Book and Film Recommendations

Director: John Mackenzie | 30 August 1987

John Preston is a British Agent with the task of preventing the Russians detonating a nuclear explosion next to an American base in the UK. The Russians are hoping this will shatter the "special relationship" between the two countries.

Caroline N. Walsh | Routledge, 31 July 2026

This book examines ethical leadership through the experiences of senior CIA officers who operated in environments defined by secrecy, ambiguity, and judgment-based decision-making.

Drawing on original interviews and moral development theory, this book examines how leadership is enacted when formal rules are insufficient. Structured around accountability, self-development, and communication, it develops empirically grounded models that explain how leaders discern moral responsibility when organizational enforcement mechanisms fall short. Accountability introduces a decision framework that distinguishes operational, personal, and administrative harms. Self-development challenges organizational approaches that emphasize external competencies while neglecting internal development. Communication highlights its importance in leadership theories. By exploring these areas in depth, this book offers a nuanced exploration of how leaders navigate complex interpersonal and organizational challenges in this unique context.

Blending rigorous academic insights with real-world examples from elite intelligence officers, this book offers a compelling exploration of leadership practices that are both unique to the intelligence community and yet deeply relevant to leaders across industries. It will interest scholars, students, and practitioners in leadership, ethics, intelligence studies, and organizational development who are seeking to understand how to cultivate ethical leadership in complex institutional contexts.

Kristan Stoddart | De Gruyter, 29 December 2025

This book is a timely and systematic analysis of Russian hybrid warfare with a particular focus on Russian cyberespionage and cyberwarfare. It especially analyzes Russian policy from the election of President Vladmir Putin in 2000 to date.

It takes a long term, long lens, view of Russian policies and actions internationally and domestically, fundamentally questioning the relationship and boundaries between active measures, espionage, cyberespionage, and hybrid warfare.

Michael J. Sulick | Georgetown University Press | 15 November 2013

What's your secret? American Spies presents the stunning histories of more than forty Americans who spied against their country during the past six decades. Michael Sulick, former head of the CIA's clandestine service, illustrates through these stories--some familiar, others much less well known--the common threads in the spy cases and the evolution of American attitudes toward espionage since the onset of the Cold War. After highlighting the accounts of many who have spied for traditional adversaries such as Russian and Chinese intelligence services, Sulick shows how spy hunters today confront a far broader spectrum of threats not only from hostile states but also substate groups, including those conducting cyberespionage.

Sulick reveals six fundamental elements of espionage in these the motivations that drove them to spy; their access and the secrets they betrayed; their tradecraft, i.e., the techniques of concealing their espionage; their exposure; their punishment; and, finally, the damage they inflicted on America's national security.

The book is the sequel to Sulick's popular Spying in Espionage from the Revolutionary War to the Dawn of the Cold War. Together they serve as a basic introduction to understanding America's vulnerability to espionage, which has oscillated between peacetime complacency and wartime vigilance, and continues to be shaped by the inherent conflict between our nation's security needs and our commitment to the preservation of civil liberties.