Eliot and Eric welcome Michael Vickers, the author of By All Means Available: Memoirs of a Life in Intelligence, Special Operations and Strategy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023). They discuss his role in overseeing the CIA's covert assistance program to the Afghan resistance in the war against Soviet occupation in the 1980s, how his experiences as a Green Beret impacted his approach to policy making as a senior official, his academic work at the Office of Net Assessment and CSBA on the revolution in warfare, his return to government in the Bush 43 Administration orchestrating the intensification of the war against Al Qaeda and his role in the bin Laden raid, as well as his thoughts on the endgame in Afghanistan and the lessons of earlier proxy wars for the current fight in Ukraine. They also discuss the delicacy of working with nuclear land mines as a special forces officer.

https://www.amazon.com/All-Means-Available-Intelligence-Operations/dp/1101947705/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1689088835&sr=8-1

https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/the-shadow-wars-of-michael-vickers

https://csbaonline.org/research/publications/the-revolution-in-war/publication/1

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at [email protected]

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