EverydaySpy Podcast - RAW vs CIA: Why India’s Spy Agency Might Be More Dangerous Than You Think

Episode Date: July 12, 2026

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Explain me how you see raw. and CIA. Like, what are the differences? What do they do? How are they different in approach? That's a good question. And I would love to be smarter on R-A-W. We call them R-A-W.

Raw. R-A-W, yeah. Yeah, the research analysis wing. I'm happy to use the word raw, if that's what they're called, and if that's what they're called in it. No, no, it's okay. But CIA is largely a human intelligence,

centralized intelligence aggregator. So what that means is CIA is the primary intelligence service in the United States for collecting human intelligence, for going out and meeting with people and getting secrets from people and turning those secrets into intel reports that get condensed into analysis reports that get shared with the president. But it's only really for human intelligence. NSA does signals intelligence. DoD or DIA does defense military intelligence. And we have all these different intelligence groups that do all sorts of different things. Inside India, RAW doesn't really only serve one purpose. It serves multiple purposes. It has paramilitary activities.

CIA also has paramilitary activities, but CIA's paramilitary activity is small. RAW's paramilitary are comparatively much larger. RAW also handles more than just humans. They handle SIGAN, they handle open source intelligence. they don't serve as the only aggregator of intelligence around all of India, whereas the United States, CIA is the central aggregator for all intelligence. CIA is what produces a daily report for the president. I don't know if RAA of RAW of RAA, of RAU, creates a central daily report for the prime minister. I don't think they do, but I don't know.

So those are kind of some of the differences. CIA is very well funded, one of the best, highest funded, intelligence organizations, government agencies in the United States. RAW is not one of the highest funded government organizations inside India. So there's a number of differences in those ways. Also, RAS focuses on analysis. CIA's focus is on intelligence. And what I mean by that is Raw's focus is on producing something useful from multiple sources of intelligence. CIA is not necessarily focused on analysis or focused on the multiple sources of intelligence. They centralize the intelligence and then from there they try to create useful analytics or useful analysis of the

Intel where for raw it's in the name. Analysis is critical to them. And then of course the number of enemies. CIA is focused on the whole world. But the research analysis ring, Raw, is primarily focused on Pakistan. Another fantastic difference between CIA and RIAW. CIA, everybody, knows about CIA. There's Wikipedia pages about CIA. You can find it in movies and television shows, but nobody talks about raw, right? It's still either a secret because they've kept the secret, or it's a secret because India doesn't make noise. They don't want the world to think that they're good at intelligence. They want the world to think that they're bad at intelligence, so then they're constantly underestimated. CIA is the opposite. Do you think they're bad at intelligence? No, I don't

think so at all. I think that India is one of the best countries at intelligence worldwide. Maybe they're not in the top three. They're not like the Mossad, which always makes a big splash. They're not like CIA, which always makes a big splash. But they're very similar to the British MI6. British MI6 is very, very good, but nobody talks about them. You never know what they're doing, right? Well, India is a former colony of Great Britain. Where do you think Raw was trained by MI6? So they're both what we call silent or quiet professionals. They're very good at what they do. They don't even leave a trace.

They're more like Russia. When Russia carries out spy operations, by and large, you don't know they're happening. Yes, sometimes they kill somebody in public with a cyanide pill or with a poison umbrella. But not often. How many times does the SVR, the Russian intelligence service, how many times does SVR make the newspaper? Almost never. Neither does MI6, neither does CIA, or I'm sorry, neither does RAW. Who makes the newspaper all the time?

Fucking CIA and Mossad. But that can also be a technique or a strategy. 100%. To just make so much noise so that people don't know what really is going on behind the noise. They don't know what you're actually capable of. They become afraid of you. We call this information warfare, right? Not covert influence, because it's not covert.

It's very overt, but it's still. creates this information landscape where you're intimidating the world into thinking, well, if they can do that, what else can they do? Right? RAW operates at a much, much lower budget than CIA. If you haven't discovered your natural-born spy skills, then somebody else may be using theirs against you. CIA teaches us there are only three types of people.

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Does that, as a former CIA spy, does that bother you or does that impress you? It's impressive more than anything. Anytime people have effective national security on a small budget, that's impressive. Considering what the United States spends on national security. But I also go back to the fact that India is really focused on one enemy. One enemy means that you only have to have enough budget to cover protecting you against one enemy. The United States has every enemy, every country in the world is in some way, shape, or form an enemy.

So we have to have a budget that covers every country in the world. Which is, what is the biggest threat to India? Pakistan, without a doubt, Pakistan. What is some threat that we are not aware of? I would imagine. Some level of intelligence. No, yeah, yeah. So I think the biggest threat to India is similar to the threat to the United States.

China strategically wants to keep India minimized just like China strategically wants the United States to be on decline

because not only does China not want the United States to improve it doesn't want any other new superpower to rise to compete with China

because China knows what it's doing to the United States and it doesn't want to let anybody else do that to it. So it will partner with Russia to keep Russia down.

It will partner with Iran to keep Iran down. It can It can suppress these economies. India is still independent. So it's figuring out what to do with India, which is why almost every quarter,

the relationship between China and India changes because China will overstep and show that it's trying to suppress India, and India will take back its claim and China will back off. And you have this very contentious relationship between the Chinese and the Indians. But that's not a threat that you're not aware of.

I would say it's a threat that can be very, difficult to identify because it's multifaceted. It has to do with your military and their military, your economy and their economy, your technology and their technology. Every time an Indian company uses a Chinese technology, that Chinese technology is capturing Indian data and it's saving that Indian data and it's preparing to use that Indian data against India. The United States isn't that different, which is why India should be investing in its own

organic, its own native infrastructure. Have you heard about snatch 400? No. There's an operation, according to reports, that India was able to snatch about 400 of people in Nepal, Bangladesh, and all around the world with just that kind of budget. Wow. So snatch meaning render, like, like Hampshire. In just one decade, they were able to identify. these people who are, who are like national enemies, who have done different kind of terrorist

activities, they've been able to either bring them back to a country from Nepal, Bangladesh, Colombo, or they've been able to terminate them, destroy them. Neutralize. We like neutralize more than terminate or destroy. Or kill them in some form or extradit them. it legally, illegally somehow. So they've been able to do that. That's like Mossad-level precision.

Well, yes, it's very impressive. But let's also make sure there's almost zero chance that Raw did that by itself. It's almost certain that they did that in concert with the United States or with the UK because they were going after terrorist targets. That's one of the big benefits for countries that are allied with the United States.

It's one of the reasons so many countries even though they don't like our president and they don't like our policies, they still cooperate with us. Because they know the United States helps other countries with their own national security issues. So you can, instead of spending your own money, you can spend American dollars to capture terrorists that are a threat to India. All you have to do is go to the United States and say, hey, we have a target. Here's where they are. Here's what they're doing. They're an Islamic extremist.

And we know that you want to capture Islamic extremists. It just so happens that this Islamic extremists is planning an attack in Mumbai. Well, now you get the benefit of still neutralizing the terrorist. The United States gets the benefit of capturing another terrorists. And you don't have to spend as much money or as many resources because the United States will come in and provide Navy SEALs, airplanes, helicopters, planning, satellite imagery, intelligence, you know, infill plans, ex-filled plans, night vision goggles, everything.

They'll pay for it all to take down the terrorist, even though the terrorist was planning an attack in India. So that's smarter. Very smart. Yeah. Make Americans pay for the stuff that we want to get done. So CIA and Raw works together on a lot of different missions, right? There are reports.

I don't know how true that is or how false that is. Because to validate the truthfulness in this whole matter is way above my intelligence and pay rate. So I'm just going to ask you, do you think? Do you know about it or do you think it's true? So I'm going to read it as it is because I don't want to get it wrong. It's like in 2004, there was a guy named Rabindah Singh, a raw joint secretary, defected to the United States with classified files. He's reportedly living in New Jersey now with CIA asylum.

So now the question is, when a CIA asset defects from a partner intelligence service with classified files, is. What does that do to the relationship between two countries? It's very difficult. It creates an incredible amount of tension. That said, what you just read is by no means impossible. I wouldn't even say it's unlikely because the relationship between the United States and India is strong, but it's not close, right? The United States knows that India is going to do its own thing. It helps with China. It helps with Russia. It skirts sanctions. So it's not like they're so close to India like they're so close to, say, Germany. And it's a, it is absolutely a standard kind of intelligence operation to have one country

have an individual defect with classified information that they bring to another country. and then they basically trade asylum for their classified information. So all of that makes sense. And if the information is important enough, the United States would say you can stay here. If the information wasn't that important, they would send them right back to India because it's about the information. Is the information worth the geopolitical blowback of pissing off India? Or is the information silly and we don't want the geopolitical blowback? blowback, so we're going to send it back. So everything that you just laid out made sense

according to that standard process. What I don't know, what I'd be very curious about, is what intel that officer gave? What do you think? What would be so valuable that you would give them asylum? I wonder if it's 2004, I wonder if it had something to do with Osama bin Laden, if Raw knew something about Pakistan, granting asylum or granting terrorist safe haven, that Raw wasn't telling CIA. And then this person defected and told CIA that, because that would be juicy enough to piss off India. It could also have to do with Indian weapons development, Indian nuclear development.

That's another secret that India would never tell the United States. But a raw officer might know it could have to do with Pakistani nuclear development. If Pakistan's close to having or weaponizing or generating a new nuclear weapon, India might not want to share that. India might not want to share that because they don't want the Pakistanis to know that they have a spy in Pakistan. Well, that would be information that the United States would be willing to create a geopolitical divide over. Do you think it's possible? The whole thing is very possible. I'm trying to say, I don't think it's not even low probability.

It's very possible and it's very probable. And it's crazy. Hey y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if.

Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. Do what these guys do. Well, don't forget, too. I believe it was India that was recently accused of killing a high, high value target in Canada. Yeah. Not that long ago.

Talk about capability, right? That's India able to assassinate in Canada. That's impressive. That's Mossad level stuff. There's assumption or maybe, let's say, Canada, at that time, Trudeau, he accused India of killing a juror, how true or false that is. But according to the five-wise intelligence, right?

These are like five countries who share their intelligence report. they don't do intelligence operations on each other. That's what they say. Correct. Right. UK admitted that they heard something and they had the information about this conversation. So probably if UK heard, US also knew this. Right.

Then why didn't they share it with Canada? Why didn't they talk about it? Chances are Canada also knew it. Then why are they now creating a fuss about it to talk, to say as if India did something wrong? Because if India did it, let's just. we are assuming that denier. We don't know that yet. If anybody was planning an assassination in your country,

if it's not against your citizen, then you handle it differently. If somebody's going, if there's a threat of killing a Canadian citizen in Canada, then the Canadian government is going to reach out to the citizen who's in danger, but they're also going to try to apprehend the person who intends to do harm to their own.

If you're not a Canadian citizen, it's a whole different level of effort. Because think about how much time and how much money, how many Canadian tax dollars would be spent protecting a non-Canadian inside Canada. That's how the intelligence world works. If you're on, it's so sad, but it's so true. If you are the target of an intelligence operation, you're fucked. You can do nothing to stop it. You're done.

If they want to kill you, if they want to arrest you, if they want to shut down your business, if they want to take your money, you have no chance because they have every power, every resource, every gun pointed at you, every satellite pointed at you, there is nothing you can do to stop an intelligence service that's targeting you. Any intelligence service. Any intelligence service. I don't care if it's the Nigerians. They'll do it.