A Better Peace: The War Room Podcast

Fiction can be liberating. It offers authors latitude to think, propose, and prognosticate about real-world topics in ways that non-fiction does not allow. The ability to ask "what if?" can be an incredible tool in the national security realm that can inform real-time, real-world efforts and offer "solutions" to wicked problems. Retired Australian Major General Mick Ryan has joined the ranks of fi...

In May 2023, the War College hosted the second annual Strategic Landpower Symposium. Bringing together students, scholars and practitioners, the symposium presented senior leaders with original research and recommendations for the application of landpower to achieve national objectives. Included within the symposium were the findings of the Army War College Strategic Landpower Integrated Research...

Plan, Program, Budget and Execute - repeat. It's the strategic planning process for allocating resources in the Department of Defense that was first initiated in the early 1960s. The brainchild of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, it was originally the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting, or PPBS. Over the years the "System" was dropped and replaced with "Execution" yielding the current itera...

Bernard Fall is considered by many to be one of the finest analysts and writers of the Vietnam War. Much of his insight about counterinsurgency warfare in Indochina was informed by the formative experiences earlier in his life. A Better Peace welcomes Nate Moir to discuss his book, "Number One Realist: Bernard Fall and Vietnamese Revolutionary Warfare", which analyses Fall's life to understand wha...

Sixty-six years ago, the Soviet Union placed Sputnik in orbit around the Earth and it changed everything. Since then, more than 80 nations and 100 commercial entities have also found their way into space. Yet much of the public is not aware of the extent to which hardly any event, transaction, or communication occurs that doesn't rely on some aspect of technology developed for or residing in space...

It’s time for another episode of On Writing. A Better Peace welcomes William Inboden to the studio to discuss his book, "The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink." Will sits down with host Michael Neiberg for a conversation about capturing the efforts and accomplishments of the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, and his administration as they confron...

The final episode of our three-part series on Afghanistan looks at rebuilding trust in the civil-military relationship. Twenty years of warfare presented a number of civil-military interactions, some positive and some detrimental, but the eventual collapse of Kabul after hearing time and again from the military that “this will be the year” we turn the corner, emptied the trust reservoir. Guest hos...

The first episode of our three-part series on Afghanistan lessons discussed building armies. This episode focuses exclusively on assessing them. In the studio for this second episode are LTG (R) Eric Wesley, who brings experience from both the National Security Council Staff and the International Security Assistance Force, and Dr. Ben Connable, author of a RAND monograph entitled, Embracing the Fo...

Twelve years ago last week, on May 2, 2011, the U.S. military conducted a raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan that killed Usama bin Laden. Once the mission was accomplished, the SEAL team conducted sensitive site exploitation and gathered up and returned with all of the materials and equipment they discovered in the compound. Nelly Lahoud and her team sorted through some 97,000 files and 6,000 pages of d...

The United States spent over 20 years in Afghanistan and while a lot has been written about the missteps, there is much to be written about the solutions that would have lent to better outcomes. This is the first of a three-part series on Afghanistan and its lessons. Guest host and U.S. Army War College Fellow LTC Ranjini Danaraj and MG Donn Hill, the Commander of Security Force Assistance Command...

When twins Derek and TJ Baird joined the Army in the '90s, neither of them had any idea what lay ahead. But 26 and 30 years later respectively, one is a colonel and the other a command sergeant major, and it's safe to say the Army has been a great place for them. The Baird brothers join podcast editor Ron Granieri in the virtual studio to tell the story of two very different yet very similar caree...

2023 is, of course, the 20th anniversary of the United States' invasion of Iraq. There has already been and surely will be much more examination of the event and the subsequent consequences of the war but very little of the analysis has been from the viewpoint of the Iraqis. Sam Helfont changed that with his new book "Iraq against the World: Saddam, America, and the Post-Cold War Order." He joins...

In March 2023, the Society for Military History held its annual meeting in San Diego. During the conference, Phil Shackleford, librarian, military historian and host of The Modern Scholar Podcast, moderated a roundtable titled Making Airwaves – The Profession of History and the World of Podcasting. Phil was kind enough to share the live recording of the roundtable and we want to share it with you,...

Lou Yuengert and Tom Galvin are back in the studio for another episode of "How Should the Army Run?" This episode focuses on Lou's recent service on the Army's Talent Management Task Force. The Army has done relatively well at placing its top performers in appropriate leadership positions, but in an organization of high performers are the other 90% of the personnel being placed where they are best...

At the end of January 2023 we ran an article by John Nagl and Matthew Woessner about a fictional student's ill-informed preparation for his War College comprehensive exams. It was a bit tongue-in-cheek, demonstrating how the student learns the exact wrong lessons by skimming Thucydides' The History of the Peloponnesian War. Today, 28 March 2023, is the first day of comps for the AY23 resident clas...

Valley Forge, the 1778 winter encampment of Washington's Continental Army, is the stuff of legend and lore. Tales of brutal temperatures, bare footed soldiers and near starvation are what come to mind when recollecting middle school American History courses. Rick Herrera set out to understand the strategic importance of Valley Forge and the logistic challenges that Washington and his staff overcam...

General Charles Flynn, Commanding General of U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC), was in Carlisle to address the AY23 resident class of the U.S. Army War College. He took the time to sit down with our Editor-in-Chief JP Clark to discuss what the Army is doing in the Pacific. Their conversation includes the 4Cs framework, allies and partners, wargaming and campaigning in the region and the responsibilities...

It's time for part two of our Antarctica trip. In February 2023, Michele Devlin, Professor of Environmental Security at the U.S. Army War College, traveled to the Antarctica and took us along through a little technological sleight of hand. Armed with her trusty iPhone and a list of questions and topics for discussion, Michele documented her journey and her reactions along the way. In this second o...

And now for something completely different! In February 2023, Michele Devlin, Professor of Environmental Security at the U.S. Army War College, traveled to the Antarctica and took us along through a little technological sleight of hand. Armed with her trusty iPhone and a list of questions and topics for discussion, Michele documented her journey and her reactions along the way. In this first of tw...

A crucial turning point in the American Revolutionary War, the Battle of Saratoga boosted the morale of the Continental Army; influenced the opinions of the French, Spanish and Dutch; and closed the door to possible invasions from the Canadian front. Kevin Weddle is in the studio to discuss the strategic lessons of this important battle as he has outlined them in his book The Compleat Victory. He...

It's time for another episode about the U.S. Army War College's Distance Education program. COL Heather Smigowski, Chair of the Department of Distance Education, is back in the studio to offer a few suggestions to new students who just received their welcome letter to the class of academic year '25 (AY25). Heather joins podcast host Ron Granieri to describe the challenges the members of AY25 will...

Historical Mindedness is a form of reasoning that deals with historical material and present-day problems and it is woven throughout the U.S. Army War College curriculum. It doesn't predict the future or provide all the answers to modern international situations, but it does arm strategic thinkers with the right questions to ask of the dilemmas they face. Alexander Mikaberidze is in the studio tod...

For more than one hundred years there were three recognized domains in military conflict: land, maritime and air. In the two last decades after significant debate, the cyber and space domains were officially defined by western allies. Rob Farley is in the studio with podcast editor Ron Granieri to explain why the United States and its allies need to consider adding the finance domain to the multi-...

Tom Galvin is back in the studio for another episode of "How Should the Army Run?" He's joined today by Doug "Muddy" Waters to talk about how the Army (and the rest of DoD) gets its funding. In this stage-setting episode Tom and Muddy discuss Congressional processes like appropriations and authorizations, continuing resolutions, the "color of money", and you'll hear familiar terms like POM, OCO, O...

It's time for another episode of On Writing. A BETTER PEACE welcomes Tami Biddle to the studio to discuss her newest history project, Taking Command: The United States at War 1941-1945. Tami sits down with host Michael Neiberg for a conversation about capturing this very large and complicated topic. Tami shares her processes for organization, content selection, and how she has gone about creating...