Cocaine is the second most popular illicit drug in the world and it’s controlled by a black market regulated by violence. As America’s drug war edges close to its fiftieth birthday, there is no end in sight, the conflicts it fuels have expanded to an unprecedented scale and cocaine remains incredibly profitable.

Here to talk to us about cartels and cocaine is Toby Muse. Muse is a journalist and documentarian whose work has appeared in The Guardian, The New York Times, and CNN. He’s just published the book Kilo: Inside the Deadliest Cocaine Cartels—From the Jungles to the Streets.

• Recorded on 7/6/20
• We’re living in the golden age of cocaine
• How cocaine shaped Colombian politics
• What happened when the FARC negotiated peace
• The myth and reality of the sicario
• What happens with a Hitman retires
• “As long as cocaine is illegal, Colombia will never know peace.”
• It never ends. It never ever ends
• 
  

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This week we’re joined by P.W. Singer, co-author of Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution.

• The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed.
• Stray thoughts on the Bonus Army.
• The future of policing might be AI and that’s terrifying.
• Domestic terrorism is about to get even weirder than it already is.
• War has already changed.
• 
  

You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.

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Elisabeth Braw​ is a Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London. RUSI is the oldest defense think tank in the world and Braw leads its Modern Deterrence program. She’s also a columnist at Foreign Policy and the host of the On the Cusp podcast.

• Welcoming back Jason Fields to the fold
• What a difference training makes
• Europe’s different policing styles
• The darkside of European policing
• A brief history of the Stasi 

You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.

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Our guest this week is Pauline Kaurin. Kaurin is the Stockdale Chair in Professional Military Ethics at the US Naval War College and the author of the new book On Obedience: Contrasting Philosophies for the Military Citizenry and Community.

• What obedience means
• When civil disobedience is warranted
• The difference between difference and obedience
• The civl-mil divide
• How to re-negotiate the social contract
• Misreading “A Few Good Men”

You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.

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Our guest today is Rick Perlstein. Perlstein is a historian and author best known for Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. He’s also written the forthcoming Reaganland: America’s Right Turn.

• This is more WTO in 1999 than it is 1968

• Why we don’t remember Newark

• Is the press doing better this time?

• The Jimmy Carter Crisis.

• How the Presidency shapes the American people.

• Defining Fascism
• 
  

You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.

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The neo-Nazi movement can’t keep it together. After a series of high profile outings, murders, conspiracy charges, and other assorted run-ins with authorities, the leadership of the Neo-Nazi movement has gotten younger, more online, and more extreme.

Here to walk us through this today is Zaron Burnett. Burnett is an investigative journalist and longform features writer based in Los Angeles. He covers culture, politics, race, and other perplexing mysteries for MEL Magazine.

You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.

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Bellingcat’s Giancarlo Fiorella is here to walk us through what may go down in history as the dumbest attempted coup of all time. On May 3, American mercenaries and Venezuelan exiles attempted to enter the country with the goal of overthrowing the Maduro regime. It didn’t go well.

• The Associated Press busted your coup but you went ahead anyway?

• What the hell is Silvercorp USA?

• A contract is great, but it’s not the same as paycheck.

• Who brings an Airsoft rifle to a warzone?

• Rember Óscar Alberto Pérez?

• How does Maduro stay in power? 

• Why Venezuela became one of America’s favorite political footballs.

With us today Giancarlo Fiorella. Fiorella is an investigator and journalist who’s been covering the story at Bellingcat. His May 5th and May 7th articles at Bellingcat demand to be read if you want to understand the weird comedy of errors playing out in Venezuela right now.

You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.

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Ecoterrorism isn’t a word you hear a lot these days and it’s usually associated with groups like Greenpeace. That might be changing. In 2011, a biotechnology researcher was shot and killed in Mexico. A group called ITS took credit. "We have said it before, we act without any compassion in the feral defense of Wild Nature," reads the group’s manifesto.

Is the new generation of activists using violence to save the planet or satisfy a darker, more nihilist urge?

You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.

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This week on War College, producer Kevin Knodell is back in the states after an extended stay in Iraq. He walks us through his journey and the impact of the pandemic on the Middle East.

You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.

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As I keep saying, war has changed. It’s the recent theme of War College. And it’s not just conflict, but the way people cover conflict. Increasingly, journalists and researchers are using open source intelligence, social media, and academic disciplines such as history and anthropology to explain the complicated conflicts of the modern world.

One of the groups doing that is Silah Report. “Silah Report is a non-commercial research project exploring contemporary and historical small arms & light weapons in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA), and Central Asia regions.”

Here to talk about that work is Miles Vining and Adham Sharif. Vining is the co-founder of Silah Report and Sharif is its Podcast Coordinator and author specializing in Egyptian small arms history.

You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.

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