Summary

David Cattler (Twitter; LinkedIn) joins Andrew (Twitter; LinkedIn) to discuss how intelligence functions at NATO. He is the NATO Assistant Secretary General for Intelligence and Security.

What You’ll Learn

o What it is like to be the leader of intelligence and security across the largest peacetime alliance in history?

o How does intelligence come together at NATO – who are the key-players, institutions, and stakeholders?

o What are some of the main challenges facing the Alliance including Russia and Cyber?

o “Reading” an institution and its key players

o The importance of “soft skills” in professional life

Episode Notes

Every polisci student knows from their Plato to NATO class, that NATO is (a) considered the most successful alliance of its kind in history and (b) was founded in 1949. As you can imagine, intelligence is incredibly important to the whole endeavor, so why has NATO only had an intelligence supremo since 2016?

To find out the answer, and much else besides, Andrew sat down with David Cattler. David is (a) the principal advisor on intelligence to the NATO Secretary General and (b) the lead for coordinating intelligence relationships between NATO and the 75 individual intelligence agencies across its 30 constituent nations (talk about herding cats).

With Russian forces built up on the Ukrainian border in February 2022, the timing of this episode is, well, germane.

And…

Andrew picked David up outside the U.S. Department of State and drove him to the SpyCast studio at SPY – if the traffic is right, you can do it in under 10 minutes!

Quote of the Week

"The secretary general is my boss but imagine him in this context to put it in a different frame is that he is the CEO of a large international conglomerate that engages in multiple business lines. And I am the CEO of the business line for intelligence and security. The nation's intelligence services in effect are my corporate board. So, they provide that governance and the oversight for all the work." – David Cattler