Ex-CIA Spy: China Is Preparing & We're Not Paying Attention! Here's What Happens If They Takeover!
Mike Baker (guest), Steven Bartlett (host), Narrator, Steven Bartlett (host)
In this episode of The Diary of a CEO, featuring Mike Baker and Steven Bartlett, Ex-CIA Spy: China Is Preparing & We're Not Paying Attention! Here's What Happens If They Takeover! explores ex-CIA spy warns: China escalates silent war as West sleeps Former CIA operations officer Mike Baker explains how clandestine tradecraft, human psychology, and intelligence-gathering translate directly into business success and high‑stakes decision making. He then dissects current geopolitical flashpoints—Russia–Ukraine, China–Taiwan and the South China Sea, Iran’s proxy network, and Israel–Hamas—arguing the West underestimates both adversaries’ intent and methods.
Ex-CIA spy warns: China escalates silent war as West sleeps
Former CIA operations officer Mike Baker explains how clandestine tradecraft, human psychology, and intelligence-gathering translate directly into business success and high‑stakes decision making. He then dissects current geopolitical flashpoints—Russia–Ukraine, China–Taiwan and the South China Sea, Iran’s proxy network, and Israel–Hamas—arguing the West underestimates both adversaries’ intent and methods.
Baker sees China as already on a de facto war footing with the West, primarily through economic, cyber, and information operations rather than open conflict. He predicts the Ukraine war will end in an unsatisfying negotiated settlement and believes any Middle East ceasefires will merely “put a Band‑Aid on a sucking chest wound” while Iran’s regime remains in place.
He warns that future global conflict will hit Western homelands directly via attacks on critical infrastructure, space assets, and information systems, even without nuclear exchange. Alongside this, he emphasizes simple but demanding personal rules—clear mission, understanding risk, decisive action, and working slightly harder than everyone else—as the real foundations of both operational and business success.
Key Takeaways
Intelligence tradecraft is directly transferable to business development and sales.
Baker’s CIA work revolved around identifying who holds critical information, understanding their motivations and weaknesses, building trust, and then ‘closing the deal’ by persuading them to betray their own side. ...
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Listening more than you talk is a powerful, underused intelligence and sales tool.
Whether with cab drivers, cleaners, security guards, or senior officials, Baker consistently gets people talking simply by asking questions and revealing little about himself. ...
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Define the mission, understand your risk appetite, and then make a decision with imperfect information.
The CIA invests heavily in clarifying mission and acceptable risk before any operation; Baker argues most companies skip this. ...
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The Ukraine war is highly unlikely to end in total Ukrainian victory; prepare for a messy negotiated settlement.
Baker notes Russia currently holds about 20% of Ukrainian territory, has superior manpower, and is grinding through a war of attrition while Ukrainian resolve and energy infrastructure erode. ...
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China is already behaving as if it is at war with the West—just not kinetically.
Citing experts he trusts, Baker argues Beijing views itself in a long-term struggle with the US‑led order and is acting accordingly: militarizing the South China Sea, rehearsing blockades around Taiwan, investing in space and directed-energy weapons, conducting massive cyber and economic espionage, and pushing disinformation. ...
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Iran’s regime and proxy network are the primary engine of ongoing Middle East instability.
Baker lays out how Iran funds and arms proxies—Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis—while openly committing to Israel’s destruction and even trying to assassinate US officials. ...
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Future global conflicts will hit Western homelands via infrastructure, space, and information systems before soldiers.
Baker is less worried about immediate nuclear exchange than about adversaries mapping and probing Western critical infrastructure—power grids, water plants, transport, pharma, finance, and satellites. ...
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Notable Quotes
“China is basically on a war footing with the West already. We just don't see it or we don't feel it or we don't want to acknowledge it.”
— Mike Baker
“If you want peace in Ukraine, you have to keep them strong enough to sit down at the negotiating table from a position of relative strength.”
— Mike Baker
“You have to deal with the world you’ve got, not the one you hope for.”
— Mike Baker
“All you’ve got to do is work a little bit harder than everyone else. The gain you get from that is shocking.”
— Mike Baker
“My job as a parent is not to raise average kids. There’s enough mediocrity out there. My job is to raise exceptional children.”
— Mike Baker
Questions Answered in This Episode
You argue that China is already ‘at war’ with the West in a non-kinetic sense. If Western leaders fully accepted that framing tomorrow, what are the first three concrete policy changes you’d expect—or want—to see?
Former CIA operations officer Mike Baker explains how clandestine tradecraft, human psychology, and intelligence-gathering translate directly into business success and high‑stakes decision making. ...
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
You predict an ‘unsatisfying’ negotiated settlement in Ukraine. If you were advising Zelenskyy privately, what red lines would you tell him are non‑negotiable, and where would you tell him he has to be prepared to compromise?
Baker sees China as already on a de facto war footing with the West, primarily through economic, cyber, and information operations rather than open conflict. ...
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You describe Iran’s regime as the central driver of Middle Eastern instability but also say you’re not a warmonger. What, in your view, is the most realistic pathway to constraining or replacing that regime without triggering a region‑wide war?
He warns that future global conflict will hit Western homelands directly via attacks on critical infrastructure, space assets, and information systems, even without nuclear exchange. ...
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You emphasize that future conflicts will target critical infrastructure and space assets. For a mid‑sized company that isn’t in defense or tech, what are three specific resilience steps they should take in the next 12 months based on what you’re seeing?
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You’re candid that CIA recruitment relies on manipulation and leverage, yet you also stress honesty and loyalty as core personal values. How do you reconcile those ethics in practice, and where is the line you refused—or would refuse—to cross, either in espionage or in corporate work?
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Transcript Preview
(instrumental music plays) China is at war with the West already, we just don't see it. And when I look at a map like this, I see a lot of problems. Here is one issue. Over there, Putin is threatening nuclear weapons. And then this regime has been engaged in assassination plots on the president-elect. And then over here, this is looming, right, it's a major issue.
Who's the real enemy of the West in your opinion?
I've talked to a number of experts and their take is-
It's them. How do you think this ends?
Um ... (clears throat)
Ex-CIA officer, Mike Baker, spent decades in the field mastering the spy skills you need to achieve success in business and everyday life.
And offers unique insights into the looming geopolitical threats that's facing the West. When you left the CIA, you started being a spy for companies. Why?
Because at its core, the CIA's responsibility is to get intelligence. Because without that, you cannot make smart, strategic decisions. And if you can sell the idea to somebody that they should commit treason on their country and betray their family to gather intelligence and protect US national security interests, then that's an incredible skill to use in selling a business. And there's a lot of ways you can do this. People are capable of it, more so than they realize. But there's a lot of similarities between what I used to do in the spy world and what you do in business. There's targeting, manipulation, psychology of how people think, identifying weaknesses and leverage, how to close the deal. The most important thing I took away was what I refer to as getting off the x, and that's how you get companies to stay with you for 20 years.
Let's go through all of them.
First of all, you start with ... (music stops)
This has always blown my mind a little bit, 53% of you that listen to this show regularly haven't yet subscribed to the show. So could I ask you for a favor before we start? If you like the show and you like what we do here and you wanna support us, the free, simple way that you can do just that is by hitting the subscribe button. And my commitment to you is, if you do that, that I'll do everything in my power, me and my team, to make sure that this show is better for you every single week. We'll listen to your feedback, we'll find the guests that you want me to speak to, and we'll continue to do what we do. Thank you so much. (instrumental music plays) Mike, who are you? And give me a couple of sentences on the journey of your career and what it's exposed you to.
I'm, uh, a dude who's been very fortunate in life. Um, I started with the CIA, uh, at an early age, not necessarily expecting to start with the CIA in the operations directorate.
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