Secrets and Spies Podcast: Espionage | Global Issues | Current Affairs
Iran Survived. Now What? | Espresso Martini
On the latest episode of Secrets & Spies, Chris and Matt analyse the U.S.-Iran memorandum signed by President Trump in Versailles, examining sanctions relief, frozen Iranian assets, the Strait of Hormuz, the future of the Iran nuclear deal, and why claims of a diplomatic breakthrough may be prematur...
Full Stack Spies: Cyber Espionage in the Age of US China Competition | Ahana Datta Fasel
Ahana Datta Fasel joins Chris to explore how cyber espionage reflects the psychology, culture, and strategic priorities of the states that conduct it. Drawing on her experience as a former British government ethical hacker and author of Full Stack Spies, she examines China's cyber ecosystem, the hum...
Iran, China, and the New Middle East | Ahmed Aboudouh from Chatham House
Ahmed Aboudouh from Chatham House joins Chris to assess the shifting power dynamics of the Middle East, arguing that China has no coherent regional strategy and that Arab states want a normalised Iran rather than a weakened one. With the Abraham Accords effectively dead, he warns that the US faces a...
Think Like a Spy: What Intelligence Work Really Teaches About People | Julian Fisher
Julian Fisher spent his career as a British intelligence operative before distilling what he learned into the Think Like a Spy: Strategic Relations Workshop—and his central argument is counterintuitive: the most transferable lessons from intelligence work aren't classified techniques, they're interp...
A Rich Harvest of Bitter Fruit: CIA, MI6, and Covert Action in Cold War Albania | Stephen Long
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, CIA and MI6 launched an audacious series of clandestine operations to infiltrate and destabilize Communist Albania — and lost nearly every agent they sent in. Historian Stephen Long, Assistant Professor in International Relations at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool Univers...