Mission Implausible

The Five Eyes: Can It Survive (with Richard Kerbaj)

Investigative journalist and BAFTA-winning filmmaker Richard Kerbaj discusses The Defector, his book on Oleg Lyalin — the KGB officer who walked into a North London police station in 1971 and exposed over 200 Soviet spies in Britain, partly to escape his marriage. He and the hosts trace how MI5's decision to withhold him from the CIA broke James Angleton's decade of paranoia, then take apart the Five Eyes: its origins, its budget imbalance, and whether it survives the current moment. Watch Mission Implausible on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MissionImplausiblePod

No More Secrets: AI and the Future of Espionage (with Adam Davidson)

Now that Adam Davidson is a national expert on AI, he worries about how it will change worldwide politics, military power and international economic structures. Not just the AI itself, but all its underlying physical infrastructure. When it comes to spycraft, it can help sort through the millions of pages of data collected every day, but it also makes it impossible to keep a secret. Watch Mission Implausible on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MissionImplausiblePod

The Corruption of American Intelligence (with Julia Curlee)

What's been done to American intelligence and what it costs: the 35 declassified documents that don't say what the president claims they say, analysts fired for accurate assessments, clearances stripped as punishment, rumored loyalty oaths, and the question of how any future administration cleans this up without another round of retribution. Looking outward — what Beijing is taking faway rom the Iran war, whether Taiwan is watching closely enough, what a protracted fight with Iran looks like, and why America's allies have stopped waiting for things to go back to normal. Watch Mission Implausible on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MissionImplausiblePod

The National Security Council Purge (with Julia Curlee)

Stephen Miller runs National Security now. Julia Curlee spent over 20 years as a CIA analyst, rising to being Acting Senior Director for Intelligence Programs at the NSC. When Trump 2 began, she stayed on, as is custom, to help transition. Her team was fired on Day 3, and Curlee on Day 69, leaving The White House woefully uninformed to this day. But maybe that was the point.“Vulnerability isn't really a foreign adversary, but the erosion of institutions and processes that otherwise allow presidents to make decisions based on objective evidence rather than politics.” Watch Mission Implausible on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MissionImplausiblePod

CIA's Best-Kept Secret: It Was Fun (with Paul Kolbe & Doug Wise)

Two of John & Jerry’s old friends and agency colleagues swap war stories and tall tales, starting with their training at The Farm and including their time in Moscow. Some of the characters in their anecdotes: Nazi Bob, Steven Seagal and the CIA mermaids. Watch Mission Implausible on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MissionImplausiblePod