State Secrets

In this week's State Secrets Podcast, Host Suzanne Kelly talks with The Hon. Susan M. Gordon, a career Intelligence Officer, former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence and current member of the Defense Innovation Board, about Balloons, China, Ukraine, Russia and the new world order as well as the role that AI plays in all of it.

In this week's State Secrets, host Suzanne Kelly talks with former Deputy Director of National Intelligence and Presidential Briefer, Beth Sanner about the discovery of classified documents in the homes and offices of former and current political leaders. Beth shares first-hand accounts from her time serving as former President Donald Trump's briefer and helps pull back the curtain on where the ga...

In one of his very first public interviews as NATO Assistant Secretary General for Intelligence and Security, David Cattler sits down with State Secrets host Suzanne Kelly to talk about  one of the most trying times in the alliance's 74 year history. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is re-shaping the alliance, and fueling expansion as NATO keeps a close eye on China's global rise.  

This week, I'm talking with RAND CEO Dr. Jason Matheny about a host of threats to US national security – how technology is playing a role and why people call him an 'apocaloptimist'.  Dr. Matheny has been fascinated with existential threats to the human race from the get go and penned a 2007 paper on how to reduce the risk of human extinction.  If that isn't worth reading – I don't' know what is....

This week we're talking about the mission to give back and we're highlighting three organizations that are doing just that.  Suzanne is joined by Brad for three conversations with charities that are making an impact.  First up is the Special Operations Care Fund known as SOC-F.  SOC-F really targets their giving efforts to the special operations community in ways that you wouldn't normally think o...

In 1972, former CIA Executive Director William Colby proposed that the spy agency set up an employee museum as a way to share the unique mission and the impact that CIA had around the world.  It took 16 years for it to come to fruition.  And some 34 years after that, a new museum expansion and renovation is helping the Agency mark its 75 th Anniversary. Now, the museum hosts artifacts from some of...

In this State Secrets episode, Cipher Brief CEO & Publisher Suzanne Kelly sits down with the Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Vice Admiral Frank Whitworth at NGA Headquarters in Springfield, Virginia to talk about what's going on in hot spots like North Korea, as the North undertakes a series of missile launches, about NGA's expected role with the artificial intelligence pr...

In this episode, I'm talking with journalist and author Renee Dudley.  Renee is a technology reporter at ProPublica who stumbled onto a band of what she describes as misfits while reporting on the rapid rise of ransomware.  What she found was an incredible group of individuals who decided to be a change for good by helping fight cybercrime.  She tells the story in a new book she wrote with co-auth...

China remains the top concern for long-term US national security and tensions over Taiwan have increased steadily over the past several months. Chinese President Xi Jinping used the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party to cement his grip on power – and to make clear where his party stands on its future ambitions, to include the reunification of the self-governing island of Taiwan.    So ju...

Chinese President Xi Jinping opened the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in October - with a speech that makes clear where his party stands on its future ambitions, to include the reunification of the self-governing island of Taiwan. But tensions between the US and China over Taiwan's future are really just one part of the story.  Beijing has made clear that it has a thorough and organ...

In this episode, Cipher Brief COO Brad Christian sits down with former CIA Officer Brett Davis and Entrepreneur Jeremy Hitchcock to talk about the future of US national security from an investor's perspective. Brett is a former Senior Executive with the CIA, and a former Special Operations Officer with the US Navy.  Jeremy is an angel investor who co-founded a company called Dyn in 2001 that grw o...