Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast

Despite what you are told by the mainstream news sources in the media, the drone war is here to stay and it will be the most significant war modality for the next generation. It has literally exposed all ground troops and the exquisite platforms the West relies upon in war-making for detailed neutralization and destruction.

In concert with the democratized distribution of ubiquitous missile technology, it is the end of Western dominance in warfare.

Despite what you may think, the US conventional forces are in terminal collapse and completely unprepared for 21st century peer conflict.

I'll offer some more recommendations and a path forward.

References:

RAND wish-casting on drones in 2015.

Slaughterbots (2017)

Slaughterbots: if human: kill() (2021)

How are Drones Changing Modern Warfare?

Sun Tzu The Art of War

Carl von Clausewitz On War

Miyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America

My Substack

Email at [email protected]

This will be the first CG episode to get the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series. The WarNotes episode catalog has been completely re-fabbed using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.

Let me know what you think.

We discuss the latest missteps by the West in Iran.

The recent American involvement in direct military intervention in Iran changed the temper and nature of the war inevitably.

I assess how the RMAs rapidly displacing centuries-old conflict norms are going to look for the remainder of the century.

Buppert’s Law of Military Topography:

“Mountainous terrain held by riflemen who know what they are about cannot be militarily defeated.”

References:

Points of Resistance and Departure: An interview with James C. Scott

Lester Grau and Charles J. Bartles Mountain Warfare and Other Lofty Problems: Foreign mountain combat veterans discuss movement and maneuver, training and resupply (Helion Studies in Military History)

Lester Grau The Bear Went Over The Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics In Afghanistan [Illustrated Edition]

Lester Grau The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War

Mark Thompson The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919

James C. Scott The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia

Sun Tzu The Art of War

Carl von Clausewitz On War

Miyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.

This episode examines civil war manifesting itself in the world in the west in the 21st century and some of my modest forecasts of war weather in the next few years.

Dr. David Betz and others have started to float the balloons of probability and possibility of civil kinetic conflict in the West.

My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what a spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland which in my mind is the primary man-made vector for civil war in America.

I cover it in Episodes 37, 41-43, 49-50 and 62 of my Chasing Ghosts podcast.

References:

Video:

Winston Marshall The UNTOLD History of The White Slave Trade & How Islam Conquered 3/4 of The Christian World

Andrew Gold CIVIL WAR is Coming - Professor David Betz

Books:

Barbara Walter How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them

David Armitage Civil Wars: A History in Ideas

William Forstchen Day of Wrath

Kurt Schlichter The Attack

Karl Dahl

Faction

Faction: With the Crusaders

Matt Bracken:

Enemies Foreign and Domestic

Foreign Enemies And Traitors

Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista

The Red Cliffs of Zerhoun

Castigo Cay

Eric Frank Russell The Wasp

Michael Z. Williamson The Weapon (and the entire Freehold series)

Ernest R. May Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of France

Robert Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Robert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In History

Howard Jones My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness

My Substack

Email at [email protected]

This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.

We discuss coups, color revolutions and the changing face of political manipulation in the world.

The world is not what it seems even in non-military political manipulation. The hybrid and grey zone conflict is real. Color revolution have hijacked Western democracy and precipitated he slow decline of modern civilization.

References

Global Instances of Coups from 1950 to 2010: A New Dataset

Colpus Dataset

KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov's warning to America

A Retrospective on RMA, 2000-2020.

Edward Luttwak Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook, Revised Edition

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics

Oleg Karpovich Color Revolutions: Techniques in Breaking Down Modern Political Regimes

Ervand AbrahamianThe Coup: 1953, The CIA, and The Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations

David Talbot The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government

Georgii Samoilovich Isserson G.S. Isserson and the War of the Future: Key Writings of a Soviet Military Theorist

My Substack.

Email at [email protected]

This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.

Memorial Day is a day to reflect on the existential moral outrage and trail of tears American military might has draped over the planet since the end of the nineteenth century.

Wars of choice are by their very nature a path to corruption, excess and unintended consequences.

The concept of moral injuries for soldiers and non-soldiers alike, the gift of fear and being a dead man walking and how to handle regret and shame.

“As beasts are beneath human restraints, gods are above them... It would be foolish and untruthful to deny the appeal of exalted, godlike intoxication....We have seen the paradox that these godlike exalted moments often correspond to times when the men who have survived them say that they have acted like beasts....Above all, a sense of merely human virtue, a sense of being valued and of valuing anything seems to have fled their lives....However, all of our virtues come from not being gods. Generosity is meaningless to a god, who never suffers shortage or want. Courage is meaningless to a god, who is immortal and can never suffer permanent injury. The godlike berserk state can destroy the capacity for virtue. Whether the berserker is beneath humanity as an animal, above it as a god, or both, he is cut off from all human community when he is in this state.”

― Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character

Those millions of men who have been in combat over the millennia have always brought home invisible scar tissue and regret that manifests in many ways but most of us take it to our graves.

References:

The Roots Tribunal in Congress

Nick Turse Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam

Bill Russel Edmonds God is Not Here: A Soldier's Struggle with Torture, Trauma, and the Moral Injuries of War

Clark Savage King of All Things: A Guide to Man's Martial Purpose

Dick Couch A Tactical Ethic: Moral Conduct in the Insurgent Battlespace

Andrew Bacevich Paths of Dissent: Soldiers Speak Out Against America's Misguided Wars

Shauna Springer WARRIOR: How to Support Those Who Protect Us

Jonathan Shay Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character

Jonathan Shay Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming

My Substack

Email at [email protected].

This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.

Military sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a government effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, demoralization, destabilization, division, disruption, or destruction. It can take place left of bang or during war with the object the weakening of the military effort by an adversary.

Military sabotage has been taking place since the early military adventures of men. The apocryphal story of the Trojan Horse is an ancient example and variations on the theme echo through historical warfare.

References:

Ian Jones Booby Traps!: The History of Deadly Devices, from World War I to Vietnam

Gordon L. Rottman World War II Axis Booby Traps and Sabotage Tactics

Gordon L. Rottman World War II Allied Sabotage Devices and Booby Traps

Lester Grau and Michael Gress The Red Army's Do-it-Yourself, Nazi-Bashing Guerrilla Warfare Manual: The Partizan's Handbook, Updated and Revised Edition, 1942

Roman Mars The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design

Access All Areas: A User's Guide to the Art of Urban Exploration

OSS Simple Sabotage Field Manual

FM 5-31 Boobytraps

TM 31-201-1 Unconventional Warfare Devices and Techniques: Incendiaries

Eric Frank Russell The Wasp

Michael Z. Williamson The Weapon (and the entire Freehold series)

Robert Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Robert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In History

My Substack

Email at [email protected]

This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.

This episode examines American landscape one year later and whether the probability of attack is reduced or increased.

My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what the spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland.

I cover it in Episodes 37, 41-43 and 49-50 of my Chasing Ghosts podcast.

I discuss the outcome of the probable jihadist invasion of America. America is in a unique position in history in which it has facilitated the unfettered invasion of its borders and a large swath of military age males have been granted asylum or gone undetected to link up with legacy underground Islamist and terrorist groups across the country.

References:

William Forstchen Day of Wrath

Kurt Schlichter The Attack

Karl Dahl

Faction

Faction: With the Crusaders

Matt Bracken:

Enemies Foreign and Domestic

Foreign Enemies And Traitors

Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista

The Red Cliffs of Zerhoun

Castigo Cay

Eric Frank Russell The Wasp

Michael Z. Williamson The Weapon (and the entire Freehold series)

Ernest R. May Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of France

Robert Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Robert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In History

Howard Jones My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness

My Substack

Email at [email protected]

This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.

With Western conflict possible in Yemen and Iran, I discuss the vagaries and verities of mountain warfare. The special hell of high altitude and colder temperatures and their effect on fighting and warfare.

I assess how the RMAs rapidly displacing centuries-old conflict norms are going to look for the remainder of the century.

Buppert’s Law of Military Topography:

“Mountainous terrain held by riflemen who know what they are about cannot be militarily defeated.”

References:

Points of Resistance and Departure: An interview with James C. Scott

Lester Grau and Charles J. Bartles Mountain Warfare and Other Lofty Problems: Foreign mountain combat veterans discuss movement and maneuver, training and resupply (Helion Studies in Military History)

Lester Grau The Bear Went Over The Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics In Afghanistan [Illustrated Edition]

Lester Grau The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War

Mark Thompson The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919

James C. Scott The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia

Sun Tzu The Art of War

Carl von Clausewitz On War

Miyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.

I am an un-credentialed amateur historian who has done very little archive work and lack the substantial infrastructure credentialed historians have to practice their craft. I have debated esteemed historians and won on stage (Daniel Walker Howe looked at my CV and did not prepare) but that doesn't make me better than them.

I think my various detours in life mostly outside the formal academy gives me a unique insight into how history works and why I think I am more sober than university historians.

I describe some of the reasons I do it and the techniques I employ to get the single most accurate picture of what happened then to determine what's going on now.

I am the Smedley D. Butler Fellow for Military Affairs at the Libertarian Institute.

Recommended Reading:

Mortimer Adler How To Read a Book

Robert Strassler The Landmark Xenophon's Hellenika (Landmark Series)

Mike Snook How Can Man Die Better: The Secrets of Isandlwana Revealed

Mike Snook Like Wolves on the Fold: The Defence of Rorke’s Drift

David Stahel Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East

David Hackett Fischer Historians' Fallacies : Toward a Logic of Historical Thought

Keith Windschuttle The Killing of History

John Burrow A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century

Harry Elmer Barnes A History of Historical Writing

US Army Center of Military History

My Substack

Email at [email protected]

This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.

Here is Part One:

Ep 058 "The Mexican Cartel Conundrum: War Without End Part One"

We continue the inquiry into the implications and future returns on going kinetic in the drug war as elucidated by worthies in the new administration.

I examine the implications and the second and third order effects of this endeavor which is, by extension, a declaration of war on the Mexican government.

***

Anyone attending the Special Operations Forces Week festivities in Tampa on 5-8 May 2025?

If so, we should arrange a rendezvous.

***

References:

Tom Wainwright Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel

Benjamin T. Smith The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade

Anabel Hernandez Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers

Ioan Grillo El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency

David F. Marley Mexican Cartels: An Encyclopedia of Mexico's Crime and Drug Wars

Carmen Boullosa A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the “Mexican Drug War”

Patrick Winn Narcotopia: In Search of the Asian Drug Cartel That Survived the CIA

Jesse Fink Pure Narco: One Man's True Story of 25 Years Inside the Cartels

Mark Santiago A Bad Peace and a Good War: Spain and the Mescalero Apache Uprising of 1795–1799

Amy S. Greenberg A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico

My Substack

Email at [email protected]