In 2013, the White House ordered the Pentagon to open combat roles to women and gave the military a three year deadline. As women take on more roles in the U.S. military, both on the frontlines and in leadership, the Pentagon must face an issue it’s long ignored – relations between men and women. Tailhook and the Marines United Scandal reveal a military culture that can be at odds with women and their roles alongside men. But the complications don’t end there. This week on War College, journalis...
Jul 13, 2017•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast U.S. Special Operations forces worked and fought in more than 130 countries across the world in 2016 alone (hyperlink source). In 2017, America’s elite troops are doing even more (hyperlink source). From East Africa, to the Middle East and beyond, U.S. operators are more than just the tip of the spear, they’re the entire vanguard. That’s not necessarily a good thing. This week on War College, Tim Lynch – a retired Marine and former contractor in Afghanistan – walks us through his experiences in ...
Jul 06, 2017•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast Turkey is a member of NATO, an American ally and a bulwark against the broiling chaos of the Middle East. That’s the story at least. The truth is far more complicated. Recently, U.S. President Donald Trump announced he would arm the Kurds -an ethnic minority whose territory spreads across Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria. No one likes Daesh and the Kurds have done an incredible job pushing back against the religious zealots. But Turkey has a venomous relationship with the Kurds and Turkish President...
Jun 29, 2017•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Antifa and white nationalists clash in the streets. Students on college campuses patrol the sidewalks armed with bats. A man in Portland stabbed several people on a bus and another in Virginia opened fire on Republican legislators on a baseball field. This week on War College, Joe Young – college professor and contributing editor at Political Violence @ a Glance – walks us through what does and doesn’t scare him about the new rash of political violence in America. For Young, the times may be sca...
Jun 21, 2017•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Thanks to a hack allegedly carried out by Russian intelligence, relations between Qatar and Saudi Arabia are tense to say the least. The Kingdom has blockaded Qatar ports and several Gulf states have removed envoys and ambassadors. Right now, the Middle East looks a lot like Europe on the eve of World War I. This week on War College, Oklahoma University professor Joshua Landis runs us through the complicated factions making up the Middle East. According to Landis, Iran is the real winner in the ...
Jun 15, 2017•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Pentagon lost track of equipment worth more than a billion dollars, according to a now declassified Department of Defense audit obtained by Amnesty International last month. The F-35 program has already cost $100 billion to develop, and may not even be ready for combat according to an ex-director. The Justice Department has charged at least 20 U.S. Navy flag officers in the “Fat Leonard” scandal – one of the biggest corruption scandals in American military history. What’s going on? America o...
Jun 08, 2017•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast How many soldiers does America need to turn the tide in Afghanistan? The Taliban controls half the country and continues to gain ground. The Pentagon and generals in the field want U.S. President Donald Trump to send an additional 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers to Afghanistan to help win the war. But we’ve been here before. In 2009, Stanley McChrystal famously requested a troop surge and got it. In the long run, an extra 30,000 soldiers didn’t matter. This week on War College, journalist and author Dou...
May 31, 2017•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast Submarines are an accepted part of a strong navy and the cornerstone vessel of a superpower. But these stealth-killers of the ocean were once as derided and feared as the drone is now. This week on War College, former journalist and current naval historian Iain Ballantyne takes us through the history of the submarine. From the American Revolutionary War to the modern age of the nuclear triad, few weapons have been as controversial and as feared as the submarine. Find out why on this week’s episo...
May 24, 2017•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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? (This is a rebroadcast of "The next Great Game may be played for the North Pole" from December 2016). Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
May 17, 2017•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast America is at war with the Islamic State. Typically, citizens think this war comes in the form of drone strikes, signals intelligence and cooperation with regional partners. But that’s only part of the story. Even while popular opinion has shunned U.S. “boots on the ground” in the Middle East, U.S. Special Operations Forces are the boots. They conduct complicated operations that take the fight to the Islamic State, fighting and dying in covert operations all across the globe. But the strategy mi...
May 10, 2017•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast Even if you think a government program to fund research into extra sensory perception, remote viewing and mind reading is crazy, U.S. taxpayers have paid for it. This week on War College, Pulitzer-prize finalist Annie Jacobsen walks us through the years she spent digging through government documents and researching the U.S. military’s interest in the paranormal. Jacobsen uncovered once-classified material detailing these covert programs intended to help intelligence agencies access secret docume...
May 03, 2017•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Pyongyang launches missile test after missile test. A carrier strike group moves through the Pacific with its sights set on the peninsula. U.S. President Donald Trump has called the entirety of the U.S. Congress to attend a briefing on the North Korean threat on April 26, 2017. And Seoul faces an election that could dramatically change the country’s relationship to both its neighbor to the north and its oldest ally. But what does North Korea want? This week on War College, B.R. Myers will help u...
Apr 26, 2017•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast After 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 police m...
Apr 19, 2017•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast My father had a low draft number and always told me he couldn’t see himself trudging through the jungle with a machete. It was the early ‘70s and Vietnam would be over soon, but young Americans were still dying in Southeast Asia. So dad joined the Navy and served aboard the USS Enterprise. Unlike a lot of the other men of his generation and demographic, dad did his duty. While dad sweated on the Pacific Ocean and learned the joys of monsoon season, millions of other American men protested the un...
Apr 13, 2017•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast War nerds love tanks. The battlefield behemoths drove onto the scene in the early days of World War I, replaced the cavalry and became synonymous with war. But which one is the best? This week on the show, author Steven Zaloga walks us through the ins and outs of armored vehicles. He explains how the French Renault doesn’t get enough credit, how the Sherman came to dominate Europe and how people always forget about the Russians. It’s everything you ever wanted to know about tanks but were afraid...
Apr 04, 2017•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast For 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 accu...
Mar 30, 2017•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 
