Sailors use needle guns to remove rust from the anchor chain of the USS Porter at Naval Station Rota, Spain, Feb. 23, 2019. — https://www.defense.gov/observe/photo-gallery/igphoto/2002093852/

It has been quite awhile since we recorded and published an episode of The Smell of Victory Podcast, and, truth be told, it shows in this episode.  Of course we suggest that you tune in anyway, and listen to Bob Hein and Phil Walter (whose microphone was too close to his mouth) knock of their rusty podcasting skills as they discuss challenges that President Biden will face during the next four years.  Topics cussed and discussed on this episode include:

– COVID19 and its use as leverage in foreign policy

– Partnerships in the Indo-Pacific Region

– Russia and its threat or lack thereof

– Iran!  Iran!  Iran!  (Said like Jan Brady “Marcia!  Marcia!  Marcia!”)

– Violent Extremism

– 4+1, 1+4, and other bumper sticker math problems that attempt to oversimplify U.S. national security priorities

– Discussing the gifts that Bob and Phil received for Christmas which include a yodeling pickle

You can listen via Sticher by clicking here, or iTunes by clicking here. You can also listen on our website by clicking play below or download The Smell of Victory to your favorite podcatcher via our RSS feed.

On this episode of The Smell of Victory Podcast, Bob Hein and Phil Walter interrogated former CIA Officer Alex Finley on her new book, “Victor in the Jungle,” which follows her first book, “Victor in the Rubble.”  Key Intelligence Questions posed to Alex during this interrogation include:

– Who has the worst travel claim processing in D.C., the CIA, the military, or defense contractors?

– What does fictional character and intelligence operative Victor Caro do when he is tired of the Total War on Terror in West Africa?

– What did a young Alex Finley do as a child to prepare for life in the CIA?

– Has the CIA forgotten the art of spying?

– After over a decade and a half fighting the war on terror, do intelligence services have the tools for great power competition?

– Does the CIA really have cat fashion shows?

– Are there metrics that can measure the value of an intelligence report?

– What is the danger of management consultants in the national security arena?

– How do terrorist organizations get rid of undesirables?

– Where and when are Alex’s book launch parties going to occur?

You can listen via Sticher by clicking here, or iTunes by clicking here. You can also listen on our website by clicking play below or download The Smell of Victory to your favorite podcatcher via our RSS feed.

On this episode of The Smell of Victory Podcast Bob Hein, Steve Leonard, and Phil Walter discussed Hollywood, the U.S. Military, and Civil-Military Relations.

Issues touched on and quotes from this episode include:

– Hollywood, the strategic communications branch of civil-military relations.

– World War 2 gave us movies of epic battles, now we get damaged Veterans and rogue super soldiers.

– The damaged Veteran sells, and that is the most important lesson in Hollywood.

– Is Hollywood’s depiction of broken Veterans tied to the clarity of the objectives pursued in the war?

– Is Stripes the quintessential Cold War Movie?

– The strength of the Desert Storm movie “Three Kings” was its accurate portrayal of a tension pneumothorax.

– Does “The Hurt Locker” capture the reality of the Iraq war or further the rogue warrior adrenaline junkie myth (or both)?

– Is the HBO series “Generation Kill” the most accurate portrayal of a modern forward military unit?

– Would anybody watch a movie about military staff officers?

– Why are there no movies about Medal of Honor winners from Iraq and Afghanistan?

– Where is the Army in “Save the World “ movies like Battleship, The Last Ship, and Independence Day?

– Gran Torino is the quintessential veteran movie.

And much more!

You can listen via Sticher by clicking here, or iTunes by clicking here. You can also listen on our website by clicking play below or download The Smell of Victory to your favorite podcatcher via our RSS feed below.

Ali Wyne

On this episode of The Smell of Victory Podcast, Bob Hein and Phil Walter discussed U.S.-China relations with Ali Wyne a Political Scientist at RAND Corporation and the co-author of “Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World.”

Issues touched on and quotes from this episode include:

– From Presidents Nixon to Obama, China policy was one of the few points of bipartisan consensus.

– President Trump’s concerns about China are not unique to his administration.

– China took advantage of the U.S. wars in the Middle East to rise without challenge.

– What could the U.S. have done, short of military confrontation to address China’s island reclamation?

– What would a timeline overlay of U.S. deployments to the Middle East look like, against Chinese expansionary decisions?

– China is not like a movie you can pause, rather it is a television mini-series that isn’t on Netflix.

– Could the U.S. have checked Chinese military expansion while allowing its economic expansion?

– Is China a hubristic incompetent upstart or an inexorably ascendant colossus? (Or both?)

– The U.S. competition with China comes down to who will have more high quality friends.

– Diagnosis is the prerequisite for strategy.

– The U.S. challenge with China is not a new Cold War….Get over it.

– If China is neither friend nor enemy, should we go to the High Schools of America to learn how to deal with Frenemies?

And much more!

You can listen via Sticher by clicking here, or iTunes by clicking here. You can also listen on our website by clicking play below or download The Smell of Victory to your favorite podcatcher via our RSS feed below.

Image:  www.realcleardefense.com

On this episode of The Smell of Victory Podcast, Bob Hein and Phil Walter discussed the Goldwater-Nichols Act.

Issues touched on and quotes from this episode include:

– Does Goldwater-Nichols inhibit the military’s ability to plan against global threats?

– Does Goldwater-Nichols inadvertently make consensus the goal, vice best military advice?

– Are we ready for Four Star Fight Club in the military to resolve resourcing issues?

– Has the last commanding General of U.S. forces in Afghanistan been born yet?

– The purpose of the game is to perpetuate the game.

– It is time to give more authority to the services for the movement of forces globally.

– Should there only be one service (as per Harry Truman)?

– Listen to the genesis of the next best-selling genre at Amazon: National Security Children’s Books.

– Why does the Unified Command Plan seem to drive all the seams to sea?

– Should the Military, Department of Defense, and the Department of State use the same geographical organization, or does that just make too much sense?

– So who does global defense strategy? Not the Combatant Commands.

– What if before the war everyone showed up?

And much more!

You can listen via Sticher by clicking here, or iTunes by clicking here. You can also listen on our website by clicking play below or download The Smell of Victory to your favorite podcatcher via our RSS feed below.

Image from https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/exhibits/ww1/Pages/home-front-draft-board.aspx

Today on The Smell of Victory Podcast, Bob Hein and Phil Walter sat down with Loren DeJonge Schulman of the Center for a New American Security to discuss the draft.

Issues touched on and quotes from this episode include:

– As the world returns to great power competition, is it time to bring back the draft?

– Is the all-volunteer military turning into a warrior class?

-Since the end of the draft, the stage has been set to ensure the U.S. public can be insulated from war.

– Your kids aren’t going, your taxes aren’t going up, so stop worrying about it.

– Since Korea, we no longer do pay as you go wars.

– A rich person’s war, and a poor person’s fight, is not far from the truth.

– Presidents have found they can wage war without a lot of oversight.

– Congress has zero desire to have a political discussion about America’s wars overseas.

– Should a draft be used as a forcing function to even out the demographics of the military?

– It is vital you include women in the draft. Right now women are not required to register for the Selective Service.

– Maybe we need a draft focused on specific skill sets

– The reality is going to be “Hold the hell on until the U.S. industrial base and the draft can be mobilized.

– After fighting an endless war, what if the warrior class decided they no longer wanted their children serving in the military?

– Battle field proximity and battle field effectiveness are no longer the same thing.

And much more!

You can listen via Sticher by clicking here, or iTunes by clicking here. You can also listen on our website by clicking play below or download The Smell of Victory to your favorite podcatcher via our RSS feed below.

Image from https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/development-of-international-human-rights-law.html

Today on The Smell of Victory Podcast, Bob Hein and Phil Walter sat down with Tamara Cofman Wittes of The Brookings Institution and the Divergent Options Strategic Advisory Board to discuss human rights and national security.

This hour-long discussion touched on:

– Cold War human rights policies of Nixon and Kissinger

– Jeane Kirkpatrick’s article “Dictators and Double Standards”

– Post Cold War human rights policies

– The U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia following the killing of Washington Post correspondent Jamal Khashoggi

– The incongruence of U.S. words on human rights vs U.S. deeds

– Maximizing the value of imperfect instruments

– Degrees of hypocrisy that are inevitable vs degrees of hypocrisy that get in our way

– Information about the #NatSecGirlSquad Conference

And much more!

You can listen via Sticher by clicking here, or iTunes by clicking here. You can also listen on our website by clicking play below or download The Smell of Victory to your favorite podcatcher via our RSS feed below.

Image from The Research Library and Archive, Sir John Soane’s Museum, London — https://www.soane.org/collections-research/research-library-and-archive

This episode of The Smell of Victory Podcast focuses on great books.  More specifically, what Bob Hein, Steve Leonard, and Phil Walter think are great books.  The Divergent Options trio determined what their favorite books were in the categories of Policy, Strategy, Tactical, Most Gifted, and Most Personal and decided to share them with our amazing listeners.  Though only Bob and Phil were able to attend this episode of the podcast, Steve provided his favorites as well.  You can see all of the books on the spreadsheet below.

You can listen via Sticher by clicking here, or iTunes by clicking here. You can also listen on our website by clicking play below or download The Smell of Victory to your favorite podcatcher via our RSS feed below.

Image from https://niskanencenter.org/blog/future-liberalism-politicization-everything/

In 1988 General Paul X. Kelly, a retired United States Marine Corps General, made it known that he endorsed candidate George Bush for President of the United States.  That simple endorsement broke open the dam, emboldening future generations of retired Generals and Admirals to make their views known during each election cycle.  What are the impacts, good or bad, when retired military Generals and Admirals stand on stage to support a candidate for President?  What impacts do these endorsements have on the military members still serving?  Can or should anything be done about these endorsements?  Join Bob Hein and Steve Leonard as they discuss these issues and more on this episode of The Smell of Victory Podcast!

You can listen via Sticher by clicking here, or iTunes by clicking here. You can also listen on our website by clicking play below or download The Smell of Victory to your favorite podcatcher via our RSS feed below.

Image: http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/us-mission-creep-syria-iraq/

What is mission creep?  What are some examples of mission creep?  What are some effects of mission creep?  Why does the military seem to bat clean up for the rest of the Executive Branch when national security problems rear their ugly heads?  Bob Hein and Steve Leonard discuss these issues and more on this episode of The Smell of Victory Podcast!

You can listen via Sticher by clicking here, or iTunes by clicking here. You can also listen on our website by clicking play below or download The Smell of Victory to your favorite podcatcher via our RSS feed below.