AJI Intelligence and Security Programme
Based at the Center for Statecraft and Strategic Communication (CSSC), the programme is a part of the Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy.
Led by Dr. Matthew Hefler, the AJI Intelligence and Security Programme is dedicated to producing policy-relevant insight, providing education on issues of espionage and defense, and to fostering dialogue among scholars and current and former intelligence practitioners.
AJI Intelligence and Security Seminar 2025: Intelligence and Contemporary Global Challenges
People
Publications
Events
Intelligence and Contemporary Global Challenges – Major international research seminar, Engelsberg Ironworks, October 2025, see the full playlist on Youtube
Book Launch, King’s College London, April 2025: Intelligence and Contemporary Conflict: Communication in Diplomacy, Statecraft and War.
Book Launch, SSE, April 2025: Intelligence and Contemporary Conflict: Communication in Diplomacy, Statecraft and War.
Intelligence, Communication and Contemporary Global Conflict – Major international research seminar, Engelsberg Ironworks, November 2025, see the full playlist on Youtube
Media and Public Outreach
Digital Seminar Series
The AJI Intelligence and Security Programme Digital Seminar is a monthly gathering dedicated to cutting-edge intelligence research and analysis. It is designed as an online hub for intelligence specialists, scholars or general public interested in issues of security and statecraft, and a place where researchers and current and former intelligence practitioners can interact. Most of all, the seminar is a forum for the study of intelligence and security in the Nordic countries and across the transatlantic AJI more broadly.
The digital seminar takes place the second Tuesday of every month during the academic year, at 10:00 EST / 15:00 GMT / 16:00 CET. Those interested in attending the seminar should register here.
Seminar Leads:
Convenor:
Dr. Matthew Hefler, Stockholm School of Economics
Co-Convenors:
Dr. Rikard Weserberg, Stockholm School of Economics
Dr. Tony Ingesson, Lund University
Dr. Ronan Mainprize, Stockholm School of Economics
AJI Intelligence and Security Digital Seminar Series, 2026
27 January 2026 - 10:00 EST / 15:00 GMT / 16:00 CET
Jeffrey Rogg – Book Talk: The Spy and the State: The History of American Intelligence
Abstract: Is the NSA spying on Americans? It wouldn't be the first time. Does the CIA still assassinate people? Depends on what you mean by "assassinate." Is the intelligence community really a "deep state" that subverts American democracy? Not exactly, but it has interfered in politics too often in US history. These types of questions have preoccupied the American people and international audiences in recent years. But the origins of these and other controversies reach back even further in US history. The Spy and the State provides readers with the foundation to understand the past, navigate the present, and shape the future of American intelligence.
Bio: Dr. Jeffrey Rogg is Senior Research Fellow at the University of South Florida’s Global and National Security Institute. Previously, he was an assistant professor at the Joint Special Operations University (U.S. Special Operations Command) and The Citadel. He was also a postdoctoral fellow in the National Security Affairs Department at the U.S. Naval War College.
Jeff is the vice president of the Society for Intelligence History and an assistant editor of Intelligence and National Security. His work has appeared in several academic journals and volumes as well as media including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The National Interest, The Hill, and the Los Angeles Times. Jeff’s book, The Spy and the State: The History of American Intelligence, was published by Oxford University Press in June 2025.
Jeff has a BA in Latin and ancient history from Swarthmore College, a JD from Villanova University School of Law, an MA in security studies from Georgetown University, and a PhD in history from The Ohio State University. He served six years in the Massachusetts Army National Guard as an infantryman.
10 February 2026 - 10:00 EST / 15:00 GMT / 16:00 CET
Sara B. Castro - An innovative history of US intelligence officers on the ground and the first official contacts between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party
Abstract: From 1944 to 1947, the United States planted a liaison mission in the headquarters of Chinese Communist forces behind the lines. Nicknamed the "Dixie Mission," for its location in "rebel" territory, it was an interagency delegation that included intelligence officers from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the US Army, and the State Department.
Mission to Mao is a social history of the OSS officers in the field that reveals the weakness of US intelligence diplomacy in the 1940s. Drawing on over 14,000 unpublished records from five archives as well as white papers and memoirs from the participants, Sara B. Castro demonstrates how the US intelligence officers in China clashed with political appointees and Washington over the direction of the US relationship with the Chinese Communists. Interagency and political conflicts erupted over assessments of Communist capabilities and whether or not the mission would later involve operations with the Communists. Castro shows how potential benefits for the war effort were thwarted by politicization, rivalries, and the biases of US intelligence officials.
Mission to Mao is a fresh look at US intelligence in WW II China and takes readers beyond the history of "China Hands" versus American anticommunists, introducing more nuance.
More info and testimonials on the publisher's page for the book here: https://press.georgetown.edu/Book/Mission-to-Mao
Bio: Sara B. Castro is an author and historian whose work examines U.S.–China relations through a national security and intelligence lens. She currently serves as a Space Operations Instructor at the National Security Space Institute, where she supports space professional development within the U.S. government and for U.S. allies and partners. She previously taught global, East Asian, and military history at the U.S. Air Force Academy and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before entering academia, she worked as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. federal government. Castro holds a doctorate in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and bachelor’s degrees from Arizona State University. She serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence and is a past president of the Society for Intelligence History. She is the author of Mission to Mao: U.S. Intelligence and the Chinese Communists in World War II (Georgetown University Press, 2024) and co-editor of Shots in the Dark: Experimentation, Success, and Failure in the Second World War (Fordham University Press, 2025).
Contact
For questions about the programme, events, or collaboration:
Matthew Hefler – Project Lead, AJI Intelligence and Security Programme and Senior Research Fellow, Center for Statecraft and Strategic Communication