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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Behnam Ben Taleblu, Senior Director (Iran Program) and Senior Fellow at FDD, joins the show to talk about how Iran has worked to reconstitute its missile program since the summer, and what the U.S. and Israel might do to stop it.

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Times

01:43 Vessel Seizure 

05:45 Making a Ballistic Missile 

13:06 What Modern War Looks Like

17:19 Iran’s Missile Program

21:42 Evolving Assessment

26:24 Relevance for U.S. Defense Planning

30:00 Disconnected Victories  

35:04 Lessons from the 10/07 War

39:31 Bad Choices for Iran

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Kevin Passmore, professor of History at Cardiff University and author of The Maginot Line: A New History, joins the show to talk about the most elaborate fortification system of the 20th century and why it failed.

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Times

02:03 Attacking the Maginot Line

05:53 Fortifications and Warfare

11:48 Flexibility vs Depth

15:38 A Total Commitment to War

19:49 French Defensive Concepts

22:42 Living in the Line

27:31 Decision in Belgium 

36:22 Breaking the Enemy’s Will 

39:36 Ukrainian Fortifications

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Christian Brose, President and Chief Strategy Officer at Anduril Industries and author of The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare, joins the show to talk about American industry and the future of war.

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Times

02:26 Erosion of Military Advantage

11:11 The Nature of the Problem

16:42 Consensus and Urgency

21:01 Learning the Right Lessons in Ukraine

25:32 Scaling Up for the Offense

31:23 Leveraging AI for Defense

38:07 Will Liberal Arts and Humanities Win?

41:56 Arsenal-1

47:31 Silicon Valley and Defense

52:24 Collaborative Combat Aircraft

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Eric Cline, professor of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies and of Anthropology at The George Washington University and author of 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, joins the show to break down the collapse of the Bronze Age civilization and why it matters today.

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Times

02:57 Writing History for All

04:51 The Three Age System

10:32 Tin: The Oil of the Ancient World

11:37 Archeology in the Future

13:22 Bronze Age Society

21:02 The Beginning and End of History

26:07 The Sea Peoples

32:36 The Collapse 

35:00 The Mystery of the Exodus

40:53 Resilience and Regeneration Post-Collapse

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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 events in the Caribbean.

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Times

01:56 Venezuela Through Multiple Administrations 

06:05 Maduro

11:53 Trump to Biden

17:56 U.S. Military Capabilities 

24:05 Political Justifications 

30:11 The Venezuelan Opposition

35:56 Machado in Hiding

41:27 Worst Case Scenarios

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Nadia Schadlow, former Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy and senior fellow at Hudson Institute, joins the show to breakdown what strategic depth is and why the concept remains relevant.

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Times

02:37 Unhinged, Frenetic Times

03:36 What is Strategic Depth?

07:50 A Lack of Space

12:50 Territory and War

14:55 How to Increase Time

23:18 Allies and Forward Defense

30:29 How Do You Get Freedom of Choice?

36:57 Keeping and Maintaining Strategic Depth

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Roya Hakakian, author of Assassins of the Turquoise Palace and Journey from the Land of No, joins the show to discuss the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini, and how these events have shaped the world.

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Times

02:56 Life Before the Revolution

11:02 Antisemitism in Revolutionary Iran

21:56 Khomeini’s Rise to Power

22:32 The Global Left and the Soviet Union

29:49 A Catastrophe of the 20th Century

37:21 The State of the Iranian Regime

42:19 The Revolution is Alive and Well

52:01 The Future of Iran and Its Leadership

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