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Sean M. Wiswesser has nearly thirty years of experience working as a national security professional with intelligence, foreign service, and defense organisations. As a senior operations officer with the CIA, he served on multiple overseas tours and many other deployments on temporary duty, including war-zone service. He was a chief of station and had multiple joint-duty assignments with intelligence community partners. Sean was a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill with a bachelor's degree in history and Russian & Slavic linguistics. He was awarded a Master of Strategic Studies in 2023 from the Air War College and received the Russia Integrated Deterrence Award.
""Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks is a fascinating story of Russian spycraft that details the double agents, honey traps, and murders that have marked Soviet and now Russian foreign policy for decades. Sean Wiswesser spent his CIA career studying, teaching, and confronting Russian spies all over the globe; in his book on Russian intelligence, he spills the beans on what Russian spies did and do, to challenge freedom and the West. Hard to put down, and harder to forget when falling asleep at night.""—John Nagl, author of Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam ""Sean Wiswesser has written the rare book that pairs rigorous tradecraft insight with lived experience. Drawing on decades countering Russia’s services, he maps how espionage, disinformation, and corruption actually work, and how to blunt them. The Ukraine case study is especially clarifying, but it’s the human stories that stay with you. Essential reading for practitioners, policymakers, and citizens alike who want to understand (and perhaps resist) Putin’s secret war.""—Jennifer Ewbank, former Deputy Director of CIA for Digital Innovation ""Sean Wiswesser’s personal reminiscences about encounters with Russian officers add authenticity to his narrative that is rare in books about Russian intelligence. His career as an operations officer lays a credible foundation for his interpretation and critique of Russian operations. Sean’s experiences allow him to give personal tribute to several Soviet and Russian defectors with whom he worked, introducing readers to otherwise unknown people who supported U.S. intelligence in the 1990s and 2000s.""—Kevin Riehle, Lecturer in Intelligence and International Security, Brunel University London ""Sean Wiswesser lifts the lid on the inner workings of the Russian security services. This is not a detached, scholarly account, but a plain-spoken, deeply authoritative, and often humorous exposé of an implacable foe by an experienced officer possessing a rare combination of Russia-oriented tradecraft, language, and cultural skills. Readers will be rewarded with a deeper understanding of the dangers and weaknesses of these organizations, so reflective of the tragic paradox of Russia itself.""—Gregory Sims, former CIA Station Chief
