Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast

Everyone and everything has an origin story, while I had a sneaking suspicion early on in my modest career in special operations and irregular warfare (IW) that something was fundamentally wrong with the western way of war in these endeavors, it was Douglas Porch who probably set my course straight. In this book, he makes a compelling historical and logical case for why the IW efforts planet-wide...

Excursions is a new addition to the CG universe to cover adjacent conflict issues to the irregular warfare fight. *** In the future near-peer and peer fight, salvo competition will be the preeminent means by which one country will kinetically overwhelm the other in a fight. I discuss the way the West is in an existential hazard of being woefully under-prepared to meet the threat if Western forces...

Excursions will be a new addition to the CG universe to cover adjacent conflict issues to the irregular warfare fight. In the future near-peer and peer fight, salvo competition will be the preeminent means by which one country will kinetically overwhelm the other in a fight. I discuss the way the West is in an existential hazard of being woefully under-prepared to meet the threat if Western forces...

The emerging anti-fragile forces of indigenous irregular warfare forces in concert or independent of near-peer and peer competitors challenging US and western global hegemony are on the march and will in the end succeed. References: David Maxwell Counter-Unconventional Warfare (2014) Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War Ann Scott Tyson American Spartan: The Pro...

In this episode, I will be a heretic to the current military establishment in America and the west. They can't do unconventional warfare and I must be very specific in the conditional problem I propose: the western military has no capability to conduct long term partisan warfare in concert with indigenous forces fighting an insurgency in a non-permissive environment. It doesn't have the language s...

Here we do a deep dive in US Army Special Forces (SF) and why a complete overhaul is needed to resurrect the original charter to save SF from itself. Over two decades of fighting neo-colonial conflicts throughout the Middle East and Africa has decimated the original construct and mission of what made SF so special. References: Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of W...

Today, I'll do a deep dive into the US Army vanilla SOF organziations and get acquainted with the capabilities and opportunities for US Army special operations. My Substack: https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx Email at cgpodcast@pm.me.

A brief introduction to the Department of Defense activities in special operations. I will not be discussing the dark organizations and specifically address the "vanilla" SOF in all the services. References: Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War Ann Scott Tyson American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Grant H. John...

We discuss the Israeli emergency in its latest iteration in the horrific attacks by Hamas into Israel in October 2023 and the simmering conflict bands that emerging globally in which this is another explosion in the global conflict rift. For those who thought the podcast died, its death has been greatly exaggerated. My move to FL from AZ is now complete and many apologies for the disturbance of my...

Every war has a seminal novel, a book that really resonates with generation that wrote it and the following generations from the Iliad to Gore Vidal's historical fiction to The Centurions by Jean Larteguy to From Here to Eternity by James Jones to this one. References: Paul Avallone Tattoo Zoo: A Novel of the Afghan War Jean Larteguy The Centurions Anton Myrer Once an Eagle My Substack: https://t....

In the one year anniversary episode (!), we chat about the use of thin-skinned vehicles in the modern age and the asymmetric nature of the fight. The employment of commercially produced vehicles for conduct of raids and ambushes employing a wide array of weapons medium- to heavy-machine guns to mortars to ATGMs and everything in between. Please note that Toyota outside of Japan does not produce th...

I take the time to discuss some of the conventional ramifications of modern warfare and book recommendations that have given me a deeper and more nuanced understanding of why wars begin and end as they do. References: Sun Tzu The Art of War Carl von Clausewitz On War Miyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to...

The defeat of the USSR in Afghanistan was part of a broad tapestry of disasters that eventually brought the Russian communist state crashing down. The shattering of Soviet forces by the indigenous rebels aided by foreign fighters and sophisticated weapons technology from the West doomed the USSR to failure. The Americans would later respond with: "Hold my beer..." References: Ahmed Rashid Taliban:...

We examine the Day of the Rangers: The Battle of Mogadishu 25 Years On by Leigh Neville and Matt Eversmann to discuss the book, the event and what led up to the event. References: Leigh Neville & Matt Eversmann Day of the Rangers: The Battle of Mogadishu 25 Years On Mark Bowden Blackhawk Down My Substack: https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx Email at cgpodcast@pm.me.

We discuss the book, guerrilla and insurgency warfare during the American war in 1861-65, the atrocity cycle, guerrilla math and the hopelessness of occupation avoiding the injury of civilians. References: Tom McKinney Jack Hinson's One-Man War, A Civil War Sniper Daniel E. Sutherland A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil War My Substack: https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx...

It appears the West just can't get counterinsurgency right. I talk about some of the framework ideas that would be good lessons learned for those who I think wisely and would try to avoid COIN. The major takeaway is that insurgencies are rather antifragile and bureaucracies are the enemy of effectiveness and innovation. References: Nassim Taleb Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Be...

I discuss the complex adaptive system that is war that Clausewitz categorically identified as "friction" in the nineteenth century. We'll examine what chaos and complexity has to do with conflict, why it is inevitable and why wars are won by the least incompetent armies and navies. References: Nassim Taleb Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, Skin in t...

The April 1961 Generals’ Putsch of Algiers (Putsch des généraux) , was a failed military action to press French President Charles de Gaulle to not abandon French Algeria, along with French people and pro-French Arabs living there. The putsch in French Algeria was conducted by four retired generals, led by Maurice Challe, the commander of the French Armed Forces in Algeria in 1958-60 and the author...

In this episode, I go through some of the more interesting emails and comments I have gotten since the podcast began in September 2022. My Substack: https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx Email at cgpodcast@pm.me.

his episodes examines the unconventional and eccentric mind sets of Lawrence and other famous and obscure military figures. We examine the way some armies embrace this while others discourage it. References: Scott Anderson Lawrence of Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East James J. Schneider Guerrilla Leader: TE Lawrence and the Arab Revolt TE Lawrence Seven P...

In this episode we will discuss how Lawrence's medievalism gave him a tremendous advantage serendipitously advising and leading the local Arab revolt during WWI against the Turks and more deeply, Allied efforts to map a post-war world. His predilections in study, preparation and application of his 27 points led to a success the British army and the larger Allied effort could not have achieved with...

One of the peak guerrilla fountainheads in the early twentieth century, TE Lawrence has been in both the popular imagination and a large part of the engine in the Middle East that signed the death knell for foreign colonial powers to leave the region, Eccentric and brilliant, one of the few successful insurgency leaders during WWI. References: Scott Anderson Lawrence of Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperi...

The brilliant John Milius helmed this production in the thick of the cold war waning with the USSR. This will be the first episode where we examine the collision between irregular warfare and popular culture. My Substack: https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx Email at cgpodcast@pm.me.

Government, for a variety of reasons, is manifestly incompetent in everything it does and this lends parts of the explanatory framework in why systemic failure is the feature not a bug in Western martial efforts. The critiques of the government supremacist mindset are legion and one can find many rational and elegant theses if you start at the Mises Institute and listen to the podcasts of Scott Ho...

As a former Appleseed instructor and Shoot Boss in AZ, I had the opportunity to teach a marksmanship/history project that had me master the origins and details of the first month of the First American Revolution. I cover the "Three Strikes of the Match" that we used as an organization to educate folks about the marriage between marksmanship and liberty that initiated the divorce from London in 177...