Schmitt | The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/06/us/politics/pentagon-sees-growing-espionage-threat-from-israel.html
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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photos by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto, Reuters
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Full Stack Spies: Cyber Espionage in the Age of US China Competition | Ahana Datta Fasel
Ahana Datta Fasel began as an ethical hacker for the British government before becoming cyber chief at the Financial Times, where nation-state actors targeting journalists became a daily reality. Her PhD on the …
Notes de l’épisode
Ahana Datta Fasel began as an ethical hacker for the British government before becoming cyber chief at the Financial Times, where nation-state actors targeting journalists became a daily reality. Her PhD on the political economy of digital espionage produced Full Stack Spies: Cyber Espionage in the Age of US-China Competition, which argues that cyber operations function as a mirror of the states behind them — their psychology, risk tolerances, and strategic ambitions made visible. She discusses with Chris how China has compensated for limited tradecraft sophistication with persistent scale and a dispersed ecosystem of front companies over three decades; what a leaked Chengdu hacker group chat reveals about the ego rivalries and financial anxieties driving operational decisions; what Operation Triangulation suggests about American reliance on private contractors; and why the defining fault line of this era isn't between peace and war, but between peace and "not war."
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Learn more about Ahana on her website: https://ahanadattafasel.com/
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Music by Andrew R. Bird
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
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Iran, China, and the New Middle East | Ahmed Aboudouh from Chatham House
Ahmed Aboudouh — associate fellow at Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa Programme and head of the China Studies Unit at the Emirates Policy Center — joins Chris to assess the shifting architecture of …
Notes de l’épisode
Ahmed Aboudouh — associate fellow at Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa Programme and head of the China Studies Unit at the Emirates Policy Center — joins Chris to assess the shifting architecture of power in the Middle East. He argues that China has no coherent regional strategy and that Washington's expectation of Chinese pressure on Tehran reflects a fundamental misreading of Beijing's interests and the limits of coercive statecraft. He traces how Egypt’s diplomacy reflects a country that has traded regional leadership for crisis management, explains why Arab states want a normalized Iran rather than a weakened one, and argues that the war will intensify multi-alignment rather than force a binary choice between Washington and Beijing. With the Abraham Accords effectively dead, the United States faces a damning paradox of its own making: deeper military entanglement, eroding strategic credibility.
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More about Ahmed on Chatham House: https://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/our-people/ahmed-aboudouh
Connect with Ahmed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmed-aboudouh-346b1459/
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Read Ahmed’s work for Chatham House
"Why Egypt is helping to end the Iran war": https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/05/why-egypt-helping-end-iran-war
"China will benefit from the Iran war, regardless of any deal between Trump and Tehran": https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/05/china-will-benefit-iran-war-regardless-any-deal-between-trump-and-tehran
"China is playing the long game over Iran": https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/02/china-playing-long-game-over-iran
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Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photo by Bandar Algaloud/Saudi Royal Court, Chatham House
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
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Think Like a Spy: What Intelligence Work Really Teaches About People | Julian Fisher
Julian Fisher spent his career as a British intelligence operative before distilling what he learned into the Think Like a Spy: Strategic Relations Workshop—and his central argument is counterintuitive: the …
Notes de l’épisode
Julian Fisher spent his career as a British intelligence operative before distilling what he learned into the Think Like a Spy: Strategic Relations Workshop—and his central argument is counterintuitive: the most transferable lessons from intelligence work aren't classified techniques, they're interpersonal skills. In conversation with Chris, Fisher argues that human intelligence, at its core, is the disciplined practice of building trust, reading people accurately, and cultivating long-term strategic relationships—competencies with direct applications in leadership, negotiation, and professional life. The conversation covers his distinction between influence and manipulation (one operates in a subject's interests; the other subverts them), the role of self-awareness and genuine curiosity in effective leadership, and the trained capacity to step off the emotional battlefield and respond deliberately rather than react. Drawing on methods developed in intelligence, military, and law-enforcement contexts, Fisher's framework treats networking not as contact collection but as the construction of durable, mutually beneficial bonds—the kind that take years to build and, when they matter, make all the difference.
Join Julian's course that starts on 23rd June here:
https://theintelligencemaven.comConnect with Julian here:
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Music by Andrew R. BirdPhoto by Canva
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
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A Rich Harvest of Bitter Fruit: CIA, MI6, and Covert Action in Cold War Albania | Stephen Long
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, CIA and MI6 launched an audacious series of clandestine operations to infiltrate and destabilize Communist Albania — and lost nearly every agent they sent in. Historian …
Notes de l’épisode
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, CIA and MI6 launched an audacious series of clandestine operations to infiltrate and destabilize Communist Albania — and lost nearly every agent they sent in. Historian Stephen Long, Assistant Professor in International Relations at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University and author of A Rich Harvest of Bitter Fruit, reconstructs how the Albanian Sigurimi, one of Eastern Europe's most formidable counterintelligence services, turned the West's covert action program into a catastrophe — aided, from the inside, by British Russian spy Kim Philby. Long examines the fractured exile networks that became the human raw material for these missions, the diverging British and American strategic objectives, and the 1952 Apple mission's disastrous double cross. He traces how Albania's failures quietly shaped the covert interventions to come — in Iran, in Guatemala — and what the human cost demands of the institutions that ordered it.
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Order A Rich Harvest of Bitter Fruit: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/A-Rich-Harvest-of-Bitter-Fruit-by-Stephen-Long/9781837732241
Connect with Stephen: https://scholar.xjtlu.edu.cn/en/persons/SteveLong/
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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. BirdPhoto by AFP, Canva
Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
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Gabbard Resigns, Trump Meets Xi, and China's Capitol Hill Spy Pitch | Espresso Martini
Chris and Matt break down a packed few weeks in intelligence and geopolitics, opening with the resignation of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence — a departure framed officially around her …
Notes de l’épisode
Chris and Matt break down a packed few weeks in intelligence and geopolitics, opening with the resignation of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence — a departure framed officially around her husband's illness but widely read as an exit under pressure. Drawing on a Bulwark piece by former CIA officer John Sipher, they examine whether the ODNI was ever structurally sound enough to survive a politicized occupant, and what Gabbard's tenure — from her reversal on the IC's Iran nuclear assessment to her exclusion from senior meetings — reveals about what this administration actually wants from intelligence. From there, the episode turns to the Trump-Xi summit in Beijing, where the photo-op framing papered over a sharper story: divergent definitions of "constructive strategic stability," a $14 billion arms package for Taiwan left unsigned, and a delegation of American CEOs carrying hat-in-hand business pitches to Washington's principal strategic adversary. They also examine a New York Times investigation into Chinese intelligence's recruitment attempt of a House committee staffer — a case that doubled as a window into Beijing's priorities in the weeks before the summit. Finally, an investigation into Russia's covert cyber warfare training program at a university near Moscow, and a Telegraph profile of Oleg Gordievsky's quiet final years in rural Surrey — including a regular table at a restaurant Chris knows all too well.
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Please share this episode using these links
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For more information about the podcast, check out our website: https://secretsandspiespodcast.comArticles discussed in today's episode
"Tulsi Gabbard’s Office Shouldn’t Exist" by John Sipher | The Bulwark: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/tulsi-gabbard-office-shouldnt-exist-director-national-intelligence-9-11
"Tulsi Gabbard’s resistance to foreign wars amid Trump’s aggression was her undoing" by Mohamad Bazzi | The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/24/tulsi-gabbard-foreign-wars-trump
"Tulsi Gabbard is showing why her job shouldn’t exist" by David Ignatius | The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/02/05/tulsi-gabbard-trump-dni-intelligence-agency/
"China and the U.S. Agreed to ‘Strategic Stability’ in Beijing. They Don’t Define It the Same Way." by Zongyuan Zoe Liu | Council on Foreign Relations: https://www.cfr.org/articles/china-and-the-u-s-agreed-to-strategic-stability-in-beijing-they-dont-define-it-the-same-way
"What did Trump and Xi accomplish?" | Atlantic Council: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/fastthinking/what-did-trump-and-xi-accomplish/
"He Offered a Lawmaker’s Aide Quick Cash. Was He Spying for China?" by Dustin Volz | The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/09/us/politics/china-us-spy-congressional-aide.html
"Russia’s top secret spy school teaching hacking and election meddling" by Pjotr Sauer & Shaun Walker | The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/07/revealed-russia-top-secret-spy-school-hacking-western-electoral-interference
"Revealed: The secret suburban life of Britain’s greatest Cold War spy" by Samuel Montgomery | The Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/05/26/revealed-the-secret-suburban-life-of-britains-greatest-cold/
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https://bsky.app/profile/mattfulton.netSecrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photos by Kenny Holston/NYT, Heather Diehl/GettySecrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
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America’s War Powers Crisis | Brian Finucane
The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. Congress hasn't formally done so since 1942. Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer and current senior adviser at the International …
Notes de l’épisode
The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. Congress hasn't formally done so since 1942. Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer and current senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, joins Matt to make sense of how that happened — and what it means now that the United States is at war with Iran. Brian has spent years arguing, across administrations of both parties, that executive branch war-making has drifted dangerously far from its constitutional moorings. Operation Epic Fury, he contends, is the most consequential test of that argument yet.
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Please share this episode using these links Audio: https://pod.fo/e/41d13c YouTube: https://youtu.be/TUYI1DqO-CA Further reading "What the Iran War Reveals About the War Powers Resolution and How Congress Can Act" by Tess Bridgeman & Brian Finucane | Just Security: https://www.justsecurity.org/137977/iran-hostilities-war-powers-restart-clock/ "On the State Department Memorandum 'Operation Epic Fury and International Law’" by Brian Finucane | Just Security: https://www.justsecurity.org/137097/state-department-epic-fury-international-law/ "An Unserious Justification for an Unnecessary War: Assessing the U.S. 'Article 51’ Letter to U.N. on Iran War" by Brian Finucane | Just Security: https://www.justsecurity.org/134290/us-article-51-letter-united-nations/ "Senate Votes to Take Up Measure to Force Trump to End Iran War" by Megan Mineiro | The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/us/politics/senate-iran-war-authorization.html "Bending the Guardrails: U.S. War Powers after 7 October" by Brian Finucane | International Crisis Group: https://www.crisisgroup.org/rpt/united-states/009-bending-guardrails-us-war-powers-after-7-october Support Secrets and Spies Become a “Friend of the Podcast” on Patreon for £3/$4: https://www.patreon.com/SecretsAndSpies Buy merchandise from our shop: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/60934996 Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/secretsandspies Subscribe to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDVB23lrHr3KFeXq4VU36dg For more information about the podcast, check out our website: https://secretsandspiespodcast.com Connect with us on social media Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/secretsandspies.bsky.social Instagram: https://instagram.com/secretsandspies Facebook: https://facebook.com/secretsandspies Spoutible: https://spoutible.com/SecretsAndSpies
Connect with Brian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-finucane-15a5652b
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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
USAF photo by Staff Sgt. Sandra Welch#IranWar #USWarPowers #NationalSecurity
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