It’s arrived! Thanks Georgetown UP and those who helped make The Intelligence Intellectuals: Social Scientists and the Making of the CIA: @markstout.bsky.social, Don Jacobs, Robert_Patman, @joemaiolo.bsky.social, @ldfreedman.bsky.social, Chris Kinsey, @stephenwalt.bsky.social, Beinecke, and more!

I received my copy today of "The Intelligence Intellectuals: Social Scientists and the Making of the CIA," the new book by @petercgrace.bsky.social. I read it in the editorial process and it's fun and groundbreaking. Strongly recommend for those interested in the history of the CIA or intel analysis

I talked to Radio NZ this morning on the FBI opening an office in Wellington. www.rnz.co.nz/national/pro...

Our first speaker line up for the Aspen Otago National Security Forum is Chris Taylor of ASPI interviewing the Biden Administration’s emerging tech czar Anne Neuberger on the huge challenges artificial intelligence poses for espionage and analysis. www.otago.ac.nz/foreign-poli...

The shoe has finally dropped. A USG government employee offered to spy for a foreign government on ideological grounds: his distaste for Trump. I predicted @warontherocks.bsky.social in ~2017 that this would happen. I'll only claim partial prescience because I'm surprised it took so long.

“The panel is tasked with reviewing records to make recommendations to the State Department’s Office of the Historian and Foreign Service Institute for its Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series…” thehill.com/homenews/adm...

Is the national security system robust enough to withstand shock, and fleet-footed enough to respond to black swans? Rolfe asks whether it focuses more on the right processes than it does the right people, and if it ‘lacks imagination’, making NZers less secure.

I feel proud and very honored that my book “World War I and the Foundations of American Intelligence” (UPK, 2023) is the subject of the latest H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable. I hope this encourages others to work in the field. 1/3

In a guest post for Comment is Freed, Greg Treverton, Chair of the U.S. National Intelligence Council from 2014 to 2017 under President Obama, considers how allies should deal with the U.S. intelligence community under Trump. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/s...?

You can’t write about the influence of social scientists on CIA’s intelligence estimates without questioning whether they’d have any flair for it at all. William Harding Jackson, who had written a wartime report on British Intelligence, certainly didn’t think so. 🧵 1/8

You can’t write about the influence of social scientists on CIA’s intelligence estimates without questioning whether they’d have any flair for it at all. William Harding Jackson, who had written a wartime report on British Intelligence, certainly didn’t think so. 🧵 1/8

Going through some old slides, I ran across this political cartoon about the failed nomination of Anthony Lake to be Director of Central Intelligence in the 1990s. Alas, no signature on this, so I don't know who to credit.

Probably one more session of tidying to go before I've got a complete route network for Italy as published #16thCentury - #18thCentury! I like this view of Northern Italy to show that the #earlymodern routes (red) are not just the Roman roads (green). 🗃️ @emdigit.bsky.social

It's not an overstatement to say that I really can't wait to read this book. Thank you very much for writing it.

Cambodia’s largest trading partner, by a long way, is China. But China benefits more than Cambodia does. Its most profitable trading partner is the US. Much of its exports to the US is clothing. China however owns the bulk of Cambodia’s clothing factories.

Book publishing is magical. It only feels like a couple of months ago I was series editing this bad boy in the pub … and now voila here it is. Huge congratulations to @sandbaggerone.bsky.social and Chris Murphy. It’s a fantastic book and a big contribution to the lit!

Hegseth orders 'disestablishing' of Office of Net Assessment

We have a cover! My thanks to Georgetown University Press for their hard work. Photo of the "father of intelligence analysis" Sherman Kent in a very un-pc pose!

Very rewarding trip to D.C and NYC. Throughly enjoyed the @socintelhist.bsky.social conference at the International Spy Museum and the chance to present from my upcoming book. Made some new friends, and caught up with two old friends in NY. Still the greatest city. Stay strong America!

Great news, #BlueSkyStorians... The pre-order button is gone for @rmidura.bsky.social's "Postal Intelligence: The Tassis Family and Communications Revolution in Early Modern Europe"! Check it out and ship away at the @cornellupress.bsky.social book page: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

Intelligence and National Security is now on BlueSky! Our latest edition, Vol 39, No 7, 2024 is available here: www.tandfonline.com/toc/fint20/3... Follow this account for the latest news from the Journal!

The University of What? Chris Moran, Richard Aldrich, Ronan Mainprize.

Council of Four: John Negroponte, Michael McConnell, Michael Hayden, James Clapper. At the Society for Intelligence Historians conference, Washington D.C.

Henry Tonks, war surgeon and lecturer at the Slade art school at the turn of last century, described his class of particularly talented but demanding students as “a crisis of brilliance”.

Looking forward to presenting “Anticipating the Bear: Discerning Soviet Intentions vs Capabilities 1942-1953” at the Society for Intelligence History Conference in Washington D.C, Feb 3-8. Getting inside the head of the adversary, early CIG/CIA.

Very much enjoying Australian historian Robert Manne’s A Political Memoir: Intellectual Combat in the Cold War and Culture Wars. Reminded me of my political philosophy professor Jim Flynn, zigging when others zagged, but always a good argument for doing so.

Wonderful trip to Cambodia, thanks to Suz Jessep and Asia New Zealand Foundation. Seeing a very unfamiliar country makes you think differently about the familiar ones. Like South Korea, Cambodia lives a reality which is somewhere between pessimism and hope.

In Phnom Penh with Suz Jessep and Farib Sos. Amazing city, so much to learn here in one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Thanks to Asia New Zealand.

By the 1940s social science was being spoken of with the same excitement AI is today. Could it provide a new strategic intelligence discipline to assess enemy intentions and capabilities? The Intel Intellectuals and the CIA. Out Fall 2025 with Georgetown University Press!