“This is a time of historic challenges for the CIA and the entire intelligence profession,” writes CIA Director William Burns in an essay in the forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs. Geopolitical instability and technological shifts are making the CIA’s job “harder than ever.” But “there will continue to be secrets that only humans can collect and clandestine operations that only humans can conduct.” Success in this new era, he writes, “will depend on blending traditional human intelligence with emerging technologies in creative ways.”

Covering everything from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mindset to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s calculus, Burns offers his take on today’s changing geopolitical landscape. On the Middle East, where Burns is actively involved in negotiations to free the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, he writes: “I have spent much of the last four decades working in and on the Middle East, and I have rarely seen it more tangled or explosive.”