Angry Planet

Bonus Episode: Facebook recently revealed that trolls had been at it again: creating pages intended to drive Americans ever further apart, turning the volume of online political discourse up to 11. All signs point to Russia as the instigator. Graham Brookie of the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab joins us to explain what the perpetrators revealed about themselves and what we have t...

One of the great strains on NATO is the question of who’s paying how much for what. But that’s not a new problem. Almost as long as the alliance has been around - 69 years - there’s been arguing over the bills. Germany has been a particular target of late, with the United States calling on the economic powerhouse to pay up. Kathleen Hicks of the Center for Strategic and International Studies offer...

Bashar Al Assad has gassed his own people. An assassin used VX to murder Kim Jong Un’s half-brother. Now, Russia has allegedly used an obscure Cold War era chemical weapon to assassinate an old spy on British soil. The taboo against chemical weapons has eroded and, for those willing to use them, they’re an effective weapon of war. This week on War College, The Daily Beast reporter Adam Rawnsley wa...

From blue-tattooed psychopaths to “businessmen” with a twist, Russia’s vory developed a code all their own - if you can call it that. Mark Galeotti takes us through the history of Russia’s mafia and how that history helped to shape Vladimir Putin’s state. For a more detailed look, check out his book “The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia.” You can listen to War College on iTunes , Stitcher , Google Play...

This week we talk with the author of “Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin,” Timothy Snyder, about the current threat coming out of the East. He argues, in “The Road to Unfreedom,” that there’s more than greed behind Russian President Vladimir Putin - there’s also an ideology that directly targets democracy. You can listen to War College on iTunes , Stitcher , Google Play or follow our RSS...

Afghanistan is America’s longest war and the cynical view is that it’ll never end. Marty Skovlund Jr. doesn’t think that’s true. He just returned from Afghanistan where he embedded with American Special Operations Forces on the ground and though he says the war he saw now looks a lot like the war he himself fought years ago, there’s plenty of reasons to hope. Skovlund Jr. is a documentarian, write...

Artificial intelligence poses a number of different threats. It can make existing weapons more sophisticated and dangerous, it can help develop new weapons entirely and it can easily be used to create the ultimate surveillance state. All of that is happening particularly quickly in China, which has stated ambitions to lead the world in AI in the near future. Security expert Elsa Kania joins us to...

Among the hundreds of groups fighting in Syria, one stands out. They’re the ones carrying the swastika flag. Independent journalist Jake Hanrahan joins the show to tell us about them and also why, more and more, people covering war are having to go it alone. You can listen to War College on iTunes , Stitcher , Google Play or follow our RSS directly . Our website is warcollege.co. You can reach us...

Things got weird in 2016. From meme magick to Alexander Dugin, from Kek to Chaos, occult ideas have become mainstream. Steve Bannon talked about occult fascist philosopher Julius Evola. U.S. President Donald Trump is an adherent of the Norman Vincent Peale and The Power of Positive Thinking . Some in America’s burgeoning neo-Nazi movement see a cartoon frog as an avatar of an Egyptian chaos god. W...

With just over 270 ships doing the work intended to be done by more than 350, the U.S. Navy is stretched thin enough for the seams to show. In order to keep enough ships at sea, training is getting short shrift, and so is sleep. And that means accidents, some of which have been deadly. What’s to be done about it? Dave Majumdar of National Interest shares a few suggestions, but none of them come ch...

Berlin in 1943. Hitler has all but conquered Europe and millions of Jews have already died in the Holocaust. In the midst of this, a group of women gathered on Rose Street to demand action. They had lost their brothers, fathers, and husbands and wanted to know what had happened to them. They wanted them back and the protested for answers. It worked. This week on War College, Carnegie Mellon Univer...

Only 1 percent of all Americans serve in the military. Even fewer ever see combat. All of those who do are changed by the experience. This week Tony Russo shares some of the stories he’s gathered from combat veterans for the This Is War podcast. You can listen to War College on iTunes , Stitcher , Google Play or follow our RSS directly . Our website is warcollege.co. You can reach us on our Facebo...

When the United States put a machine gun on top of what looked like a bomb-squad robot, it didn’t care much who it was aiming at. But on the whole, drones and other killer robots are pretty effective, and there’s more to come. This week we speak with Kelsey Atherton, a writer for C4ISRNet and Fifth Domain, who brings us up to speed on these deadly machines. Support this show http://supporter.acast...

Why did the United States stop building the F-22, a fifth generation fighter the Air Force loves? Especially if the F-35 program is very much up in the air - pun intended - with each batch of fighters rolling off the line at least slightly different from previous batches? And are China and Russia having better luck with their fifth gen programs? Tyler Rogaway of The War Zone joins us to shed some...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in have met. The Trump administration is on its way to talk denuclearization and the formal end of a war that’s lasted 65 years. Is it peace in our time? Here to help us cut through the noise and make sense of the news is B.R. Myers. Myers is a professor of international studies at Dongseo University in Busan, South Korea. You can...

Luke Skywalker is a household name. Carl von Clausewitz not so much. Learning about the military—especially about strategy and tactics—is a jargon filled slog. War has a language all its own and for decades, military minds have struggled to find an easy way to teach conflict to the common citizen and aspiring officer alike. Star Wars is that language. That’s the theory behind a new book, Strategy...

War is a bloody business and few people know this better than the medics, physician assistants, and assorted battlefield doctors. Since Vietnam, the U.S. has gotten a lot better at saving the lives of the fallen. This week on War College, we talk combat medicine with Andrew Fisher. Fisher is a physician assistant with the U.S. Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment. As a participant in more than 600 missions...

What does the United States get out of having a human spaceflight program? For that matter, what do Russia and China get out of having one? Especially if it’s not about getting the “ultimate high ground” in any fight here on Earth. NASA historian Steven Garber takes us through what the agency is really all about and what lessons can be drawn from the space race so far. You can listen to War Colleg...

When France fell less than two months after Germany invaded in the spring of 1940, conspiracy theories grew to explain the loss. One of the most common was the idea of a massive German spy network, a “Fifth Column.” Historian Marc Masurovsky takes us through what really happened. Was it subterfuge, or were the Nazi armies just that good? You can listen to War College on iTunes , Stitcher , Google...

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 politic...

Everything old is new again, including living with the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. North Korea is a nuclear power. The President of the United States has said he’d meet any aggression with fire and fury. Russia is manufacturing tactical nuclear weapons. It’s the Cold War all over again, but this time leaders can snipe at each other via Twitter. This week on War College, PhD student an...

Mark Galeotti joins us for War College’s Russian election special. The winner, Vladimir Putin, was never in doubt, but what’s the sham election all about? And what comes next for Russia and its relations with the world. And by the way, is there a Gerasimov Doctrine? No, no there isn’t. You can listen to War College on iTunes , Stitcher , Google Play or follow our RSS directly . You can reach us on...

From the Silver Legion to the Aryan Nation, the U.S. has had its share of fascist organizations but its never had anything quite like Atomwaffen Division. Grown and organized online, the group has been linked to five murders and a bomb plot in the past eight months. The group is so extreme that even prominent leaders of the Alt-Right have denounced it. This week on War College, journalist Jake Han...

In the minds of many Russians, the Cold War never ended. When the Soviet Union collapsed, many spies never came in from the cold and the intricate game of espionage and counter-espionage has continued to the present day. This week on War College, U.S. Naval intelligence officer Naveed Jamali shares his story about working as a double agent in the years after 9/11. Jamali posed as a Russian asset f...

This week we've got a blast from the past. Here's what we said back then: This week Thomas Nichols helps us understand America’s current nuclear strategy … or lack thereof. This August marked the 70th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Seven decades later, Washington and the Kremlin control more than 7,000 nuclear warheads … each. Not all of those weapons are active. The two na...