War on the Rocks

At War on the Rocks, we are re-vamping our podcast series. We will be holding one podcast a week. The first of each month will be 'round the world. We will discuss the most pressing global security issues...over drinks of course. Have a listen! This week, we were joined by: Richard Fontaine, President of the Center for a New American Security Frank Hoffman, Senior Research Fellow at the National D...

In today's podcast, John Amble talks to August Cole of the Atlantic Council's Art of Future Warfare project and B.J. Armstrong, a historian and naval officer, about how we approach the critical task of forecasting the future of warfare. In the discussion, we examine the comparative merits of history and fiction as sources of lessons with which to understand, make predictions about, and prepare for...

I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with PW Singer and August Cole to talk about their new book, Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War.  Yes, these two wonks wrote some fiction and it's an impressive piece of work. In Ghost Fleet, they bring us into the future - not too far away - and show us how this war could very well be fought, examining the social, political, and technological is...

The deadline for a deal on the Iranian nuclear program is on June 30. Just weeks before the deadline, Colin Kahl, the National Security Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, sat down with Ryan Evans to talk about the nuclear negotiations over drinks at the Jefferson Hotel's Quill Bar. Ryan lobbed every objection to the deal he could come up with at Colin. The result was one of the most candid conve...

This is a very special Schoolhouse edition of the War on the Rocks podcast series. As many of you know, our Schoolhouse series is concerned with the intersection between policy and the academy. Is scholarship relevant to the policymaker? Is the academy preparing people to go into the policy world? Our guests grappled with these questions and more, telling their own stories of how they came be invo...

Four members of the War on the Rocks squad ended up in Istanbul this week. What could go wrong? Afshon Ostovar of the CNA Corporation, Aaron Stein of RUSI, Joshua Walker of GMF, and Ryan Evans of your favorite outlet on strategy, defense, foreign policy, and booze join you from a lovely garden a stone's throw from the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia to talk about the Turkish elections, the implic...

Editor's Note: I was honored to attend Professor Patrick Porter's inaugural lecture, celebrating his appointment at the University of Exeter as the academic director of the Strategy and Security Institute. Patrick is one of the most insightful and engaging scholarly speakers I know. Using Carl von Clausewitz and Hans Morgenthau as guideposts, he discusses Western strategic mishaps and proposes mea...

Yesterday, Lawrence Freedman of King's College London joined me for a conversation on the state of the world atop the ME Hotel's rooftop bar in central London, Radio. From the Middle East, to Russia, to China, to Britain's role in the world, the discussion ranged widely as we sat in the afternoon sun (an unusually lovely, breezy day in London). Have a listen!     Lawrence Freedman has been Profess...

This is the podcast in which War on the Rocks fixes the Middle East...ok, we kid, but it is a fascinating conversation with some of the most astute and informed U.S. experts on Iraq and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Have a listen!   We were joined by: J.M. Berger, author of the new book, ISIS: State of Terror (along with Jessica Stern) and a nonresident fellow in the Project on...

We got together a great panel of experts to talk all things cybersecurity, with a little bit of ClintonEmail.com and comedy troupes mixed in. Listen here to Jason Healey of the Atlantic Council, Shane Harris of The Daily Beast, and John Amble and Mark Stout, both of War on the Rocks, as they talk about cyber over drinks. (And yes, only Jason had a Sazerac, but alliteration won out over absolute ac...

Last night, just hours before President Obama delivered the State of the Union address, Ryan Evans sat down with Mira-Rapp Hooper of CSIS, Bryan McGrath of the Hudson Institute's Center for American Seapower, RADM Mike McDevitt (ret) of CNA, and Scott Cheney-Peters of CIMSEC.  Their beverage-fueled conversation ranged widely, from China's disputes with the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan to the bal...

Andrew Small of the German Marshall Fund, Stephen Tankel of American University and WOTR, and Joshua White of the Stimson Center joined Ryan Evans to talk about South and East Asian regional affairs, including the complex web of relations between Pakistan, China, India, and Afghanistan. Have a listen and read Andrew's new book, The China-Pakistan Axis.

We recently sat down with the gang at the Center for a New American Security to discuss offset strategies. As you can see from the photo, we had all the important props one would need to plan how the United States will maintain its military technological superiority, including Star Wars action figures, a drone from Radio Shack, a model drone, a plastic shotgun, a fake robot, and - of course - a bo...

Editor's note: Recently, the Clements Center of the University of Texas at Austin and the King's College London War Studies Department held an important conference on the "special relationship" between the United Kingdom and the United States in the larger context of grand strategy. Many WOTR friends and contributors were involved, including John Bew, MLR Smith, Kori Schake, Tim Hoyt, Ryan Evans,...

Admiral Chris Parry (ret.) of the Royal United Services Institute, Bryan McGrath of Hudson's Center for American Seapower, and Evan Montgomery of CSBA joined Ryan Evans for a wide-ranging conversation on naval strategy, a rising China, territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas, NATO's ability to project power in the Baltic and Black Seas, and much more. Have a listen and read Admiral P...

We sat down to talk Asian security at the Jefferson Hotel's Quill Bar. Our guests included: Dean Cheng, Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Robert Haddick, an independent consultant for special operations command and author of Fire on the Water: China, America, and the Future of the Pacific (Naval Institute Press, 2014). TX Hammes, who needs no introduction. With Ryan Evans moderating, the p...

Some of the sharpest minds on the Middle East in town sat down over drinks to tackle some of the most troublesome problems in the world's most troublesome region. Have a listen! Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is the author of  The Rise of Turkey. Ryan Evans is the editor-in-chief of War on...

Yesterday, Ryan Evans sat down with Sean Kay over a couple beers at the Jefferson Hotel's wonderful Quill Bar to discuss America's foreign policy trajectory and Sean's new book, America's Search for Security: The Triumph of Idealism and the Return of Realism.  This wide-ranging conversation covered every topic a foreign policy wonk could dream of: Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, the Cold War, NATO, Rus...

What about counterinsurgency? At a time when all eyes are focused on the potential outbreak of a "conventional" war in Ukraine, Doug Ollivant, David Ucko and Ryan Evans sat down to consider counterinsurgency over fine bourbon (Noah's Mill, highly recommended). We recorded this podcast to mark the publication of an important book, The New Counter-Insurgency Era in Critical Perspective (Palgrave Mac...

This is the second of a two-part podcast set on the concept, and uses, of Strategic Intelligence. In this episode, Marc and Tom discuss how intelligence functions within democratic societies in an effort to look at how a theory of intelligence can emerge.  Following up on the first part of the podcast, we look at what such a theory needs to answer before it can actually operate in a democracy. In...

We sat down with General Martin E. Dempsey in his office to talk strategy, the profession of arms, military compensation reform, and professional military education. Interview Transcript (courtesy Federal News Service, Washington, DC): RYAN EVANS:  Hi, this is Ryan Evans with a very special War on the Rocks podcast.  I'm here with General Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and I have...

Ryan Evans sat down with an august panel of gentlemen and a gentlelady to discuss issues related to contemporary nuclear strategy.  The guests: Elbridge Colby, Fellow, Center for a New American Security Thomas C. Moore, Defense Consultant and former Senior Professional Staff Member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee under then-Ranking Member Dick Lugar Stanley Orman, former British Defence...

Max Fisher of the Washington Post and Ryan Evans sat down recently with Peter Singer and Allan Friedman of the Brookings Institution to discuss their new book, Cyberwar and Cybersecurity: What Everyone Needs to Know.  It was a fun, wide-ranging, drink-fueled discussion at the Jefferson Hotel's Cabinet Room. Have a listen!   Image: Niklas Morberg, Flickr, CC

JM Berger, Will McCants, and Clint Watts sat down with Ryan Evans at the Jefferson Hotel to talk about a range of subjects related to counter-terrorism. What could be more appropriate for Christmas? Have a listen!   Image: Department of Defense

This is the first of a two-part podcast set on the concept, and uses, of Strategic Intelligence.  In this episode, Tom and I lay out the actual, social function of Strategic Intelligence and look at it place in the long history of divination.  Strategic surprise, or intelligence failures, often are neither: a surprise or a `failure``, at least on the part of Intelligence Agencies.  What they often...