Angry Planet

If there’s one thing that’s always changing, it’s history. And no, we’re not talking about the Confederacy today. We’re back to one of our favorite subjects: Russia.

Under the Soviet regime, history was malleable. Events appeared or disappeared like characters in a play. Stalin was a savior, he was a devil. It was all in the telling. But that urge to rewrite history goes way back in Russia, and he who controls the past controls the future, as they say.

Joining us today is friend of the show Mark Galeotti. His new book, A Short History of Russia, from Pagans to Putin has got it all covered. 

Galeotti is an expert on the Russian military, politics, and underworld, the author of many fine books, an honorary professor at University College London and a Senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute.

• Recorded 7/17/20

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This episode is a special double feature. We here at War College think that the deployment of Federal officers to American cities is one of the most important stories of 2020 and we booked two different guests to discuss it.

First, we speak with Robert Evans. Evans is a conflict journalist whose work has appeared in Bellingcat. His most recent article there is What You Need to Know About the Battle of Portland and is required reading on this topic. He’s also the host of the Behind the Bastards podcast, and a Portland resident who has been on the street of the city covering the events for weeks now.

We also spoke with Alan Chin. Chin is a photographer, professor, and writer. He’s covered conflict in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia … and now, the United States. He gives us a broader perspective on the protests and what’s happening outside of Portland.

Oh, and he and Jason are childhood friends.

• Robert Evans recorded 7/23/20
• Evans report on the Battle of Portland
• Who are the Portland protests?
• The rhythm of nightly street combat
• The history of the Portland Police Department
• Tear gas, flash bangs, and murder holes

• Alan Chin recorded 7/22/20
• The stress of the pandemic
• Burning police cars in NYC
• Lessons learned from Occupy Wall Street
• China’s protests

War College has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.

https://warcollege.substack.com/

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Afghanistan. U.S. troops have been leaving for years, fast, then slowly, then fast again. There is some kind of peace deal between the United States and the Taliban, but it doesn’t involve peace. The Afghan government isn’t even a party to it.

Russia—which lost its own war in Afghanistan a generation ago--may have been paying the Taliban to kill U.S. troops.

Soon, though, Afghanistan will ostensibly be on its own again. What’s next, aside from more war, of course.

To help us understand all of this, we have Kathy Gannon. She is a veteran reporter with the Associated Press based in Pakistan and Afghanistan. She witnessed the Taliban’s victory in 1996, the U.S. invasion in 2001, and has won numerous awards for her work. She is the author of I is for Infidel: From Holy War to Holy Terror in Afghanistan.

• Recorded 7/21/20
• The lay of the land
• What the Taliban wants
• Taliban VS Kabul 
• The strength of Afghanistan’s warlords
• Rumors of bounties on U.S. soldiers
• No one wants chaos in Afghanistan

War College has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.

https://warcollege.substack.com/

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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Last week The Daily Beast broke some bizarre news. Several news outlets, including The Washington Examiner, RealClear Markets, and The National Interest, had been running op-eds of journalists that did not exist. AI generated photos attached to profiles and credentials that, once scrutinized, collapsed. It was a massive effort at digital propaganda and questions still remain about its provenance and purpose.

Here to explain just what is going on is Marc Owen Jones. Jones is an assistant professor in Middle East Studies and Digital Humanities at Hamad bin Khalifa University and an expert in social media disinformation who helped sound the alarm about this campaign.

• Recorded 7/13/20
• Fake journalists have joined the fray
• Tracking response of the dupe outlets
• The difference between misinformation and disinformation
• Media literacy in Estonia and Finland
• A website that generates people who don’t exist

War College has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.

https://warcollege.substack.com/

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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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
• 
  

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 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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