The Voices of War

Today, I spoke with John Spencer who is an award-winning scholar, professor, author, combat veteran, and internationally recognised expert and advisor on Urban Warfare and other military related topics. John currently serves as the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies with the Madison Policy Forum and was until recently the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies  at the  Modern War Institute at West Point . He...

If you'd like to help improve the show, please visit our Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/thevoicesofwar --- My guest today is Dr Ned Dobos, who is a Senior Lecturer in International and Political Studies at the University of New South Wales in Canberra. He joined me to discuss his more-recent book, ‘Ethics, Security, and the War Machine: the True Cost of the Military’ . Some of the topics...

Link to rate or review the podcast: RateThisPodcast.com/thevoicesofwar Our Patreon page: https://www. patreon.com/thevoicesofwar --- My guests today are Abby Zeith and Ruben Stewart from the International Committee of the Red Cross. Abby is a Legal Adviser in ICRC’s Arms and Conduct of Hostilities Unit where her work focuses on urban warfare and the conduct of hostilities more generally. Ruben is...

Today, I’m speaking with Brigadier Mark Ascough, who is the current Director General of Intelligence at the Headquarters Joint Operations Command of the Australian Defence Force.  Brigadier Ascough joined me to talk about all things intelligence and how he sees the field evolve into the future. Some of the things we covered are: Mark’s background and entry into the Army Life as the J2, HQJOC The r...

My guest today in Dr Tony Ingesson, who is an Assistant Professor of Intelligence Analysis at the Department of Political Science at Lund University in Sweden. His current research interests are decision-making, organisational cultures and technological aspects related to intelligence and counterintelligence. For his PhD dissertation, Tony studied tactical decision-making in high-stress situations...

Today is June 20th, and it is World Refugee Day. It has prompted me to reflect on my most recent episode, where I recorded an update on the situation in Ukraine with guests Arne and Mike. I’m heartened to see the interest the conversation has received—not for bragging rights, but because it helps, ever so slightly, to keep the attention on those who must live with the consequences of this invasion...

Today, I spoke with Dr Mike Martin and retired LTGEN Arne Dalhaug, who have both provided regular commentary on the Russian invasion of Ukraine in regular and social media. Mike is a former British Army Officer who subsequently completed his PhD studying war and conflict. He has published a number of books, including ‘An Intimate War’, still one of the go-to books on understanding Afghanistan, as...

Today, I spoke with John Gartner, whose career as a professional soldier and security adviser spans more than five decades. During that time, he served in the Australian SAS, Rhodesian SAS, Selous Scouts, South African National Intelligence Service and as a trainer for Sri Lankan Infantry and Special Forces units. He also provided security and close protection advice to a former Saudi Arabian oil...

My guest today is Dr Andy Norman, who is the award-winning author of ‘Mental Immunity: Infectious Ideas, Mind-Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think’. His research illuminates the evolutionary origins of human reasoning, the norms that make dialogue fruitful, and the workings of the mind’s immune system. He champions the emerging science of mental immunity as the antidote to disinform...

My guest today is Jason Pack, who is the author of ‘ Libya and the Global Enduring Disorder ’. Jason is also a Senior Analyst  for Emerging Challenges at the NATO Defense College Foundation in Rome where he leads a program titled ‘NATO and the Global Enduring Disorder’, which seeks to produce a range of content analysing our current era of geopolitics while proposing actionable solutions to our mo...

My guest today is my good friend, Duncan Spinner. Since 2015, Duncan has been working in Ukraine and for four years was the OSCE Head of Operations for Luhansk. Apart from sharing information on the current situation in Ukraine, this episode is also an appeal for your help in getting at-risk individuals out of harm’s way. As you’ll find out, Duncan and a small team of professionals are informally...

Today, I spoke with Dr Deane-Peter Baker, a military ethicist, who is an Associate Professor of International and Political Studies in the School of Humanities and Social Science at UNSW Canberra, where he also is co-Convenor of the UNSW Canberra Future Operations Research Group. Deane’s work focuses mainly on the ethics of armed conflict. His current area of focus is on ethics and special operati...

My guest today is Dr David Whetham who is a Professor of Ethics and the Military Profession in the Defence Studies Department of King’s College London. He is the Director of the King’s Centre for Military Ethics and delivers or coordinates the military ethics component of courses for around two thousand British and international officers a year at the UK’s Joint Services Command and Staff College....

My guest today is Carl Miller who is the co-founder of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos. For the past nine years, he's been building new machine learning-driven approaches to robustly study online life and has written over 20 major studies spanning online electoral interference, radicalisation, digital politics, conspiracy theories, cyber-crime, and internet governance.  His de...

Today, I spoke with Dr Peter Warren Singer , who is a  Strategist at New America , a  Professor of Practice at Arizona State University , and Founder & Managing Partner at  Useful Fiction LLC . He is a New York Times Bestselling author with a multitude of accolades to his name. His non-fiction books include ‘Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry’; ‘Children at War’; ‘Wir...

Today, I spoke with Dmytro Gurin, who is a currently serving Member of Parliament in Ukraine. Dmytro is originally from Mariupol, the besieged city in South-eastern Ukraine that is capturing global headlines, where he has spent his childhood and where he went to university. In the past, Dmytro has also spent more than a decade living in Moscow and is very familiar with Russian political and media...

My guest today is MAJGEN Mick Ryan, who only days ago officially retired from more than 35 years of service in the Australian Army. During this time, he has deployed on multiple overseas deployments, has commanded troops at platoon, squadron, regiment, task force, and brigade level, and among the many awards for service and excellence he has received, in 2008, Mick was also awarded the Order of Au...

This episode was recorded at 1000h CET on 27 Feb 2022.  --- Today, I spoke with Arne Dalhaug and Wolfgang Sporrer, both of whom I recently interviewed independently about the crisis in Ukraine (links with longer bios below). Arne is a retired three-star Norwegian Army officer, who also served as a senior officer in NATO and, more-recently, as a senior leader at the OSCE in Ukraine. Wolfgang is cur...

My guest today is Marc Garlasco, who began his career as the Chief of High Value Targeting at the Pentagon between 1997 and 2003 where he led targeting teams during operations Iraqi Freedom, Desert Fox, and Allied Force. Marc later worked in senior roles at Human Rights Watch, the United Nations, and the Centre for Naval Analyses. Throughout his time, he has worked in Afghanistan, Gaza, Georgia, I...

This is a short introduction to what's in store throughout 2022 on The Voices Of War. As you will hear, the show finally has a Patreon and Buy Me A Coffee page. Please take the time check out the links below and support us if you are able to do so. Every little bit helps to grow the show.    Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thevoicesofwar Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/thevoicesofwa...

My guest today is Wolfgang Sporrer, who is an Adjunct Professor at the Hertie School in Berlin. He used to be the head of the Human Dimension Department of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Kyiv, where he lead the civilian aspects of conflict management and facilitated and promoted dialogue between the opposing sides. Before that, he was the head of the international oil and gas company OMV's...

My guest in this Special Release episode is Lieutenant General (Ret.) Arne Dalhaug, who during his extensive and distinguished career served at the highest levels of the Norwegian Armed Forces, the Norwegian Ministry of Defence, as well as NATO. His several final postings in uniform as a three-star general include serving as the Chief of Defence Staff/Deputy Chief of Norwegian Armed Forces, as the...

Today, I spoke with Mark Willacy, the journalist behind the ABC report ‘ Killing Field’ as well as the recently published book ‘ Rogue Forces: an explosive insiders’ account of Australian SAS war crimes in Afghanistan ’. Even though I stated that I will recommence publishing new episodes on the 21st of February 2022, I am releasing this one as a Special Release as I feel that the contemporary rele...

In this final episode of 2021, I take a few moments to reflect on the origins of the show, the guests I've had the pleasure of interviewing, some emerging themes, what's in store for 2022 and to give a few important thanks to those who have made the show possible.  We will return again on 21st of February 2022. Between now and then, I will be reposting a few of my favourite episodes that didn't ge...

Today, I spoke with Samuel Moyn, who is the Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School and a Professor of History at Yale University. We discussed his latest book, Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War , published in September this year. As you will hear, I found this book to be of immense importance and hope that its contents get attention far and wide,...