Intelligence Archive

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, and associate editor, Omar H. Rahman, discuss a tale of two corruption scandals in Israel and South Africa. For the Report, Mackenzie Weinger talks with Andrew Green about why Finland is in the vanguard of efforts to counter Russia’s use of hybrid threats to undermine Western democracies. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get some of our uncompromising analysis delivered twice a week straight to your inbox. The […]

HELSINKI, Finland—Tucked away in an unassuming office building near Helsinki’s waterfront, a group of around 10 academics and government officials—most of them Finns—spend long days and nights tracking disinformation and influence operations emanating from neighboring Russia. They make up a newly formed research and strategy unit tasked with lifting the veil on a range of security threats that blend conventional and unconventional tactics. The European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, known as the Hybrid CoE, was founded last year in Helsinki by a dozen member states of the European Union and NATO. It defines hybrid threats as the […]

In early December, four new bills were introduced in the Australian Parliament that together represent the most sweeping proposed changes to the country’s national security laws in decades. In supporting their passage, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull referenced Soviet spying in Australia decades ago. “The threat we face today is greater than when Soviet agents penetrated the federal government during World War II and the early years of the Cold War,” he warned. The four bills have all been submitted for review to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which is expected to report its recommendations and any […]

International institutions offer spies incredibly easy places to ply their trade. Although this is a sensitive topic, it may be these institutions’ most important contribution to international stability. While organizations like the United Nations and African Union emphasize their contributions to peacemaking and sustainable development, their headquarters are also hunting grounds for spooks. Last month, Le Monde revealed that Chinese intelligence services have been downloading vast amounts of data from the servers at the AU’s offices in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, every night for five years. Beijing says that this is absurd. Everyone else assumes it is a fact. China generously […]

Last month, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull traveled to Japan for what has become an annual summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, highlighting the sustained growth of strategic relations between Tokyo and Canberra. During the visit, both sides agreed on the importance of working together in the Indo-Pacific and combining their shared interests in the rule of law and the freedom of navigation—a signal toward China, with its increasingly aggressive claims in the South China Sea, and the United States, at a time when the Trump administration has raised unfamiliar questions about America’s position in Asia. In a joint […]