Today, we talked to Laura Thomas, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) case officer and Chief of Base in Afghanistan. She has served over 17 years in national security and leadership roles. We discuss:
00:00 How a CIA station operates
8:46 What kind of intelligence failure was October 7th?
24:39 Why did intelligence agencies predict Kabul would fall quickly to the Taliban?
30: 09 The holes in how CIA teaches tradecraft
Read the transcript at https://www.statecraft.pub/p/how-to-run-a-cia-base-in-afghanistan