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Angry Planet

426 episodes - English - Latest episode: 8 days ago - ★★★★ - 576 ratings

Conversations about conflict on an angry planet. Created, produced, and hosted by Matthew Gault and Jason Fields


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Episodes

TEASER: War Literature as Culture War Fodder

March 20, 2024 21:13 - 12 minutes - 9.91 MB

Sing up at angryplanetpod.com to get instant access to the full episode. Writing, even fiction writing, about war provides a clear-eyed and honest view of conflict that the best movies and television shows can’t replicate. Civilians and soldiers on all sides of conflicts have always turned to poetry and prose to express feelings that are hard to articulate any other way.  On March 10, the literary magazine Guernica published a personal essay from British-Israeli writer Joannna Chen about t...

Nuclear War and Imagining the Unimaginable

March 18, 2024 14:46 - 1 hour - 49.9 MB

The U.S. is spending $2 trillion to overhaul its nuclear weapons. China is building ICBM silos in the desert. Russia has spent the last ten years talking about its fancy new nukes. After decades of drawdown, the world’s great powers are reversing course and rebuilding their nuclear arsenals. We have forgotten the power and terror of these weapons. W.J. Hennigan of The New York Times wants the world to remember.  On this episode of Angry Planet, Hennigan discusses the Time’s new series: At ...

What Would an End Game Look Like in Gaza?

March 13, 2024 04:00 - 59 minutes - 48 MB

It's easy to say the words "two-state solution" between Israel and the Palestinians, but as Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations explains, there are plenty of reasons why there hasn't been one so far. We also take another look at "moral" war in a tight space. What's the difference between collateral damage and a war crime? And has world opinion turned permanently against Israel?  We also talk to Steven about his upcoming book, The End of Ambition: American's Past, Present, and Fu...

America’s Fight in the Red Sea

March 11, 2024 13:00 - 1 hour - 42 MB

Since the middle of December, a U.S.-led coalition has been trading munitions with Houthis in Yemen. The day after Christmas, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower began participating in strikes against targets along the coast. It hasn’t left since and the conflict between a group of international allies and the Houthis has continued. On this episode of Angry Planet, former fighter pilot and current YouTuber Ward Carroll sits down to walk us through the ins and outs of Operation Prosperity Guardian. Th...

It’s Time to Retire the Term ‘Proxy War’

February 29, 2024 16:39 - 58 minutes - 47.1 MB

One of the persistent themes of Angry Planet has been that smaller countries in the spheres of influence of great powers have far greater control over their destinies than it would appear. If the recent fighting in the Middle East has taught us anything, it’s that local partners have plans of their own and it’s impossible for a patron to have complete control over what happens on the ground. On this episode of Angry Planet, Barbara Elias of Bowdoin College comes on to make the case for reti...

Can You Fight a Moral War in a Tight Space?

February 15, 2024 18:10 - 1 hour - 48.1 MB

Retired Colonel John Spencer, who is a combat veteran who now teaches at West Point, joins Matthew and Jason for a second time. This time we're not talking about how to carry out urban warfare, but we're looking at how you fight morally under impossible circumstances. John recently wrote a piece for Newsweek (Jason's day job), making the controversial case that the Israelis are doing more than any other modern military to limit civilian casualties. You can see if he's persuasive for yourself...

Ore Is the New Oil

January 30, 2024 20:23 - 49 minutes - 39.3 MB

Oil makes the world go ‘round, for now. But rare earth minerals such as lithium are increasingly in demand and, as a result, the source of conflict. With us on the show today is Reuters journalist Ernest Scheyder. His new book The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives explores the new resource war that’s sucking in community activists, titans of industry, and global superpowers. Scheyder’s work at Reuters The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle ...

How Ukraine Wins

January 25, 2024 22:11 - 56 minutes - 45 MB

Joining your faithful Angry Planet crew this week are Rose Gottemoeller and Michael Ryan, both national security experts and both with a strong view that the war in Ukraine can still be won. And they'll even tell you how, if you listen to this week's show. You can read more of their thoughts in Foreign Policy: Ukraine Has a Pathway to Victory Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict. https://angry...

One Year Reporting in Russia

January 16, 2024 18:29 - 57 minutes - 46.3 MB

Vice News reporter Any Hayward spent the better part of the last year in Russia reporting on the domestic situation there. His work has appeared in various segments on Vice’s website, but he’s got a new documentary coming out on the anniversary of fullscale invasion called Warped by War. Hayward is here to walk us through what he saw, who he talked to, and the unique dangers of reporting in Putin’s Russia as a foreign journalist. The Vice YouTube channel is here. Warped by War will be avai...

A Throw of the Dice: Games the Pentagon Plays

January 09, 2024 18:26 - 57 minutes - 46.3 MB

Welcome to the new year at Angry Planet. For the last 100 years, American defense policy has been aided by elaborate war games. SIGMA, the Cold War Game, and the Millenium Challenge are just some of the most famous. Sometimes these games are played with dice and boards, other times they’re purely electronic. Why do we do this, when did we start, and what does it all mean? More importantly, how do we make sure the board games don’t play us? Here to answer those questions is Director of the ...

What, Exactly, Is the Military Industrial Complex?

December 15, 2023 14:00 - 38 minutes - 31.1 MB

When President Dwight David Eisenhower left the stage as president of the United States in 1961, he warned of the military-industrial complex he was leaving behind. Sounds ominous, right? And that complex has had 60 years to harden in place since Eisenhower’s farewell address. But what is the military-industrial complex? Is it a war-mongering machine out to kill us all at a profit? Is it a bunch of old boys networking to sell $700 hammers to the Pentagon through no-bid deals? Was Eisenhower...

The Movie That Scared Ronald Reagan Into Nuclear Détente

December 04, 2023 20:54 - 1 hour - 52.4 MB

Forty years ago, a made for TV movie aired on ABC that changed the world. It was called The Day After, and it depicted life in Kansas and Missouri after a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. More than 100 million people watched it when it aired. One of them was president Ronald Reagan. “I ran the tape of the movie ABC is running on the air Nov. 20. It’s called “The Day After.” It has Lawrence Kansas wiped out in a nuclear war with Russia. It is powerfully done—all $7 mil. worth. It’s ve...

How Tom Clancy Explains America

November 24, 2023 19:53 - 1 hour - 55.8 MB

Here’s an episode for anyone who thinks art can’t change the world. Tom Clancy topped the best seller charts for decades. He’s so popular that even his death couldn’t stop sales, and the flow of new products. Books, TV shows, movies, and video games all bear his name. But Clancy wasn’t just a popular author—he was also a geopolitical player. On the show this week is writer Matt Farwell, creator of the The Hunt For Tom Clancy substack. Farwell’s unique blend of memoir, history, and critique ...

Ever More War: A Conflict Without End

November 17, 2023 20:09 - 57 minutes - 45.7 MB

The war between Israel and Hamas shows no sign of slowing. More and more (just as was predicted on this show) sympathy for the Jewish State is drying up around the world amid horrific losses among Palestinian civilians, especially children. College campuses are flooded with students and faculty calling for the end of Israel itself. In this episode, we look into the origins of the conflict, as well as its causes, with Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign relations. Everyone's done that, tho...

What It's Like to Work in a Gazan Hospital

November 15, 2023 16:31 - 50 minutes - 40.7 MB

This week on the show we talked with Canadian-Palestinian doctor Tarek Loubani about his work as an emergency room doctor in Gaza. Loubani helped pioneer the use of 3D printers in Gaza to produce low-cost medical equipment like stethoscopes. In 2018, he was shot in the legs by the IDF while delivering medical supplies. In this wide ranging conversation, he talks about the importance of low cost medical supplies, the 3D printing revolution, and what it’s like to work in a hospital under sieg...

AI and Propaganda in the Israel-Hamas War

November 06, 2023 20:29 - 43 minutes - 35.2 MB

This episode was recorded on 10/10/23. Every war comes with a fog that makes it hard, if not impossible, to tell what’s going on while it’s being fought. The Israel-Hamas War is no different. What sets it apart is a digital information space rife AI generated images, perverse incentives, and outright propaganda.  This week on Angry Planet we sat down with Emauel Maiberg and Joseph Cox of 404 Media come on the show to talk about covering the war’s and how the digital world has supercharged ...

Causes and Consequences of War In Gaza

October 25, 2023 13:00 - 1 hour - 74.3 MB

This week’s episode is a long conversation with Joey Ayoub about Gaza, Palestine, and Israel. We cover a lot of ground and we’ve got a lot of show notes that accompany this episode. Show notes from Joey: Where the Palestinian Political Project Goes from Here “Divide and Rule”: How Israel Helped Start Hamas to Weaken Palestinian Hopes for Statehood Joey’s excellent podcast, The Fire These Times and its Patreon. Follow Joey on Mastodon. Show Notes on Robert Malley The Smear Job Inside...

A First Take on the Situation in Gaza

October 15, 2023 22:31 - 53 minutes - 42.7 MB

Writing a blurb to describe a podcast episode isn't typically a difficult thing to do—between myself and Matthew, we've been writing for about 50 years—but as all things with Israel and the Palestinians, even writing a blurb is bound to offend someone. That's not our goal, but if you listen to the show, don't be surprised if there are a few things that you don't agree with, or even some that make you angry. It's in the name of the show, after all. This week we're talking about the Hamas att...

A Righteous Conversation About Mark Milley

October 13, 2023 18:41 - 40 minutes - 32.3 MB

Paul Rieckhoff is a veteran with a lot to say about the state of the world. He came on Angry Planet to help us understand what happened when former President Donald Trump and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley crossed paths. What does it mean to swear allegiance to the Constitution above all, rather than to any particular commander-in-chief? What do you do if that person at the top wants you to do something unlawful, and who gets to judge what is unlawful? Fun stuff? ...

The UN's Annual Circus Comes to Town

October 04, 2023 19:20 - 43 minutes - 34.7 MB

Once a year, leaders from around the world leave their capitals behind them for a trip to the Big City, New York. What could pull these powerful men—and far fewer women—away from affairs of state? Is it the revival of Spamalot on Broadway? No, the opening is still a few weeks away. Could it be the glittering bars, restaurants, and hotels? The easy availability of the ingredients for every vice known to humanity? Is it simply the lights on Broadway? Nope. It’s the one, the only United Natio...

The Saddam Hussein of the Caucasus

September 25, 2023 19:54 - 49 minutes - 37.2 MB

Aram Shabanian stops by this week to talk to us about the strong men of the Caucasus. We start with a deep dive into what’s going on in Armenia and Azerbaijan right now with a focus on the 1990s. Shabanian calls Azerbaijan’s President, Ilham Aliyevl, the “Saddam Hussein of the Caucasus” and comes to grip with the realpolitik of the conflict. Then we turn our attention to Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov and discuss rumors of his failing health, mixed martial arts, and how a brutal warlord b...

The Climate Doomer Episode

September 18, 2023 19:01 - 49 minutes - 40 MB

We’re taking another look at the climate here at Angry Planet. This week we’re joined by Peter Kalmus of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Talking to a scientist about how hot the planet is getting can be jarring. Kalmus, like other experts in the field, brings a sense of doom to the subject that fits perfectly in the Angry Planet cannon. Kalmus talks about dining with oil executives and shares his thoughts on How to Blow Up a Pipeline. We cover a lot of ground in this episode and we’re hap...

Fire Made Maui Look Like a War Zone

September 07, 2023 13:09 - 57 minutes - 46 MB

Mysterious producer Kevin Knodell comes on to Angry Planet this week to tell us about his recent reporting trip to Maui.  A timeline of the fire Playing the blame game Matthew screws up island names The politics of taro farming Yakistan The Range 12 Fire Don’t ask him about the fucking tree Our fiery future Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict. https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribe ...

The Cost of Africa's Latest Coup

August 21, 2023 16:12 - 56 minutes - 45.5 MB

On July 26, a military junta deposed and imprisoned Niger’s duly elected president, Mohamed Bazoum. You are probably saying three things—perhaps all at the same time: Where the hell is Niger? Who is Bazoum? Why the fuck would I care? That’s what this episode is all about. We answer those three questions and fill you in on the context around the event as well as the region where it happened, the Sahel, which is where Saharan Africa meets sub-Saharan Africa. It’s a place that’s at the mercy ...

What Modern Genocide Looks Like

August 14, 2023 15:03 - 1 hour - 51.9 MB

Christopher Atwood returns to the show this week to talk about a report he helped write for at the New Lines Institute. It’s an in-depth analysis of Russia’s ongoing genocide in Ukraine. Here’s a link to the report: The Russian Federation’s Escalating Commission of Genocide in Ukraine: A Legal Analysis Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict. https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribe Support th...

The Science and Terror of Nuclear Weapons

August 07, 2023 15:56 - 42 minutes - 34.1 MB

Joe Cirincione is back on the podcast this week to walk us through the science of nuclear weapons and give us his preliminary thoughts on Oppenheimer. Cirincione is a national security analyst and author with over 40 years of experience. He’s been a congressional staffer, a program director, a philanthropist, an advisor the the State Department and three presidential campaigns. Now, he writes at a substack. He’s recently completed a six part series detaling the history of the nuclear world...

What Makes 'Oppenheimer' Great and Why It Sucks

July 28, 2023 13:00 - 1 hour - 57.4 MB

Freelance journalist Kelsey Atherton joins Angry Planet to talk about Oppenheimer. The movie does a good, but not perfect, job with history and tends toward mythmaking. Matthew loved it and Atherton had some issues with it. In this wide-ranging conversation that covers nuclear history, our renewed atomic fears, and the people left out of the story, the two nuclear journalists dissect Hollywood’s latest blockbuster. The People Building AI with 'Existential Risk' Are Really Not Getting 'Oppen...

The Support System That Keeps Ukraine Going

July 18, 2023 18:53 - 42 minutes - 34.1 MB

When you’re talking about disasters, natural and manmade, it’s always the first responders—soldiers, police, EMTs—who get all the credit. But what about the people who not only support the first responders, but who help people once the front line has moved on? On this show, we talk a lot about wars and weapons and such. We talk about geopolitics and strategy. We rarely talk about people who are working to make things just that little bit better. Today we’re changing that in the case of Ukr...

TEASER: Inside Putin's Medieval Court

July 10, 2023 19:14 - 22 minutes - 17.6 MB

On this subscribers only episode of Angry Planet, Kremlin expert Mark Galeotti comes on to walk us through the military and political machinations of Russia’s “adhocracy.” According to Galeotti, Russia is a modern state that’s run by a Medieval court. He walks us through the implications of the Wagner mutiny, the different court players, and what the future of Putin’s court might be. Here’s Mark’s piece in The Economist that details Putin’s “self inflicted wounds.” Mark’s excellent podcas...

A Closer Look at the Wagner Mutiny

July 03, 2023 17:41 - 44 minutes - 36 MB

Nobody outside of the Kremlin—and maybe inside the Kremlin, too—knows exactly what happened over the last weekend. We do know that Yevgeny Prigozhin led something that looked like a rebellion against Vladimir Putin’s government.  Columns of troops and tanks turned toward the motherland and elements of the Wagner Group made it inside of 200 miles from Moscow. What did Prigozhin really want? And what happened to end the crisis? And is the crisis really over? Joining us today is Mark Katz of ...

The Human Stories Behind the Counteroffensive

June 26, 2023 19:29 - 40 minutes - 32.6 MB

Ukraine’s counteroffensive is well under way. One of the best places to go to get stories and reporting about what’s happening is counteroffensive.news, a substack run by former U.S. Army Medic and NPR investigative journalist Tim Mak. He’s here with us today to talk about the war, the counteroffensive, and the charms of Kyiv. This is my mom’s brain on Russian propaganda French fighter for Ukraine, musing about God, heads to the frontlines; update on early counteroffensive She secretly s...

Teaser: Why Erdogan Feels Like Forever

June 05, 2023 20:12 - 7 minutes - 6.33 MB

The results of Turkey's presidential election are finally in and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had been forced into a runoff against his chief opponent, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, gets to keep his job as leader of NATO’s most troublesome member. Were the elections free and fair? Meh, says Foreign Policy/Council on Foreign Relations expert Steven Cook. This week he joins us to wrap up one of the world’s most anticipated elections—even if the suspense was never more than mild. Erdogan isn’t either a be...

World War II Is Still Killing People in the Pacific

May 30, 2023 19:51 - 42 minutes - 33.8 MB

World War II is still killing people. Unexploded ordnance, the remnants of globe spanning conflict, litters the fields of Europe and the waters of the Pacific. The world spends a lot of money and time cleaning up UX in Europe and helping its victims. In the Pacific? Well, there it’s a different story. Especially in the Solomon Islands. Thomas Heaton is a reporter for Civil Beat and the author of its ‘Lethal Legacy’ series, which focuses on the devastation World War II is still wreaking in t...

Mega Prisons and Bitcoin in El Salvador

May 22, 2023 15:50 - 41 minutes - 33.4 MB

It’s 2023. It’s time for authoritarian leaders to update their aesthetic. Sure a stuffy military uniform used to lend an air of authority, but today’s young leaders are looking more and more like silicon valley tech billionaires. A backwards baseball cap. Laser eyes on their Twitter profile. Plans to build a city powered by a volcano that mines bitcoin. Mega-prisons ripped from the pages of Judge Dredd. That kind of thing. This week we’re talking about El Salvador and its millennial leader ...

Talking Turkey Ahead of the Vote

May 12, 2023 22:06 - 45 minutes - 36.1 MB

There are authoritarians and there are tyrants, and sometimes they’re the same person. But would a true tyrant put himself up to face the people in an election that could be free and maybe even fair? With Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, we’re going to find out the exact flavor of authoritarian he is on Sunday, May 14, and in the days immediately following. Erdogan has been in power in his nation of more than 80 million people for nearly two decades, and in some ways, he’s brought it to near ...

Teaser: Why UAPs Are So Hard to Talk About

May 09, 2023 18:16 - 20 minutes - 16.1 MB

It’s a subscriber only episode of Angry Planet where we sit down with drone and UAP journalist Kelsey Atherton to deliver on an old promise: making up for a balloon-related episode from February some of you didn’t like. But first, we got into the news of the drone attack on the Kremlin, which occurred a few hours before we sat down to record. After that, Atherton takes us through his thoughts on the great high altitude object panic of 2023 and we dig into the meat of the episode: why it’s s...

Why War Never Changes

May 01, 2023 21:15 - 45 minutes - 36.2 MB

You may have noticed that we end our show with a snippet of the video game Fallout (my favorite). “War - war never changes.” What if that’s both true and not true? You have to love a dichotomy. Anyway, we are lucky today to have University of Chicago professor Paul Poast on the show. He looks at foreign policy—war—using statistics to make some sense of it all. This is a break down of why wars popular on the history channel (World War II, the Civil War) aren’t indicative of how wars are act...

How a 21-Year-Old Edgelord Stole Pentagon Secrets

April 24, 2023 19:11 - 54 minutes - 44 MB

How is that a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman posted government secrets to a private Discord group for almost a year before anyone noticed? On today’s episode of Angry Planet, Bellingcat’s Aric Toler walks us through the culture that created poster and edgelord Jack Teixeira. Toler also talks about working with The New York Times, dodging phone calls from the FBI, and the digital forensics he used to identify Teixeira. We talk about the Something Awful Forums, 4chan and KiwiFarms, and wh...

Why the West Loves 'ISIS Brides'

April 17, 2023 19:14 - 52 minutes - 42.1 MB

The Islamic State has largely fallen out of the western press with the weird exception of ISIS brides. And when we talk about the Islamic State, western press often ignores its broader crimes. The plight of the Yazidi, specifically, is largely ignored by press and NGOs. The plight of the so-called “ISIS bride,” however, is very much in fasion. But I wanted that photo and that testimony to lead off this post. Today’s episode is mostly about the women of the Islamic State, but the Yazidis are...

Reagan's Failed Attempt to Put Lasers in Space

April 05, 2023 15:55 - 44 minutes - 35.5 MB

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan stood before the American public and promised to put lasers in space. The Strategic Defense Initiative was meant to be the ultimate bulwark against communist intercontinental ballistic missile. It didn’t work. Deriseively called Star Wars, the system never worked. To this day, methods for shooting an ICBM out of the sky are shoddy at best and fantasy at worst. Joining us today is Joe Cirincione. In his own words on his substack at joecirincione.substack.co...

Russia's Fascist Youth Groups

March 29, 2023 20:47 - 47 minutes - 38 MB

Dictatorships of the last century had some famous youth groups. Hitler had his Youth, Lenin had his Young Pioneers, and Mussolini had his Opera Nazionale Balilla. Such groups once attracted huge followings but have largely fallen out of favor in the West. But, like so much else with the irredentist Vladimir Putin, he’s bringing it back. To help us understand this new youth movement and what it means for the future, we have the perfect guest. Ian Garner is a historian and analyst of Russia...

The Drones Above Ukraine

March 21, 2023 16:43 - 46 minutes - 37.3 MB

You know, we wanted to talk about European (and especially German) views of the war in Ukraine today. And we still will. What’s an IRIS-T, for example. What’s up with those Leopard tanks? But then a Russian Su-27 fighter jet crashed into an American MQ-9 Reaper above the Black Sea and the guest we planned to have on, well, she knows a lot about drones. With us today is Ulrike Franke. Franke is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. She’s an expert in all things...

Ukraine: Back to the Front One Year On

March 13, 2023 17:12 - 49 minutes - 39.5 MB

This week, Angry Planet talks with Caleb Larson who has been working as a journalist in and around Ukraine’s Donbas region where much of the war is currently being fought. He paints a picture of the situation on the ground and tells us where to buy groceries in time of war. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What's a Planet Worth?

March 06, 2023 14:12 - 54 minutes - 43.9 MB

As the planet slowly broils, we keep hoping that some technological revolution will save us. Not just carbon capture or seeding the oceans with iron to grow algae that will drink in all the carbon dioxide right out of the atmosphere, but solutions that we can power our homes with and drive around. But what if we’ve put all of our money on the wrong horse? David Ko and Richard Busellato former hedge fund managers, have a different solution, but can it really save the Earth? After you listen ...

50 Years Since the Draft

February 27, 2023 18:39 - 28 minutes - 22.8 MB

In 1973, as most American troops left Vietnam, President Richard M. Nixon ended compulsory military service for males over the age of 18. It was an end of system that had been in place since the Second World War and came in answer—at least in part—to an ever-growing anti-war, anti-draft movement. Historian and writer Max Boot joins us to talk about the history of the draft and the all-volunteer force that now has 50 years under its belt. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcolle...

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's a ... Balloon?

February 21, 2023 18:22 - 50 minutes - 40.6 MB

What’s the biggest Chinese threat to the United States? Well, if you ask security expert Stephanie Carvin, it’s not a balloon—no matter how large and how many missiles it takes to shoot down. So, what should we really be worried about from China’s security apparatus? Well, you could start with more traditional spying, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Rise of South Korea

February 13, 2023 18:45 - 1 hour - 48.7 MB

All three Angry Planet guys are on the show today. Kevin went to South Korea in September and he’s here to tell us all about it. “A shrimp stuck between two whales.” Shopping for a frigate in a glossy catalog Why America doesn’t remember the Korean War The Don Draper connection “MASH was about Vietnam.” A nuclear penninsula? No one knows what’s going in in North Korea. Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a w...

The Complexities of China's Liberal Nationalism

January 30, 2023 14:00 - 37 minutes - 29.9 MB

Only Nixon can go to China. The now-forgotten aphorism once represented so much in American politics. After Nixon met with Mao, relations between the Communist country and America thawed. Trade opened up and, the popular notion went, with economic benefits would come a lessening of authoritarianism in China and the eventual end of Communism. Here in 2023 the idea that economic modernization and prosperity would lead to a flourishing of democracy in China seems quaint. What happened? And do ...

What a War Game Tells Us About Taiwan

January 23, 2023 14:00 - 41 minutes - 33 MB

It’s only human to play games. Some might argue it’s in the DNA. Games are part of how we learn, and can be the best way to teach or solve a problem. But some games are more serious than others.  A game recently played at a Washington think tank is about as serious as it gets. It looked at what might happen if China attacked Taiwan, and the results weren’t pretty for anyone. Joining us today to discuss what they found in playing the game is Mark Cancian. He is a retired marine corps colone...

The Long Weird History of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle

January 16, 2023 14:00 - 36 minutes - 29 MB

The Bradley Fighting Vehicle is on its way to Ukraine. Fifty of them, to be precise. This armored personnel carrier on tracks is not a tank. Don’t call it a tank. Once maligned as a boondoggle that represented everything wrong with Pentagon weapon’s programs, the Bradley is now a much desired piece of armor. With us today to suss this all out is Sebastian Roblin. Roblin is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in NBC, Forbes, and—of course—War Is Boring. Angry Planet has a Substac...

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