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.

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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. 

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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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On September 14, explosions rocked oil infrastructure in Saudia Arabia. Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack and the early headlines stated that the rebel group had attacked the Kingdom with drones. As always, the truth of the attack is a little more complicated. It’s a story of cruise missiles, Iran, and open source intelligence. It’s also a story where how we know what we know is just as interesting as the story itself.

With us today is to help untangle this is Fabian Hinz. Hinz is a Research Associate at James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey, CA. Hinz is also the author of an excellent post at Arms Control Wonk 

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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For the past decade, unmanned aerial vehicles have been a cornerstone of America’s campaign against Islamic insurgents in the Greater Middle East. Predator and Reaper drones crisscross the globe firing hellfire missiles on U.S. enemies. Other countries have operational drone fleets, but few match the might and ubiquity of America’s.

But journalists on the front lines in Iraq have seen a disturbing new trend - Islamic State using retail quadcopters to drop their own munitions with surprising accuracy. Mosul is the frontline in the fight against ISIS as well as the frontline in a new arm’s race. One that pits the tiny drones of the Islamic State against the budding anti-drone technology of the West.

To be clear, Islamic State’s commercial quadcopters rigged with grenades and manufactured missiles is nothing compared to the power of a Predator firing off hellfire missiles with pinpoint accuracy. But that’s cold comfort to a civilian killed by a handmade explosive dropped by a quadcopter over the streets of Mosul.

This week on War College, Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Kesling walks us through the drones of Islamic State. He’s back from the fighting in Mosul and saw his share of quadcopters as well as the innovative solutions coalition and Iraqi forces are using to fight against them.

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Does it feel like there’s just too much information out there and you can’t get a handle on it? Do you have trouble parsing the lies from the truth? Do you know all the places America is at war? Can we even technically call them wars? Are your Twitter followers even real or are they just bots? Are Antifa and the Proud Boys rumbling in the streets a natural extension of electoral politics or just street theater organized online? What if it’s both? Are you tired ALL THE TIME, like me?

The answers, or kind of answers, to these questions and more at the heart of the new book This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality. Its author is Peter Pomerantsev, a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Global Affairs at the London School of Economics, and a former Russian TV producer.

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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Fascism. It’s back and it’s….Ironic?

From Hungary to Brazil to the United States of America, facism—yes, fascism—is back in a big way. When our grandfathers beat back the Nazis in World War II, we assumed we’d beaten the ideology into dust. The problem is that fascism isn’t so much a coherent set of beliefs as it is a mutation, perversion, and reaction to the politics of the moment. The truth is, fascism is as American as apple pie and it’s been lingering in the wings for years.

Here with us today to talk about the neo-fascist movement and its rise to current prominence is Robert Evans. Evans works with Bellingcat and is the host of the Behind the Bastards Podcast and has just published a free audiobook, The War On Everyone, that charts the rise of America’s fascists.

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Do you like independent journalism? Do you like learning about conflict from the best in the business. Well Jake Hanrahan is one of the best in the business and he’s the mind behind Popular Front—a podcast, a website, a documentary series, and a home to independent journalism. Popular Front goes places other journalists don’t go and asks questions other journalist don’t ask.

Jake Hanrahan is here with us today to tell us about his recent trip to Rojava, and a new campaign he’s launched on Indiegogo to raise money to keep reporting from the frontlines. If you like this conversation with Jake, you have to check out his podcast Popular Front. He’s also got a great new mini-doc where he goes on patrol in Raqqa and sees what it takes to guard against Islamic State sleeper cells. That’s on youtube.com/popularfront

If you can, I urge you to go to popularfront.co/10k and donate what you can. You can also pledge monthly support at Patreon.com/popularfront

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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