Calder Walton recounts the history of World War II which shows that Britain and the United States were in a Cold War with the Soviet Union before they knew it. The same is true today: Britain and the United States are in a Cold War with Russia whether policymakers in London and Washington like it or not.

Calder Walton writes that autocratic regimes — China, Russia and Iran — have been using social media to try to influence U.S. public opinion. History reveals how and why a one-party regime used disinformation to salvage its reputation following a disaster — the Soviet Union's 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe, whose history also reveals how such disinformation can be countered.

Calder Walton describes four ways how intelligence services are certain to contribute to defeating COVID-19 and why pandemic intelligence will become a central part of future U.S. national security.