¶ Start
If an action is blatantly obvious and is implausible deniable. You know, I'm thinking Russian alleged attempts to poison dissidence in Salisbury, for example, in the UK, when it was so obviously them and although another chock means of poisoning so wildly implausible, which that made us think, Okay, what does that tell us about the role of secrecy in some of these operations? How deniable does it have to be to be covet action?
Hey everyone, welcome to episode three hundred and eighty something of the Team House. I'm not exactly sure where we're at. Maybe eighty seven, maybe eighty eight, we'll see, we'll see. It's a surprise today on the show. We have two academics really happy to have on the show today, Agna Long and Rory Kormick. Magna received her doctorate from ks College, London. She's a research fellow at a few academic institutions in
the UK and US. And Rory Kormick is a professor of international relations at the University of Nottingham and Rory, if you could bring us up to speed both of you, please, are there any additional publications that you want to mention because I think Rory you wrote a previous book about this subject. But mainly what we're going to be talking about tonight is this book COVID Action National Approaches to
Unacknowledged the intervention. There any other books that you want to point out to people, Well, it would be rude not to uspose.
Thanks ever so much for having a son, And yeah, we're delighted to talk about the book that we credited with a couple of other colleagues. So I'll just give a quick shout out to Jen Lester, Mark Stouts, and Damian van Pouvelt on this kind of comparative international approach to action, which kind of came out of numerous discussions.
I mean, it came about me and Mark plan a book, and then Damien was planning a similar book, and then Magna and Jen were planning a similar book, and we decided it would just makes sense instead of competing to
join forces. But seeing as you asked, Jack, I also wrote another book a couple of years back, which is a kind of overview of a synthesis of cop action, academic research and the latest thinking on it, but hopefully distilled in a accessible way for the general interested reader and it's called how to Stage a Coup.
I have the book on my shelf in the new office, Rory. To my shame, I have not read it yet, so don't hold it against me, Megna. Anything else? Do you want to talk about any previous works that you published or anything you're working on now?
Well? Relatively new to this world. I'm only just finished my PhD about two years ago, so I have not published as politically as my esteemed colleague Rory Kormak, who
¶ Defining Covert Action: Perspectives and Challenges
I feel like publishes the book every two years, which is amazing. But there are Currently I'm working on several articles and on a book of my own about American COVID action after the Cold War. So I'm looking at six different presidents and how they use COVID action and what's changed in American COVID action and how is there something new that we need to learn about from their experiences. So so hopefully that's going to be coming out at
some point. And currently I look at more of a shadow side of state craft, how governments secretly shapen world events using spies, mercenaries or criminals as tools of power, and how their COVID alliances shaped global politics and below the threshold, threshold of war. So that's what I'm working on.
I'm excited to read it. And so this book Covert Action, as you pointed out, the two of you edited it with a few others, and there's probably like what close to twenty authors in this book, and each chapter describes a different country's approach to covert action. So you get in the book, you know some of the ones you'd expect, United States, Canada, Australia, France, Iran, North Korea, or maybe Iran is not in there, but China, Russia, North Korea
is in there. But then additionally, there's a whole bunch of countries that really aren't commonly written about in these types of books. Palestine, Israel, India, Lebanon, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, and Nigeria, Bulgaria, a bunch of other different countries and their approaches to covert action. And that's what for me personally made this book really interesting and had new information
in it that I wasn't aware of. So I appreciate you guys going the extra mile to take on such a have you worked.
Well, it was, it was It was tricky because we deliberately wanted to be provocative, right, And we did really deliberately wanted to try and push that the envelope of the historiography and say, look, everyone uses America as the reference point, particularly historically. I think we say in the book, you know, the CIA dominates the history books and Russia dominates today's headlines, you know, And it's that is the particularly, the US is the reference point for all discussions about
covert action. It's all rooted in the so called CIA Golden Age of coups in the nineteen fifties, and that that intellectual baggage shapes our understanding. And one of the questions we asked ourselves, which I don't know if it's a bold or a silly question too provocative, was is this actually a thing? And is this is this a
¶ The Role of Covert Action in International Relations
part of secret staycraft or is this just a uniquely American tool which has grown out of a uniquely American political culture or can we say that there is comparison between the US, China, Russia and and can we go about stage further and say does Brazil engage in covit action,
does Lebanon engage in covi atte action? And what does that tell us about covid at action, and we came it was a bit sticky at times, trying to compare maybe not not quite like for like, And then we got into all of these debates about well, when does
covert action become repression internal policing. For example, if an authoritarian regime is going around murdering or kidnapping dissidents who happened to be living over seas and the primary aim is to protect the regime by you know, wiping out and disrupting dissident movements, is that covert action as we in the West or the US would understand it, or is that about you know, domestic or transnational repression? So
it got quite quickly. It sounded like quite a fun project, and it was a fun project and we really enjoyed doing it, but quite quickly we came into some quite sticky questions about state craft and who does what and the relationship between different you know, tools of the dark hearts or how how did you put it back? The sub sub threshold secret state crafty dark artsy stuff is a technical technical.
Term technicult technicult, yes.
So much a great uh jumping off point because I wanted to ask the two of you how you define COVID action. And that may sound like a kind of pedantic question of some of our listeners. They think assassination, recruiting, spies, sabotage, things like that. But you did come up with like a fairly narrow explanation of what fits in that kind of framework of COVID action. If you guys could explain that.
Yeah, sure, so I'll take this one simply because I studied the United States more when it comes to COVID activities, and I think one of the challenges that we had at the very beginning was trying to stay away from the American definition of COVID action, right, which is an activities, a activity, an activity or activities of the US government to influence political, economic, or military conditions abroad where the US government is not intended to be a parent or acknowledged publicly.
Right.
So that's a very strong definition from very bureaucratic. You know, you have different separations of powers you have over so there's so much kind of punched into that. But then we decided, well, we can't apply if we're looking broadly,
¶ Comparative Approaches to Covert Action
if we're looking at different countries and how they view COVID action and what COVID action means to them, we can't apply the definition of COVID action from the US to this. So we came up with something that, as Rory explained, we went back and forth that is a little bit more nuanced, and it gave us an opportunity to also include transnational repression abroad as part of COVID activities.
So we framed it as politically motivated and unacknowledged interference by states or state related entities in the affairs of others, which is designed to influence conditions in a favorable manner. Essentially, we focused on unacknowledged as opposed to deniable, which is in the American definition right to open it up a little bit more precisely for the reasons that the Rory had explained. In in a sense, how do we you know domestic.
Repression versus foreign repression?
You know, if you're thinking about it, by nature of activity abroad, you're already violating sovereignty of a state, right, So is that already COVID action. You're already influencing perceptions, cognition. So there's so much going on there, so how.
Can it not be COVID action.
So this new definition that we not new definition per se, but you know, broader kind of emphasis on on on what we would include as COVID action helped us put together so many chapters in so many countries with different approaches to this particular problem.
And I think that's really it's really important because on one level, when two professors start talking about semantics of definitions and stuff, you know, there there's there's a risk that it that it becomes that becomes this kind of
professorial pontificating about isms and stuff. But Magda's spot on because these definitions and how we set the parameters have really significant real world consequences for you know, what is in scope and what's outroscope, what's included in the book and what's not included in the book, How can we compare different states? And I think the point about deniable
versus unacknowledged. On one level, again it sounds a bit, potentially a bit professorial pontification, but Magda is exactly right that it gets to some I think, really interesting significant questions. For example, we've heard loads in the last ten years or so about particularly Russian covert actions, many of which, particularly before twenty twenty two, commentators seemed to think of as being quite successful. Russia was quite good at disinformation
and sabotage and dare I say, to lecture interference. And
¶ The Impact of Domestic Politics on Covert Operations
yet these, if we use the American definition, were not remotely plausibly deniable. They were, in fact wildly implausibly deniable. And this, I think chreates a really significant question about if an action is blatantly obvious and is implausibly deniable.
You know, I'm thinking Russian alleged attempts to poison dissidence in Salisbury, for example, in the UK, when it was so obviously them and the novel Chok Means of poisoning, the ridiculous interview that the two suspects gave where they literally read off the Wikipedia page saying, oh no, no, we weren't there to poison anybody. We were there to see the and I quote three meters high spire from
Salisbury Cathedral. Whatever it was this is, it's so wildly implausible, which then made us think, what does that tell us about the role of secrecy in some of these operations? How deniable does it have to be to be covert action? And in fact, that's one of the kind of big questions that got me interested in this subject twenty twenty five years ago, now, God, I'm getting old, was around the CIA's operation working with the Mudjie Hideen against Soviet
occupation in Afghanistan in the nineteen eighties. You know, it's a famous example of covert action and one which is widely deemed to be successful and yet wasn't remotely applaused with deniable. Everyone knew they were at it, So that raised the question was it covert? What does covert mean?
Does it have to be deniable to be successful? Probably not, And so by grappling with you know, the definition, that opens up I think quite some quite important debates about the role of secrecy in the kind of conflict that we're seeing around the world right now.
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¶ Case Studies: Covert Action in Different Countries
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I did, Yes, I did, And I think that that subject kind of teases out exactly what you're speaking to is that the Russians are doing sabotage operations, the West is doing sabotage operations, and everyone knows exactly what the score is, right, ye.
Yes, So what do you mean by what do you mean by the role of cables? Another great example which mocked the nice more about an audition you might want to up rate is what's going on with with Trump and cove att action Venezuela right now, where you've got the presidents literally telling everybody that he is doing covert action. Now,
¶ The Evolution of Covert Action Post-9/11
how on earth does that play in with our understandings of secret staatecraft?
What on earth do you make of that?
Yeah?
So, so this is this is one of the you know, when I when I think about secrecy, when I think about what COVID action is intended to do, and I think our book really kind of hammers the hammers. This point is that there are a lot of times it
is not just about influencing foreign posts. It's about signaling, right, It's about sending a message, you know, And in this particular instance, there are so many different reasons why why these things are happening, And you know, I'm not quite sure I can say them all in a in a public forum without you know.
Getting into trouble back at home.
But the reality of it is, you know, is it COVID action? Has it already happened before he announced that he was doing COVID action? Is it is a COVID action? If the Special Operations Forces are doing it, you know, are they doing it under Title ten or our Title fifty?
Are they sheet it? I don't know, you know, the.
Reality of it, there's just so many different avenues. But also, you know, we're so we're so into this, you know, are we doing COVID action Venezuela? Are we doing COVID action in Mexico and other countries where we've designated these cartels and stars.
But the reality is.
We've been doing this all, you know, for decades. We've been doing this since the end of the Cold War. This is nothing new, except that we are talking about it, and we're signaling, and we're threatening and we're bullying. You know, whether it's the particular nations that are we're having this kind of signaling with, or whether we're telling the rest
of the world. But there's a lot of signaling and messaging going on here and Whilst they may be new to Americans and American COVID action in terms, but it's not new. If you read our book, you'll see this is nothing. This has been going on for decades, centuries,
if you will, since we started using COVID action. So I think, you know, in those terms, the scope is much broader, and it kind of realistically, it also gives us not just you know, a broader picture of what we're talking about here, but also potential options how to
mitigate streats from from from from such operations. You know, if you don't know, if we call it COVID action and you say, well, it's not COVID action because X, Y and Z, let's send the law enforcement or let's send the militaries in operation people to do this, because
it's not really intelligence. Well that's a problem too, right, because now we're separating it according to how we understand COVID action to be, when in reality, our adversaries couldn't care less whether we have Title ten or Title fifty, you know. So, so I think it's you know, it's like the rest of the world doesn't operate on our wavelengths in these terms or in this particular space so I think we need to be a little bit more open minded about this.
Yeah. Yeah, I've had some interesting conversations with people in
¶ The UK vs. US Approaches to Covert Action
India's Special Operations Units, you know, especially when when r AW is allegedly whacking people in western countries, you know, the big incident in Canada. There's been some rumors about America. I'm like, hey, man, like this is bad news. Like you can't be just like shooting people in the United States, like it's gonna or Canada. That's going to create a huge international blowback. And they just kind of shrugg like
it doesn't it doesn't resonate the same to them. The like, So what you guys tried to sanction us in the eighties, how'd that go for you? You know, it's just seen through a completely different lens.
Yeah yeah, it's almost like baiting. You said, what are you going to do about it?
Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, And it's essentially it's not just I mean, there's how dare you tell us what to do if you're not doing it yourself? You know.
So there's all the these things.
You know, we're talking about COVID action and attacking ships and you know, killing people in boats. But at the same time we're telling others, oh, you know, human rights violations and violations of international laws.
The way the way they perceive it is that we're harboring Calistani terrorists on our soil. So it's legit, you know, but that's how they view it.
Yeah, okay, this is going. Yeah.
So let's if only to sort of like juxtapose the larger conversation about covert operations, I'd like to ask each of you about sort of your your areas of specialty. Rory about the UK and Magna about the US approach. And Rory, when I was reading your chapter about the UK approach to covert action, you know what actually kind of jumped right out at me. Your conclusion is very similar to I have you ever seen the documentary The
Mayfair Set. Nuh, you should. It's a Robbert Curtis documentary, and he concludes that the British used the sas to sort of keep the empire going in a more covert and discreete manner as it was kind of imploding on itself, and during a time of social turmoil and rising leftist sentiments in the UK, that this was seen as sort of like a callback to the nights of the roundtable sort of mythology that you have this small group of
tough men that will go out and do this. But you mentioned in your chapter about how COVID action was used as sort of a coping mechanism as the British Empire was sort of collapsing inward on itself.
That's entirely it. And I can't remember if I included the quote in the chapter or not, but there was a wonderful line where it was end of the end of the Cold War, so you know, as you know, exidential crisis for intelligence agencies in the West Water. What
¶ Existential Threats and Covert Action in Israel
are we doing now? What are we for? And the Queen Elizabeth's private secretary went to visit the chief of MI I six and said, what what is m I six four in the nineteen nineties? What can I report back to her majesty? And the chief of m I six said, tell her majesty that her secret service is
the last per number of her empire. And I think that quote just sums up exactly what you're what you're getting at, that there is a there is a service out there operating in the shadows to try to protect and promote British influence against what has essentially been long term decline and what we've seen looking back over the last one hundred years.
Or so is, you know, the UK.
Has declined dramatically in terms of its military power, it's economic power, it's political power, but it hasn't given up on its perceived global responsibilities. British leaders still talk about obviously the UK still has a seat in the UN Security Council, so it's not just an illusion, but they still talk about global power, global interests, working in the Indo Pacific or wherever it may be. And I think
it's hangover from imperial days now. The problem is that the UK does not have the economic might, or the political might, or the particular the military might these days to back up a lot of a lot of that.
And because the UK is effectively a bit skint at the moment, we are seeing more rhetorican, more emphasis placed on the role of secret intelligence, to roll of special forces, to act as a force multiplier, to act as a way of bridging this gap between what UK leaders perceive Britain's global role to be and the actual pounds and muscle and equipment which UK has or doesn't have to
do it. Because you see, for example, during the during the Empire, the imperial days the nineteenth century, when the UK wanted something done, it would do a bit of gumboat diplomacy, you know, send the gun chips out, intimidate the intimidate the locals and get its own way. Or you know, colonialism was so wrapped up in political influence, covert and otherwise bribery here, a bit of something else
somewhere else, and it was kind of normal. Now as the empire dwindled and the UK was rightly unable to overtly manipulate local populations by messing around with constitutions or whatever it may be, that political power has gone and they realized that if they wanted to carry on doing that kind of thing, they would be accused, not unreasonably, of meddling in neo imperialism. And so they turn to sis, to secret staatecraft to try and to try and bridge
¶ The Future of Covert Action: Trends and Predictions
that gap. And I think we've seen that all the way through since the Second World War, and I think we're seeing that dramatically at the moment as UK forces and military gets cut over the last twenty years. Who is the one piece of the UK security state which is seeing investment. It is the secret Services and special forces broadly defined, because they are seen, rightly or wrongly, as a way of using smoke and mirrors to try
to maintain as much influence as possible. And even just today the chief of SIS, the new chief of SIS, was talking about the role of MI six as a soft power instruments around the world, and I think increasingly increasing, the increasing the roles a it's a stop gap. It's a way of plugging that gap between capabilities and responsibilities.
And MAGA. If you want to speak a little bit about the American approach, you know the difference. I guess one of the big differences between the UK and the US is we have a constitution which governs, it governs some of these things, but it doesn't really prevent us from doing anything in the field of COVID action as near as I can tell. Do you want to talk about that?
Yeah, So obviously the US has had its you know, fair share of bad experiences in the seventies that led to all this legislative kind of straight jacket if you will, of COVID activities and that the CIA was doing. And you know, as a liberal democracy, we we want to hold people accountable. We want to prevent presence from saying I didn't know this was going on. I want to you know, we want to see people held responsible for activities that they were that they were undertaking on the
behalf of the great American nation. And the problem, the problem is that when a nation goes through something that you know, we went through nine to eleven changes It changes the risk calculus, It changes how we think about, you know, legislation, it changes how we think about what what COVID action is. You know, I'll give you I think I have three examples for you. So the first one was, even before nine to eleven, Clinton was trying to get the CIA to authorize the CIA to go
after Bin Laden. There's a lot of kind of is a law enforcement is it? You know, do we can we capture him? But can we capture without killing him? If we kill him, is it assassination? It's like all the kind of raetoric back and forth, right, but after nine to eleven, and it was held back mostly because he couldn't make up his monk, but it was I mean,
the presidential finding to to go after Bin Laden. But essentially after nine to eleven he goes online, he goes to and talks to the media basically saying, I authorize people to kill him. We hired people to kill him. It was all about killing, kill, kill, Like he used the word kill at least.
Three or four times in that sentence.
And then you have you know, Bush the quote dead or alive, you know poster, you know, so he kind of goes a little bit a little bit crazy there. And then you also have him saying international law what international I don't care what international lawyers are saying. You know, we're gonna kick some ass here, right, And then you have I think he was when bin Laden was finally gone down in twenty eleven, we have Obama saying justice has been done. You know, this is how we're supposed
to do. And it kind of, you know, juxtaposes the what we think about American COVID action all kind of putting its own little box and you kind of, you know, as I said, straight jacket and said, you will only come out when we tell you to come out, versus this narrative where we now see as users as a form of the terrence against you know, enemies, both state and non state actors. Right, So it's no longer this
you know, tool of foreign power, foreign policy. Only when we can't use military and diplomacies not enough, it's suddenly become this aggressive. What did Rory will remind me again, do you remember what what did John Rizzo say? A tool of vengeance or something something along those lines, Right, it's in his book, John Rizzo, the lawyer, longtime lawyer for the for the CIA. So so it kind of changed the perspective of what COVID action was. And now
we've reached yet another stage. You know, never mind cyber operations that we have. That's a completely different kind of worms right where we don't even most of the time, I don't even know if the CIA is doing these COVID activities in cyberspace, it would probably be the the military, right and cyber Command. No cyber Command, it wouldn't necessarily, but yeah, actually cyber Command may very well be doing it.
Or on the other hand, we have you know, President Trump going around, you know, using COVID action as a tool to threaten people and to say, you know, we're coming. I've authorized the you know, COVID action to come and beat the living daylights out of you. So so I think it's gone from one end to another where we kind of saw it packaged and neatly with a little bow and say you will only come out and play
when we tell you to. Nine to eleven, where it says, unleash the CIA for crying out, allow, let it fight, let it do all these things. But also the CIA is not enough. We give some power to the Special Operation Forces too, so they can play together. So we've seen a massive change in how, you know, COVID action kind of changes from it goes essentially from this from one end to another.
And we very rarely talk about this.
You know, we focus so much on the Cold War and what COVID action was under the Core War that we forget to, you know, examine how we have changed and how intelligence community, the intelligence community in the US has changed since.
Margat Do you think just on that, because I think it's it's so interesting the point of comparison between the US experience and the British experience when you've got two states both with global interests, although one clearly with more power than the other, but working traditionally hand in glove
when it comes to intelligence cooperation and the ason. But they're so very, very different and do you think that the neatness of American definitions, the fact that they write it all down in a way the British don't, the fact that they have the as you mentioned earlier, the difference between Title ten and Title fifty, and it's all
very neat on paper anyway, which the British don't. The Bridge had a much more flexible and nimble approach and there's no definition, and the Britishish use euphemisms like intelligence effects or my favorite from the Cold War were nocturnal operations, discrete operations, machiavellian operations, just any kind of euphemism. And that's been the British way, you know, nimble, flexible, muddling through,
making it work in an agile way. Looking across the Atlantic and seeing the CIA get bogged down in legal definitions and having to do legal gymnastics about who was actually authorizing it because of Title ten, Title fifty and it's all blurred and horrible. Do you think I was really strug by what you're saying?
Then?
Do you think that the that neatness of rising everything down has actually posted on eleven kind of come undone and it's been a bit of a problem for American practitioners and maybe, dare I say it, the Brits were right.
But this this, this, this is in the end of the day. This is all about whether the Brids were right and Americans are wrong in their approach.
You see, Jack, this is how it works.
We always get there. This is how all our conversations and conversations go. Well, listen, I think we're definitely experiencing something. You know that that is that is challenging and definian and you know, legalese of of whether it's COVID action or whether it's military authorities are definitely being challenged.
But that is to say, you know, they.
Were there for domestic purposes and the domestic political climate has changed, so they're not as restricting as they used to be. There's there's wiggle room in there, right, you know, like whether we define assassinations targeted drone strikes or UAV strikes, whether those are termed assassination or not. So there's always been wiggle room here because this is legal language, right, There's always been a little bit bit of change there.
So I think we're definitely struggling with it. And you know, I'm actually writing a chapter on the future of COVID action, and this is one of the things that I want to want to look at, you know, do we need to change things? You know, is what we have enough to constrain policy makers, whether they're well in this particularly
in Stince frankly, the president from abusing his power. It's not the Congress can approve or you know, reject COVID action proposal, but they can create trouble if they don't agree with the the presidential finding that the Presidence wants to wants to enact. So so I think it all kind of depends on a domestic political climate and where we are in Congress and you know, who rules what house,
who's winning and all that kind of stuff. So a lot of it is really just for domestic posturing political posturing. If I'm honest, I don't think it's precluded the CIA from acting in any particular way definition or no definition or special operations from you know, assisting on the title fifty and you know.
Getting being shipped.
So there's there's that. So I'm not saying we were wrong. I'm not saying you were right. I'm just saying it's complicated.
So let's I'd really like to dive into some of the chapters on some of the not lesser known countries, but not their intelligence services are not written about quite as prolifically as we do in the Western world. One of the two of the chapters actually that I really enjoyed and learned a lot from was there's one about Palestine from nineteen seventeen in nineteen forty eight, and then you know post after the creation of Israel and the
rise of Massad. That's another chapter that's very interesting.
Yeah, and I should give a shout out to so Stephen. Stephen Wagner wrote the Palestine chapter, and I really really enjoyed. I really enjoyed that chapter for the same reason as you, Si, Jackie.
Don't.
You don't read about it much in the literature, which raises that question of well, is it Covet's action as we as academics and commentators would understand it. But there are clearly some interesting parallels around. I mean, Stephen writes
about disinformation, he writes about assassination. But the thing that really stood out for me from that chapter was the learning and invitation between different actors, because then, you know, obviously the Palestine mandate was very complex and messy, affair involving the Brits and Palestinian Gorillas and Zionists and evolved
over twenty odd years. But what Stephen points out is that some of these taller statecraft are ever present, and that the different state or different actors are learning from each other, passing on skills as one side to training the other. And then it's witch allegiance and these ideas. You start to see the transfer of techniques, tactics, ideas
and thinking. And I think that's another theme from across the book, which is particularly from that era, from World War two and just before World War two and enduring and immediately afterwards. You start to see the transfer of skills, ideas, tactics, and doctrine a cross different groups as these ideas have become institutionalized and trained. So yeah, I'll let the magic to comment on the on the Israel chapter, but I thought that was a great chapter from Stephen.
I just want to point out, I mean, what I thought was very interesting speaking to what you were just saying, is that the kind of early pre Israeli but I guess you say, like Zionist or Jewish intelligence networks in the in the region kind of got their influence from two places, one from from you guys, from the British, and then the other It mentions that a lot of the people who were going there were Russian Jews that had grown up during the Bolshevik Revolution and immediately after,
and so they grew up in a culture of conspiracy and political assassination and they brought that skill set with them to their intelligence service. Yeah, and we read more and.
More about the long history of Putin and Russia kind of political culture of active measures, COVID action, coercive interference, group, call it what you like, and more and more scholars are tracing what we see now puting's up to all the way back to Bulshary Revolution and indeed and indeed before and some of the Chekha and the and the
Cyrus regime. And what I think we forget sometimes and why this chapter is I think so fascinating, is that that's not just a direct lineage to be traced in Russia, that those ideas actually are exported as people, you know,
flee exiles, emigrants, wherever they may be. And you start to see this, uh, this, this this lineage branch out and I think that's a wonderful example of that checkist ideas and conspiracy theorists and assassinations as part of everyday state craft start to come to come to play, and particular conflict.
Yet, Magie, you want to go on the Massad chapter.
Yeah, yeah, So I worked with Melinda House on this and it was just it was a fascinating, you know, chapter to read. And of course we hear about Mosades operations quite often, and you know, they're not very shy about, uh saying that certain operations were conducted by them. But that's the part of their strategy, right, It's this you know, they're targeted killing approach. Whether it's a scientists or whether it's you know, other types of adversaries. It's about the
strategically important psychological goal. It's it's not necessarily just about doing the COVID actually not just about stopping these people. But again, like I mentioned, you know in previous, like I said previously, a lot of these countries are signaling to their adversaries and saying, hey, stop messing with us, because this is what we're going to do. But what I found also very interesting with the with the Israel chapters is this this notion.
Of red lines.
You know, it's like you can push push, push, push push, but we don't know when you cross the red line, when when Israel is going to Mozat is going to react. So kind of this strategic ambiguity is a massive, massive play for for for Israel and keeping ambiguity as to you know, the operations that they're doing or whether whether
¶ Geopolitical Tactics and COVID Operations
you know the nuclear ambiguity and this this red line policy is actually I find that fascinating because you constantly you may just do one thing and it's gonna, you know, create a reaction, or you may be doing repeatedly different things that will create create reaction. And one of the other things that I also liked about this chapter, it also shows that you know, the difference is in how COVID action is perceived and what happens to a country
that is that feels, you know, always at risk. It's existential right for the for them, it's so it kind of pushes the kind of into a particular frame of mind where you know, they feel that they have to be aggressive in this it's no longer just defense. We're no longer and it's no longer just influenced in politics in another country. It's become much more I want to say savage frankly in a sense that you know, you're trying to you pretty much get rid of anybody who
could potentially be a threat. But then you also have this other side of it, whereas you will work with anybody and everybody, you know, even with your adversaries, you know, to get to the goal. So it's kind of you know, it shows you the pragmatism of the situations that you know,
and no two situations are the same. And it also depends where we you know, where we're talking seventies, where we're talking about you know, eighties, nineties, what other geopolitical issues are happening, and you know, you see this other side of them rescuing people, you know, Jews from various other countries and trying repeatedly to you know, come to terms with with countries that they wouldn't usually cooperate with
or work with, just to save these people. So so I think it was it was an interesting point where you know, obviously you know they're well skilled, as we know, and uh, but they're also very creative, the exceptionally well created, and clearly they they you know, they've they think about it. I wonder where I mean I don't wonder. I know the reason that they do things the way they do and that they think is simply because for them, you know,
it's existential. And then I think that forces the frame of mind in a different direction and makes them approach COVID activities in general much more seriously, uh than you know, if it's more of a you know, something that's that's less existential, for instance.
So yeah, like Canada and Australia. And I think that
¶ India's Evolving Covert Actions
was because that was one of the really fun things about the book to be able to do this comparison about state's approaches and what the different drivers were between across states who aren't normally examined.
So as mad to.
Say, as Israel, it's very much geopolitics surrounded by enemies and a real sense of exidential threat, which leads to an aggressive use of cover at action and also a pretty implausibly deniable use of covert action to go to the state digitic combanguity point. And that's a lovely comparison to say Canada, who have traditionally not had those levels of anywhere near those levels of threat, and therefore you can see almost geopolitics has shaped.
The Canadian approach.
It's only more recently has become more involved in cyber issues more remotely that they've become a bit more engaged. Say with Australia, you know, no exidential threat, no real threat place World War two, and only is the rise of China affected them in the last fifteen years or so, has suddenly cover at action risen back up the policy agenda and say, by comparing these different states, you get a really nice window into what drive states to be doing these kinds of tactics.
I think the Jackie also one of the one of the other things that you can you know, you'll probably notice with with other states, medium or small sized states, how it's not constant. Their decision to use COVID action is not constant in changes you constantly depending on on on geopolitical stituations, but also for their domestic purposes for that So if you look, for instance, one of the
chapters that I engage with was Turkey. You know, if you look, there's like three different stages of Turkish operations there, right, you know, you have your World War one, World War two, and then you have the you know that period from the fifties to two thousand until edge gun comes in
and then after that how it changes. And it changes because well, because of domestic political situation, because and use they use COVID activities, not simply because you know, for foreign policy, but also to balance different sides, you know, to balance their adversaries as well as their you know, allies and kind of keep the peace in many respects.
Right.
So even if they did this in Australia, right to keep the peace during the Cold War, it will all blow up. So Turkey does exactly the same thing, kind of trying to balance adversaries and allies, and then you see as a situation around them in their region gets worse, Uh, they become much they've become very aware of the fact that they are now probably one of the key players in the region. So that also influences how they start using code action abroad. Right, So it's no longer about
who's controlling the intelligence organizations, who's pulling the strings. It's more about, huh, what can we do to you know, to create a situation or create a scenario where Turkey has an advantage in the region and is considered one of the key key players that that can influence things to its to its advantage. So I found that very very interesting to see kind of this evolution and different different aspects of it.
Let's jump into India next, if that's okay. I think that's an interesting chapter because you know, they had this not non aligned policy during the Cold War. I think technically they still do. But I feel like in a you know, much has been written about the collapse of
¶ The Brutality of Apartheid South Africa
world order and the rise of a multipolar order. I feel like we're seeing like a very different India as reflected through their intelligence operations in recent years.
Rob, do you want to grab this one. I'm not very very very good with India stuff, except for the more contemporary things. Yeah.
Well again, I shout out to Paul mcgarth at KCR who who wrote this chapter, and I think it's a nice example of the evolution. As Magda was talking about Turkey, similar point applies to India. You see this, this this evolution, particularly you know in post post independence, where it started off with, perhaps because of the political culture of political history, a sense of caution, where covert action was a bit of a bit of a dirty word in the in
the immediate you know, post imperial space. You know, he wants to differentiate themselves. I'm paraphrasing Paul Farty simplistically, but the essence of it is wanted this different differentially themselves from some of the dirty tricks that the imperious British had been playing on them, wanted to differentiate themselves from some of the Cold War tactics that they were now kind of enmeshed in.
Didn't want to be.
Seen as a as a battleground for superpower covert action, which I think wrongly is how a lot of the kind of history literature sees India as a almost a passive, a passive battleground where the Soviet and American rivalry covertly played out, particularly in particularly in propaganda contests, and then so so it came late to covert action. I think, well, Paul thinks, and I agree, as a as a consequence
of of colonialism. But then gradually, as you know, the decades have gone past, and it's become shaken off those
colonial bonds. It's becoming more muscular, it's becoming more confidence, it's dominating the region, it's the leadership has been quite open in the India first approach, and I think what we've seen then is an evolution from the caution circumspection in the early late ninety forty ninety fifties through to the example that you open the conversation with Jack about the alleged you know, attempts to bump off various dissidents
in North America. And I think that's a that's a journey as a country becomes more confident, becomes more muscular, maybe more ease with itself, shakes off some of those fears of consequences of colonialism as a really nice example of how a state isn't tied to its geopolitics, it's history wherever it can be. I think one of the danes of banged On Abot strategic culture is that it doesn't allow a state to evolve. It always seems that
it's kind of rooted in this one particular mindset. And India is a great example of moving from the immediate independence mindset towards what we're seeing now when it is quite an aggressive actor in this space, not just with with the alleged assassinations and assassination attempts, but also in long ish history, with covert competition, with with with with Pakistan, with activity around Bangladesh, various allegations of meddling in Sri Lanka.
So we're seeing the evolution of a much more muscular postures as India becomes more confident.
I think, I'm let's jump over to South Africa. So this is like, this is a very interesting chapter and it gets into the intelligence service, the so called Civil Cooperation Bureau, and I think South Africa is one of those. And we're talking about apartheid era South Africa really in this chapter, to be clear, and I think that's a really interesting case of where there wasn't any separation between
church and state, so to speak. Like all these sorts of restraints and laws and things we talk about, none of that seems to have existed in apartheid era South Africa.
Yeah, I'll start maybe here. I think one of the things that, yeah, I might have mentioned is to you when we started this conversation. The first thing that struck me when I started reading that chapter when Kevin O'Brien sent it. And Kevin has written on this prolifically, so if you love learning and reading about South Africa, I
¶ Brazil's Covert Action in a Democratic Context
would encourage you to look some of some of his other work. But essentially, one of the first things that came to my mind was like, there's no good guy here. They're all bad this this is just there is no control. Essentially, everything goes and as much as they tried to, particularly by the time that Boss came to the intelligence organization that was running COVID operations, by the time they came to power or they were founded, I think there was
just may where I both domestically UH and abroad. But I think at the same time, you know, in the sixties, you don't see much going on simply because neither the the South Africa UH nor no revolutionary forces actually have the capabilities to to to to do COVID activities. But then you see from the seventies and then through the nineties through to the nineties, their activities on both sides
evolve and grow. But one of the reasons why they do is because they have all these wars around them at the same time and their UH, their their resources and their capabilities and their knowledge in counterinsurgency UH and count and counter terrorism essentially growing. So they're applying all these in in their in their counterinsurgency efforts. But the problem is it just became and it wasn't just essentially
they didn't just do paramilitary operations. They were doing a whole host of different COVID COVID activities, including propaganda or psyops in their parlance, but it was just brutal on all accounts. There were a lot of people were killed
and you know the brutality of it. So once the revolutionaries were trying to to to get UH too, to find the traitors within their ranks, they became just as horrible as a South Africa and they were treating people, you know, just as just as equally bad, if you will. So there's just no good side here. It was just mayhem and violence on on.
On every front.
But what you see towards the end of it is that the government is losing all the politicians are losing UH control, completely losing control over this and they are just so so now now it's no longer about just keeping South Africa within its you know, and protecting South Africa.
It's more about you know, protecting themselves and growing their capabilities, growing their riches, attacking, killing, you know, threatening, and obviously you know, a great many paramilitary companies or mercenaries if you will, had come out of that period, and I think South Africa is still struggling with it and struggling with it past because of it, simply because there was just I think towards the end in the eighties they had I want to say, over was it over forty
different outfits doing COVID action. It was just it just got absolutely ridiculous.
There are also allegations that, like within CCB and some of the other structures, that they started killing their own people exactly. Yeah, some pretty grizzly stuff. It's like the machine just has to keep eating, and that's what you were talking about, you know, where this gets completely out of control.
Yeah, yeah, So I mean even in that period, you know, by the time the problem they couldn't It's almost like one of those things, COVID action forced them to the negotiating table, but then COVID action also took them away
¶ Authoritarian States and Covert Action
from the negotiating so it was like it was working against itself almost, you know, they were attacking each other from within, and it just I feel like it became a tool of vengeance and revenge and powers and riches and run than you know, what was intended to be. And even by the nineties, this game was not over. They just you know, went into private world or you know, they continued proliferating into you know, into these mercenaries who
provided services throughout Africa and you know, weapons smuggling. There's all sorts of criminal activities.
What's a jump if we can to something a little bit different Brazil, totally different geopolitical context that they exist in. You guys want to talk about that one a little bit.
Well, if I remember correctly, Magna, correct me if I'm if I'm wrong that the this isn't a nice example of a state where the political history and culture helped to shape approaches to COVID action.
Yeah, and during the.
Authoritarian regime, co action, like with many authoritarian regimes, ed from cover at action to domestic control and repression. And it's just you know, it's a similar story with apartheid South Africa. That Magna was just just relaying, where does where does covert action start or stop? And killing a dissident who happens to live across a contested border begin where?
Where where's the line? So for people living in Brazil under under dictatorship, COVI attraction is a means of state repression, not dis similar to you know, the perceptions of intelligence services in Argentina for example, not quite as bad, but it still has that that connotation. And so when states such as Brazil moved towards democracy, there's a a reluctance about about covert action, reluctance to engage because it's seen
as a tool of oppression. And I think it's a point that actually applies to intelligence services more broadly as part of democratization, that the new governments have to win over the trust of the people because intelligence in an auquitarian states it's it's it's a byword for repression and
torture and misery. And so when new states transitions to democracy and wants to become and wants to have an intelligence service which engages in action, as you know, as many democratic intelligent services do, it has to win over the trust of the people. And I think Brazil was
no exception. And another example of that would be West Germany's approach to cave attaction, you know, the exactly and coming out of the horrific legacy of Nazi Germany and repression and torture and holocaust, the West German States was for obvious reasons, very very reluctant to engage in in any kind of dark arts and COVID operations. They didn't they want to want to be white and white because
of the because of that's history. And I think one of the findings from the book is that political history helps to explain whether certain states have, you know, an unusual level of restraint when it comes to covidt action. And maybe Brazilian if I remember correctly, and certainly West Germany might be might be examples of that.
I won't make you guys go through each of them individually for brevity's sake, but I would like to just take a second to talk about Russia, China, and North Korea, the authoritarian states that you look at in this book, and sort of what the findings were of how these states approached COVID action versus, you know, all the others we've spoken about. Basically, it's it's.
Tricky because we've one of the one of the main findings is that lots and lots of states engage in this kind of activity, but they wouldn't see it as as cover action.
You know.
Our China chapter explicitly says that the Chinese don't have a word for co att action or a translation for cover att action, and therefore you know, are we misguided when we start talking about Chinese co atte action? Is that just a ridiculous phrase which means nothing to Chinese government, Chinese people and doesn't actually help want us analyze what the Chinese doing and to help people in the West
build resilience against some of these things. So what I think we see is we certainly know that Russia engaged in a lot of this activity. We know that China engaged in a lot of political influence operations, whether that's propaganda.
Or through.
We've seen the UK, We've seen Canada, Australia, New Zealand put out alerts through their intelligence services that China is trying to deniably influence internal democratic processes, and we've seen numerous numerous inquiries into that. But they do it in a different kind of way. Because this is one of the big lessons from the book. We just take the American definition of covert action and transpose it onto China to then understand what the Chinese are doing, you're not
going to get very far. So we see the Chinese allegedly working through the diaspora or coercively, wittingly or otherwise to try and on a low level shape the parameters of academic debates sensor what universities can and come out write about or or try to shape economic climate or business.
And we've seen leaders in Australia over the last ten years say that, you know, it's a low level, widespread drip drip drip of blur in the line between what's legitimate and what's illegitimate, between what's overt and what's covert, and between what is broadly acceptable and as political lobbying and what is not as coercive interference. And I remember one com remember it was ahead of the Australian intelligence
or a former politician. So one day you wake up and you realize that the political system has changed because it's happened on this gradual drip drip drip of semi
covert political influence. And I think if we take the American definition and apply it to Russia and China, we overplay the focus on secrecy, and I think we overplay the focus on a neat, compatmentalized approach to government, whereas in Russia, in China, you know, it's it's much more of a whole of government approach engaging in this kind of activity, certainly on the intelligent side of things. With China,
it's much more, much more industrialized. And when it comes to Russia, what we're seeing, I think is a lot of activity. The Chief m I six today, instead of doing the usual six tour of the global threat perceptions, just focused specifically on Russia, calling them out as being a hardcore hostile state actor. And previous previous British intelligence chiefs have quoted Russian intelligent services as having gone feral.
So we're seeing a widespread increase in activity. But I think Man that you wrote about this the it's low level what scholars including Mander have called gig economy approach to recruitment of saboteurs and spies, and I think Mago Nephew will elaborate on that. I think that's been a change and is something more distinctive to Russia compared to say the US.
That's that's that is a big thing. And Megdal, I'll let you take it. I just want to say, in some of my work as a journalist and talking to counterintelligence people and an intelligence personnel who have come under surveillance, that foreign intelligence services are going on these like gig websites and hiring just like a door dash guy to do surveillance on somebody. Like it's crazy how it's how it works. But anyway, I'll let you elaborate.
¶ The Future of Covert Action in a Multipolar World
Yes, yeah, I think one of the things that we realize very quickly is that well, most of these operations that Russia and you know, other adressary adversaries were undertake, you know, sabotage were in particular throughout Europe, had roots, you know, in the Cold War. That they're not that different in a sense, they're attacking the same kind of targets and infrastructure that would have been the target anyway.
Right, What we.
Realized quickly is that the the type of people that were doing this and who were being employed to do this is not the same anymore. So it's not your typical agent, you know, with an age intelligence you groom them, you you know, you train them, or intelligence officers in the end of the day, you know, you work with these people, you train them, you know who they are, you know, you know you can command them, you can
tell them what to do. But now what we're seeing is that they don't necessarily because a lot of Russian intelligence officers and diplomats have been kicked out of Europe and you know, and other states, and they don't really have the capability to do these the number of operations that they do, so they turn to this gig economy approach.
Employment of individuals who have never done these things, who may think of themselves as the next John Wick or you know, your adjacent Borne, and they think they can do this. They whether they have allegiances to Russia or not is irrelevant, whether they have ideological sympathies, whether they've ever done this, and frankly, in some cases they don't even know they're doing it for Russia, right, they don't
even know to whom they're speaking. So essentially what this allows, the gig economy approach is is not something that Russia has invented. You know, if you think about transnational criminal networks, they've been doing this kind of stuff for years, you know, just hiring an odd person for this task or that task here and there, right, and one side doesn't know what the other side is doing, so it gives you
much much broader approach. You know, in some instances, like we've seen in London, for instance, a chap who.
Was recently errol do you remember what was his name? Again?
Do you remember Rory Errol.
Yeah, no, no, this is a kid who burned the organized the burning of the storage facility in the UK. Yeah, he was. I think it's er something, but it's a young kid, he's never done this kind of stuff. He gets contacted by somebody, uh working for Russian intelligence services, so potentially I think in the end it turned out that it was a Wagner link there says you know, we want you to hire several people to burn down
the storage facility. They're giving specific instructions and in the end, what happens that he didn't follow the instructions they were given, that he was given, so they didn't pay him as much money that that that that they said they would and because he didn't burn it to the Wagner standards.
I mean, this, this is how sick this is.
And these people, I mean their kids most of the time. And the UK is not the only place you know where this happened, you have it happens in Poland. I think in Poland they one of the individuals was from somewhere from Latin America, uh, and he was told that he needs to take pictures of a bus depot in Germany. Well, why well for insurance purposes, and you will get you know, paid, whatever amount it was. And sometimes they don't even get paid frankly, but this one was like, you will get paid,
you know, a minimal amount. Just go take some pictures. It's an insurance thing. And the next thing, you know, you know, the bus DEEPI that catches fire or there's an explosion going on, and this this these kinds of things, you know. Sometimes they are refugees just trying to earn a quick buck. Sometimes they're teachers, so they have no training, they're quick, they're cheap, and in the end of their Russia doesn't give them. What happens to them, you know,
and whether they caught or not, like prove it. So essentially it opens up a kind of worms to type of individuals you can hire us through this approach.
The last kind of big question I want to ask the two of you is kind of concluding thoughts I suppose about all of the things we've been talking about, and how it seems that we are moving into more of a multi polar worldview where we're going to have a number of different states that all see themselves as regional, if not world powers. Things seem to be getting increasingly chaotic. The old you know, Moscow rules and those types of concepts seem to be off the table completely. It's like
anything goes. What are your thoughts about the future of COVID action and where we're heading in the next ten to twenty years. Chats from that.
Okay, out there first, and you can have the fun.
You can have the fun of word because you you.
Well.
The thing that struck me.
Doing this project is that this is not new, and that states have been doing this for literally millennia before states, before states even existed. Obviously they wouldn't have called it cob to action. But these same kinds of principles and means and tactics and objectives go back literally literally millennia, and far more states do it and have done it than I think we give credit for in our writings and in the in the press and in academia. And
that's not to create false equivalents. Russia, clearly, as Mago just outlining, has a very very different approach compared to say the UK where I am now that said, lots of countries engage in this kind of of activity, from Brazil through to Chile through to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, you know, books, chapters we couldn't find authors for in the book, and chapter we couldn't write the book because would have been
outrageously long. So I think we need going forward to understand that this is a part of international stake craft, that coercive unacknowledged interference is something that states do. They do it for different reasons, they do it different levels of oversights, they do it with different levels of intensity, but it's something that lots of states do, and we need to acknowledge that this this exists and account for
it in our in our thinking. And some of these some of these middle powers and smaller powers, have their own agency. They're not just being not just pawns being manipulated by Russia or China or the US. These states have their own intelligence agencies and are trying to to
manipulate in shape stuff themselves. And I think we be wrong to wipe out their agency by just assuming that Russia is meddling in post imperial Africa and the you know, the poor post imperial Africans don't have any say in that and an ability with their own in Tigian agencies. So I think we'll see more we'll see it. We'll see the trend continuing of more states engaging in this, more states trying to find their own way, playing different
powers off against each other, trying to manipulate. I think that it will become more chaotic. I think that it become noisier. I think it will become more intense. I think the fundamental principles will stay the same. States use these tools for particular reasons. They have particular trade offs when using sabotage and other kind of forms of COVID operations.
That hasn't changed. But the speed, the intensity supercharged by technology super cher but interonnectedness will just make it all more intense, noisier, more chaotic, and I think state will see more of it because states will just do more stuff to try and drown out the signals. But I'll hand over to Magda, who is currently thinking about these things in a much more intellectual.
Manner than me.
Not quite, but thank you very much for thinking that. I am well. I actually agree with you very much so. And the one thing that we are neglecting in a manner of speaking, is that the character of COVID action is changing. And I think that the states are it's not just about rapidly deploying people anymore. It's not about
technology necessarily. I think it's about realizing that and of course those things are very important, but I think it's about realizing that we may not necessarily be talking about traditional kinetic warfare. I think we're talking about dirty warfare here, and you know, in your hybrid space and in your gray zone or hybrid warfare space. And I think non state actors are becoming prolifically important in in in this next phase. So for instance, you've you know, we've talked
about UH India a little bit. You know, India use criminal actress to commit these assassin issues. China uses the tryads to you know, control the population and for transnational repression. Russia uses criminal actors in their approach to this UH to this two in COVID activities. So you're have in more and more states doing this. I mean, Venezuela is also doing exactly the same. I think the criminal actors, paramilitary companies and private security companies are becoming extremely important
in this particular in the next stage. And I think we're we're seeing the change in you know, even in the US. Obviously we've always been using you know, PMC is maybe not in COVID action officially, but we've always been using officially, I said, we've always been using proxies, you know, and affiliates and auxiliaries. But it is it is getting to the point where every state is now
dipping into this pool. And uh, these non state actors do not care about allegiances, They do not care about ideology. They care about power, money, prestige. Right. So I think we're seeing we're going to see quite a lot of change in that particular space. I think that it's getting
more dangerous. So because intelligence agencies, you know, people who work there, you know, they at least have some uh some similarity in the way they think and the way they feel about their country, some ideology, some respects, some desire to serve their nation.
What are you going to say.
About you know, proxies like like criminal actors. So I think that's going to be a major change. And judging by how the US has been acting and you know, calling cartels terrorists, I think it's a game changer in the international affairs, there's going to be it's going to get more complicated.
Is there anything that you guys would like to cover before we get going tonight. Are there any questions you wish I had asked about the book or anything else?
Well, I don't know what I've missed when I went offline. Sorry about that, but it sounds to me like you were talking about.
You missed me filibustering while you're off screen for two minutes.
That's what you missed the professional We were just discussing how authoritarian states approached COVID action as opposed to others.
And talked about Brazil.
We talked about have we we tackled most of the states?
I think that they were.
There, haven't gotten into Nigeria, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia. There's a whole chapter about like Greeks during the Peloponnesian War that we haven't talked about. That was kind of cool. But I just want to open the floor. Let you guys talk hit up whatever subject I may have missed that you'd really like to talk about.
Not from mine. And I think I think we covered We covered. We covered a lot that an't we Yeah.
Absolutely, I think we cover some of the key you know, of the key ones and key changes, and you know why states do what they do. You know from the Nigerian perspective, I think, you know, they do a lot of CTS kind of stuff, and you know, so that it's not necessarily COVID in the same aspect that we would talk about and we talked about with with other nations of other countries. So yeah, I think I'm fine. I don't think we need to go into into the remaining ones.
I think we name check most of the if not in detail, we named check most of the most of the chapters. And I kind of made a passing reference to the ancient Greek stuff in that in that final answer, where as Jeff as Jeff said that we've been doing this, these kind of activities are familiar to us, to go back literally millennius.
Yeah, I think we've I think.
We've pretty much take most of the chapters.
So the book is Covert Action National Approaches to Unacknowledged Intervention. You can go and find it today. Where's the best place for people to go and buy this book?
So the book can be purchased on Amazon dot com or or Georgetown University Press website and yet holiday reasonably fro It's a great holiday gift.
And we will have links down the description on this podcast or YouTube video wherever you watch. It's some links down below where you can purchase the book. Thank you both of you spending some time with us to talk about this subject in your book. And I think this is like a great you know, we we mostly on this podcast interview people who are military veterans or intelligence agency veterans, and it's really cool to get those anecdotal experiences.
But it's also cool to zoom out once in a while and get the forty thousand foot view of it all as sometimes you guys cover things in your research that we missed. Yeah, but that much work.
Yeah, more interesting than us, hopefully, Hopefully it's been a it's been a it's been an interesting listener, but I've certainly enjoyed the conversation. Say, thanks ever so much for inviting us on Jack.
Absolutely, yes, thank you so much for having us. This has been fun.
Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you guys, and for everyone else, we will see you next time. Have a happy holiday.
Thank you night bye.
Hey, guys. I want to tell all of you today about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both the Teamhouse podcast, the eyes On podcast, and the High Side news outlet which I run with Sean Naylor. The newsletter is gonna be once a week. It's going to come into your inbox and you're gonna get the most current podcasts on eyes On and the Teamhouse and whatever's
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