Secrets and Spies Podcast: Espionage | Global Issues | Current Affairs

Every few months, a rumor or prediction suggests Vladimir Putin is finally cornered — a purge, a battlefield setback, a grim Victory Day parade. Former senior CIA officer Sean Wiswesser, author of Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks, says the West keeps mistaking Russia's elite infighting for weakness. Drawing on his recent Foreign Policy and Cipher Brief essays, he joins Matt to map the authoritarian machine Putin built to survive exactly these moments — the layered security state, the loyalty he fosters rather than assumes, and why the 2023 Wagner mutiny revealed his regime's strength rather than its cracks. Then the question the survival playbook never answers: what happens the morning Putin is gone, and why the West is watching the wrong people.

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Order Sean’s book, Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks: Russian Intelligence and Putin’s Secret War: https://www.amazon.com/Tradecraft-Tactics-Dirty-Tricks Intelligence/dp/1682476014/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0

Follow Sean on X/Twitter: https://x.com/Wiswesser

Connect with Sean on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-wiswesser

Read Sean’s writing on Putin’s regime

"Don’t Fall for Rumors of Putin’s Weakness" in Foreign Policy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/05/12/russia-putin-opposition-war-ukraine-fsb-security-services-dissidents-dissent-dictator-authoritarianism/

"After the War and After Putin: Three Potential Succession Scenarios for Russia’s Modern Tsar" in The Cipher Brief: https://www.thecipherbrief.com/after-the-war-after-putin

"Confronting Putin's continual escalation — between deterrence now or greater conflict later" in Tomorrow's Affairs: https://tomorrowsaffairs.com/confronting-putins-continual-escalation-between-deterrence-now-or-greater-conflict-later
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Music by Andrew R. Bird

Photo by Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik/Reuters, Alexander Nemenov/AFP, Sean Wiswesser

Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.

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For most of its history, Germany's foreign intelligence service was built to watch, not to act — a constraint rooted in the country's experience of the Gestapo and the Stasi. A sweeping draft law would change that, letting the BND conduct sabotage, covert interference, and offensive cyber operations for the first time. Chris speaks with German investigative journalist Florian Flade, among the first to report on the draft, about what's driving the overhaul — Russia's war and hybrid campaign, and eroding trust in Washington under Trump — and the unease that lingers around empowering services that once served dictatorships.

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Articles by Florian
https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/ndr-wdr/bnd-gesetz-befugnisse-100.html

https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/ndr-wdr/bnd-gesetz-befugnisse-102.html

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Music by Andrew R. Bird

Photo by Christophe Gateau/AP

Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton

 
 

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Britain is changing prime ministers again: Keir Starmer is out after two years, with Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham the favourite to replace him — inheriting an underfunded defence plan and the wreckage of Peter Mandelson's Epstein-tainted appointment, all of it driven by the fear of Reform. Chris and Matt then ask what happens when the mole is a machine, using Anthropic's Claude blackmail experiment and Melissa Graves's Lawfare essay to reframe AI in intelligence work as a counterintelligence problem. Finally, Ken Harbaugh's Atlantic report on Ukraine's "warrior-witches" — women running honeypots and directing drone strikes from occupied ground, where the oldest tradecraft still wins.

Trigger Warning: In the last story after the second AD Break there is mention of violence against women in the Russian War on Ukraine
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Articles discussed in today’s episode

"Keir Starmer to step down as prime minister two years after historic election victory" by Pippa Crerar | The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/22/keir-starmer-resigns-as-prime-minister

"How UK's Keir Starmer went from election landslide to downfall" by Jill Lawless & Pan Pylas | Associated Press: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/how-uks-keir-starmer-went-from-election-landslide-to-downfall

"Andy Burnham soft-launches his premiership" by Dan Bloom | Politico Europe: https://www.politico.eu/article/andy-burnham-uk-soft-launches-his-premiership/

"Starmer backs 5 billion drone overhaul for UK forces in DIP" by George Allison | UK Defence Journal: https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/starmer-backs-5-billion-drone-overhaul-for-uk-forces-in-dip/

"The Next Counterintelligence Problem Is Artificial" by Melissa Graves | Lawfare: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-next-counterintelligence-problem-is-artificial

"The Warrior-Witches of Ukraine’s Resistance" by Ken Harbaugh | The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/06/underground-intelligence-network-russia-ukraine/687578/

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Music by Andrew R. Bird

Photos by Alamy, UK Government

Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.

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For most of her career, Tulsi Gabbard may have been taking direction from a reclusive Hawaii guru — the allegation at the center of a Washington Post investigation that shadowed her out of office as Director of National Intelligence. Her replacement, federal housing-finance official Bill Pulte, arrived with no national security background and, as The Atlantic's Shane Harris reports, may be holding the job unlawfully. Two directors in two months. Matt speaks with Shane — who's been reporting both stories — to trace them to a single fault line: an office built after 9/11 to coordinate the spy agencies has proven uniquely easy to politicize, and a bipartisan chorus, including veterans of the community itself, now wants it cut down or scrapped. Which leaves the harder question: whether an office this easy to bend should exist at all.

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"Tulsi Gabbard, her guru and the mysterious messages that helped shape her political career" by Jon Swaine | The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2026/06/21/tulsi-gabbard-her-guru-mysterious-messages-that-helped-shape-her-political-career/

"Trump Has a Bill Pulte Problem" by Shane Harris & Vivian Salama | The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/06/bill-pulte-unlawful-intelligence-director/687684/

"Tulsi Gabbard’s Office Shouldn’t Exist" by John Sipher | The Bulwark: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/tulsi-gabbard-office-shouldnt-exist-director-national-intelligence-9-11

More of Shane’s reporting for The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/author/shane-harris/

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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/

Music by Andrew R. Bird

Photos by Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg, Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP Photo & ODNI

Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Chris and Matt dig into the fine print of the U.S.-Iran memorandum signed this week by President Trump in Versailles, separating what Tehran banks immediately — sanctions relief, frozen funds, an open Strait of Hormuz — from what's still contingent on a future nuclear settlement, and why claiming victory now looks premature. From there, a Foreign Affairs piece reframes the war's aftermath: rather than breaking the Islamic Republic, the campaign may have hardened it, elevating a younger, more nationalist generation around Mojtaba Khamenei whose pragmatism is tactical rather than moral — and inviting an uneasy comparison to Putin's Russia. They close on new reporting that the Pentagon has quietly raised Israel to a "critical" counterintelligence threat, working through allegations of bugged DIA offices and eavesdropped negotiations against the longer history of allies spying on allies.

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Articles discussed in today’s episode

"Read the 14-point draft agreement between the US and Iran" by Alayna Treene, Kevin Liptak & Mostafa Salem | CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/17/middleeast/us-iran-war-mou-text-intl

"Experts react: The US and Iran just announced an interim peace deal. Here’s what we know so far." by Nate Swanson, Matthew Kroenig, Landon Derentz, Josh Lipsky, Victoria J. Taylor, Danny Citrinowicz, Daniel B. Shapiro | The Atlantic Council: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/dispatches/experts-react-the-us-and-iran-just-announced-an-interim-peace-deal-heres-what-we-know-so-far/

"Donald Trump’s Iran deal met with anger, relief and incredulity" by Jonathan Yerushalmy | The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/18/donald-trump-iran-deal-reactions-anger-relief-incredulity

"Iran’s New Grand Strategy: How a Remade Islamic Republic Will Reshape the Middle East" by Narges Bajoghli & Vali Nasr | Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/redeem/mTPNp3YLFpg

"Pentagon Sees Growing Espionage Threat From Israel" by Julian E. Barnes & Eric Schmitt | The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/06/us/politics/pentagon-sees-growing-espionage-threat-from-israel.html

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Follow Chris and Matt on Bluesky:

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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/

Music by Andrew R. Bird

Photos by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto, Reuters

Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.