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Nick Bunker, journalist and author of In the Shadow of Fear: America and the World in 1950, joins the show to talk about the first decade of the Cold War.
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Times
• 01:36 Introduction
• 02:26 Countdown to war
• 05:17 Biden and Truman
• 09:05 A failure of American policy?
• 13:09 Present at the Creation
• 21:16 Stalin’s view of the world
• 25:50 Stalin and China
• 30:44 Developing nuclear thinking
• 32:39 Robert Taft
• 38:01 No choice but to defend Korea
• 46:44 NSC-68
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Follow the link to buy the book - In the Shadow of Fear: America and the World in 1950 -
Shane Brennan, Associate Professor of History and Classics at the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh and author of Xenophon's Anabasis: A Socratic History, joins the show to talk about why the Anabasis remains an important part of the Western canon of military writing.
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Times
• 01:30 Introduction
• 02:05 Dubai to Bangladesh
• 05:37 Xenophon’s start
• 09:25 Several levels of failure
• 12:37 “An exemplary Socratic student”
• 14:40 Fighting for the Persians
• 17:18 Cyrus the Younger
• 20:46 A leader emerges
• 29:41 “How was he so right?”
• 36:43 Matterhorn
• 38:33 Exile
• 42:01 An instruction on leadership
• 44:16 “There is always something there…”
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Sergey Radchenko, Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and author of To Run the World: The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power, joins the show to talk about the strategic aims of the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War and how the Soviets attempted to run the world.
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Times
• 01:17 Introduction
• 02:32 A novel argument
• 08:36 Power and recognition
• 11:51 Who started the Cold War?
• 14:55 The American dilemma
• 17:09 Fukuyama
• 21:21 Nuclear guarantees
• 25:16 The shadow of WWII
• 29:44 Flippancy and boredom
• 32:06 Détente
• 32:12 Backstabbing
• 37:52 American lecturing
• 45:39 Sources of Soviet collapse
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Follow the link to buy the book - To Run the World: The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power -
Mike Gallagher and Matt Pottinger join the show to discuss their recent Foreign Affairs essay on the need for a victory strategy in America’s cold war with China.
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Times
• 01:53 Introduction
• 03:25 Meeting in Iraq
• 07:43 “There are bad guys…”
• 13:15 Why detente isn’t working
• 23:45 Real statesmanship?
• 32:12 Rearm/Reduce/Recruit
• 35:20 TikTok
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Read the Foreign Affairs piece here No Substitute for Victory America’s Competition With China Must Be Won, Not Managed
Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack -
Andy Lowery, CEO of EPIRUS and a retired U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander, joins the show to talk about directed energy weapons on the modern battlefield.
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Times
• 01:45 Introduction
• 02:02 Before EPIRUS
• 06:29 Drones on the battlefield
• 13:30 Current countermeasures
• 19:40 An answer for autonomy
• 21:32 How does it all work?
• 29:54 Beam specs
• 33:45 Sci-fi but familiar
• 38:11 Gallium nitride
• 40:31 Cat and mouse game
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Iskander Rehman, Ax:son Johnson Fellow at the Johns Hopkins SAIS Kissinger Center and author of Iron Imperator: Roman Grand Strategy Under Tiberius, joins the show to talk about the military career and statecraft of Tiberius and what his career has to teach us today.
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Times
• 02:32 Introduction
• 03:29 The Pentagon and Rome
• 07:29 Why Tiberius?
• 15:04 Parallels
• 18:26 Germania
• 22:38 Roman criticism
• 28:03 Auxiliaries and proxies
• 32:09 Diplomacy and a recruitment crisis
• 34:00 A brilliant military career
• 37:17 Force structure
• 41:18 Parthian Cold War
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Buy the book here - Iron Imperator: Roman Grand Strategy Under Tiberius -
Yaroslav Trofimov, chief foreign-affairs correspondent at The Wall Street Journal and author of Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence, joins the show to talk about the early days of Russia’s war in Ukraine, how the battlefield has evolved, and where the war may be headed.
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Times
• 01:48 Introduction
• 02:06 Growing up Ukranian
• 05:03 The collapse of Kabul
• 07:40 Leadership counts
• 10:14 Zelensky
• 16:20 How did Putin get Ukraine so wrong?
• 19:49 Touch and go
• 22:45 Draft confusion
• 26:09 Battlefield evolution
• 30:42 Countermeasures
• 34:33 Washington’s tepid support
• 38:11 Possible futures
• 40:26 Trump
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Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack
Buy the book here - Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence -
Michael Doran, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at the Hudson Institute and co-host of the podcast Counterbalance, joins the show to talk about the Israel-Hamas war and the broader regional competition with Iran.
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Times
• 02:04 Introduction
• 04:01 Is Hamas winning?
• 10:29 Fighting the clocks
• 13:10 Defeat from the jaws of victory
• 18:24 An Iranian-American conflict
• 22:44 Managing decline
• 26:40 Lessons not learned
• 33:00 The Iranian nuclear umbrella
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Rabbi Shlomo Brody, executive director of Ematai and author of Ethics of Our Fighters: A Jewish View on War and Morality, joins the show to talk about the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas and the Jewish tradition of military ethics.
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Times
• 01:28 Introduction
• 04:04 Just war
• 07:27 The Bible as a framework
• 13:34 International service
• 18:33 Reprisals
• 21:37 Purity of arms
• 27:09 Collateral damage
• 33:41 International law
• 35:48 Proportionality
• 39:40 A dangerous ideology
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David Stahel, associate professor of history at the University of New South Wales and author of Hitler's Panzer Generals: Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt Unguarded, joins the show to talk about Heinz Guderian, the myth and the man.
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Times
• 01:38 Introduction
• 02:57 Diving into the letters
• 08:43 Debunking
• 15:30 A sinister figure
• 19:39 Achtung - Panzer!
• 27:37 Guderian the Nazi
• 33:42 Poland and France
• 45:49 Russia
• 50:50 Barbarossa bound to fail?
• 54:48 Guderian the chameleon
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Buy the book here - Hitler's Panzer Generals: Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt Unguarded -
Stephen Robinson, author of The Blind Strategist: John Boyd and the American Art of War, joins the show to talk about Boyd, the man who developed the concept of “maneuver warfare,” and what Boyd may have gotten wrong.
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Times
• 01:21 Introduction
• 02:24 “A genuine polymath”
• 04:20 The OODA Loop
• 07:39 J.F.C. Fuller and B.H. Liddell Hart
• 13:28 The conventional blitzkrieg
• 19:26 Maneuver warfare
• 25:01 Cannae
• 29:07 Tactical success to operational failure
• 34:07 Post-Vietnam U.S. military woes
• 37:24 Active defense
• 43:31 Skeptical of technology
• 48:07 The Defense Reform Movement
• 53:50 Iraqi Freedom
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Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack
Buy the book here - The Blind Strategist: John Boyd and the American Art of War -
Eric Edelman, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and Ambassador to Turkey and Finland, joins the show to talk about how nuclear strategic thinking began and how those debates resonate today.
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Times
• 01:47 Introduction
• 02:45 Oppenheimer’s Borden in reality
• 07:00 Brodie and The Absolute Power
• 11:12 Deterrence before Hiroshima
• 13:15 Blackett and Fear, War, and the Bomb
• 19:40 Counter-value vs counter-force
• 37:33 Russian nuclear strategy
• 42:44 Extended deterrence
• 52:37 Pain tolerance
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Rebeccah Heinrichs, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and the director of its Keystone Defense Initiative, joins the show to talk about the state of U.S. deterrence of Russia, Iran, and China—and what Washington could be doing better.
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Times
• 01:42 Introduction
• 02:18 Conventional and strategic deterrence
• 04:06 A failure of strategic deterrence
• 09:38 Integrated deterrence
• 13:33 Putin is committed to the bit
• 15:36 If Russia wins, what’s it to the US?
• 19:16 Options if Russia uses nuclear weapons
• 24:06 The pendulum keeps swinging
• 28:20 Washington’s confusion regarding Iran and Israel
• 31:56 Red Sea adrift
• 36:00 China and the rest
• 40:01 Pacific flashpoints
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Paul Scharre, Executive Vice President and Director of Studies at CNAS and author of Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, joins the show to talk about how AI will change the battlefield.
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Times
• 01:38 Introduction
• 01:54 Becoming a Ranger
• 03:48 A defining moment
• 07:25 A historical parallel for AI
• 11:16 Hardware
• 14:10 “Taiwan is the Saudi Arabia of chips”
• 16:20 Military applications
• 19:37 Battle damage assessment and AI tracking
• 22:50 Autonomous weapons
• 27:50 Legal, ethical, and control issues
• 30:08 Battlefield applications
• 32:43 Operational ability
• 36:51 WMDs
• 40:09 Countermeasures
• 43:53 Transportable?
• 46:40 AI and nuclear weapons
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Buy the book here - Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence -
Prit Buttar, historian and author of To Besiege a City: Leningrad 1941–42, joins the show to talk about the siege of Leningrad and about the nature of war on the Eastern Front.
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Times
• 01:56 Introduction
• 02:10 A familiar story
• 06:09 Themes of the Eastern Front
• 13:19 From Tsar to Stalin to Putin
• 11:10 Barbarosa
• 19:45 An immense scale
• 27:29 Doctrinal failure
• 33:17 Inside the Russian mindset
• 37:21 The myth of the “Clean Wehrmacht”
• 40:20 The siege
• 49:15 Who stays?
• 51:18 How did the Germans fail?
• 01:03:25 Staying vigilant
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Buy the book here - To Besiege a City: Leningrad 1941–42 -
Thomas Mahnken, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, joins the show to talk about net assessment and the future of war.
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Times
• 01:39 Introduction
• 02:02 An interesting journey
• 03:33 The Office of Net Assessment
• 09:49 A tool, not a solution
• 13:19 Both quantity and quality matter
• 15:05 Soviet thinking
• 19:20 Leveraging insight
• 23:11 Potential outcomes
• 28:35 “The Houthis have friends.”
• 33:19 Danger and opportunity
• 37:20 The terms of success change
• 43:14 Solving the problem of the moment
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John Noonan, senior advisor at POLARIS National Security, joins the show to talk about all things nuclear; the life of a missileer, the current U.S. arsenal and its production problems, the strategy of deterrence, and how Congressional oversight helps/hinders good government.
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Times
• 01:34 Introduction
• 02:04 VMI and the Air Force
• 05:13 Missileers
• 11:25 Targets of significance
• 16:33 Atrophy
• 22:18 Production problems
• 27:46 Congressional oversight
• 34:30 An unfocused military
• 44:17 Not getting it done
• 47:05 “Raw and abject stupidity”
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Donald L. Miller, historian and author of Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany, the book behind Apple TV+’s Masters of the Air, joins the show to talk about the air war over Europe during WWII.
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Times
• 01 :41 Introduction
• 02:12 Growing up “surrounded by the war”
• 15:35 Both sides are losing
• 25:23 Highest percentage of casualties
• 34:36 Mass vs mass
• 37:20 A new battlefield
• 42:49 “Almost nothing held up.”
• 44:46 Robert Rosenthal
• 48:57 Working with Tom Hanks
• 53:51 Recreating air combat
• 56:02 Gil Cohen, Greyhound, and Das Boot
• 59:44 Narrative choices
• 01:06:36 The stress of command
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Buy the book here - Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany -
John Orloff, creator, writer and co-executive producer of Apple TV+’s Masters of the Air, joins Aaron to talk about the new show highlighting the WWII experiences of the men of the 100th Bomb Group, a part of the 8th Air Force’s strategic bombing campaign over Europe. Masters of the Air streams January 26th only on Apple TV+.
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Times
02:25 Introduction
03:00 Getting started
05:45 Band of Brothers
12:56 Finding the story
19:44 Masters of the Air
24:37 Core characters
30:12 Group level
32:11 Influences
37:38 Production challenges
40:25 Procedure as drama
43:50 Unique trauma
48:20 Casting
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John McManus, author of To the End of the Earth: The US Army and the Downfall of Japan, 1945 and host of the We Have Ways of Making You Talk in the USA podcast, joins the show to talk about why the U.S. Army’s war in the Pacific during WWII merit deeper study and recognition.
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Times
• 02:12 Introduction
• 03:57 Lessons to be learned
• 05:32 The Army from Pearl to Tokyo
• 08:50 Winds of change
• 14:07 Europe first
• 21:16 Taiwan or the Philippines?
• 27:55 Battleground Manila
• 30:48 Bleeding the Americans
• 34:56 Failures in China
• 40:33 Chiang Kai-shek
• 45:07 Okinawa
• 48:06 Operation Downfall
• 52:24 Revisionist and reductionist history
• 55:19 Required reading
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- Visa fler