WTH is Going On with the Discord Leaks? Former CIA Field Officer Marc Polymeropoulos Explains How It Happened and What It Means

The Ukrainians are running out of munitions and the war is
predicted to endure past 2023; China is debuting new missiles
that have the ability to penetrate US defenses; Egypt Is toying
with supporting Russia in attacking Ukraine; ISIS is evolving.
These are just a handful of the revelations from the viral
Discord leaks, a set of US intelligence documents leaked on the
gaming platform Discord and other sites by 21-year-old Jack
Teixeira of the Massachusetts Air National Guard. Ways to
interpret the fallout are manifold, but lessons learned all point
back to US responsibility: that Ukraine will face empty bins is a
self-fulfilling prophecy that the US can remedy through a
revitalization of its defense industrial base. That Taiwan is at
enhanced risk of invasion by China every day is only tempered by
US willingness to build up Taiwan’s defense and develop a
strategic counter-aggression framework. Content aside, that a
21-year-old kid was able to photograph and share US top secret
information, and continue sharing it for 8 months – well, it is
not a leap to underscore the importance of tightening US
intelligence security measures to prevent this from ever
happening again.


Marc Polymeropoulos is a nonresident senior fellow in the Forward
Defense practice of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for
Strategy and Security. Polymeropoulos worked for twenty-six years
at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) before retiring in July
2019 at the Senior Intelligence Service level. He was one of the
CIA’s most highly decorated operations officers. He is the author
of Clarity in Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the CIA.


Download the transcript here.