Guarding the Republic
Counterintelligence, Statecraft, and the Defense of the American Idea
Guarding the Republic advances a foundational argument that has shaped Dr. McNeil's career: American counterintelligence is not merely a defensive tradecraft function but a strategic expression of what this nation is and what it is trying to protect. The threat is not simply espionage. It is an assault on the philosophical proposition that constitutes American identity.
Drawing on more than two decades of operational and policy experience across the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff — and grounded in doctoral research at The Institute of World Politics — the book examines how counterintelligence doctrine must evolve to meet the strategic ambitions of China and other great-power adversaries. It argues for CI as a warfighting function, not an administrative one, and offers a framework for building the institutional capacity to sustain that function across the full spectrum of national security competition.
Written for policymakers, practitioners, scholars, and serious readers of national security affairs, Guarding the Republic connects operational reality to strategic theory in a way that most CI literature does not attempt.
