This episode of the Irregular Warfare Podcast features a conversation with two guests about an important question: Does building partner military capacity work? Dr. Stephen Biddle is a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University and served as an advisor to Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Stanley McChrystal during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Matt Cancian is a doctoral candidate in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former Marine officer who has researched Western efforts to build partner capacity among the Kurdish Pershmerga during the fight against ISIS.

Intro music: "Unsilenced" by Ketsa