In this episode of State Secrets, Suzanne Kelly talks about the ways in which the war in Ukraine is changing the world with author Rajan Menon. Menon, a nonresident scholar in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is co-author of the book, Conflict in Ukraine: The Unwinding of the Post-Cold War Order. Menon, like Kelly, recently returned from Ukraine and shares his first-hand impressions about what’s happening there and how this war is changing the world.

State Secrets host Suzanne Kelly and guest co-host Brad Christian talk with the former NATO Allied Supreme Commander (and former F-16 pilot) about what comes next in Ukraine and what is actually needed in order to win.

In this week’s State Secrets Podcast, Host Suzanne Kelly talks with The Hon. Susan M. Gordon, a career Intelligence Officer, former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence and current member of the Defense Innovation Board, about Balloons, China, Ukraine, Russia and the new world order as well as the role that AI plays in all of it.

In this week’s State Secrets, host Suzanne Kelly talks with former Deputy Director of National Intelligence and Presidential Briefer, Beth Sanner about the discovery of classified documents in the homes and offices of former and current political leaders. Beth shares first-hand accounts from her time serving as former President Donald Trump’s briefer and helps pull back the curtain on where the gaps are in securing classified information.

In one of his very first public interviews as NATO Assistant Secretary General for Intelligence and Security, David Cattler sits down with State Secrets host Suzanne Kelly to talk about  one of the most trying times in the alliance’s 74 year history. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is re-shaping the alliance, and fueling expansion as NATO keeps a close eye on China’s global rise.  

This week, I’m talking with RAND CEO Dr. Jason Matheny about a host of threats to US national security – how technology is playing a role and why people call him an ‘apocaloptimist’.  Dr. Matheny has been fascinated with existential threats to the human race from the get go and penned a 2007 paper on how to reduce the risk of human extinction.  If that isn’t worth reading – I don’t’ know what is. Matheny brought that kind of curiosity and insight to the Intelligence Community in 2009 as the Director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity – that’s the research arm of the Intelligence Community that invests in fascinating research projects.  He’s also served on the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence and was the founder of the Center for Emerging Technology at Georgetown University. He left that role to become the Coordinator for Technology and National Security at the National Security Council – and at the same time – served as Deputy Director for National Security at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Matheny became the CEO of the RAND Corporation this past summer.  Needless to say, I learn a lot every time I talk with Dr. Matheny.  So let’s get started.

This week we're talking about the mission to give back and we're highlighting three organizations that are doing just that.  Suzanne is joined by Brad for three conversations with charities that are making an impact.  First up is the Special Operations Care Fund known as SOC-F.  SOC-F really targets their giving efforts to the special operations community in ways that you wouldn’t normally think of.  They support things like treatments for traumatic brain injury but they also focus on providing therapy sessions to save marriages that are often strained by the multiple deployments that affect families.  They also provide therapeutic and restorative experiences for gold star kids.  We spoke with Co-Founder David Kramer and new Executive Director of SOF-F Jeremy Morton. Next up we spoke with CSM (Ret) Mike Hall, Executive Director of Three Rangers Foundation an organiztion that serves the Ranger community.  Three Rangers manages a significant network of former Rangers who mentor new veterans as they are transitioning, and beyond and offers some pretty impressive ways to build professional networks in the civilian world.  Last but not least we spoke with the Executive Director of the CIA Officer's Memorial Foundation John Edwards.  John is a retired senior executive with CIA and now leads the organization that was created following the death of Mike Spann in 2001.  Spann was the first American killed in Afghanistan, and was a CIA officer and it became clear very soon after that CIA needed a new type of way to support fallen officers.  We talked with John about how the foundation works to provide scholarships and support for the children and spouses of fallen CIA officers.  

In 1972, former CIA Executive Director William Colby proposed that the spy agency set up an employee museum as a way to share the unique mission and the impact that CIA had around the world.  It took 16 years for it to come to fruition.  And some 34 years after that, a new museum expansion and renovation is helping the Agency mark its 75th Anniversary. Now, the museum hosts artifacts from some of the Agency’s most successful – and some unsuccessful missions. In this episode of The State Secrets Podcast, Cipher Brief CEO & Publisher Suzanne Kelly sits down with the CIA’s Curator of Secrets – Museum Director Robert Byer, who gave The Cipher Brief team a tour of the new space and the new exhibits.  Some of them stretch back to the days of the OSS – the World War II Precursor to CIA.  And some, were used in active intelligence operations as recently as this summer.  All have been declassified. Here's a peek inside the world’s most secretive museum at CIA Headquarters, and Suzanne Kelly’s conversation with Museum Director Robert Byer.  

In this State Secrets episode, Cipher Brief CEO & Publisher Suzanne Kelly sits down with the Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Vice Admiral Frank Whitworth at NGA Headquarters in Springfield, Virginia to talk about what’s going on in hot spots like North Korea, as the North undertakes a series of missile launches, about NGA’s expected role with the artificial intelligence program known as MAVEN, and about how the agency is partnering with commercial businesses to know the world even better. Vice Admiral Whitworth took on the role as Director this past June and he brings an impressive intelligence background in the military to the new job.  His command tours included serving as commander of Joint Intelligence Center Central, commanding officer of the Navy element of U.S. Central Command and commanding officer at the Kennedy Irregular Warfare Center.  He also served as director of Intelligence for The Joint Staff and as director of Intelligence for U.S. Africa Command and as director of Intelligence for Joint Special Operations Command.  The list goes on.

In this episode, I’m talking with journalist and author Renee Dudley.  Renee is a technology reporter at ProPublica who stumbled onto a band of what she describes as misfits while reporting on the rapid rise of ransomware.  What she found was an incredible group of individuals who decided to be a change for good by helping fight cybercrime.  She tells the story in a new book she wrote with co-author and fellow journalist Daniel Golden, The Ransomware Hunting Team: A Band of Misfits’ Improbable Crusade to Save the World from Cybercrime. Here's my conversation with Renee Dudley.