Episodes
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Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of Foundation for Defense of Democracies, joins the show to help us understand breaking developments in the war between Israel, Iran, and Iran’s regional proxies.
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Times
• 01:41 Introduction
• 02:24 Iran’s missile attack
• 03:56 Iranian intentions
• 06:34 Options
• 11:27 Iranian concerns
• 14:59 Ring of fire
• 19:10 Near term calculus
• 23:49 Regime change
• 28:52 Reagan strategy
• 32:55 A “good” deal
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Alex Miller, Senior Advisor for Science and Technology and the CTO to the Chief of Staff of the Army, joins the show to talk about how we are preparing to fight on the battlefields of the future—which are here today.
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Times
• 01:17 Introduction
• 01:32 CTO
• 04:48 Scale/E.W./drones
• 09:06 How we buy
• 13:07 Transforming in Contact
• 18:15 Electronic warfare
• 22:37 Defensive spectrum
• 25:20 An invisible world
• 28:12 Drone warfare
• 35:05 Humans and machines
• 37:49 What does the Army need?
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Missing episodes?
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Frank Ledwidge, Senior Fellow in Air Power and International Security at the Royal Air Force College and author of Aerial Warfare: The Battle for the Skies, joins the show to talk about warfare’s next frontier, space.
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Times
• 01:40 Introduction
• 03:24 Thinking about space
• 09:09 More than a conduit
• 14:15 ASAT
• 19:55 Space domain awareness
• 26:20 Directed energy and nuclear weapons
• 31:16 Congested/competitive/contested
• 39:44 36,000 earths
• 42:15 Commercial incentives
• 45:05 Who has the advantage?
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Eric Edelman and Thomas Mahnken of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments join the show to talk about what our defense establishment has gotten right, and wrong, in planning for the next war.
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Times
• 02:10 Introduction
• 02:43 National Defense Strategy
• 06:58 Continuity between administrations
• 08:55 Multiple theater force construct
• 17:31 “A flawed net assessment”
• 28:30 An imbalance of power
• 34:46 Favoring the defense
• 38:42 Resources and cost
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Christopher Lynch, Professor of Political Science at Missouri State University and author of Machiavelli on War, joins the show to talk about renaissance warfare and Niccolò Machiavelli.
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Times
• 01:20 Introduction
• 01:56 Machiavelli’s world
• 03:52 French invasion
• 07:08 Republicanism
• 13:42 Mercenary armies
• 22:50 Time in office
• 27:30 Battle
• 33:17 Resurrecting Rome and Greece
• 38:00 Catastrophic endings
• 41:31 Exile and writings
• 45:54 Good guy or bad guy?
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Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at FDD and contributor to The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan, joins the show to talk about Taiwan, tensions in the South China Sea, and more.
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Times
• 01:27 Introduction
• 02:00 Why the Navy?
• 04:05 PACOM
• 06:53 Working with Senator McCain
• 10:51 Resource prioritization
• 15:19 Shortsighted decisions
• 19:56 Sink China’s Navy
• 25:30 Is Taiwan ready?
• 30:35 Imitate Estonia
• 33:31 Sensor complexes
• 37:26 Missile defense
• 43:30 Nuclear escalation
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Sabin Howard, sculptor of A Soldier’s Journey, the central feature of the new World War I Memorial in Washington, DC, joins the show to talk about his work and the art of memorializing war and honoring veterans.
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Times
• 01:50 Introduction
• 02:07 Becoming an artist
• 07:03 Spiritually classical
• 10:04 WWI
• 14:24 Getting it right
• 18:35 Daughter and father
• 21:37 The ordeal
• 25:00 The charging man
• 28:18 Modern methods
• 33:52 Aftermath
• 41:11 Return
• 51:00 Excite and engage
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Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny, joins the show to give his thoughts on Tucker Carlson’s controversial guest Darryl Cooper.
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Times
• 01:25 Introduction
• 02:34 Churchill the villain
• 05:20 Pat Buchanan
• 08:57 Dragging America into war
• 14:50 Barbarossa
• 20:06 “Mr. Cooper simply can’t have read Mein Kampf…”
• 21:37 Terror bombings
• 24:19 Dog whistles
• 26:11 Founding mythology
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Matt Pottinger, distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, Chairman of FDD’s China Program, and author of The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan, joins the show to talk about how a war over Taiwan might start and how it may be prevented.
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Times
• 01:13 Introduction
• 03:11 The Boiling Moat
• 04:54 Is Xi serious?
• 11:35 How to deter China
• 17:40 Out with the old, in with the new
• 24:30 Mapping the scenarios
• 30:14 No such thing as an accidental war
• 35:44 A cognitive trap
• 39:22 Left with no choice
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Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, joins the show to discuss his plan to spend five percent of America’s GDP on defense. Click the link to read more Peace through Strength: A Generational Investment in the U.S. Military
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Times
• 01:31 Introduction
• 01:40 Service years
• 04:39 3% vs 5%
• 9:00 Peace through Strength
• 12:50 More money, more problems?
• 16:40 “Let’s get some more shipyards…”
• 19:37 Modernizing the nuclear arsenal
• 23:14 Force Design 2030
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General Kenneth F. McKenzie, USMC, retired as the fourteenth commander of U.S. Central Command in 2022 and is the author of The Melting Point: High Command and War in the 21st Century (https://a.co/d/a2RmIDK). He joins the show to talk about the strategic significance of the Middle East.
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Times
• 01:16 Introduction
• 01:38 The Citadel
• 04:15 The humanities
• 10:00 Central Command
• 13:43 Thinking globally
• 17:53 Iran pushes back
• 23:05 Pursuing peace
• 26:15 Afghanistan
• 32:01 Collapse
• 37:58 A regional war
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Joshua S. Treviño, Chief of Intelligence and Research and the Director for Texas Identity at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, joins the show to talk about the crisis on the U.S. southern border.
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Times
• 01:28 Introduction
• 02:03 “The border itself is insecure…”
• 06:06 Immigration is not the issue
• 08:58 Texas remembers
• 21:44 The Mexican side
• 31:34 WWI in Mexico
• 32:25 PRC and cartels
• 39:24 DoD and the border
• 44:01 “A sincere security partner…”
• 46:03 The Caroline affair
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Richard Frank, historian and author of Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire and Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War: July 1937-May 1942, joins the show to talk about the controversial legacy of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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Times
• 02:05 Introduction
• 02:15 Soldier/Lawyer/Historian
• 09:19 Early controversy
• 14:55 Counting all the dead
• 21:54 Contemplating invasion
• 30:10 1:1 ratio, recipe for a bloodbath
• 38:03 Why unconditional surrender?
• 40:48 Two steps to end the war
• 46:54 A combination of forces
• 51:08 How many bombs?
• 54:01 Thinking as your enemy does
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Ronald C. White, Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum and author of On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, joins the show to talk about the hero of Little Round Top, Joshua L. Chamberlain.
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Times
• 01:37 Introduction
• 01:51 Why Chamberlain?
• 09:01 Fighting for the Union
• 14:05 The 20th Maine
• 18:10 Arriving at Gettysburg
• 21:34 The 15th & 47th Alabama
• 24:25 “Bayonets”
• 29:31 Fighting for Grant
• 33:40 Appomattox
• 35:53 Home
• 29:31 Battle Cry of Freedom
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Rich Goldberg, senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, joins the show to talk about the expanding war between Israel and Iran.
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Times
• 01:40 Introduction
• 03:30 Where things stand
• 15:25 Israeli expectations
• 24:44 Retaliation
• 31:39 Iran’s strategic concept
• 36:16 American interests
• 44:20 Projection
• 50:36 Once Iran has nuclear weapons
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Michael Sobolik, author of Countering China's Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance and Senior Fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, joins the show to talk about China.
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Times
• 01:38 Introduction
• 04:29 Belt and Road
• 07:54 The Beginning
• 13:12 Chinese imperialism
• 20:50 Mackinder’s math
• 25:19 Nazi geostrategic thinking
• 28:21 Spykman and BRI
• 31:42 Imperialism is not a relic
• 35:43 Countering China
• 40:40 Tracing BRI back to Beijing
• 46:55 Keeping Taiwan safe
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James Holland, author of The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943 and host of the We Have Ways of Making You Talk podcast, joins the show to talk about the Allied campaign in Italy.
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Times
• 02:08 Introduction
• 04:23 “No greater moment of human drama…”
• 11:08 Why go into Italy at all?
• 18:24 Mission to Rome
• 29:33 Baytown and Avalanche
• 32:10 Salerno
• 36:25 rethinking Mark Clark
• 40:50 Very hard fighting
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Michael Kofman, Senior Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and contributor to War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World, joins the show to talk about the operational phases of the war in Ukraine.
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Times
• 01:28 Introduction
• 02:14 A case of “Two Wars”
• 09:37 Operating on assumptions
• 14:54 Contingency and structure
• 23:41 Figuring things out in the field
• 31:22 Cyber is overhyped
• 39:56 Achieving a favorable outcome
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Thomas Mahnken, President and CEO of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and contributor to War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World, joins the show to talk about how strategic fallacies have played a role in Ukraine.
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Times
• 01:33 Introduction
• 02:30 Fallacies of rationality
• 05:36 Is war irrational?
• 10:02 Germany willed WWI to happen
• 15:40 Fallacy of the irrational/hyper-rational adversary
• 22:53 Rational/irrational Hitler
• 28:09 Wrapped around the rational axle
• 30:34 Fallacy of over/underestimating the adversary
• 37:53 Losing the contingency
• 41:08 Fallacies of interaction
• 45:56 Learning but not doing
• 50:53 Building defenses against fallacies
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John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute and host of the Urban Warfare Project, joins the show to talk about urban combat and how Israel is fighting an unprecedented war against Hamas with justice and humanity.
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Times
• 01:50 Introduction
• 02:08 Fighting and teaching
• 09:31 Changes in urban warfare
• 17:14 Terrain still matters
• 21:54 Israel’s unprecedented war
• 26:11 Learning on the ground
• 33:24 Genocide
• 43:57 The battle of Manila
• 49:41 Suffering is the strategic aim
• 51:04 Tunnels
• 55:51 Outthinking the enemy
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