67 episodes
School of War Nebulous Media
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- History
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4.5 • 145 Ratings
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This podcast seeks to learn what war teaches. There’s a steady decline in the study of military history and its associated theoretical discipline, strategy. Avoiding the knowledge of war is dangerous. This podcast solves that problem by diving into military and diplomatic history.
We study strategy, and the words and deeds of significant battlefield commanders, diplomats, strategists, policymakers, and statesmen who have trained directly in the school of war.
This podcast is primarily an interview show. The subject of any given episode may be the story of an historical battle, campaign, or conflict; the conduct of policy in the course of a major international competition; the work of a famous strategist; the nature of a famous weapon; the legacy of an important military commander or political leader in wartime.
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Ep 66: Michael E. O’Hanlon on Military History and Modern Strategy
Michael E. O’Hanlon, senior fellow and director of research in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution and author of Military History for the Modern Strategist: America’s Major Wars Since 1861, joins the show to talk about how the patterns of military history can shed light on today’s concerns.
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Times
• 01:16 Introduction
• 01:50 Military history for the modern strategist
• 05:16 Is military history relevant?
• 09:05 Lessons from the Civil War
• 22:47 Could the South have succeeded?
• 27:46 America starts slow
• 35:35 MaArthur’s dismissal
• 41:16 Could the Korean War have ended earlier?
• 45:11 What is our grand strategy? -
Ep 65: John Hosler on Jerusalem
John Hosler, Professor of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and author of Jerusalem Falls: Seven Centuries of War and Peace, joins the show to talk about the wars, and the peace, of medieval Jerusalem.
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Times
• 01:26 Introduction
• 01:46 Why care about medieval military history?
• 07:22 What is it about Jerusalem?
• 12:45 Continuities
• 16:19 The Byzantines and the Jews
• 23:54 The Arabs arrive
• 29:42 An “evidentiary problem”
• 33:59 Three hundred years of peace
• 36:29 Causes of the First Crusade
• 40:36 The Crusaders
• 42:32 Siege and conquest
• 44:23 A Christian city
• 47:31 The Crusader States
• 49:29 The Knights Templar -
Ep 64: Dan Blumenthal and Fred Kagan on China’s Three Strategies for Taiwan
Dan Blumenthal and Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute join the show to talk about the three strategies that China can use to seize control of Taiwan.
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Times
• 01:40 China’s three approaches on Taiwan
• 02:09 Persuasion
• 07:35 Complimentary campaigns
• 10:34 Dominance of discourse power
• 14:40 Talk, talk, fight, fight
• 18:45 Coercion
• 26:51 Speaker Pelosi's trip to Taiwan
• 30:02 Compellence
• 35:24 CSIS war game conclusions
• 42:33 Fighting for themselves
• 46:48 Ukraine or Taiwan, who gets what?
• 51:38 Xi Jinping’s dilemma -
Ep 63: Steve Kemper on Interwar Japan
Steve Kemper, author most recently of Our Man in Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor, joins the show to talk about the political chaos in Tokyo in the years leading up to WWII and the man that tried to keep the peace, U.S. AmbassadorJoseph C. Grew.
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Times
• 01:18 Introduction
• 01:50 Who was Joseph C. Grew?
• 04:36 Japanese politics in the ’30s
• 07:30 Imperial Army vs Imperial Navy
• 11:00 First impressions
• 17:31 Insurrection
• 22:12 Drifting towards war
• 26:08 Dynamics in D.C.
• 28:24 Appeasement
• 35:05 Japan’s plans
• 37:40 Embargoes and FDR
• 42:48 Distinct parallels -
Ep 62: Mike Pompeo on American Foreign Policy
Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and author of Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love, joins the show to talk about American foreign policy and his service in the Trump administration.
Watch this video on YouTube.
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Times
• 01:13 Introduction
• 02:12 Chinese surveillance balloons
• 05:01 Chinese espionage “inside the gates”
• 07:19 Meeting Xi Jinping
• 10:25 “Mushy Middle” diplomacy
• 15:58 Republicans and Russia
• 20:18 America in the Middle East
• 26:00 Why talk to the bad guys?
• 31:35 Afghanistan
• 33:05 Resetting the conversation on human rights -
Ep 61: Sonny Bunch on War Movies
Sonny Bunch, contributing columnist at the Washington Post and culture editor for The Bulwark, where he hosts The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood newsletter and podcast and Across the Movie Aisle, joins the show to talk about the best American war movies.
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Times
• 01:35 Introduction
• 02:16 What is a war movie?
• 07:55 The Revolutionary War - The Patriot/John Adams
• 13:15 The Civil War - Glory/Gettysburg
• 16:56 World War I - Paths of Glory/Lawerence of Arabia (Hon. mention: Sgt. York)
• 26:30 World War II - Inglorious Bastards/Patton/The Thin Red Line/Greyhound
• 36:22 The Korean War - Heartbreak Ridge/The Manchurian Candidate
• 41:45 The Vietnam War - Full Metal Jacket (Hon. mention: Apocalypse Now)
• 46:10 Post Cold War - Black Hawk Down/Jarhead
• 49:00 Post 9/11 - 13 Hours/The Outpost/Generation Kill
Customer Reviews
Great interviewer
Aaron is such a great host. He always has clearly read what his guest has written and asks compact intelligent questions.
A Much-Needed Resource & Great Show
Aaron taught at the Naval Academy while I was there. He’s a fantastic host — incisive, eloquent, and genuinely interested in giving his guests a platform to communicate their ideas, insights, and views.
This show is a great resource for anyone interested in the contemporary geo-strategic landscape, as well as public policymakers actively grappling with the challenging issues relating to military and grand strategy.
One of my favorite weekly listens!
Best military history podcast since Thucydides
Would you please publish a reading list based on all the authors you’ve interviewed. Would love to have one place to reference all the topical books as well as others mentioned as great or must reads mentioned during interviews Thank you