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BERLIN’S FATE WAS SEALED AT THE 1945 YALTA CONFERENCE: the city, along with the rest of Germany, was to be carved up among the victorious powers―the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. On paper, it seemed a pragmatic solution. In reality, once the four powers were no longer united by the common purpose of defeating Germany, they wasted little time reverting to their prewar hostility toward―and suspicion of―one another. The veneer of civility between the Western allies and the Soviets was to break down in spectacular fashion in Berlin. Rival systems, rival ideologies, and rival personalities ensured that the German capital became an explosive battleground.

Throughout, Checkmate in Berlin recounts the first battle of the Cold War as we’ve never before seen it. An exhilarating tale of intense rivalry and raw power, it is above all a story of flawed individuals who were determined to win, and Milton does a masterful job of weaving between all the key players’ motivations and thinking at every turn. A story of unprecedented human drama, it’s one that had a profound, and often underestimated, shaping force on the modern world – one that’s still felt today.

1860: As the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil, Elizabeth Packard, housewife and mother of six, is facing her own battle. The enemy sits across the table and sleeps in the next room. Her husband of twenty-one years is plotting against her because he feels increasingly threatened―by Elizabeth’s intellect, independence, and unwillingness to stifle her own thoughts. So he makes a plan to put his wife back in her place. One summer morning, he has her committed to an insane asylum.

Bestselling author Kate Moore brings her sparkling narrative voice to The Woman They Could Not Silence, an unputdownable story of the forgotten woman who courageously fought for her own freedom―and in so doing freed millions more. Elizabeth’s refusal to be silenced and her ceaseless quest for justice not only challenged the medical science of the day, and led to a giant leap forward in human rights, it also showcased the most salutary lesson: sometimes, the greatest heroes we have are those inside ourselves.

There have never been more ways to ask for money on the internet. For rightwing extremists looking to monetise hate, that can be a big opportunity – and the earning potential of these digital assets hasn’t gone unnoticed in Australia.

Terrorism has been one of Australia’s most significant threats to national security since the September 11 terrorist attacks. But this is set to change.

Australia’s domestic spy agency ASIO anticipates espionage – spying – will supplant terrorism as Australia’s principal security threat over the next five years. They do not explicitly say why, but note this is “based on current trends” and that “espionage attempts by multiple countries remain unacceptably high”.

The word “intelligence” is loaded: While some confuse it with corporate espionage, today nearly every major company has an intelligence function or is building one. Prior to Covid-19, many corporate intelligence teams largely focused on security, but the pandemic has demonstrated the broader value of intelligence. In a world of contradictory and misleading information, smart business leaders use intelligence to see around corners, mitigate risk, provide insight, and shape their decision-making. The authors offer an overview of corporate intelligence functions and provide advice on how to structure these internal teams.

A senior colonel from Pyongyang’s top spy agency has come forward and revealed details about the North Korean regime’s drug deals and cyber army.

Kim Kuk-song spent 30 years at the spy agency under North Korean leaders Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un before he fled in 2014. Since his defection, he has been living in Seoul and working for South Korean intelligence.

Salami tactics offer an attractive option for expansionist powers in the shadow of major war — using repetitive, limited faits accomplis to expand influence while avoiding potential escalation. Despite its long history of colloquial use, however, the term has never received a thorough conceptualization. Modeling a state’s decision to initiate salami tactics reveals five conditions that increase their appeal to policymakers: when retaliation would be costly, reversal is unlikely, faits accomplis are easy, fears of future predation can be undercut, and further gains are possible. Two case studies 200 years apart illustrate how these conditions operate: the U.S. annexation of Florida and Russia’s interventions in Georgia and Ukraine. Deterring salami tactics poses unique strategic challenges to current U.S. foreign policy, which should work to ensure that the key escalation decision remains with potential aggressors rather than being foisted onto defenders via faits accomplis.

Although cyber conflict has existed for thirty years, the strategic utility of cyber operations remains unclear. Many expect cyber operations to provide independent utility in both warfare and low-intensity competition. Underlying these expectations are broadly shared assumptions that information technology increases operational effectiveness. But a growing body of research shows how cyber operations tend to fall short of their promise.

The reason for this shortfall is their subversive mechanism of action. In theory, subversion provides a way to exert influence at lower risks than force because it is secret and indirect, exploiting systems to use them against adversaries. The mismatch between promise and practice is the consequence of the subversive trilemma of cyber operations, whereby speed, intensity, and control are negatively correlated. These constraints pose a trilemma for actors because a gain in one variable tends to produce losses across the other two variables. A case study of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict provides empirical support for the argument. Qualitative analysis leverages original data from field interviews, leaked documents, forensic evidence, and local media. Findings show that the subversive trilemma limited the strategic utility of all five major disruptive cyber operations in this conflict.

An essential part of being a successful intelligence analyst is the ability to think critically. It’s also one of the most difficult skills to teach which is why using structured analytical techniques is so important. The right techniques can help channel thinking into useful directions and identify cognitive biases. Using them doesn’t guarantee good analysis but it helps reduce the risk of bad analysis.

The U.S. special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, John Sopko, has the tough job of trying to find out how and why the Afghan government fell apart so quickly when U.S. forces left the country. But one thing is making his job even harder: the U.S. government classifying too much information. As Sopko told NPR, “There is a lot of information that was classified or withheld from the American people over the years … to protect the Afghan government from embarrassment.” This includes information that would shed light on the condition of the Afghan military leading up to the U.S. withdrawal—for instance, its casualty rates and measures of its efficacy. Such information, he said, should have been declassified. Yet it remains secret, even though the Afghan government it would have embarrassed no longer exists.