Weekly long-form conversations with fascinating people at the creative edges of national security. Unscripted. Informal. Always fresh.
Chatter guests roll with the punches to describe artistic endeavors related to national security and jump into cutting-edge thinking at the frontiers where defense and foreign policy overlap with technology, intelligence, climate change, history, sports, culture, and beyond. Each week, listeners get a no-holds-barred dialogue at an intersection between Lawfare's core issue areas and something from Hollywood to history, science to spy fiction.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
Closing the Chatterbox, with Shane Harris and David Priess
After more than three years, Chatter is ending its run. In this episode, Shane and David reflect on the diverse range of topics at the frontiers of national security that this podcast has explored—from spy fiction to lessons of history, from climate change to the visual and musical arts, and from sports and culture to the practice of intelligence.
Along the way, they refer back to many of the podcast’s brilliant guests while lamenting conversations yet unrealized and specific issues yet unaddressed. And they finally ask *each other* several questions from the Chatterbox before closing it. (Forever?)
Works mentioned in this episode: Many too many to list.
Goodbye, and thank you for listening.
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
24 Dec 2024TRANSCRIPT
Intelligence Analysis, Intuition, and Precognition, with Carmen Medina
Carmen Medina defies simple description. She spent more than 30 years at the CIA, rising to the leadership team of the Directorate of Intelligence, despite her iconoclasticism and vociferous evangelism of new technologies. Since retiring more than a decade ago, she has co-written a book about rebelling within bureaucracy--and advocated the exploration of precognition for intelligence purposes.
She joined David Priess for a wide and deep conversation about her analytic and managerial career, the process and pitfalls of analytic coordination, cooperation between US and UK intelligence, the CIA's incorporation of publish-when-ready technology in the late 1990s, the downside of extensive editorial review of analytic products, the importance of including more intuition in intelligence analysis, why precognition should be taken seriously, and more.
Works mentioned in this episode:
The book Rebels At Work (https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/rebels-at-work/9781491903940/) by Lois Kelly and Carmen Medina
The book Thinking, Fast and Slow (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374533557/thinkingfastandslow/) by Daniel Kahneman
The article by Carmen Medina, "The Potential of Integrating Intelligence and Intuition (https://www.thecipherbrief.com/the-potential-of-integrating-intelligence-and-intuition)," Cipher Brief, June 10, 2022.
The book American Cosmic (https://global.oup.com/academic/product/american-cosmic-9780190692889?cc=us&lang=en&) by D. W. Pasulka
The book Orbiting the Giant Hairball (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/330616/orbiting-the-giant-hairball-by-gordon-mackenzie/) by Gordon MacKenzie
The book How To Be a Renaissance Woman (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/How-to-Be-a-Renaissance-Woman/Jill-Burke/9781639365906) by Jill Burke
The book 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691208015/1177-bc) by Eric Cline
The book The Infidel and the Professor (https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691177014/the-infidel-and-the-professor) by Dennis Rasmussen
The book The Ministry of Time (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Ministry-of-Time/Kaliane-Bradley/9781668045145) by Kaliane Bradley
The book The Chronoliths (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780765325280/thechronoliths/) by Robert Charles Wilson
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
17 Dec 2024TRANSCRIPT
The Legacy of “The Hunt for Red October” with Katherine Voyles
Shane Harris makes no secret about his love for the film version of this Cold War submarine thriller, based on the Tom Clancy novel. It’s his favorite movie. So he was delighted to welcome fellow obsessive Katherine Voyles to the podcast. A PhD in English, Voyles writes about national security in culture, as well as the culture of national security. She and Shane talked about why they love the movie, their favorite scenes and characters, and how the story influenced--maybe even created--an entire genre of fiction. They also discussed why it is, actually, a Christmas movie, and their mutual admiration for the martini.
Voyles’s writing has appeared in in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Foreign Policy, Task &
Purpose, Small Wars Journal, and War on the Rocks. She also works for the Department of Defense.
In addition to the greatest movie of all time, essays, TV shows, books, and restaurants discussed in this episode include:
Colson Whitehead’s “The Way We Live Now” https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/11/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-11-11-01-lost-and-found.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/11/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-11-11-01-lost-and-found.html)
Deutschland 83 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4445154/ (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4445154/)
Garrett Graff’s The Only Plane in the Sky https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Only-Plane-in-the-Sky/Garrett-M-Graff/9781501182211 (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Only-Plane-in-the-Sky/Garrett-M-Graff/9781501182211)
Lauren Wilkinson’s American Spy https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/253471/american-spy-by-lauren-wilkinson/ (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/253471/american-spy-by-lauren-wilkinson/)
Saltie Girl https://www.saltiegirl.com/ (https://www.saltiegirl.com/)
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
31,907,817
Score snapshot 3 Jul 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
4.7 / 5
151 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 18 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
1
Social presence
0
YouTube
63
Engagement
27
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Guest appearances
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Questions about Chatter
How often do new episodes come out?
The show publishes daily, based on its RSS feed.
Does Chatter take guests?
Yes. Guests have been identified in episode analyses.
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