Secrets and Spies Podcast: Espionage | Global Issues | Current Affairs

Journalist Gil Durán spent years in political consulting before returning to reporting, and eventually, to the beat that became the subject of his book, The Nerd Reich. He joins Chris to lay out his case that a corner of Silicon Valley has turned against democracy itself — an ideology he traces from the 1997 book The Sovereign Individual, through neo-reactionary blogger Curtis Yarvin, to Balaji Srinivasan’s "network state" — with Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Vice President J.D. Vance at its center. His argument, Durán insists, rests on what these men have said on the record: that democracy is obsolete, that a "cognitive elite" should rule, that crypto and AI will dissolve the nation-state. He contends the movement is losing the public even as it gains power, and that the 2026 midterms will test whether that still counts. Subscribe and share to stay ahead in the world of intelligence, global issues, and current affairs. Order The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy: https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Gil-Duran/243113363 https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-nerd-reich-silicon-valley-fascism-and-the-war-on-democracy-gil-dur-n/a6f6f0dce1150339 Follow Gil’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheNerdReichNews Please share this episode using these links Apple Podcasts: shorturl.at/ucSC4 Spotify: shorturl.at/qiq8j Amazon Music: shorturl.at/1CYvD YouTube: youtu.be/OkQokPuEvW8 Support Secrets and Spies Become a “Friend of the Podcast” on Patreon for £3/$4: https://www.patreon.com/SecretsAndSpies Buy merchandise from our shop: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/60934996 Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/secretsandspies Subscribe to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDVB23lrHr3KFeXq4VU36dg For more information about the podcast, check out our website: https://secretsandspiespodcast.com Connect with us on social media Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/secretsandspies.bsky.social X/Twitter: https://x.com/SecretsAndSpies Instagram: https://instagram.com/secretsandspies Facebook: https://facebook.com/secretsandspies Spoutible: https://spoutible.com/SecretsAndSpies Follow Chris and Matt on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chriscarrfilm.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/mattfulton.net Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/ Music by Andrew R. Bird Photo by Jessica Christian/Getty, Gil Durán Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Chris and Matt open season eleven, and Secrets & Spies’ tenth anniversary, with three stories from a busy August. First, CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s trip to Moscow, a rare visit by an agency chief since Bill Burns went in 2021, reportedly carrying a blunt warning against testing NATO amid U.S. assessments that a cornered Russia might attempt a limited probe of the alliance. Then, a New Yorker investigation into how Iran now reaches its critics abroad by renting the local underworld — Romanian petty criminals, teenagers recruited over Snapchat — a "cutout of a cutout" model built to defeat the way security services watch known threats. Finally, they discuss a new Foreign Affairs piece that pushes back against transatlantic-alliance fatalism. Subscribe and share to stay ahead in the world of intelligence, global issues, and current affairs. Please share this episode using these links Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://shorturl.at/4060S Listen on Spotify: https://shorturl.at/mdmOR Listen on Amazon Music: https://shorturl.at/iWDkG Watch us on YouTube: https://shorturl.at/mD9H9 Support Secrets and Spies Become a “Friend of the Podcast” on Patreon for £3/$4: https://www.patreon.com/SecretsAndSpies Buy merchandise from our Redbubble shop: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/60934996 Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/secretsandspies Subscribe to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDVB23lrHr3KFeXq4VU36dg For more information about the podcast, check out our website: https://secretsandspiespodcast.com Articles discussed in today’s episode "Claims Swirl Around CIA Director’s Reason For Secret Moscow Visit, Nearly All Of Them Are Terrifying" by Howard Altman & Tyler Rogoway | The War Zone: https://www.twz.com/news-features/claims-swirl-around-cia-directors-reason-for-secret-moscow-visit-nearly-all-of-them-are-terrifying "CIA Director Ratcliffe Lands in Moscow Aboard C-17 With New Mobile SCIF" by Scott McCain | Tech Times: https://www.techtimes.com/articles/325483/20260825/cia-director-ratcliffe-lands-moscow-aboard-c-17-new-mobile-scif.htm "Iran Is Using Foreign Criminals to Attack Its Critics Overseas" by Cora Engelbrecht | The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/iran-is-using-foreign-criminals-to-attack-its-critics-overseas "How Alliances Survive: The Case Against Pessimism and the Path to a New Allied Order" by Kurt M. Campbell & Rush Doshi | Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/how-alliances-survive-campbell-doshi Connect with us on social media Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/secretsandspies.bsky.social X/Twitter: https://x.com/SecretsAndSpies Instagram: https://instagram.com/secretsandspies Facebook: https://facebook.com/secretsandspies Spoutible: https://spoutible.com/SecretsAndSpies Follow Chris and Matt on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chriscarrfilm.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/mattfulton.net Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/ Music by Andrew R. Bird Photos by AP/John McDonnell & Tom Brenner Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Before Bletchley Park, there was Reginald "Blinker" Hall, the Admiralty’s mercurial intelligence chief whose codebreakers read Germany’s wireless traffic during World War I, giving Britain a front-row seat to the plot behind the 1916 Easter Rising. His target was Sir Roger Casement: a diplomat knighted for exposing colonial atrocities, turned Irish rebel, caught after a U-boat put him ashore in Kerry. Rory Carroll, The Guardian’s Ireland correspondent and acclaimed author of Killing Thatcher, joins Chris to trace the manhunt — and Casement’s "Black Diaries," the still-contested record of his private life that Hall leaked to break a clemency campaign in an early act of information warfare. A century on, Casement’s bones and his reputation remain unfinished business between Britain and Ireland. Subscribe and share to stay ahead in the world of intelligence, global issues, and current affairs. Order Rory’s book, A Rebel and a Traitor: A Fugitive, the Manhunt and the Birth of the IRA: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FS44H5RZ Find more about Rory on his website: https://www.rorycarroll.co.uk/ Take our audience survey: https://forms.gle/eFx59XntNtiKzNQa8 Support Secrets and Spies Become a “Friend of the Podcast” on Patreon for £3/$4: https://www.patreon.com/SecretsAndSpies Buy merchandise from our shop: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/60934996 Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/secretsandspies Subscribe to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDVB23lrHr3KFeXq4VU36dg For more information about the podcast, check out our website: https://secretsandspiespodcast.com Connect with us on social media Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/secretsandspies.bsky.social X/Twitter: https://x.com/SecretsAndSpies Instagram: https://instagram.com/secretsandspies Facebook: https://facebook.com/secretsandspies Spoutible: https://spoutible.com/SecretsAndSpies Follow Chris and Matt on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chriscarrfilm.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/mattfulton.net Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/ Music by Andrew R. Bird Photos by Hulton Archive, Bettmann Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Peter J. Ortiz was the most battle-decorated member of the OSS, America’s wartime forerunner to the CIA, and one of the most decorated Marines of the Second World War. In 1944, the former French Foreign Legionnaire twice parachuted into occupied France to arm the Maquis, sabotage German lines, and feed intelligence to London ahead of D-Day. Chris speaks with former Marine and CIA historian Nicholas Reynolds and journalist Katie S. Sanders—whose grandfather, a downed airman, was among those Ortiz rescued—about their book Ortiz’s War, and the moment when Ortiz surrendered to a hundred Germans to spare a village. Subscribe and share to stay ahead in the world of intelligence, global issues, and current affairs. Order Ortiz’s War: https://www.harpercollinsfocus.com/harper-horizon/ortizs-war/ More about Nicholas and Katie on their websites: https://www.nicholasreynoldsauthor.com/ https://www.katiessanders.com/ Please share this episode using these links Apple Podcasts: https://shorturl.at/LZQWF Spotify: https://shorturl.at/qOM9J Amazon Music: https://shorturl.at/McDTo YouTube: https://shorturl.at/4E4N2 Take our audience survey: https://forms.gle/eFx59XntNtiKzNQa8 Support Secrets and Spies Become a “Friend of the Podcast” on Patreon for £3/$4: https://www.patreon.com/SecretsAndSpies Buy merchandise from our shop: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/60934996 Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/secretsandspies Subscribe to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDVB23lrHr3KFeXq4VU36dg For more information about the podcast, check out our website: https://secretsandspiespodcast.com Connect with us on social media Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/secretsandspies.bsky.social X/Twitter: https://x.com/SecretsAndSpies Instagram: https://instagram.com/secretsandspies Facebook: https://facebook.com/secretsandspies Spoutible: https://spoutible.com/SecretsAndSpies Follow Chris and Matt on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chriscarrfilm.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/mattfulton.net Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/ Music by Andrew R. Bird Photos by Marine Corps History Division, Imperial War Museums Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

GPS is the rare piece of infrastructure most of us never think about until it fails — and it is failing more often, in more places, by design. In Little Blue Dot: How GPS Shaped the Modern World, journalist Katherine Dunn traces the system from its Cold War origins — wartime radio beams, Vietnam's precision-bombing problem, the Soviet shock of Sputnik — to its current role underpinning modern life, governing not just where we are but the precise time that keeps power grids, markets, and supply chains in sync. Chris talks with Dunn about how a taxpayer-funded military tool became invisible civilian scaffolding, and how it turned into a battlefield: Russian jamming and spoofing from the Black Sea to the Baltics, ships that appear at airports, a drone war fought over the electromagnetic spectrum, and what it means when certainty itself becomes a target. Subscribe and share to stay ahead in the world of intelligence, global issues, and current affairs. Order Little Blue Dot: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/little-blue-dot-how-the-global-positioning-system-shaped-the-modern-world-katherine-dunn/c5ae27c07c3864a5 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1639734317 Learn more about Katherine on her website: katherinedunn.me/ Connect with Katherine on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/katherine-dunn-journalist/ Take our audience survey: https://forms.gle/eFx59XntNtiKzNQa8 Support Secrets and Spies Become a “Friend of the Podcast” on Patreon for £3/$4: https://www.patreon.com/SecretsAndSpies Buy merchandise from our shop: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/60934996 Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/secretsandspies Subscribe to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDVB23lrHr3KFeXq4VU36dg For more information about the podcast, check out our website: https://secretsandspiespodcast.com Connect with us on social media Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/secretsandspies.bsky.social X/Twitter: https://x.com/SecretsAndSpies Instagram: https://instagram.com/secretsandspies Facebook: https://facebook.com/secretsandspies Spoutible: https://spoutible.com/SecretsAndSpies Follow Chris and Matt on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chriscarrfilm.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/mattfulton.net Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/ Music by Andrew R. Bird Photo by Katherine Dunn, Canva Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.     Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Samuel M. Katz is a New York Times bestselling author and one of the foremost chroniclers of Middle Eastern conflict, special operations, and intelligence. His latest book, The Architect of Espionage, is the biography of Meir Dagan — the Holocaust survivor turned soldier turned spymaster who reshaped Mossad from a cautious intelligence collector into a direct-action force of global reach. Chris speaks with Katz about the experiences that forged Dagan: rejection from Israel's elite commando ranks, the undercover war he built in Gaza under Ariel Sharon, and the Lebanon fighting that made him a man of war who hated war. The conversation traces his eight-year tenure as Mossad director — the covert campaign against Iran, the intelligence diplomacy that helped lay the groundwork for the Abraham Accords — and what October 7th revealed about the limits of the very apparatus he built. Subscribe and share to stay ahead in the world of intelligence, global issues, and current affairs. Order The Architect of Espionage: The Man Who Built Israel's Mossad into the World's Boldest Intelligence Force: https://www.amazon.com/Architect-Espionage-Israels-Boldest-Intelligence-ebook/dp/B0DV6T6XDM/ More about Samuel on his website: https://samuelkatzonline.com/ Take our audience survey: https://forms.gle/eFx59XntNtiKzNQa8 Support Secrets and Spies Become a “Friend of the Podcast” on Patreon for £3/$4: https://www.patreon.com/SecretsAndSpies Buy merchandise from our shop: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/60934996 Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/secretsandspies Subscribe to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDVB23lrHr3KFeXq4VU36dg For more information about the podcast, check out our website: https://secretsandspiespodcast.com Connect with us on social media Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/secretsandspies.bsky.social X/Twitter: https://x.com/SecretsAndSpies Instagram: https://instagram.com/secretsandspies Facebook: https://facebook.com/secretsandspies Spoutible: https://spoutible.com/SecretsAndSpies Follow Chris and Matt on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chriscarrfilm.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/mattfulton.net Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/ Music by Andrew R. Bird Photo by Rex Features, Samuel M. Katz, Canva Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Amanda Mason is a senior curator of contemporary conflict at the Imperial War Museums, where she previously worked on the museum's acclaimed Secret War gallery. Chris speaks with her about Spies, Lies and Deception, the IWM's major exhibition on espionage and military deception now showing at IWM North in Manchester until August 31. Drawing on more than sixty original objects, documents, and artifacts — from Operation Mincemeat's pocket litter and Noor Inayat Khan's letters from occupied France to the Portland Spy Ring's suburban cover and the Trent Park eavesdropping operation — the exhibition traces deception from the trenches of the First World War through Cold War suburbia to Bellingcat's open-source unmasking of the Salisbury poisoners and today's deepfake threats, asking not just how deception works but what it costs the people who practice it. Subscribe and share to stay ahead in the world of intelligence, global issues, and current affairs. Explore the IWM’s Spies, Lies and Deception exhibition: https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/spies-lies-and-deception-iwm-north Watch this episode on YouTube to see exclusive footage from the Exhibition: https://youtu.be/WTLxI5s4qgA Take our audience survey: https://forms.gle/eFx59XntNtiKzNQa8 Support Secrets and Spies Become a “Friend of the Podcast” on Patreon for £3/$4: https://www.patreon.com/SecretsAndSpies Buy merchandise from our shop: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/60934996 Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/secretsandspies Subscribe to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDVB23lrHr3KFeXq4VU36dg For more information about the podcast, check out our website: https://secretsandspiespodcast.com Connect with us on social media Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/secretsandspies.bsky.social X/Twitter: https://x.com/SecretsAndSpies Instagram: https://instagram.com/secretsandspies Facebook: https://facebook.com/secretsandspies Spoutible: https://spoutible.com/SecretsAndSpies Follow Chris and Matt on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chriscarrfilm.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/mattfulton.net Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/ Music by Andrew R. Bird Illustration by Katherine Tromans Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.     Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For most of its history, Germany's foreign intelligence service was built to watch, not to act — a constraint rooted in the country's experience of the Gestapo and the Stasi. A sweeping draft law would change that, letting the BND conduct sabotage, covert interference, and offensive cyber operations for the first time. Chris speaks with German investigative journalist Florian Flade, among the first to report on the draft, about what's driving the overhaul — Russia's war and hybrid campaign, and eroding trust in Washington under Trump — and the unease that lingers around empowering services that once served dictatorships. Subscribe and share to stay ahead in the world of intelligence, global issues, and current affairs. Articles by Florian https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/ndr-wdr/bnd-gesetz-befugnisse-100.html https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/ndr-wdr/bnd-gesetz-befugnisse-102.html Take our audience survey: https://forms.gle/eFx59XntNtiKzNQa8 Support Secrets and Spies Become a “Friend of the Podcast” on Patreon for £3/$4: https://www.patreon.com/SecretsAndSpies Buy merchandise from our shop: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/60934996 Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/secretsandspies Subscribe to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDVB23lrHr3KFeXq4VU36dg For more information about the podcast, check out our website: https://secretsandspiespodcast.com Connect with us on social media Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/secretsandspies.bsky.social Instagram: https://instagram.com/secretsandspies Facebook: https://facebook.com/secretsandspies Spoutible: https://spoutible.com/SecretsAndSpies Twitter/X: https://x.com/SecretsAndSpies Follow Chris and Matt on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chriscarrfilm.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/mattfulton.net Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/ Music by Andrew R. Bird Photo by Christophe Gateau/AP Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton     Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For most of her career, Tulsi Gabbard may have been taking direction from a reclusive Hawaii guru — the allegation at the center of a Washington Post investigation that shadowed her out of office as Director of National Intelligence. Her replacement, federal housing-finance official Bill Pulte, arrived with no national security background and, as The Atlantic's Shane Harris reports, may be holding the job unlawfully. Two directors in two months. Matt speaks with Shane — who's been reporting both stories — to trace them to a single fault line: an office built after 9/11 to coordinate the spy agencies has proven uniquely easy to politicize, and a bipartisan chorus, including veterans of the community itself, now wants it cut down or scrapped. Which leaves the harder question: whether an office this easy to bend should exist at all. Subscribe and share to stay ahead in the world of intelligence, global issues, and current affairs. "Tulsi Gabbard, her guru and the mysterious messages that helped shape her political career" by Jon Swaine | The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2026/06/21/tulsi-gabbard-her-guru-mysterious-messages-that-helped-shape-her-political-career/ "Trump Has a Bill Pulte Problem" by Shane Harris & Vivian Salama | The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/06/bill-pulte-unlawful-intelligence-director/687684/ "Tulsi Gabbard’s Office Shouldn’t Exist" by John Sipher | The Bulwark: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/tulsi-gabbard-office-shouldnt-exist-director-national-intelligence-9-11 More of Shane’s reporting for The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/author/shane-harris/ Follow Shane on Twitter/X: https://x.com/shaneharris Follow Shane on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/shaneharris.bsky.social Support Secrets and Spies Become a “Friend of the Podcast” on Patreon for £3/$4: https://www.patreon.com/SecretsAndSpies Buy merchandise from our shop: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/60934996 Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/secretsandspies Subscribe to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDVB23lrHr3KFeXq4VU36dg For more information about the podcast, check out our website: https://secretsandspiespodcast.com Connect with us on social media Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/secretsandspies.bsky.social Instagram: https://instagram.com/secretsandspies Facebook: https://facebook.com/secretsandspies Spoutible: https://spoutible.com/SecretsAndSpies Twitter/X: https://x.com/SecretsAndSpies Follow Chris and Matt on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chriscarrfilm.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/mattfulton.net Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/ Music by Andrew R. Bird Photos by Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg, Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP Photo & ODNI Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ahana Datta Fasel began as an ethical hacker for the British government before becoming cyber chief at the Financial Times, where nation-state actors targeting journalists became a daily reality. Her PhD on the political economy of digital espionage produced Full Stack Spies: Cyber Espionage in the Age of US-China Competition, which argues that cyber operations function as a mirror of the states behind them — their psychology, risk tolerances, and strategic ambitions made visible. She discusses with Chris how China has compensated for limited tradecraft sophistication with persistent scale and a dispersed ecosystem of front companies over three decades; what a leaked Chengdu hacker group chat reveals about the ego rivalries and financial anxieties driving operational decisions; what Operation Triangulation suggests about American reliance on private contractors; and why the defining fault line of this era isn't between peace and war, but between peace and "not war." Subscribe and share to stay ahead in the world of intelligence, global issues, and current affairs. Learn more about Ahana on her website: https://ahanadattafasel.com/ Order Full Stack Spies: https://www.hurstpublishers.com/profile/ahana-datta-fasel/ Support Secrets and Spies Become a “Friend of the Podcast” on Patreon for £3/$4: https://www.patreon.com/SecretsAndSpies Buy merchandise from our shop: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/60934996 Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/secretsandspies Subscribe to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDVB23lrHr3KFeXq4VU36dg For more information about the podcast, check out our website: https://secretsandspiespodcast.com Connect with us on social media Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/secretsandspies.bsky.social Instagram: https://instagram.com/secretsandspies Facebook: https://facebook.com/secretsandspies Spoutible: https://spoutible.com/SecretsAndSpies Follow Chris and Matt on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chriscarrfilm.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/mattfulton.net Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/ Music by Andrew R. Bird Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ahmed Aboudouh — associate fellow at Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa Programme and head of the China Studies Unit at the Emirates Policy Center — joins Chris to assess the shifting architecture of power in the Middle East. He argues that China has no coherent regional strategy and that Washington's expectation of Chinese pressure on Tehran reflects a fundamental misreading of Beijing's interests and the limits of coercive statecraft. He traces how Egypt’s diplomacy reflects a country that has traded regional leadership for crisis management, explains why Arab states want a normalized Iran rather than a weakened one, and argues that the war will intensify multi-alignment rather than force a binary choice between Washington and Beijing. With the Abraham Accords effectively dead, the United States faces a damning paradox of its own making: deeper military entanglement, eroding strategic credibility. Subscribe and share to stay ahead in the world of intelligence, global issues, and current affairs. More about Ahmed on Chatham House: https://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/our-people/ahmed-aboudouh Connect with Ahmed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmed-aboudouh-346b1459/ Follow Ahmed on X: https://x.com/AAboudouh Read Ahmed’s work for Chatham House "Why Egypt is helping to end the Iran war": https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/05/why-egypt-helping-end-iran-war "China will benefit from the Iran war, regardless of any deal between Trump and Tehran": https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/05/china-will-benefit-iran-war-regardless-any-deal-between-trump-and-tehran "China is playing the long game over Iran": https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/02/china-playing-long-game-over-iran Support Secrets and Spies Become a “Friend of the Podcast” on Patreon for £3/$4: https://www.patreon.com/SecretsAndSpies Buy merchandise from our shop: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/60934996 Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/secretsandspies Subscribe to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDVB23lrHr3KFeXq4VU36dg For more information about the podcast, check out our website: https://secretsandspiespodcast.com Connect with us on social media Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/secretsandspies.bsky.social Instagram: https://instagram.com/secretsandspies Facebook: https://facebook.com/secretsandspies Spoutible: https://spoutible.com/SecretsAndSpies Follow Chris and Matt on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chriscarrfilm.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/mattfulton.net Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/ Music by Andrew R. Bird Photo by Bandar Algaloud/Saudi Royal Court, Chatham House Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.