Geoff Ball, U.S. Marine Corps infantry officer, staff director for the Naval Academy’s Leadership Education and Development Division and Executive Editor of The Connecting File, joins the show to discuss the radical changes and surprising continuities in how America’s grunts will fight.

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Times

02:25 The Connecting File

06:22 How is the infantry doing?

14:10 Companies of the future

23:22 Information and trust 

29:57 Innovative spirit

33:30 Light Armored Recon 

39:05 Drone battalions

42:24 Learning the right lessons from Ukraine

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David Shedd, former Acting Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and author of The Great Heist: China’s Epic Campaign to Steal America’s Secrets, joins the show to discuss Chinese spy craft.

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Times

02:05 Early days

06:49 CIA

09:28 Sandinistas and revolutionaries 

15:14 IC preparation 

18:35 A great awakening

26:11 Industrial espionage 

30:50 National Intelligence Estimate

34:11 The MSS

44:19 The culture of the 18th Bureau 

50:17 Battlefield consequences 

55:20 Counterarguments

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Walter Russell Mead, Alexander Hamilton Professor of Strategy and Statecraft at the University of Florida's Hamilton Center and columnist for The Wall Street Journal, joins the show to discuss foreign policy in the Age of Trump.

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Times

03:15 An extraordinary week

05:06 The Transatlantic relationship

09:02 Turning to China 

16:10 Greenland

27:03 Post-presidency Trump

32:25 Harder now

43:08 Zelenskyy

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Seth Jones, president of the Defense and Security Department and Harold Brown Chair at CSIS, joins the show to talk about how America has resurrected its defense industrial base in the past and why it should be doing so now.

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Times

02:55 The British in the 1930s

05:58 Roosevelt’s decision

09:48 Re-orientation 

13:59 The B-29

16:00 Victory in Iraq 

27:54 Skunkworks

31:30 Xi comes into power

35:07 Disadvantages

39:07 What needs to be done? 

44:28 Fighting for 5%

47:43 Culture shift

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Michael Lurie, CEO and President of Rafael USA, joins the show to explain how High Energy Lasers and Iron Beam will change missile & air defense, not to mention warfare itself, forever.

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Times

02:34 The evolution of missile defense

05:09 Iron Dome & Iron Beam

08:04 How do lasers work?

15:16 Limitations

20:07 Integrating systems 

25:28 Future applications 

30:09 Lessons from field testing

40:15 American interest

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Blake Seitz, Content Strategist at Palantir Technologies, and Mike Watson, Executive Director at The Alexander Hamilton Society, join the show to discuss America’s relationship with the world at the time of the Founding Fathers.

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Times

02:45 18th Century geopolitical landscape

06:25 Yorktown

11:17 Diplomacy of the Founders 

16:23 Bold rhetoric 

19:37 Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists

25:45 Washington’s legacy 

32:42 The roots of isolationism 

36:38 Parallels and changes

44:16 What does it mean to be an American? 

47:20 A grounding in history

Read more - 1776: The Beginnings of American Exceptionalism Abroad

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Mark Dubowitz, CEO of FDD, joins the show to bring us up to speed on widespread Iranian protests, the chances of American or Israeli intervention, and what intervention might achieve.

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Times

02:15 Will we strike?

05:34 New Iran talks?

07:03 Nuclear concessions? 

10:35 Intervention possibilities

15:10 The Shah’s son and the Islamic regime

24:28 How do these protests compare to the past?

34:29 Public perceptions

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Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at FDD and retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, joins the show to discuss Venezuela’s shadow fleet, the cyber component of the Maduro raid, and the future of the U.S. Navy.

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Times

03:04 Shadow Fleets

06:06 Ship Hunting 

10:07 Coast Guard 

12:35 Leverage and Sanctions

18:37 Planning the Maduro Raid

24:57 How We Use Cyber

28:45 Types of Risk   

31:50 State of the Navy

36:56 Return of the Battleship?

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Elliott Abrams, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela and Iran from 2019 to 2021, joins the show to discuss Venezuela and what might happen next.

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Times

02:04 Snatch and Grab

05:50 Intelligence Operations

12:04 Oil

16:50 Holding the Country Together 

24:16 Risks & Mistakes

30:48 Blockade

33:54 Hard To Leave   

39:11 Not Iraq

41:48 Cuba

42:21 The Iranian Regime

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Mark Jones Jr., chief pilot of experimental flight test with the Honda Aircraft Company and recently retired U.S. Air Force test pilot and special operations commander, joins the show to talk about the nature of special air operations and the extraordinary air raid that kicked off Desert Storm.

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Times

02:45 9/11 

05:58 Test Pilot 

11:52 Special Air Operations

17:54 Two Vastly Different Experiences 

21:24 Kabul

24:18 Desert Storm

32:30 Harder to See, Not Invisible   

34:46 Battle Damage

39:55 September 1990

42:21 Party In 10

45:05 Navigation Technology

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