Dr Magda Long has almost 20 years of combined work and academic experience in defence and security, intelligence, and risk management. In addition to being a Visiting Research Fellow at The King’s Centre for the Study of Intelligence at the War Studies Department at King’s College London, she is also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Subversion, Unconventional Interventions, and Terrorism at the University of Nottingham and an Honorary Fellow at the University of Exeter’s Strategy and Security Institute.

Dr Long’s research examines how states use covert activities to pursue their foreign policy objectives, mitigate national security threats, and as a tool of irregular warfare. She has given guest lectures on covert activities to undergraduate and postgraduate students at several academic institutions and at international academic conferences. Dr. Long has also written academic studies on national approaches to covert action, proxy warfare, terrorist financing, and how states use organised crime to pursue geostrategic objectives covertly.

Prior to her academic career, Dr Long worked as a defence and security analyst at RAND Corporation in Europe, as a senior manager in risk management and open-source intelligence-related roles at Deloitte in the US, and with international organisations in conflict and post-conflict societies on issues related to security, fraud, and corruption.

Research Interests

• Covert action
• Intelligence
• Irregular warfare
• Organised crime
• Counterterrorism

Publications

• M. Long, R. Cormac, G. Lester, M. Stout, and D. Van Puyvelde (eds.), Covert Action: National Approaches to Unacknowledged Intervention (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, Contracted).
• M. Long and M. Stout, “Covert Action: United States,” in M. Long, R. Cormac, G. Lester, M. Stout, and D. Van Puyvelde (eds.), Covert Action: National Approaches to Unacknowledged Intervention (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, Contracted).
• “American Covert Action and Diplomacy Post-9/11,” Statecraft and Diplomacy, Volume 33, No. 2 (2022): 379-402, https://doi.org/10.1080/09592296.2022.2062133
• “Covert Action and Proxy War Studies,” in A. Moghadam, V. Rauta, and M. Wyss (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Proxy Wars (London: Routledge, 2023), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003174066
• “An Essential Tool of American Foreign Policy: US Covert Action since 1947,” The International Spectator (2023), https://doi.org/10.1080/03932729.2023.2168412
• “Is Western Covert Action a Viable Policy Option in Ukraine?” King’s College London, School of Security Studies and King’s Russia Institute, March 17, 2022, https://www.kcl.ac.uk/is-western-covert-action-a-viable-policy-option-in-ukraine
• M. Long and D. Richterova, “What are the Implications of Ukraine's Civilian Resistance Going Viral?” King’s College London, School of Security Studies and King’s Russia Institute, March 10, 2022, https://www.kcl.ac.uk/what-are-the-implications-of-ukraines-civilian-resistance-going-viral
• M. Long, “Covert Actions Today,” Interview with Dr. Giangiuseppe Pili, Scuola Filosofica, November 26, 2020, https://www.scuolafilosofica.com/9538/magda-long-covert-actions
• “ISIS: Financing,” in G. Moore (ed.), Encyclopedia of U.S. Intelligence (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2018), https://doi.org/10.1081/E-EUSI-140000509
• “ISIS: Background,” in G. Moore (ed.), Encyclopedia of U.S. Intelligence (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2018), https://doi.org/10.1081/E-EUSI-140000510