Think.Fight.Learn.Repeat.

Western Armies are trying to do too many things with too few resources. That's not a controversial statement, in fact it's the opening line of a paper that's been turning heads in defence circles since it landed in April 2026. In this episode, we sit down with Nick Moran, a 20-year British Army veteran who served in the Special Mission Unit community, with NATO, and alongside the Royal...

The Arctic doesn't forgive mistakes, it punishes them. In this episode, I sit down with Dylan Abbott, an instructor at the Canadian Army's Advanced Warfare Centre, where he teaches Arctic warfare and survival. Dylan breaks down what it truly takes to operate in one of the most unforgiving environments on earth, from the core skills every soldier must master to the mindset required to keep...

What does AI actually look like inside the world's most powerful military alliance? As the Director of Task Force Maven at NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) Colonel Arnel David has spent years at the intersection of artificial intelligence and national defence. This week we discuss his team's efforts in aligning AI adoption across dozens of allied nations. In thi...

How do historical assumptions shape strategic decisions and what happens when we get them wrong? In this episode, Phillip Colon, a wargame analyst at Group W, part of Systems Planning and Analysis, joins the podcast to explain why understanding China requires more than analyzing current events. We explore how China’s pre-modern political traditions, the Century of Humiliation, and the Chinese Comm...

In Part 2 of our conversation with Colonel Elizabeth Pham, we go deeper into how NATO’s Multi-Domain Operations course is transforming the way warfighters think, decide, and act in contested environments. Colonel Pham explains how the course moves beyond doctrine and PowerPoint to immerse students in AI-enabled planning, kill web design, cyber and space integration, and resilient command and contr...

What does it actually take to fight and win in a world where every domain is contested, data moves at machine speed, and decisions matter more than platforms? In this first part of a two part episode, we sit down with Colonel Elizabeth Pham, Director of Joint Plans and Operations at the NATO School in Oberammergau, Germany, to unpack how Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) is moving from concept to exec...

What happens when there’s no clear right answer? In this episode, we sit down with Kevin Johnston and Kathleen O’Brien from Fight Club International to explore the power of Decision Forcing Cases, a method designed to put people directly into moments of uncertainty, ambiguity, and pressure. Instead of teaching what to think, Decision Forcing Cases challenge participants to decide, often with incom...

What happens when a small team of Ukrainian soldiers outperforms two NATO battalions in a major military exercise? In this episode, we sit down with defence expert Bryan Daugherty to unpack his provocative War on the Rocks article of NATO’s recent training with Ukrainian forces, and why it reveals the importance of training to failure to adapt and innovate. Bryan explains how Ukraine has developed...

This week, we sit down with Lucas Ziller, U.S. Army officer and military scholar, to explore modern strategic competition and deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. Lucas is the author of the article, “A Hybrid Deterrence Model for Countering China,” published in the Spring 2026 issue of Parameters . In this episode, we discuss: The limits of traditional deterrence in addressing China’s coercive strategi...

Further Reading & References Manoeuvre Warfare in the Baltic Revisiting the Idea of Sanctuary Russia Targeting the Russian Rear Zone in a Hypothetical Baltic War Strategic Theory and Clausewitz’s Trinitarian Test In this episode, we sit down with Lukas Milevski to discuss his 2024 RUSI Journal article on manoeuvre warfare in the Baltic region. Together, we explore how geography, force posture,...

In the second half of my conversation with Fight Club International co-founder Ed Farren, we explore how he envisions Fight Club fitting into the broader wargaming community, along with its future projects and his long-term vision for the organization.

In the inaugural episode of Think. Fight. Learn. Repeat. , host Lex Luciak speaks with Ed Farren, co-founder of Fight Club International, a global network dedicated to improving how professionals think about conflict through wargaming and debate. In Part 1 of this conversation, they explore the origins of Fight Club and why critical thinking and wargaming matter more than ever in defence and today...