National Intelligence

From New York Times best-selling author and award-winning reporter Ronald Kessler, The First Family Detail tells eye-opening, behind-the-scenes stories from Secret Service agents about presidents and their families.

John A. Gentry and Joseph S. Gordon update our understanding of strategic warning intelligence analysis for the 21st century. Strategic warning - the process of long-range analysis to alert senior leaders to trending threats and opportunities that require action - is a critical intelligence function. It also is frequently misunderstood and underappreciated. The authors examine historical case studies, including postmortems of warning failures, to provide examples of the analytic points they make.

In the years since 9/11, the U.S. war on terror has focused on al-Qaeda, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Coverage of Iran has been devoted almost exclusively to its nuclear ambitions. Yet, as Ronen Bergman's groundbreaking reporting in this vital investigative history reveals, for 30 years, Iran has been the world's leading sponsor of global terror and stands as the most formidable sponsor of terror in the world today.

In Covert Regime Change, Lindsey A. O’Rourke shows us how states really act when trying to overthrow another state. She argues that conventional focus on covert cases misses the basic causes of regime change. O’Rourke provides substantive evidence of types of security interests that drive states to intervene. Covert Regime Change assembles an original dataset of all American regime change operations during the Cold War. This fund of information shows the United States was 10 times more likely to try covert rather than overt regime change during the Cold War.

With unprecedented access to more than a dozen individuals who have made the life-and-death decisions that come with running the world’s most powerful and influential intelligence service, Chris Whipple tells the story of an agency that answers to the United States president alone, but whose activities — spying, espionage, and covert action — take place on every continent. At pivotal moments, the CIA acts as a counterforce against rogue presidents, starting in the mid-70s with DCI Richard Helms’s refusal to conceal Richard Nixon’s criminality.

In the greatest intelligence operation in the history of the world, Donald Trump was made president of the United States with the assistance of a foreign power. For the first time, The Plot to Destroy Democracy reveals the dramatic story of how blackmail, espionage, assassination, and psychological warfare were used by Vladimir Putin and his spy agencies to steal the 2016 US election. It will show how Russia and its fifth column allies tried to flip the cornerstones of democracy in order to reengineer the world political order that kept most of the world free since since 1945.

This annual report of worldwide threats to the national security of the United States responds to Section 617 of the FY21 Intelligence Authorization Act (P.L. 116-260). This report reflects the collective insights of the Intelligence Community (IC), which is committed every day to providing the nuanced, independent, and unvarnished intelligence that policymakers, warfighters, and domestic law enforcement personnel need to protect American lives and America’s interests anywhere in the world.

In the late 1970s, the National Security Agency still did not officially exist - those in the know referred to it dryly as the No Such Agency. So why, when NSA engineer Charles Gandy filed for a visa to visit Moscow, did the Russian Foreign Ministry assert with confidence that he was a spy? Outsmarting honey traps and encroaching deep enough into enemy territory to perform complicated technical investigations, Gandy accomplished his mission in Russia but discovered more than State and CIA wanted him to know.

Do you want to understand the AI Arms Race? China and the USA are locked in a fierce competition for AI supremacy. China is likely to win. In the high-stakes game of global supremacy, China is making its move, and the United States is facing an unprecedented challenge. "China Will Win The AI Arms Race" is a gripping and insightful exploration of the intense competition between these two titans, with the future of the world hanging in the balance. Through the lens of the AI arms race, Dr. Eric Engle, LL.M., provides a nuanced and informed analysis of the geopolitical implications in play ...

CNN’s chief national security correspondent reveals the invisible fronts of 21st-century warfare and identifies the ongoing battles being waged - often without the public’s full knowledge - from disinformation campaigns to advanced satellite weaponry.

In Counterstrike, Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker of the New York Times tell the story of how a group of analysts within the military, at spy agencies, and in law enforcement has fashioned an innovative and effective new strategy to fight terrorism, unbeknownst to most Americans and in sharp contrast to the cowboy slogans that characterized the U.S. government's public posture.

In The Management of Savagery, Max Blumenthal excavates the real story behind America's dealings with the world and shows how the extremist forces that now threaten peace across the globe are the inevitable flowering of America's imperial designs. Washington's secret funding of the mujahedin provoked the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. With guns and money, the United States has ever since sustained the extremists, including Osama Bin Laden, who have become its enemies.

De Becker addresses the concerns many have asked since the terrifying events of September 11, 2001. Is air travel safe? Are we at risk of chemical or biological weapons attacks? Can further acts be prevented by our government and military? How should parents discuss these concerns with their children? These and other vital questions are answered with the expertise only de Becker can bring to the table.

The Convenient Terrorist is the definitive inside account of the capture, torture, and detention of Abu Zubaydah, the first “high-value target” captured by the CIA after 9/11. But was Abu Zubaydah, who is still being indefinitely held by the United States under shadowy circumstances, the blue-ribbon capture that the Bush White House claimed he was?

Students and enthusiasts of American history are familiar with the Revolutionary War spies Nathan Hale and Benedict Arnold, but few studies have closely examined the wider intelligence efforts that enabled the colonies to gain their independence. Spies, Patriots, and Traitors provides readers with a fascinating, well-documented, and highly readable account of American intelligence activities during the era of the Revolutionary War, from 1765 to 1783.

Although it has been over five years since the 9/11 attacks, Americans still do not have a clear sense of how our government is waging the war on terror. In The Terrorist Watch, best-selling author Ronald Kessler takes listeners behind the scenes to reveal exactly how our leaders, charged with protecting the American people, are stopping terrorists.

In December 2003, after one of the largest, most aggressive manhunts in history, US military forces captured Iraqi president Saddam Hussein near his hometown of Tikrit. Beset by body-double rumors and false alarms during a nine-month search, the Bush administration needed positive identification of the prisoner before it could make the announcement that would rocket around the world. At the time John Nixon was a senior CIA leadership analyst who had spent years studying the Iraqi dictator.

The U.S. government spends enormous resources each year on the gathering and analysis of intelligence, yet the history of American foreign policy is littered with missteps and misunderstandings that have resulted from intelligence failures. In Why Intelligence Fails, Robert Jervis examines the politics and psychology of two of the more spectacular intelligence failures in recent memory: the belief that the Shah in Iran was secure and stable in 1978, and the claim that Iraq had active WMD programs in 2002.

Being a Secret Service agent is one of the most treacherous jobs in the world and never more so than in today's highly polarized America. Facing threats from fence jumpers and manifesto writers, and from murderous terrorists and sophisticated spies, protecting the president is harder than ever. In an age of hyper-partisan politics, emotions are high and threats are everywhere. On top of that, with international tensions reaching a boiling point, it's harder than ever to determine friend from foe.

If someone knew when and where the next major terrorist attack was to be to take place against America, wouldn't the US intelligence community want to know about it? In Countdown to Terror, US Congressman Curt Weldon, proves that "Ali," an informant with access to the minutes of the most secret Iranian councils does have details about many plots against the US. In fact, he has outright predicted - days, weeks, or months in advance - numerous terrorist plots that were actually carried out our thwarted at the last minute.