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La misión: La CIA en el siglo XXI / The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century
Not yet published
Expected 17 Feb 26The epic successor to Tim Weiner’s National Book Award-winning classic, Legacy of Ashes: a gripping and revelatory history of the CIA in the 21st century, reaching from 9/11 through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to today’s battles with Russia and China – and with the President of the United States.
At the turn of the century, the Central Intelligence Agency was in crisis. The end of the Cold War had robbed the agency of its mission. More than thirty overseas stations and bases had been shuttered, and scores that remained had been severely cut back. Many countries where surveillance was once deemed crucial went uncovered. Essential intelligence wasn’t being collected. At the dawn of the information age, the CIA’s officers and analysts worked with outmoded technology, struggling to distinguish the clear signals of significant facts from the cacophony of background noise.
Then came September 11th, 2001. After the attacks, the CIA transformed itself into a lethal paramilitary force, running secret prisons and brutal interrogations, mounting deadly drone attacks, and all but abandoning its core missions of espionage and counterespionage. The consequences were the deaths of scores of its recruited foreign agents, the theft of its personnel files by Chinese spies, the penetration of its computer networks by Russian intelligence and American hackers, and the tragedies of Afghanistan and Iraq. A new generation of spies now must fight the hardest targets – Moscow, Beijing, Tehran – while confronting a president who has attacked the CIA as a subversive force.
From Pulitzer Prize winner Tim Weiner, The Mission tells the gripping, high-stakes story of the CIA through the first quarter of the twenty-first century, revealing how the agency fought to rebuild the espionage powers it lost during the war on terror – and finally succeeded in penetrating the Kremlin. The struggle has life-and-death consequences for America and its allies. The CIA must reclaim its original know thy enemies. The fate of the free world hangs in the balance.
A masterpiece of reporting, The Mission includes exclusive on-the-record interviews with six former CIA directors, thirteen station chiefs, and scores of top spies who served undercover for decades and have never spoken to a journalist before.
At the turn of the century, the Central Intelligence Agency was in crisis. The end of the Cold War had robbed the agency of its mission. More than thirty overseas stations and bases had been shuttered, and scores that remained had been severely cut back. Many countries where surveillance was once deemed crucial went uncovered. Essential intelligence wasn’t being collected. At the dawn of the information age, the CIA’s officers and analysts worked with outmoded technology, struggling to distinguish the clear signals of significant facts from the cacophony of background noise.
Then came September 11th, 2001. After the attacks, the CIA transformed itself into a lethal paramilitary force, running secret prisons and brutal interrogations, mounting deadly drone attacks, and all but abandoning its core missions of espionage and counterespionage. The consequences were the deaths of scores of its recruited foreign agents, the theft of its personnel files by Chinese spies, the penetration of its computer networks by Russian intelligence and American hackers, and the tragedies of Afghanistan and Iraq. A new generation of spies now must fight the hardest targets – Moscow, Beijing, Tehran – while confronting a president who has attacked the CIA as a subversive force.
From Pulitzer Prize winner Tim Weiner, The Mission tells the gripping, high-stakes story of the CIA through the first quarter of the twenty-first century, revealing how the agency fought to rebuild the espionage powers it lost during the war on terror – and finally succeeded in penetrating the Kremlin. The struggle has life-and-death consequences for America and its allies. The CIA must reclaim its original know thy enemies. The fate of the free world hangs in the balance.
A masterpiece of reporting, The Mission includes exclusive on-the-record interviews with six former CIA directors, thirteen station chiefs, and scores of top spies who served undercover for decades and have never spoken to a journalist before.
608 pages, Paperback
Expected publication February 17, 2026
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About the author
Tim Weiner
15 books581 followersTim Weiner reported for The New York Times for many years as a foreign correspondent and as a national security correspondent in Washington, DC. He has won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting and the National Book Award for LEGACY OF ASHES: The History of the CIA. His new book, out in July, is ONE MAN AGAINST THE WORLD: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 152 reviews
July 1, 2025
I will say this for Tim Weiner's The Mission, I don't think he is writing this with a political bent. He clearly thinks everyone is an idiot.
Weiner's book on the CIA in the 21st century is basically a litany of all the things the CIA has done wrong or the good things it failed to do. It's a shame that the negative view of the agency brings down the narrative as badly as it does. There are precious few places where Weiner steps back to highlight some lower level employees who did great things. Weiner is a gifted writer so when he allows the story to tell itself it is actually a good read.
However, Weiner does a tremendous amount of projecting and moralizing without providing any balance. I found myself halfway through thinking, "Geez Tim, it's pretty easy to tear everyone down but how could they have done it right?"
As for the actual issues brought up by the author, I wouldn't argue too hard with any specific viewpoint. I am an Iraq war vet, I have thoughts about things. It's not any one idea Weiner presents, but the sheer amount of Monday morning quarterbacking becomes tiresome fast. There's no balance.
Well, that is not entirely true. Weiner is balanced in that both political parties are criticized. In fact, every single president this century is lambasted in this book for one thing or another. However, special attention is given to Donald Trump more than anyone else. It does feel like Weiner really wants to write a book where he proves Trump is indeed Satan. Which....just write that book then.
In the end, I don't like history books where I am preached to and browbeaten by the author. Present your evidence and let the reader make their own conclusions without editorializing. Weiner had the evidence and ability to do that in this book but chose not to. It suffered for it.
(This book was provided as an advance reader copy by the publisher.)
Weiner's book on the CIA in the 21st century is basically a litany of all the things the CIA has done wrong or the good things it failed to do. It's a shame that the negative view of the agency brings down the narrative as badly as it does. There are precious few places where Weiner steps back to highlight some lower level employees who did great things. Weiner is a gifted writer so when he allows the story to tell itself it is actually a good read.
However, Weiner does a tremendous amount of projecting and moralizing without providing any balance. I found myself halfway through thinking, "Geez Tim, it's pretty easy to tear everyone down but how could they have done it right?"
As for the actual issues brought up by the author, I wouldn't argue too hard with any specific viewpoint. I am an Iraq war vet, I have thoughts about things. It's not any one idea Weiner presents, but the sheer amount of Monday morning quarterbacking becomes tiresome fast. There's no balance.
Well, that is not entirely true. Weiner is balanced in that both political parties are criticized. In fact, every single president this century is lambasted in this book for one thing or another. However, special attention is given to Donald Trump more than anyone else. It does feel like Weiner really wants to write a book where he proves Trump is indeed Satan. Which....just write that book then.
In the end, I don't like history books where I am preached to and browbeaten by the author. Present your evidence and let the reader make their own conclusions without editorializing. Weiner had the evidence and ability to do that in this book but chose not to. It suffered for it.
(This book was provided as an advance reader copy by the publisher.)
September 22, 2025
In brief (because it's due back at the library and I'm SO far behind in my reviews): a thorough, fast-moving, insightful and compulsively readable history of the CIA since the turn of the century. The almost certainly avoidable failures of 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, "enhanced interrogation," the search for bin Laden, the first Trump term, Ukraine, and the first months of the second Trump term. Lots of blame to go around but also lots of successes that aren't as widely known. Weiner offers insight into how the Agency works, the personalities involved, interactions with the White House and allies, what went wrong and what went right.
The book concludes with a deeply troubling epilogue. The book was put to press in March of this year (2025). Even by that early date it was clear how much damage Trump did not only to the CIA but to all our intelligence networks, law enforcement, international cooperation, and alliances. It's a catalogue of the steps taken under Trump's orders that virtually invite future disaster: shutting down embassies and consulates in numerous countries and thus depriving the US of a credible base of intelligence gathering; closing down the DEI programs that brought in people who might actually be able to work in places where a White man might be rather conspicuous; kicking out the people who actually had experience and institutional knowledge, taking away their security clearance, and discontinuing federal bodyguard protection even though they've been been targeted by America's enemies; replacing experienced professionals with political appointees lacking any experience and of questionable allegiance to the country; basically dismantling out all of our political and intelligence alliances; giving Elon Musk and DOGE to CIA employee names and other sensitive data.
After reading about how intelligence gathering, analysis, and sharing has worked (for better or worse, sometimes even reprehensibly), I put down the book believing -- as Weiner clearly does -- that the country is utterly unprepared for the next terrorist attack.
The book concludes with a deeply troubling epilogue. The book was put to press in March of this year (2025). Even by that early date it was clear how much damage Trump did not only to the CIA but to all our intelligence networks, law enforcement, international cooperation, and alliances. It's a catalogue of the steps taken under Trump's orders that virtually invite future disaster: shutting down embassies and consulates in numerous countries and thus depriving the US of a credible base of intelligence gathering; closing down the DEI programs that brought in people who might actually be able to work in places where a White man might be rather conspicuous; kicking out the people who actually had experience and institutional knowledge, taking away their security clearance, and discontinuing federal bodyguard protection even though they've been been targeted by America's enemies; replacing experienced professionals with political appointees lacking any experience and of questionable allegiance to the country; basically dismantling out all of our political and intelligence alliances; giving Elon Musk and DOGE to CIA employee names and other sensitive data.
After reading about how intelligence gathering, analysis, and sharing has worked (for better or worse, sometimes even reprehensibly), I put down the book believing -- as Weiner clearly does -- that the country is utterly unprepared for the next terrorist attack.
July 31, 2025
CIA didn't share information with FBI about 9/11 before attack. Bush Jr. ignored evidence of no WMD and ended up turning Iraq into civil war and revelations of torturing prisoners. Despite Obama ending the tortures, he ordered 10 times as many lethal drone attacks as Bush. They finally did get Bin Laden; he had been hiding out, not in Afghanistan, but under the protection of supposed U.S. ally Pakistan. CIA's and politicians track record is not very good, as we now face threats from Russia and China under Trump.
July 26, 2025
I loved Tim Weiner's first book about the CIA, which told a fascinating story of the CIA's early years. This one seemed less revelatory to me, perhaps because I have followed the news much more closely since the nineties. What I read this time was more like a refresher reminding me of the history I had recently lived, but with lots of new and interesting insights. The conclusions the author reaches this time are that 1) presidents have regularly misused the CIA and 2) the CIA has recently gotten a lot of things right.
Weiner's thesis is that Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan and both Bushes altered the mission of the agency from espionage to paramilitary intervention in countries about which we knew little, to the detriment of those countries and ourselves. Some of the most powerful CIA agents pursued illegal objectives given to them by their president. Some thrived on lawlessness. By Obama's time, the CIA was in charge of sending armed drones to kill Al Qaeda's leaders and incidentally killing innocent civilians.
As the mission of the CIA changed with the end of the Cold War and the rise of non-state sponsored terrorism, collection and analysis of intelligence took a back seat to target selection, bribery of warlords, maintaining prisons and torture programs, while the quality of the top CIA leadership deteriorated. People who were behaving like criminals were often running the show. A five year effort by John Brennan to redirect the activities and organization of the CIA within the newly integrated intelligence community put the CIA on a better footing, improved the quality of its leadership and agents, and updated its techniques to include a renewed emphasis on human intelligence and the incorporation of modern cyber tools to its repertoire. In the Balkans and in Ukraine, and in the consolidation of our alliances, the CIA has redeemed itself in the past 25 years.
But now there is another era of incompetent or compromised presidential leadership, and another opportunity for misuse of the CIA. So I am not so sure we are out of the woods. If there will be any woods left in 50 years.
Weiner's thesis is that Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan and both Bushes altered the mission of the agency from espionage to paramilitary intervention in countries about which we knew little, to the detriment of those countries and ourselves. Some of the most powerful CIA agents pursued illegal objectives given to them by their president. Some thrived on lawlessness. By Obama's time, the CIA was in charge of sending armed drones to kill Al Qaeda's leaders and incidentally killing innocent civilians.
As the mission of the CIA changed with the end of the Cold War and the rise of non-state sponsored terrorism, collection and analysis of intelligence took a back seat to target selection, bribery of warlords, maintaining prisons and torture programs, while the quality of the top CIA leadership deteriorated. People who were behaving like criminals were often running the show. A five year effort by John Brennan to redirect the activities and organization of the CIA within the newly integrated intelligence community put the CIA on a better footing, improved the quality of its leadership and agents, and updated its techniques to include a renewed emphasis on human intelligence and the incorporation of modern cyber tools to its repertoire. In the Balkans and in Ukraine, and in the consolidation of our alliances, the CIA has redeemed itself in the past 25 years.
But now there is another era of incompetent or compromised presidential leadership, and another opportunity for misuse of the CIA. So I am not so sure we are out of the woods. If there will be any woods left in 50 years.
January 15, 2026
We r fucked
August 4, 2025
This book is a gripping, well-written dive into the post–9/11 world of the CIA. It reads like a thriller, packed with sharp detail, vivid personalities, and high-stakes missions—but it’s no spy fantasy. The author masterfully threads together these stories to paint a bigger picture of how intelligence, diplomacy, and military power have tangled (and often collided) in the 21st century.
That said, be warned: this isn’t a feel-good read. It’s deeply sobering. While it highlights the bravery and skill of many individuals inside the CIA, it also exposes the limits of human judgment, the corrosive effect of politics on national security, and the uncomfortable reality of America’s waning strategic clarity. The contrast between the authoritarian efficiency of adversaries and the flailing decision-making of recent U.S. administrations is hard to ignore—and hard to forget.
If you want a fast-paced but unflinching look at how America wages shadow wars today, The Mission is essential reading. Just don’t expect to come away feeling reassured.
That said, be warned: this isn’t a feel-good read. It’s deeply sobering. While it highlights the bravery and skill of many individuals inside the CIA, it also exposes the limits of human judgment, the corrosive effect of politics on national security, and the uncomfortable reality of America’s waning strategic clarity. The contrast between the authoritarian efficiency of adversaries and the flailing decision-making of recent U.S. administrations is hard to ignore—and hard to forget.
If you want a fast-paced but unflinching look at how America wages shadow wars today, The Mission is essential reading. Just don’t expect to come away feeling reassured.
October 6, 2025
“The Mission” is a story of the CIA in the 21st Century, written by Tim Weiner who previously wrote “Legacy of Ashes” (published in 2007), a history of the CIA.
The book starts with "9/11" and covers the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction, and continues right up until March 2025, following the inauguration of Donald Trump and his own mission to eradicate the “Deep State” and those who do not profess their fealty to him.
After the Cold War seemed to end in 1989 - with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unraveling of the USSR, - the CIA appeared to have lost its mission. Russia was no longer seen to be a threat, and China seemed to want to join the World Trade Organisation, thus seemingly reducing the need for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence.
This all changed with Al Queda’s attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. At the time the US knew little about this Islamic adversary and it had to quickly rebuild to fight the new “War on Terror”. What followed from this was a different CIA, and one that ran “Black sites” and relied on brutal interrogations in other nations – Thailand, Poland, and Cuba at Guantanamo Bay.
The early part of the 21st Century was also a time when both Russian and Chinese hackers penetrated Western computer systems and gained unprecedented intelligence that allowed them to copy advanced weapons and interfere with elections. This new CIA responded with strategies and tactics that were clearly illegal and questionably unethical.
I liked the book. What surprised me was how transparent it was in the CIA personnel who helped tell this important story. For the CIA to survive it must counter the current American president, who sees the Agency as a potential threat and impediment to his plans. It has to reveal former secrets to ensure its survival.
The story is well told and does not hold back any punches – particularly against Donald Trump. In doing so the author shows his bravery.
Usually I prefer books that are well written and that use photos and images to support their key points. In this case I think the fact that the text reveals so much, is extraordinary in itself. There were no photos and illustrations in the book.
This is a story the CIA needs the American people and the world to hear. For its existence and the security of our way of life depend on it.
It’s a good read. And it’s an important read.
The book starts with "9/11" and covers the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction, and continues right up until March 2025, following the inauguration of Donald Trump and his own mission to eradicate the “Deep State” and those who do not profess their fealty to him.
After the Cold War seemed to end in 1989 - with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unraveling of the USSR, - the CIA appeared to have lost its mission. Russia was no longer seen to be a threat, and China seemed to want to join the World Trade Organisation, thus seemingly reducing the need for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence.
This all changed with Al Queda’s attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. At the time the US knew little about this Islamic adversary and it had to quickly rebuild to fight the new “War on Terror”. What followed from this was a different CIA, and one that ran “Black sites” and relied on brutal interrogations in other nations – Thailand, Poland, and Cuba at Guantanamo Bay.
The early part of the 21st Century was also a time when both Russian and Chinese hackers penetrated Western computer systems and gained unprecedented intelligence that allowed them to copy advanced weapons and interfere with elections. This new CIA responded with strategies and tactics that were clearly illegal and questionably unethical.
I liked the book. What surprised me was how transparent it was in the CIA personnel who helped tell this important story. For the CIA to survive it must counter the current American president, who sees the Agency as a potential threat and impediment to his plans. It has to reveal former secrets to ensure its survival.
The story is well told and does not hold back any punches – particularly against Donald Trump. In doing so the author shows his bravery.
Usually I prefer books that are well written and that use photos and images to support their key points. In this case I think the fact that the text reveals so much, is extraordinary in itself. There were no photos and illustrations in the book.
This is a story the CIA needs the American people and the world to hear. For its existence and the security of our way of life depend on it.
It’s a good read. And it’s an important read.
November 19, 2025
What a crock. I selected this book in hopes of a interesting historical narrative. When the author opens with a bashing of the Bush Cheney administration, I took it in stride and acknowledged some valid points. When he moved next to completely gloss over Obama‘s cluelessness on foreign policy and Hillary‘s borderline, if not blatant treasonous actions, my eyebrows started to raise. Then when he attacks anybody on the right and conveniently leaves out the Biden crime family, the Clinton foundation abnormalities and misdeeds, Bengazi, the weaponization of government agencies against political enemies, namely, the IRS by Obama. It became apparent that this author couldn’t care less about presenting a history, but instead just wants to spew his political beliefs by focusing on things that advance his party’s interests. While many of his criticisms of the Republican presidents may be well founded he completely neglects that President Trump brokered multiple peace deals, got other countries to pay their fair share in NATO, closed the border, which had been wide open for terrorists under Biden, is starting to root out horrible corruption within our own government, and is bringing out the truth on issues that this author had completely wrong. I would love to have my money back on this one. The title is completely misleading.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 3, 2025
This book picks up where Weiner's 2007 National Book Award winning book "Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA" stops. Weiner in a respect journalist who has covered the CIA for over 40 years. Legacy and The Mission are both must reads for those with an interest in the impact of the activities of the USA through the CIA around the world in the 20th and 21st centuries. Weiner seems more sympathetic to the CIA in The Mission, reflecting that the deep moral stain of government sanctioned torture after 9/11 is more the fault of the country's political leadership than the CIA agents operating in the War on Terror's dark site trenches. The role of Russia in influencing the elections of 2016, 2020, and 2024 is clearly examined. China's aggressive information state and role in cyber warfare is well described. The Mission covers up to MARCH 2025, is timely and explains a lot about where we currently are and how we got here...
August 12, 2025
If you read one nonfiction book this year, this is the one. A brilliant, readable, and well-researched account of the CIA from 2000 to early 2025, The Mission is based on scores of interviews and documents, and contemporaneous stories in public media. I found it even more compelling than his previous award-winning Legacy of Ashes. Weiner is an excellent writer who knows his stuff. In places, the book reads like a good spy novel, but it’s all too real.
The Mission underscores the importance of government having clear policy and a moral compass. In particular, during George W. Bush’s administration neither was in evidence. The Iraq War was based on tailoring the CIA’s reports on weapons of mass destruction to the desire of the Bush administration to invade Iraq and dispose of Saddam Hussein. At the same time, intelligence on Al Quaeda suggested that a major terrorist event would occur, and soon. The CIA warned Bush 36 times; the President did nothing until after 9/11.
The road to torturing suspected terrorists is a long, sad chapter, well worth reading as a cautionary tale. Abu Ghraib was a moral failure and, as it turned out, ineffective at eliciting useful intelligence.
What is the CIA for? Is it for eliciting actionable intelligence? Conducting diplomacy? Political assassinations? Directing the conduct of foreign wars? It has been used for all of these purposes, but Weiner argues that its role should be the first of these—eliciting actionable intelligence. He blames Bush in particular for the agency’s missteps during the past quarter century. Presidents direct intelligence gathering through their appointments and their policy directives. Because CIA work is classified, presidents see no immediate consequences when the agency oversteps its boundaries. Sadly, boundary keeping is unlikely to improve under the second Trump administration. We have been warned.
The Mission underscores the importance of government having clear policy and a moral compass. In particular, during George W. Bush’s administration neither was in evidence. The Iraq War was based on tailoring the CIA’s reports on weapons of mass destruction to the desire of the Bush administration to invade Iraq and dispose of Saddam Hussein. At the same time, intelligence on Al Quaeda suggested that a major terrorist event would occur, and soon. The CIA warned Bush 36 times; the President did nothing until after 9/11.
The road to torturing suspected terrorists is a long, sad chapter, well worth reading as a cautionary tale. Abu Ghraib was a moral failure and, as it turned out, ineffective at eliciting useful intelligence.
What is the CIA for? Is it for eliciting actionable intelligence? Conducting diplomacy? Political assassinations? Directing the conduct of foreign wars? It has been used for all of these purposes, but Weiner argues that its role should be the first of these—eliciting actionable intelligence. He blames Bush in particular for the agency’s missteps during the past quarter century. Presidents direct intelligence gathering through their appointments and their policy directives. Because CIA work is classified, presidents see no immediate consequences when the agency oversteps its boundaries. Sadly, boundary keeping is unlikely to improve under the second Trump administration. We have been warned.
July 30, 2025
Substantively, it’s pretty good. Often exciting and wrestles with a lot of complicated questions in what I found to be a sober way.
The ideological slant is really in your face at times in a way that takes away from the factual material (which is otherwise strong) and becomes downright annoying/armchair quarterback-y.
The ideological slant is really in your face at times in a way that takes away from the factual material (which is otherwise strong) and becomes downright annoying/armchair quarterback-y.
September 25, 2025
3.5 stars
December 10, 2025
Absolutely dense with names and dates - it took me about 100 pages to get into it - but once I was in, I was IN. Utterly fascinating. I felt like I was in university again (but in a good way).
Part of you has to laugh [not actually] at how out of touch people can be. And it is this ignorance that lead to so many catastrophic events (the creation of ISIS being one of the biggest). Yet, it's not completely off-base. Just look at the current presidency and widespread psychosis causing ripple effects throughout the world. Democracy is on the line, and it started with the US.
Each president made terrible decisions during their time, but what would have been the right moves? I won't pretend to know. There are many questions of morality throughout this book, and I can say that I was left feeling glad that I'm not the one who has to make these decisions. This quote sums up the atrocious, yet justified to some, actions over the last 25 years:
"If we're going to defend our country against the evils that are out there, we can't go out there with our hands tied behind our back. We've got to fight tough. And that's the issue. How tough is too tough? When do we cross the line? When do we betray those values that we are fighting so hard to defend? When do we become them"? - James Olson, the Cold War leader of Russia House and former chief of counterintelligence (pg. 385)
More Notes [mostly for my own remembrance]:
[Bush Era]
-Torture was made an institution of the government of the United States: Bush could abrogate laws and constitutional constraints, order the military to massacre a village, or authorize cruel and inhumane interrogation. It wasn't torture as long as the prisoners weren't killed or severely injured in mind or body. And if it wasn't torture, it was what the CIA said it was, a refined set of "enhanced interrogation techniques. (85) [Thus came the harrowing chapters on black sites, waterboarding, murder and government coverups]
-[2006] "Not only was the strategy not working, but we couldn't explain to anybody what it was we were trying to do... I don't think you can explain something that doesn't exist." - Secretary of State, Rice (159)
- The strategic black hole at the White House was devouring tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. The Iraq war was breeding terrorists far faster than the CIA and American soldiers could capture or kill them. "The Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives," warned a new National Intelligence Estimate, the first four years to analyze worldwide terrorism trends. "Perceived jihadist success there would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere. The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause celbre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement." (259)
[Obama era]
- On his third day in office, Obama had authorized two drone strikes against training camps in Waziristan, killing five al Qaeda terrorists - and an estimated twenty civilians. Over the next eight yearsm he gave the executive orders for 540 more attacks, ten times the number Bush had launched, 80 percent of which were in Pakistan, the remainder in Yemen and Somalia. These killed 3,797 people, including 324 civilians..." (204-205)
- The chapters on the 2016 election and Russian interference were so interesting and horrific knowing the outcome
- The Intelligence Community publishing a statement confirming Russian-directed efforts to interfere with the election, only to be drowned out by events: "The statement went public at three p.m. on Friday, October 7. Sixty-three minutes later, the Washington Post revealed the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump boasted about sexually assualting women. Half an hour after that, WikiLeaks unleashed another barrage of Clinton campaign emails, stolen by the Russians six month before and stockpiled like an arsenal of flash-bang grenades ever since. ... "I am shocked," Morrell said, "that there wasn't a bigger outry from Congress, the executive branch, the media. People just kind of accepted...an attack on our democracy." (291)
- It wasn't enough for the intelligence community to have sounded the alarm. The president had to make sure the people heard it. Obama had failed to tell the community what he knew to be true. (292)
[Trump era]
- Withdrawl of US Troops from Afghanistan: "By the Spring of 2018, the American military estimated that the Taliban's forces had grown to roughly sixty thousand fighters, more than twice what they had been seven years before, and four times the size of the American military in Afghanistan. " (308)
- Breaking of the previous Doha agreement paved the way for the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan: "The agreement also committed the United States to ending air strikes against the Taliban. As the Taliban got stronger, the Afghan government and its army faced an unrelenting attack." (309)
- The term autogolpe, a coup from the top [Gina Haspel describing Trump] (337)
- Trump now installed a troika of MAGA men at the apex of the American military. The clown car had come to the Pentagon. (337)
- "'The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of polical liberty.'[- President Woodrow Wilson]. This too had been a credo of the CIA.
The means to that end had been brutal at times. The CIA's coups had overthrown freely elected leaders, swung elections with suitcases of cash, and supported dictators in the name of the United States. These missions were a foundation of American foreign policy for presidents from Truman to Reagan. So was the struggle against Soviet communism, and the CIA fought that battle around the world. Its veterans believed they had been on the side of the angels when they shipped missiles to the Afghan mujahideen and smuggled printing presses to Solidarity in Poland during the 1980s. These covert operations had undermined the Kremlin, which was the whole point of the Cold War, and had been ever since the CIA's foundation. And once the Russians lost, the world was transformed, or so it had seemed. By the turn of the twenty-first century, the number of democracies in the world was roughly equal to the number of autocracies. Never before in the history of civilization had so many free nations flourished. The moment was fleeting. Ever since, the arc of freedom in the world had flatlined and then fallen. The global decline of democracy had started when Bush invaded Iraq, justifying the war with the CIA's false warnings, and befouling the image of the United States as a beacon of freedom. Trump's rise to power had made the world take note that American democracy itself was in deep trouble, its politics descending into tribal warfare, its power to inspire the oppressed a distant memory. In office, the president attacked the freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and the legitimacy of free elections. He stripped the State Department of ambassadors, scorned his military commanders, and embraced dictators who killed and jailed their opponents. By the time of Trump's insurrection, autocracy was once again the rule across great swaths of the globe. The number of democratic nations had plunged to its lowest levels since the 1950s. Freedome had died through the corruption of political dialogue and the gradual erosion of civil liberties, human rights, and equal justice under law. Trump had brought America to the brink of anarchy. (343-344) [I mean, wow]
[Biden era]
- Biden did not grasp that the world as he knew it was ending, that the system of law and principles built after World War Two to keep the peace was shattering. He had no strategy for a new age of global conflict. And he had never articulated a war plan for the arming of Ukraine, simply framing it as an existential struggle between democratic principles and authoritarian power. (379)
- The partnership and use of espionage between the US and Ukraine
Part of you has to laugh [not actually] at how out of touch people can be. And it is this ignorance that lead to so many catastrophic events (the creation of ISIS being one of the biggest). Yet, it's not completely off-base. Just look at the current presidency and widespread psychosis causing ripple effects throughout the world. Democracy is on the line, and it started with the US.
Each president made terrible decisions during their time, but what would have been the right moves? I won't pretend to know. There are many questions of morality throughout this book, and I can say that I was left feeling glad that I'm not the one who has to make these decisions. This quote sums up the atrocious, yet justified to some, actions over the last 25 years:
"If we're going to defend our country against the evils that are out there, we can't go out there with our hands tied behind our back. We've got to fight tough. And that's the issue. How tough is too tough? When do we cross the line? When do we betray those values that we are fighting so hard to defend? When do we become them"? - James Olson, the Cold War leader of Russia House and former chief of counterintelligence (pg. 385)
More Notes [mostly for my own remembrance]:
[Bush Era]
-Torture was made an institution of the government of the United States: Bush could abrogate laws and constitutional constraints, order the military to massacre a village, or authorize cruel and inhumane interrogation. It wasn't torture as long as the prisoners weren't killed or severely injured in mind or body. And if it wasn't torture, it was what the CIA said it was, a refined set of "enhanced interrogation techniques. (85) [Thus came the harrowing chapters on black sites, waterboarding, murder and government coverups]
-[2006] "Not only was the strategy not working, but we couldn't explain to anybody what it was we were trying to do... I don't think you can explain something that doesn't exist." - Secretary of State, Rice (159)
- The strategic black hole at the White House was devouring tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. The Iraq war was breeding terrorists far faster than the CIA and American soldiers could capture or kill them. "The Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives," warned a new National Intelligence Estimate, the first four years to analyze worldwide terrorism trends. "Perceived jihadist success there would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere. The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause celbre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement." (259)
[Obama era]
- On his third day in office, Obama had authorized two drone strikes against training camps in Waziristan, killing five al Qaeda terrorists - and an estimated twenty civilians. Over the next eight yearsm he gave the executive orders for 540 more attacks, ten times the number Bush had launched, 80 percent of which were in Pakistan, the remainder in Yemen and Somalia. These killed 3,797 people, including 324 civilians..." (204-205)
- The chapters on the 2016 election and Russian interference were so interesting and horrific knowing the outcome
- The Intelligence Community publishing a statement confirming Russian-directed efforts to interfere with the election, only to be drowned out by events: "The statement went public at three p.m. on Friday, October 7. Sixty-three minutes later, the Washington Post revealed the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump boasted about sexually assualting women. Half an hour after that, WikiLeaks unleashed another barrage of Clinton campaign emails, stolen by the Russians six month before and stockpiled like an arsenal of flash-bang grenades ever since. ... "I am shocked," Morrell said, "that there wasn't a bigger outry from Congress, the executive branch, the media. People just kind of accepted...an attack on our democracy." (291)
- It wasn't enough for the intelligence community to have sounded the alarm. The president had to make sure the people heard it. Obama had failed to tell the community what he knew to be true. (292)
[Trump era]
- Withdrawl of US Troops from Afghanistan: "By the Spring of 2018, the American military estimated that the Taliban's forces had grown to roughly sixty thousand fighters, more than twice what they had been seven years before, and four times the size of the American military in Afghanistan. " (308)
- Breaking of the previous Doha agreement paved the way for the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan: "The agreement also committed the United States to ending air strikes against the Taliban. As the Taliban got stronger, the Afghan government and its army faced an unrelenting attack." (309)
- The term autogolpe, a coup from the top [Gina Haspel describing Trump] (337)
- Trump now installed a troika of MAGA men at the apex of the American military. The clown car had come to the Pentagon. (337)
- "'The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of polical liberty.'[- President Woodrow Wilson]. This too had been a credo of the CIA.
The means to that end had been brutal at times. The CIA's coups had overthrown freely elected leaders, swung elections with suitcases of cash, and supported dictators in the name of the United States. These missions were a foundation of American foreign policy for presidents from Truman to Reagan. So was the struggle against Soviet communism, and the CIA fought that battle around the world. Its veterans believed they had been on the side of the angels when they shipped missiles to the Afghan mujahideen and smuggled printing presses to Solidarity in Poland during the 1980s. These covert operations had undermined the Kremlin, which was the whole point of the Cold War, and had been ever since the CIA's foundation. And once the Russians lost, the world was transformed, or so it had seemed. By the turn of the twenty-first century, the number of democracies in the world was roughly equal to the number of autocracies. Never before in the history of civilization had so many free nations flourished. The moment was fleeting. Ever since, the arc of freedom in the world had flatlined and then fallen. The global decline of democracy had started when Bush invaded Iraq, justifying the war with the CIA's false warnings, and befouling the image of the United States as a beacon of freedom. Trump's rise to power had made the world take note that American democracy itself was in deep trouble, its politics descending into tribal warfare, its power to inspire the oppressed a distant memory. In office, the president attacked the freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and the legitimacy of free elections. He stripped the State Department of ambassadors, scorned his military commanders, and embraced dictators who killed and jailed their opponents. By the time of Trump's insurrection, autocracy was once again the rule across great swaths of the globe. The number of democratic nations had plunged to its lowest levels since the 1950s. Freedome had died through the corruption of political dialogue and the gradual erosion of civil liberties, human rights, and equal justice under law. Trump had brought America to the brink of anarchy. (343-344) [I mean, wow]
[Biden era]
- Biden did not grasp that the world as he knew it was ending, that the system of law and principles built after World War Two to keep the peace was shattering. He had no strategy for a new age of global conflict. And he had never articulated a war plan for the arming of Ukraine, simply framing it as an existential struggle between democratic principles and authoritarian power. (379)
- The partnership and use of espionage between the US and Ukraine
October 25, 2025
While I appreciate the very readable, narrative and the insightful, reporting, this book is more political than I anticipated. Many of the conclusions are thin or inadequately argued. The author often gives his commentary as a matter of fact, but does not do the work of making an argument. The reader is just supposed to trust his expertise. While I sometimes agree with the author it’s not because he convinced me.
October 9, 2025
DNF. There's so much browbeating and moralizing to the extent that it compromises the authenticity of the account.
There's so much unnecessary Trump commentary that I (a non-American who is no fan of Trump) found it exhausting. Apparently, Trump is the greatest threat that the world has ever faced in all of human history. This suggests an author who's never picked up a single history book, not a serious journalist.
There's so much unnecessary Trump commentary that I (a non-American who is no fan of Trump) found it exhausting. Apparently, Trump is the greatest threat that the world has ever faced in all of human history. This suggests an author who's never picked up a single history book, not a serious journalist.
October 22, 2025
This book reads like a memoir for William Burns and John Brennan. There is a tremendous amount of very recently declassified materials, which suggests to me that Central Intelligence Agency may have been an active participant in distributing this narrative (unless Mr. Weiner has a better way of executing FOIA requests than any other reporter). I didn’t find this as good as Mr. Weiner’s other entry in this field. “Legacy of Ashes.”
July 14, 2025
Author Tim Weiner has compiled a wealth of intriguing information and thoroughly researched material in "THE MISSION." For readers who appreciate in-depth exploration of such topics, this book promises to be both engaging and highly valuable.
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. The review is that of my own opinion.
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. The review is that of my own opinion.
August 9, 2025
"The Mission" is interesting enough, but about 300 pages in Weiner starts outlining the way Russia swayed the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump sickened me to the point that I had to quit reading.
August 28, 2025
More of a deeply documented dissertation than a compelling narrative
December 3, 2025
In this book "The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century", the author Tim Weiner has a written a follow-up to his previous book about the CIA, called "Legacy of Ashes", which I also read. Just like his previous book, "The Mission" is also very well-researched, extremely informative, and a great way for the lay reader to understand the CIA's role in modern America.
Weiner brings together an incredible amount of sources to weave together this narrative about what the CIA has been doing since the year 2000, the mistakes that it has made, and how it has responded to the political winds. Starting with 9/11, Weiner describes how the CIA attempted to raise alarms with the Bush administration to no avail, moving on to the intelligence failures around the War on Terror, and how China and Russia are currently ascendant on the world stage. This is a long book but is worth the read, as Americans everywhere should really know what the CIA is up to, as America navigates international geopolitics.
One of the most interesting observations I found in reading the book is seeing the evolution of the CIA from strictly an intelligence-gathering service in the 1900's, to its new role in essentially conducting covert wars the world over, all the behest of the President. The CIA has turned into the President's private army with no rules, marching across the world with no limits. This is not a positive trend, and I do fear how this might impact America in the years and decades ahead.
Overall, a very interesting read, although a long one, and something that should be talked about by Americans everywhere.
Weiner brings together an incredible amount of sources to weave together this narrative about what the CIA has been doing since the year 2000, the mistakes that it has made, and how it has responded to the political winds. Starting with 9/11, Weiner describes how the CIA attempted to raise alarms with the Bush administration to no avail, moving on to the intelligence failures around the War on Terror, and how China and Russia are currently ascendant on the world stage. This is a long book but is worth the read, as Americans everywhere should really know what the CIA is up to, as America navigates international geopolitics.
One of the most interesting observations I found in reading the book is seeing the evolution of the CIA from strictly an intelligence-gathering service in the 1900's, to its new role in essentially conducting covert wars the world over, all the behest of the President. The CIA has turned into the President's private army with no rules, marching across the world with no limits. This is not a positive trend, and I do fear how this might impact America in the years and decades ahead.
Overall, a very interesting read, although a long one, and something that should be talked about by Americans everywhere.
October 3, 2025
Tim Weiner’s "The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century" plunges readers into the clandestine corridors of American intelligence, charting a high-tension odyssey through the agency’s recent history with brisk storytelling and vivid detail. Weiner, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and unparalleled chronicler of espionage, brings his signature blend of skepticism and awe to the CIA’s evolution since the September 11 attacks, painting a riveting portrait of an organization perpetually at war—with both enemies abroad and demons within. From the opening pages, Weiner hooks readers with the drama of covert missions, internal power struggles, and global intrigue, introducing a cast of shadowy operatives and consequential directors whose decisions have shaped not just the CIA but the trajectory of American national security. The book’s pacing is relentless, with each chapter weaving together frontline anecdotes, interviews, and declassified revelations that feel ripped from a high-octane thriller. Yet, it never veers into caricature; instead, Weiner’s reporting pulses with authenticity, rendering the stakes and the casualties with humanity and nuance. “The Mission" stands out for its unflinching analysis of the CIA’s greatest victories and bitterest failures as it transitioned into a paramilitary force, overseeing drone wars, black site interrogations, and counterterrorism operations in an era of shifting threats. Weiner’s scrutiny is sharp, tracing the rippling consequences of intelligence missteps—from the shadowy hunt for bin Laden to the chaotic fallout of Arab Spring revolts. The author is equally adept at exposing bureaucratic infighting and technological revolutions, showing how institutional inertia and risk aversion threaten to hobble even the boldest initiatives. What makes this narrative truly entertaining, however, is Weiner’s gift for character study and dramatic tension. He brings readers up close with figures like George Tenet, Michael Hayden, and Gina Haspel, dissecting their triumphs, egos, and moral quandaries with psychological acuity. Ultimately, "The Mission" is not just a chronicle of covert operations but a dazzling meditation on how intelligence work redefines—and often distorts—the meaning of national power and trust. Few books illuminate the real-world stakes of modern espionage with such energy and narrative verve.
December 26, 2025
Well researched and well written. Flipped through some of the pages casually though because I’m so tired of reading the incompetencies and ignorance of these all important agencies. How did a nation so “f_ _ _ ed up” become the strongest nation in the world?
Does democracy really work?
Well the world’s greatest democracy is under a stress test now. Let’s see if she survives.
In the 70s, the nation had the republicans who pulled the rug from under their own president. Today, I wonder where are all the republicans and their ideals? Who will lead us when all fails…..
Does democracy really work?
Well the world’s greatest democracy is under a stress test now. Let’s see if she survives.
In the 70s, the nation had the republicans who pulled the rug from under their own president. Today, I wonder where are all the republicans and their ideals? Who will lead us when all fails…..
January 31, 2026
This book was not what I was expecting. It’s very much War on Terror, Russian interference in the 2016 election, and a tiny bit of Russian War in Ukraine. A lot of the information in this book was not new to me so I found that I was skipping through quite a lot of it. It does not talk about any other topics than those listed above. Book should be titled “CIA at War” or something different than the current title.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 11, 2025
Outstanding! This book takes a deep look at the CIA since 9/11 - mistakes and successes. This book is important for any in-depth look at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
August 24, 2025
Another book that every voter should read… or is it too late?
November 6, 2025
One’s personal view of the CIA goes through a roller coast ride reading this book. No matter your view of the agency, the epilogue reads like a sad end to it all.
February 1, 2026
Chilling account of the US under Trump, deep insights into the years prior. Sometimes a bit dense and difficult to follow
Read
October 31, 2025Super interesting read, I feel like it gave me a wide base of knowledge.
October 10, 2025
Tim Weiner’s *The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century* is not merely a history of America’s most enigmatic agency—it’s a portrait of an empire struggling with its own reflection.
Weiner, the Pulitzer-winning author of *Legacy of Ashes*, returns with a grim sequel of sorts, peeling back the glossy layers of patriotic myth to expose a CIA that’s become both indispensable and self-defeating. He tells a story of bureaucratic inertia, moral drift, and technological overreach, but does it with the pacing and paranoia of a spy thriller written by a historian with a hangover from too much truth.
The book begins where *Legacy of Ashes* left off—in the wreckage of the Cold War, where victory brought not peace but confusion. The CIA, designed to fight the Soviets with human intelligence and covert action, suddenly found itself adrift in a world where the enemy had evaporated. Weiner charts how this uncertainty led to a frantic search for relevance.
From the Balkans to Baghdad, the agency retooled itself as both warrior and watcher, increasingly leaning on drones, satellites, and data rather than spies in the field. And it is here, in this technological transformation, that the book becomes quietly tragic: the CIA, in trying to predict the future, forgot to understand the present.
Weiner writes with the forensic calm of someone who’s seen too many briefings go wrong. He doesn’t rant or moralize—he just assembles facts, interviews, and declassified documents into a grim mosaic. The picture that emerges is that of an organisation addicted to secrecy, struggling with accountability, and haunted by a fear of obsolescence.
The CIA of the 21st century, as Weiner presents it, is not a sleek machine of intelligence but a lumbering giant tangled in its own digital web. There’s something almost Kafkaesque about the way he describes bureaucratic paralysis in Langley, where analysts issue memos no one reads, and field operatives are reduced to Zoom diplomacy.
One of the book’s most powerful sections delves into 9/11 and its aftermath. Weiner doesn’t rehash the familiar failures; instead, he examines the deeper rot—the organisational culture that prized plausible deniability over proactive strategy. The CIA, he suggests, didn’t fail because it was lazy or stupid, but because it had been designed to hide, not to act. After 9/11, it suddenly had to be both sword and shield, and that schizophrenic mandate pushed it into moral chaos: torture programmes, black sites, secret wars. Weiner doesn’t indulge in outrage; he’s more disappointed than angry, like a teacher marking the same wrong answer for the hundredth time.
Weiner also gives attention to the Obama and Trump eras, showing how both administrations weaponised intelligence in different ways—Obama through data and drones, Trump through distrust and demoralisation. Under Obama, the CIA became a silent executioner, running drone strikes from afar, turning intelligence into instant action. Under Trump, the agency became paranoid and politicised, forced to defend its legitimacy while its directorate fractured under partisan suspicion. Weiner captures this tension with journalistic precision, never taking sides but always tracing consequences. The CIA’s war on terror, he argues, mutated into a war for its own survival.
Stylistically, Weiner remains the consummate chronicler of the American security state. His prose has that cool detachment of someone used to reading between redacted lines. He writes not to shock but to clarify. Sentences are crisp and factual, yet loaded with moral weight. The effect is cumulative—you don’t feel the horror of the CIA’s missteps immediately; it seeps in gradually, like radiation. What makes the book compelling is not its revelations (many of which are already public) but its coherence. Weiner connects decades of scattered failures into a single, damning narrative: the CIA, he shows, has become the most powerful intelligence agency on earth precisely because it has learnt to fail in secret.
But what really sets *The Mission* apart from Weiner’s earlier work is its tone of elegy. There’s a sense that the author mourns the old-fashioned human intelligence trade—the spy who could charm, lie, and adapt in the field. The modern CIA, obsessed with cyber warfare and data mining, seems to have lost its soul. Weiner is at his sharpest when he describes the rise of “the algorithmic spy,” a faceless analyst feeding AI models rather than cultivating informants. The result, he argues, is intelligence without intimacy, power without understanding. It’s a warning that feels chillingly relevant in the age of deepfakes and drone diplomacy.
There’s also a quiet undercurrent of irony running through the book: that the CIA’s greatest victories are often invisible, while its failures are spectacularly public. Weiner highlights moments where the Agency’s work did prevent catastrophes—plots foiled, alliances preserved—but these are overshadowed by the constant churn of misjudgments and misreads. The Iran invasion fiasco, the collapse of Afghanistan, and the murky interference in Syria—all serve as modern parables of an empire that can see everything yet understands nothing.
What’s fascinating is how Weiner manages to humanise the institution. His interviews with CIA officers—many speaking anonymously—reveal a workforce torn between duty and disillusionment. These are not movie spies but middle-aged analysts, burdened by secrecy and burnout, watching the world fall apart on high-definition screens. One agent’s confession—“We’ve become historians of crises instead of preventers”—lingers like a quiet indictment.
By the book’s final chapters, Weiner turns prophetic. He envisions a CIA at a crossroads: adapt or vanish. The new threats—cyberwarfare, climate instability, disinformation campaigns—cannot be met with Cold War reflexes. Yet the institution remains tethered to its past, forever reconstructing the world as a series of enemies and assets. The tragedy, Weiner implies, is that the CIA’s mission has expanded beyond comprehension. In trying to know everything, it has learnt almost nothing about itself.
If *Legacy of Ashes* was about how the CIA lost its moral compass, *The Mission* is about how it lost its map. It’s a masterwork of narrative non-fiction—exhaustively researched, deeply unsettling, and quietly moving. Tim Weiner isn’t just documenting an institution; he’s chronicling an American pathology, the belief that information equals control. In an age when intelligence has become both a commodity and a weapon, *The Mission* reads like both history and a warning label.
What lingers after the last page is not outrage, but melancholy. The CIA, Weiner suggests, is no longer the shadow government of conspiracy theorists’ dreams; it’s a weary bureaucracy chasing relevance in a chaotic world. Its agents are not puppet masters but ghosts, drifting between wars, policy shifts, and moral compromises. And perhaps that’s Weiner’s most haunting revelation: the most powerful intelligence agency in the world is as lost and human as the people it watches.
In the end, *The Mission* is less about espionage than about entropy. It’s a slow, riveting autopsy of a system built on secrecy, struggling to remain useful in an age that demands transparency.
Weiner gives us not heroes or villains, but a mirror—and in it, we see the blurred reflection of modern America: fearful, wired, omniscient, and unsure of what to do with all that knowledge.
Weiner, the Pulitzer-winning author of *Legacy of Ashes*, returns with a grim sequel of sorts, peeling back the glossy layers of patriotic myth to expose a CIA that’s become both indispensable and self-defeating. He tells a story of bureaucratic inertia, moral drift, and technological overreach, but does it with the pacing and paranoia of a spy thriller written by a historian with a hangover from too much truth.
The book begins where *Legacy of Ashes* left off—in the wreckage of the Cold War, where victory brought not peace but confusion. The CIA, designed to fight the Soviets with human intelligence and covert action, suddenly found itself adrift in a world where the enemy had evaporated. Weiner charts how this uncertainty led to a frantic search for relevance.
From the Balkans to Baghdad, the agency retooled itself as both warrior and watcher, increasingly leaning on drones, satellites, and data rather than spies in the field. And it is here, in this technological transformation, that the book becomes quietly tragic: the CIA, in trying to predict the future, forgot to understand the present.
Weiner writes with the forensic calm of someone who’s seen too many briefings go wrong. He doesn’t rant or moralize—he just assembles facts, interviews, and declassified documents into a grim mosaic. The picture that emerges is that of an organisation addicted to secrecy, struggling with accountability, and haunted by a fear of obsolescence.
The CIA of the 21st century, as Weiner presents it, is not a sleek machine of intelligence but a lumbering giant tangled in its own digital web. There’s something almost Kafkaesque about the way he describes bureaucratic paralysis in Langley, where analysts issue memos no one reads, and field operatives are reduced to Zoom diplomacy.
One of the book’s most powerful sections delves into 9/11 and its aftermath. Weiner doesn’t rehash the familiar failures; instead, he examines the deeper rot—the organisational culture that prized plausible deniability over proactive strategy. The CIA, he suggests, didn’t fail because it was lazy or stupid, but because it had been designed to hide, not to act. After 9/11, it suddenly had to be both sword and shield, and that schizophrenic mandate pushed it into moral chaos: torture programmes, black sites, secret wars. Weiner doesn’t indulge in outrage; he’s more disappointed than angry, like a teacher marking the same wrong answer for the hundredth time.
Weiner also gives attention to the Obama and Trump eras, showing how both administrations weaponised intelligence in different ways—Obama through data and drones, Trump through distrust and demoralisation. Under Obama, the CIA became a silent executioner, running drone strikes from afar, turning intelligence into instant action. Under Trump, the agency became paranoid and politicised, forced to defend its legitimacy while its directorate fractured under partisan suspicion. Weiner captures this tension with journalistic precision, never taking sides but always tracing consequences. The CIA’s war on terror, he argues, mutated into a war for its own survival.
Stylistically, Weiner remains the consummate chronicler of the American security state. His prose has that cool detachment of someone used to reading between redacted lines. He writes not to shock but to clarify. Sentences are crisp and factual, yet loaded with moral weight. The effect is cumulative—you don’t feel the horror of the CIA’s missteps immediately; it seeps in gradually, like radiation. What makes the book compelling is not its revelations (many of which are already public) but its coherence. Weiner connects decades of scattered failures into a single, damning narrative: the CIA, he shows, has become the most powerful intelligence agency on earth precisely because it has learnt to fail in secret.
But what really sets *The Mission* apart from Weiner’s earlier work is its tone of elegy. There’s a sense that the author mourns the old-fashioned human intelligence trade—the spy who could charm, lie, and adapt in the field. The modern CIA, obsessed with cyber warfare and data mining, seems to have lost its soul. Weiner is at his sharpest when he describes the rise of “the algorithmic spy,” a faceless analyst feeding AI models rather than cultivating informants. The result, he argues, is intelligence without intimacy, power without understanding. It’s a warning that feels chillingly relevant in the age of deepfakes and drone diplomacy.
There’s also a quiet undercurrent of irony running through the book: that the CIA’s greatest victories are often invisible, while its failures are spectacularly public. Weiner highlights moments where the Agency’s work did prevent catastrophes—plots foiled, alliances preserved—but these are overshadowed by the constant churn of misjudgments and misreads. The Iran invasion fiasco, the collapse of Afghanistan, and the murky interference in Syria—all serve as modern parables of an empire that can see everything yet understands nothing.
What’s fascinating is how Weiner manages to humanise the institution. His interviews with CIA officers—many speaking anonymously—reveal a workforce torn between duty and disillusionment. These are not movie spies but middle-aged analysts, burdened by secrecy and burnout, watching the world fall apart on high-definition screens. One agent’s confession—“We’ve become historians of crises instead of preventers”—lingers like a quiet indictment.
By the book’s final chapters, Weiner turns prophetic. He envisions a CIA at a crossroads: adapt or vanish. The new threats—cyberwarfare, climate instability, disinformation campaigns—cannot be met with Cold War reflexes. Yet the institution remains tethered to its past, forever reconstructing the world as a series of enemies and assets. The tragedy, Weiner implies, is that the CIA’s mission has expanded beyond comprehension. In trying to know everything, it has learnt almost nothing about itself.
If *Legacy of Ashes* was about how the CIA lost its moral compass, *The Mission* is about how it lost its map. It’s a masterwork of narrative non-fiction—exhaustively researched, deeply unsettling, and quietly moving. Tim Weiner isn’t just documenting an institution; he’s chronicling an American pathology, the belief that information equals control. In an age when intelligence has become both a commodity and a weapon, *The Mission* reads like both history and a warning label.
What lingers after the last page is not outrage, but melancholy. The CIA, Weiner suggests, is no longer the shadow government of conspiracy theorists’ dreams; it’s a weary bureaucracy chasing relevance in a chaotic world. Its agents are not puppet masters but ghosts, drifting between wars, policy shifts, and moral compromises. And perhaps that’s Weiner’s most haunting revelation: the most powerful intelligence agency in the world is as lost and human as the people it watches.
In the end, *The Mission* is less about espionage than about entropy. It’s a slow, riveting autopsy of a system built on secrecy, struggling to remain useful in an age that demands transparency.
Weiner gives us not heroes or villains, but a mirror—and in it, we see the blurred reflection of modern America: fearful, wired, omniscient, and unsure of what to do with all that knowledge.
November 12, 2025
This is the second book written by the author on the CIA. I also read the first. I suspect that it has been a mistake to give the CIA an operational role in foreign affairs. Presidents from Truman on have asked the CIA to do things that have not turned out well in the long term. Having secret forces acting internationally lets leaders pursue short-term objectives in ways that are best avoided. This book (like the author’s prior book on the CIA) lists a lot of failures of the organization. He also lists a few very important successes. He also says most of the successes have to remain secret, so the picture we get from this book may be biased to the negative. There is a lot of ground covered in this book; I learned things I didn’t know. The author covers many of the key people in the CIA over the last 25 years, so there are a log of names to learn, but it is important to try to follow along. These people have been responsible for key American actions. One thing I learned that disappointed me was that Biden was definitely responsible for the lack of good planning for the pullout from Afghanistan, although I still believe that the military should have had contingency plans for a rapid collapse of the Afghan army. I will just include a few quotes from the book to highlight some of the things that I did know, but were confirmed by reading this history:
“Every president since Truman had commanded the CIA to intervene with guns and money to control the fate of nations when sending in the Marines was not an option.”
Reading the history of the CIA in the early 2000s reminds me of just how awful a president George Bush was. He had no long-term vision or plan for the post-invasion of either Afghanistan or Iraq. He chose to start a war on fabricated information and was the first American leader to endorse torture. His choice of key people to trust was poor. I was struck by how panicked the key people in the CIA were with the 9-11 attack. I thought at the time we grossly over reacted to the terror attack and it is clear to me that we needed more steady people in the CIA, military, and overall government than we had. They were cowardly, too afraid of a second attack, and lost all sense of proportion.
“The CIA took charge of the attack in Afghanistan, for Rumsfeld had no plan and Bush had no vision but vengeance.”
General Franks was distracted from hunting bin Laden by planning the invasion of Iraq, which Cheney and Bush had decided to do one week after the 9/11 attack.
“…..Bush, Rumsfeld, and Franks had allowed bin Laden to live to fight another day.”
Anyone with any common sense would know that once you allow some torture, you will have excesses. We got through all our other wars without devolving in to officially endorsing torture, an attack by some terrorist should not have been enough to abandon our morality.
“An undisciplined first-tour CIA officer, Matt Zirbel, let a prisoner named Gul Rehman freeze to death while chained naked from the waist down to the concrete floor of a fetid hellhole codenamed the Salt Pit, at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul.”
“A few days after Gul Rehman was buried in an unmarked grave, soldiers of the Army’s 519th Military Intelligence Battalion beat two Afghan detainees to death in a prison adjacent to the Salt Pit. Their commanding officer later received a promotion and took the battalion to Iraq, where it ran interrogations at Abu Ghraib. The tortures at Bagram were transported directly to Baghdad.”
“The war on terror had gone adrift in 2007. Bush was gripped by a paralysis of policy and strategy and vision. The hunt for bin Laden had led nowhere. The CIA had struck blows against al Qaeda, but the forces of jihad had multiplied and metastasized all over the world.”
None of the CIA people involved in the wartime torture ever paid any price.
The part of the book about the Trump era was depressing. We will never fully recover from what the Republicans have allowed to happen with Trump.
As the CIA and FBI belatedly discovered, “there were extensive contacts between individuals affiliated with the Trump campaign and Russians, whether they be Russian citizens or Russian intelligence officers or Russians who had contacts with Russian intelligence,” Brennan said. “It was clear that the Trump campaign was seeking assistance from Russia.”
“The Russian assault on democracy once would have united American leaders. No longer. Obama had told Brennan to inform the Gang of Eight—the leaders of the Senate and the House and the intelligence committees—about Putin’s operation. But when he briefed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky on September 6, he received a startling rebuff.”….. “He put his party above national identity and national loyalty . He was very concerned that if there were revelations that the Russians were involved in the election, it could undermine Trump’s chances. He wanted to prevent that from happening.”
“The global decline of democracy had started when Bush invaded Iraq, justifying the war with the CIA’s false warnings, and befouling the image of the United States as a beacon of freedom. Trump’s rise to power had made the world take note that American democracy itself was in deep trouble, its politics descending into tribal warfare, its power to inspire the oppressed a distant memory. In office, the president attacked the freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and the legitimacy of free elections. He stripped the State Department of ambassadors, scorned his military commanders, and embraced dictators who killed and jailed their opponents. By the time of Trump’s insurrection, autocracy was once again the rule across great swaths of the globe. The number of democratic nations had plunged to its lowest levels since the 1950s.
“The United States is governed by a man who admires dictators and despots, aspires to rule as an autocrat, despises civil liberties, and threatens to imprison his opponents. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that presidents cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed in office, they can abuse their power freely. They can instruct the CIA to spy on Americans, to subvert their domestic enemies, to conduct political assassinations with impunity, to start a war in secret.”
“Every president since Truman had commanded the CIA to intervene with guns and money to control the fate of nations when sending in the Marines was not an option.”
Reading the history of the CIA in the early 2000s reminds me of just how awful a president George Bush was. He had no long-term vision or plan for the post-invasion of either Afghanistan or Iraq. He chose to start a war on fabricated information and was the first American leader to endorse torture. His choice of key people to trust was poor. I was struck by how panicked the key people in the CIA were with the 9-11 attack. I thought at the time we grossly over reacted to the terror attack and it is clear to me that we needed more steady people in the CIA, military, and overall government than we had. They were cowardly, too afraid of a second attack, and lost all sense of proportion.
“The CIA took charge of the attack in Afghanistan, for Rumsfeld had no plan and Bush had no vision but vengeance.”
General Franks was distracted from hunting bin Laden by planning the invasion of Iraq, which Cheney and Bush had decided to do one week after the 9/11 attack.
“…..Bush, Rumsfeld, and Franks had allowed bin Laden to live to fight another day.”
Anyone with any common sense would know that once you allow some torture, you will have excesses. We got through all our other wars without devolving in to officially endorsing torture, an attack by some terrorist should not have been enough to abandon our morality.
“An undisciplined first-tour CIA officer, Matt Zirbel, let a prisoner named Gul Rehman freeze to death while chained naked from the waist down to the concrete floor of a fetid hellhole codenamed the Salt Pit, at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul.”
“A few days after Gul Rehman was buried in an unmarked grave, soldiers of the Army’s 519th Military Intelligence Battalion beat two Afghan detainees to death in a prison adjacent to the Salt Pit. Their commanding officer later received a promotion and took the battalion to Iraq, where it ran interrogations at Abu Ghraib. The tortures at Bagram were transported directly to Baghdad.”
“The war on terror had gone adrift in 2007. Bush was gripped by a paralysis of policy and strategy and vision. The hunt for bin Laden had led nowhere. The CIA had struck blows against al Qaeda, but the forces of jihad had multiplied and metastasized all over the world.”
None of the CIA people involved in the wartime torture ever paid any price.
The part of the book about the Trump era was depressing. We will never fully recover from what the Republicans have allowed to happen with Trump.
As the CIA and FBI belatedly discovered, “there were extensive contacts between individuals affiliated with the Trump campaign and Russians, whether they be Russian citizens or Russian intelligence officers or Russians who had contacts with Russian intelligence,” Brennan said. “It was clear that the Trump campaign was seeking assistance from Russia.”
“The Russian assault on democracy once would have united American leaders. No longer. Obama had told Brennan to inform the Gang of Eight—the leaders of the Senate and the House and the intelligence committees—about Putin’s operation. But when he briefed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky on September 6, he received a startling rebuff.”….. “He put his party above national identity and national loyalty . He was very concerned that if there were revelations that the Russians were involved in the election, it could undermine Trump’s chances. He wanted to prevent that from happening.”
“The global decline of democracy had started when Bush invaded Iraq, justifying the war with the CIA’s false warnings, and befouling the image of the United States as a beacon of freedom. Trump’s rise to power had made the world take note that American democracy itself was in deep trouble, its politics descending into tribal warfare, its power to inspire the oppressed a distant memory. In office, the president attacked the freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and the legitimacy of free elections. He stripped the State Department of ambassadors, scorned his military commanders, and embraced dictators who killed and jailed their opponents. By the time of Trump’s insurrection, autocracy was once again the rule across great swaths of the globe. The number of democratic nations had plunged to its lowest levels since the 1950s.
“The United States is governed by a man who admires dictators and despots, aspires to rule as an autocrat, despises civil liberties, and threatens to imprison his opponents. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that presidents cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed in office, they can abuse their power freely. They can instruct the CIA to spy on Americans, to subvert their domestic enemies, to conduct political assassinations with impunity, to start a war in secret.”
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