Even before he took office, Donald Trump was denigrating the U.S. intelligence community – in large part because of its investigation into Russian influence on the presidential election, which challenged the integrity of his victory. That relationship has continued to sour, through Trump’s controversial speech at CIA headquarters and his attack on leaks that helped lead to National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s resignation. As president, Trump’s relationship with the intelligence community ha...
Mar 22, 2017•27 min
For his views on democracies and dictatorships, he’s been called a cynic. But NYU professor Alastair Smith doesn’t think that makes him wrong. This week on War College, Smith debunks popular ideas about dictators and how they stay in power. According to Smith, and his colleague Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, the West too often trades cash for policy favors from dictators. International criminal courts for authoritarian leaders are bad ideas, Smith argues, because they create negative incentives for di...
Mar 15, 2017•28 min
After thousands of American lives, literally billions of dollars and more than 15 years, the U.S. can’t seem to quit its longest war in Afghanistan. With no end in sight, no word on strategy from the White House and the NATO-backed leader calling for more troops to defend against the Taliban, it might be time to cut and run. Few know this as well as journalist and author Douglas Wissing. He’s spent a lot of time in Afghanistan, written two books on the subject and embedded with U.S. troops on th...
Mar 09, 2017•27 min
Growing up, I was always told the military's job was to “kill people and break stuff.” It’s a maxim that gained popularity in the United States at the end of the Vietnam War. But total war with few rules, as World War One demonstrated, carries too high a human cost. This week on War College, philosophy professor Pauline Kaurin explains the role of ethics and morality in warfare, and the gaps in educating military officers and enlistees alike about them. Instead, she argues, the U.S. military pla...
Feb 28, 2017•33 min
U.S. President Donald Trump’s first month in office has ushered in a whirlwind of change. One bit of procedural change raised eyebrows among the national security crowd. At the end of January, Trump reshuffled the National Security Council by elevating chief strategist Stephen Bannon and demoting both the Director of National Intelligence and Joint Chiefs of Staff. Critics crowed over the elevation of Bannon, a civilian, since the move could allow domestic politics to influence national security...
Feb 22, 2017•21 min
According to Presidents John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, the United States is a shining “city upon a hill." It’s a beacon of democracy in a dark world full of cruel dictators and vicious despots. But history shows the United States has also been willing to side with despots in the name of stability. This week on War College, we talk to Brian Klaas, a Oxford University graduate and expert on political violence, about his new book – The Despot’s Accomplice: How the West is Aiding and Abetting the D...
Feb 15, 2017•31 min
President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily restricting travel from seven Muslim-majority countries and halting the U.S. refugee program. One week later, after several legal challenges and protests at America’s airports, a federal judge blocked several key provisions of the order. Moral, legal and ethical questions aside, the ban would create national security challenges for America. This week on War College, Joshua Hampson of the Niskanen center walks us through the possible mi...
Feb 07, 2017•25 min
War has changed in the 21st century and combat is not always kinetic. Russia’s battlefields are the internet, financial markets and television airwaves. The goal is not necessarily to take and hold territory but to expand Russia’s sphere of influence and achieve political goals. This is hybrid warfare, or gibridnaya voina, the much hyped and discussed way of war. But, as intelligence expert Mark Galeotti tells us on this week’s War College, Moscow’s conception of hybrid war isn’t new - it’s a re...
Jan 31, 2017•35 min
Adolf 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 strategic dec...
Jan 24, 2017•33 min
On Jan. 9, 2017, Gizmodo ran a story titled “Trump Just Dismissed the People in Charge of Maintaining Our Nuclear Arsenal.” The article published claims from unnamed members of the National Nuclear Security Administration who said the incoming president had ordered them to clear out their desks before his inauguration. People on Twitter traded speculation about what an empty NNSA might mean for America’s nuclear security come Jan. 21. Within several hours, however, Gizmodo updated the story, cha...
Jan 18, 2017•29 min
Right now, America is fighting a war in Afghanistan – the longest in its history – a war against the Islamic State in the Middle East, a war against Islamic radicals in Pakistan, several different operations in and around the Horn of Africa and – if you ask the Houthi rebels – a war in Yemen. That’s a short list. Today on War College, we sit down with freelance journalist and independent researcher Joseph Trevithick, who has spent the better part of the last year compiling a list of all the mili...
Jan 10, 2017•36 min
At the end of World War II, Winston Churchill lost his reelection bid for Prime Minister of England. The British Bulldog was down, but not out. He worried of a coming conflict with Stalin and the growing Soviet Empire, and he wanted the world to listen. On this week’s War College, author Lord Alan Watson argues that two speeches Churchill gave after the war laid the intellectual groundwork for Western geopolitical thought during the Cold War. More than that, he says they saved the world. His new...
Jan 04, 2017•40 min
Months before 9/11, U.S. Air Force captain Scott Swanson patrolled the skies over Afghanistan with a Predator drone. Swanson and his team were hunting Osama bin Laden. And they found him. But this was months before the new drones could fire missiles, and the pilots could only watch as bin Laden walked away. On Jan 23, 2001 – just three days into George W. Bush’s presidency – a Predator drone test fired a Hellfire missile for the first time. A new age of war had begun. Swanson is the first human ...
Dec 29, 2016•34 min
America’s 2016 election was plagued by fake news. Online, it’s easy to fake authority, and millions of Americans fall for the stories. It may seem new to Americans, but Russians have lived with a strange, conspiracy-driven media for years. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dec 12, 2016•29 min
Russia's aircraft carrier may be creaky, but its submarines are among the best in the business and they ply the currents beneath the Arctic at will - though not unchallenged. So, who's challenging Russia and what are the world's powers fighting over in the warming waters? Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Dec 05, 2016•26 min
Guest host and Reuters Diplomatic Correspondent Arshad Mohammed sits down with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, to discuss a report that amounts to a bipartisan rejection of President Barack Obama's decision to carefully limit U.S. military engagement in the nearly six-year civil war. Read the story: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-report-idUSKBN13O2MS Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hoste...
Nov 29, 2016•34 min
RE-RELEASE: Dan Carlin, who hosts the Common Sense and Hardcore History podcasts, joined us last year to discuss men and women who fundamentally change the worlds they are born into. Good may eventually come from what these "historical arsonists" do, but the price paid by their contemporaries is usually in blood. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Nov 21, 2016•27 min
While Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump had some good things to say about each other during the 2016 U.S. election cycle, Russia expert Mark Galeotti tells War College a victory for Trump wasn't part of the Kremlin's plan. So what was the real motivation behind Russia's interference? Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Nov 16, 2016•33 min
Dean Yates' view into war and suffering left changed. That he knew. But just how profoundly didn't become clear until he retreated to a quieter life to the place where his wife grew up, in Tasmania. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Nov 14, 2016•35 min
THIS IS A REPEAT A SHOW FROM MARCH 3. With Vladimir Putin and the United States staring at each other like the gunfighters in the final scene in the "Good, the Bad and the Ugly," War College takes a fresh look at NATO. We wanted to know what kind of shape the nearly 70-year-old alliance is in. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Nov 10, 2016•33 min
With Russia a wildcard, Islamic State on the run, budgets out of control and several Forever Wars, the next U.S. president will have their plate full. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Nov 01, 2016•46 min
If you don't know whether or not the U.S. is at war, you're not alone. Soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines are engaged all over the world. In many places they're involved in "kinetic warfare," military jargon that means that bullets are flying. So, the United States is at war, right? Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 24, 2016•34 min
Mosul is as the Iraqi capital of the militant group Islamic State. Out of a population of between 1.5 million and 2 million, 4,000 to 8,000 are armed extremists. They now face a combined military force in the tens of thousands, backed up by some of the world's great military powers, including the United States. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 18, 2016•32 min
To say the Britain's Royal Navy is legendary is probably to undersell it. There have been thousands of books - fiction and non-fiction - written about its victories during the Napoleonic wars. Its a bit much to expect any organization to keep up that kind of performance for centuries, but the Royal Navy did. That's what makes its current state so surprising. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 11, 2016•32 min
Depending on where you live, this story will either be shocking or old hat. But even if you have an armed "militia" operating near you, you probably don't realize just how developed these states within a state have become - and how far they've drifted from the majority of American society. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 05, 2016•34 min
Drug cartel weaponry has gotten deadlier. In 2015, a Mexican army helicopter was shot down in the state of Jalisco. The local cartel used a rocket-propelled grenade to do it. And for years, drug gangs have worked on their navies, moving from cigarette boats to homemade submarines. They have air forces, as well, and fight pitched battles against the army in Mexico and other places. But things are changing. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/pr...
Sep 28, 2016•27 min
The separation of church and state is one of the fundamental tenets of the modern Western world, but that doesn't make it inevitable for all cultures. But does that mean that the Islamic world and the Western one are in an existential struggle? Or is that division even meaningful? Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Sep 21, 2016•40 min
Several developments have the potential to move the hands of the nuclear doom clock closer to midnight. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sep 13, 2016•31 min
In the 15 years since America first went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has reduced the number of troops on the ground and increased the number of unmanned robots picking off high value targets. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sep 08, 2016•39 min
The United States is the world's largest arms merchant. It's not even close. So, who decides what gets sold, and to whom? And how closely does anyone follow the rules? This week on War College we look at the upsides, and the downsides, of having such a big share of the arms market. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Aug 31, 2016•37 min
