Ted Halstead's Blog

France Under Attack, the first book in the new French Agents series, has just been published by Amazon. It is available in every format including ebook, audiobook, paperback and hardcover.

Could one or two of the Russian Agents make an appearance? Well…yes!

Thanks as always for the kind words of support from so many of you. It’s what keeps a writer like me going!

Here’s the link to the book on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D6S7F7RK

I spent 25 years in the State Department, most of it at numerous U.S. Embassies overseas.  I handled classified documents every day, up to and including Top Secret and Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI).

Over those 25 years, I never received a single notice of violation for mishandling a classified document.

Not one.

Overseas, you could get a violation for leaving a classified document on your desk while walking away to go to the bathroom.  One of the jobs of the Marine Security Guards at the Embassy was to send roving patrols around the building, looking for such lapses.

There were Diplomatic Security Officers at the State Department’s U.S. offices with the same job.

I was eventually promoted all the way to the Senior Foreign Service.  One reason I made it- if you had repeated security violations, you didn’t get promoted. 

I had no violations.

We’re all human, and we all make mistakes.  I learned a long time ago not to trust memory, as in “I’m sure I locked that document in the safe.”

There’s only one way to avoid mistakes.  Make them impossible to commit.

How?  Simple.

Never print classified documents.  I read them on a monitor.

Everyone working at an agency producing and receiving classified documents is able to view them on a dedicated system connected to a monitor.  At one point those monitors connected to client systems that had USB ports, that could be used to insert a thumb drive. 

That’s how the distribution of 251,287 U.S. diplomatic cables and 482,832 Army reports stored in a DOD system was possible through WikiLeaks in 2010.

That massive failure to safeguard classified information included one cable classified Secret that identified me by my full name.

Even before that breach, the State Department had installed client systems without USB ports.  You could still print classified documents by sending a command to a classified system printer.  But you couldn’t download them onto a thumb drive.

I retired in 2010.  I certainly hope that by now every agency has made the same switch.

So, if you can view any classified document on a monitor, why are they still being printed?

Convenience.  And for the same reason some people prefer reading a printed book to Kindle.  Some people like to have paper in their hands, rather than stare at a screen.

I’m one of those people.

But as the endless news coverage of classified documents showing up in homes and garages illustrates, convenience and personal preference is no longer reason enough.

The solution: Don’t allow printing of classified documents. 

That is the one and only way they will not be found outside an authorized location.

But is that practical?  Can we really expect a monitor on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office?

Why not?  It is the 21st century, right?

In any case, the President has other offices in the White House.

Monitors are available with large screens and resolutions that are actually easier to read than a printed page.  They could be made available to all top officials at a price far less than the cost of the two Special Counsels now investigating classified documents mishandling.

But wait.  Aren’t there classified documents that are never loaded onto a computer system of any kind?  That you can’t view on a monitor?

Yes.  But those are a tiny fraction of one percent of all classified documents.  They are kept locked in secure locations, and their removal and return from those locations is logged. 

If any of those documents turn up in a home or garage, then we have a problem my solution won’t fix.

But, I would much rather fix 99.9% of the problem than let the status quo stay unchanged.

The next book in the Russian Agents series is now available in Kindle, paperback and hardcover. The audiobook is in production, with a projected January 2023 release date.

The Indo-Pakistani War is set after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when China and India are left as the only two major countries Russia can still count as friends.

After a break in their last two missions, the Russian Agents are back to chasing stolen nuclear weapons. For the first time, though, failure could lead to war between two countries with nuclear weapons: India and Pakistan.

And once a nuclear Indo-Pakistani War begins, will Russia and China be able to stay on the sidelines? If not, can World War III be far behind?

In the March 3, 2022 edition of The Statesman an article headlined ”How Vulnerable Is Taiwan?” uses China Invades Taiwan as the starting point for a broader discussion, including the current conflict in Ukraine. The full article is available at this link.

First, I’d like to sincerely thank the over seven hundred readers who preordered China Invades Taiwan. I did my best to repay that faith by publishing the Kindle version over a month in advance of the promised Christmas Eve date. Much of the credit goes to my intrepid editor, who worked long hours to make this early delivery possible.

The paperback and hardcover editions are now available as well, with the audiobook to follow early in the New Year.

I look forward to hearing from all of you once you’ve had a chance to read the book! As always, please send all questions or comments through this blog, and I will do my best to get back to you as quickly as possible.

Merry Christmas!

The complete Publishers Weekly review of The Second Chinese Revolution follows:

In this overly long but intriguing action thriller from Halstead (The End of Russia’s War in Ukraine), pro-democracy advocate Chen Li Na, a brilliant computer hacker, uses a special device, which connects to internet satellites that service countries bordering China, in her work instigating attacks on the Chinese government.

To destroy these satellites, which have been launched by an American company run by Eli Wade, the Chinese leaders have several options: sabotaging the delivery rockets before they can take off, shooting them down as they fly into space, downing them once they’re in orbit, and, if all else fails, assassinating Wade.

Russian agents are employed to do the dirty work, so the Chinese have deniability; in return, China promises to buy all their oil and gas from Russia. Readers should be prepared for characters and plot points that appear and disappear amid massive amounts of historical and technical information.

Halstead does a good job pulling all the threads together, however, and those who persevere will turn the last page satisfied if exhausted. The open ending promises more to come.

In my first book, The Second Korean War, an anti-aircraft missile is fired from an American Virginia class submarine. Is that really possible?

Here’s information on this topic posted on thedrive.com in 2017:

“Tests during the mid 2000s had the AIM-9X fired from a vertical launcher as a proof of concept demonstration. A few years later, an AIM-9X was launched from an actual submarine as part of a series of integration tests. Since then the program seems to have disappeared from public view, but it’s likely development has continued on in the classified world—especially considering that submarine-launched unmanned aircraft have been an operational reality within America’s nuclear submarine fleet for some time.”

It appears the answer is -yes, it is possible. Has this capability actually been deployed?

I doubt we will find out until an American submarine comes under air attack.

Here’s the complete Publishers Weekly review of my latest book, The End of Russia’s War in Ukraine:

Halstead’s impressive fourth Russian Agents thriller (after The End of America’s War in Afghanistan) avoids the shopworn conventions of the genre.

In 1994, Russian Senior Sgt. Pofistal Arbakov, while dismantling an SS-24 nuclear missile in Ukraine, removes two of its 10 warheads, replaces them with dummies, and hides the real ones in a storage locker.

Flash forward to the near future. Anatoly Grishkov, Mikhail Vasilyev, and Mikhail’s wife, Neda Rhahbar—all Russian FSB agents—are tasked with finding the missing warheads. Though Americans are involved, the three FSB agents take center stage.

Halstead, a retired Foreign Service officer, keeps their actions and motivations believable while delivering insights into the present conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Fans of character-driven spy novels will be rewarded.

I am very pleased to announce that all four books in the Russian Agents series are now available in hardcover!
I would also like to thank my readers for their support and overwhelmingly positive response to the series.

I am writing the next book in the series now, and will have more to share about it soon.

Happy New Year!

In response to many reader requests, I’m pleased to announce publication of The Russian Agents Box Set. It includes The Second Korean War (2018), The Saudi-Iranian War (2019), The End of America’s War in Afghanistan (2020), and The End of Russia’s War in Ukraine (2020), and is available at this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08LB3YQ8W
The price is currently discounted by over half off the price of buying each book individually.
In particular, I’m glad this will make it easier for those who have enjoyed the books to give them to family and friends.