KCSI Digest - Oct 2026 | King’s Centre for the Study of Intelligence

October 2026 Digest

Contents:

Events
Conferences
Call for Papers
Recent Publications
Podcasts

Events:

An Evening with Ahana Datta-Fasel
1 October 2026
Waterstones, Gower St., London, UK

Join us for a fascinating evening with Ahana Datta Fasel. Over a globally interconnected Internet, nations must constantly toe the delicate line of maintaining stability— developing shared tech protocols that they themselves must also break, in order to spy. This is the paradox at the heart of cyber espionage: states need to cooperate if they are to compete. As the US and China vie for strategic advantage through a new form of statecraft in cyber space, an intensifying cat-and-mouse game makes cyber security more difficult, more expensive and more unpredictable for us all.

More detailshere .

Germany Rearmed: The Return of War and End of Illusions
6 October 2026
RUSI, London, UK

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and growing uncertainty over European security, Germany has begun a significant reassessment of its defence and security policy. These changes have important implications for Germany’s role within Europe, NATO and the transatlantic alliance.

Drawing on her new book, Germany Rearmed: The Return of War and the End of Illusions, Liana Fix will discuss how Germany reached this point, the domestic constraints on its ambitions, how its changing role is viewed across Europe, and whether Berlin can deliver on the expectations now placed upon it.

More details here.

A Conversation with Meredith Woodruff
7 October 2026
International Spy Museum, online

Please join us for a conversation with Meredith Woodruff, who retired from the CIA as its most senior female officer in operations. She holds the CIA’s most prestigious awards, which include the Donovan Award for Operational Excellence and the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal. Upon retirement, Meredith served as vice president of Ntrepid, a large risk mitigation technology company. She also founded COPIA, an international executive coaching and management consulting company headquartered in Washington, D.C. A Stillwater, Oklahoma native, Meredith returned home in 2014 where she continues to work as an international coach. She is also a partner in Spycraft Entertainment, which are Hollywood executive producers working to portray intelligence officers and operations more realistically. Meredith is a popular public speaker who has addressed audiences across the nation on current international events and various aspects of the world of espionage.

Meredith will be interviewed by Kevin Place, Museum Interpretation Manager. This special members-only event will explore Meredith’s career journey, the evolving role of women in intelligence, and the realities behind the headlines. Attendees will also have the opportunity to ask Meredith questions during a live Q&A.

More details here.

Cyber Espionage in the Age of US-China Competition
8 October 2026
RUSI, London, UK

A conversation with Dr Ahana Datta Fasel on her new book, Full Stack Spies: Cyber Espionage in the Age of US-China Competition. Global internet stability relies on a paradox: nations must build shared tech protocols while simultaneously breaking them to gather intelligence. As the US and China weaponise cyberspace for strategic leverage, this escalating cat-and-mouse game makes cyber security increasingly difficult, expensive and unpredictable for all.

Full Stack Spies examines the dynamic, interdependent relationships that hackers, cyber defenders, tech giants and nation-states forge, leverage and exploit to amass cyber power against a wide range of targets in geopolitics, global trade and finance, the armed forces, and critical infrastructure. Dr Ahana Datta Fasel will explore how cyber espionage reflects the psychology, culture, and strategic priorities of the states that conduct it. Drawing on her experience as a former UK government ethical hacker, she will examine China's cyber ecosystem, the human motivations behind hacking operations, and why the line between peace and conflict in the digital age has become increasingly blurred.

More details here.

Prof Chris Andrews: My Secret Collaboration with Oleg Goredievsky After his Escape from Moscow in 1985
9 October 2026
Cambridge Intelligence Seminar, online

Oleg Gordievsky was Britain’s most important twentieth-century Russian agent. Following his death last year, I’m able to talk about our secret collaboration after his dramatic escape from Russia. Ben Macintyre writes in his latest well-deserved bestseller ‘Redwood’: ‘Gordievsky brought with him an encyclopedic knowledge of the KGB’s foreign intelligence service. Kuzichkin (Redwood) understood the inner workings of the (KGB) illegals section.’

In reality, the key material on illegals, especially in London, came from Gordievsky. I’ll be quoting from the KGB documents on which we worked and showing photos of illegal ‘signal sites’ and ‘dead letter boxes’ in London churches and pubs which can still be visited. I’ll also talk about my mildly hair-raising visit to Moscow in 1990 when I was able to contact Gordievsky’s family while presenting a BBC TV documentary.

More details here.

David McCloskey and Ben Macintyre in Conversation
9 October 2026
Conway Hall, London, UK

Join us for a gripping evening in Conway Hall with David McCloskey and Ben Macintyre, in conversation with Tim Shipman of The Spectator. David McCloskey is the master of modern fictional espionage - author of Damascus Station, The Persian, The Seventh Floor and Moscow X. Now he's back with London Station, a nail-bitingly suspenseful and highly topical spy thriller that asks 'What if the CIA and MI6 begin spying on each other?' as numerous agents start turning up dead.' Ben Macintyre is one of the most gifted writers of narrative non-fiction around, and Redwoodmight be his best book yet. Meet the double agent whose intelligence helped avert Armageddon, cracked open the innermost secrets of the KGB and defied the odds deep in hostile Iranian territory. The acclaimed author of Operation Mincemeat and The Siege keeps readers on the edges of their seats with this unputdownable true tale of espionage in Cold War Iran. Tim Shipman is the Political Editor of The Spectator magazine. Previously, he spent 11 years at The Sunday Times as Chief Political Commentator and Political Editor. His quartet of books on the turmoil in British politics following the Brexit referendum has sold more than 150,000 copies. Widely regarded as having written the definitive insider account of the most turbulent period in domestic politics since the Second World War, he is also a leading expert on spy fiction and spy history, and on the board of Spybrary.com, for which he also writes.

The Ticket & London Station bundle includes a copy of London Station by David McCloskey and Redwood by Ben Macintyre, for collection on the evening.

More details here.

National Security with Development? What aid cuts mean for UK defense and Security
15 October 2026
RUSI, London, UK

RUSI is pleased to host a discussion on the security and defense implications of reductions in Western development assistance, and what this means for the UK's ability to mitigate, manage and/or resolve violence across fragile and conflict-affected states. Against a backdrop of heightened global instability, from the war in Ukraine to conflict in the Middle East, governments across the West are reassessing their security priorities. The session brings together two senior figures from the British military and intelligence communities to examine the relationship between national security, development and defense.

Drawing on their own experience of command, operations and national security decision-making, the speakers will consider how international development can contribute to security and stability, the role that aid and wider soft and smart power play in supporting UK security objectives, and how the UK and likeminded partners should respond to a more fragmented and contested geopolitical landscape. They will also consider what to prioritize across fragile and conflict-affected states as Western aid budgets contract. The event will be of particular interest to those working on UK foreign and security policy, defense, intelligence, conflict prevention and stabilization, and international development. This event will be held in person and will be recorded for subsequent dissemination. All remarks are 'on the record'. It forms part of the RUSI project 'UK Security in a Post-Aid World', supported by the Strategic Communications and Advocacy Lab.

More details here.

At the Epicenter of Espionage
15 October 2026
German Spy Museum Berlin. Germany

During the height of the Cold War, intelligence agencies across Europe, but especially in Austria and Germany, turned thousands of people into agents by recruiting them as couriers or informants. A recently published book now focuses precisely on these individuals. This book breaks with pure political history and describes in detail how espionage operated at the micro level. It explores the immediate dangers faced by the spies themselves, their families, and friends. The common assumption that spies were solely driven by money and operated in ignorance of the risks is refuted here. Using intelligence models such as the MICE model (Money, Ideology, Coercion, Ego), the book demonstrates that cooperation almost always resulted from a complex combination of material advantages, ideological perspectives, coercion, and personal ambition.

Based on the latest research, this book debunks espionage myths. By analyzing a broad range of sources, some of which are used for the first time, it offers entirely new insights into the real and often deadly practices of intelligence agencies. A striking example is the analysis of the CIA's Operation Redsox, which failed disastrously because it was unsuited to the realities of the USSR and because inadequately trained agents were knowingly sent into the hands of Soviet counterintelligence. Furthermore, the book critically examines how intelligence agencies and the media have constructed their own fictions and espionage narratives. *This will be conducted in German.*

More details here.

Dr. Patrick Lennox: On Treason
16 October 2026
Cambridge Intelligence Seminar, online

Secession votes are the loose threads of the liberal democratic world. The global far right has pulled and will continue to pull on them opportunistically to see how far they can unravel exposed societies. Security and intelligence scholars and practitioners need to consider these democratic events as existential vulnerabilities requiring both enhanced understanding and intelligence prioritization. The observed foreign interference targeting the secession referendum scheduled in Alberta for 19 October 2026 must be situated within the context of the last twelve years of European secession referenda. Equally importantly, it must be considered within the context of the current Canada–US relationship. The independence movement within Alberta and the decision by the Alberta provincial government to hold a secession referendum are a betrayal of Canada worthy of harsh moral judgement. Liberal democracies will need to consider how to insulate themselves from such threats from within as they begin to consider their defenses against the rise of the global far right. Much of this work will start quietly within the security and intelligence communities of liberal democracies as they seek to identify the sources of the contagions of intolerance and illiberalism from within their own societies and from without.

More details here.

Strategic Stability during the Cold War and Beyond – Robert Litwak
20 October 2026
Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford, CA

During the Cold War, after the advent of survivable second-strike nuclear capabilities, assured retaliation became the foundation of strategic stability. Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union had an incentive to strike first in a crisis. A stable “balance of terror” deflected superpower competition to areas of peripheral interest in the “Third World,” and created conditions for diplomacy to stabilize the arms race. Throughout the Cold War and for thirty years thereafter, this stability architecture prevailed. With China’s emergence as a peer nuclear power in the 2020s, however, a tripolar order is emerging amidst destabilizing new technologies and the erosion of the arms control regime. Two interlocking Cold War risks are being recast. First, the three powers are engaged in intensified competition over areas of vital, not peripheral interest—Ukraine and Taiwan. Second, while assured retaliation remains the sine qua non of strategic stability, the “balance of terror” is becoming less stable because of the revived incentive to strike first in a crisis. A first strike would occur in the ungoverned domains of cyberspace and outer space, most likely against nuclear command and control systems, and would be highly escalatory. Litwak elucidates these transformed Cold War risks and explains how they can be mitigated in this era of unmanaged tripolar competition.

More details here.

Czech Traitors and the Meaning of Czech Treason
20 October 2026
Embassy of the Czech Republic, London, UK

The talk will focus on how traitors have regularly appeared in modern Czech history since the 19th century. As a small nation with leaders constantly striving to establish a special identity or independence in central Europe, Czechs could often appear as traitors to those who saw them as disloyal or rebellious. Yet if many Czech traitors would be interpreted by the nation as heroes or liberators, others could be seen as simply evil because they betrayed the nation to Habsburg, Nazi or Communist oppressors. The talk will focus on three notorious phases of ‘Czech treason’: the Omladina trial of the 1890s; the treason of Czech leaders during the First World War; and the controversial case of Emanuel Moravec during the Nazi occupation. Each of them reveals something about Czech identity during years of national crisis. Each also shows that treason itself is a slippery concept, whose meaning is usually in dispute until one side finally wins the power struggle.

More details here.

The World of Intelligence Services
20 October 2026
German Spy Museum Berlin, Germany

Intelligence agencies are among the most mysterious institutions of our time. There is much speculation about them – but few know how they actually work. As former president of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), Gerhard Schindler explains in his new book, clearly and without sensationalism, how intelligence agencies gather, analyze, and evaluate information, where their capabilities lie, and where their limitations lie. Using numerous examples, Schindler demonstrates why intelligence work is more important today than ever before and what challenges arise from cyberattacks, disinformation, artificial intelligence, and geopolitical power shifts. In doing so, he dispels myths and offers insights into the inner workings of a secret world.

A knowledgeable and easily understandable insight into the world of intelligence services, and at the same time an exciting read about power, knowledge and responsibility. We are eager to gain enlightening insights into the dark realm of espionage! *This will be conducted in German.*

More details here.

Is Freedom coming to Cuba?
21 October 2026
John Hopkins Inside Intelligence, online

Join moderator Michael Ard, program director of the MS in Intelligence Analysis program, as he welcomes Frank Mora, senior research scientist and professor of politics and international relations at Florida International University, to discuss the prospects for political change in Cuba amid increased U.S. economic and political pressure. Despite severe economic hardship, blackouts, and shortages on the island, Cuba's communist government has largely resisted major political concessions. Tensions between the two countries were on recently on display when the Cuban delegation walked out during President Trump’s United Nations General Assembly speech after he declared that “freedom will be coming to Cuba.”

A former U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States, Mora served as director of the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center at FIU from 2013-20. He has also held teaching positions at the National War College, National Defense University, and Rhodes College, where he served as associate professor and chair in the Department of International Studies, Over the past two decades, Mora worked as a consultant to the Library of Congress, the Institute for National Security Studies, the National Democratic Institute, the U.S. State Department, the Organization of American States, and U.S. Southern Command. He is the author or editor of five books, including Neighborly Adversaries: U.S.-Latin American Relations and has written more than 30 academic and policy articles, book chapters, and monographs on hemispheric security, U.S.-Latin American relations, civil-military relations, Cuban politics and the military, and Latin American political economy and integration.

More details here.

The Havana Syndrome
22 October 2026
International Spy Museum, Washington D.C. and online

For nearly a decade, US diplomats, spies, and soldiers around the world have reported sudden, devastating neurological injuries—symptoms eerily consistent with exposure to a directed energy weapon. Victims were told their illnesses were “psychosomatic.” Government agencies dismissed the evidence. And the CIA insisted no adversary was behind it. As the cases grew, from Havana to Hanoi, the media dubbed the phenomenon “the Havana Syndrome.”

Award-winning 60 Minutes producers Michael Rey and Oriana Zill de Granados have combed through more than nine years of reporting, secret medical records, whistleblower testimony, and intelligence reports, and even attended a past Spy Museum program on the topic, to write their new book The Havana Syndrome: Secret Weapons, a Government Cover-Up, and the Greatest Spy Mystery of Our Time. This evening, International Spy Museum SpyCast podcast host and HUMINT Substack founder, Sasha Ingber sits down with Rey and Zill de Granados to discuss their findings regarding an unseen highly specialized weapon that has left dozens of victims with life altering injuries. They’ll discuss the early attacks in Cuba and China, the spread of incidents across global hotspots from Tbilisi to Vienna and reveal the mounting evidence implicating an elite Russian “kill” unit.

More details here.

Dr. Alexandra Sukalo: Imperfect Instruments: The Political Police, Ideological Formation, and the Limits of Soviet Power in the Western Republics from 1940 to 1953.
23 October 2026
Cambridge Intelligence Seminar, online

Between 1940 and 1953, the Soviet political police – the domestic intelligence and security services – were tasked with representing and reproducing Soviet power in Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Yet the officers and non-commissioned officers who filled the ranks of the security services in the west were themselves imperfectly formed. Building on Jan Gross’s account of how Soviet power arrived in the borderlands, this talk asks how that power attempted to sustain and embody itself through the men assigned to secure these territories. Treating the NKVD-MVD and NKGB-MGB as a unified institution, and following the personnel who moved freely between them, it brings four republican cases usually studied separately into a single frame. Drawing on departmental files from the security services’ republican archives, read against central directives held in the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the Russian State Military Archive, it traces a recruitment pool compromised by wartime occupation, the training schools and continuing education built in response, and the persistent gap between aspiration and practice among the men charged with carrying ideology to the ranks.

More details here.

SDCV Meeting: Trent Park House of Secrets
24 October 2026
Walker Lower Hall, London, UK

Join Us for the SDCV Meeting: Trent Park House of Secrets. Come and hear Dr Giuseppe Albano MBE, talk about Trent Park House of Secrets. He will dive into the mysteries of Trent Park House, with stories, secrets and memories. Don’t miss this unforgettable experience about our nationally important local museum.

Dr Giuseppe Albano MBE is the director of Trent Park House of Secrets, which opened in July 2026. He is a museum director with over 14 years’ experience running museums and cultural heritage sites. Most recently he was Director of the Freud Museum London from 2022 to 2025, and prior to this he served as Curator and Director of the Keats–Shelley House in Rome. Trent Park House is one of England’s great country houses, remodelled by Sir Philip Sassoon in the 1920s. Following Sassoon’s death in 1939, Trent Park House began its second chapter as a wartime surveillance centre. The new museum unveils the extraordinary story of the ‘Secret Listeners’ – intelligence operators hidden in the basement – whose eavesdropping of senior German prisoners led to some of the most important intelligence breakthroughs of WWII. Trent Park House, Enfield is of national and international significance on a level with Bletchley Park.

More details here.

Misread Signals
26 October 2026
International Spy Museum, Washington D.C. and online

Bletchley Park is remembered as a land of male intellectuals who were supported by a staff of women in menial roles, with figures such as Alan Turing and William F. Friedman taking center stage. The men who worked on the fearsome Enigma and Purple ciphering systems. So obviously, it was the men who helped sway the course of the war in the Allies’ favor. But this is not the whole story. Women were not just secretaries and assistants: they had serious full-on codebreaking roles. And this was not just at Bletchley, or in the UK, or even only in the Second World War. American women like Agnes Driscoll and Mary C. Lane did codebreaking during the war, as did Ann Caracristi and Elizebeth Friedman. Yet, when the histories were written, the women got left out. Who were they? What did they achieve? How did they ‘vanish’? Find out tonight, as codebreaking historian and Spy Museum Honorary Board Member Dermot Turing turns the spotlight on some of the long-ignored women featured in his new book Misread Signals: How History Overlooked Women Codebreakers.

More details here.

SCIF After Hours with NGA’s Dr. Chris Parrett
27 October 2026
Intelligence and National Security Alliance, Chantilly, VA, USA

Join 150 colleagues from across the intelligence and national security community for an evening of candid conversation and connection at INSA's SCIF After Hours with Dr. Chris Parrett, Director, Rapid Capabilities Office, NGA. The evening kicks off with a networking reception, followed by a fireside chat between Dr. Parrett and INSA Executive Vice President John Doyon. Topics for discussion include:

Accelerating GEOINT delivery and getting AI-enabled capabilities to the tactical edge.
Protecting Data in Contested Environments: Safeguarding data integrity while countering increasingly sophisticated AI-enabled adversary tradecraft.
Commercial Partnerships: How industry can work with the Rapid Capabilities Office to field mission-critical tools faster and better align capabilities with operational needs.

Bring your questions! There will be ample time for the audience to engage directly with NGA leadership during the Q&A.

More details here.

Rethinking Deterrence for a Disrupted World
27 October 2026
Gresham College, London, UK and online

Martin Connell will discuss the unipolar world of American military dominance, which characterized the relatively stable 35-year post-Cold War period, is now well and truly over. This lecture reveals how nation states face a series of geostrategic shifts and challenges, combined with rapid technological change. The world has now entered a highly disruptive and volatile period which will be defined by complexity, competition and conflict. How nations credibly deter will not be straightforward, but failure to do so could prove to be catastrophic.

More details here.

Symposium – Richard Haldane and the Modernization of the British State
29 October 2026
Center for Geopolitics, Cambridge, UK

Few British statesmen who did not rise to the rank of Prime Minister achieved more than Richard Haldane (1856-1928). An intellectual and a philosopher who was once offered a university chair, he was also an effective administrator and a reformer, who played a key role in modernising the British state at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Haldane’s achievements included the reform of university education, the medical service, constitutional and law reform, the creation of the military machine which took on the German army in France in 1914-18, and the establishment of MI5 and MI6. A Fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Society, he was elected as Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh in 1905 and served in both the pre-war Liberal governments and in the first Labour government in 1924, as Lord Chancellor. Yet he remains little known.

The lecture by Sir Peter Riddell, titled ‘What would Haldane make of how the UK is governed today?’, and the subsequent panel discussion hosted by Sidney Sussex College, the Cambridge History Faculty and the Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge, brings together academics, public intellectuals and statesmen to discuss some of his achievements and legacy for twenty-first-century Britain.

More detailshere.

Spy Chat with Special Guest Dr. Deborah Wituski
29 October 2026
International Spy Museum, online

Join us for an online discussion of the latest intelligence, national security, and terrorism issues in the news. Spy Museum Executive Director Chris Costa will lead the briefing and he will be joined by Dr. Deborah Wituski, former Vice President of Global Engagement at Google & Alphabet. Wituski is now the Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Distinguished Professor of Practice at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced and International Studies. From 2023-2025, at Google & Alphabet, she led the Office of the President and Chief Investment Officer. She previously served as Vice President for Resilience & Risk Foresight at Google. Before joining Google, Wituski held various senior leadership positions during a 20-year career in the US Intelligence Community, notably as Chief of Staff to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Chief of Staff to the Deputy Director of CIA. She also served as Deputy Assistant Director of CIA for Counterterrorism and held leadership positions in the National Security Branch of the FBI and in the National Counterterrorism Center.

More details here.

Dr. Eamonn Gearon: The Arab Bureau and the Arab Revolt
30 October 2026
Cambridge Intelligence Seminar, online

In 1916, a small group of scholars, soldiers and adventurers gathered in Cairo to form the Arab Bureau, one of the most remarkable intelligence units of the First World War or any other period. Its members included T.E. Lawrence, Gertrude Bell and David Hogarth, and its work would play a part in shaping not only the modern Middle East but also modern intelligence operations from that time to the present. At the heart of Eamonn Gearon’s research is the discovery and first full translation of Thawrat al-Arab (The Arab Revolt), a 1916 Arabic propaganda text written by the Lebanese journalist As‘ad Daghir under British intelligence commission and never before translated or systematically analysed. Read alongside the Arab Bureau’s own English-language intelligence reports, this rigorously sourced work offers a genuinely new perspective on the Arab Bureau and on British intelligence in the region during the war, revealing a sophisticated campaign of information warfare conducted in Arabic, for Arab audiences, at a pivotal moment in the history of the Middle East.

More details here.

Conferences:

Behörden Spiegel Intelligence Conference: Reconnaissance and Operations from a Distance: Space as the operational domain for these services
7-8 October 2026
Hotel Adlon Kempinski, Berlin

Now more than ever, Germany, its partners and friends are facing serious and pressing challenges and risks in the fields of security policy, the military and intelligence, across all aspects of ensuring security and providing essential public services. Space-based intelligence, AI-assisted data analytics and global satellite networks have become key factors of modern security policy. The strategic importance of space is growing for Germany and Europe. At the same time, the biggest reform of the German intelligence services in decades is imminent: new powers, a modernized security architecture and changes to the oversight of the intelligence services are intended to enable the services to respond effectively to a fundamentally changed threat landscape. What are the implications of this for Germany’s security and security within Germany? Against this background, we would like to remind you once again of the Intelligence Conference to be held on 7 and 8 October 2026 at the Hotel Adlon Kempinski in Berlin, which will focus on the following theme: “Reconnaissance and operations from a distance: space as the operational domain for these services"

With its two-day programme, which covers strategic and operational intelligence topics, the conference is Germany’s leading congress for the intelligence services. Please note that the conference will be conducted under the Chatham House Rules and conducted in German.

More details here.

The Society for Intelligence History Conference
11-13 October 2026
King’s College London, London

Formerly known as the North American Society for Intelligence History (NASIH), the Society for Intelligence History (SIH) is a membership organization for scholars who focus on intelligence history--an increasingly large group but who do not fit neatly into other historical subfields. SIH provides programs and conferences for academics and practitioners to meet each other and discuss the field’s current trends, their ongoing research and findings, and projected future models of study. SIH holds an annual conference to stimulate historical conversations about intelligence. The 2026 gathering will be held at King’s College London. Attendees will enjoy three full days of expert panels, blockbuster keynote lunch panels, and opportunities to meet other scholars and publishers. Each day will also feature a special keynote panel at lunchtime. The registration fee includes admission to all panels and SIH-sponsored program events with simple refreshments provided during breaks and keynote lunches.

More details here.

Conflict Early Warning in Times of Power Competition – Limits and Challenges
13-14 October 2026
Germany Federal Academy for Security Policy, Berlin, Germany

We cordially invite you to our upcoming event, the CCEW Symposium 2026 on “Conflict Early Warning in Times of Power Competition – Limits and Challenges”.

The CCEW Symposium aims to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration among academia, policy-, and decision-makers, driving advancements in conflict analysis and early warning. The event will feature different panels and discussions mixing expertise from both the research community and the policy field.

We look forward to stimulating discussions and an enriching exchange of experiences for all participants.

More details here.

The National Intelligence History Conference: International Collaboration and Cooperation
14-16 October 2026
Bletchley Park, UK

The National Intelligence History Conference (NIHC) will be held at Bletchley Park on Wednesday 14 – Friday 16 October 2026. Jointly hosted by Bletchley Park Trust and GCHQ, this academic conference is open to all who have an interest in intelligence history.

The theme of the 2026 conference is ‘International Collaboration and Co-operation’. Topics presented at the conference will include international collaboration, unsanctioned cooperation and inter-agency communication; intelligence-sharing, isolation and international boundaries; nationality, national identity and intelligence; Signals intelligence, HUMINT, COMINT, espionage and criminal intelligence; intelligence as represented in popular culture and literature, including fiction, documentary, TV and film; and more. Delegates will enjoy three days of panel discussions, plenary lectures, poster displays, networking opportunities and free access to the Bletchley Park heritage site and facilities.

More details here .

Berlin Security Conference
3-4 November 2026
Vienna House Andel’s Berlin, Germany

The Berlin Security Conference is one of the largest European security and defense policy events. The congress and exhibition, held every autumn since 2001 in Berlin, draws participants from European and non-European countries, the European institutions, and NATO. The 25th Berlin Security Conference will take place at the Vienna House Andel’s Berlin on 3-4 November 2026. Organised without governmental affiliation or reliance on public budgets, the event maintains autonomy to take an objective position on the topics discussed.

More details here.

The Israeli Intelligence Studies Conference 2026: Intelligence Under Pressure
4 November 2026
Jerusalem, Israel

Intelligence institutions today operate under conditions of sustained and compounding pressure. Political actors increasingly seek to instrumentalize assessments to legitimize predetermined policy positions, eroding the analytical independence that underpins institutional credibility. A broader crisis of trust — between agencies and the publics they serve, between allied partners, and within government itself — has further complicated the conditions under which intelligence can be produced and acted upon. Meanwhile, the shift from strategic to tactical and operational support has strained agencies designed for a different era, while the proliferation of artificial intelligence and open-source data has disrupted longstanding methodological assumptions, creating new capabilities alongside new vectors for error and overreliance. This conference explores the theme “Intelligence Under Pressure”: how agencies sustain analytical rigor, institutional independence, and operational relevance when the conditions for doing so are most adverse — and what is at stake for national security and democratic governance when they do not.

More details here.

Netherlands Intelligence Studies Association International Conference 2026
2-3 December 2026
The Hague Conference Center New Babylon, The Netherlands

Resilient Intelligence in an Era of Democratic Backsliding: With authoritarianism on the rise, democratic societies face mounting pressures on their security, governance, and institutional integrity. Intelligence and security services play a crucial—yet contested—role in safeguarding democracy and the rule of law. This conference explores how intelligence and security services can remain resilient, independent, and legitimate within a democratic framework. We look forward to welcoming a diverse and interdisciplinary group of contributors to engage in a discussion on the future of intelligence in resilient democracies.

More details here.

Call for Papers:

Special Issue: Psychology and Intelligence: Intelligence and National Security
Abstracts Due: 1 November 2026
Initial Submission Deadline: 31 December 2027

Intelligence and National Security invites submissions for a special issue on Psychology and Intelligence. From psychological analyses of world leaders to deception and disinformation through the activation of cognitive processes and biases, psychology has played a strong role within the field of intelligence. This issue seeks to highlight how psychology has informed intelligence practices and their wider impacts on the field.

This special issue offers an opportunity to explore the ways in which foundations in psychology have had and continue to offer additional applications to the study of intelligence. Leadership assessment at-a-distance techniques have been carried out on world leaders to better understand their decision-making and offer opportunities for strategic engagement. Likewise, these techniques may offer insight into the decision-making of intelligence leaders, which remains largely unexplored. Heuristic and cognitive processing play a critical role in how people interpret information. As a result, these can also have widespread impacts on intelligence gathering and analysis while also playing a fundamental role in deception and disinformation. They also have serious considerations regarding how intelligence customers consume intelligence products.

The goal of the special issue is to highlight the often-overlooked aspect of the role that psychology has and will continue to play within the intelligence studies field. We invite research paper submissions that address, but are not limited to, the following themes: