Covert Operations and National Security

Ranking history

About the show

Latest episodes

• Desert One: How Operation Eagle Claw Reshaped U.S. Special Operations

  October 7, 2026 · 5 min

  In April 1980, the United States launched a classified mission deep into Iran to rescue 53 American hostages held in Tehran, bringing together elite troops, aircraft, and months of careful planning. The rescue force never made it to the…

• The Billion Dollar Spy: The Man Who Gave the CIA Soviet Secrets

  October 4, 2026 · 3 min

  Operating inside Moscow during the Cold War presented extraordinary dangers for American intelligence officers and their Soviet sources. One of the CIA’s most valuable sources was Adolf Tolkachev, a Soviet engineer who provided extensive…

• 4,000 Kilometers to Rescue: Inside Operation Entebbe

  October 1, 2026 · 3 min

  In 1976, more than 100 hostages sat thousands of miles from Israel at Uganda's Entebbe Airport, and Israeli planners had almost nothing working in their favor — crushing distance, thin intelligence, no element of surprise to count on, and…

• Operation Anthropoid: The Mission to Kill Reinhard Heydrich

  September 27, 2026 · 3 min

  December 1941, two Czechoslovak soldiers parachuted into their occupied homeland carrying an extraordinary assignment: assassinate one of Nazi Germany’s most powerful officials. Reinhard Heydrich was a senior SS leader, head of the Reich…

• From Sensor to Weapon: The Small Drone Joins the Team

  September 23, 2026 · 2 min

  Imagery released September 17 showed Green Berets from 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, arming a small drone with an explosive payload during training conducted on August 14. Officials confirmed the exercise…

• Guardians of the Gray Zone: The Coast Guard's New Special Missions Command

  September 15, 2026 · 7 min

  In May 2026, the U.S. Coast Guard stood up a new Special Missions Command, folding its elite units into one force built for counterterrorism, drug interdiction, port security, disaster response, and high-risk operations. This episode digs…

• From Selection to the Unit: Bob Porras on a Career in Special Operations

  August 30, 2026 · 1 hr 17 min

  Carlos sits down with Bob "The Ninja" Porras for a wide-ranging look back at a career spent in the world of Delta Force and "The Unit." The conversation covers what it actually takes to make it through selection, the mindset required to…

• The Death of Imad Mughniyeh: How a Car Bomb in Damascus Ended a 25-Year Manhunt

  August 23, 2026 · 3 min

  On February 12, 2008, Hezbollah's chief of international operations, Imad Mughniyeh, was killed by a car bomb in Damascus in an operation widely attributed to a joint Mossad-CIA effort. This episode traces his decades-long career as one of…