Jocko Unraveling

Description: As the Cold War kicked off in the late 1940s, America was rocked by revelations that hundreds of Soviet spies had somehow entrenched themselves in the highest levels of the government. When Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy took the lead in exposing them, he kicked a hornet's nest that soon swarmed and overwhelmed him. The period known as the "Red Scare" is a complex time in American...

The Puritans had fled the iniquity of Europe to found a godly civilization in the New World, but in 1692 the devil tracked them down. Driven by wild accusations from a small group of young girls, Salem Village tore itself apart in a downward spiral of mimetic paranoia. The Salem Witch Trials occurred more than 80 years before the American Revolution, but the story and its pathos are strangely cont...

For thousands of years, nomadic tribes occupied vast lands beyond the limited reach of pre-modern empires. With the dawn of the modern age, these peoples found themselves locked inside the borders of powerful states whose drive to assimilate subject populations into homogenous national projects has led to a rapid dwindling of human cultural and biodiversity.   The Tarim Basin in northwest China ha...

 Jocko and Darryl discuss the implications of a recent CDC report detailing a dramatic increase in substance abuse and mental health problems. 

Three years onto the Iraq War, the country is in flames and American support for the war is waning.  Jocko leads Task Unit Bruiser into Ramadi, the capital of the al Qaeda caliphate, as a part of an effort to engage with local leaders and prove that a counter-insurgency strategy can turn things around

With many political and military leaders pronouncing the Iraq War a failure, Jocko prepares to lead his SEAL Task Unit into a battle that will change the course of the conflict.

Jocko completes his first tour and heads back to the US as Iraq begins to come apart at the sectarian seams.

After the fall of Saddam's regime, US forces struggle to provide security as an insurgency takes shape. Jocko's first tour is action-packed, but ends as Iraq spirals out of control.

The traumatic experience of Vietnam shapes the US approach to the Gulf War. The easy victory in Kuwait shapes expectations of the Global War on Terror.

The Cold War and the Islamic revolutions of 1979 raises false hope among US policymakers for Saddam Hussein, whose blood-soaked reign would begin and end in war.

Jocko and Darryl Cooper discuss the "beginnings" of the war on terror.