Major General Mick Ryan, Australian Army (retired), Senior Fellow for Military Studies the Lowy Institute and author of the Futura Doctrina substack, joins the show to discuss his latest piece, Translating Ukraine Lessons for the Pacific Theatre.

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    •      01:40 Introduction

    •      02:18 Translation 

    •      04:03 Ground forces        

    •      08:40 Australian defense 

    •      11:25 Threats from the North         

    •      13:25 Chinese influence          

    •      16:46 The mask slips      

    •      19:51 What we don’t know         

    •      24:36 The Pacific

    •      32:18 Information ops       

    •      37:31 Corrosive influences        

    •      40:15 Mass

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Ran Baratz, military historian and former senior Israeli official, and author of What's Wrong with the Postmodern Military?, joins the show to discuss operations in Gaza and problems with how the IDF officer corps thinks about war.

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    •      01:37 Introduction

    •      02:27 Gaza

    •      06:23 Diplomatic obstacles        

    •      12:27 Worse than you think

    •      15:28 Paradigm shift         

    •      30:23 Real wars         

    •      38:49 Art of the general       

    •      43:51 War as policy        

    •      50:00 Netanyahu

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Peter Rough, senior fellow and director of the Center on Europe and Eurasia at the Hudson Institute, joins the show to discuss the recent Russian drone incursions in Poland and Romania and what they mean.

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    •      01:08 Introduction

    •      01:35 What actually happened?

    •      05:30 Destructive decoys        

    •      07:27 European moods

    •      11:23 Rightwing response         

    •      16:32 Strategic autonomy         

    •      23:52 Zapad      

    •      30:00 On/off switch        

    •      33:31 Where do we stand?   

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Prit Buttar, historian and author of Bagration 1944: The Great Soviet Offensive, joins the show to discuss the immense Russian campaign that broke the German Army on the Eastern Front.    

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    •      01:48 Introduction

    •      02:50 A war unto itself

    •      08:02 Flanders        

    •      15:20 Maskirovka

    •      24:35 Soviet intelligence         

    •      28:27 Bolshevism        

    •      30:22 Lebensraum     

    •      31:40 Bagration        

    •      36:14 Cracking the line       

    •      39:00 Warsaw

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Nadège Rolland, Distinguished Fellow, China Studies, at the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) and principal investigator for the Mapping China's Borderlands: Dashboard, joins the show to discuss the shifting visions China has of its frontiers. 

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    •      01:35 Introduction

    •      02:34 What is “China?”

    •      10:26 Sovereignty        

    •      19:30 Double translation

    •      25:25 Capillaries        

    •      34:37 Imperial messaging       

    •      42:36 Prioritization       

We also discuss Nadège’s 2020 report - China's Vision for a New World Order.

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Brad Bowman and Ryan Brobst, senior and deputy directors of the Center on Military and Political Power at FDD, join the show to discuss the military relationships between America’s major antagonists.

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    •      01:47 Introduction

    •      02:40 Axis cooperation

    •      08:02 Interoperability       

    •      11:19 Fighting all three

    •      14:49 Potential       

    •      20:57 The arsenal       

    •      26:56 Progress

    •      28:30 Budgeting 

    •      36:10 Will and capability        

    •      39:03 Harpoon Coastal Defense System      

    •      41:31 Per unit cost over speed

    •      44:25 Buy-side issue

    •      47:49 Production lessons

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Yaakov Katz, senior fellow at The Jewish People Policy Institute and author of While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East, joins the show to discuss Israel’s intelligence and military failures on the night of 6-7 October, 2023.

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    •      01:35 Introduction

    •      02:47 Foundational facts

    •      09:45 Communication failure      

    •      17:39 Minority reports

    •      25:40 Left alone       

    •      30:15 Accountability      

    •      39:37 Cultural costs

    •      47:30 A deal

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Geoffrey Wawro, founding director of the Military History Center at the University of North Texas and author of The Vietnam War: A Military History,  joins the show to discuss the causes of U.S. failure in Vietnam.

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    •      01:21 Introduction

    •      01:50 Schools of thought

    •      07:45 Orthodoxy      

    •      13:24 A war of choice

    •      17:49 Ambivalence       

    •      20:15 Korean nightmare      

    •      23:53 Lessons

    •      28:38 Policy makers

    •      32:34 Obvious flaws   

    •      37:10 Ground war

    •      42:21 South Vietnam 

    •      51:30 Certain defeat

    •      56:21 Local politics

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Major Geoff Ball, USMC, co-founder of the Connecting File, commanded Company G, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines during the evacuation at Kabul International Airport in 2021, including the suicide bombing at Abbey Gate on 26 August. He shares the story of his company and their extraordinary service in Afghanistan.

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    •      01:51 Introduction

    •      02:03 The Marines

    •      08:20 Quantico     

    •      13:07 29 Palms

    •      16:32 On the job training      

    •      21:54 Ghost Company      

    •      26:44 The call

    •      32:10 Isolation

    •      38:30 Abbey Gate   

    •      46:16 Unity of effort 

    •      48:53 Who got through 

    •      51:40 The Taliban

    •      52:54 26 August

    •      56:52 Take command 

    •      59:47 No good choices

    •      01:06:42 The Fallen

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Barry Strauss, Corliss Page Dean Fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of Jews vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World's Mightiest Empire, joins the show to discuss the long, fractious, often violent relationship between Ancient Rome and her Jewish subjects. 

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    •      01:11 Introduction

    •      01:37 Rome and Parthia

    •      07:50 Judea    

    •      12:07 Roman control 

    •      17:58 Jewish warfighting       

    •      20:20 Herod     

    •      26:03 The Great Revolt

    •      31:06 Enter Parthia

    •      33:23 The Temple   

    •      35:01 70 years 

    •      40:24 Driven out 

    •      42:02 Parallels with today

    •      44:33 Donald Kagan

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