The Strategy Bridge

In this episode of the Strategy Bridge Podcast we talk with August Cole about how fiction and imaginative thinking can inform how we approach national security affairs. Cole is a non-resident senior fellow at the Brent Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. From 2014-2017 he directed the Art of Future Warfare Project which explored creative and narrative works for insight into the future of conflict. He works on creative futures at SparkCognition, an artificial intelligence company, and along with Peter Singer he is the author of two novels "Ghost Fleet" and "Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution."

During World War II, librarians, archivists, microfilm specialists, and book connoisseurs were recruited by the US government to go overseas and collect enemy books, newspapers, journals, and other publications as part of an open-source intelligence effort. In this episode of the Strategy Bridge Podcast we talk about their work with Dr. Kathy Peiss. She is a professor of American history at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of "Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together In World War II Europe."

In 1971, the New York Times published leaked versions of what became known as the Pentagon Papers. The papers were part of a 7,000 page report commissioned by Defense Sec. Robert McNamara that looked at the history of the American involvement in Vietnam. Later that year, political theorist Hannah Arendt published an essay in the New York Review of Books called "Lying in Politics" that focused on issues of deception and self-deception as revealed in the Pentagon Papers. In this episode we talk with Dr. Celestino Perez about Arendt's essay and what it can teach us about decision making. Perez is a colonel in the U.S. Army and a professor at the Army War College.

Since its establishment during the Truman administration, the U.S. foreign assistance program has been seen by policymakers as a primary means of influencing the politics and economies of recipient countries. But the effects of foreign assistance has often had unintended consequences. In this episode of the Strategy Bridge podcast we talk with Dr. Jessica Trisko Darden about how US foreign assistance contributes to state violence and government repression.

Trisko Darden is an assistant professor of international affairs at the School of International Service at American University and is the author of Aiding and Abetting: US Foreign Assistance and State Violence.

From the 1870s-1890s the U.S. Navy experienced a strategical awakening. Changes in technology, international politics, and other factors drove officers to develop new concepts of naval professionalism, identity, and organization. In this episode of the Strategy Bridge Podcast we talk with Dr. Scott Mobley about how this awakening unfolded. Mobley teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is the author of Progressives in Navy Blue.

Special thanks to the U.S. Naval Academy Museum and Claude Berube for providing a space to record.

In 1863, Camp William Penn was established outside of Philadelphia to train African American soldiers for the Union Army. By the end of the war eleven U.S. Colored Troops regiments were trained there and would go on to serve in Virginia, Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and other states. In this episode of the Strategy Bridge Podcast we talk with Donald Scott about the U.S. Colored Troops and Camp William Penn. Scott is an assistant professor at the Community College of Philadelphia and a history columnist for Digital First Media, Inc. He is the author of the book "Camp William Penn, 1863-1865."

While military thinkers have assembled many lists of the principles of war, they have not developed a theory of tactics. Brett Friedman set out to remedy that situation by writing the book he wished he had when he was a junior officer. In this episode of the Strategy Bridge Podcast he joins us to talk about his book On Tactics: A Theory of Victory in Battle. Friedman is a military analyst and Marine Corps Reserve officer.

While naval historians and strategists have tended to focus on commerce raiding and ship-on-ship or fleet-on-fleet operations, naval history also includes many examples of wartime raiding and maritime security operations. In this episode of The Strategy Bridge Podcast we talk about naval irregular warfare in early America with Dr. Benjamin Armstrong. He is an active duty naval officer and Assistant Professor of War Studies and Naval History at the US Naval Academy. Armstrong is the author of the book Small Boats and Daring Men: Maritime Raiding, Irregular Warfare and the Early American Navy.

Throughout the 19th century the U.S. Army alternated between a small regular force scattered at isolated forts and large forces built quickly to fight major wars. In his book Preparing for War, Dr. J.P. Clark breaks the officer corps down into four generations between 1815-1917 whose ideas about professionalism and how to prepare for war were shaped by their institutions, experiences and culture. Clark is an active duty military officer who taught history at West Point and served as a strategic advisor at the Pentagon and British Ministry of Defense.

Over the past several years there has been a renewed interest in using gaming as a method to investigate national security decision making, explore policy and strategy options, and gain experience as practitioners. In this episode of the Strategy Bridge Podcast, we talk with Elizabeth Bartels about how wargames are designed, the differences in approaching gaming as an art and a science, and how games are used to think creatively about global competition. Bartels is a PhD candidate studying national security policy gaming at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.