Hello Insight Monitor subscribers, and happy belated Canada Day! We had a wild one in Ottawa yesterday — some of the biggest storms I’ve seen in my nearly thirty years in the city. Power was out, trees were down, our main highway turned into a river, and there were hundreds of lightning strikes, and over 100mm of rain fell. You know what else is wild? The story in Toronto about a shooter-for-hire network. I sat down with the Canadaland podcast to talk about the possible Iranian connection, other potential culprits, and what Canadians can expect from authorities on this front.
The best part (IMO) was that I got to introduce my strategic actor selection model: a model I developed that helps explain when and why states use criminal actors to conduct covert action like state-sponsored assassinations, sabotage, and more. You can read more about it at the link below, and a full paper developing the ideas more thoroughly (with case studies!) will be out sometime soonish through SOC-ACE.
In the meantime, happy listening, and be sure to let me know what you think in the comments! And if you find this insightful, please share with a friend and help grow this community.
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