“Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East vs. West” – with Calder Walton

SpyCast

Education, News, History

4.4 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 June 2023

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Summary Calder Walton (Website, Twitter) joins Andrew (Twitter; LinkedIn) to discuss the 100-year intelligence war between the United States and Russia. Calder is the author of the new book, SPIES. *EXTENDED SHOW NOTES & FULL TRANSCRIPT HERE* What You’ll Learn Intelligence The epic clash of intelligence systems Russia’s assassination program then and now The roots of Putinism China as “the Soviet Union on steroids” Reflections Cold War 2.0 Could it have been otherwise? And much, much more … Quotes of the Week My conclusion, unfortunately, Andrew, is that looking at this large sweep of history that we have, not so much a Putin problem today, but a Russia problem. And the Russia problem has been persistent over a hundred years, which is why it makes me very cautious about speculation … Unfortunately, it seems to me that the Putin and the people he surrounds himself with in the Kremlin are all cut from this very similar cloth as he is. Resources SURFACE SKIM *Headline Resource* SPIES: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West, Calder Walton (Simon & Schuster, 2023) *SpyCasts* Ukraine & the Alliance with NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Intelligence David Cattler (2023) Ukraine & Intelligence: One Year On with Shane Harris (2023) Becoming a Russian Intelligence Officer with Janosh Neumann (2022) The Spies Who Came in From the Cold with Chris Costa and John Quattrocki at the Pritzker Military Museum & Library in Chicago (2022) Dealing with Russia with Counterintelligence Legend Jim Olson (2022) CIA Legend Jack Devine on Countering Russian Aggression (2012) *Beginner Resources* Putin’s Revisionist History of Russia and Ukraine, I. Chotiner, New Yorker (2022) [Short article] Has Putin's war failed and what does Russia want?, P. Kirby, BBC (2023) [Short article] The Cold War Explained in 15 Minutes, YouTube (2021) [15 min. video] *EXTENDED SHOW NOTES & FULL TRANSCRIPT HERE* DEEPER DIVE Books Russian Intelligence, K. Riehle (NIU, 2022) Putin’s People, C. Belton (William Collins, 2021) Between Two Fires, J. Yaffa (Duggan Books, 2020) The New Cold War, E. Lucas (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2014) Primary Sources The Putin Files, CBS (n.d.) Memorandum of Conversations (Rise of Putin) Clinton with Putin (2000) Clinton with Putin (2000) Clinton with Yeltsin (1999) Clinton with Yeltsin (1999) Clinton with Putin (1999) Madelaine Albright with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov (1999) Clinton with Putin (1999) Clinton with Yeltsin (1999) Oral Histories U.S. Ambassadors to Moscow John Huntsman (2017-2019) John F. Tefft (2014-2017) Michael McFaul (2012-2014) John Beryle (2008-2012) Alexander Vershbow (2001-2005) James F. Collins (1997-2001) Thomas R. Pickering (1993-1996) Jack F. Matlock (1987-1991) *Wildcard Resource* Putin Strikes: The Coming War for Eastern Europe A two-player board game where one commands the Kremlin’s forces and the other an international polyglot force. Trippy or what? *EXTENDED SHOW NOTES & FULL TRANSCRIPT HERE*

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the CyberWire Network, powered by N2K.
0:11.0	Welcome to Spycast.
0:15.0	The official podcast of the International Spy Museum.
0:19.0	I'm your host, Dr. Andrew Hammond, the museum's historian and curator.
0:24.0	Each week we explore some aspect of the world of intelligence and espionage,
0:28.0	a vast ecosystem that looms beneath the surface of everyday life,
0:34.0	coming up next on Spycast.
0:37.0	My book is essentially about a hundred-year intelligence war
0:42.0	that's been going on between Russia and the Western powers.
0:46.0	And this war continued pretty much continuously,
0:50.0	even when the Western powers thought the things were improving with Russia.
0:55.0	So during the Second World War, the Soviet Union was the allies of the Western powers in the Grand Alliance.
1:04.0	The Western powers thought they were the genuine allies of the Soviet Union,
1:08.0	Stalin had a very different perspective, and actually, we can now see,
1:13.0	conducted an intelligence onslaught on the Western powers.
1:17.0	This also continued this war between Russia and the Western powers
1:21.0	after the collapse of the entire Soviet system in 1991.
1:36.0	Coder Walton is the author of a new book that is making a lot of waves.
1:40.0	Spy's the epic intelligence war between East and West.
1:45.0	Coder's a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School
1:48.0	where he has a particular focus on how intelligence history can generate lessons
1:52.0	that help policy makers navigate the messy complexity of the contemporary world.
	...

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