Weiner’s The Mission offers a nuanced CIA history
Journalist Tim Weiner documented the Central Intelligence Agency’s operations from 2001 through 2025 in his book, examining the agency’s shift from counterterrorism to great-power competition. Weiner gained access to former director William Burns and numerous agency veterans to chronicle events spanning the Afghanistan invasion through the second Trump administration. The account portrays an agency that reached peak influence by eliminating Osama bin Laden in May 2011, but struggled with Chinese intelligence breaches that destroyed American spy networks.
The author warns that President Donald Trump poses serious threats to the agency’s independence through potential orders targeting domestic surveillance or political assassinations. Weiner softened his critical stance from earlier works while maintaining concerns about torture programs at black sites and intelligence failures preceding the Iraq War. The narrative highlights successful Ukrainian intelligence cooperation under Burns while questioning whether traditional espionage tradecraft remains viable amid advances in surveillance technology.
