Strong recommend. 👊

@terrystiastny.bsky.social what’s the best way of contacting you please? I no longer have DM on here

🫣🤫🫣

🤷‍♂️ my dad grew up in a Nottingham housing scheme “but” developed a passion for Latin AND football … growing up poor ≠ uncultured

Excited to see Covert Action: National Approaches to Unacknowledged Intervention, in the wild at #APSA2025. My contribution: Israel's Mossad and Covert Action: Immigration, Counter-Proliferation, and Assassination. Edited by @rorycormac.bsky.social @magslong.bsky.social @markstout.bsky.social

Anything missing?

Is this the nerdiest graphic ever?! The Whitehall machinery coordinating British covert activities, 1945-65 Literally years of research to compile and exactly the kind of thing I got into academia for!!

And with that the Cormac and Cormac bookshelf is full!

Hooray, my copy finally arrived! It’s the first attempt to compare states’ approaches to what our US friends call covert action My own personal conclusion is “covert action” is dumb and when talking about wider practice beyond US legal codes we should use “unacknowledged interference”

It's out! Truly a wonderful book, full of useful new insights. A groundbreaking contribution to the field of Intelligence Studies by so many of our favorite scholars. www.amazon.com/Covert-Actio...

Every word I said back then is true. I'm so glad that this came out in time for my spring class in "Comparative Intelligence Services." Congratulations @markstout.bsky.social @magslong.bsky.social @rorycormac.bsky.social Genevieve Lester, @markstout.bsky.social, @dvanp.bsky.social, & all involved.

@rorycormac.bsky.social @markstout.bsky.social @dvanp.bsky.social @jgmaber.bsky.social @paulmcgarr.bsky.social @dianabolsinger.bsky.social It arrived! Super excited about our edited volume on #covertaction! And extremely grateful to our contributors and reviewers for their hard work and support!

Article on sabotage accepted for publication in @ejisbisa.bsky.social authored with @lmaschmeyer.bsky.social and @jrovner.bsky.social calls for a celebratory Dartmoor whisky Sabotage weaponises friction to degrade; subversion actively generates change 2 distinct logics in “grey zone” statecraft

Looking forward to reading. Looks right up my alley. @rorycormac.bsky.social @magslong.bsky.social

My copy arrived today. Thanks to @magslong.bsky.social @rorycormac.bsky.social Genevieve Lester @markstout.bsky.social & @dvanp.bsky.social for assembling such an impressive range of scholars and country studies. 📚

Look what came in the mail today! (Feat. my chapter on covert action in Mandatory Palestine.) @magslong.bsky.social @rorycormac.bsky.social @markstout.bsky.social @dvanp.bsky.social

Can we go back to a time when “old school charm” constituted a “research methodology” please? (From this week’s LRB)

Shout out to reviewer 2 who fundamentally disagreed with our article but recommended publication anyway because it forms an interesting contribution. In danger of giving reviewer 2s a good name!

⁉️ Earlier this year we saw Blaise Metreweli selected as the next "C". But how do you appoint an SIS/MI6 Chief? In this Diplomacy & Statecraft article, we use archival material to study the process and the role of officials in picking "C". The article is free to read: 🔗 t.co/PzFDdPcg2i

When your crappy work laptop does this for hours on end does it equate to officially sanctioned time off? I would be working but “your organisation manages your update settings”

Not a sign of solidarity against Trump’s alleged covert influence ops?? metro.co.uk/2025/08/26/p...

Thanks to @rorycormac.bsky.social for drawing my attention to the quote which opens the story. global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Well I never knew that: the first American racially segregated prison was… Dartmoor! Apparently white American prisoners of the 1812 war insisted on being segregated along racial rather than nationality / alliance lines

Very interesting and timely. Good job @magslong.bsky.social

Another writer and broadcaster just offered “Fakers” is “Monty Python meets Le Carré” … exactly what I was going for! Absolutely buzzing 😀

Late 1992: Stella Rimington was invited to lunch at Buckingham Palace. Uncertain of protocols re the first publicly named spy chief, the royals announced it in the Court Circular. Dozens of press turned up desperate for pics and so the royal household had to help her slink out a back exit.

Totally unsurprising. I wish someone would total up the amount of time and money spent chasing these rainbows. Scrap funding awards and just give us all £2k a year to go down the archives and to a conference!

Tom understands fairness. He went to private school 😉 It's pretty galling that a scheme to widen access into fast track gets a lot of hate, especially when 1/4 senior civil servants were privately educated in 2021. We're in 2025 and parts of HMG remain a club.

I’m archivally ill-disciplined and unhygienic. After 20 years, I now use excel to keep track of files and camscanner to photograph files and convert them to pdf. That’s it. And word. Oh and 2 screens which makes me feel very professional and hi-tech. No referencing software though…

Asking for pre-publication endorsements is something I find very nerve-wracking (anyone else?!?) but a top comedian, writer and broadcaster just said “Fakers” is “laugh out loud” funny! Absolutely buzzing! It’s out next spring.

“Evidence for the culture war is to be found in his professional setbacks, such as failing to secure research grants” Nah, if failing to secure research grants sent you right wing I’d be to the right of Atilla the Hun!! www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/philos...

"The book is a social history of how attitudes to sexuality and race have shaped Whitehall and have unintended consequences today" 📚 @sandbaggerone.bsky.social on his new publication 'The Secret History of UK Security Vetting from 1909 to the Present' ℹ️ tinyurl.com/ms3vn6b8

Really enjoyed talking secret statecraft and covert ops with Earlylands “Historian of Covert Action” is a pretty cool sounding gig to be fair!! open.spotify.com/episode/6zei...

Looking forward to seeing the book in print, including my chapter on a century of Moscow's covert actions

Despite vowing never to (co-)edit a book, I made an exception for this: A much needed attempt to free “covert action” or whatever the hell you want to call unacknowledged interference from its US-centric scholarly baggage Thanks to all involved. press.georgetown.edu/Book/Covert-...

Fantastic to see a Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy letter to the security minister and chair of the defending democracy taskforce cites evidence from @nottspolitics.bsky.social's @rorycormac.bsky.social Read the letter in full here ➡️ tinyurl.com/ynxs3txs

Just finished this. Fair play to @terrystiastny.bsky.social for imposing a highly readable narrative on total bureaucratic chaos!

cited - unnervingly prominently - in a Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy letter to the security minister & chair of the defending democracy taskforce: Subversion is about fear / eroding trust as much as it is about actually changing outcomes committees.parliament.uk/publications...

Great to see research centre SUIT's written evidence to the Defence Committee has been cited in the 'Defence in the Grey Zone' report, suggesting there needed to be greater coordination of counter grey-zone activity Read more about the report here ➡️ tinyurl.com/ey3wrn9e

Which got me thinking, as I turn 40 tomorrow, about other random adventures the job (for all its flaws) has provided. From tv to tours of Downing Street and the pentagon, from hobnobbing with real authors at book festivals to giving evidence in parliament. What’s your most random ac-experience?

Last year I filmed a tv show in a nuclear bunker with comedian Russell Kane. Today I’m off to film in a molecular biology research lab with Lucy Worsley. Love academia and its random adventures sometimes!

Always nice to be cited in a Defence Committee report recommending greater coordination between the many actors engaged in information and counter-disinformation operations www.nottingham.ac.uk/suit/news/20...

To those who say exams are unrealistic and anachronistic forms of assessment: Today, I am cramming before being grilled on a topic for an hour and a half tomorrow.

Relieved that my forthcoming book, Fakers, on British Cold War forgeries, fakes and black propaganda has passed the publisher’s legal review (Life would be so much easier researching something boring!)

The latest in our @edinburghup.bsky.social series… and it’s another belter!

loving that time the Joint Intelligence Committee rebranded itself to give off the vibes of a futuristic tech company... 1981

cool to read about a local Nottingham company developing gadgets for escape and evasion during the Cold War. This one involved miniature receivers concealed in ball point pens.

This line about Russian disinformation stoking tension between generations in the National Security Strategy really wound me up. It’s true of course. But lazy. Maybe if we had some policies for young people there may be fewer divisions to stoke… it’s an internal issue

Great to see the incomparable @psywarorg.bsky.social back up and running - now on substack

a particularly odd hallucination reported by a British operative undergoing "resistance to interrogation" training (1969) "I thought I was a member of a Welsh Nationalist partisan group..."