This episode of Strategy Matters focuses on the regional dynamic between Iran and Iraq and supports the case study on America and the Greater Middle in the Strategy and Policy Course. Host Dr. Vanya Eftimova Bellinger discusses this consequential relationship between the two neighboring countries with historian Dr. Samuel Helfont and political scientist Dr. Shanin Berenji. The episode begins with a historical discussion of the sources of strategic rivalry between Iran and Iraq. The two countries share almost 1,000 miles of border, have long-lasting disputes about waterways, and fought a prolonged and bloody war in the 1980s. Then the host and the guests explore the role Iran played during the US occupation of Iraq (2003-2011). The discussion also touches on the accuracy of the popular perception, in recent years, of Iraq as a client state of Tehran, as well as the state of today’s Iraqi politics and relations with the United States. Finally, the experts outline the influence the current instability in Iran may have on the region.

Guests:

Samuel Helfont is an Associate Professor of Strategy and Policy in the Naval War College program at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Helfont holds a PhD in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. His research focuses on international history and politics in the Middle East, especially Iraq and the Iraq Wars. He is also interested in Israeli, maritime, and post-Cold War global history. He is the author of The Iraq Wars: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, October 2025), Iraq against the World: Saddam, America, and the Post-Cold War Order (Oxford University Press, 2023), and Compulsion in Religion: Saddam Hussein, Islam, and the Roots of Insurgencies in Iraq (Oxford University Press, 2018). He co-edited (with Lisa Blaydes) Ba‘thist Iraq through Archives: Reflections, Explorations, and Opportunities (Stanford University Press, forthcoming 2026). In 2023, Helfont received the Naval War College’s research award, presented annually to the faculty member whose scholarship demonstrated the highest level of excellence over the past three years. In addition to this academic background, Helfont served as an intelligence officer in the US Navy and Navy Reserve. An Iraq War veteran, he completed deployments both afloat and ashore in the Middle East. He also served on Middle Eastern and counterterrorism missions at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Office of Naval Intelligence, among other commands. He is a Golden Shellback.

Shahin Berenji is an Assistant Professor in the Strategy and Policy Department. He earned his Ph.D. and MA from the University of California Los Angeles and his BA from the University of Southern California. Before arriving at the Naval War College, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Albritton Center for Grand Strategy at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A & M University. From 2020 to 2022, he worked at Southern Methodist University where he served as a Visiting Assistant Professor and Colin Powell Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Science and the John G. Tower Center for Public Policy and International Affairs. He studies foreign policy decision-making and diplomacy and has a specialization in the Cold War and regional expertise in the Middle East. His research has been published in such academic journals as International Security and Security Studies, and his commentary and op-eds have been featured online with West Point’s Modern War Institute, the National Interest, and E-International Relations.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.

In this episode of Strategy Matters, we explore Henry Kissinger’s impact on the Late Cold War, focusing on how his background and scholarly interests shaped his emphasis on balance-of-power politics, strategic stability, and the alignment of strategy with capabilities. Host Brendan Neagle is joined by two professors at the United States Naval War College: Dr. Richard Moss and Dr. Marc Genest. The discussion highlights Kissinger’s central role in advancing détente, orchestrating the opening to the People’s Republic of China, and practicing triangular diplomacy to exploit the Sino-Soviet split (which we also learn is the name of a mixed drink). Lastly, the guests examine Kissinger’s belief in stability as a guiding principle of international order and his reliance on personal and informal diplomacy, drawing lessons for today’s great-power competition.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.

Guests:

Dr. Richard Moss is a professor in the Russian Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College. He has a PhD in history from George Washington University and specializes in U.S.-Soviet relations during the Cold War. His book “Nixon's Back Channel to Moscow: Confidential Diplomacy and Detente” traced the role Kissinger played in providing the diplomatic back channels that led to a thaw in the Cold War.

Dr. Marc Genest is the Forrest Sherman Professor of Public Diplomacy in the Strategy and Policy Department at the US Naval War College. He has a doctorate in international politics from Georgetown University and has written numerous books and articles on international relations, strategic communication, American foreign policy and public opinion.

In this episode of Strategy Matters, we explore whether US media coverage influenced the course of the US involvement in Vietnam. Host Vanya Eftimova Bellinger is joined by the historians Dr. Nicholas Evan Sarantakes and Dr. Cavender Sutton. The discussion reveals that, contrary to later perceptions, the Saigon Press Corps largely supported the war. The animosity between the military and media came later, rather a product of the blame game after the fall of South Vietnam. The US media could not ignore the difficulties the US forces encountered, a situation made worse by the US political and military leadership’s failure to communicate a clear and realistic strategy. Outlining the difficulties of war with limited objectives, the host and the guests discuss the need to rethink communication and home front preparedness when embarking on such a war.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.

Guests:

Dr. Nicholas Evan Sarantakes is a Professor at the Strategy and Policy Department and earned a B.A. from the University of Texas, an M.A. from the University of Kentucky, and a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, all in history. He is an award-winning author with multiple publications. His most recent book, The Battle of Manila: Poisoned Victory in the Pacific War (2025), is a groundbreaking account of this crucial campaign from the American, Japanese, and, significantly, Filipino perspectives.

Dr. Cavender Sutton is currently an assistant professor at the US Air War College, but previously served as a Postdoctoral Teaching and Research Fellow in the Strategy and Policy Department (2024-2025). He received his B.A. in History from the University of Georgia, his M.A. in History from East Tennessee State University, and his PhD in Military History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before his academic career, Dr. Sutton served four years in the United States Marine Corps, during which he deployed to Afghanistan twice. His forthcoming book is The Road to Hue: US Marine Combined Action Platoons and the Battle that Changed the Vietnam War.

This episode of Strategy Matters focuses on Chiang Kai-shek, the often-overshadowed rival of Mao Zedong, to assess his leadership, ideology, and strategic legacy. Host Brendan Neagle is joined by historians and Strategy and Policy Professors Ken Swope and Anatol Klass. The discussion provides a broad spectrum of factors that affected Chiang’s strategic decision making and effectiveness as a leader. The episode explores Chiang’s ideological foundations, his relationship with the United States, and the influence of Madam Chiang. The conversation concludes by examining how Chiang is viewed today in China and Taiwan, and by drawing broader strategic lessons relevant to modern strategists.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.

Guests:

Dr. Kenneth Swope earned his B.A. at the College of Wooster (OH) and his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Michigan. A specialist in the military history of late imperial China and East Asia, he has previously taught at Marist College, Ball State University, and the University of Southern Mississippi. He also served as the Dr. Leo A. Shiffrin Chair of Naval and Military History at the United States Naval Academy. Dr. Swope has lived and conducted research in Taiwan, Hong Kong, mainland China, and South Korea. He has published numerous books and articles on Ming-Qing dynasty military history, including the award-winning, Struggle for Empire: The Battles of General Zuo Zongtang, published by the Naval Institute Press. He is currently working on a book on the Three Feudatories Revolt (1673-1681) in China

Dr. Anatol Klass is an assistant professor in the Strategy & Policy Department. He studies modern Chinese history and is writing a book about the bureaucratic development of the institutions through which the Chinese state engages with the world and the professional identities of experts working within those institutions. He has a Ph.D. in history from Berkeley and held fellowships at Harvard University's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, and the Columbia-Harvard China & the World Program. His research has been published in the International History Review and Cold War History, and his writing has appeared in the Washington Post and Foreign Policy.

In this episode of Strategy Matters, we explore the legacy of the forgotten World War II propaganda hero, Sefton Delmer, to uncover best practices for shaping the information domain. Vanya Eftimova Bellinger talks with the Ukrainian-born British journalist Peter Pomerantsev, the author of How to Win the Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler. In the episode, Pomerantsev disavows common misunderstandings about propaganda and misinformation. He explains how and why the Industrial Revolution and advanced technology made people more susceptible to them. Pomerantsev also summarizes some of Delmer's provocative yet effective ideas for understanding the role of propaganda in modern war. Finally, the guest explains why the information warfare feels so new and overwhelming, and how strategists can navigate it.

Guest Peter Pomerantsev is a Ukrainian-born British journalist, author, and TV producer. Pomerantsev has written two books about Russian disinformation and propaganda—Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible (2014), and This Is Not Propaganda (2019). His most recent book, How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler (2024), discusses the life and legacy of Sefton Delmer, a British propagandist during World War II.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.

Guest:

Peter Pomerantsev is a Ukrainian-born British journalist, author, and TV producer. Pomerantsev has written two books about Russian disinformation and propaganda—Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible (2014), and This Is Not Propaganda (2019). His most recent book, How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler (2024), discusses the life and legacy of Sefton Delmer, a British propagandist during World War II.

This episode of Strategy Matters aligns with the Interwar Case 5 of the Strategy and Policy Course: The Interwar World. Co-host Brendan Neagle interviews Trent Hone, the author of Learning War and Mastering the Art of Command: Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and Victory in the Pacific. The interview focuses on U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps adaptation in the interwar period between World War I and World War II. The discussion includes a description of complex adaptive systems, the influence of constraints on effective efforts at adaptation, aligning incentive systems with the desired outcomes, and the importance of communicating a clear objective. The interview closes with Mr. Hone proposing some key takeaways for the modern strategist from the U.S. Navy’s experience in the interwar period.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, The U.S. Navy, or U.S. Naval War College.

Guests:

Trent Hone is a Vice President with ICF and an award-winning naval historian. He works with organizations to improve their art of practice, increase effectiveness, and accelerate learning. He is the author of Learning War: The Evolution of Fighting Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1898-1945, Mastering the Art of Command: Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and Victory in the Pacific, as well as books on Leyte Gulf, Guadalcanal, and the Navies of World War I.

In this episode of Strategy Matters, we explore the strategic logic behind the formation of NATO in the aftermath of World War II. The discussion examines the post-World War world from Western and Soviet perspectives and highlights how economic challenges, political instability, and ideological competition shaped early Cold War security decisions. Guests Dr. David Stone and Dr. Timothy Hoyt emphasize the alliance as a solution to European post-war challenges and contrast NATO with earlier failed efforts at collective security. The episode closes by exploring enduring lessons about alliance credibility and the importance of aligning all instruments of national power in coalitions.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.

Guests:

Dr. Timothy Hoyt, Ph.D. is the John Nicholas Brown Chair of Counterterrorism and, since 2019, has also served as the Director of the Advanced Strategy Program at the U.S. Naval War College. He is the author of numerous publications on irregular warfare, COIN and counterterrorism, and South Asia. Dr Hoyt also serves as the Deputy Editor of The Journal of Strategic Studies.

Dr. David Stone, Ph.D., the William E. Odom Professor of Russian Studies, joined the Strategy and Policy Department in 2015. He received a B.A. from Wabash College and a Ph.D. in history from Yale. He previously taught at Kansas State University. His book “Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union” (2000) won the Shulman Prize and the Best First Book Prize of the Historical Society. He has also published “A Military History of Russia” (2006) and “The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917” (2015). He edited “The Soviet Union at War, 1941-1945” (2010). He is the author of several dozen articles on Russian military history and foreign policy.

Episode ten of Strategy Matters aligns with the fourth case study in the Strategy and Policy Course at the Naval War at the U.S. Naval War College. Much of the case study focuses on the European theaters of World War I, but in the podcast, we are exploring the extra-European or colonial theaters of the conflict. Although distinct, they were seldom decisive. Nonetheless, the colonial theaters in WWI hold many lessons for today’s strategists, including the complexities of peripheral theaters and irregular warfare, the role of seapower in a global conflict, and recruitment and motivation to fight. The host, Dr. Vanya Eftimova Bellinger, is joined by two professors from the Strategy and Policy Department: Dr. Tim Hoyt and Dr. Jesse Tumblin. A renowned expert on irregular warfare, Dr. Hoyt examines why, despite much action in the colonial theaters, they failed to break the stalemate or shift the balance between the belligerents. A historian of the British Empire, Dr. Tumblin discusses how the dominions provided it with manpower and enormous resources, but also challenged the empire’s institutions and war strategy.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.

Guests:

Dr. Timothy Hoyt, Ph.D. is the John Nicholas Brown Chair of Counterterrorism and, since 2019, has also served as the Director of the Advanced Strategy Program at the U.S. Naval War College. He is the author of numerous publications on irregular warfare, COIN and counterterrorism, and South Asia. Dr Hoyt also serves as the Deputy Editor of The Journal of Strategic Studies.

Dr. Jesse Tumblin, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of strategy and policy specializing in political and military history, ideas of security, and the current and former British world. He earned a Ph.D. and M.A. from Boston College and a B.A. from the University of Tennessee. He is a past fellow in international security studies at Yale University. He is the author of “The Quest for Security: Sovereignty, Race, and the Defense of the British Empire, 1898-1931” (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and an article on Britain’s attempts to secure its Indo-Pacific empire, which won the Saki Ruth Dockrill Memorial Prize for international history from the Institute for Historical Research, University of London.

Episode Nine of Strategy Matters aligns with the third case study in the Strategy and Policy Course at the Naval War at the U.S. Naval War College. In this episode, we shift our focus on the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars to explore how the military and political upheavals of 1793–1815 shaped strategic thinking in the early American republic. Although the United States stayed largely out of the European conflicts, American leaders watched them closely, and the era profoundly influenced how they understood war, strategy, and national power. Host Brendan Neagle is joined by three guests from the Strategy and Policy Department: Dr. George Satterfield, an expert on European military history, Dr. Jon Romaneski, a military historian focused on early U.S. military history, and Dr. Vanya Eftimova Bellinger, scholar of Clausewitz and co-host of Strategy Matters. The episode closes with key takeaways from each guest on Napoleon’s enduring relevance for contemporary strategic thought.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent theviews of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.

Guests:

Dr. George Satterfield, Ph.D. holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Illinois (2001) and an M.A. in history from Illinois State University. Before joining the Strategy and Policy Department, he taught history at the post-secondary level in New York and New Jersey. In 2006, he was a faculty member at Hawaii Pacific University, and at the same time, he won a distinguished book award for his book “Princes, Posts, and Partisans: The Army of Louis XIV and Partisan Warfare in the Spanish Netherlands, 1673-1678 (Leiden: Brill, 2003).” Professor Satterfield has expanded his interests to include modern European history, general military and naval history, counterinsurgency and NATO.

Lieutenant Colonel Jon Romaneski, U.S. Army, is a military professor in the US Naval War College’s Strategy and Policy Department. He is a U.S. Army Aviation officer whose previous command and staff positions include extensive time in Europe, the U.S. Military Academy, Fort Carson, Colorado, and Fort Cavazos, Texas. His most recent assignment was his battalion command tour in Fort Wainwright, Alaska. He has a BA in history from James Madison University and a PhD in military history from the Ohio State University.

Dr. Vanya Eftimova Bellinger, Ph.D. earned a Ph.D. in history at King’s College, London. Bellinger is the author of “Marie von Clausewitz: The Woman Behind the Making of On War” (Oxford University Press USA, 2015). She is the winner of the 2016 Society for Military History Moncado Prize for her article, “The Other Clausewitz: Findings from the Newly Discovered Correspondence between Marie and Carl von Clausewitz.” She is the first scholar to work with the newly discovered correspondence between the Clausewitz couple. Before transitioning to academia, Bellinger worked as a journalist and international correspondent for various European outlets.

This is a special episode of the Strategy Matters Podcast. Host Brendan Neagle talks with historian Dr. John Ferling to explore the strategic lessons of the American Revolution. This special episode reaches back to provide additional perspective on the third Strategy and War case study at the U.S. Naval War College. Although the timing of this episode does not align directly with the American Revolution case study, Dr. Ferling’s insights illuminate many of the course themes that cut across the entire course. Drawing on his books Whirlwind and his new work Shots Heard Round the World, Ferling assesses the Revolution’s strategic environment and international context and the central choices both sides faced at the outset of the conflict. Dr. Ferling dives into the challenges of forging a cohesive strategy from competing colonial interests, George Washington’s strengths and weaknesses as a strategic leader, and how diplomacy combined with military operations to shape the war’s trajectory. He also provides perspective on some of the strengths of British military decision-making, particularly by General Henry Clinton. The conversation closes with reflections on the Revolution’s most important strategic principles and why they still matter for today’s strategists.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.

Guests:

Dr. John Ferling is a leading historian of the American Revolution who spent most of his four-decade academic career at the University of West Georgia, where he taught courses on Colonial America, U.S. military history, and the Revolution. The author of numerous works, including Whirlwind and Shots Heard Round the World, Ferling has long combined scholarship with a passion for writing accessible history. His career began with two years teaching high school in Texas before moving into higher education in Texas, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and ultimately Georgia. In 2013, he received the Governor’s Award for the Arts and Humanities in recognition of his lifetime contributions to history and civic culture. A lifelong baseball fan, the first major league game he saw was between Pittsburgh and the Brooklyn Dodgers, a game in which Jackie Robinson scored the winning run. For twenty years he timed his research trips to Boston so that the Red Sox were in town. He has a picture of Fenway Park proudly displayed in his office.