Intelligence services, international diplomacy experts

Amid rising geopolitical tensions, understanding the role of intelligence in global affairs is more urgent than ever. Researchers at the Stockholm School of Economics offer expertise on the function of secret services, covert operations, cyber threats, and intelligence alliances. With a focus on both historical and contemporary developments, these experts can provide context for stories on international security and diplomacy.

Matthew Hefler

Affiliated Researcher, Center for Statecraft and Strategic Communication; Project Lead, AJI Intelligence and Security Programme, Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy

Areas of expertise:

  • International security and diplomacy including America-Europe defence and security and transatlantic alliances like NATO
  • The role of intelligence and secret services in international diplomacy
  • Intelligence relationships or liaisons between national intelligence services
  • Contemporary and historical developments around Western intelligence services and international security, including military and diplomatic history during the Second World War, the interwar period and the early Cold War
  • Secret intelligence and strategy/decision-making
  • Subversion, covert political action, clandestine diplomacy

Email: Matthew.Hefler@hhs.se
Languages: English

Ronan Mainprize

Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Statecraft and Strategic Communication

Areas of expertise:

  • Intelligence and international security, with a particular focus on the US and Europe
  • Intelligence and covert operations, including sabotage, cyber security, disinformation, and grey zone threats
  • American grand strategy and foreign policy, particularly in East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, including Iran
  • European security, with a focus on European-US relations, intelligence sharing, and Russia's war against Ukraine
  • Military operations and strategy, technology and warfare
  • US intervention in Latin America, including the Dominican Republic in 1965 and in Venezuela in 2026

Email: ronan.mainprize@hhs.se
Phone: +44 781 455 8397
Languages: English