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School of War Nebulous Media
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- Historia
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 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 -
Ep 119: Yaroslav Trofimov on the War in Ukraine
Yaroslav Trofimov, chief foreign-affairs correspondent at The Wall Street Journal and author of Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence, joins the show to talk about the early days of Russia’s war in Ukraine, how the battlefield has evolved, and where the war may be headed.
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Times
• 01:48 Introduction
• 02:06 Growing up Ukranian
• 05:03 The collapse of Kabul
• 07:40 Leadership counts
• 10:14 Zelensky
• 16:20 How did Putin get Ukraine so wrong?
• 19:49 Touch and go
• 22:45 Draft confusion
• 26:09 Battlefield evolution
• 30:42 Countermeasures
• 34:33 Washington’s tepid support
• 38:11 Possible futures
• 40:26 Trump
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Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack
Buy the book here - Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence -
Ep 118: Michael Doran on Is Hamas Winning?
Michael Doran, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at the Hudson Institute and co-host of the podcast Counterbalance, joins the show to talk about the Israel-Hamas war and the broader regional competition with Iran.
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Times
• 02:04 Introduction
• 04:01 Is Hamas winning?
• 10:29 Fighting the clocks
• 13:10 Defeat from the jaws of victory
• 18:24 An Iranian-American conflict
• 22:44 Managing decline
• 26:40 Lessons not learned
• 33:00 The Iranian nuclear umbrella
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Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack -
Ep 117: Shlomo Brody on the Ethics of War
Rabbi Shlomo Brody, executive director of Ematai and author of Ethics of Our Fighters: A Jewish View on War and Morality, joins the show to talk about the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas and the Jewish tradition of military ethics.
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Times
• 01:28 Introduction
• 04:04 Just war
• 07:27 The Bible as a framework
• 13:34 International service
• 18:33 Reprisals
• 21:37 Purity of arms
• 27:09 Collateral damage
• 33:41 International law
• 35:48 Proportionality
• 39:40 A dangerous ideology
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Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack -
Ep 116: David Stahel on Guderian and Hitler’s Panzer Generals
David Stahel, associate professor of history at the University of New South Wales and author of Hitler's Panzer Generals: Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt Unguarded, joins the show to talk about Heinz Guderian, the myth and the man.
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Times
• 01:38 Introduction
• 02:57 Diving into the letters
• 08:43 Debunking
• 15:30 A sinister figure
• 19:39 Achtung - Panzer!
• 27:37 Guderian the Nazi
• 33:42 Poland and France
• 45:49 Russia
• 50:50 Barbarossa bound to fail?
• 54:48 Guderian the chameleon
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Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack
Buy the book here - Hitler's Panzer Generals: Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt Unguarded -
Ep 115: Stephen Robinson on the Case against John Boyd
Stephen Robinson, author of The Blind Strategist: John Boyd and the American Art of War, joins the show to talk about Boyd, the man who developed the concept of “maneuver warfare,” and what Boyd may have gotten wrong.
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Times
• 01:21 Introduction
• 02:24 “A genuine polymath”
• 04:20 The OODA Loop
• 07:39 J.F.C. Fuller and B.H. Liddell Hart
• 13:28 The conventional blitzkrieg
• 19:26 Maneuver warfare
• 25:01 Cannae
• 29:07 Tactical success to operational failure
• 34:07 Post-Vietnam U.S. military woes
• 37:24 Active defense
• 43:31 Skeptical of technology
• 48:07 The Defense Reform Movement
• 53:50 Iraqi Freedom
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Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack
Buy the book here - The Blind Strategist: John Boyd and the American Art of War