136 episodes
School of War Nebulous Media
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- History
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4.6 • 268 Ratings
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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 134: Michael Sobolik on China’s Geostrategy
Michael Sobolik, author of Countering China's Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance and Senior Fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, joins the show to talk about China.
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Times
• 01:38 Introduction
• 04:29 Belt and Road
• 07:54 The Beginning
• 13:12 Chinese imperialism
• 20:50 Mackinder’s math
• 25:19 Nazi geostrategic thinking
• 28:21 Spykman and BRI
• 31:42 Imperialism is not a relic
• 35:43 Countering China
• 40:40 Tracing BRI back to Beijing
• 46:55 Keeping Taiwan safe
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Ep 133: James Holland on World War II in Italy, 1943
James Holland, author of The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943 and host of the We Have Ways of Making You Talk podcast, joins the show to talk about the Allied campaign in Italy.
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Times
• 02:08 Introduction
• 04:23 “No greater moment of human drama…”
• 11:08 Why go into Italy at all?
• 18:24 Mission to Rome
• 29:33 Baytown and Avalanche
• 32:10 Salerno
• 36:25 rethinking Mark Clark
• 40:50 Very hard fighting
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Ep 132: Michael Kofman on the Battlefield in Ukraine (War in Ukraine #4)
Michael Kofman, Senior Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and contributor to War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World, joins the show to talk about the operational phases of the war in Ukraine.
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Times
• 01:28 Introduction
• 02:14 A case of “Two Wars”
• 09:37 Operating on assumptions
• 14:54 Contingency and structure
• 23:41 Figuring things out in the field
• 31:22 Cyber is overhyped
• 39:56 Achieving a favorable outcome
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Ep 131: Thomas Mahnken on Strategic Fallacies (War in Ukraine #3)
Thomas Mahnken, President and CEO of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and contributor to War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World, joins the show to talk about how strategic fallacies have played a role in Ukraine.
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Times
• 01:33 Introduction
• 02:30 Fallacies of rationality
• 05:36 Is war irrational?
• 10:02 Germany willed WWI to happen
• 15:40 Fallacy of the irrational/hyper-rational adversary
• 22:53 Rational/irrational Hitler
• 28:09 Wrapped around the rational axle
• 30:34 Fallacy of over/underestimating the adversary
• 37:53 Losing the contingency
• 41:08 Fallacies of interaction
• 45:56 Learning but not doing
• 50:53 Building defenses against fallacies
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Ep 130: John Spencer on Israel’s Unprecedented War (or, Urban Warfare 101)
John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute and host of the Urban Warfare Project, joins the show to talk about urban combat and how Israel is fighting an unprecedented war against Hamas with justice and humanity.
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Times
• 01:50 Introduction
• 02:08 Fighting and teaching
• 09:31 Changes in urban warfare
• 17:14 Terrain still matters
• 21:54 Israel’s unprecedented war
• 26:11 Learning on the ground
• 33:24 Genocide
• 43:57 The battle of Manila
• 49:41 Suffering is the strategic aim
• 51:04 Tunnels
• 55:51 Outthinking the enemy
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Ep 129: Frank Gavin on Nuclear Strategy and Ukraine (War in Ukraine #2)
Frank Gavin, the Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished Professor and inaugural director of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins SAIS and contributor to War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World, joins the show to talk about nuclear strategy and the war in Ukraine.
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Times
• 01:36 Introduction
• 01:53 What are nuclear weapons for?
• 04:15 Pervasive but not used
• 09:53 Invasion insurance
• 17:58 Better to be near-nuclear
• 22:26 How might Putin use nuclear weapons?
• 26:04 Learning by doing
• 33:48 “It’s all happening at once”
• 41:31 Rattling the saber works
• 48:04 “We will get them back”
• 50:07 History and Strategy
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Follow the link to buy the book - War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World
Customer Reviews
Excellent
Generally great guests, great questions and conversations. My only quibble would be that the intro could/should be much shorter.
Informative and educational Podcast
I have learned so much from this Podcast regarding Military History and how things work in this arena. Thank you!
John Spencer
Fantastic info. Terrible delivery. Almost impossible to follow. Needs public speaker training. Talks way too fast. Jumps around way to much. Figure out key points. Slowly, clearly, lay out key points. Stop with fast forward stream of consciousness.