In the Room with Peter Bergen

The job comes with all sorts of risks and responsibilities plus exposure to a lot of violence and trauma — whether that’s out in a war zone or in the office, where analysts may work on cases involving horrific human rights abuses. All of that can take its toll. CIA Director William Burns has acknowledged the agency needs to do more to “take care” of its officers. You’ll hear how stressful and crushing intelligence can be from former intelligence officers who did it and from the CIA’s top psychologist and the CIA’s new wellbeing chief, about what can be done about it.Go to audible.com/news where you'll find Peter Bergen's recommendations for other news, journalism and nonfiction listening.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sean Kirkpatrick is one of the best guys on earth to answer that question. He set up the Pentagon’s new office tasked with investigating UFO sightings by the US military. But he rarely gives interviews. Until now. You’ll hear what his investigators found out about sightings going back to Roswell, and what he thinks is the biggest UFO conspiracy of all.Go to audible.com/news where you'll find Peter Bergen's recommendations for other news, journalism and nonfiction listening.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Until recently, the eight nations whose borders creep into the icy Arctic haven’t had much of a reason to fight over this forbidding landscape. But as climate change melts the ice and opens up access to all kinds of precious resources, the United States is preparing for the possibility of conflict. So how will the U.S. defend its interests in a place where most of us have never set foot?Go to audible.com/news where you'll find Peter Bergen's recommendations for other news, journalism and nonfiction listening.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Meet the newest branch of the American military and learn how life as you know it could stop if it fails to do its job.Go to audible.com/news where you'll find Peter Bergen's recommendations for other news, journalism and nonfiction listening.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the summer of 2022, the United States military ran a major training exercise to prepare to respond if its ally Taiwan gets invaded by China. Central to the strategy: the tiny American island of Guam, the westernmost part of the United States, where the U.S. has more than doubled defense spending in recent years. But not everyone on Guam is convinced that all this additional military buildup, meant to deter China, will ultimately make them safer. As one legislator put it, it’s like the island has “a bullseye” on it. So how did this tropical island become central to U.S. strategy in the Pacific?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Revisiting history is never simple. Especially the history of the United States, which is often painful, and, invariably political. At dinner tables, school board meetings, and political protests, Americans disagree not only about how our past should be interpreted, but what actually happened in the first place.From the myth about George Washington’s teeth to the true cause of the Civil War, three historians bring us into the impassioned debates about America’s origins and ask, does the fight over America’s past threaten our security today?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hollywood may have portrayed him as a nerd, but Mike Vickers was the superstar architect of America’s covert war in the 1980s that drove the Soviet army out of Afghanistan. And this alum of the Green Berets and the CIA has some ideas about how to do the same thing in Ukraine today.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Some countries have fallen into a toxic cycle of tit-for-tat prosecutions, where every ex-president has to expect they’ll eventually end up behind bars. Could the U.S. be next? Two constitutional experts warn that some of the criminal cases against Donald Trump could cause cycles of retribution that poison our politics. And why our saving grace just might be — get this — government bureaucracy.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Experts on urban and underground warfare explain why an aerial campaign alone can’t defeat Hamas, what the shortcomings are of the Israeli Defense Force, and how long, complicated, and tragic this war will be.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How do two of America's leading nonfiction writers turn some of the biggest issues affecting us into juicy narratives that change hearts and minds — and maybe even policies? Patrick Radden Keefe on how he rendered the opioid crisis as a dramatic tale of money, power, and human suffering in his book Empire of Pain, and Elizabeth Kolbert on how she illuminates what we are losing as global temperatures rise, as in her most recent book, Under a White Sky.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

General David Petraeus and historian Andrew Roberts, co-authors of the new book “Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine,” discuss how they believe this war will evolve, how it compares to other conflicts of the last seven and a half decades, and what we can learn from the mistakes made during those wars.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Another mass shooting is making headlines in the United States. With it comes the familiar feeling of powerlessness. But a rare peek inside the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit reveals that at least some shootings are being prevented, using techniques to identify people headed down the ‘pathway to violence.’ In the absence of gun reform, agents share what ordinary people can do to help. And a mother recounts the harrowing story of how she discovered her son’s plans to shoot up a school — and what happened next.Go to audible.com/news where you'll find Peter Bergen's recommendations for other news, journalism and nonfiction listening.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When Ukrainian soldiers liberated the town of Bucha, Ukraine in March, 2022, news reports showed scenes of bodies lying in the streets. Human Rights Watch documented cases of summary executions. But on Russian state television, the news was presented as “fake,” a staged event. Objective reporting about the war in Ukraine is now against the law in Russia and journalists can’t even use the word “war” in their stories. But it wasn’t always like this. Two veteran Russian journalists, who’ve experienced the changes firsthand, explain what has happened.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

New tools like Chat GPT have sparked futuristic fears about intelligent machines wiping people out or, at the very least, taking all our jobs. But there’s a more immediate A.I. threat coming for us, as soon as the next election.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face,” Mike Tyson famously once said. Vladimir Putin thought he could defeat Ukraine in three days. How did he get it so wrong? And what can we learn from his mistake? Throughout history, according to one of the world’s leading experts, wars have almost never played out as predicted. But if that’s the case, how are we supposed to prepare for future wars — like a potential one with China? See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Twenty years ago, a massive statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down in Baghdad, a day that for many Iraqis signaled hope for the future of the country. But America’s invasion did not come with a coherent plan for what should come next, and those hopes were dashed. What is the legacy of U.S. intervention in the country today? Peter travels to Iraq to find out.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Please note: The views shared in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of Audible or "In the Room with Peter Bergen."RFK, Jr.’s views on vaccines and penchant for questioning official narratives have kept him on the fringes of American politics for years. His blistering critiques of the Biden Administration on everything from the pandemic to the war in Ukraine have earned him praise from Republicans. Now, he’s running to beat President Biden in the Democratic primaries. In this lengthy sit-down, Peter probes Kennedy’s unrelenting skepticism about a wide range of issues. Go to http://audible.com/news where you'll find Peter Bergen's recommendations for other news, journalism and nonfiction listening. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The wild story of the 'worst corporate data breach ever,' the man who got blamed for it, and the sleuths who figured out who actually did it.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Meet Admiral William McRaven, the Navy SEAL who literally wrote THE book on special operations, and who says the best way to plan the raid for the world’s most wanted man - or do pretty much anything else - is to start by making your bed.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's impossible to understand the events of 9/11 without understanding Osama bin Laden. Who was he? What was he hoping to achieve with the attack? How did the US track him down? And what can we learn from that story now? Three women - a CIA analyst, an FBI investigator, and a scholar who read 6,000 pages of documents recovered from bin Laden’s compound after he was killed - recount how they came to know and understand Osama bin Laden.Hear Peter Bergen on a recent episode of Global Dispatches.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We can’t do much without batteries and microchips; they power everything from smartphones to electric cars to defense systems. But the U.S. ceded control of the raw materials required to make them - to its chief rival, China. Is it possible to catch up, especially given America’s more stringent labor and environmental standards?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Malcolm Nance was retired from the U.S. Navy, but the Russian invasion of its neighbor compelled him to dig out his old weapons and equipment, and join up with the International Legion fighting in Ukraine. He explains how the International Legion functions, what it’s like to take a direct hit from a Russian shell, and why he doesn’t believe he and his fellow legionnaires have run afoul of an 18th century law against Americans fighting in other people’s wars.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Actually, there basically is - led by the same guy. They have found that President Trump didn’t cause the botched response (although they label him a “comorbidity”). Neither did partisan politics (although there are some isolated exceptions). And if you think that’s surprising, wait till you hear how prepared we are (not) for the next pandemic.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the final chaotic days of the US presence in Afghanistan, a young survivor of a Taliban attack was trying to get to the airport, the top American diplomat was doing his best to make the departure as orderly as humanly possible, and the Afghan national security advisor was fleeing with the president on a helicopter. You will hear from all of them and more in this exploration of how the US pullout has reverberated - through individual lives and throughout geopolitics.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

After a 20-year war that cost the United States two trillion dollars and led to nearly 200,000 deaths, the Taliban are back in power - and offering safe haven to Al Qaeda once again. General David H. Petraeus, Trump advisor Lisa Curtis, Afghan ambassador to the US Roya Rahmani and others, bring us "in the room" to explain how this debacle came to pass, and warn us of the consequences.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When he first ran for president, Donald Trump didn’t have any record on foreign policy. Now he does, and that offers more than a hint of how he might lead if he were to win the White House again in 2024. Peter dissects the Trump record with one of the ex-president’s best-known former foreign policy advisors - and critics - John Bolton, who doesn’t mince words in assessing Trump’s handling of Russia and China, Ukraine and Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea. Bolton takes us around the world and on the roller coaster ride that was the West Wing of the Trump White House.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Double agents, dead drops, and deadly missions enliven some of the most popular and well-known spy novels. But do you need to have been an ACTUAL spy in an intelligence agency like the CIA to write like one? And how do real spies rate the fictional ones?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the past five years, overdose death rates have skyrocketed in the United States, with fentanyl - a synthetic, cheaply produced opioid - now a leading cause of death for 18-45 year-olds. How do the chemicals used to make fentanyl get from China to Mexico to the United States? Why would drug dealers sell a substance that’s killing off so many of their customers? What is the Biden administration doing to stop these deaths? And what can ordinary Americans do to keep their communities safe?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How “America’s General” joined a movement that’s fired up about COVID, conspiracies, and Christ - and just might be headed to a town near you.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A storied Army general, a key intelligence figure in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a registered Democrat—and now, a full-blown right-wing conspiracy theorist. How did this all-American war hero disappear down the Q-Anon rabbit hole? We’ll retrace the unraveling of Michael Flynn’s legendary career and explain how a once-trusted general ended up lying to the FBI, denying the 2020 election results, and instigating one of the most bonkers meetings ever held at the White House. He is also now positioning himself as a leader of the Christian nationalist right as we head into the 2024 presidential elections.Go to audible.com/news where you’ll find Peter Bergen's recommendations for other news, journalism, and nonfiction listening.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

CNN’s chief international correspondent has seen the worst of humanity. But she’s also experienced amazing acts of kindness under some of the most difficult circumstances. And she’s learned a lot about what drives countries into war in the first place.Go to audible.com/news where you'll find Peter Bergen's recommendations for other news, journalism, and nonfiction listening.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Why is it so important to keep the country’s secrets secret? And what does the alphabet soup of national security-related acronyms in the indictment against the former president actually mean? Three intelligence professionals with more than 80 years of combined experience explain what’s involved in collecting and protecting the people, methods and information in classified documents—and the potential consequences of their exposure.Go to audible.com/news where you'll find Peter Bergen's recommendations for other news, journalism and nonfiction listening.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Known as MBS, the 37-year-old de facto Saudi ruler has ambitious plans to modernize society. But he has also been accused of brutal human rights violations, including ordering the operation that led to the medieval-style death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Should America still be his friend? And with the US now much less dependent on Saudi oil, does it really need to?Go to audible.com/news where you'll find Peter Bergen's recommendations for other news, journalism and nonfiction listening.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Cyber criminals and states like China and Russia are targeting the computer networks of everything from America’s hospitals to the water coming out of the kitchen tap. Jen Easterly, the director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), breaks down the biggest cyber threats and what the government, companies, and the rest of us need to do about them.Go to audible.com/news where you'll find Peter Bergen's recommendations for other news, journalism and nonfiction listening.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It started in 2016 when a small group of American diplomats and spies in Havana, Cuba said they heard a piercing sound and became debilitatingly ill. Seven years later, more than a thousand Americans all over the globe now say they’ve also gotten sick. Despite several scientific studies and numerous government investigations, the debate around what’s making people sick still hasn’t been fully resolved. Could the job these foreign-service and intelligence officers do—trying to keep America safe—in outposts like Cuba and Russia and China be so stressful that it causes serious neurological symptoms? And is Havana Syndrome still a national security threat—since it’s taking out some of the best and brightest Americans in the foreign service and intelligence?Go to audible.com/news where you'll find Peter Bergen's recommendations for other news, journalism, and nonfiction listening.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tucked away deep inside the intelligence agency’s headquarters in Langley, VA is a museum most of us will never see. It chronicles the organization’s history—including some of its most important missions and greatest failures. The public isn’t allowed in, but in this episode you get a peek inside.Go to audible.com/news where you'll find Peter Bergen's recommendations for other news, journalism, and nonfiction listening.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A media frenzy erupted after US war planes shot down UFOs in American airspace and the government reported hundreds more mysterious sightings it can’t explain. Pilots and former Pentagon officials say it’s time the US government study the issue seriously and tell the public what it knows. But the Pentagon’s bizarre history of stifling—and stoking—UFO panic makes it hard to know how out-there the truth will turn out to be.Go to audible.com/news where you'll find Peter Bergen's recommendations for other news, journalism, and nonfiction listening.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The celebrated general takes you on a world tour of hotspots, sizes up the threats posed by China and Russia, assesses the risk of a military coup in the US, discusses a future where AI-powered machines are doing most of the war-fighting, and explains why he thinks the most apt metaphor for the challenges facing America in the current global landscape is…a very tricky circus act.Go to audible.com/news where you'll find Peter Bergen's recommendations for other news, journalism, and nonfiction listening.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When a newly-hired intern at the International Criminal Court was arrested and revealed to be a Russian spy, it begged the question: what was he up to?Now that Vladimir Putin has a warrant from this court for his arrest, it’s not hard to imagine that the spy was planning to tell Moscow about the evidence that is accumulating in the case against Russia for its atrocities in Ukraine. Turns out the evidence is abundant—and this may be the conflict that finally makes it hard to get away with war crimes.Go to audible.com/news where you'll find Peter Bergen's recommendations for other news, journalism, and nonfiction listening.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Overwhelmed by conflicting narratives and sensationalism in the news? Wondering where you can get an objective analysis and direct-from-the-source reporting?Look no further than In the Room with Peter Bergen. In a weekly nonpartisan news podcast, longtime national security journalist and bestselling author Peter Bergen goes beyond the headlines, to explore the world’s most important and captivating stories.Each week, listeners are invited to join Peter as he covers a news topic like war, artificial intelligence, UFOs, and more, including a rare peek inside the FBI's unit that is trying to prevent mass shootings. Balancing various perspectives on the subject, he combines narrative-rich storytelling and interviews with top experts and leaders like former Acting US Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, US Army General David Petraeus, Jen Easterly who leads US efforts to prevent cyberattacks, former US National Security Advisor John Bolton, first-ever female Afghan ambassador to the US Roya Rahmani, and CNN Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward.Listeners go “in the room” with Peter as he presses his contacts for accurate, on-the-ground information to help his listeners contextualize and understand the impact of these stories on their lives through a quality, trustworthy, and engaging lens.Get the real story from the people who are there as it unfolds with In the Room with Peter Bergen.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.