Subscribe to the IWI monthly newsletter by going to www.irregularwarfare.org ! Somalia’s security landscape is complex, making the challenge of understanding the terrorist group al-Shabaab especially challenging. The group uses intricate methods to maintain its foothold in East Africa, complicating both international and indigenous efforts to counter the threat it poses. To examine al-Shabaab and the critical contextual influences unique to Somalia, this episode features a conversation with two ...
Jan 27, 2023•48 min
Subscribe to the IWI monthly newsletter by going to www.irregularwarfare.org ! What lessons can be found in India’s experience with counterinsurgency? Are there elements of India’s philosophical approach to counterinsurgency and its tactical innovations that can be applied by the United States in expeditionary counterinsurgency operations? In this episode, we’re joined by Sumit Ganguly, distinguished professor of political science at Indiana University Bloomington, and Sajid Shapoo, a decorated ...
Jan 13, 2023•52 min
Subscribe to the IWI monthly newsletter by going to www.irregularwarfare.org ! What are America’s interests in the Arctic? Are the traditional institutions that have governed interstate relations in the region equipped for an emerging period of intensified competition in the High North? And how is climate change affecting the strategic calculus of the United States, Russia, China, and other states? This episode tackles these questions and more as our guests—the Honorable Sherri Goodman, former d...
Dec 30, 2022•44 min
Subscribe to the IWI monthly newsletter by going to www.irregularwarfare.org ! In this episode, we're joined by two guests to discuss how airpower can be a critical aspect of building partner capacity. Retired Brigadier General John Teichert and Colonel Tobias Bernard Switzer guests begin by highlighting past success of air advising and explaining aviation’s role in establishing access and influence with partner nations. They go on to explain how key air advising capabilities are being divested,...
Dec 16, 2022•54 min
Subscribe to the IWI monthly newsletter by going to www.irregularwarfare.org ! What role does promoting liberal values, such as human rights and democracy, play in security cooperation? How should the inherent tension between promoting liberal values and accomplishing national security objectives be managed when working with partner nations? Should policymakers deliberately seek to tie US values to security force assistance in the future? Our guests on this episode, Ambassador Dennis Ross and Dr...
Dec 02, 2022•51 min
Subscribe to the IWI monthly newsletter by going to www.irregularwarfare.org ! This episode explores how America’s security cooperation programs can help shape regional security environments by training foreign militaries. We're joined by two guests whose extensive practical and research experience is extraordinarily relevant to the subject. Retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling is a national security and military analyst for CNN who served thirty-eight years in the US Army, culminating in co...
Nov 18, 2022•56 min
Subscribe to the IWI monthly newsletter by going to www.irregularwarfare.org ! Is peace the natural order of things for the human race and war an aberration? Our guests on this episode, Dr. Chris Blattman and Mr. Teny Gross, argue that it is. They describe five theoretical mechanisms that cause breakdowns in societies and discuss why different groups end up resorting to violence. They then compare and contrast the characteristics of violence at the interpersonal, communal, and international leve...
Nov 04, 2022•58 min
Subscribe to the IWI monthly newsletter by going to www.irregularwarfare.org ! This episode explores the interplay between urban spaces and irregular warfare. Our guests are John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, and Sergeant Major Charles Ritter, deputy commondant of the Noncommissioned Officer Academy at the US Army's JFK Special Warfare Center and School. They begin by examining how demographic and economic shifts are increasing the importance ...
Oct 21, 2022•48 min
Subscribe to the IWI monthly newsletter by going to www.irregularwarfare.org ! This episode explores the French experience with irregular warfare in the Sahel region of Africa since 2013 and features two guests. Brigadier General François-Marie Gougeon is a career officer in the French army who served as chief of staff for the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali from 2019 to 2020. Professor Will Reno is the chair of the Political Science Department at Northwestern Univer...
Oct 07, 2022•56 min
This episode explores the conceptual structures that undergird irregular warfare. Dr. Thomas Marks and Chief Warrant Officer Maurice "Duc" DuClos join our hosts, beginning the discussion by addressing the various ways the US government defines irregular warfare. They continue by examining the interplay between nations and nonstate actors—and how sovereign states are increasingly adopting methods traditionally employed by irregular actors to achieve their larger geopolitical aims. Finally, they r...
Sep 24, 2022•39 min
This episode contemplates lessons learned from America’s twenty years of war in Afghanistan. To do so, we're joined by Dr. Carter Malkasian, author of The American War in Afghanistan: A History, and James Cunningham, a senior analyst with SIGAR—the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. The discuss whether, in the year following the US withdrawal, the United States and its allies have sufficiently reflected on lessons learned from the war. They then describe vari...
Sep 12, 2022•1 hr
This episode explores both the recent history and the future character of insurgency. Our guests are former US Ambassador to Iraq, Turkey, and Albania James Jeffrey and Dr. David Ucko, a professor at the National Defense University and author of the book The Insurgent’s Dilemma: A Struggle to Prevail. They begin by arguing that insurgency will play an important role in great power competition, although states’ objectives will change from the transformational nation-building goals of the post-9/1...
Aug 26, 2022•58 min
This episode dives into the internal workings and communications of al-Qaeda and uses that insight to draw lessons for counterterrorism strategies. From the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden to the recent strike against Ayman al-Zawahiri, targeting key leaders has been a cornerstone of recent counterterrorism strategies, but what do these terrorist leaders have to say about the effectiveness of the campaigns against them? Retired General David Petraeus and Dr. Nelly Lahoud join hosts Laura J...
Aug 12, 2022•56 min
This episode focuses on the US intelligence community and its role in supporting the spectrum of national security missions, from the heavy counterterrorism focus of the post-9/11 era to today's environment of strategic competition. Dr. Amy Zegart, author of the book Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence, and Ms. Susan Gordan, former principal deputy director of national intelligence, join the podcast to explore the evolution of the intelligence community, ...
Jul 29, 2022•59 min
How do terrorist organizations and other nonstate armed groups finance their activities? And just as importantly, how can the United States and its allies counter those streams of money? Those questions are the focus of this episode. Our guests are Dr. Margaret Sankey, research coordinator at Air University's Office of Sponsored Programs, and John Cassara, a twenty-six-year of various federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies whose career focused on anti–money laundering and terrorist fi...
Jul 15, 2022•49 min
In this episode, the second in our two-part series focused on irregular warfare in Ukraine, we're once again joined by Michael Kofman and Kent DeBenedictis. After hearing them discuss Russia’s conception and employment of irregular warfare in Ukraine in the previous episode, the conversation now turns to the Ukrainian response to Russian attacks, to include how Ukraine has utilized irregular warfare to counter Russia and built resilience in the Ukrainian population and infrastructure. Our guests...
Jul 01, 2022•24 min
In this first episode of our two-part series focused on irregular warfare in Ukraine, we're joined by Michael Kofman, the research program director in the Russia Studies Program at the Center for Naval Analyses, and Kent DeBenedictis, a US Army officer and author of the book Russian ‘Hybrid Warfare’ and the annexation of Crimea: The Modern Application of Soviet Political Warfare. They begin by exploring how Russia conceptualizes and implements irregular warfare at the macro level. They then expl...
Jun 17, 2022•42 min
Plan Colombia has been described as a model of successful counterinsurgency and foreign internal defense at a time when large footprints in Iraq and Afghanistan have had mixed results. In this episode, we're joined by two guests. Alberto José Mejía Ferrero served as the general commander of the Military Forces of Colombia and has worked closely with American forces throughout his career. Dr. David Spencer is a professor at the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies at the Nation...
Jun 03, 2022•51 min
This episode explores how cyber tools and weapons are used at the tactical level within irregular warfare. Our guests, Dr. Trey Herr and Major Sally White, highlight some of the limitations of executing tactical cyber operations. They also provide insights into how information operations and cyber tools can be integrated together in the irregular warfare space for better utility and to influence target populations through both physical and digital effects. They conclude by noting that tactical c...
May 20, 2022•44 min
Since completing its terraforming and island reclamation projects in the Spratly Islands in 2016, the People’s Republic of China has shifted its emphasis to asserting dominance over the South China Sea. A key component of this pivot has been the expansion of China’s maritime militia—a force of vessels ostensibly engaged in commercial activity, but which in fact conducts operations in concert with Chinese law enforcement and military institutions to help the party-state achieve its military and p...
May 06, 2022•49 min
In this episode, we consider how extremists of all types have exploited maneuver space online, and what this means for efforts to counter violent extremism today. To do so, we're joined by Nick Rasmussen, executive director of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, and Dr. Daniel Byman, professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service whose most recent book is Spreading Hate: The Global Rise of White Supremacist Terrorism . They discuss how the online envir...
Apr 22, 2022•45 min
From dynamite in the early twentieth century to drones, bioweapons, and private-sector satellite constellations today, lethal technologies are increasingly available to nonstate actors and individuals. At a time when states are focused on competition and potential conflict between great powers, the decentralization of today’s low-end technologies could equip nonstate actors, private companies, and terrorists with unprecedented irregular and asymmetric capabilities. In this episode, Professor Aud...
Apr 08, 2022•48 min
It has become axiomatic that cultural intelligence is key to success in counterinsurgency operations. But is it? This episode examines this assumption, exploring whether the cultural training we receive in the military is indeed the linchpin to success—or a red herring, even a harmful distractor, in the absence of coherent strategy. Why does cultural awareness tend to be absent at the strategic level, and does this really matter? Our guests on this episode, Sir Simon Mayall and Dr. Christian Tri...
Mar 25, 2022•47 min
How do significant historical events and Russian cultural memory—especially those surrounding the collapse of the Soviet Union—shape the Russian worldview? How do they motiviate Russia President Vladimir Putin? And what impact does that have on the way Russia employs hybrid warfare? In this episode, Shashank Joshi and Dr. Rob Person join to discuss these questions and more, including potential Western responses to an increasingly aggressive Russia. They conclude by exploring some of the implicat...
Mar 11, 2022•49 min
Russia, China, and Iran have all been learning how to conduct irregular warfare from the United States, modeling their approaches to IW on observations of recent US interventions in the world. This episode examines strategic competition with these three states—specifically how it plays out in the Middle East. Our guests, Dr. Seth Jones and Rear Admiral Mitch Bradley, discuss how all three of these US competitors have used irregular warfare to achieve a position of geopolitical advantage over the...
Feb 25, 2022•59 min
A fundamental change in warfare is occurring, one that risks rendering the American way of war obsolete. As China uses technology to enhance the primacy of its kill chain, the United States has pursued a method of war that is platform-centric—and could prove dangerously outdated. Our guests on this episode, General David Berger and Christian Brose, discuss the radically different approach to warfighting the United States needs to avoid finding itself completely outmatched by China militarily—w...
Feb 12, 2022•51 min
What is the role of security force assistance in achieving national security objectives? Where did security force assistance work well in the post-9/11 era, and where was it unsuccessful? How did policy considerations differ from tactical implementation? And most importantly, how can research and experience from the past twenty years of war inform ongoing partner-building activities in a decidedly different Indo-Pacific theater? Retired Lieutenant General Larry Nicholson and Dr. Barbara Elias jo...
Jan 28, 2022•55 min
Irregular warfare is executed across all domains. In the air, the responsibility for IW falls to Air Force Special Operations Command. Today, the command stands at an inflection point in which it must prepare to compete against great powers while continuing the fight against violent extremist organizations. How must AFSOC change in order to meet divergent demands for specialized airpower? This episode featured a conversation with two guests who address that question: Lt. Gen. James C. Slife, com...
Jan 14, 2022•39 min
In counterinsurgency warfare, how can powerful states reform corrupt or repressive governments into legitimate ones? Our guests on this episode, Jacqueline L. Hazelton and Anne-Marie Slaughter, discuss this fundamental challenge and explain two competing models of counterinsurgency that take different approaches to it. The first is the good governance model, which has dominated both scholarship and COIN practice over recent decades. But the second, the compellence model, might actually better ex...
Jan 01, 2022•44 min
In the aftermath of the military withdrawal from Afghanistan and the country's chaotic collapse, it is easy to forget the prominent role that the United States played in building, leading, and sustaining a forty-nation coalition for the war effort—a task that required some determined diplomacy and a sophisticated understanding of what each country brought to the table. As the United States pivots to the Indo-Pacific region and the competition with China for legitimacy and influence below the lev...
Dec 17, 2021•56 min
