127 episodes
School of War Nebulous Media
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- History
This podcast seeks to learn what war teaches. There has been a steady decline in the study of military history and its associated theoretical discipline, strategy.This podcast seeks to fill that gap through in-depth interviews on military and diplomatic history. Our guests have included former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis, and China Select Committee chairman Mike Gallagher. We discuss the battlefield commanders, diplomats, strategists, policymakers, and statesmen who have had to make wartime decisions in the ancient and modern eras.The subject of an episode may be an historical battle, campaign, or conflict; the conduct of policy in the course of a major international incident; the work of a famous strategist; the nature of a famous weapon; or the legacy of an important military commander or political leader.
Aaron MacLean is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He has worked as a foreign policy advisor and legislative director to Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and spent seven years in the U.S. Marine Corps.
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Ep 125: Nick Bunker on America and the Early Cold War
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.
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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
• 25:50 Stalin and China
• 30:44 Developing nuclear thinking
• 32:39 Robert Taft
• 38:01 No choice but to defend Korea
• 46:44 NSC-68
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Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack
Follow the link to buy the book - In the Shadow of Fear: America and the World in 1950 -
Ep 124: Shane Brennan on Xenophon and Leadership
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.
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Times
• 01:30 Introduction
• 02:05 Dubai to Bangladesh
• 05:37 Xenophon’s start
• 09:25 Several levels of failure
• 12:37 “An exemplary Socratic student”
• 14:40 Fighting for the Persians
• 17:18 Cyrus the Younger
• 20:46 A leader emerges
• 29:41 “How was he so right?”
• 36:43 Matterhorn
• 38:33 Exile
• 42:01 An instruction on leadership
• 44:16 “There is always something there…”
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Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack
Follow the link to buy the book - Xenophon's Anabasis: A Socratic History -
Ep 123: Sergey Radchenko on Soviet Motivations in the Cold War
Sergey Radchenko, Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and author of To Run the World: The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power, joins the show to talk about the strategic aims of the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War and how the Soviets attempted to run the world.
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Times
• 01:17 Introduction
• 02:32 A novel argument
• 08:36 Power and recognition
• 11:51 Who started the Cold War?
• 14:55 The American dilemma
• 17:09 Fukuyama
• 21:21 Nuclear guarantees
• 25:16 The shadow of WWII
• 29:44 Flippancy and boredom
• 32:06 Détente
• 32:12 Backstabbing
• 37:52 American lecturing
• 45:39 Sources of Soviet collapse
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Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack
Follow the link to buy the book - To Run the World: The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power -
Ep 122: Mike Gallagher and Matt Pottinger on a Victory Strategy for China
Mike Gallagher and Matt Pottinger join the show to discuss their recent Foreign Affairs essay on the need for a victory strategy in America’s cold war with China.
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Times
• 01:53 Introduction
• 03:25 Meeting in Iraq
• 07:43 “There are bad guys…”
• 13:15 Why detente isn’t working
• 23:45 Real statesmanship?
• 32:12 Rearm/Reduce/Recruit
• 35:20 TikTok
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Read the Foreign Affairs piece here No Substitute for Victory America’s Competition With China Must Be Won, Not Managed
Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack -
Ep 121: Andy Lowery on Drones and Directed Energy
Andy Lowery, CEO of EPIRUS and a retired U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander, joins the show to talk about directed energy weapons on the modern battlefield.
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Times
• 01:45 Introduction
• 02:02 Before EPIRUS
• 06:29 Drones on the battlefield
• 13:30 Current countermeasures
• 19:40 An answer for autonomy
• 21:32 How does it all work?
• 29:54 Beam specs
• 33:45 Sci-fi but familiar
• 38:11 Gallium nitride
• 40:31 Cat and mouse game
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Ep 120: Iskander Rehman on the Emperor Tiberius and American Primacy
Iskander Rehman, Ax:son Johnson Fellow at the Johns Hopkins SAIS Kissinger Center and author of Iron Imperator: Roman Grand Strategy Under Tiberius, joins the show to talk about the military career and statecraft of Tiberius and what his career has to teach us today.
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Times
• 02:32 Introduction
• 03:29 The Pentagon and Rome
• 07:29 Why Tiberius?
• 15:04 Parallels
• 18:26 Germania
• 22:38 Roman criticism
• 28:03 Auxiliaries and proxies
• 32:09 Diplomacy and a recruitment crisis
• 34:00 A brilliant military career
• 37:17 Force structure
• 41:18 Parthian Cold War
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Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack
Buy the book here - Iron Imperator: Roman Grand Strategy Under Tiberius