By Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Committed is the long-awaited sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Sympathizer
The long-awaited new novel from one of America’s most highly regarded contemporary writers, The Committed follows the Sympathizer as he arrives in Paris as a refugee.
There he and his blood brother Bon try to escape their pasts and prepare for their futures by turning their hands to capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing.
No longer in physical danger, but still inwardly tortured by his reeducation at the hands of his former best friend, and struggling to assimilate into a dominant culture, the Sympathizer is both charmed and disturbed by Paris.
As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals and politicians who frequent dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese “aunt,” he finds not just stimulation for his mind but also customers for his merchandise – but the new life he is making has dangers he has not foreseen, from the oppression of the state, to the self-torture of addiction, to the seemingly unresolvable paradox of how he can reunite his two closest friends, men whose worldviews put them in absolute opposition.
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By Jack Devine
In Spymaster’s Prism, the legendary former spymaster Jack Devine details the unending struggle with Russia and its intelligence agencies as it works against our national security.
Devine tells this story through the unique perspective of a seasoned CIA professional who served more than three decades, some at the highest levels of the agency.
He uses his gimlet-eyed view to walk us through the fascinating spy cases and covert action activities of Russia, not only through the Cold War past but up to and including its interference in the Trump era.
Devine also looks over the horizon to see what lies ahead in this struggle and provides prescriptions for the future.
Learn moreWhen Putin’s agents poisoned Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, it seemed to be one in a long line of anonymous attacks on the President’s enemies. But within a few months, the cover of his would-be killers had been blown wide open.
The organization behind this extraordinary scoop wasn’t a rival intelligence agency or even a newspaper—it was Bellingcat. An “open-source investigative unit“ which uses citizen journalists to gather and analyze data with only their computers, Bellingcat has revealed some of the world’s biggest secrets, from who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 to the Assad government’s use of chemical weapons in Syria.
Join us for a conversation with its founder and the author of We Are Bellingcat, Eliot Higgins. His account of those who take on tyrants from their kitchen tables, We Are Bellingcat is a tale of how we can still speak truth to power in an age of falsehood.
This event is co-hosted with the Renew Democracy Initiative. The discussion will be hosted by Persuasion’s Yascha Mounk and the Renew Democracy Initiative’s Garry Kasparov.
The book talk is free and open to the public.
Get your ticket
Understanding the Canadian Intelligence and National Security Community
By Stephanie Carvin (Editor), Thomas Juneau (Editor), Craig Forcese (Editor)
National security in the interest of preserving the well-being of a country is arguably the first and most important responsibility of any democratic government.
Yet, despite the centrality of national security, the study of the intelligence community in Canada has been largely neglected by scholars.
Motivated by some of the pressing questions and concerns of citizens, Top Secret Canada is the first book to offer a comprehensive study of the Canadian intelligence community, its different parts, and how it functions as a whole.
In taking up this important task, the editors and contributors aim to identify the key players, explain their mandates and functions, and assess their interactions.
Learn moreA new C.I.A. task force is trying to expand efforts to find the cause of a series of mysterious incidents that injured its officers around the world, the agency said this week, episodes that have occurred in Cuba, China, Russia and elsewhere.
The task force will work with the State Department as well as other intelligence agencies to gather fresh evidence about the episodes and re-examine existing material to draw conclusions on whether attacks occurred and, if so, what caused the injuries and who was responsible.
Read the whole storyNorth Korea might be secretly extracting plutonium to make more nuclear weapons, new satellite pictures suggest.
Weeks after Kim Jong-un vowed to expand his nuclear arsenal, images show that a coal-fired steam plant at the Yongbyon nuclear complex is back in operation after a two-year hiatus, The Sun reports.
The 38 North website, which specialises in North Korea studies, revealed that smoke was spotted coming from the plant at various times from late February and early March.
The website said this suggests “preparations for spent fuel reprocessing could be under way to extract plutonium needed for North Korea’s nuclear weapon”.
Read onThe Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday unanimously approved William Burns’ nomination to be the next CIA director, setting him up for a full floor vote where he is expected to win confirmation.
The panel voted in a closed-door session to approve Burns, a veteran diplomat who most recently served as the deputy secretary of State in the Obama administration, to helm the clandestine agency by voice vote.
His confirmation would fill one of the last senior national security posts still vacant more than a month after President Joe Biden was sworn into office.
Read more hereChinese spies used code first developed by the US National Security Agency to support their hacking operations, Israeli researchers said on Monday, another indication of how malicious software developed by governments can boomerang against their creators.
Read moreAustralian security agencies will give universities an expanded list of emerging technologies that should be protected from foreign interference as concern grows about local academics giving China access to their critical research.
The list will go beyond the military or “dual-use” technologies that Australian universities have traditionally been told to protect from foreign governments.
Read the storyForeign spies are targeting Australia’s mining and agricultural industries in a bid to get sensitive information on how the nation is diversifying trade away from China.
Read it hereNorth Korea might be secretly extracting plutonium to make more nuclear weapons, new satellite pictures suggest.
Weeks after Kim Jong-un vowed to expand his nuclear arsenal, images show that a coal-fired steam plant at the Yongbyon nuclear complex is back in operation after a two-year hiatus, The Sun reports.
The 38 North website, which specialises in North Korea studies, revealed that smoke was spotted coming from the plant at various times from late February and early March.
Learn moreThe Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intel and Security holds its first public hearing today on “national security risks affecting the higher education and research sector”
It is going to be big day, with experts, (including analyst of Chinese Communist Party influence in Australia, Alex Joske), espionage (ASIO chief Mike Burgess) and advocates (representatives from Human Rights Watch). A bunch of officials will also attend.
And there will be a big finish. The last witness is Drew Pavlou, outspoken critic of Uni Queensland’s links with the Chinese Government. So outspoken, TV’s 60 Minutes favourably covered his case (CMM July 20 2020).
Continue readingOn January 22, 2021, the New York Times reported that the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was acquiring commercially available databases from vendors containing U.S. person location data generated by smartphone applications, and the DIA was periodically using that data to track U.S. person device locations (specifically, the Times reported, “Defense Intelligence Agency analysts have searched for the movements of Americans within a commercial database in five investigations over the past two and a half years”).
The Times article included a link to a DIA memorandum prepared in response to inquiries about the practice received from the office of Senator Ron Wyden. Senator Wyden subsequently raised the issue during the confirmation hearing of Avril Haines for the position of Director of National Intelligence (DNI) asking Haines about “abuses” of commercially available location data. In a statement released by Wyden’s legislative office in connection with Haines’ confirmation process, he describes the DIA practice discussed in the Times article as “unacceptable” and as an intrusion on constitutional privacy rights, saying, “The Fourth Amendment is not for sale.”
Read the complete articleBritain today is a digital nation, leading and shaping events across a world inextricably linked through cyberspace. Now and into the future, the value of our economy, our way of life, and our global influence will be built on our advanced digital infrastructure, capabilities, and knowledge.
Today, as technological change continues to accelerate, we are pioneering new approaches to understanding the complex and interconnected world around us.
We have long championed the responsible use of data science, and believe that AI will be at the heart of our organisation’s future.
This paper describes the digital Britain of today, and our values-led approach for the spaces where people, information and technology meet.
It lays out GCHQ’s AI and Data Ethics Framework, and how we intend to use AI in our operations.
It forms part of our commitment to inclusion, debate and openness. The paper is the first step of a much longer journey: we’d like you to join us on it.
Download the report here“We must learn to defend, delay, attack and manoeuvre in cyberspace, just as we might on the land, sea or air and all together at the same time.
“Future war will always include a cyber dimension and it could become the dominant form.
- General Sir David Richard
Reconnaissance elements of the 2nd Battalion disembarked from HMAS Canberra in darkness, the vulnerability of their small boats counterbalanced by the guns of the distant destroyer and frigate.
Somewhere to their north a submarine, Triton UAV and second frigate were working a coordinated patrol pattern screening the northern approaches to Objective Monash. Maritime Patrol Aircraft had been committed elsewhere.
None of this gave the soldiers being jolted about in the rough chop as much comfort as knowing two pairs of Joint Strike Fighters would be on station in exactly two minutes. The jets had been queued in response to a potential threat to the ships, but could be called on by the reconnaissance platoon for close air support if the need arose.
Read onThe emergence of a New Cold War between the United States and China has catalysed significant changes to the Indo-Pacific’s security outlook.
While not completely analogous to the original Cold War, there are discernible similarities between the past and the present.
New security institutions have been created by both sides for the purposes of strategic competition. China has established alternative geo-economic institutions in the region such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and is interested in establishing alternative regional security institutions similar to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
A reinvigorated Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD), which features the United States, Australia, India, and Japan, has been touted as a forthcoming “Asian North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)” by U.S. officials, and appears to be purpose-built to contain China’s regional ambitions.
Keep readingThe US Air Force (USAF) is researching adding “cognitive electronic warfare” capabilities to the Boeing F-15 fighter.
In particular, the service is looking for artificial intelligence and machine learning “algorithms to advance the capabilities of airborne electronic warfare systems in development and production” for the F-15, it says in a sources sought notice posted online on 11 March.
Read the full storyNation-state hacking groups don’t need to do the work themselves anymore: they can hire criminal gangs to breach targets for them – with the added bonus that it’s harder to trace the attack back to them, say researchers.
Read moreDrug trafficking, smuggling, fraud, extortion and corruption − all illegal but also enticingly lucrative. Proceeds from these criminal activities represent an estimated 2% to 5% of global GDP.
That’s equivalent to US$800 billion to $2 trillion a year, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Money laundering disguises the sources and destinations of these funds and fuels some dire downstream effects, such as compromised financial systems and the means to keep terrorists and crime rings in business.
Anti-money laundering (AML) has been a hot topic − and an intensifying regulatory pain point − for financial institutions for decades.
Read the report hereAccording to a recent report published by the United Nations, violent right-wing extremists and jihadists “have successfully exploited vulnerabilities in the social media ecosystem to manipulate people and disseminate conspiracy theories” designed to reinforce their narratives and incite terrorism.
From the outset of the coronavirus outbreak it was evident that violent extremists were seeking to take advantage of the growing calamity by working the virus into their existing narratives and increasing the volume of online propaganda.
Concurrently, terrorism experts and government officials have warned that “captive audiences,” stuck at home during lockdown, bored and lonely, with little to do but surf the internet, are particularly vulnerable to such efforts.
Read moreIntelligence will benefit from rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled technologies more than any other national security mission.
As every possible platform—both machine and human—contributes to the global information grid, and as the number of sensors grows exponentially, the volume, velocity, and variety of data threaten to overwhelm intelligence analysis.
Read the chapters hereThrough stark images and charts, this report gives a graphic illustration of how the global illicit economy has boomed in the past 20 years and how it poses a serious threat to security, development and justice.
With so many major challenges in our world today, it may seem that tackling transnational organized crime is a lower priority than addressing climate change, pandemics, inequality or migration.
But organized crime is a common denominator to all of these challenges: it enables them, and it profits from them. As a result, organized crime is a driver of unsustainable development.
Read it herePresident Biden underscored the importance of the role of the Director of National Intelligence by nominating Avril Haines to that position as his first appointment to intelligence community leadership.
From what we have seen through a review of senior positions under the DNI, Haines has acted quickly in restoring the role of intelligence as a valued input to national security policymaking by putting seasoned intelligence professionals into key jobs.
Now, Haines has an opportunity to advance intelligence community mission activities on several key issues shaped by the digital information age. One of these issues is the role of publicly available information in the performance of their missions.
Read onOne of the reasons why the IC should modernize and become more open is because it has a part to play in addressing the information and truth crisis eroding American democracy.
I’m not exactly sure what that part looks like, other than it is a supporting role. But I’m persuaded that a more open, collaborative approach to making sense of the world would help citizens have just a bit more confidence in the information practices and decisions of its government.
The internet has all but destroyed the ability of so-called experts and elites to claim they know better. Actually, let me fix that sentence.
The failure of organizations, governments, scientists, businesses, and academics to adjust their processes to the reality of the internet has undermined their credibility.
Read onWe produced a Creative Approaches to Problem Solving (CAPS) toolkit with 25 activities to facilitate creative collaboration for you to try out.
Download the toolkitThe McCain Institute will be accepting applications for its second class of National Security and Counterterrorism (NSCT) Fellows from February 8 – April 1, 2021. Request an application by providing your email address below. Applications close 1 April.
Please note that completing and submitting the application requires:
– Access to a Microsoft account email
– Two letters of recommendation
– A Statement of Interest of 2,000 characters max
– Your Resume / CV
Access the formASIO protects Australia and Australians from threats to their security. As national security threats evolve, ASIO’s ability to respond must also evolve. This includes ensuring our terminology remains fit for purpose in a complex and changing threat environment.
At ASIO we’re conscious that the names and labels we use are important. Words matter. They can be very powerful in how they frame an issue and how people think about it.
For this reason, ASIO will adopt language that reinforces the fact that our counter-terrorism investigations focus on individuals or groups based on their use or advocacy of violence. ASIO does not investigate people solely because of their political views, so labels like ‘left’ and right’ often distract from the real nature of the threat.
We will now refer to two categories: ideologically motivated violent extremism and religiously motivated violent extremism.
Learn more hereI don’t write science fiction so I can predict the future, but I want to better understand what’s lies ahead…
What does the future of war look like? A common trope is that militaries default to fighting the ‘last’ war, leaving themselves exposed when the next war emerges.
Conventional war planning may not always provide the best answer, so what are alternatives? One is exploring the future through fiction, where authors can analyze and develop war scenarios from friendly, enemy, and neutral perspectives.
August Cole is both a war futurist at the Atlantic Council and co-author of the novel Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War with P. W. Singer.
The novel imagines various ways that emerging technologies may be leveraged by both sides in a predominently Indo-Pacific environment.
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