Advertise on podcast: Covert Operations and National Security

On July 10, 1985, French intelligence agents sank the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour, killing photographer Fernando Pereira. This episode reconstructs the operation, examining its strategic objectives, operational planning, and the decision to use explosives against a civilian vessel. It considers how a mission intended to protect French nuclear testing interests instead created a diplomatic crisis. The operation illustrates the consequences of employing clandestine military-style tactics against nonviolent political opposition.

MKULTRA wasn't simply a laboratory experiment but a network of covert research activities involving government secrecy, outside institutions, and human experimentation. This episode explores how intelligence objectives shaped the program, the operational challenges of administering psychoactive substances, and the ethical failures that followed. We distinguish established historical operations from allegations that cannot be substantiated by surviving records.

In February 1943, Brigadier Orde Wingate launched Operation Longcloth, sending approximately 3,000 Allied soldiers deep into Japanese-occupied Burma. Divided into mobile columns, the Chindits attempted to bypass Japanese strongpoints, disrupt railway communications, and force enemy commanders to respond to threats behind their lines. This episode examines the infiltration routes, tactical organization, deception, and unconventional warfare principles that shaped the operation. It explores how a relatively small force attempted to disrupt a much larger enemy while operating hundreds of miles from conventional Allied support.

When American military commanders face a hostage crisis, an insurgency, or a sensitive reconnaissance requirement, choosing the appropriate special operations capability becomes a strategic decision. Delta Force, Army Special Forces, and Navy SEALs offer overlapping but distinct operational strengths shaped by their training, organization, and mission responsibilities. This episode examines how mission objectives, geographic conditions, available intelligence, political sensitivity, and command relationships influence the selection of special operations forces. It reveals why the most effective unit is not necessarily the most famous, but the one whose capabilities best match the operational problem.

On a cold November morning in 2000, a criminal crew carried out one of the most audacious smash-and-grab raids in modern history, ramming a modified earthmover straight through the reinforced glass perimeter of London's Millennium Dome. Their objective was nothing less than the De Beers Millennium Star: an immaculate, two-hundred-and-three-carat diamond valued at over three hundred million dollars. What the crew did not know was that the Metropolitan Police had spent months living inside their logistics chain, tracking every purchase, dry run, and escape route. This episode unpacks the mechanical execution of an industrial-grade breach, the high-speed river getaway that stalled, and the single forensic substitution that turned a record-breaking heist into an open-and-shut trap.

In January 1991, eight British SAS soldiers entered Iraq on a secret mission that ended in disaster, leaving three dead, four captured, and one escaping across the desert. Their story became legendary through bestselling books describing fierce firefights, extraordinary endurance, and brutal captivity. But years later, an investigation challenged some of the most dramatic claims, raising questions about whether the patrol encountered the enemy forces described in the original accounts. This crossover between Stories of Special Forces Operators and World Unexplained investigates the mission, the contradictory narratives, and the enduring mystery of what really happened behind enemy lines.

A British naval force approached one of the Atlantic’s most notorious pirates in November 1718. Lieutenant Robert Maynard used concealment and surprise during the final confrontation. This episode examines the historical operation and the role of deception in defeating Blackbeard.

In April 1980, the United States launched a classified mission deep into Iran to rescue 53 American hostages held in Tehran, bringing together elite troops, aircraft, and months of careful planning. The rescue force never made it to the hostages — the operation collapsed at a remote desert staging site before the assault phase even began. This episode breaks down how that failure exposed critical gaps in coordination between America's special operations branches at the time. We trace how the disaster at Desert One became the catalyst for a complete overhaul of how the U.S. plans, trains, and executes joint special operations today.

Operating inside Moscow during the Cold War presented extraordinary dangers for American intelligence officers and their Soviet sources. One of the CIA’s most valuable sources was Adolf Tolkachev, a Soviet engineer who provided extensive information about military technology. His espionage required secret communications, clandestine meetings and constant concern about Soviet counterintelligence. Eventually, the operation collapsed and Tolkachev was arrested. His story demonstrates both the extraordinary value and extraordinary vulnerability of human intelligence.

In 1976, more than 100 hostages sat thousands of miles from Israel at Uganda's Entebbe Airport, and Israeli planners had almost nothing working in their favor — crushing distance, thin intelligence, no element of surprise to count on, and the constant threat that hostages would be killed before any rescue force arrived. This episode breaks down how Israeli special operations forces built a raid capable of closing that gap and executing a complex assault on foreign soil in under two hours. We examine the planning, deception, and precision execution that turned an almost impossible scenario into a successful extraction. Entebbe remains one of the most studied long-range hostage-rescue operations in modern military history, and we unpack exactly why.

December 1941, two Czechoslovak soldiers parachuted into their occupied homeland carrying an extraordinary assignment: assassinate one of Nazi Germany’s most powerful officials. Reinhard Heydrich was a senior SS leader, head of the Reich Security Main Office, and one of the principal architects of Nazi persecution and mass murder. Operation Anthropoid would require infiltration, resistance contacts, intelligence gathering, and extraordinary personal risk. What followed became one of the most consequential covert operations of the Second World War.

Imagery released September 17 showed Green Berets from 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, arming a small drone with an explosive payload during training conducted on August 14. Officials confirmed the exercise was testing the capabilities and effects of explosive-ordnance attack drones flown via first-person-view feeds, though technical specifics were withheld for operational security. This episode looks at what the release signals about a broader shift in Army special operations doctrine, where low-cost drones are increasingly treated as lethal tools rather than pure ISR assets. We break down what this means for the future of small-unit tactics on the modern battlefield.

In May 2026, the U.S. Coast Guard stood up a new Special Missions Command, folding its elite units into one force built for counterterrorism, drug interdiction, port security, disaster response, and high-risk operations. This episode digs into why the Coast Guard sees the next generation of threats forming at sea — in ports, shipping lanes, and the murky "gray zone" between peace and open conflict. We look at the move through the lens of special operations doctrine, geopolitical strategy, and modern asymmetric warfare. The result is a look at how this restructuring could reshape America's maritime security for decades to come.

Carlos sits down with Bob "The Ninja" Porras for a wide-ranging look back at a career spent in the world of Delta Force and "The Unit." The conversation covers what it actually takes to make it through selection, the mindset required to operate at the highest level of special operations, and the lessons carried forward after the uniform comes off. It's a rare, candid window into the culture and psychology behind America's most elite units.

On February 12, 2008, Hezbollah's chief of international operations, Imad Mughniyeh, was killed by a car bomb in Damascus in an operation widely attributed to a joint Mossad-CIA effort. This episode traces his decades-long career as one of the world's most wanted militants, the years-long surveillance campaign that finally located him, and the technical details of the strike as later reported by journalists and former officials. It examines the intelligence tradecraft behind the operation, the geopolitical fallout across the Middle East, and why the case still stands as one of the most consequential targeted killings in modern intelligence history.