The Counterfeit by Dr. Ralph DeFalco

In this episode, Dave and Gav sit down with Dr. Ralph DeFalco, author of The Counterfeit, to talk about Chinese influence campaigns, economic coercion, and the blurry line between fiction and forecasting in the intelligence world. Dr. DeFalco is a U.S. national security operative with more than fifty years of experience.Their conversation explores how speculative fiction can function almost like strategic modeling, where imagined crises have a habit of becoming uncomfortably plausible a few years later. Dr. DeFalco talks about plotting a novel as a labour of love and how he drew from history to create a believable and authentic environment. On the Fringe also taps into how influence actually works in practice and why democracies continue to struggle to respond to slow-moving forms of pressure.One thing I (Dave) forgot to mention in the interview is that I felt the book shines a light into Chinese society under the CCP, specifically about how the Chinese Communist Party secures the Chinese state, how Chinese intelligence operations are conducted, and how information is tightly controlled in China behind the great firewall.If you’re hooked, here’s a link to bookshop.org to purchase the book.(we make ZERO commission)As always, thanks as always for joining us On the Fringe and don’t forget to like, comment, subscribe, and share.All the best from both of us,Gav and DaveIf you enjoyed it, share it. We TRULY appreciate it! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit onthefringepodcast.substack.com/subscribe