A Better Peace: The War Room Podcast

Subsequent events after the election seem to bear out that perhaps we do have old wine in new bottles. In February 2018, Chris Wyatt and Jacqueline E. Whitt discussed the Strange Bloodless Coup in Zimbabwe in which Robert Mugabe was quietly deposed and new President Emmerson Mnangagwa assumed power. At the time, there were a lot of questions about what would happen next. Would Zimbabwe normalize i...

For the past decade or so, the economics profession has been scratching its head hard to figure out why has [the engine of U.S. production] started to falter? Without question, the state of the U.S. economy shapes the conversation between national leaders and the military over strategies, requirements, and capabilities. But economics is not a true science and therefore it can be difficult to under...

We should focus [artificial intelligence] in assisting and helping us make more timely and effective decisions Artificial intelligence (AI) is making a lot of noise today, what does its continued development mean for national security? Will AI solve problems, or are there important limits to the technology that AI is unlikely to overcome? What should be the role of AI in the future force? Recent U...

[The Harold K. Johnson Chair] is an effort to bring civilians into the military in order to chip away at the gap that exists ... between the civilian world and the military As a follow-up to her WAR ROOM article on professional military education, former Harold K. Johnson Chair of Military History Dr. Jennifer Mittelstadt reflects on her one-year tour at the U.S. Army War College. As a lifelong ci...

There is one thing for the event to occur; but the manner in which it was handled was more institutionally damning. In a follow-up to his article published in WAR ROOM in June, Richard Lacquement sits down with WAR ROOM Editor-in-Chief Andrew A. Hill to go over the aftermath of My Lai as it continues to influence Army professionalism today. The atrocities highlighted significant institutional prob...

Stumbling block number one: You start to believe the hype. ... Two: You somehow start to think you deserve it, as opposed to think that you've still got to hustle. WAR ROOM welcomes Dr. Rebecca Johnson to discuss her perspectives on strategic leadership as Dean of Academics at the Marine Corps University. Having witnessed many officers and civilians graduate from senior service college, Dr. Johnso...

The shadow of the First Amendment certainly hovers over the chaplaincy... . Religion has long played an important role in sustaining soldier morale, especially in the front lines of war. But, over the past century many questions have surfaced over how religion is institutionalized in the armed forces. Is the existence of a chaplaincy a violation of the U.S. Constitution? What can or should chaplai...

The way we should approach this is 'How do we put ourselves out of a job? How do we make it so logistics is not the operational constraint?' This is the second of two podcasts discussing U.S. Army War College student and faculty research into Army sustainment. This discussion addresses a study on how to organize and design Army systems to make them more sustainable in future combat environments by...

If you go to Disney World, twenty years ago there were no express lines. ... Now we have an express pass where you pay a little extra, you get escorted to the front. ... What happens if everyone who's in line needs to get to the front? This is the first of two related podcasts on strategic sustainment. Historically as an organizing construct, the Army has gone back and forth between two modes. One...

To treat our own time period as though it is somehow exceptional feels intellectually and morally wrong. Do we need a new lexicon or do we already have the right words that we are misapplying? For a quarter century, a popular term to describe the modern strategic environment has been "VUCA," an acronym meaning "Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous." Coined at the U.S. Army War College in th...

We're in a support role, and sometimes that's a little bit challenges for folks to wrap their mind around. In the next release in the 'Leader Perspectives' series, WAR ROOM welcomes Brigadier General James Blankenhorn, U.S. Army retired and former Commander of the Command and Control of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Response Force Alpha. In this interview, BG Blankenhorn discusse...

We tend to think about 'strategic leaders' as people who were successful.... But to me, it is the content of their goals that matter. WAR ROOM welcomes Dr. Sarah Sewall, former Undersecretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights under the Obama administration and the inaugural Deputy Assistance Secretary of Defense for Peacekeeping and Peace Enforcement Policy. Dr. Sewell was...

We as American citizens have to re-evaluate ... the information we're getting from social media to inform our understanding of foreign policy and world events. A constructive relationship between policymakers and the public is an important enabler for national security policy. When public opinion opposes options that an Administration wishes or needs to consider, that can constrain national action...

The intelligence community typically focuses too much on the here-and-now and urgent, as opposed to the more distant and important future. In this culminating podcast in the Intelligence series, WAR ROOM welcomes former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to discuss the strategic roles of intelligence and his perspectives on themes presented throughout this series. How do unrealistic e...

You talk about the capabilities of the War College graduates and the ability as a colonel to transfer from being concerned about [one's unit] into understanding the desires of the entire enterprise WAR ROOM welcomes retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling to discuss his perspectives on strategic leadership and the solving of difficult strategic problems where the ways and means are not...

How do we take an institution ... that is designed to collect sensitive material and incorporate everything else that is out there [-- Journalism, social media, academic literature, etc.]? WAR ROOM welcomes Adam Wasserman, a former political analyst from the Central Intelligence Agency to discuss the particular challenges of conducting strategic intelligence analysis in today's environment. For ex...

Instead of what the Melian dialogue tells us, which is that 'Might Makes Right,' ... when it comes to Supreme Command, 'Right Makes Might.' Whoever has the superior decisions wins. Science fiction has a long history of helping provide simple explanations for complex phenomena. Few phenomena are as complex, and as elusive, a grand strategy. In this podcast, active Army strategist Major ML Cavanaugh...

30 years ago, we still talked about deterrence a lot in this country. We still talked about nuclear weapons in this country. Today, the broader population does not, and therefore part of my job is to make sure that that becomes part of the dialogue again. What happens when an important strategic message is simply not salient to the audience? How does a senior military leader overcome disinterest o...

It's silly to expect that intelligence will always get it right. WAR ROOM welcomes Dr. Richard Betts from Columbia University to discuss what success and failure really mean in the intelligence community. For example, when adversaries successfully strike U.S. targets, the results are tragic and are often followed by soul searching and, unfortunately, blame. Success stories, such as the thwarting o...

What a President or any other senior leader brings with him or her to office in inevitably a simplified view of how the world works. Is it critical that national leaders have an open mind? Or is it sometimes necessary? In this third episode in the WAR ROOM series on Intelligence, special guest Paul Pillar, a 28-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency discusses the inconsistent role that in...

If they come out with an after-action review or lessons learned from Iraq and all it talks about is how officers executed the war, then you know the Army missed an opportunity. WAR ROOM welcomes Command Sergeant Major Christopher Martinez who retired from the U.S. Army after culminating his career as Command Sergeant Major of the U.S. Army War College. In this interview with WAR ROOM Editor-in-Chi...

Failure is not just the result of one part of the equation. [Sometimes] you can give the right piece of intelligence and they won't act on it. What does it take to be a successful intelligence officer or civilian? Or perhaps, what negative traits indicate the likelihood of failure? In this second episode in the WAR ROOM series on Intelligence, special guest Dr. Rose McDermott of Brown University d...

People say, "Well, people break the rules of warfare all the time, so why should we have rules?" Is there an absolute moral and ethical framework that guides forces in war, or is it no more than the rules chosen by the powerful to justify their actions? What is the benefit of such frameworks in a world where adversaries appear free to act immorally? These and other questions are presented by speci...

For national security officials who are wading through floods of information, how do they find that nugget, ... that piece of information that fits with all the other pieces? What is the role of intelligence in a world where information is everywhere and the global security environment moves and evolves at breakneck speed? Answering this question is the purpose behind this exciting six-part podcas...

A story ... breaks down more complicated theoretical concepts into something that is relatable. Among the challenges of educating senior national security professionals is that the dynamics and complexity of the strategic environment inhibits the creation of clean models or simple how-to guides. The context of each problem is different, as even the same type of problem will vary according to the r...