Only 1 percent of all Americans serve in the military. Even fewer ever see combat. All of those who do are changed by the experience. This week Tony Russo shares some of the stories he’s gathered from combat veterans for the This Is War podcast.

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

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When the United States put a machine gun on top of what looked like a bomb-squad robot, it didn’t care much who it was aiming at. But on the whole, drones and other killer robots are pretty effective, and there’s more to come. This week we speak with Kelsey Atherton, a writer for C4ISRNet and Fifth Domain, who brings us up to speed on these deadly machines.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why did the United States stop building the F-22, a fifth generation fighter the Air Force loves? Especially if the F-35 program is very much up in the air - pun intended - with each batch of fighters rolling off the line at least slightly different from previous batches? And are China and Russia having better luck with their fifth gen programs? Tyler Rogaway of The War Zone joins us to shed some light.

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

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in have met. The Trump administration is on its way to talk denuclearization and the formal end of a war that’s lasted 65 years. Is it peace in our time?

Here to help us cut through the noise and make sense of the news is B.R. Myers. Myers is a professor of international studies at Dongseo University in Busan, South Korea.

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

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.

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

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

War is a bloody business and few people know this better than the medics, physician assistants, and assorted battlefield doctors. Since Vietnam, the U.S. has gotten a lot better at saving the lives of the fallen.

This week on War College, we talk combat medicine with Andrew Fisher. Fisher is a physician assistant with the U.S. Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment. As a participant in more than 600 missions, Fisher knows first hand how to save lives on the battlefield and, with the help of his colleagues, pioneered new life saving techniques.

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

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does the United States get out of having a human spaceflight program? For that matter, what do Russia and China get out of having one? Especially if it’s not about getting the “ultimate high ground” in any fight here on Earth.

NASA historian Steven Garber takes us through what the agency is really all about and what lessons can be drawn from the space race so far.

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

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When France fell less than two months after Germany invaded in the spring of 1940, conspiracy theories grew to explain the loss. One of the most common was the idea of a massive German spy network, a “Fifth Column.”

Historian Marc Masurovsky takes us through what really happened. Was it subterfuge, or were the Nazi armies just that good?

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

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

According to Presidents John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, the United States is a shining “city upon a hill." It’s a beacon of democracy in a dark world full of cruel dictators and vicious despots. But history shows the United States has also been willing to side with despots in the name of stability.

This week on War College, we talk to Brian Klaas, a Oxford University graduate and expert on political violence, about his new book – The Despot’s Accomplice: How the West is Aiding and Abetting the Decline of Democracy.

According to Klaas, powerful countries should stop forcing democracy down the throats of their less stable counterparts and avoid settling for despots to achieve stability. He makes the case for co-opting the rank-and-file of old regimes into new ones to prevent state collapse, and for using measured military force and foreign aid money to coax tyrants out of power. Plus, he explores “counterfeit democracies,” and a new city upon a hill in West Africa: The Gambia.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Everything old is new again, including living with the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. North Korea is a nuclear power. The President of the United States has said he’d meet any aggression with fire and fury. Russia is manufacturing tactical nuclear weapons. It’s the Cold War all over again, but this time leaders can snipe at each other via Twitter.

This week on War College, PhD student and upcoming nuclear anthropologist Martin Pfeiffer walks us through how culture’s shifting views on nuclear weapons tells us a lot about culture.

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

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.