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tuned into Zero Signal, a show about what they
won't say and what you're probably already thinking.
No fluff, no filters, no bullshit. Let's crack
it open. Tonight we're talking about the intersection
of intelligence, security, and the systems that
keep modern life running, critical infrastructure,
business continuity, and what happens when things
start to break under pressure. My guest, Casey
Campbell, a veteran of the U .S. intelligence
community and security and resiliency expert
who's worked across government and the private
sector. He's dealt with high stakes threats,
complex geopolitical risk, and a kind of worst
case scenarios most of us never see. Casey, thanks
for being here today. Oh, my pleasure. Looking
forward to this discussion. For our listeners
who may not know your story, how did you first
get into Intel and security and what path led
you to work that you're doing today? Sure. From
a young age, I was interested in two things,
flying and intelligence, and maybe a tertiary
one is security. And when you combine both flying
and Intel, that kind of leads you to the Air
Force. I did also want to be a shuttle pilot
until pretty well into my Air Force career to
be an astronaut. difficult as people might think,
because when the shuttle program was around,
you had to basically only fighter pilots, therefore
Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps people were
eligible. All right. So that drastically narrows
the field. But even with that, I was more drawn
to Intel overall and gotten to the Air Force.
And from Intel school at the time, it was nine
months, which was four Air Force officers. That
was the second longest behind pilot training
in terms of technical training to be an intelligence
officer. So I loved it. And I remember thinking,
I can't believe I'm being paid to learn how to
steal secrets. And basically, that's one way
to look at Intel. The government is paying you
to legally steal secrets from adversaries and
so forth. And so I've always liked it, liked
the process. And yeah, the rest is history. And
I think that if I could ever pick my dream job
after watching James Bond and seeing all these
really cool CIA movies and stuff. That's what
I always wanted to do. I never got the opportunity
to do it. I was stuck on the beat working as
a beat cop, but it sounds like just an amazing
and interesting career. Now you've held roles
where bad calls can have serious consequences.
How do you learn to make decisions under that
kind of pressure and what did you get wrong early
on? Oh, wow. Tough question. When you get commissioned
as an officer in any service, one thing you learn
is that the main difference people think it's
education, right? And the difference between
officer and enlisted, it's not, I knew enlisted
folks who had master's degrees and even doctorates.
The big difference is the responsibility, right?
Officers are ultimately responsible. So that
can lead to some stress, some high pressure situations,
especially when you do, one of my specialties
was target intelligence and it could be very
consequential. And so if you recommend the wrong
targets or provide the wrong coordinates, you...
you might, someone might bomb, a pilot might
bomb a hospital or a school. And then that's
on you, right? That's not what pilot policy is
doing, is he or she is basing that decision on
the coordinates and the information you gave
him or her. And so that can lead to... some stressful
situations and so it all comes down to professionalism
and leadership and mentoring your team and so
forth. And yeah, in terms of mistakes, like many
leaders, I've made mistakes in terms of leadership
and then you just learn to grow from them. What
surprised you most working in intelligence? I
know you said you always had a tertiary passion
for it, but when you actually got in the chair,
you're pulling this intelligence in. What was
the thing that surprised you most about what
you got yourself into versus what we all see
on TV in the movies? Sure. Wow. A couple things.
One is a lot of it is just bean counting, right?
It's sitting behind the desk and just doing work.
And so. There's a lot of James Bond movies, Mission
Impossible stuff, very little. Almost none of
it is anything close to that. Because you have
the different ints, what they call ints, different
types of intelligence. So only one part. of intelligence
work is the case officer, the human intelligence
part, right? And even then it's rarely ever as
sexy as what you see in the James Bond movies.
A lot of it is just sitting at a desk doing the
work or interviewing people. And so even the
James Bond types who are out, the case officers
doing the hard work of building relationships
over weeks, months, years, that intelligence
that they get, they're sending that back to the
analyst and the analyst who are usually sitting
behind the desk, they're doing that work. So
that was one enlightening thing when I first
got into a lot of it is like just a lot of bean
counting. So in the military, it's all about
a lot of the work is on what's called order of
battle, right? if you might potentially go to
war against a country, you need to know how many
tanks they have at which location and how many
aircraft, how many personnel they have in X division
or X or Y regiment. And that's something that
the military is very good at, very good, if it's
prioritized high enough. And then that's what
I mean by bean counting. It's tedious work, but
it's very necessary. The military and intelligence
community overall is very good at it. I think
another thing that might surprise me is that,
or that did surprise me is the level of responsibility
that intelligence personnel have both at the
enlisted level and officer level. For example,
I had one assignment at the Pentagon and at Defense
Intelligence Agency, and that was simultaneous,
just the way that part of the military is structured.
And it was interesting, people, you hear stories,
if you're a captain or a major, you're making
coffees for the general, if you're in the Pentagon.
And what I found, and this surprised me a few
years into my career, is how much responsibilities
that relatively junior folks in intelligence
have both within the, whether at the Pentagon
or elsewhere, because it's not the colonels or
the generals or the, if you're familiar with
the government pay scale for civilians, the GS
-15s, the senior executive service. Usually it's
not those senior folks who are doing that. the
bean counting, right? It's the people doing that
analysis are relatively junior folks compared
to the generals in the civilian senior executive
service. In law enforcement, we have a saying,
right? 98 % of the job is boredom and 2 % is
sheer terror, right? There's no mix bag there.
It's just a small percent that's going to jump
right out at you. How do you, it must be so much
more compounded in your line of work, right?
You're talking about if the target's wrong, it
hits a hospital, it hits a civilian center. How
do you deal with that stress, right? And making
those... important decisions under pressure.
Yeah, got to trust your team. You got to be competent,
for one. Know your stuff. Know your team. Mentor
your stuff. Mentor your team. Practice. So, you
know, in the Air Operations Center, when we're
deployed, we would practice time sets of targeting.
This is where something pops up, whether it be,
say, for example, in search of a terrorist and
unexpected. And we would have to... work up the
GPS coordinates, very quickly do collateral damage
assessment. No other country in the world cares
about collateral damage like the US and its closest
allies, the Brits, the Aussies, Canadians as
an example. And in addition to working up these
GPS coordinates, which is maybe it's changed
now, but when I was doing it, it wasn't just
clicking on a building that's far more difficult.
then it might seem you got to wear 3D glasses
with the latest imagery and so forth. And so
literally 3D glasses and also in addition to
doing that, you got to do the collateral damage
estimate, right? And so how many people you think
might die or be injured and it differs whether
it's day or night. And the military is very good
at that. And so it would pretty accurate collateral
damage estimates. And it's not a great term.
It's almost too antiseptic, but it's very important
to in our attempt to minimize. collateral damage.
And so you're doing all that and you got to do
that within minutes. And by the way, I make a
recommendation on not only the type of weapon,
but the few settings for each weapon, right?
In terms of air to ground bombs. And so a lot
of stress, just a few minutes to do all that.
and not screw it up. And so you got to really
trust your team and practice and be competent.
Yeah, so a little odd question here. So my brother
and I in the show, it seems like AI comes up
a lot. In your experience, or do you think in
the future, do you think intelligence agencies
will rely on AI a lot to gather data or have
you in the past? Where does that kind of play
into all of it? When I was in, we didn't use
it at all at the various levels where I work,
but based on public comments, speeches by senior
intel folks, I know it's being used now. And
it's necessary to aid in intelligence, intelligence
collection, and a certain level of analysis.
It will never ever, in my opinion, replace the
human element. Right. There are just some things
you can't do with AI and there are certain ways
of thinking context and so forth. So I don't
think we'll ever get to a point where AI will
completely replace all aspects of, or even individual
steps of the intelligence cycle collection plan
and collection and, and so forth. Overall. Yeah.
Bomb line. It's a great tool, facilitates a lot,
but I think we, a lot of folks are overconfident
in what AI can bring to. In my work, Casey, it's
a great force multiplier, right? But we always
intercede with human in the loop in order to
make those informed decisions because they are
game -changing decisions. Do you really think
that AI should be playing a role within that
space? Are those stakes just too high that you
don't want a machine or a bot to make those determinations
for you? Or do you feel it's safe to have it
as a force multiplier? I'm sure a lot of this
has been helped with the Doge initiatives that
are currently going on in the Trump administration.
But do you think it's helpful? and is something
we should be using, or do you think it's a detractor
and slowing you down? It can and should definitely
be used as a force multiplier or aid, but in
terms of, say, one example, lethal decisions,
right? It would almost be criminal to rely on
AI to make life and death situations. I just
don't see that, at least in... in many cases,
if not most cases, but there is nothing wrong.
We'd be remiss if we didn't use it to help cue
other collection, point us to the right direction
on some things. There's some things you don't
really need a human in the loop for, and it just
has to be done in the right way. And one example
I like to use to show limits of AI. I know there
are different levels of AI. I think in one of
your podcasts, you talked about the different
levels of AI, but I remember applying for one
job once and up to my resume and for some reason
this and I don't know if it was AI just an algorithm
or a language learning model but This thing basically
said, yeah, at one point I worked in the Ukraine
Ministry of Defense. Absolutely nothing in my
background or on my resume says Ukraine. Nothing
at all. I've never worked a Ukraine issue when
I was serving in government. So I have no idea
where that came from. But that shows the limitations
of AI. Yeah, it's great to use. It's great to
use, but we need to have some level of realism
and what we can do with it and also have human
in the loop at the right spots. Yeah. So I know
you do a lot of forecasting. So how about we
take this time to talk about the end of 2025?
And I think you said you forecasted out to the
spring of 26. Yeah. So one of the things I'm
watching for the rest of 25 is the health of
some senior folks and not so senior folks. I
call it my department of gerontocracy. And yeah,
so we got a lot of older folks in various. countries
at the senior level. So number one on my list
is Donald Trump. And this will make some folks
uncomfortable, but this is based on one, just
having been a consumer of what I call biographic
intel. It's not one of the official ints. It's
one of the things you look at if we're looking
at a country, say, Davidania or Jayatania, right?
The president of one of these countries, you
would, you look for certain signals, certain
indicators. Are they, or is that? president's
team obfuscated certain things or has he or she
gone missing for a while. And so you look at
all these things and other indicators that in
some cases is very obvious, but because of certain
of cognitive biases, we try to not think about
it or overlook it. A lot of times we, this happens
to interanalysts who you would ignore the obvious,
right? And the same things I saw that happened
with Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, I'm seeing
it with Trump and his team, right? The obfuscations,
the bizarre explanation for things. And for example,
the no one mentioned, no one in the White House
mentioned the MRI that he took. It was, we only
know about that because Trump mentioned in what
appeared to be a little bit of bragging about
his cognitive abilities. He mentioned, oh, I
took an MRI test and folks in the press and public
analysts were like, wait, what? And then the
explanation a few days later when he was asked
what it was about, the explanation was very bizarre
that he didn't know what it was. It wasn't for
his head. So it's just weird that he didn't know
what it was for. And by the way, it's not normal.
MRIs are not. normally used for preventative
measure and for patients. And for all these reasons,
other indicators, I don't think Trump will be
in office for days after next few weeks or months.
I think that... his excellent medical care that
he receives, just like with as all the presidents
to Joe Biden and all the presidents before him.
I think that's one reason he's doing relatively
well, but I don't see him sticking around for
long in office. I don't know. I don't think he's
going to die in the next few months, but I'm...
pretty confident that he will have to resign
or the 25th amendment will be invoked in the
next few months at the most. I'm also for the
rest of 2025, leaving in 2026, I'm also looking
at members of Congress. This is the third oldest
Congress in right now. That might change a little
come January, but right now it's the third oldest
Congress in the history of the US. Quite a few,
over the last several years, members of Congress
die while in their office, while they're in office.
A couple were basically taken dementia medication,
and one was officially serving while she was
in a... in a healthcare facility for dementia.
I'm looking at members of Congress. It wouldn't
surprise me sometime this month or next year
that a member of Congress dies in office, like
what has occurred in the past. And I should mention
that for both Trump, the president, and members
of Congress, that yields potentially continuity
of government issues. At least at the presidential
level in Congress, that with a thin, and I don't
get into politics, but it does result in potential
issues with the minority majority split in Congress,
right? So it does have, it might have implications,
especially on the House side. And by the way,
just to go back to Trump, I think there are some
mental and physical issues there, mental issues
caused by some physical ailments. So it just...
speech patterns and so forth. Again, this is
stuff that we'd look at if we're looking at another
country. I'm looking at Putin also, but I don't
think that's a near term thing. Putin is rumored
to have cancer. He's rumored to have body doubles,
as many as eight is what I've heard. A lot of
people think, I don't have a strong opinion on
this, but a lot of people think the person who
showed up in Alaska is not the real Putin. There's
one thing that did throw me off was his mannerism.
mannerisms when he was sitting down with Donald
Trump on that stage. Either he drank a lot of
coffee or it was not Putin, but just the mannerisms,
the joking around, that was not like Putin at
all. So that caused me to raise an eyebrow. And
there have been statements by the Biden's White
House. Then Senator Rubio, who pretty much implied
that, yeah, there are some health issues with
Putin. So when Senator, who has access to classified
information, and White House implies health problems
with a foreign leader, I take that seriously.
And finally, with the president, Bayh of Cameroon,
oldest person, the oldest head of state, I think
right now I'll be, he's on my watch list for,
if not 2025, 2026. 2025, I'm looking at Russia,
Ukraine. I have no idea how that's going to go
because all depends on how much support the U
.S. provides and how much support the EU is able
to pick up if the U .S. support material intelligence
support drops, right? And North has given me
the bet with a family member whether Russia or
Ukraine will prevail. our bets were low. Because
it's just another family member was like, really,
you're betting only $10? Yeah, I have no idea
how that's going to go because it's, my fear
is Ukraine, it'll be hard for Ukraine to prevail
if, assuming there's no peace, peace treaty or
permanent ceasefire. I think it'd be hard for
Ukraine to prevail if US support just dried up
overnight. And that's something that I think
the entire world is watching, especially for
over the next few years. Yeah. To get back to
Trump a little bit, it's a two -part question,
right? So we're talking about the cognitive decline
of Trump and what are the associated risks with
that, right? Obviously you're talking about invoking
the 25th amendment. If I remember my law, I should
know it better, but I think that's when the vice
president steps in and takes over power for him.
But generally before those handoffs occur, you
usually seem risk associated with it. There's
a lot of people, I'm in this camp and you're
the expert, so you can probably correct me if
I'm wrong. I'm wrong, but like we're very close
to World War Three. How close is it, right? With
that cognitive decline and making incorrect decisions
could lead us further or nudge us further towards
World War Three. With cognitive decline, impulsiveness
increases right now. Trump, as with some leaders,
is impulsive. I think much more so with Trump.
That will just increase. So there is a risk there.
And if anything, that might be why that's part
of my analysis or reason for my analysis that.
the 25th will be invoked is that I see a concern
of the impulsiveness that comes with that cognitive
decline. And I realize this conversation will
make some people very uncomfortable, but I'm
just looking at it from a geopolitical risk standpoint,
trying to be unbiased as possible that there
is a risk now. I don't necessarily think World
War III would be any closer to that. because
of these cognitive issues, but I think we could
safely say that it could be safe to have a concern.
It would be honest if I don't have a concern
that the impulsiveness could lead to decisions
that someone else in that office, another person
would not make. And I'm trying to be careful
in not getting into politics, but yeah, when
you combine the cognitive decline with the fact
that the person in that office is basically the
most powerful person in the world, the leader
of the free world. has access to all kinds of
those most dangerous weapons that the world knows.
There is a concern there. When you're looking
at the military deployment to Venezuela and what
could happen, Russia, Ukraine, yeah, there is
a concern there. So anything else in your end
of 2025, mid -2026 forecast, pandemics, potential
viruses, anything else that you're forecasting?
Yeah, definitely infectious diseases. I'm watching
that. closely. Three of them flew, measles, whooping
cough, and so flew. Right now in the US, it's
somewhat stable, although in LA and Colorado,
those CDC, the week before. November, I'm sorry,
the week before Thanksgiving, CDC listed Louisiana
and I think I said LA, Louisiana and Colorado
as high. And there is a, my concern is in December,
but where in the U .S. flu season peaks or well
starts to rise and then it usually peaks January,
February, and then a second peak in March. And
last year, 280... kids died of a flu, although
about half of them had coexistent conditions.
Almost all of them did not have vaccinations,
right? And so these were maybe preventable deaths.
And note that so far that we know of based on
CEC data for this year yet. But as we get into,
as we finish out December, go on to January or
February, the pediatric deaths from flu, which
again are usually preventable is what I'm watching.
And also in terms of flu, there's flu and there's
bird flu, right? And one thing that the medical
experts are fearing is that there's someone could
get infected with both bird flu and seasonal
flu. And then that leads to a new strain of what's
called resortment that can lead to an epidemic.
even pandemics. That's something to watch for.
And by the way, UK, Japan, Hong Kong already
see an early start. to flu season. So, that's
kind of a concern in addition to a new variant
of H3N2 of the flu. Now, in terms of measles,
we're not doing well. This is a disease that
should be eradicated everywhere in the world,
but because of vaccine hesitancy, it's not. And
this year, we're seeing the most measles cases
in 30 years, right? Not good. So, as of a couple
days ago, CDC listed over 1 ,800 confirmed measles
cases in the 43 states. And so, specifically,
the highest cases were in Texas, over 800 Arizona,
about 150, and then followed by Utah, New Mexico,
Kansas, South Carolina. And so we're seeing lots
of measles cases there. And when I look at that
and I combine that with the measles vaccine coverage
for kindergartners, right? Those kids are very
vulnerable and basically you want the vaccine.
rate, vaccination rates of I think 95, 96 percent,
and you have quite a few states where it's less
than 90 percent. And as a risk manager, risk
guy, I'm looking at those states that have a
very low vaccination rate. And whooping cough,
that's an issue right now in Kentucky. And in
fact, I think we had a third person die in Kentucky,
third child died in Kentucky a few weeks ago.
And so those are three infectious diseases I'm
very concerned about for rest of December and
into next year. How about COVID? What's your
outlook on COVID and coming into the winter season?
It doesn't concern me too much yet. because based
on the data that we have from CDC, it doesn't
look to be an issue right now, but that can change.
There's some delay reported because of the US
government shutdown, but right now, surprisingly,
it's not an issue, but that could change. And
by the way, once the data, everyone travel, a
lot of people travel for Thanksgiving. And so
the next week or two, we'll see what all that
traveling over Thanksgiving, how that affected
COVID. and other diseases like the flu and measles.
So as we're talking about your forecast, I know
I think back in 2022, you forecasted, maybe I
got the year wrong, but back in 2022, you forecasted
a potential political assassination. And obviously
we all know what happened with Donald Trump.
Maybe it's 2024. I got my dates all messed up.
It's been a long day. Yeah. So yeah, I think
it was 2022. I did my forecast. I forecasted
that there would be an assassination attempt
against a nationally elected figure. And it turns
out that a couple of years later, there was,
of course, the Butler assassination attempt.
against Trump and Butler on the campaign train.
And then there's another, I guess it's technically
an attempt, but no shots were fired, but the
guy hiding in the woods at his golf course. And
yeah, and I should mention that, and this is
the same with the other forecast, for example,
the Trump health issue and members of Congress.
Intel isn't prediction, right? Intelligence is
not prediction work, it's forecast. So it's provided
in a list of possibilities, right? And so some
of these things might turn out to never occur,
that would be great. But yeah, the reason why
I made that forecast was a few things. We're
the most polarized that we have been since the
1800s, right, in the U .S. and in some other
countries too. And also, social media has a lot
to play. So there's some research that says that
the more people online, the more radicalized
they get in the real world. And so you have a
few variables that make the perfect storm that
can lead to political violence. So unfortunately,
in my forecast was right on the money even if
it took a couple years. I see that continuing
to be a problem actually for 2020. Some people
listening may be like, those are really big events
and they're not going to happen to me. And if
it do happen, it's not going to really matter.
A lot of young fathers, and I'm a young father
myself, listen to this show. What would you tell
them to prepare for in the next month or perhaps
first part of the year? What to be in tune for,
what to watch for so that you can keep your family
safe and protected in the coming months? Yeah,
sure. It's important to live your lives. And
so there's a, I forgot his name, but there's
a retired lieutenant colonel, I think his name
was Cooper, and he had the different, it's almost
like a stoplight system, right? Where if you're
in the safety of your residence, you know, you're
at green level, right? There's no need to be
concerned about, of course it's different if
you're in an unfortunate situation like domestic
intimate partner violence, right? But outside
of that, if you're in a safe place like your
residence, It's dependent on a few things. You
could be a green level. At the other extreme
is red, where something has happened. You hear
gunshots and you're pretty sure they're not,
say a political event, and you're pretty sure
they're not balloons or firecrackers or car backfiring.
By the way, a car usually doesn't backfire more
than once, right? In any given, in a short period
of time. Then you're at red, right? And in between,
so in many situations out in public, political
rally. shopping, holiday shopping. You might
want to be at, at yellow where you're, you're
not stretching yourself out because no one could
stay for more than a few minutes at yellow, at
orange, right, or red. You want to stay at that
yellow level where you're alert and aware. You
go into a restaurant, you instinctively where
you look forward the exit is, right? And that's
it. Then you enjoy your meal and not worry about
too much. Overall, you have kids, nieces, nephews.
other family members, you want to encourage people
to just live their lives. but at the appropriate
time or when you see indicators, don't be in
denial and go to that next level of alertness
and be prepared to act. Thank you. That's really
helpful. I think a lot about it when I take my
kids out to like the Christmas markets or movie
theaters or what have you, because I always in
the back of my mind, we see a lot of that domestic
terrorism that's going on in the United States
now. And so those are always my fear. So I always
like to take that father's lens, right? Because
I have young children, my brother has children
as well, and it's just good to be prepared. But
turning the page now, right, back towards Trump,
you've obviously followed Iran very closely.
What are your thoughts on Trump's claim to have
obliterated Iran's nuclear program? It's, I see
politicians and pundits make this mistake all
the time. There's a difference between destroying
or eliminating or obliterating the program versus
facilities. The US military and several countries
in the world, Israel, some of the most powerful
militaries can easily destroy. many facilities,
even some underground bunkers, not all, but some
underground bunkers if they're not too deep or
too fortified. That's easy, but destroying a
program is almost always impossible. It's always
impossible until unless you launch a full -scale
innovation. Why is that? A program consists of
many things and people tend to focus on just
the facilities, right? There's a lot of hype
around, especially in the news media about the
bunkers, Iran's bunkers, and even like North
Korean bunkers. But a program, that's only one
of many aspects of a program, any kind of W and
D programs, nuclear program. And so you have
the scientists, you've got the researchers, you've
got the electronic files, you have the hard files,
right? And so for example, the importance of
these files, there's a famous case where Israel
admitted to basically in one of the stunning
Intel success where they went into Iran and I
guess the Mossad and stole a bunch of nuclear
files, right? Which is just a stunning Intel
success. That shows you the importance of files
when you're doing any kind of research. It was
during the Manhattan Project in the U .S. and
is for anyone trying to start a nuclear program.
You got electronic systems, right? I'm sorry,
electronic files. You could now, you could go
on the web and purchase. hard drive or solid
state drive that contains terabytes of data.
That's the size of one or two phones, right?
Smartphones. A program can't be destroyed if
even one or two of those solid state drives or
hard drives exists somewhere in the country.
Good luck finding that. when you can hide it
in anyone's pocket, a garage, a table, a car
driving away from Tehran. And this is why it's
almost impossible to destroy a program. And so
that's why I remember a few years ago, former
Secretary of Defense Gates had mentioned a couple
of times in public, once in front of congressional
testimony, that the most the U .S. could set
back Iran is two or three years with a strike
on nuclear facilities. And that's And when you
say purchasing of like the solid state drives
or essentially the information, right? Are we
talking about nuclear program information of
how to like how they created the nucleus? Is
that a risk? Yeah, just design information. There
are basically two overall types of weapons. You
got implosion type weapons, and then you got
the gun type weapon, right? And an implosion
type. nuclear weapon, you got the uranium pit
and you got the explosives that go around it
to condense the uranium pit to make that critical
mass, right? The fissionable critical mass. So
that's a lot of design work and in a lot of research.
Yeah, a scientist could keep that in his or her
head, but to do that coordination and facilitate
that collaboration coordination, yeah, you need
to store this information in somewhere. And so
that information is going to be either stored
on print in hard files, printed files, or drawings,
whatever, or on some kind of electronic system.
And by the way, one other thing too, and the
Iranians admitted to this reportedly, is that
they move a lot of their enriched uranium outside
of the three facilities, underground facilities,
that the US bombed. right? And to secret locations,
and that's always been a problem with WMD programs.
You don't know about the programs, the facilities
that you don't know about, right? And so that's
another reason why it's hard to obliterate or
destroy or eliminate a WMD program to include
nuclear programs. There might be sites that you
don't know about, which is where you can keep
things like enriched uranium or files and various
components, like say a nuclear warhead, right?
A nuclear warhead is not that big. You can keep
that in any garage. And when you hear things,
certain verbs, descriptions that are absolutists
obliterate. destroy, eliminate. It's almost impossible
for any military in the world to do those. So
that's one tip to all the pundits and politicians
out there. So things like when you hear terms
like destroy Hamas or destroy Hezbollah. good
luck with that because that means you are killing,
you'd have to kill pretty much every single Hamas
or Hezbollah person. It's easy to degrade these
groups, but when you're talking about obliterating
or eliminating, yeah, that's whether it's a terrorist
group or a WND program, much more difficult.
When we were talking in our pre -show, you said
you'd worked in the Mideast in North Korea, those
regions for intelligence. What concerns you?
most about Iran? Is it the WMDs or is it the
financing of terrorism and the offshoot terrorist
groups that are proxies for them? The Iranian
proxies and their terrorist reach, that concerns
me far more than any nuclear program. As late
as early this year, the U .S. intelligence community
concluded that the U .S. was not pursuing nuclear.
a nuclear weapons program. I assume that's possibly
changed now because of that US strike, which
is a US and Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities.
But up to earlier this year, that was not the
case. It's always been the proxies that concern
me most. So I'll give you one example. Hezbollah
is as large as funded by Iran according to, I
think it was a State Department document. During
the first Trump administration mentioned that
at one point, Iran provided over $700 million
in one year to Hezbollah. Hezbollah is really
one of the only terrorist groups in the world
that scare me. Al -Qaeda has never scared, even
after 9 -11, Al -Qaeda didn't really scare me
that much. Believe it or not, it was always Hezbollah.
And those of us who've worked terrorism issue,
it's always been Hezbollah that has scared us.
And so you look at the US, over a hundred Hezbollah
Hezbollah -related folks have been arrested in
the U .S. over the last, yeah, over the last
couple, few decades. And I assume Hezbollah is
here in the U .S. and Hezbollah just needs to
flip a switch to activate them. And also Iran
has shown a tendency to try to do things in the
U .S. forecast back in 2002 was Iran will continue
to avenge the death of General Soleimani, who
was one of its most senior military generals,
the head of the Quds Force in Iran, which is
basically, for those not familiar with it, is
basically if you were to take the CIA... Joint
Special Operations Command, Defense Intelligence
Agency, put them all into one, that's the cuts
force. And so the cuts force is arguably indirectly
responsible for more deaths than al -Qaeda, more
American blood spilled than al -Qaeda, at least
prior to 9 -11. And that's another reason why...
Iran's reach with its proxies has always concerned
me more. Obviously we've dropped some massive
bombs on their facilities. Israel's been at war
with them for quite a bit now, bombing their
facilities, attacking the Hezbollah offshoots.
Has anything changed? Has our risk landscape
changed? Is there still a risk to the United
States and Israel based upon the actions that
are occurring in region or do we just delay the
inevitable? Like we'll be talking about the same
thing in a couple of years. All the above. And
so I think things are relatively stable now.
But again, because if you believe Bob Gates,
former Secretary of Defense Gates, and this was
supposedly Defense Intelligence Agency's conclusion
after the US followed up the Israeli strikes
with the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities,
we only set the program back a few months, right?
And yeah, so at some point, either Israel and
the US will either have to re -attack or just
accept that. we only set the program back a few
months or maybe two or three years. But the situation
is very stable now. I shouldn't say very stable.
It's somewhat relatively stable. My concern is
if there's another re -attack on Iran for the
exact reasons I mentioned that we've only set
the program back months or maybe a year or two.
And so I think that Iran might not be as restrained
as it was during the attack this summer, right,
on its nuclear facilities. Iranian decision -making
is very deliberate, very careful. And so what
we saw with Iran is retaliation, but it was done.
They escalated to de -escalate, right? They made
sure not to go too far because they feared, and
some Iranian insiders actually said this publicly,
they didn't want. the wrath of the U .S., right,
if it responded too harshly against Israel and
Iran. If there is another attack by Israel and
or the U .S., I fear that Iran might let loose
a lot more and then it will be a very terrible
situation for Israel and maybe U .S. interests,
U .S. bases in the Middle East and the region
overall. So in terms of Hezbollah and some of
these proxy groups, what do you think the likelihood
of actual Hezbollah or other terrorist organizations
being in this country waiting to be activated.
I've heard some analysts say that it exists.
I know our borders have been fairly porous the
past, maybe not this year, but the four years
prior. It seems like a logical conclusion you
can make that there could be a significant amount
of terrorists waiting to be activated. Do you
see that as a potential? It's a potential, but
I think it's low probability. Here's why. Hezbollah,
even though it gets maybe most of its funding
from Iran, that's not debatable. It is a proxy
of Iran. And Hezbollah has killed, again, prior
to 9 -11, killed more Americans than al -Qaeda
did prior to 9 -11. It would have to take Iran
direct in Hezbollah, activate your stuff, launch
attacks against not only Israel, but U .S. interests,
and then in turn agreeing to that and carrying
out Iranian orders. And I think low probability
of that, it's one of those low probability, high
impact things. And for example, that did not
happen after the U .S. attacked the Iranian homeland
for the first time in history, right? When it
attacked the three nuclear sites, Hezbollah operatives
weren't activated in the U .S. And so low probability,
but high impact. So you do think there's a probability
that some could be here? Yes. Not only here,
but around the world. And that's one of the,
if you look at, okay, the cost versus benefits
of attacking Iran, you got to look at that. One
of the worst terrorist attacks in Latin America
were back in the nineties when Iran, I think
it was Argentina twice, once was a Jewish community
center in Argentina, right? And usually it's
not just Iran. use those proxies, right? And
there have been many assassination attempts around
the world, especially in Europe. And so the Iranian,
the government cause of the Iranian threat network,
basically has reach all over the world. The only
limitation is one, Iranian decision making, because
Iran's not going to do something that jeopardizes
the regime, the existence of the regime. That's
the regimes, the theocracies, primary reason,
primary goal is regime survival, right? Two is
the capability and reach, capability and capacity
to launch these attacks. And what we've seen,
thankfully, is a lot of incompetence. by the
Iranian threat network, especially Iranians.
If you look at some of the thwarted attempts
in various countries, in one case, an Iranian
operative blew himself up, blew his legs off
in a failed bombing attempt, right, a few years
ago. And thankfully, there's the Iranian, the
Iran threat network is not a bunch of James Bond
folks, Jason Bourne, James Bond folks who are
just incapable, or incapable of everything. But
that is a concern. And so when you're looking
at when politicians is looking at the calculus
of, okay, do we hit Iran for X? What are the
repercussions both within the region, around
the world, and within the US homeland? But yeah,
this is possible. When other countries, like
other countries in the Middle East, see that
the United States takes action specifically against
Iran when they drop the bombs, does that... emboldened
terrorism. Like is there a counter effect to
that? Like I remember seeing like the people
on TV, like Down with America and Burn American
Flags, right? Is that almost counterproductive?
And we do these kind of small scale attacks,
right? We're just bobbing on a couple of facilities.
Does that increase the hate and then increase
our risk? It does. And so that's where the cost
benefit comes in, right? And based on comments
from supposed Iranian insiders. They're basically
like, yeah, yeah, you attacked our homeland,
but you hit, the US hit only three sites, three
of its sites. And by the way, according to the
same Iranian insiders, they said that they claim
that, yeah, we moved the enriched stuff elsewhere
anyway. And limited strikes have far less possibility
of created more terrorists, but when you're destroying,
when you don't care that much about collateral
damage, when you're injuring or killing family
members, right? That just, that happened in Afghanistan.
happened in Iraq, you're creating more terrorists.
And so you've got to be very careful and look
at your goals, especially when you realize that,
again, the militaries usually can't achieve absolute
terms, destroy and eliminate, right? So if you're
trying to destroy and eliminate a terrorist group,
not only is it impossible to achieve that impossible
goal, you've got to do some pretty unsavory things.
by choice or by accident. And those unsavory
things include a lot of collateral damage. And
just like any one of us, if some country were
to invade the U .S. and kill our family members,
now, okay, now we're in the fight, right? If
a terrorist group were to kill or some nation,
say, were to kill our kids or niece or nephew,
we're in the fight. And so that's one of the
downsides. And you've got to weigh the costs,
benefit the losses. And by the way, counter -terrorism,
fighting terrorism with only counter -terrorism
never, ever works. And that's one of the reasons
why. You've got to look at the, you've got to
address the underlying cause of that terrorism
or else you'll be fighting terrorism forever.
It's a fair statement. What concerns you the
most about terrorism today, whether it's in the
U .S. or globally, but what's the biggest risk
that we're facing? Exactly what I just said,
the biggest risk is fighting terrorism with the
only kind of terrorism. It never works. It's
like playing guacamole. And so I think that's
the biggest risk. Within the US, domestic terrorism
has always been there. We could go back to the
90s with the Oklahoma City bombing, and we live
in a very polarized world now. And there are
different ways of terrorism right now. And this
might... I know people will get upset about this,
but right now, based on the last 20 years, 20,
30 years, most of the attacks have been right
-wing. Terrorists have been right -wing in the
U .S., but it's not a partisan thing. That's
just what the data shows. In the 70s and 80s,
most of the terrorist attacks in the U .S. were
left -wing, right? The first attack by U .S.
citizens on the U .S. Capitol was the U .S.'s
only terrorist, female terrorist group. It was
a bomb and they bombed the U .S. Capitol. Lots
of damage. And yeah, yeah, oh, a lot of people
say, oh wow, the U .S. had a few... All -female
terrorist group? Yeah, they bombed the U .S.
capital, a left -wing group. And what needs to
happen is, and one of my concerns is as we look
at a lot of things we do in terms of finding
terrorists is not intelligence -based, but at
least in the U .S. And so you've got to have
a very sober analysis of the issue and who's
involved and what it will take to... fight it.
This year going into next year, the next wave
might be all left -wing groups fighting this
administration policies we don't know. But regardless
of where you stand politically, you have to look
at the causes and results of terrorism with an
unbiased eye or less, you'll keep making the
same mistakes. And I think that unfortunately
that's what has happened over the last decade
or two. So I understand you had a pretty heavy
hand in helping with the no flight list. You
want to tell us a bit about that? Yeah, just
one small, extremely small aspect of it. So yeah,
my last job in the military, we had established
a relationship with, in our unit with the Customs
and Board of Protection, the backend folks, the
Intel and the pretty much the Intel side of it.
And one of the most capable operations I've ever
seen. Again, this is the, this is not the part
that Most people see you when you go to a port
of entry at the airport, but the back end side
of it. Wow. What an impressive intel operation.
And so we established this relationship and I
won't bore you with the details, but it turns
out that a lot of information from the military
and other areas won't get into customs and war
protection. Part of me being innovative and having
a lot of initiative. And so that resulted in
a bunch of folks being put on the no -fly list
that weren't on the no -fly list. people who
we knew or suspected were terrorists. And they're
like various watch lists and no -fly lists. But
yeah, one of the most interesting was General
Soleimani, and I'm sure I mispronounced his name,
but he was again the guy who was assassinated
in the first Trump administration. He was the
Quds Force commander, one of the most important
figures in Iran. So much so that there are some
rumors in Iran that he might run for political
office someday when he retires from the military
before he was killed. by the US. And it turns
out that shared our prioritized list with, that's
one of the innovative things I did was came up
with our prioritized list of terrorists for our
organization. Share that with Customs Board of
Protection. Turns out that Soleimani, of course
he's on the list, but his biometrics were not
just an oversight. And so he could have put on
a disguise and scanned his fingerprint. at a
port of entry and no one would have known the
better, right? If the background document, he
would have gotten into the U S now that's highly
unlikely. Usually you don't get someone at someone's
level to try to play like James Bond trying to
get into U S, but still it shows you the benefits
of coordination collaboration. And after a couple
of days, the response I got was wow, dude, thanks.
His biometrics are now in the system. In the
pre -show, you said you spent five years. gathering
North Korean intelligence? Is there anything
worth noting there, worth sharing that you obviously
can share without getting yourself into trouble?
So I work Northeast Asia and overall I did spend
five years, cumulative years, a couple different
science while working North Korean issues. One
thing I'm constantly looking at is Kim Jong Un's
health. One thing that my company looked at was
his, we basically did a red team. model after
the CIA's red team memos, we did a red team document
on his health. And I don't know how this guy's
still alive. I really don't know if both the
lifestyle and genetic reasons, right? And so
genetically, his family history is just ridiculously
bad, right? From his grandfather, his father,
his aunts, uncles, his half brother. I'll give
you one example. A couple examples, in terms
of heart disease, your half sibling is more of
a risk factor than your parents. right, believe
it or not. And this is based on medical research.
And so, his half -brother was known to have,
his half -brother, Kim Jong -un, the current
leader of North Korea, assassinated in a famous
attack in, I think it was Malaysia, using a chemical
weapon, or a biological weapon, I forget which
one it was, I think it was VX. And he killed
his half -brother, but his half -brother is known
to have heart problems. And that's based on a
doctor who, a Western doctor who treated his
brother. And half sibling heart problems are
more of a risk factor than your parents' heart
problems. And that's just one example. And so
his father and Kim Jong -un's father and grandfather
had heart attack, had heart problems or stress
when you're running the tatership, when most
population is starving from famine, people might
want to kill you. That stresses you out. You
got the U .S. and South Korea. not liking what
you're doing. I guess that stresses people out.
And so you got not only genetics working against
Kim Jong -un, but you got lifestyle problems
too. In addition to stress, you got he smokes,
he drinks. a lot based on folks like Dennis Rodman,
folks who've visited him, other diplomats who've
been in North Korea, and he's gone missing for
a while. I'll be surprised if he, and then there's
a weight problem also, that's very obvious that
everyone can see. And yeah, that's one of the
many things I'm watching with North Korea is
health. If he were to die, who would take over?
North Korea is a patriarchal society. It looks
like he's trying to groom his daughter to take
over from him. She's very young. be a committee
or a regency or a regent that would hold power
for or groom his daughter or whoever. If he were
to die, it was a sister takeover. There are all
these questions related to North Korea. Of course,
there's a nuclear program too. probably one of
the most interesting countries to watch and will
be for 2026. I think there's a couple of countries
that we think about when, at least when I laid
out a night, you usually think about Iran because
of our recent military activity there. And then
North Korea is one of those. And as you said,
Kim Jong -un, you can look at a picture of him.
It looks like this guy has never skipped a meal
in his entire life. And even though he's torturing
his citizens, he's enslaving his people. He's
really just. running his own people into the
ground. Is it a net benefit if he does die of
a heart attack? What would that kind of look
like in current state? Obviously his daughter,
I think is 12 or very young. She can't run the
empire. Is there any way that if like you cut
off, sometimes they say you cut off the head
of a snake and you produce 12 more, but is it
a better world? Is there a path to democracy
or some type of freedom if the Kim Jong line
gets out of the way? It's hard to tell, possibly.
And here's why. There's a chance that say his
sister were to take over or temporarily take
over there's a chance that she might be more
she might be less authoritarian and less brutal
than Kim Jong -un. Remember that Kim Jong -un
reportedly murdered his uncle. Who helped groom
him after he murdered his uncle was supposedly
with an anti -aircraft battery, right? Again,
don't know if that's ever been concerned, but
either way, he murdered his uncle. And so would
his sister be less brutal and more open to not
being as belligerent? with the West and with
South Korea. I don't know. It could go either
way. There's a chance that she might be worse.
then him, then Kim Jong -un. So it's one of those
things like flip a coin, it could go either way.
There's a lot of times in international affairs,
geopolitics, there's the unintended consequences.
The example of Iraq, right? So Iraq, Saddam Hussein
was one of the most murderous dictators in the
world and used chemical weapons against his own
people. But he also hated al -Qaeda. And there
was a story, I don't know how true it is, but
I think it's true, where he murdered one or two
al -Qaeda folks who were traveling through Iraq.
Iraq under Saddam was also counterpoint to Iran,
right? They're like mortal enemies, Iraq and
Iran. After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003,
that eliminated Iraq as a foil to Iran. And so
Iraq now became, it's basically a vassal state
is probably too strong of a word, but basically
Iraq is now in Iran's camp, right? And during
the US occupation of Iraq, it became a basically
breeding ground for terrorism. The ISIS or Islamic
State got its start in Iraq during the US occupation
years. And so you could use the example of Iraq
to see how, wow, it might not be obvious right
then, but the law of unintended consequences
was huge in Iraq, and that might be the case
in North Korea if Kim Jong -un were to fall or
were to die. Yeah, I just see North Korea as
like a proxy state. for China. I could be wrong.
I'm not the expert you are, but I feel like regardless
of who's in charge in North Korea, I really feel
like to vast extent, China's kind of pulling
those strings. Would you agree or disagree with
that? Maybe pulling strings is a little bit too
strong of a term, but it does seem like China
has a lot of influence over North Korea. And
one reason is a lot of it is just self -interest.
Most of it, if not all of it is self -interest
because if war were to break out, between North
Korea and South Korea or Kim Jong -un were to
fall, there could be a massive influx of migrants
flowing into China. China doesn't want that.
And so a lot of this is China's self -interest
to maybe keep North Korea in its orbit and try
to make sure that doesn't happen. Also concerning
is North Korea's support for Russia in terms
of personnel. I think it's about 10 ,000 troops
that North Korea provided to Russia and also
some equipment. also artillery shells and so
forth. And yeah, you got that regional peace
with China, but you also have North Korea having
an influence, however little on the Ukraine -Russia
conflict. It's a scary situation. I don't understand
it. But to get back to one of your points, like
when you were talking about Iraq and Iran, Even
though it was Iraq and Saddam Hussein were horrible
people and it was a bad empire, there was some
net benefit, right? Like it prevented a lot of
the creation of the terrorism and the downfall.
They were mortal enemies or between Iraq and
Iran. Is there a net benefit with North Korea
being the way it is today? Yeah. In terms of
U .S. interest and its allies interest? No. And
the reason why I narrowed it to just US and its
allies for China there is because tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands of North Koreans are not
trying to flow into China, which is right on
its border to avoid whatever nasty situation,
right? That could go away if there's a war or
all of a sudden the border ... North Korean border
troops just melt away. But for regional stability,
South Korea, they're all these reasons why. And
so remember every once in a while, it hasn't
happened in a while, but remember North Korea
has launched attacks and assassinations against
South Korea. I think it's been a while since
it happened, but remember that there's some senior
folks who have been assassinated by North Korea
as an example. A few years ago, there was that
sink and North Korea sank that boat, South Korean
boat. using one of the submarines. And yeah,
it's North Korea. You can see why. It's the bane.
It's the current North Korea under this dictatorial
dynasty is the bane of every U .S. president.
And by the way, so if you look at Japan, Japan,
I just saw, just received cruise missiles, Tomahawk
cruise missiles from the U .S., right? A long
time ago when I served in Japan as an intelligence
officer, I, Japanese air self, defense officers
told me that, yeah, we're tied to this North
Korea situation and we want to be able to strike
North Korea. And that's bear fruit now many years
later with the unprecedented acquisition of Tomahawk
missiles by Japan to deal with situations like
North Korea. This North Korean regime is not
a good deal for anyone. And commercially too,
there are some risks there. Look at Sony, the
Sony hack by North Korea a few years ago because
of that movie that came out. A lot of embarrassing
emails by Sony executives were leaked or hacked.
I don't know if you can answer this question,
so I'll preface it with that. North Korea obviously
says they have a nuclear bomb. There has been
no shown proof. There are some people in the
United States that says they don't. Is there
a nuclear risk connected with North Korea today?
There is, but I think we, and this is just my
opinion, it's going to be very controversial.
I think for some reason with North Korea and
to some extent Iran maybe, we tend to throw out
70, 80 years of nuclear deterrence theory and
reality when it comes to North Korea. And North
Korea knows that the US could level that country
within. minutes. Iran knows that Israel could
level Iran within minutes with nuclear weapons.
And so North Korea, of course, it would be great
if none of these anti -West belligerent countries'
dictatorships have nuclear weapons, right? That
would be ideal. This is counterintuitive, but
North Korean nuclear weapons don't worry me that
much. It's the other stuff. It's the cyber capabilities,
in my opinion, based on my experience. North
Korea is the third best adversarial cyber capability.
in the world after Russia and China, it's North
Korea. The Sony hack is an example. And they're
always hacking South Korea, other countries in
terms of stealing stuff from banks, stealing
money from banks and so forth. So in addition
to the cyber capabilities, it's the covert capabilities,
the assassination capabilities. The North Korean
Intel capability, focused on special ops. Their
special ops are one of the most capable in the
entire world. Right. I guess when you're spending
all your money in the military and especially
special ops, that tends to happen. But, and these
are not, these are what, if you look at the top,
the top folks that the U .S. now can talk about,
as mentioned probably, the Navy SEAL type, the
Delta Force type, very small capable units. You
got entire regiments. You got huge units that
are basically the North Korean equivalent of
that. That could do a lot of damage in South
Korea. other countries in the region. And the
artillery, the estimates, I've seen public estimates,
publicly disclosed estimates that 20, 30 people,
20 to 30 ,000 South Koreans could die within
the first 24 hours or less of artillery assault
on South Korea. Right. And I think that's more
of a concern than nuclear stuff because I don't
think the North Korea would use WMD, especially
nukes, unless the regime was threatened, just
like Iran. Same thing there. And so the threshold
below that, that's vast. So when you talk about
the cyber capabilities, the special ops and all
the covert capabilities, the intel capabilities,
the artillery capabilities. Of course, the missiles.
That's why Japan now has been seeking strike
capabilities against North Korea, because of
the missile capabilities that North Korea has.
For all these reasons, that's why I'm less concerned
about the nuclear issue than many people. A lot
of people cite that we're supposedly building
the golden dome over United States to protect
against nuclear threats, to protect against ballistic
missiles that are coming from these adversarial
countries. Do you think that's true or do you
think our deterrence is good enough and perhaps
it's a vanity thing just saying we have better
protection or why do you think United States
is reaching in that direction? Because obviously
it's a huge project. We're not talking about
Israel where we put the dome over the country
and it's small and it's relatively capable. We're
talking huge landmass to protect from this. Is
there a risk out there that we should be worried
about with North Korea or Iran or Russia or China
or somebody that we should be thinking about
that this is what this country needs today? Yeah,
the threats there with China and North Korea,
it obviously is the threats there. But the whole
Golden Dome thing, which is pretty much a continuation
of Ronald Reagan's Star Wars thing. There's a
lot to unpack there and none of it's good, right?
And it's largely a vanity thing. The Golden Dome
thing or whatever it's being called, it's a play
on the Israeli Golden Dome. It's a lot different.
It's not going to be anywhere as capable. And
here's why Israel's Golden Dome is, it's limited.
Israel is not such a huge country. And most importantly,
Israel is not too concerned about ICBMs and intercontinental
ballistic missiles, right? Iran does not need
to fire ICBM long range, basically missiles that
go to outer space and return, reenter the atmosphere
with all kinds of what's called MERS, multiple
reentry vehicles, many of which are decoys, right?
The Golden Gnome doesn't have to deal with that.
What's been proposed since Ronald Reagan's years
is much more complicated. It's like hitting a
bullet with a bullet. It's almost an impossibility.
The few tests that have been done have been highly
scripted. It's almost like giving the student
the answers to the test, right? And so not only
do you have to attack a much faster bullet, ICBM,
intercontinental ballistic missiles, that's either
in the midphase in space or re -entering the
atmosphere. You have to differentiate between
which ones are MIRVs, which ones are the decoys,
right? And you have to do that within seconds.
And I think, of course, politically, it's everyone
wants to be for a protection system. The reality
behind it once you start peeling the onion back
is it's extremely limited and it's been in terms
of bang for the buck, it's just not there. It's
not a great success story. So Casey, I know you
do a lot with business continuity and personal
protection. What are some things that corporations
can do to help mitigate that risk, to forecast
potential problems? What would you suggest to
them? Yeah, I think that this is something that
some organizations do well, others not so well.
I think organizations need to pay attention to
geopolitical risk a lot more. So it's becoming
more popular or more prevalent. But I know some
organizations have gotten rid of their geopolitical
risk person or team, which I think is a bad idea.
One organization that does it well, seems to
do it well. I know I've read that 3M way before
other companies did or were able to notice that
something was going on in terms of some kind
of virus in China and elsewhere. And so 3M was
on it. Other companies, not so much. And you
got to, especially for the global organizations,
whether you're an NGO, whether you're a non -profit
or for -profit organization, you got to take
geopolitical risk seriously and do red team and
scenario development and not think about things
that, not think about only things. that have
happened exactly like they happened. I wrote
an article a few years ago about retinine where
I highlight several things, seven or eight indicators
of, or just events that happened in the two decades
prior to COVID, right? Various outbreak, MERS,
SARS, Ebola, the publication of a pandemic. It
was focused on flu, flu pandemic, but the US
government had published a pamphlet, a guide
that talked about the exact same things that
we ended up. doing. in 2020, 2021. They published
this like 10 years before. And all the indicators,
so when CEOs and other corporate leaders talk
about, they claim that COVID was a black swan
event, no one could have seen that company. No,
that's not the case. Disaster prep folks were
talking about the exact same type of scenario
decades before. They're the events I talked about,
MERS and SARS and so forth, that were basically
almost a blueprint for what could happen. And
so for this year with the stuff, the rest of
this year, for the infectious diseases I talked
about. For next year, the conflicts that are
happening around the world, again, the most conflicts
in decades around the world, organizations need
to think outside the box, do some red team and
scenario analysis, take geopolitical seriously,
especially when it comes to supply chains, and
they'll be much better off. You keep saying the
term red team. Could you explain to our audience
what that means? So Red Team is basically just
an alternative way of thinking, right? That's
one of the, one of the different types of Red
Team. The other is physically trying to break
into stuff, whether it be cyber or physically,
right? You can hire someone to test your day.
What's that movie from the nineties? I think
it's called Sneakers, where they would be hired
to, to break into. I remember Sydney Poitier
was in there. They would hire this team to try
to break into banks, whatever, right? That's
one type of Red Team. And then the other is just
a tabletop exercise. NYP. PD is really good.
New York police department is really good at
this, just tabletop exercises on what could go
wrong at various events. And then the third type
is the stuff I've done is the alternative way
of thinking, just thinking about things that
you normally would not think about. For example,
so my, I posit that if companies had red team,
what could go wrong based on the previous outbreaks?
probably could have had things in place that
could have helped them deal with COVID, like
having people work from home or companies or
organizations to include some government agencies
were trying to figure out how to have people
working home with VPN and stuff like that. That
could have been easily practiced years before
COVID. So Red Team is just a different way to
think. I actually worked in risk management for
about the past decade after I left law enforcement
and I was part of standing up a red team for
Amazon web services where our thing was social
engineering and trying to get past the guard
shacks, trying to break into facilities, trying
to hack technical equipment to compromise, obviously
compromise in a loose term, customer data. So
you learn how to defend against it. What you
learn a lot of the times when you're doing those
types of activity, whether it be red teaming
or just doing risk analysis, a lot of times the
CEOs and some of the executive leadership team
don't understand the net benefit of why they
should prioritize this for their organizations.
So what would you say to those types of people,
right? Yeah, that sounds scary. I don't really
care. I'm still going to sell my product overseas,
whether they have Ebola in that region or not.
What would you say is the reason that they really
should be prioritizing this stuff and taking
it seriously and prepare. Yeah, basically organizations
need to lose the ego, right? And so I remember
one, I have, I've had a couple of NSA assignments
and one assignment, the, what, the six, what,
you know, the comms, the head of comms, full
Colonel, he said, Hey, red team, the hell out
of me. NSA has a red team outfit. And so we requested
them for this, for the consulate. And we were
so impressed with this guy. He was a Navy captain.
kernel equivalent, and we were so impressed with
this guy because he didn't care about his ego.
He said, he looked, I want you to retina academy,
find what's wrong with our communications, with
our IT, IT systems. And so he got to lose the
ego and realize that it can only benefit you
to find the stuff before the bad guys do. If
you look at the pipeline incident from back from.
A couple of years ago, you look at all the outages
that we've had recently that's affected airports
and travel. It's not always about red team and
bad guys, right? It's just red team in general.
And so what can go wrong? And companies need
to think long -term and worst -case scenarios
and maybe not so worst -case scenarios and plan
for those. It comes down to money, right? Do
you want to lose money when just having spent
in a few minutes or spending far less money?
doing a risk assessment or having a red team
exercise tabletop or red team analysis could
have prevented, could have helped you prevent
some of these things. Think about money. It's
a really good point. And a lot of times it comes
down to brand protection too. Like I work for
the largest nonprofits now in the risk management
space, but there was a big conversation around
when the Russia Ukraine conflict came around
and we want to continue operations within the
Russian space. Could we maybe until the government
sanctions really kicked in, but sometimes it
was about perception and how your customers are
going to perceive your product, whether it's
safe, secure, and reliable within those spaces.
So, which it comes right back to the almighty
dollar, right? That we're talking. about is these
things are important. If you are one of those
heartless CEOs that don't think about your people,
think about your bottom line and being able to
protect that is absolutely essential. Exactly.
The bottom line is important because especially
for the for -profit companies, right? You might,
your brand and marketing might talk about making
the world a better place and so forth. But if
you're a for -profit company, it comes down to
money, right? And so one of the best ways to
protect it is to protect that money, that bottom
line, is to realize that your reputation and
brand is important. One of the things in security,
and a lot of security people don't realize this,
and a lot of risk owners, the CEOs that realize
this, is that one of security's job is not just
to protect people and assets, it's to protect
the brand and reputation, right? And when you
think about it that way, and how important brand
and reputation is to a company, it can lead you
to realize how important some of these, some
of this planning and red team and scenario development
is. And I could give you one quick example. We
didn't talk about Taiwan and China, right? If
you're a company that's based in Taiwan or has
a supply chain that touches Taiwan and you haven't
thought about done some planning, scenario building
on what could go wrong. Forget about China invading
Taiwan. I don't think that will happen. I think
that's far less likely to happen than a blockade
or squeezing of Taiwan. That will make it a much
tougher decision for any US president to decide
whether to attack China. just a blockade of China.
If your company organization has people based
in Taiwan or a supply chain that touches Taiwan,
you will remiss if you have not done detailed
planning, business continuity planning or scenario
planning or red teaming on how to deal with that
eventuality as an example. How real is it today?
I know back in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, a lot of
corporate type people would get kidnapped when
they would go to certain countries. Is that still
a real concern today for corporate executives
or people that work for rather large corporations?
I think it's less likely now, but it's still
a distinct possibility, especially for the lower
level folks. I'm a big fan. I've written articles
on this. Listen to the State Department. If you
remember, for both organizations, for both travel,
for your company, travel risk management, and
also justifications. Listen to the State Department.
Because kidnappings still happen even though
they're less likely than they were maybe 20,
30 years ago. They still happen on unlawful detainment
is the way is one term the U .S. government uses.
I was just on the call with some government folks.
a webinar that discussed the same topic just
a couple of days ago, I think yesterday actually.
And listen to the statement, if the State Department
says issues are level four, warn them. about
a country. Level four is basically, do not travel.
Don't go there. And if you're already there,
leave. There is a misperception that the US government
is obligated to do whatever it can to get US
citizens out of any country in all cases, no
matter what. And that's one of the biggest mistakes
that travelers make because that's not the case.
And that's one of my biggest recommendations
is to mitigate against unlawful detainment and
kidnapping. Read the State Department travel
advisories and register State Department when
you travel. Obviously kidnapping is a scary thing
for executives that travel. Maybe we could talk
a little bit about the importance of having sanitized
devices when you're going into austere environments
like China or France or other countries. How
important is that to take care of your equipment?
And then my second part of my question is, so
kidnapping, though a risk, is it a bigger risk
now of more like assassination attempts like
we've seen with the insurance executive that
was killed not too long ago? Is that something
executives should be thinking about and starting
to hire people in close protection in order to
care for them as they go about their travels?
Yeah, it is. So firstly, the device issue when
traveling some countries, there was, I had a
family member who traveled to China a few years
ago and what I advised his family remember it
was like, hey, don't take your normal phone,
take a burner phone. That phone was going to
be there for a few months. Take your burner phone
and don't take a computer that you don't want
to get rid of when you get back. And same with
Russia. And so there's just some countries where,
and I know a lot of Institutes of higher education,
universities, colleges have that rule that, yeah,
you need to take a burner phone. And by the way,
don't take our official, your school issued phone
to China or Russia. And for good reason. Yeah.
I would never travel to China or Russia with
my main phone. I would use a burner phone. And
then once I got back to the port of entry in
the U .S. just toss it in trash, I wouldn't even
take it home. In terms of assassination, kidnappings,
for most people, the risk is low. And this is
where risk, what I call risk, risk intelligence
is a common term, but basically how we got to
understand risk, right? And so for, and I've
done some executive protection work. for the
vast majority of people in the US who are protectees
who whose organizations or or Family offices
higher protection for them don't need an armed
protector right for the mass vast majority of
people if you really with the hair within the
US Right if they were going to travel to say
Syria or some of the countries Yeah, you probably
want to have someone armed with you but here
in the US for most reason not possible but depend
on your organization risk intelligence if you
have a good risk intelligence team whether organically
or you've contracted out, you quickly realize
that some people are at much higher risk. The
health care, health insurance companies, right?
And a couple of months after the assassination
attempt on the UnitedHealthcare worker, I wrote
an article in Domestic Preparedness Journal about
this. And I wrote that according to his wife,
he had received threats based on his company's
profile and his perceived role in... deny in
healthcare to people or health insurance claims
to people. Some people in some positions are
at higher risk. And that's why, and this can
affect the bottom line, and that's why some boards
require their CEOs and pay for their CEOs to
have protection. And that's important. You just
have to... understand the risk, but it's still
there. In that same article I mentioned, I highlighted
several cases where CEOs or senior executives
were killed or stalked and almost killed by people.
And so this includes, I think it was Tim Cook
is one example where a female stalked him relentlessly.
She was later arrested. One entrepreneur was
beheaded in his apartment in New York. This is
all recent. This is not 30 years ago. This is
in the last few years. Yeah, so there was a beheading.
And so, yeah, the UnitedHealthcare thing, that
was like the most visible recent one. But there
have been many cases where, yeah, people were,
executives were stalked. or killed or kidnapped.
And there have been a couple of kidnappings of
executives. Recently, the same goes for celebrities.
For celebrities, that's interesting. We could
talk about that if you like, but celebrities
at a certain level are more vulnerable because
of certain limitations. We could talk about that.
Are you surprised by the outpouring of people
that supported the shooter and the United Healthcare
worker or the United Healthcare executive when
that happened? Were you surprised by that? I
was surprised, very surprised actually. And so
of course, it goes without saying that violence
is never the answer. And so it will be an interesting
trial for sure. But that relates to how the risk
intelligence piece of it, right? It shows you
how the fact that there's so much support for
him shows you arguably. in my opinion, shows
you how real the risk is for people, for executives
in the health care insurance industry. I was
shocked by it. Obviously we have disagreements
of being overcharged, but a life is a life and
it's important. The last question I have for
you, Casey, is in reference to the Charlie Kirk
event that transpired not too long ago and the
assassination there without getting into who
he was as a man or if you support him in his
political stance or his Christian stance. Just,
were you surprised by the gaps that were allowed
where the assassination attempt occurred? And
what do you think went wrong to produce an environment
where that could happen? Yes. I don't think anyone
outside of law enforcement has the details and
exactly went wrong in terms of the mechanics.
But what's obvious to me. based on the fact he's
no longer with us in the physical body is that
it was a failure of what I call one of the three
P's. I have these three P's of special event
security. Protect the performer, protect the
pocketbook, protect the patrons, right? You follow
those three P's, everything will be fine. The
first one, protect the performer, is obviously
a failure, right? Or unless you, that's obvious,
or unless, again, he would still be here. And
one of the things that's obvious, based on that
is just the sight lines and where the shooter
probably had to be to take that. What appears
to be a fatal shot and again there there are
all kinds of there are all kinds of weird things
inconsistencies that we the public know very
little about this but about the details, but
obviously there was a failure the failure to
protect the performer and a sightline issue where
there should not have been a Clear shot to do
what appears to have been done So you got to
weigh when you are not a, when you're a private
citizen, your security team doesn't have, has
no authority whatsoever. Private security teams
hired by most people who have no authority whatsoever.
So there are limitations while you can accomplish,
but there's also a lot that you can do and should
do. And there's a failure here. So you got to
look at, was there a risk intelligence team?
How competent was the team? Was there how thoroughly?
How thorough were there? Was there a manpower
issue based on perceived threat? There are all
these issues that we don't know. And it reminds
me of the Solomon Rushdie assassination attempt
in, I think it was New York a couple of years
ago. For those unfamiliar, Solomon Rushdie is
an author who wrote a book that's... the clerics
in Iran hated. And so I think it's called the
Satanic Verses, the book he wrote. I think it
was eighties, was it? And so they had a fatwa
against this author for a while. And then at
a speech on stage a few years ago, he was stabbed
multiple times. He lost an eye. And if you look
at his, he basically had no protection team there.
And so the Charlie Kirk assassination reminds
me of that in terms of the complacency and the
lack of precautions. Yeah, it's just, it's bizarre
that you wouldn't have guys on top of the building.
Yeah, that. Exactly. That's a strange one. Or
at least a drone or hovering something up there.
It's, I don't want to get down in conspiracies.
This is a conspiracy show, but this particular
episode. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. And that's why
I'd say it comes down to potentially competency.
And look, if he was, if his protection team was
all retired secret service guys or other guys
who have actual protection experience. Law enforcement
doesn't count unless you have, that's a big misperception
there, unless you've actually had executive protection
training as law enforcement officer. Same with
military. I see a lot of job as, let's say, for
protection person, bodyguard, whatever, it says
you must have military or law enforcement experience.
Yeah, good luck with that. Because that's not,
most people in law enforcement and military are
not trained to do protection. And so it's a completely
different skill set, a lot of people don't realize.
So you got to wonder if... What was the case
here? And if it was a competent team, was there
a manpower issue? Because people are expensive
to hire, and maybe they didn't have enough people
to place on a rooftop. Who knows? And I don't
know if we'll ever know, just for various reasons.
KC, man, you are amazing. Thank you so much for
coming on. Where can our guests find you and
what closing thought do you want to leave everybody
with? Sure. And so, yeah, they can reach me on
my website. contact me through my website, it's
coalcambell .com. And yeah, I think that's right.
It's coal with a K. Yeah, coal with a K, yeah.
K -O -L -E Campbell, C -A -M -P -B -E -L -L,
just like the website. I'm sorry, just like the
soup. That's probably the easiest way to reach
me. You can use a contact form there and later
on I could share with you the, they can reach
me on, on Signal app also. And you could, if
you want to put that in your show notes. So you
have a couple of ways to reach me. Great. Awesome.
So anything you want to leave the audience with
before you get the part? Yeah, just we discussed
this a little bit, but yeah, it's an interesting
world. It's a cliche usually, right? this world
is all going to hell and it's the worst ever.
I usually hate that cliche, but if you look at
the number of conflicts going on that started
last year and going on now, yeah, it's actually
one of the worst in terms of interstate conflict
in decades. And so you look at that, you know,
terrorism and political violence and polarization,
especially in the U .S., you might think, wow,
I'm never leaving the house or I'll be on like...
red alert every time I leave. And no, I strongly
discourage that. Live your lives. Do what you
do. Don't live in fear. Just be realistic about
things, and especially in terms of organizations.
Invest in that risk intelligence. professional
security team, that geopolitical team and listen
to them. Listen to the experts and you'll be
fine. That's awesome, man. Thank you so much
for your time today. Everyone reach out to Casey.
He's one of the brightest minds in this industry
and he can help you level up your game. But until
next time, we are Zero Signal. We're out. We've
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