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Podcasts

State Secrets

State Secrets is a weekly interview podcast featuring Cipher Brief experts and national security leaders.
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In this wide-ranging conversation, former CIA senior leader Sheetal Patel warns about the vulnerabilities the U.S. faces from evolving drone threats, drawing lessons from Ukraine’s successful deep-strike operations against Russia. She highlights the lack of clear authorities, resources, and interagency coordination for defending against small drone swarms in America. Patel also stresses the crucial role of the private sector in rapidly advancing both drone and counter-drone technologies and underscores the growing counterintelligence risks U.S. companies face from foreign adversaries like China. The discussion extends to U.S.–India relations, where recent tariffs threaten to undermine years of strategic progress against Chinese influence.

Cover Stories: Spies, Books & Entertainment

Cover Stories: Spies, Books & Entertainment is a new podcast from The Cipher Brief hosted by Cipher Brief CEO & Publisher Suzanne Kelly and Cipher Brief Senior Book Editor and author, Bill Harlow exploring the entertainment side of espionage as well as non-fiction books and media on national security issues that are making a difference. Join us each week for new episodes with authors, former intelligence officers, actors, directors, television and movie producers, agents, publishers and more.
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Author and former Marine Elliot Ackerman’s latest tale is about an ex-CIA Ground Branch operator who goes by his call sign, “Skwerl” and a former Afghan special ops pilot who goes by the name “Big Cheese” so you’re probably already getting a good picture of Ackerman’s latest novel Sheepdogs, which follows Skwerl and Cheese on a globe-trotting adventure from Uganda to Marseille. Cipher Brief CEO & Publisher Suzanne Kelly welcomed Ackerman to the Cover Stories Studio to talk about missing handlers, hidden cargo and shadow war.