Angry Planet

It’s been a long time since the sun set on the British Empire and many institutions in British society have changed a great deal. In some ways, the British Army is the exception - a living linkage between imperial great power status and the current post-colonial European nation. In other ways, like the US military, the British Army has been comprehensively transformed by the long campaigns in Iraq...

We live in a world shaped by the Iraq War. No, not that Iraq War. No, not that one either. We’re talking about the Iran-Iraq war. Just after Iran’s Islamic Revolution, it fought an eight year war with Iraq. The details of that war are incredible, and in the west, little known. Children cleared minefields, Iraq used chemical weapons, drones flew through the air, and helicopters engaged in dog fight...

The United States’ military is an all volunteer force and has been since 1973. The people who fought both Gulf Wars and the war in Afghanistan asked to join up. They had as many reasons as there are troops, but not one was compelled by the government.  Today, we’re talking to Beth Bailey, Distinguished Professor at Kansas University and the author of AMERICA'S ARMY: Making the All-Volunteer F...

After surviving a poisoning attempt, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny returned to his home country and was arrested. Now he’s been sentenced to serve a 3 and a ½ year prison sentence. After Navalny’s arrest in mid-January, people took to the streets of Russia’s cities to protest. We’ve seen this before, but there is a sense that this time is different. Is it?  Here to help us answer t...

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State Houses across the country are filled with monuments to losers, traitors, and terrorists. General Robert E Lee and Benjamin Tillman are lauded alongside figures like George Washington. The reasons why are complicated, but they’re bound up in something called The Myth of the Lost Cause. If you’ve never heard of this or don’t understand why it’s so critical to understanding American history wel...

Please blame Jason Fields for that headline. Human trafficking and modern slavery are at the top of the news in the United States in the form of the QAnon conspiracy theory. It links together Democrats, child sex trafficking and a pizza place about a mile from my house. The pizza at Comet Ping Pong is just OK, but don’t ask to see the basement. There isn’t one. QAnon is one of the more whacko thin...

It finally happened. Twitter finally suspended Trump’s account. After the capitol riots on January 6, tech companies such as Google, Apple, and Twitter took the unprecedented step of invoking their first amendment rights and removing several users from their various platforms. I just want to remind everyone that the 1958 Supreme Court Decision in  NAACP v. Alabama outlined an implied part of...

Sometimes referred to as Europe’s last dictator, Aleksandr Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Lukashenko, formerly in charge of a collective farm, has kept a tight grip on power and on the past. Belarus has kept Soviet symbols and economic policies long after they’ve gone out of favor elsewhere. Elections have been held regularly in the country, but...

Ghost guns. Untraceable weapons manufactured in the home. They’ve been with us forever, but they’ve taken on a new menace in the age of 3D printers and digital distribution.  Here to walk us through the new phenomenon is Mark A Tallman. Tallman is an Assistant Professor of Homeland Security & Emergency Management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy. He’s also the author of Ghost Guns . Ghos...

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If you’ve ever heard the phrase one-man wrecking crew, they might well have been talking about Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s Shadow Commander. Soleimani’s first fight was against Iraq in the war that started right after Iran’s revolution and lasted until 1988. He went on to great success fighting bandits and drug lords, eventually taking over Iran’s Quds Force - Iran’s tool for diplomacy by other means...

What’s a fascist anyway? It’s a word we heard a lot over the past few years. If you’re on one side of the political debate you probably used this word earnestly. If you’re on the other side, you probably think people use it because they’re too embarrassed to call their political opponent Hitler. But it’s an important word with several very real definitions. Musolini is not Hitler is not, dare I sa...

PULP EPIC. MALE. MAN’S ILLUSTRATED. MAN’S ADVENTURE. BRIGADE. VALOR. You’ve seen these magazines before. You either grew up with them or you’ve seen their bizarre covers online. There’s always a man with rippling muscles, sometimes he’s fighting a pack of weasels, other times he’s eying a scantily clad dame. Sometime’s there’s a Nazi, sometime’s there’s a woman in an SS uniform with a few buttons...

The phrase climate change was originally created to soft-pedal global warming. A hotter planet doesn’t sound good, but, hey, climates change all the time - from winter to summer and back again. But it turned out to be an accurate description for what’s really going on. Deserts are drying, wet places are getting wetter. Crops are dying, and so is livestock and in some places it’s increasingly unsaf...

Law and order, it’s one of the catchphrases of this election. Crime rates, in some cities in America, are on the rise but crime, in general, is down. But 2020 has been a chaotic year and our news feeds are filled with violent images of militant groups, protestors, riots, burning buildings, and everything in between. The sad fact is that not all crime in America is reported on in the same way, that...

https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribe to listen Armenia and Azerbaijan are at war. Why? It’s complicated. What’s the nature of the conflict? That’s also very complicated. It’s so complicated, in fact, that Russia, Syria, and Turkey are all involved. And it threatens to pull in their allies, all over a war that’s been “frozen” since 1988. Here to help us untangle all of this is Aram Shabanian,...

Remember back when the Berlin Wall fell and history ended? Back when we won the Cold War and America was embraced by allies old and new, becoming the world’s only superpower. The Gulf War was fought and seemingly won. Actually, maybe you don’t. It was the end of the 1980s, after all. George Bush - no, not that one - stood at the center of events, and inside that center stood James A. Baker III. To...

Things feel surreal all the time now. We’re told that some of our favorite online personalities may just be sock puppet accounts for foreing governments. Russia, in particular, is supposedly a master at the new soft power internet based information warfare. Some people still believe that Trump is a Russian agent, the end result of a longcon forged years ago by the KGB and ushered into power by Rus...

Nations rise and nations fall, as do their governments. Today, some people say the United States and its treasured republican virtues stand at a crossroads. But how can you tell? Are we dealing with the mere panic of the moment, or something worth panicking about? To help us get a grip on what’s going on, we’re going to reach into the past, today, to see if history is repeating or just rhyming. Jo...

What’s the difference between a Proud Boy and a Boogaloo Boi? Are Patriot Prayer and Patriot Front the same thing? If I wear a Hawaiian shirt while eating a bowl of Lucky Charms, does that make me a member of a far right group? How many of these tacticool bearded weirdos are there, really, and are they dangerous? If it feels like the world today is weirder, wilder, and grosser than the one in the...

America is perhaps more conservative today than it’s ever been. For some on the right, Obama, Biden and Clinton look like socialists. For people on the left, they look like moderate republicans. There’s a reason for both of those views that’s steeped in America’s recent past. U.S. culture was shaped by a suave and smooth talking President who promised we could be a beacon of hope for the world and...

The Military needs gamers. Over the past few months, the U.S. Army and Navy have spent a considerable amount of time playing video games. The Pentagon is streaming on Twitch, showing up at video game tournaments, and sponsoring esports events. And it’s all in a bid to reach a younger crowd and fill out the ranks. The military is trying to meet young people where they live and, increasingly, they l...

Civil wars, proxy wars, cold wars, hot wars. Economic collapse, the collapse of civil societies and governments. Hunger, torture, disease. Many parts of the world seem to be falling apart in 2020, but even then, the Middle East is its own special case. To talk about the state of one of the world’s most turbulent regions, Steven Cook joins us. Cook is the Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle...

Fort Hood. One of America’s largest military bases is off the long stretch of highway between Dallas and Austin. Its Commander was set to transfer out and take over command of a division at Fort Bliss, but the Army announced on Sept. 1 that wouldn’t be happening. To anyone who’s been following the news, the reasons are pretty clear. At last count, 26 soldiers have died at Fort Hood in 2020. That’s...