Phil Wasielewski and US Army Special Operations Command historian Troy Sacquety explore how the Office of Strategic Services waged a little known but strategically impactful irregular war against the Japanese army in Burma with the help of local guerrilla fighters and how lessons learned from this campaign can be applied today.

This week Phil Wasielewski is joined by retired Special Forces colonel Hy Rothstein to discuss irregular warfare in Afghanistan, lessons learned, and lessons that still need to be learned.

Join host Philip Wasielewski for a discussion with General Cleveland on lessons learned in irregular warfare operations during his career in Special Forces. 

Thomas Kent, former president and CEO of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, joins host Philip Wasielewski to discuss Russian nontraditional warfare operations against the West.

FPRI Senior Fellow Chris Bolan joins host Philip Wasielewski to discuss Iranian nontraditional warfare operations against the US interests in the Middle East.

Political warfare, which FPRI defines as the overt or covert employment of elements of national power including cyber, economic, financial, informational, paramilitary, and political statecraft tools, short of declared war, against a hostile state or non-state actor to achieve political goals, was the essence of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States from 1947-1991. Today, some say another Cold War using political warfare tools is underway between Communist China and the United States but that only China is fighting it. This episode discusses Chinese political warfare operations against the United States with Dr. Seth Jones, Vice President of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who has just completed a major study on this topic.

The horrors of Hamas’ terrorist attack against Israel on October 7, 2023 are compounded by the shock that Israel’s vaunted intelligence services were seemingly caught unawares after decades of exceptional performance. In this two-part series, the Overheard podcast addresses the challenges of predicting and preventing surprise attacks from the perspectives of intelligence collection, analysis, and interaction with policy makers.

In part two, Phil Wasielewski speaks with Bruce Riedel and Nathan Dietrich, both former CIA analysts, about the challenges related to analyzing all-source information to prevent surprise attacks and issues of communicating warnings between an intelligence community and its policy makers.

Listen to part one here.

Upcoming Event

Join us for the 17th Annual Benjamin Franklin Award Celebration on December 13th, featuring a discussion with Phebe Novakovic and H.R. McMaster on the future of technology and national security. Click here for more information.

The horrors of Hamas' terrorist attack against Israel on October 7, 2023 are compounded by the shock that Israel's vaunted intelligence services were seemingly caught unawares after decades of exceptional performance. In this two-part series, the Overheard podcast addresses the challenges of predicting and preventing surprise attacks from the perspectives of intelligence collection, analysis, and interaction with policy makers.

In part one, Carol Rollie Flynn, FPRI President and 30 year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), joins Phil Wasielewski to discuss the challenges of intelligence collection to prevent surprise attacks.


Join us for the 17th Annual Benjamin Franklin Award Celebration on December 13th, featuring a discussion with Phebe Novakovic and H.R. McMaster on the future of technology and national security. Click here for more information.

On the inaugural episode of the Overheard podcast, Philip Wasielewski is joined by George Croner and Kristi Scott to discuss the history, implementation and strategic importance of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702. Their conversation also touches on controversies surrounding the act, and implications for national security if Congress fails to renew it at the end of this year.

Related Reading: Key US Intelligence Tool Set to Expire

Join us for the 17th Annual Benjamin Franklin Award Celebration on December 13th, featuring a discussion with Phebe Novakovic and H.R. McMaster on the future of technology and national security. Click here for more information.