Angry Planet
430 episodes - English - Latest episode: 15 days ago - ★★★★ - 576 ratingsConversations about conflict on an angry planet. Created, produced, and hosted by Matthew Gault and Jason Fields
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Episodes
What Iraq's Protestors Want and Why it Matters
January 24, 2020 17:22 - 46 minutes - 37 MBIraq. Since October of last year, a protest movement has taken hold of the country. After 16 years of conflict, Iraq is tired. Its people want political and economic reforms. America didn’t pay attention. Until, that was, a militia stormed an embassy, America killed an Iranian General, and tensions between the U.S. and Iran flared. For a moment, the whole world paid attention. They should keep paying attention. Here to explain why is Rasha Al Aqeedi. Rasha is from the Iraqi city of Mosul...
American Troops Navigate Complicated Political Realities in Iraq
January 17, 2020 22:20 - 24 minutes - 19.5 MBThis week, producer Kevin Knodell walks us through his recent reporting in Iraq. https://coffeeordie.com/american-troops-iraq/ You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
How to Down a Drone
January 08, 2020 23:28 - 38 minutes - 31 MBDrones are everywhere. Military drones buzz war zones dropping missiles; surveillance drones hover above neighborhoods, looking for anything out of place; even now, commercial drones hide in holiday wrapping, waiting for excited enthusiasts to fly them in a park. As the market for drones has grown, so too has the market for tools to take them down. There’s jamming rifles, spoofing software, and hundreds of other solutions for downing a drone. But what to buy the budding enthusiast? A new r...
The Afghanistan Papers and the Unwinnable Forever War
December 20, 2019 21:27 - 37 minutes - 29.7 MBLast week the Washington Post published The Afghanistan Papers—a blockbuster piece of reporting that details every little thing about what’s gone wrong with the Afghanistan War. As the war grinds through its second decade, the Afghanistan Papers make clear what many defense reporters, government officials, and soldiers have known for years. The Afghanistan War is a costly, pointless, unwinnable mess. Here to walk us through the Afghanistan Papers and its implications is Craig Whitlock. Whit...
ICYMI - What Star Wars Can Teach the American Military
December 13, 2019 21:11 - 33 minutes - 27 MBLuke Skywalker is a household name. Carl von Clausewitz not so much. Learning about the military—especially about strategy and tactics—is a jargon filled slog. War has a language all its own and for decades, military minds have struggled to find an easy way to teach conflict to the common citizen and aspiring officer alike. Star Wars is that language. That’s the theory behind a new book, Strategy Strikes Back, How Star Wars Explains Modern Military Conflict, which teaches military lessons u...
How 3-D Printers Could Spread Weapons of Mass Destruction
December 06, 2019 19:12 - 38 minutes - 31.1 MBWe are living on the precipice of a manufacturing revolution. 3D Printing is more than just a hobby your weird rich friends use to make guns, it’s the dawn of a new process of prototype and creation. Additive manufacturing, if you believe the hype, will make it easier to make everything. Including weapons of Mass Destruction. But how real is that threat and how close are we to making chemical weapons at home for fun and profit? Here to help answer that question is Grant Christopher. Grant i...
Pardoning War Criminals Is Not 'Sticking Up for Our Armed Forces'
November 27, 2019 18:51 - 36 minutes - 29 MBHappy Thanksgiving and thanks for tuning into this special podcast. Last week was a busy one for President Trump and the military. Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer was fired. Or did he quit? No, he was fired. Why? Because of how he handled controversy surrounding Navy SEAL and accused War Criminal Eddie Gallagher. That’s … that’s if he was actually fired, which he probably was. Here to help us untangle this mess is Pauline Kaurin. Kaurin is the Stockdale Chair in Professional Military ...
How America's Refugee Policy Hurts its War Effort
November 20, 2019 19:42 - 31 minutes - 25 MBRefugees. People from countries in crisis fleeing oppression and death. America was once a beacon to the world’s tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. But things have changed. In the last term of President Barack Obama the U.S. said it would accept 110,000 refugees. That number is now just 18,000. There’s a moral argument here, but also a compelling strategic one. The enemy of my enemy is my friend … but only if you let them be your friend. Here to help us sort this all out ...
How the AK-74 Became a Fashion Statement
November 11, 2019 21:56 - 26 minutes - 21.3 MBIf there’s been a recent throughline or theme on this season of War College, it’s that war has changed. And it’s not just conflict, but the way we cover conflict. Increasingly, people are using open source intelligence and social media to study and report on the changing nature of conflict. Calbre Obscura is one of those people. He’s an independent arms researcher interested in non-state groups in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. He is extremely online, and he knows more about AK va...
This Is (Probably) How the World Ends
November 01, 2019 21:54 - 43 minutes - 34.8 MBIt’s the end of the world as we know it and I’m fine. It’s fine. It’s fine. Stop asking. Between the climate Apocalypse, tensions in the Middle East, the dissolution of decades old nuclear treaties, artificial intelligence, 3D printed weapons of mass destruction, immortal humans, CRISPR, and drone swarms, it feels like we’re closer to a science fiction apocalypse everyday. These days it’s not a question of when the end of human civilization comes but how. Mike Pearl has spent years obsess...
Why People Defend Dictators Online
October 22, 2019 19:22 - 48 minutes - 34.4 MBThere’s anti-government protests in Hong Kong, Venezuela, and Russia. The civil war in Syria rages on and, thanks to Twitter, VK, Facebook, anyone can share their opinion about world events. Elements of both the left and right say that any anti-government protest in one of America’s rivals is a CIA plot and dictators such as Bashar Al Assad are good, actually. Is this information warfare or just shitposting? Here to help us figure that out is Idrees Ahmad. Ahmad is Lecturer in Digital Jour...
ICYMI: Syria, the Kurds, and Civil War
October 16, 2019 00:53 - 1 hour - 69 MBThis week on War College, Syrian journalist Loubna Mrie walks us through life in the early days of the Syrian revolution, how it turned into a nightmarish Civil War, and the consequences of US Withdrawal. You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/w...
US SpecOps Is Training to Fight Russian Tanks and Memes
October 09, 2019 20:29 - 32 minutes - 26.3 MBThere’s war all over these days, but it’s different. War has, in fact changed, and the operators of the future are preparing for different challenges in different theaters. The bulk of US involved conflict is happening in the Middle East and North Africa, but the Pentagon is preparing for fighting in more traditional theaters. Marty Skovlund Jr. is a veteran of 1st Ranger Battalion, the Executive Editor of Coffee or Die Magazine and a frequent guest of the show. He’s been covering military ...
Houthi Drones in Saudia Arabia Prove Pseudowar Has Come to the Middle East
October 01, 2019 18:57 - 35 minutes - 28.1 MBOn September 14, explosions rocked oil infrastructure in Saudia Arabia. Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack and the early headlines stated that the rebel group had attacked the Kingdom with drones. As always, the truth of the attack is a little more complicated. It’s a story of cruise missiles, Iran, and open source intelligence. It’s also a story where how we know what we know is just as interesting as the story itself. With us today is to help untangle this is Fab...
Houthi Drones in Saudia Arabia Prove Pseudowar Has Come to the Middle East
October 01, 2019 18:57 - 35 minutes - 28.1 MBOn September 14, explosions rocked oil infrastructure in Saudia Arabia. Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack and the early headlines stated that the rebel group had attacked the Kingdom with drones. As always, the truth of the attack is a little more complicated. It’s a story of cruise missiles, Iran, and open source intelligence. It’s also a story where how we know what we know is just as interesting as the story itself. With us today is to help untangle this is Fab...
ICYMI : How Commercial Drones Changed War
September 25, 2019 15:20 - 23 minutes - 19 MBFor the past decade, unmanned aerial vehicles have been a cornerstone of America’s campaign against Islamic insurgents in the Greater Middle East. Predator and Reaper drones crisscross the globe firing hellfire missiles on U.S. enemies. Other countries have operational drone fleets, but few match the might and ubiquity of America’s. But journalists on the front lines in Iraq have seen a disturbing new trend - Islamic State using retail quadcopters to drop their own munitions with surprising...
How the Future of War and Propaganda Started in Russia
September 16, 2019 20:57 - 40 minutes - 32.3 MBDoes it feel like there’s just too much information out there and you can’t get a handle on it? Do you have trouble parsing the lies from the truth? Do you know all the places America is at war? Can we even technically call them wars? Are your Twitter followers even real or are they just bots? Are Antifa and the Proud Boys rumbling in the streets a natural extension of electoral politics or just street theater organized online? What if it’s both? Are you tired ALL THE TIME, like me? The ans...
On the Frontlines of America's Neo-Fascist Insurgency
September 03, 2019 21:41 - 49 minutes - 39.3 MBFascism. It’s back and it’s….Ironic? From Hungary to Brazil to the United States of America, facism—yes, fascism—is back in a big way. When our grandfathers beat back the Nazis in World War II, we assumed we’d beaten the ideology into dust. The problem is that fascism isn’t so much a coherent set of beliefs as it is a mutation, perversion, and reaction to the politics of the moment. The truth is, fascism is as American as apple pie and it’s been lingering in the wings for years. Here with ...
The Brewing Conflict in Syria's Refugee Camps
August 26, 2019 16:56 - 44 minutes - 35.3 MBDo you like independent journalism? Do you like learning about conflict from the best in the business. Well Jake Hanrahan is one of the best in the business and he’s the mind behind Popular Front—a podcast, a website, a documentary series, and a home to independent journalism. Popular Front goes places other journalists don’t go and asks questions other journalist don’t ask. Jake Hanrahan is here with us today to tell us about his recent trip to Rojava, and a new campaign he’s launched on I...
ICYMI: On the frontlines during the last days of Standing Rock
August 19, 2019 14:19 - 30 minutes - 24.5 MBAfter a year of protests, Standing Rock began to die down in late winter this year. But to one observer, the standoff stood out for how much it resembled a war zone. Marty Skovlund Jr. is a U.S. Army veteran who served in the 1st Ranger Battalion. He served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Since coming home he’s run a small business, written books and freelanced for several news outlets. In December, he chronicled the final days of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, where state and local pol...
Nuclear Sponges and the New Nuclear Arms Race
August 10, 2019 19:26 - 29 minutes - 23.4 MBNuclear war. These days it feels like we’re closer to Global Thermonuclear Annihilation than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists—an organization of experts that calculates humanity’s odd of Armageddon—seems to agree. The Doomsday Clock is set at two midnight to midnight. It’s easy to see why. On August 2, the US pulled out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, North Korea continues to test ballistic missiles, Russia keeps talking abo...
Libya Is the Future of War
August 03, 2019 18:20 - 46 minutes - 37.4 MBLibya. Dictator Muammar Gaddafi ruled the country from 1969 to 2011. The Arab Spring led to a Civil War and the deposition and death of Gadaffi in 2011. The country never quite recovered and remains in the throws of a violent Civil War. One most of us in the West, myself included, have not paid much attention to. Someone who did pay attention is today’s guest Robert Young Pelton. Pelton is an author and documentarian with extensive experience covering conflicts. He’s just back from Libya. ...
Eating at KFC in Kurdistan
July 27, 2019 20:10 - 55 minutes - 44.8 MBThis week on War College, producer Kevin Knodell is back from his trip to the Middle East and he’s got stories. He shares his experiences climbing a mountain in Kurdistan, eating at KFCs that are better than the ones in America, and talks about the future of the region. You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twi...
America’s Foreign Policy Has a Cold War Hangover
July 19, 2019 18:54 - 41 minutes - 33.4 MBThinking about geopolitics is all about picking the right metaphor. After World War II, America’s elite conceived of a world engaged in a Cold War, where the United States and Soviet Union played a game of spies and skirmishes to spread political ideology across the planet. In the 19th century, the British and Russian Empires engaged in the Great Game, a political and diplomatic game of shadows that played out in Afghanistan and its neighboring territories. The problem with metaphors is that...
ICYMI: How the Allies Trolled Hitler With Magick
July 05, 2019 16:58 - 32 minutes - 25.8 MBAdolf Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess, was obsessed with the occult. He attempted to read minds and used astrological star charts to inform his battle plans. On the allied side, English magician Aleister Crowley kept in contact with German occultists, fed them false information, and even created the V for Victory. Today on War College, we sit down with media theorist, documentarian and author Douglas Rushkoff to talk about the bizarre occult history of World War II and how it affected strategi...
Bellingcat Talks Tankers, Deepfakes, and State Propaganda
June 28, 2019 19:23 - 32 minutes - 25.7 MBMisinformation. Grainy and low resolution images from government sources. Signals intelligence. Satellite imagery. Photographs and social media posts from those nearby. Online databases of vast and public knowledge. These, and more, are the tools by which Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat suss out truth in a complicated world. On June 13, something attacked two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. The United States blamed Iran, producing footage it claimed linked Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to the in...
Bellingcat Talks Tankers, Deepfakes, and State Propaganda
June 28, 2019 19:23 - 32 minutes - 25.7 MBMisinformation. Grainy and low resolution images from government sources. Signals intelligence. Satellite imagery. Photographs and social media posts from those nearby. Online databases of vast and public knowledge. These, and more, are the tools by which Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat suss out truth in a complicated world. On June 13, something attacked two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. The United States blamed Iran, producing footage it claimed linked Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to the in...
Iran and America’s Complicated Recent History
June 21, 2019 22:09 - 1 hour - 65.4 MBOn June 13, explosions—probably from Limpet Mines—hit two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. The United States has blamed Iran. On June 20, Iran shot down one of the United States’ Navy RQ-4 Global Hawk drones, basically a fancy unmanned spy plane. In the aftermath, US President Donald Trump considered a retaliatory action, then pulled back. I’m recording this at 5pm on Friday, June 21. It’s possible between then and the time you hear this, the situation will have changed again. Iran is comp...
War Robots, AI Targeting in Megacities, and Other Things We Learned From the US Army
June 14, 2019 21:21 - 32 minutes - 25.9 MBChina and America are two of the world’s great powers. Their economies are intertwined, their military’s powerful, and their soft power spreading across the globe. And tensions are rising. Neither side wants to go to war, but both sides are committed to winning that war should the unthinkable ever occur. Recently, War College’s own Kevin Knodell spent time at the Army’s Joint Warfighting Assessment at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State. The weeks long training brought together mil...
Navy Pilots Keep Seeing UFOs Because They're Real
June 07, 2019 20:03 - 31 minutes - 25 MBFlying saucers. Little Green Men. UFOs. Over the past few years, reports from US Navy Pilots of strange flying objects has been hitting the pages of America’s newspapers. And no, not just the tabloids. The New York Times is talking about UFOs. So what is going on? Is this evidence of extraterrestrial life? Lights reflecting off of swamp gas, or dastardly new tech designed by America’s enemies? Here to help us answer these tough questions is the editor-in-chief of The War Zone, Tyler Rogowa...
America Once Planned to Nuke the Moon
May 31, 2019 19:29 - 32 minutes - 26.3 MBThe Soviet Union sent Sputnik into space in 1957. By 1958, thanks in part to the work of famed scientist Carl Sagan, the Pentagon had a plan to show the commies what for by nuking the moon. Thankfully, it was just a plan. One that the U.S. never acted on. But it’s far from the only military scheme the US and others cooked up over the years. From bat bombs to an aircraft carrier built from an iceberg, military history is full of outlandish and ridiculous schemes best left abandoned at the pla...
ICYMI: Why QANON Matters And Why It Won't Go Away
May 24, 2019 18:29 - 1 hour - 62.7 MBConspiracy theories are as old as the republic. Actually, they're a lot older than OUR republic. In every country, in every culture, people believe powerful forces are colluding in ways they know nothing about. Why is that? In this week's bonus episode we talk with Jesse Walker, books editor of Reason magazine and author of "The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory." ----------------------------------- Qanon is a conspiracy theory that supposes President Donald Trump is at war ...
America's War In Somalia Is Heating Up Again
May 17, 2019 21:15 - 34 minutes - 25 MBCivilian casualties are a fact of war. The Pentagon, we’re told, does its best to minimize them but war is messy and it’s impossible to achieve the number zero. Unless you’re talking about Somalia. America has been at war in the African country for years and, according to the Pentagon, it has conducted that war with almost no civilian casualties. Amnesty International—a non-governmental organization focused on human rights—says that’s not true and has conducted its own investigation into th...
Japan's Surprisingly Large Military
May 10, 2019 21:55 - 38 minutes - 28 MBOn paper, Japan is no longer a military power. Article 9 of the Japanese constitution states that “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes” and that “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.” Japan is, on paper, to rely on its allies for military defense and, since World War II, American military bases have dotted its islands. But attitude...
Romanticizing History Can Be Worse Than Repeating It
May 03, 2019 19:25 - 35 minutes - 20.6 MBThe cliche goes that those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. But history is more than just a memory and a lesson, sometimes it’s a tool and a weapon. Some pundits are concerned that historians in their ivory tower of academia are neglecting the study of war and policy in favor of identity politics, and in some cases shirking their role of educating the public in favor of an academic elitism that is mostly aimed producing work for themselves and their colleagues to consume. Br...
Romanticizing History Can Be Worse Than Repeating It
May 03, 2019 19:25 - 35 minutes - 20.6 MBThe cliche goes that those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. But history is more than just a memory and a lesson, sometimes it’s a tool and a weapon. Some pundits are concerned that historians in their ivory tower of academia are neglecting the study of war and policy in favor of identity politics, and in some cases shirking their role of educating the public in favor of an academic elitism that is mostly aimed producing work for themselves and their colleagues to consume. Br...
Can Psychonauts Win America’s Wars?
April 26, 2019 22:53 - 49 minutes - 31.7 MBDrugs and war go together like peanut butter and jelly. American soldier boys smoked the reefer in Vietnam, the Wehrmacht ran on amphetamine, and Viking Berserkers were probably on something. Soldiers have enhanced and altered perception using chemicals for centuries, but in the annals of getting fucked up and going to war you don’t hear a lot about psychedelics such as LSD and MDMA. But that might be changing. With us today is Marine Corps officer Emre Albayrak. Albayrak is an Expeditionar...
How A Legendary Black Samurai Became an Anti-Imperialist Icon
April 19, 2019 19:51 - 34 minutes - 22.3 MBIt’s a story some of you may know, it’s been told over and over in different forms. A gaijin, an outsider, comes to Japan and ingratiates themselves with the local military power. From James Clavell’s Shogun, to a bad Tom Cruise movie, to William Adams, it’s a story told over and over in both Japan and the West. Some of those stories have a kernel of truth and few are as fascinating as that of Yasuke—a Samurai born in Africa. Here to help us unravel the mystery and history of this legenda...
ICYMI: Inside the Occult Neo-Nazis Killing People in America
April 12, 2019 17:31 - 28 minutes - 13.2 MBFrom the Silver Legion to the Aryan Nation, the U.S. has had its share of fascist organizations but its never had anything quite like Atomwaffen Division. Grown and organized online, the group has been linked to five murders and a bomb plot in the past eight months. The group is so extreme that even prominent leaders of the Alt-Right have denounced it. This week on War College, journalist Jake Hanrahan takes us through what the group believes, what it wants, and what it might be willing to ...
The History of Preparing for Nuclear War
April 05, 2019 21:21 - 53 minutes - 33.5 MBCivil Defense! From the dawn of World War II and throughout the 1960s, America had a plan to keep its civilians safe and fit to fight in case of invasion or, god forbid, nuclear armageddon. From duck and cover to the aesthetic of the Fallout video games, American popular culture is enmeshed in the history of its Civil Defense. But what, exactly, is Civil Defense. Where did it come from and do we still practice it today? Here to help with this history is Alex Wellerstein. Wellerstein is a hi...
The Era of Shitposting White Nationalist Terrorism
March 30, 2019 04:15 - 1 hour - 61 MBOn March 15, a shooter entered two Mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. He killed fifty and injured 50 more. He left behind a bizarre and meme-laden manifesto. In February, authorities arrested a Coast Guard lieutenant who had been stockpiling weapons in anticipation of kicking off a race war. When it comes to terrorism, America’s problems are overwhelmingly white and nationalist. In terms or raw numbers, it’s not even close. With us here today to talk about our collective white nationalis...
The War In America's Backyard
March 22, 2019 21:04 - 44 minutes - 27.5 MBAmerica is at war across the world, but it’s also at war at home. For decades, violent crime has been at record lows across the country—but that’s slowly changing as cities such as Baltimore, Chicago, and St. Louis see terrifying amounts of murders and gang violence. To make things worse, the way cops do their job in some of these cities looks more like counterinsurgency than it does community policing. Here to help us unpack what’s going on is Patrick Burke, Burke is a freelance journalist...
Everything You Know about Putin (and Russia) Is Wrong
March 15, 2019 19:24 - 51 minutes - 38 MBWe need to talk about Putin. Of all the leaders of state nobody is as maligned, studied, and over-analyzed as Russian President Vladimir Putin. He’s a KGB thug, he’s playing three dimensional chess while everyone else is playing checkers, and he’s turned a state into decline into a global superpower through information warfare. No one is as cunning as Putin. But that’s not quite true. Here to help us dispel myths and set the record straightish is friend of the show Mark Galeotti. Galeotti i...
The Arms Business is Booming
March 08, 2019 22:40 - 32 minutes - 18 MBWar is a racket and damn, business is good. When it comes to the global arms trade, no one sells more weapons than the United States of America. The US controls about a third of the nearly 100 billion global arms trade. Its next closest competitor—Russia—doesn’t do even half the business America does. January 2019 was a record year for the defense industry—profits were up across the board. It was the best month for arms sales in a decade. Here to help us understand the war racket is Amanda ...
Breaking Down Complex Conflict Between India and Pakistan
March 01, 2019 21:52 - 52 minutes - 28.3 MBOn February 14, a 20-year old man drove a car packed with explosives into a bus full of Indian Central Reserve Police Forces. 40 of the police officers died in the attack. This happened in an Indian controlled portion of Kashmir and India responded by launching an air strike on a village in Pakistan. Things have escalated since then and, as so often happens in modern conflict, gotten confusing and muddied. With us today to help untangle all this is Suchitra Vijayan. Vijayan is a writer, pho...
The Secret History of the Pentagon's Hollywood Studio
February 22, 2019 22:50 - 32 minutes - 20.9 MBAt the end of World War II and deep into the Cold War, the American Military operated a strange building deep in the Hollywood Hills. It was the 1352nd Photographic Group of the United States Air Force, and for two decades it served as a nexus between the Pentagon and Hollywood. Part movie studio, part propaganda machine, and part meeting hall—it attempted to shaped American minds for a generation. And it’s story is largely untold. Here to tell us the story is Kevin Hamilton and Ned O’Gorma...
The Kurds are In a "Double Colonial Bind"
February 15, 2019 16:06 - 50 minutes - 34.6 MBThe Kurds are a people without a country. They occupy large swaths of land in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran but have no central government. Kurdish fighters have been constant allies in America’s fight against ISIS, and Peshmerga troops fighting on behalf of the semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq fought against the militants after they stormed Mosul. Without the help of Kurdish forces in Mosul, Raqqa, and across the Levant, America couldn’t have defeated ISIS so handily. I...
This Is (Not) Sparta!
February 09, 2019 19:22 - 46 minutes - 31.3 MBWhen you hear the word Sparta, there’s an immediate association with war and the military. Of the Greek City States, it’s the one most associated with battle. Spartan men were expected to be warriors and their society was geared almost entirely toward training for war. For generations, military leaders have drawn inspiration from Sparta. Much of the romance around Sparta centers Around the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE, where the Persian Empire crushed a small and ill-equipped collection...
What Cigarettes Tell Us About the Military-Industrial Complex
February 01, 2019 19:48 - 39 minutes - 23.1 MBDrugs and the battlefield go together like peanut butter and jelly. The Third Reich’s soldier ran on methamphetamine and American soldiers smoked like chimneys. The picture of the US GI with a burning cigarette pressed between their lips is so iconic that few people question it...or realize how young the image really is. Joel R. Bius, assistant professor of national security studies at the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College, is here to help us dispel the myth of the great American...
The Syrian Revolution Is Over, but the War Rages On
January 25, 2019 02:39 - 35 minutes - 21.7 MBThis week on War College, Syrian journalist Loubna Mrie walks us through life in the early days of the Syrian revolution, how it turned into a nightmarish Civil War, and the consequences of US Withdrawal. You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/...