Stephen Marrin

Please join us in congratulating @smarrin.bsky.social and Hamilton Bean. Both just hit 2,000 citations, but that's only a small measure of their contributions to Intelligence Studies.

scholar.google.com/citations?us...

scholar.google.com/citations?us...

This is another reason that demanding the admin make the case for war to Congress and the US public is so important: to make sure the admin has stress tested not just the goals, but also the operational arrangements (including veto-power over Israeli operations), and also that it has an exit plan.

"This is what we were voting for!"

From a friend in academia:

>>I was with a public health professor from [major university] last weekend and he said that NIH is now euthanizing whole cohorts of animals from animal studies because there is nobody around to feed them<<

Great work.

Two thumbs up for Kevin Riehle's new book on #counterintelligence.

Looks like a great companion to James M. Olson's classic To Catch a Spy: The Art of Counterintelligence.

Hope #FBI Academy got a copy.

www.rienner.com/title/Counte...

This is how authoritarian governments operate: They don’t just ignore the truth they demand that others rewrite it to suit their goals. And in this case, the cost is real human lives migrants being deported under false pretenses, denied basic legal rights, and sent into danger.

Opinion | What happens when honest intelligence work can get you fired? The U.S. appears to be on the verge of finding out.

Good article about intelligence analysis here: www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Gabbard fires leaders of intelligence group that wrote Venezuela assessment The director of national intelligence fired top officials weeks after their group authored an assessment contradicting President Donald Trump’s legal rationale for deporting alleged Venezuelan gang me...

Not good. The IC provides analysis independent of policy preferences. When those in power do not want to hear inconvenient facts & unwanted interpretation & punish messengers that provide it, that undermines the reason the IC was created in the first place www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Trust without knowledge? UK intelligence agencies and the public trust conundrum Intelligence agencies operating in modern-day liberal democracies are dependent on the public for support. In recent years, the UK’s intelligence and security agencies have adopted a public facing ...

New article in Intelligence and National Security titled "Trust without knowledge? UK intelligence agencies and the public trust conundrum" by Ged Hiscoke, Stephen Ward & Daniel Lomas at www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

William Playfair, pioneer of modern intelligence William Playfair (1759–1823) pioneered several ideas accepted as fundamental to intelligence today, including compilations of national capabilities and covert economic warfare. Known primarily as a...

New article on British intelligence history written by Bruce Berkowitz and published in Intelligence and National Security titled "William Playfair, pioneer of modern intelligence" with link here:

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Furthering Intelligence Research This report addresses the differences between research and intelligence analysis, what intelligence research has been and should be done, and how the National Intelligence University can make research...

New RAND report on intelligence studies research titled "Furthering Intelligence Research: How the National Intelligence University Can Fill Critical Gaps for Intelligence Research" here: www.rand.org/pubs/researc...

Is the mere existence of an intelligence committee enough? Learning from the case study of the Finnish parliament Legislatures are increasingly investing resources into oversight of intelligence agencies. However, effective control of intelligence is wrought with challenges: while national security is a highly...

New article published in Intelligence and National Security titled "Is the mere existence of an intelligence committee enough? Learning from the case study of the Finnish parliament" by Tapio Raunio at www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Link to "Thinking and Writing: Cognitive Science and Intelligence Analysis" here: www.cia.gov/resources/cs...

Robert Sinclair Obituary (1934 - 2025) - Arlington, VA - The Washington Post View Robert Soutter Sinclair's obituary, send flowers and sign the guestbook.

RIP Robert Sinclar--author of CIA's "Thinking and Writing: Cognitive Science and Intelligence Analysis." "He was one of the founding members of the CIA Canoe Pool, commuting to the CIA's Langley, VA offices by canoe across the Potomac River" www.legacy.com/us/obituarie...

Intelligence History Book Prize 2025 We are delighted to announce our call for nominations for the Intelligence History Book Prize 2025. The prize is worth € 1,000 and will be awarded by the International Intelligence History Associat…

From Thomas Boghardt: "The International Intelligence History Association has issued a call for their intelligence history book prize 2025. For more information, see: intelligence-history.org?p=1521

Call for papers for Israeli intelligence studies conference (28-29 October 2025), with proposals due 31 July 2025. See details below...good opportunity for intelligence studies scholars and practitioners here!

NOCs and illegals in the current surveillance landscape: can mimicry help overcome evolving challenges? This study examines the evolving challenges faced by intelligence operatives, particularly Non-Official Cover (NOC) officers and illegals, in the context of modern surveillance technologies. With a...

New article published, titled "NOCs and illegals in the current surveillance landscape: can mimicry help overcome evolving challenges?" by Grigorij Serscikov, at the journal Intelligence and National Security, here:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

This might be a great example of analytic intelligence failure due to what looks like it not only analytic error but analytic fraud

Flashback

[Spoiler: special prosecutor recommended charges for gross negligence in mishandling national defense information]

Call for Papers - MİA NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ACADEMY INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON INTELLIGENCE STUDIES – CALL FOR PAPERS The National Intelligence Academy - Türkiye (NIA

Call for papers for intelligence studies conference in Turkey on 10-12 October 2025 in Ankara, Turkey. It is organized by Turkey's National Intelligence Academy. Additional details here: mia.edu.tr/sayfa-call-f...

Child labor to fill the labor shortages resulting from deportation of migrants/immigrants. Better to overwork children than to have immigrants do it. Everything about this is stupid.

Hegseth, Waltz, Gabbard: Private Data and Passwords of Senior U.S. Security Officials Found Online Donald Trump's most important security advisers used Signal to discuss an imminent military strike. Now, reporting by DER SPIEGEL has found that the contact data of some of those officials, including ...

Seems important www.spiegel.de/internationa...

Fear of retaliation for witnessing someone being disappeared from the streets for speech.

Trump administration cuts national database tracking domestic terrorism The database, run out of the University of Maryland, was funded by a $3 million DHS cooperative agreement, went dark on Tuesday after the Trump administration made sweeping cuts to violence prevention...

Trump administration cuts national database tracking domestic terrorism www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

Call for Papers - MİA NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ACADEMY INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON INTELLIGENCE STUDIES – CALL FOR PAPERS The National Intelligence Academy - Türkiye (NIA

Call for papers for intelligence studies conference in Turkey on 10-12 October 2025 in Ankara, Turkey. It is organized by Turkey's National Intelligence Academy. Additional details here: mia.edu.tr/sayfa-call-f...

Visualizing versus verbalizing uncertainty in intelligence analysis We compared the probability terms used by Western intelligence organizations against two visual encoding channel-based representations of uncertainty (i.e. darkness and thickness). Analysts were mo...

New article on "Visualizing versus verbalizing uncertainty in intelligence analysis" by Mandeep K. Dhami, Jessica K. Witt & Peter De Werd, published in the journal Intelligence and National Security here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

For four Venezuelan friends, Alien Enemies Act cuts short an American dream President Donald Trump used the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans accused of being gang members. Relatives of men sent to El Salvador deny the allegation.

Based on this fast and excellent WaPo reporting, these four guys are not gang members, just Venezuelan dads who came to the US to work. They’re now being paraded in shackles in El Salvador www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

New addition

Journal article: Visualizing versus verbalizing uncertainty in intelligence analysis by Mandeep K. Dhami, Jessica K. Witt, Peter De Werd (published 15-03-2025)

https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2025.2468049

Optimizing intelligence support: guidelines for policymakers and intelligence analysts Analysts and policymakers are on the same team but have different roles and responsibilities. Intelligence is a support activity that provides information and insight to national security decision ...

Article by Thomas Fingar (former Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis) on "Optimizing intelligence support: guidelines for policymakers and intelligence analysts" as published in the journal Intelligence and National Security, here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Apropos of nothing, there's an interesting piece in this issue of The Bulletin of the Canadian Foreign Service Forum giving a first-person account of a Canadian military policeman in Tehran who was involved in the Argo/houseguests situation and the good work he did to help get our diplomats out.