School of War

Alex Miller, Senior Advisor for Science and Technology and the CTO to the Chief of Staff of the Army, joins the show to talk about how we are preparing to fight on the battlefields of the future—which are here today. ▪️ Times      •      01:17 Introduction      •      01:32 CTO     •      04:48 Scale/E.W./drones     •     09:06 How we buy      •      13:07 Transforming in Contact     •      18:15...

Frank Ledwidge, Senior Fellow in Air Power and International Security at the Royal Air Force College and author of Aerial Warfare: The Battle for the Skies, joins the show to talk about warfare’s next frontier, space.  ▪️ Times      •      01:40 Introduction      •      03:24 Thinking about space     •      09:09 More than a conduit     •     14:15 ASAT      •      19:55 Space domain awareness    ...

Eric Edelman and Thomas Mahnken of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments join the show to talk about what our defense establishment has gotten right, and wrong, in planning for the next war.  ▪️ Times      •      02:10 Introduction      •      02:43 National Defense Strategy     •      06:58 Continuity between administrations     •     08:55 Multiple theater force construct      •    ...

Christopher Lynch, Professor of Political Science at Missouri State University and author of Machiavelli on War, joins the show to talk about renaissance warfare and Niccolò Machiavelli. ▪️ Times      •      01:20 Introduction      •      01:56 Machiavelli’s world     •      03:52 French invasion     •     07:08 Republicanism      •      13:42 Mercenary armies      •      22:50 Time in office     ...

Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at FDD and contributor to The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan, joins the show to talk about Taiwan, tensions in the South China Sea, and more. ▪️ Times      •      01:27 Introduction      •      02:00 Why the Navy?     •      04:05 PACOM     •     06:53 Working with Senator McCain      •      10:51 Resour...

Sabin Howard, sculptor of A Soldier’s Journey, the central feature of the new World War I Memorial in Washington, DC, joins the show to talk about his work and the art of memorializing war and honoring veterans. ▪️ Times      •      01:50 Introduction      •      02:07 Becoming an artist     •      07:03 Spiritually classical     •     10:04 WWI      •      14:24 Getting it right     •      18:35...

Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny, joins the show to give his thoughts on Tucker Carlson’s controversial guest Darryl Cooper. ▪️ Times      •      01:25 Introduction      •      02:34 Churchill the villain     •      05:20 Pat Buchanan     •     08:57 Dragging America into war      •      14:50 Barbarossa     •      20:06 “Mr. Cooper simply can’t have read Mein Kampf…”     ...

Matt Pottinger, distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, Chairman of FDD’s China Program, and author of The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan, joins the show to talk about how a war over Taiwan might start and how it may be prevented. ▪️ Times      •      01:13 Introduction      •      03:11 The Boiling Moat     •      04:54 Is Xi serious?     •      11:35 How to deter Ch...

Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, joins the show to discuss his plan to spend five percent of America’s GDP on defense. Click the link to read more Peace through Strength: A Generational Investment in the U.S. Military  ▪️ Times      •      01:31 Introduction      •      01:40 Service years     •      04:39 3% vs 5%     •      9:00 Peace th...

General Kenneth F. McKenzie, USMC, retired as the fourteenth commander of U.S. Central Command in 2022 and is the author of The Melting Point: High Command and War in the 21st Century (https://a.co/d/a2RmIDK). He joins the show to talk about the strategic significance of the Middle East. ▪️ Times      •      01:16 Introduction      •      01:38 The Citadel     •      04:15 The humanities     •    ...

Joshua S. Treviño, Chief of Intelligence and Research and the Director for Texas Identity at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, joins the show to talk about the crisis on the U.S. southern border. ▪️ Times      •      01:28 Introduction      •      02:03 “The border itself is insecure…”     •      06:06 Immigration is not the issue      •      08:58 Texas remembers         •      21:44 The Mexica...

Richard Frank, historian and author of Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire and Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War: July 1937-May 1942, joins the show to talk about the controversial legacy of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ▪️ Times      •      02:05 Introduction      •      02:15 Soldier/Lawyer/Historian     •      09:19 Early controversy      •      1...

Ronald C. White, Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum and author of On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, joins the show to talk about the hero of Little Round Top, Joshua L. Chamberlain. ▪️ Times      •      01:37 Introduction      •      01:51 Why Chamberlain?     •      09:01 Fighting for the Union      •      14:05 The 20th Maine       •      18:10 Arrivi...

Rich Goldberg, senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, joins the show to talk about the expanding war between Israel and Iran. ▪️ Times      •      01:40 Introduction      •      03:30 Where things stand     •      15:25 Israeli expectations      •      24:44 Retaliation       •      31:39 Iran’s strategic concept     •      36:16 American interests     •      44:20 Projection...

Michael Sobolik, author of Countering China's Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance and Senior Fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, joins the show to talk about China. ▪️ Times      •      01:38 Introduction      •      04:29 Belt and Road     •      07:54 The Beginning      •      13:12 Chinese imperialism     •      20:50 Mackinder’s math     •      25:1...

James Holland, author of The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943 and host of the We Have Ways of Making You Talk podcast, joins the show to talk about the Allied campaign in Italy. ▪️ Times      •      02:08 Introduction      •      04:23 “No greater moment of human drama…”     •      11:08 Why go into Italy at all?     •      18:24 Mission to Rome       •      29:33 Baytown and Avalanche     ...

Michael Kofman, Senior Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and contributor to War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World, joins the show to talk about the operational phases of the war in Ukraine. ▪️ Times      •      01:28 Introduction      •      02:14 A case of “Two Wars”      •      09:37 Operating on assumptions    ...

Thomas Mahnken, President and CEO of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and contributor to War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World, joins the show to talk about how strategic fallacies have played a role in Ukraine. ▪️ Times      •      01:33 Introduction      •      02:30 Fallacies of rationality      •      05:36 Is war irrational?      •      10:0...

John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute and host of the Urban Warfare Project, joins the show to talk about urban combat and how Israel is fighting an unprecedented war against Hamas with justice and humanity. ▪️ Times      •      01:50 Introduction      •      02:08 Fighting and teaching     •      09:31 Changes in urban warfare     •      17:14 Terrain still matt...

Frank Gavin, the Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished Professor and inaugural director of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins SAIS and contributor to War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World, joins the show to talk about nuclear strategy and the war in Ukraine. ▪️ Times      •      01:36 Introduction      •      01:53 What are nuclear weapons...

Stephen Kotkin, Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and contributor to War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World, joins the show to talk about the war in Ukraine and what the endgame might look like. ▪️ Times      •      02:24 Introduction      •      05:09 Four victories     •      11:48 “Winning only on Twitter”     •      22:36 10/7 and Ukraine     •...

Robert Blackwill & Richard Fontaine, authors of Lost Decade: The US Pivot to Asia and the Rise of Chinese Power, join the show to talk about America’s failed pivot to Asia and why they think it still needs to happen. ▪️ Times      •      01:59 Introduction      •      03:10 Was the pivot serious?     •      07:40 Absent compulsion     •      13:25 War in Europe?     •      22:46 Changes to the pla...

Michel Paradis—litigator, national security law scholar, and author of The Light of Battle: Eisenhower, D-Day, and the Birth of the American Superpower—joins the show to talk about D-Day and the man behind the invasion, Dwight Eisenhower. ▪️ Times      •      01:49 Introduction      •      01:56 “Wildly under appreciated”     •      05:17 Upbringing       •      11:40 Seeing the world as it is    ...

Nick Bunker, journalist and author of In the Shadow of Fear: America and the World in 1950, joins the show to talk about the first decade of the Cold War. ▪️ Times      •      01:36 Introduction      •      02:26 Countdown to war     •      05:17 Biden and Truman       •      09:05 A failure of American policy?     •      13:09 Present at the Creation       •      21:16 Stalin’s view of the world...

Shane Brennan, Associate Professor of History and Classics at the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh and author of Xenophon's Anabasis: A Socratic History, joins the show to talk about why the Anabasis remains an important part of the Western canon of military writing. ▪️ Times      •      01:30 Introduction      •      02:05 Dubai to Bangladesh     •      05:37 Xenophon’s start       •     ...