The Academy's Scholar-Practitioners

Sean M. Wiswesser has 30 years of experience working as a national security
professional with intelligence, foreign service, and defense organizations. As a
senior operations officer with the CIA, he served on multiple overseas tours and
many other deployments on temporary duty, including service in conflict zones
and denied areas. He was a Chief of Station and had multiple joint-duty
assignments with intelligence community partners.

Sean currently consults for the Department of Defense for a number of
companies, working on various programs, including weapons testing as well as
intelligence support and training programs.

He 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, where he
received the Russia Integrated Deterrence Award. 

Sean has been published with chapters in collaborative volumes with Army
War College Press and Taylor and Francis (UK), as well as articles in the Journal
of Small Wars and other publications. He has a column KREMLIN FILES with DC-
based “The CIPHER Brief.”

Sean’s book, "Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks: Russian intelligence and Putin’s Secret War" was released by the Naval Institute in April 2026.