Angry Planet

Why do soldiers fight? Maybe it’s patriotism. Maybe it’s comradeship. Maybe it’s fear of their own side.

Or maybe it’s the drugs.

For as long as there have been people, there have been people trying to get high. It’s no different in warfare. Fighters have used drugs to make themselves bloodier, stronger, more able to go without sleep. Lukasz Kamienski, author of "Shooting Up: A Short History of Drugs and War," joins us.

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Taylor Swift and Islamic State are in a battle for our hearts, minds and eyeballs. Russia wants your vote, or for you not to vote at all. And if you think the amount of false information out there online is dangerous now, just wait. Artificial intelligence is about to make fake news virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.

Peter W. Singer, author of the new book "LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media," takes us beyond the troll farms and into some even creepier territory.

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More than 2,400 years ago, Thucydides of Athens wrote about his city's war with Sparta. Today, that book is still read at military academies all over the world.

Why?

That's what we asked Dr. Cliff Rogers of West Point.

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Xi Jinping’s China tends to look at itself as a historical victim, an underdog fighting to roll back indignities of the past and prove its strength. Author and journalist Paul French has been chronicling China’s rise since the 1980s, but has also focused on understanding the development of the country since the Opium Wars of the 19th century.

In this episode, French offers his view of how China’s past is informing its aggressive foreign policy now.

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Qanon is a conspiracy theory that supposes President Donald Trump is at war with an ancient pedophile cult. When Qanon believers began to show up at Trump rallies, the mainstream media took notice. In early August, BuzzFeed published an article that theorized the whole thing was an elaborate prank by leftists activists. Their evidence was a 1999 book about religious rebellions during the 16th century. It’s title? Q.

Wu Ming 1, one of the authors of that book joins us today to talk about Q, Qanon, and the importance of conspiracy theories in modern life.

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The man behind defunct mercenary provider Blackwater sees private air power as the key to winning the war in Afghanistan. A new report links Erik Prince to efforts to buy or build private gunships - the kind of weapon only the United States and a few other countries have at their disposal.

David Axe, who writes for the Daily Beast, joins us to discuss the results of his investigation.

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People in Venezuela are murdering each other at the highest rate in the world. Workers are fainting on the job because of hunger. Citizens have lost 20 pounds on average since the country’s economic crisis began. It’s a nation in collapse with no clear way out.

How did Venezuela, once one of the world’s richest countries, plummet so far? Keith Johnson of Foreign Policy helps us understand.

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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Several recent developments have the potential to move the hands of the nuclear doom clock closer to midnight. In this episode from a while back, we talked with the Washington Post's Dan Zak about his reporting on the potential for nuclear war. What he had to say wasn't cheering.

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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Conspiracy theories are as old as the republic. Actually, they're a lot older than OUR republic. In every country, in every culture, people believe powerful forces are colluding in ways they know nothing about.

Why is that?

In this week's bonus episode we talk with Jesse Walker, books editor of Reason magazine and author of "The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory."

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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Sometimes called insider, or “green on blue” attacks, when U.S. forces are assaulted by their allies, it usually makes the news. That wasn’t the case in Syria when a member of the Syrian Defense Forces shot a Marine sergeant twice in the leg. Instead, there was no mention of it by the military, no press release. Instead, there was contradictory information and a curious reporter who refused to let it lie.

When Paul Szoldra of Task & Purpose first heard of the incident, the only thing that was clear was that more questions needed to be asked. He tells us what he found on this week’s episode.

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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