Defense One Radio

We decided to take stock of how the coronavirus and the disease it causes, Covid-19, are affecting the U.S. government and the national security establishment. So we’re try to figure out what maybe to expect next.

Guests include Defense One Global Business Editor Marcus Weisgerber (at the 3:10 mark), Defense One National Security Correspondent Katie Bo Williams (11:27), Ross Gianfortune of the podcast "GovExec Daily" (at 20:26), and Defense One's Tech Editor Patrick Tucker (at the 30:31 mark).

The United States Space Force is now officially a thing, complete with a commander and plans to put about 16,000 members of the military to work defending U.S. interests in space. But what exactly does it mean for the U.S. military to “deter aggression” in space? How could a war in space happen? And what are American interests in space, anyway?This episode, we’re going to answer those questions as best we can with the help of four experts on space weapons and policy and strategy: Jeffrey Lewis, professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, Calif.; Jonathan McDowell, astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.; Bleddyn Bowen, lecturer in International Relations at the University of Leicester, in the UK; and Brian Weeden, director of Program Planning at the Secure World Foundation. Music used by permission via Audionetwork.com. Find a transcript of this episode: https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/03/ep-63-war-space/163611/

We’re going to take a closer look at Russian private military contractors. How much do we understand about what these groups are up to? And how much should the U.S. and its allies be concerned? It’s a phenomenon with a history; and it’s something that doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. The episode is broken into four parts: • Behind the Battle of Khasham (at the 1:53 mark) • Prigozhin's Path (8:09) • An Ignominious Invasion (23:16) • Into Africa (27:47) Guests include Kimberly Marten of Columbia University's Barnard College; Candace Rondeaux of Arizona State University and a Senior Fellow with the New America think tank's Center on the Future of War; and Aric Toler, who leads research and training activities on eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union for the investigative journalism collective Bellingcat. Transcript: https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/01/ep-62-wagner-and-russian-private-military-contractors/162447/

With less than a year until the next U.S. election, we’ve got a few experts to help break down what they think is ahead in U.S.-directed influence operations. They include Alina Polyakova of the Brookings Institution; Clint Watts of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the Alliance for Securing Democracy; retired CIA agent John Sipher; and (briefly) Mark Galeotti of the Royal United Services Institute. // Music is by Paul Mottram; Bob Bradley; David O'Brien; Lincoln Grounds; and Matt Hill — via AudioNetwork.com. • Find the full 2019 Reagan National Defense Survey (PDF), here: https://www.reaganfoundation.org/media/355292/reagan-foundation-survey-charts-112519.pdf

Defense One's Patrick Tucker sat down with Pakistan’s top diplomat in Washington to discuss the U.S. troop pullout in Afghanistan, the worsening situation in Kashmir, and efforts to fight extremism.

This episode we'll discuss the NATO alliance and how some military tactics are changing in the face of strategic threats from Russia. We’ll also assess some of the more recent responses to wider global trends like populism and how, in some parts of Europe, Chinese soft power is already influencing culture, politics and security. // Music this week from Igor Dvorkin, Duncan Pittock, Ellie Kidd; Joe Henson and Alexis Smith; David O'Brien and Chris Egan; Philip Guyler; Terry Devine-King; Paul Clarvis, Matt Hill and Sonia Slany, via AudioNetwork.com; also featuring music from Leonid Kharitonov and the Red Army Choir.

This episode we'll learn why the Pentagon and the U.S. defense establishment are increasingly turning to wargames and simulations; what famous games of the past got right, and wrong; and why we still need experts who strategize almost exclusively in the analog world of plastic chips and toy soldiers and hexagon maps. Guests include Becca Wasser, Stacie Pettyjohn, Ellie Bartels, Christopher Rice and Mark Herman. // Music by Terry Devine-King, Nathan Feddo, Henry White, Ben Watson, Joe Henson and Alexis Smith, via AudioNetwork.com. • Find Robert Work's February 2015 memo on wargaming here: https://www.govexec.com/media/gbc/docs/pdfs_edit/work-wargaming-memo-9feb15.pdf • Find Hannah Allam's NPR report on Wasser, Pettyjohn and Bartels (aka the "Dames of Wargames") here: https://npr.org/2019/07/25/744193558/can-this-group-of-teen-girls-save-the-world-from-nuclear-war

What does it mean for the future of international security to almost completely pull the U.S. military out of Syria? This episode, we investigate that and a lot more with Dana Stroul of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute, and Melissa Dalton of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

America’s war in Afghanistan turns 18 in October. And one journalist has been making trips to the country since 2004. North Carolina-based author Kevin Maurer joins us to talk about what’s new from his latest trip in January, what never really changed in 14 years, and how some U.S. soldiers derive meaning from the longest conflict in the nation's history. Find Maurer's essay in the Washington Post Magazine here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/magazine/wp/2019/09/09/feature/the-afghanistan-war-is-likely-ending-one-longtime-correspondent-asks-was-it-worth-it/

Vince Houghton, historian and curator of the International Spy Museum, joins us to talk about more than just the U.S. military’s plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on the moon, he also explains a few American efforts to kill Cuba’s Fidel Castro, as well as bold Russian operations today — and one Soviet idea that would have killed everyone decades ago. Vince's new book, "The Nuclear Spies America's Atomic Intelligence Operation against Hitler and Stalin," comes out Sept. 15. Our music this week is by Philip Guyler, via Audionetwork.com.