Thrilled to announce that I have been awarded The Eyes of Texas Excellence Award for 2026! This honor recognizes outstanding contributions faculty have made to students' lives at UT Austin. This award is a very pleasant surprise and I look forward to continuing to support the Longhorns!

I'm excited to share that our new book with the talented Adam Hanzel, "Ladders of Escalation: Flexible Modeling in Comparative Cases of the State-Sponsored Targeted Killings," is now available for pre-order on Springer Nature's and Amazon's websites! www.amazon.com/Ladders-Esca...

We've got some great new intel books available for review here at JPICT, including books by @chekistmonitor.bsky.social, @lucatrenta.bsky.social & @avramovok.bsky.social. Please get in touch with @melaniebrand.bsky.social if you're interested in writing a review for us. 1/3

Yay!

Interested in the use of chemical and biological weapons in assassination and how to investigate it? May I recommend two excellent chapters (by Glenn Cross and Richard Beedham, and by @dankaszeta.bsky.social) in the volume I co-edited with @avramovok.bsky.social. www.rienner.com/title/Killin....

I'm thrilled to share that our paper with Jan Černý (Prague University of Economics and Business) and Liladhar Pendse (University of California, Berkeley) is published. A multi-stage, agentic LLM workflow built for the complexity of the CIA FOIA Reading Room: www.emerald.com/el/article-a...

My copy has finally arrived. I'm told contributors' copies are on the way. Thanks again to @avramovok.bsky.social, all the contributors, and @lynneriennerpub.bsky.social.

Thanks @dankaszeta.bsky.social. @avramovok.bsky.social and I are grateful to have you on board.

Coming soon and we can't wait. Congratulations, @lucatrenta.bsky.social and @avramovok.bsky.social!

Alright, alright, alright! The Christmas presents have arrived early this year!

New! How do governments approach, understand, & even justify assassination? What methods have been used historically, and how do they differ from current practice? Dig into these questions and more with Killing in the Name of the State by @lucatrenta.bsky.social and Kiril Avramov! shorturl.at/Ma0N8

The book @avramovok.bsky.social and I co-edited is finally available. For the UK, you can purchase here: www.scriptbooks.co.uk/57544/killin...

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...

How cool - it is also available as an Audible Audiobook! It certainly will be a new experience to listen to my own chapter being read by a professional narrator 🙂 www.amazon.com/Covert-Actio...

@lucatrenta.bsky.social and @avramovok.bsky.social's upcoming book, "Killing in the Name of the State," is available for pre-order on Amazon. This looks absolutely fascinating! www.amazon.com/Killing-Name...

Available to pre-order on Amazon

We are really looking forward to this December 2025 release by our own @avramovok.bsky.social and @lucatrenta.bsky.social . Well done to you both!

Thinking of Christmas shopping already? Let me help you. New edited volume with @avramovok.bsky.social is out in December with Lynne Rienner. www.rienner.com/title/Killin...

Forthcoming December 2025/325 pages, with @lucatrenta.bsky.social !

‘The UK government should build expertise surrounding assassinations; a process that is emerging in academia, but needs to be better connected to government and society.’ Latest for @rusi.bsky.social with @avramovok.bsky.social and @mattlevitt.bsky.social. www.rusi.org/explore-our-...

'The regime will likely seek to avenge the death of the many senior leaders killed and the damage done to its nuclear and ballistic missile programs' write @avramovok.bsky.social, @mattlevitt.bsky.social sky.social and @lucatrenta.bsky.social in the latest RUSI Commentary.

Cool results & insights from our new "forensic reading" method for extracting unclassified intelligence files and spy fiction using a combination of NLP and AI methods are coming soon! Exciting!

What a fantastic, creative buzz within my research group (DH Research Group #1 | AI Safety and Security in Digital Humanities) this summer! I look forward to publishing some of our new research results soon. Kudos to Thorsten Ries, Steph Buongiorno, PhD, Adam Hanzel, and Hiba Farouqi!

I'm excited that the fruit of our joint endeavor with @lucatrenta.bsky.social and a select number of very talented researchers is in its final phase. Pre-order, or ask your library to get a copy here: tinyurl.com/4p9u83ap

Call for Papers: The University of Texas at Austin Announces the 2025 “Bobby R. Inman Award” for Student Scholarship on Intelligence: tinyurl.com/3c2tfs2e

Forthcoming volume in December with @lucatrenta.bsky.social www.rienner.com/title/Killin...

@rorycormac.bsky.social @dvanp.bsky.social @markstout.bsky.social Gen Lester and I are super grateful to our amazing group of contributors working with us on this project - 20 substantive chapters!! We learned so much about #covertaction outside of the anglosphere! Coming out in December 🎄🎉

I’m really proud of this. We’re breaking down the US-centric approach of “covert action” to explore the phenomenon of unacknowledged interference in international relations. The CIA dominates the history books; Russia today’s headlines… but lots of states, past and present, have been up to it

I'm excited about the upcoming volume from Georgetown University Press: press.georgetown.edu/Book/Covert-..., and I am honored to have contributed!

Call for papers

What a wonderful new collection of articles and scholars in the latest issue of Journal of Intelligence History! Celebrating many of our SIH authors, including: Francesca Akhtar, Richard Aldrich, @avramovok.bsky.social , Brian Cuddy, Christopher Moran, & many more. www.linkedin.com/posts/thomas...

Yes!!! Already pre-ordered and can't wait for the good read. Congratulations, @lucatrenta.bsky.social!

Congratulations, @avramovok.bsky.social and @lucatrenta.bsky.social! We can't wait to read this.

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!

So happy to have shared my research on state-sponsored assassination with @lucatrenta.bsky.social, @avramovok.bsky.social, and Arturo Jiminez-Bacardi at the @socintelhist.bsky.social 2025 Conference at the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC. A perfect location for studying intel history!

Special gratitude to my panel on international state sponsored assasinations co-chair @lucatrenta.bsky.social for a great discussion based on our upcoming book. It was a thrill to showcase our chapter on the post-Soviet state sponsored assasination program.

A fantastic conference organized by @socintelhist.bsky.social at Washington D.C’s International SpyMuseum. Shout out to the organizers for managing and bringing together the vast array of excellent experts and their innovative papers.

@socintelhist.bsky.social conference starts today. Join me, @avramovok.bsky.social, @mindyhaas.bsky.social and @nsarchive.bsky.social’s Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi for a panel on state-sponsored assassinations.

This seems to be what all the cool kids are doing, so I started my own substack. It's called The Brush Contact. It will cover (mostly) intelligence and covert action related matters based on things I read, listen to, or watch. We start with plausible deniability. substack.com/@lucatrenta/...

@martindbbrown.bsky.social seen this?

“Among the followers of this new political movement are some of the least wealthy Americans. Among its backers are some of the most wealthy.”

We cover India and assassination in an upcoming co-edited volume on state-sponsored assassinations in international politics. @avramovok.bsky.social is co-editor.

If you're curious about how companies use #intelligence to navigate #geopolitical threats, check out my new book, "Beyond States and Spies: the Security Intelligence Services of the Private Sector", out now from Edinburgh University Press! edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-beyond-...

A great read!

The Recruiter by Douglas London | Hachette Books Why do people spy for @CIA How are spies actually recruited? And what’s life truly like for a CIA ops officer. The Recruiter is a great holiday read that provides context for today’s headlines. a.co/d/hiIwMRd

A Pulitzer please for this group that helped break this story open

If the SAA retreats any faster they'll end up in Cyprus.

I’m curious how much federal funding he thinks the ACLU receives (it’s none).