In this episode Jon O'Gorman hosts Andrew "Dex" Wilson, Timothy Hoyt, James Holmes, and David Stone in talking about the modern challenges for the U.S. in the political and strategic realms. We begin by talking about what there is to think about in strategic culture and concepts to aid us going forward or "retrospect and prospect' as A.T. Mahan called it. We then move into the top topics of the day in talking about what the Chinese weather balloon incident means for both China and what the shoot down signals from the U.S. We next move to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and talk about how difficult war termination will be now that both sides have painted themselves into a corner diplomatically. Lastly, we look at the lessons of the irregular wars of the last 20 years and what lessons we need to keep in mind from them, moving forward, as we move back into an arena of great power competitions.