School of War

Edward Fishman, senior fellow and director of the Greenberg Center for Geoeconomics at the Council on Foreign Relations, joins School of War to discuss his New York Times best-selling book, Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare. How has the United States turned the global economy into a strategic weapon? What are the strengths and limits of sanctions? And how are China, Russia...

David, a U.S. military veteran who has been fighting voluntarily alongside Ukrainian forces, joins School of War to discuss how four years on the front lines have transformed modern warfare. How has combat in Ukraine changed since Russia’s 2022 invasion? Why have first-person view drones become the defining weapon of the war? What misconceptions does the West still have about the Russian military?...

Richard Bell, historian, professor at the University of Maryland, and author of The American Revolution and the Fate of the World, joins School of War to discuss how the American Revolution became a global conflict that stretched from Boston to the Caribbean, Europe, India, and beyond. How did George Washington's strategy force Britain to fight a world war? Why was France's intervention decisive t...

Sal Mercogliano, professor of history at Campbell University and host of the What’s Going on with Shipping YouTube channel, joins the show once again to discuss Iran's renewed attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Why is the ceasefire already beginning to unravel? What is Iran trying to accomplish by asserting control over the strait? And what could the long-term consequences be...

Dr. John Mitani, professor emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan and recipient of the Charles R. Darwin Lifetime Achievement Award, joins School of War to discuss the violent chimpanzee civil war he documented among the Ngogo chimpanzees in Uganda. What caused one of the world's largest chimpanzee communities to turn on itself? What does chimpanzee warfare reveal...

Earlier this year, Aaron MacLean visited Ukraine, where he met with Georgian Legion commander Mamuka Mamulashvili. What happens when a boy goes to war at 14 years old? What does a lifetime of fighting Russians teach you about how they operate? And what lessons should the West be learning from war in Ukraine? 02:18 - Growing up in Soviet Georgia 03:53 - Russia's invasion of Abkhazia 07:59 - Capture...

Rye Barcott, co-founder and CEO of With Honor, veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, and author of Courage Can Save Us, joins School of War to discuss the meaning of courage, the enduring value of service, and the challenge of bridging America’s growing political divides. What separates courage from bravery? Can military service help heal a polarized America? And what does principled leadership look l...

Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, returns to School of War to discuss the newly released memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran. What does the deal actually say? What are its biggest strategic implications? And is it comparable to the JCPOA—or something worse? 01:19 - Paragraph 1: Lebanon and Hezbollah 09:45 - Paragraphs 2–3: Sovereignty and t...

Eliot Cohen, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, author of The Strategist: How to Think About War and Politics; and co-host of the Shield of the Republic podcast, joins School of War to discuss the recent agreement between the United States and Iran. Did the United St...

Arthur Herman, senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Founder’s Fire: From 1776 to the Age of Trump, joins School of War to discuss how America’s Founding Fathers helped create a culture of innovation in technology, industry, and warfare. Who are the most important founders of the past and present? What lessons can they teach us about tod...

Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ (FDD) Iran Program and a senior fellow specializing in Iranian security and political issues, returns to School of War to discuss the latest round of fighting between Israel and Iran. Why did this latest wave of Iranian missile attacks feel different? Why does a weakened Iran seem emboldened? Where is the regime most vul...

Anthony Vinci—co-founder and CEO of Vico, an AI company that empowers judgment and analysis in finance and national security, and author of The Fourth Intelligence Revolution—joins School of War to discuss the technological evolution of spycraft. How does an intelligence officer operate in a world of rapidly advancing technology? What happens when machines begin to assist, or even replace, human j...

Rep. Michael Baumgartner, who represents Washington’s 5th Congressional District, joins the show from Singapore at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue. What was the tone and significance of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s speech? How are the Asian economies fairing in lieu of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz? And what is the future of the American-led order in East Asia? 03:07 - Tone of the Shangri-L...

Matti Friedman is an award-winning journalist and columnist at The Free Press. He joins the show to discuss his latest book, Out of the Sky: Heroism and Rebirth in Nazi Europe. Whom were the Zionist Jews fighting on behalf of the British during World War II? What happened to the legendary Zionist figure Hannah Senesh? And how did a war story without battlefield success help give birth to a nation?...

Jake Sullivan, former U.S. national security adviser under President Joe Biden, Kissinger professor of the practice of statecraft and world order at the Harvard Kennedy School, and co-host of The Long Game podcast, joins School of War to discuss geopolitics through the lens of today’s Democratic Party. Where do Democrats stand on China, Israel, Iran, and the war in Ukraine? 02:29 - China summit re...

Sir Niall Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and columnist at The Free Press, joins the show in front of a live audience to discuss the perilous moment we find ourselves in and how it all relates to history. What is the status of the Iran war? What is influencing President Donald Trump’s policymaking? How do we defeat a dangerous wave of “anti-history”? And are we on...

Christian Brose, president and chief strategy officer of Anduril Industries and author of The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare, joins the show to help us evaluate American performance against Iran so far and discuss the state of defense innovation in America. What is on the cutting edge? Where are we falling behind? And what happens if the war comes home?  Times: 01...

Elliott Abrams, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and chairman of the Vandenberg Coalition and the Tikvah Fund, joins the show to discuss Israel, Iran, and the new power dynamics in the Middle East. What new alliances have emerged since the chaos on October 7, 2023? How has the current war with Iran reshaped the region? With a storm of competing interests...

Sam Brownback, former Kansas senator and governor, co-chair of the International Religious Freedom Summit, and author of China’s War on Faith, joins School of War to discuss the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of religious minorities and how its domestic oppression shapes America’s broader strategic posture toward China. How is Beijing using the digital revolution as a tool of political cont...

Dan Blumenthal, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, joins the show to discuss the president’s upcoming summit in Beijing with President Xi Jinping. What are President Trump’s goals? How will war with Iran affect the meeting? And what do these discussions mean for the future of conflict in the Indo-Pacific? 02:12 Trump’s summit with Xi Jinping 03:38 Trump’s goals at summit 04:48 Chi...

Nicholas Eberstadt, the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute, joins School of War to discuss global population decline. What does a shrinking and aging population mean for the United States? What does it mean for China, whose demographic crisis may be even more severe? How could population decline reshape economic growth, military power, and geopolitical comp...

Rich Goldberg, senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Garrett Exner, adjunct fellow at Hudson Institute, return to School of War to discuss the complicated news out of the Strait of Hormuz. What is President Donald Trump’s new plan, “Project Freedom”? Does it put the ceasefire at risk? What’s really happening in this critical waterway? Times: 02:31 - President’s statement...

Lance R. Blyth, command historian of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), joins School of War to discuss the evolution of North America’s air defense. How has NORAD adapted to shifting threats over the decades? Are today’s threats manageable? Are we in a new Cold War? And what can the command, with operations deep inside a Colorado m...

Douglas Murray, journalist and author of On Democracies and Death Cults, joins School of War to discuss the assassination attempt that we both witnessed in person at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday. Was there a lapse in appropriate security? Is political violence being normalized? Can it be contained? Times: 02:44 - White House Correspondents Dinner 04:38 - Shots fired 06:51 - S...

Huw Davies, an associate dean and professor of British military history at King’s College London and author of several books, including The Wandering Army, joins School of War to discuss what the 18th-century British Army can teach us about modern warfare. How does battlefield failure drive military innovation? How did institutions of the past respond to change? And in an era of drones, autonomy,...