Last week the Washington Post published The Afghanistan Papers—a blockbuster piece of reporting that details every little thing about what’s gone wrong with the Afghanistan War. As the war grinds through its second decade, the Afghanistan Papers make clear what many defense reporters, government officials, and soldiers have known for years. The Afghanistan War is a costly, pointless, unwinnable mess.

Here to walk us through the Afghanistan Papers and its implications is Craig Whitlock. Whitlock is the author of the Washington Post report and an investigative reporter who specializes in national security issues. He has covered the Pentagon, served as the Berlin bureau chief and reported from more than 60 countries.

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Luke Skywalker is a household name. Carl von Clausewitz not so much. Learning about the military—especially about strategy and tactics—is a jargon filled slog. War has a language all its own and for decades, military minds have struggled to find an easy way to teach conflict to the common citizen and aspiring officer alike.

Star Wars is that language. That’s the theory behind a new book, Strategy Strikes Back, How Star Wars Explains Modern Military Conflict, which teaches military lessons using language and stories from a long time ago and a galaxy far, far away. This week on War College, Military strategist ML Cavanaugh and Max Brooks (author of World War Z) take us through the connections between George Lucas’ battlefields and our own.

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We are living on the precipice of a manufacturing revolution. 3D Printing is more than just a hobby your weird rich friends use to make guns, it’s the dawn of a new process of prototype and creation. Additive manufacturing, if you believe the hype, will make it easier to make everything. Including weapons of Mass Destruction. But how real is that threat and how close are we to making chemical weapons at home for fun and profit?

Here to help answer that question is Grant Christopher. Grant is a senior researcher at Vertic, a London based think tank that works to strengthen verification of international agreements. He was part of the research team at CERN that discovered the Higgs Boson, and he’s the co-author of a research paper titled WMD Capabilities Enabled by Additive Manufacturing.

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Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for tuning into this special podcast. Last week was a busy one for President Trump and the military. Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer was fired. Or did he quit? No, he was fired. Why? Because of how he handled controversy surrounding Navy SEAL and accused War Criminal Eddie Gallagher. That’s … that’s if he was actually fired, which he probably was.

Here to help us untangle this mess is Pauline Kaurin. Kaurin is the Stockdale Chair in Professional Military Ethics at the US Naval War College and the author of The Warrior, Military Ethics and Contemporary Warfare: Achilles Goes Asymmetrical.

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Refugees. People from countries in crisis fleeing oppression and death. America was once a beacon to the world’s tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. But things have changed. In the last term of President Barack Obama the U.S. said it would accept 110,000 refugees. That number is now just 18,000. There’s a moral argument here, but also a compelling strategic one. The enemy of my enemy is my friend … but only if you let them be your friend.

Here to help us sort this all out is Joe Coon. Coon did a tour of duty in Iraq as a Cavalry Scout for the U.S. Army National Guard. Now, he’s the Senior Vice President and co-founder of the Niskanen Center.

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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If there’s been a recent throughline or theme on this season of War College, it’s that war has changed. And it’s not just conflict, but the way we cover conflict. Increasingly, people are using open source intelligence and social media to study and report on the changing nature of conflict.

Calbre Obscura is one of those people. He’s an independent arms researcher interested in non-state groups in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. He is extremely online, and he knows more about AK variants and homemade mortar rounds than anyone else in the world. Follow him online @CalibreObscura and visit his website at calibreobscura.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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It’s the end of the world as we know it and I’m fine. It’s fine. It’s fine. Stop asking.

Between the climate Apocalypse, tensions in the Middle East, the dissolution of decades old nuclear treaties, artificial intelligence, 3D printed weapons of mass destruction, immortal humans, CRISPR, and drone swarms, it feels like we’re closer to a science fiction apocalypse everyday. 

These days it’s not a question of when the end of human civilization comes but how. Mike Pearl has spent years obsessing over The Day it Finally Happens. That’s the title of his new book, which studies the various methods by which humanity could achieve mass extinction.

Pearl is a journalist whose work has appeared in VICE, The Outline, The Awl, and the Hollywood Reporter. 

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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There’s anti-government protests in Hong Kong, Venezuela, and Russia. The civil war in Syria rages on and, thanks to Twitter, VK, Facebook, anyone can share their opinion about world events. Elements of both the left and right say that any anti-government protest in one of America’s rivals is a CIA plot and dictators such as Bashar Al Assad are good, actually. 

Is this information warfare or just shitposting? Here to help us figure that out is Idrees Ahmad. Ahmad is Lecturer in Digital Journalism at the University of Stirling and a contributing editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, Vice, and The Atlantic.

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, Syrian journalist Loubna Mrie walks us through life in the early days of the Syrian revolution, how it turned into a nightmarish Civil War, and the consequences of US Withdrawal.

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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There’s war all over these days, but it’s different. War has, in fact changed, and the operators of the future are preparing for different challenges in different theaters. The bulk of US involved conflict is happening in the Middle East and North Africa, but the Pentagon is preparing for fighting in more traditional theaters.

Marty Skovlund Jr. is a veteran of 1st Ranger Battalion, the Executive Editor of Coffee or Die Magazine and a frequent guest of the show. He’s been covering military training in Europe where he witnessed America’s special operation forces training alongside their European counterparts. The threat they think they might face? It’s decidedly Russian.

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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