Given the #Louvre heist, it is worth a revisit to this amazing episode on art crime! #podcast #crime #art #heist encyclopediageopolitica.com/2025/01/01/h...

My favourite time of year! Back on campus at Sciences Po Paris for another semester of undergrad and MA intelligence in the public and private sectors! #intelligence #sciencespo

Despite the headline, this isn't limited to tech and it isn't limited to exec security. Corporate security spending is up across the board due to geopolitical/conflict risks, economic espionage, resilience requirements, and crisis management. #intelligence #security www.ft.com/content/303d...

"French authorities are investigating a network that allegedly tried to court elite university students and junior bankers, betting they’d one day land top finance jobs and hand over market-moving intelligence." #intelligence #insiderrisk #espionage www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Another deeply frustrating article which reduces the extremely broad (and overwhelmingly ethical, legal, and frankly friendly) private intelligence field to a handful of dodgy private investigations and Due Diligence firms. #intelligence #investigations www.politico.eu/article/uk-b...

Tech theft isn't new: China's tea secrets were stolen by an East India Company spy and Venetian telescope makers were confined to the isle of Murano to prevent leaks. The (connected) modern economy and research collab makes the scale of today's challenge different though! www.ft.com/content/f896...

Looking forward to reviewing this very timely release from Aviva Guttmann! Special thanks to Cambridge Uni Press for the review copy 🥰 #intelligence #assassinations #readinglist

Everyone seems to think they have independently invented the corporate geopolitical risk field. CEOs have not left international relations to "lobbyists"; most have sophisticated political risk teams! #geopolitics #politicalrisk #intelligence #business www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Trump could learn from the Danish defence forces’ way to sign off their post: ”we are monitoring the situation and have nothing more to add.”

Another likely sabotage incident adjacent to a major French cultural event (the last was a series of TGV line sabotage incidents on the eve of the Paris olympics). www.lemonde.fr/en/culture/a...

Bravo à @larevuedesmedias.bsky.social et à l'équipe de @francoisquinton.bsky.social pour cette enquête remarquable sur la couverture par le PAF des opérations d'influence menées par les services de renseignement russes (Etoiles de David, Mains rouges). 1/3 larevuedesmedias.ina.fr/etoiles-davi...

"The CCP has designed a full-stack approach to information collection at Stanford and beyond." stanfordreview.org/investigatio...

Essential reading from THE expert on the PDB! #intelligence

The first Observer overseen by Tortoise Media - and what a picture they got to kick it off.

End of term at Sciences Po Paris is always bittersweet, as I miss teaching the next generation of #intelligence professionals over break, but also look forward to hearing about the amazing things they go on to! This final class was a treat with guest talks by Drs Maria Robson-Morrow & Angela Lewis!

Private sector intelligence capabilities rarely stay confined to the private sector! #intelligence #geoint www.ft.com/content/628b...

😂 I am a big hit with French kids apparently!

@alexzfinley.bsky.social Congrats on your French language release! 😁

Nice to see my review of Sean West's new book "Unruly" made it into the print edition! A really good read for those curious about the intersection of geopolitics, tech, and the law!

ONA & Andrew Marshall were crucial to developing the strategies that won the Cold War. Closing ONA is Absolutely in keeping with an administration that has no interest in actually winning the long-term systemic competition against authoritarian regimes breakingdefense.com/2025/03/hegs...

Bureaucrats are to officials what terrorists are to freedom-fighters.

"You have the appearance of the U.S. being more of a paper tiger than it has been since the beginning of World War I. [...] These factors [are] increasing [the] assessment of the likelihood of a near-term PRC invasion of Taiwan" Great piece by A. Clay in @encyclopediageopolitica.com

I reviewed @drichterova.bsky.social’s excellent book Watching the Jackals for @jpict.bsky.social. Bottom line: read it. It’s great. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

📢 Heads' up Washington DC To celebrate the US release of "Rogue Agent", I will be talking about Robert Bruce's Lockhart's escapades in Bolshevik Russia and signing books at the Spy Museum on 16 April #history #spy #booksky #russia #intelligence #historybookchat 🔽🔽 www.spymuseum.org/calendar/rog...

Just imagine the state of the PDB at the moment - Zelensky wants WW3 (S//SI//REL TO USA, FVEY, FOX & FRIENDS) - Chinese saboteurs infiltrate Panama Canal - FBI reports worrying indications that Canadians may be maintaining covert presence inside NORAD - Paper straws determined to strike in US

It's a special day! After two years, @lucatrenta.bsky.social & I submitted our edited volume, “Killing in the Name of the State: State-Sponsored Assassinations in International Politics.” Thanks to all contributors and Lynne Rienner Publishers. Awaiting peer review and hope to see it in print soon!

Europe has to pay more for its own defence. One debate is whether they should "Buy European" weapons or buy them from America or other allies. One really BAD statistic is polluting the debate: that the EU buys 80% of its weapons from overseas. Ursula von der Leyen repeated it today. It's wrong. 🧵

“In certain sectors, we could see US firms defined as high-risk suppliers, in the same way Chinese companies like Huawei have been" My comments to Handelsblatt on the "Trump Effect" on US firms abroad. Trust is a fragile thing. And the US no longer enjoys it. www.handelsblatt.com/politik/inte...

"Europe 🇪🇺 collectively outproduces the United States 🇺🇸 in steel, vehicles, ships, and civil aircraft. European Union member countries, on average, also pay less to service their debts than the United States. This gives the EU the industrial heft and financial firepower."

📢New #substack After a Russian spy ring was uncovered in Britain last week, let's look at the first Bolshevik spy to set up shop in London - 100 years ago #intelligence #History #research #writing #spies #writingcommunity #historyIR jamescrossland.substack.com/p/tales-from...

New piece in foreign policy. The US's postwar role as guarantor of Europe’s security is over. But Europe has an overlooked trump card: when it comes to manufacturing it blows the US out of the water, giving Europe the ability to rearm. Thread on Monday. foreignpolicy.com/2025/03/07/e...

The misuse in recent weeks of Thucycides’ Melian Dialogue- the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must- annoys me. The treatment of the Melians - murdered and enslaved - prompted small Greek city states to band together with Sparta and ultimately defeat Athens. That’s the lesson.

Some thoughts on the European response to the chaos now emanating from the White House - on Ukraine and more broadly, based on chats with senior European policymakers directly or indirectly involved in formulating the bloc's response 1/

Spy agencies around the world may limit their information-sharing with the U.S. due to its reconciliatory approach to Russia - NBC News Intelligence agencies among American allies - including Five Eyes Spy Alliance (US, UK, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada), Israel, and Saudi Arabia -

🚨 We are very excited to announce to we have joined the Bluesky community - please spread the word and give us a follow! 🎉

1. On US cut-off in intelligence sharing. Seems partial rather than complete reporting - see Deborah Haynes of Sky reporting - but includes CIA so not just tactical intel. This is a highly consequential move that is more important than the arms pause. It will significantly weaken & blind Ukraine.

If the EU could seize this moment, and issue eurobonds, “it would tap in to a deep well of willing buyers keen to trim US exposure” www.ft.com/content/4ba5...

The suspension of U.S. assistance for Ukraine is a very unfortunate and significant development, but it may not have immediate impact. Ukraine is far less dependent on the U.S. for day to day battlefield needs in 2025, than it was in earlier periods of the war. 1/

Jack Watling and I take a look at what the requirements might look like for a European force in Ukraine. We find that this not an insurmountable task, but will require proper resourcing and difficult political choices. @warontherocks.bsky.social warontherocks.com/2025/03/will...

Emmanuel Macron has told Le Figaro newspaper that he wants to increase French defence spending to 3%-3.5% of GDP. If so, that would be massive. France is currently, just, at 2% www.lefigaro.fr/internationa...

A point I forgot to make on @maxbergmann.bsky.social podcast. The supremacy of the dollar is driven by alliances, alongside capital market depth. Allies historically held more of a dominant reserve currency. A US weakening alliances is dollar negative. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The interaction of potential large scale issuance of safe Euro-denominated government backed defence bonds and creeping questioning of the role of US Treasuries in global finance is going to be fascinating to watch.

“Mr President, you’ve lost the Telegraph editorial page”

The unravelling of the transatlantic order is moving from hypothetical and tentative to sudden and brutal. The West as a strategic construct is broken. 🇪🇺 and its 510 million inhabitants (EU, UK, Norway) is now very much on its own. This isn't an nth wakeup call but like being thrown out of bed...

U.S. Offers PlatinumPlus Preferred Citizenship

Merz just said on German TV that the primary priority of his government will be to ensure that Europe can achieve full strategic independence from the United States in the defence against Russia. Merz was once a die hard Atlanicist. Now, after Trump he is a Gaullist. Extraordinary.

I was sceptical when I read the subtitle, but convinced when I finished this very coherent piece by @lianafix.bsky.social and @psparding.bsky.social. Maybe it's also time to shift away from the wording "grand coalition", as CDU/SPD would get around 50%. www.foreignaffairs.com/germany/germ...