Hey, What're You Thinking?
Time for an attitude check.
How you feeling? I don’t know about you, but I can’t remember ever feeling so bludgeoned by events in America than the combined weight of Trump’s head-spinning rejection of every cardinal tenet of U.S. national security policies over the past three months.
As longtime SpyTalk readers know, we've always tried to avoid partisan politics here. We’ve knocked Democrats from Obama’s astounding missteps in Syria to Biden’s godawful withdrawal from Afghanistan and plenty in-between. But Trump’s apparent abandonment of our European democratic allies, his bid for a dictatorial alliance with Vladimir Putin, and appointment of unfit flunkies in key intelligence and defense posts—not to mention the dismissal of professionals based on the screeching demands of a far right “influencer”— go well beyond partisan boundaries to what we think is an existential crisis in America’s role in the world.
How should we deal with that? Bashing Trump week after week is not only tiresome, it threatens to pigeonhole us as knee jerk anti-administration partisans. We don’t want that, but frankly, I’m stumped on a clear way through this morass. So today I’m reaching out to you, dear reader.
What would you like to see more—or less—of? Do we need an attitude adjustment, or should we stay the course—even hit harder? Would you like more podcasts, like our regular newsmaker interviews, or the new weekly review chat that Mike Isikoff and I just launched? Should we wade more into Israel-Palestine issues or ICE deportations (which go beyond our intelligence focus)? Or more book, movie and TV reviews of espionage-oriented fare? Or how about direct Q & A interactions with our estimable stable of award-winning veteran national security journalists? Would you like that?
Or you can just share whats on your mind.
And finally, to those of you paying subscribers who have been clobbered by the mass Trump-Musk layoffs across the intelligence community: Can I offer you a half-price subscription until you can get back on your feet? Just send me a note and I’ll fix you up. We don’t want to lose you.
Whatever, do let me know what’s on your mind. As always, I’ll look forward to hearing from you.
I would like to know if the intelligence community has changed its foreign priorities to adapt to Trump's agenda. If there has been a geopolitical reorganization in which Russian intelligence activities in other countries are no longer a priority. In 2022, the head of the Northern Command reported that Mexico is the country with the largest number of Russian military intelligence officers. Last September, Burns said the CIA was “sharply focused” on Russia’s expanding footprint in Mexico. Is that still the case? I agree with comments that say you should stay the course and keep hitting hard on intelligence issues. https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/cold-war-russia-uses-mexico-hub-spying-us-rcna171819
I am a retired Hungarian intelligence professional
who cannot be neutral towards Trump’s craze, especially not, as I have to suffer at home from his pal Viktor Orbán.
An intelligence apparatus becomes worthless if personal loyalty to the great leader is the advertised degree of merit. Full stop. To force yourself to accept such a regime, is serving the nonsense.
So keep up the good work, keep your backbone straight, and wait for normal times when you can make a delicate balance of nonpartisanship again.