Spurred by the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Chanticleer Intelligence Brief (CIB) has launched the COVID-19 Intelligence Project. The CIB went into a contingency mode of operation on March 11, 2020, almost as soon as the World Health Organization recognized the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) as a pandemic. Like any intelligence agency would do, our organization immediately re-tasked its dozens of members with monitoring the progression of the pandemic in various areas of the world, including the United States.

This rapid re-organization and re-purposing of the CIB produced the CIB COVID-19 Intelligence Project, an open-source intelligence collective, whose goal is to provide descriptive and estimative analyses of the complex medical, social, economic and political effects of this global crisis. The results of our work are now being aired weekly on our CIB COVID-19 Intelligence Report podcast, which becomes available every Wednesday. The podcast is produced and presented by CIB faculty mentor Dr. Joseph Fitsanakis, and features reports and appearances by a host of CIB analyst and senior analysts. Podcast episodes are available here.

On our first episode, we speak with CIB Senior Analyst Kaitlin Presnell about the impact of COVID-19 on the ongoing civil war in Yemen. We also chat with CIB Senior Analyst and Russian military affairs expert Michael Beatty about how the Russian Armed Forces are responding to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Finally, we will discuss the potential for the imposition of martial law in the United States with CIB Analyst Ana Maria Lankford, who is a member of the CIB’s North America Desk. CIB members who wish to participate in the COVID-19 Intelligence Project should contact their heads of desk.