In this episode we speak with Former Supreme Allied Commander and Cipher Brief Expert Admiral (Ret) James Stavridis about his new book, co-written with Elliot Ackerman called '2034: A Novel of the Next World War'. 

Cipher Brief CEO & Publisher Suzanne Kelly talks to Mark Cooter & Alec Bierbauer, authors of the new book 'Never Mind We'll Do It Ourselves: How a Team of Renegades Broke Rules, Shattered Barriers and Changed The Face Of Warfare Forever.   The book tells the once highly classified story of the birth of the Predator program.  

Cipher Brief CEO & Publisher Suzanne Kelly talks with William Evanina, who recently stepped down from his post as Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, a post he held from 2014-2021.  They discuss the most urgent counterintelligence and security threats facing the U.S. today. 

Welcome to the State Secrets Podcast brought to you by The Cipher Brief.  The State Secrets Podcast takes you inside the world of Intelligence and national security through conversations with experts who have spent careers working the toughest issues.  Some of the experts in our network have led organizations like the CIA and the NSA - some have held senior positions in the White House - Many are four-star generals, and others have spent their careers undercover, quietly working the issues from the ground level in the shadows of the limelight. Our guest today is Paul Kolbe.  Paul is the Director of The Intelligence Project at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, before that, he worked in the private sector as the head of BP’s global intelligence and analysis team, but before that, Paul served for 25 years in the Central Intelligence Agency as an operations officer serving in Russia, the Balkans, Indonesia, East Germany, Zimbabwe and Austria. 

This week we’re excited to welcome Jared Maples, to the show. Jared is the Director of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness.   I caught up with Jared to talk about how he and his team work to counter threats from terrorism, cyber-attacks and most recently, the growing and complicated issue of state sponsored disinformation.

Peter Singer is co-author along with August Cole of the new book Burn-In a Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution. Peter is also a strategist and senior fellow at the New America Foundation.

In this episode Cipher Brief publisher & CEO Suzanne Kelly talks with Richard Hass. Richard is the President of the Council on Foreign Relations, and author of the new book ‘The World, A Brief Introduction’ . The book is a primer designed to help experts and non-experts better navigate a complex and rapidly changing world in which global literacy really matters.  Suzanne caught up with Richard to talk about why he wanted to write this book, what issues worry him the most on the world stage, and why now more than ever, global literacy is so important.   

This week we’re joined by Cipher Brief Expert Mike Vigil.  Mike is the former Chief of International Operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration. Before his retirement, he was one of the most highly-decorated agents within the agency and was responsible for numerous multi-national operations, the largest involved 36 countries. He was also responsible for developing global intelligence sharing platforms. He is also the author of three books:  DEAL and Metal Coffins: The Blood Alliance Cartel and Narco Queen. And this interesting note, Vigil was made an honorary General by the government of Afghanistan and given the key to the city of Shanghai by China, all in appreciation for his efforts battling the drug trade. Cipher Brief COO Brad Christian caught up with Mike from his quarantine base in New Mexico, to talk about: How the COVID-19 crisis is affecting the cartels. How are the cartels seeking to expand their portfolio to ensure survival during a time when normal revenues and operations are at a near standstill?  What’s the state of play between law enforcement and the cartels in the interim coronavirus crisis period, and what’s going to happen when society starts to reopen? And who’s winning the technology race, the cartels or law enforcement?  The answer may surprise you.  

Welcome to the next episode of the State Secrets podcast.  This week we catch up with Brian Raymond, who is the Senior Director of the National Security Group at Primer, a machine intelligence company headquartered in San Francisco.  Primer is one of our private sector partners at The Cipher Brief and is part of our daily open source collection team.  They are involved in pushing the envelope of technology applied towards national security objectives that use machine learning and artificial intelligence.  We caught up with Brian on a recent phone call to discuss a specific aspect of machine learning, known as natural language processing, and how it’s being used to enable missions across the national security community.

Admiral James Stavridis spent more than thirty years in the U.S. Navy, rising to the rank of 4-star Admiral.  He served as Supreme Allied Commander at NATO and previously commanded U.S. Southern Command.  You can imagine that someone with that kind of experience has seen a lot in his career, so to retire and then write a book about character is an interesting choice. Cipher Brief CEO & Publisher talkes with Admiral Stavridis about what made him want to zero in on the issue of character – as he does in his book – by examining the careers and the choices of ten other admirals.