Dr Steven Wagner

The difference is that the Biden WH at least thought about what they were doing and packaged their pressure as part of a current of both domestic and Israeli politics. They could have been tougher but I'm not sure it would have helped.

so many war movies and books tend toward a trope of the older generation's last war.
The only one I can think of where that's central to the story is "last flag flying".

I just can't get over them calling themselves that. AQ should sue or whatever.

Signals, Sabotage, and Strategic Collapse: Intelligence and Ambiguity in the Iran-Israel Conflict The Israeli-Iran war remains in an extremely dangerous phase. Deterrence has collapsed. Although the Israelis have said they expect a two-week campaign, there is no obvious end in sight. Now, Iran’…

My latest BCISS blog post on the Iran Israel war.

Was Iran really close to building a bomb? I doubt it, but who knows?!

The pretext and cause for war are far less certain than its consequences.

intelligencestudiesreview.blog/2025/06/18/s...

PhD students in War Studies The Department of War Studies conducts research and education in the subject of War Studies. The department consists of about 160 employees and has about 1000 students and participants in commissioned

Come do a PhD at @forsvarshogskolan.bsky.social. You could be supervised by some of my fantastic colleagues while working in a vibrant, pluralistic & highly engaged research environment.

These positions are fully salaried & come with a research budget of 30k SEK a year fhs.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

Channel 12 illustration of the drone op in Iran v the guardian illustration of Ukraine's drone op in Russia. That's one hell of a coincidence.

ripe old ages for alcoholics, though

BCISS Symposium on Oleg Gordievsky – Intelligence Studies Review Posts about BCISS Symposium on Oleg Gordievsky written by Steven B. Wagner and bcissblog

My colleagues and I wrote a short blog series on the occasion of Oleg Gordievsky's passing. My contribution teases some preliminary findings from my Able Archer wargame.

intelligencestudiesreview.blog/category/bci...

Book Launch: 'Intelligence and Contemporary Conflict: Communication in Diplomacy, Statecraft and War' Book Launch: 'Intelligence and Contemporary Conflict: Communication in Diplomacy, Statecraft and War' by Matthew Hefler

Come see @drichterova.bsky.social, Phil Davies and I at KCL 01 April 2025 5pm
We are speaking in a forum as part of the UK book launch for Intelligence and Contemporary Conflict, ed. @matthefler.bsky.social. FREE COPIES for attendees thanks to the publisher!
Info here
www.kcl.ac.uk/events/book-...

I have been spending the week working through the formal IDF and shin bet reports on 7 October. Will post about it soon.
I am a bit concerned with the new chief of staff announcing a review of these. There are problems with them, but I'm not confident that he's after those.

It's called "Golden Dome" because it'll be absurdly expensive despite its inherent worthlessness.

'They took books with a Palestinian flag': Israeli Police raids iconic E. J'lem bookshop ***

This is such an outrage. I'm at a complete loss for words.

www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

Bar chart showing publications over years on intelligence studies (from 1874 to 2024).

Could 2024 be considered the golden year of #intelligence studies? Based on @intelarchive.io data, the answer is yes.

A mini thread about publications on intelligence studies in 2024. +

YouTube video by Arab Council for the Social Sciences Text Extraction from Historical Documents in Arabic

I recently gave a talk at the Arab Council for the Social Sciences on optical character recognition for historical documents in Arabic. It's now available on Youtube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG6t...

Ex-president Rivlin: Queen Elizabeth ‘believed that every Israeli was either a terrorist or a son of a terrorist’ — report * * *

Queen Elizabeth ‘believed that every Israeli was either a terrorist or a son of a terrorist’.
Not a huge surprise given that her confidant, Martin Charteris, was head of staff intelligence in Palestine and led the fight against Begin and Shamir

www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_ent...

I share your and and @ryanevans.bsky.social frustrations with US policy. However, the UK is in no position to lead a postwar force as part of a sy guarantee. Have you seen the state of things in UK defence? Spending set to *rise* to maintenance levels 2025...

Surely then just Baghdad?

I would have thought Paris

Does anyone recognise the location of this photograph?

This my wife's bubby's method in the family cookbook. It works!

you can also pre-freeze the cabbage to make it easy to separate and roll/wrap (instead of boiling)

Also, these risks can be mitigated but requires govt getting over it's achilles heel. Spending money.

We can't catch a break 📉

Re-upping my starter pack for Intelligence Studies and Practitioners as there have been a number of additions recently. I hope that there can be even more in the future as more colleagues continue to migrate over here.

Why don't you fix it?

At least all these nutters taking the helm in the US share our interest in declassification. The ufo and jfk scholars are going to be busy at least.

to a settlement end? ya maybe. also possible that there is no strategy, which fits a broad pattern.

The only times Israel hasn't aimlessly occupied neighbouring territory for the long term are when the Americans intervened (1956 and 1973).
This will exceed 2025 and the settlers will fill the strategy void. Or maybe they are the strategy.

Pentagon denies employee of Iranian origin leaked Israel's strike intel Last week, two US intelligence documents reportedly disclosing Israel's plan for a potential retaliatory attack on Iran were leaked.

This story is very odd. The main outlets reporting it are Gulf-Arabic, Iran-dissident, and American-right-wing. Sky Arabic's source was, they say, a senior pentagon official. So what is going on?
True or not, this is a bad info op.

www.jpost.com/breaking-new...

Happy to get copies of my first edited collection, “Intelligence and Contemporary Conflict”.

Packed with essays from superstars of intelligence history, and beautifully produced by Bokförlaget Stolpe, the book will be useful for scholars, practitioners and enthusiasts alike.

📣 Ax:son Johnson Inst