Defense One Radio

This episode we’re going to learn about the Combahee River Raid, the first U.S. military operation to be organized and led by a woman. That woman was abolitionist Harriet Tubman.

Dr. Edda Fields-Black of Carnegie Mellon University joins us to tell the story.

Find a transcript of this episode here.

Retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule talks about the Confederacy, U.S. race relations, and inclusive changes throughout the recent history of the U.S. military.

Seidule's memoir is called “Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause.”

Find a transcript of this episode here.

What lies ahead for Afghanistan? And what does that war look like today from the perspective of a Green Beret who spent several months trying to build Afghanistan’s military and police?

We’ll break down those questions and a lot more in this episode of Defense One Radio, featuring Bill Roggio of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

There’s a new way of thinking about war that’s taking over the Pentagon. A lot has happened for its generals and for the country over the past 30 years of American warfare. And if this latest crop of generals get their wish, a lot could happen in just the first 30 minutes of America’s next large-scale war. 

So — kind of like our last episode — preparing ourselves for the next world war is what this episode is all about, in three parts:

1. From old capabilities to new ones (at the 1:21 mark)
2. Opportunity and vulnerability (17:19)
3. Mr. JADC2 Goes to Washington (31:47)

Find a transcript of this episode here.

2034 could be a disastrous year for U.S.-China relations — and most of the rest of the world, according to a new work of fiction by former NATO Commander retired U.S. Navy Adm. Jim Stavridis and Marine veteran, journalist and writer Elliot Ackerman. The two have teamed up to write “2034: A Novel of the Next World War,” which was published this week by Penguin Random House.

Today we’re going to hear from journalist and author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon. She’s traveled to Syria several times over the past four years. And her new book, “The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage, and Justice,” arrived on bookshelves just this week. Much of her reporting in it originated on Defense One, when she filed dispatches from Syria to Executive Editor Kevin Baron. The two of them talk about that story, the book, and what to expect for Syria's future, including from the Biden administration.

This episode, we’ll ask how we can better understand those hundreds of Americans who stormed the Capitol. We’ll also look into how now may really be the time to truly expand the way we think about certain key things like what “national security” means when an insurrection can be stoked so openly, as it was in the days leading up to January 6.

Our guests are Robert Pape of the University of Chicago and director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (at the 2:45 mark); Divya Ramjee of the Center for Security, Innovation, and New Technology and Elsa Kania of the Center for a New American Security (at 11:54); and Peter W. Singer from the New America think tank (at 21:33).

A transcript for this episode is available here.

This episode Defense One's Katie Bo Williams and Patrick Tucker unpack the national security policies and possible changes from an incoming Biden administration.

This episode, Defense One's Ben Watson asks Army Chief Gen. James McConville how the service is dealing with the coronavirus and the threat posed by Russia. The Army chief also discusses a joint Air Force project to link everything on the battlefield — known as Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control, or CJADC2 — as well as what non-military books he's reading.

Find a transcript of this conversation here.

This episode, we'll explore emerging trends in unmanned systems. We’ll start in the air, before turning to the land and sea in a review of Russian-made systems and military thinking. And we’ll end with a discussion about trust and artificial intelligence. (Music by Bob Bradley, Paul Clarvis, Thomas Balmforth; Guy Farley, Andrew Carroll; Richard Lacy; Paul Mottram; Jeff Meegan, David Tobin, Rob Kelly; Theo Travis, Paul Ressel; Sue Verran, Paul Ressel; and David Kelly — via Audionetwork.com)

• Part One: The aerial events in Arizona, Colorado and Mexico (at the 3:41 mark);
• Part Two: From Russia, by land and sea (24:10);
• Part Three: Beyond AlphaDogfight (33:48).

Find a transcript of this episode here.

Guests:

• Arthur Holland Michel, associate researcher at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva, where he researches autonomous systems and artificial intelligence. 
• Brett Velicovich, U.S. Army veteran and author of the book “Drone Warrior.” 
• Samuel Bendett, analyst with the Center for Naval Analyses' International Affairs Group.

Read more about the Arizona drone incident from Sept. 2019 at The Drive, here.

This episode is underwritten by Aerovironment.