Stephen Mercado is a retired officer of the CIA’s Open Source Enterprise (originally the Foreign Broadcast Information Service). A researcher primarily interested in Japanese intelligence history and Asian open-source intelligence, he earned a master’s degree in international affairs at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and is the author of "The Shadow Warriors of Nakano: A History of the Imperial Japanese Army’s Elite Intelligence School" (Brassey’s, 2002), several articles and a few dozen book reviews.