WarNotes: A Conflict Podcast

Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.

The US Air Force is at a turning point in 21st century warfare and in danger of whistling past the graveyard if they fail to take notice and action on the emerging Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMA).

The era of manned combat aircraft is coming to a close.

The era of manned bombers with gravity bombs is over.

The era of fixed site nuclear missiles is in great peril.

The era of hyper-velocity missiles whether high parabola of IRBM/ICBM or Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) glide vehicles.

If the pilot mafia doesn't do something about what is coming, the result will be cataclysmic.

The Pentagon will not do the right thing, regretfully.

References:

A Concise History of the U.S. Air Force

Jeffrey J. Smith Tomorrow's Air Force: Tracing the Past, Shaping the Future

David Hambling Swarm Troopers: How Small Drones Will Conquer the World

Garrett Graff Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself--While the Rest of Us Die

Paul Ozorak Underground Structures of the Cold War: The World Below

Daniel Ellsberg The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

Nassim Taleb Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, Skin in the Game

Mark Gunzinger & Bryan Clark Winning the Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air and Missile Defense

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

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Email at [email protected]

Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.

In the future near-peer and peer fight, salvo competition and missiles will be the preeminent means by which one country will kinetically overwhelm the other in a fight. I discuss the way the US Navy is in an existential hazard of being woefully under-prepared to meet the threat if Western forces go toe toe with regional hegemons in the East or West.

Let’s anticipate the disasters now that are the Spanish in the English Channel in 1588, the British Royal Navy at Jutland in 1916, and the discovery in WWII all these battleships were not really capital ships, or had adequate armaments, yet their political dimensions compel not only their continuous construction but are the most devastating when lost.

The aircraft carrier has been a signature component of US naval power and prestige for more than a century. The utility has continued to diminish since the end of WWII. The tremendous disadvantage of putting so much manpower and treasure into these single use leviathan systems in the modern world of distributed missile and PGM systems, emerging near-peer & peer adversaries and concentration of power in vulnerable systems is a recipe for future disaster.

The US Navy surface fleet is in tatters and shattered by readiness, maintenance and armament issues that are critical indicators of a navy totally unprepared.

More on the carrier dilemma in Chasing Ghosts Episode #034 and Dispatch #006.

References:

Gregory Vistica Fall from Glory: The Men Who Sank the U.S. Navy

Michael Junge Crimes of Command: in the United States Navy, 1945-2015

Gerry Doyle Carrier Killer: China's Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles and Theater of Operations in the early 21st Century

David Lee Russell Early U.S. Navy Carrier Raids, February-April 1942: Five Operations That Tested a New Dimension of American Air Power

Jeff Vandenengel Questioning the Carrier: Opportunities in Fleet Design for the U.S. Navy

Jeff Vandenengel interview on Midrats with CDR Salamander

Ivan Gogin Fighting ships of the PEOPLE LIBERATION ARMY NAVY 1949 - 2023

Jerry Hendrix Retreat From Range: The Rise and Fall of Carrier Aviation

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Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.

It is time for America to completely reassess alliances and partnership around the world starting with NATO and then working its way down the list of useless and toxic relationships and promises to commit American blood and treasure to flashpoints planet-wide.

NATO insisted after the wall 1989-91 fell that the NATO blob would NOT expand eastward.

It did.

America should take a non-interventionist pause and get its internal house in order before standing astride the world again and lighting fires that never go away and continuously make things worse.

Stop the madness.

References:

Winning The Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air And Missile Defenses

The Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of Age

Nyet Means Nyet (William Burns 2008)

Pat Buchanan Where Does NATO Enlargement End?

DoS Cable: NATO ENLARGEMENT: RUSSIAN ASSERTIONS REGARDING THE TWO-PLUS-FOUR AGREEMENT ON GERMAN UNIFICATION

Navy Matters Get the US Out of NATO

Books:

Sevim Dagdelen NATO: A Reckoning with the Atlantic Alliance

Matt Kennard The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The American Empire

Daniel Ellsberg The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

Scott Horton Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine

Nassim Taleb Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, Skin in the Game

Mark Gunzinger & Bryan Clark Winning the Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air and Missile Defense

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

My Substack

Email at [email protected]

Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.

I take the time to discuss some of the conventional ramifications of modern warfare and book & article recommendations that have given me a deeper and more nuanced understanding of why wars begin and end as they do.

Robotics, autonomous targeting and hyper-velocity munitions are democratizing the battle field in a way heretofore unimagined. Drones are the new "low tech" answer to the First World's exquisite military platform that are over priced and have the same provenance of battleships planet-wide in January 1942.

The electronic emissions environment in future conflicts will be a two-way street that will put any active acquisition sensors and attached effectors in the hazard if they emit and remain in one place.

Autonomous targeting will become more and more relevant as the speed of munitions increases and the salvo competition costs are driven down.

Hyper-velocity munitions are here to stay.

The US Army and all land forces in the allied nations in the first world are in for a dramatic wake-up call.

The life of the light infantryman will change significantly since for the first time in human history, the cost of hunting individual soldiers and small groups of soldiers in an effective fashion has reached a cost in concert with technology.

"Quantity has a quality all of its own." - Thomas A. Callaghan Jr.

** I cover these issues in detail on my Chasing Ghosts podcast in Episodes 19, 24, 33-34, 47-48 and 53-54. **

References:

The 2024 Army Force Structure Transformation Initiative (CRS)

A Retrospective on RMA, 2000-2020.

The Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of Age

Army Futures Command Concept for Fires 2028

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

Lester Grau & Charles K. Bartles The Russian Way of War: Force Structure, Tactics, and Modernization of the Russian Ground Forces

Georgii Samoilovich Isserson G.S. Isserson and the War of the Future: Key Writings of a Soviet Military Theorist

Sun Tzu The Art of War

H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare

Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America

My Substack

Email at [email protected].

Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.

The US Marine Corps has seen its time and it is now the opportunity to sunset it and wish it well in memorium. Two historical moments have destroyed the efficacy and primacy of the USMC: missiles and the sad Commandant tenure of GEN David H. Berger who will be remembered as the man who murdered the Corps.

The US has not made a contested beach landing since Inchon in 1-19 September 1950 and the era of missiles has made the contested beach landing by maritime connectors and vertical envelopment a murderously expensive undertaking. The non-naval Houthis in Yemen have proven that US and allied naval surface power is a questionable enterprise peripheral to littorals.

It is time to lay the wreaths, acknowledge the contributions, stand to for the swansong and decommission the Corps.

References:

USMC Small Wars Manual

FMFM-1 Warfighting

Ronald O'Rourke Navy Medium Landing Ship (LSM) (Previously Light Amphibious Warship [LAW]) Program: Background and Issues for Congress (R46374)

Smedley D. Butler War is a Racket

Patrick Van Horne Left of Bang: How the Marine Corps' Combat Hunter Program Can Save Your Life

Heather Venable How the Few Became the Proud: Crafting the Marine Corps Mystique, 1874-1918

David J. Ulbrich Preparing for Victory: Thomas Holcomb and the Making of the Modern Marine Corps, 1936-1943

Brett A. Friedman 21st Century Ellis: Operational Art and Strategic Prophecy for the Modern Era

Bing West

No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah

Into the Fire: A Firsthand Account of the Most Extraordinary Battle in the Afghan War

Email at [email protected]

Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.

In the future near-peer and peer fight, salvo competition will be the preeminent means by which one country will kinetically overwhelm the other in a fight. I discuss the way the West is in an existential hazard of being woefully under-prepared to meet the threat if Western forces go toe to toe with regional hegemons in the East or West.

The US is NOT prepared for the war of leakers in which the inadequate missile defense systems and strategy now deployed will be overwhelmed if it enters a war of choice with China or Russia.

It isn't simply the peer competitors but the smaller players like North Korea and Yemen are demonstrating that the US and its allies can't cash the checks they boast about.

Once again, the US should stand down, reassess, re-calibrate and stop thinking defense is a four letter word.

References:

Winning The Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air And Missile Defenses

The Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of Age

Space Based Interceptor Sizing Methodology

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Books:

Garrett Graff Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself--While the Rest of Us Die

Paul Ozorak Underground Structures of the Cold War: The World Below

Daniel Ellsberg The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

Nassim Taleb Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, Skin in the Game

Mark Gunzinger & Bryan Clark Winning the Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air and Missile Defense

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

My Substack

Email at [email protected]

Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.

A complete reassessment of American nuclear weapons has to be done.

In the future near-peer and peer fight, nuclear weapons will be an option in the 21st century and no one can predict how they will used.

In concert with the emerging Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMA) such as robotics, autonomous targeting and hyper-velocity weapons systems that are earth shattering and millennial bending, it is time to calibrate and reassess expectations and the dust off the war-gaming illusions that created the system of planetary suicide hovering over the world today.

What happens with the advancement of space weapons which is now in the near future; what about the impact of these weapons dilemmas on a multi-planetary human evolution?

Stop the madness.

References:

The Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of Age

Space Based Interceptor Sizing Methodology

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Garrett Graff Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself--While the Rest of Us Die

Paul Ozorak Underground Structures of the Cold War: The World Below

Daniel Ellsberg The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

Nassim Taleb Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, Skin in the Game

Mark Gunzinger & Bryan Clark Winning the Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air and Missile Defense

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

My Substack

Email at [email protected]

Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.

In this episode, I will examine what intelligence looks like from a professional perspective and why America and the West consistently engage in existential chaos avalanches that make the world a worse place.

The bureaucratic impulse in the West has been a significant factor in making the intelligence community (IC), like the military community, a paper tiger that is a far greater danger to the inhabitants of the west than an ally.

It's time to restructure and realign the IC if America is to succeed as a free and peaceful member of nations. It will consume roughly 100 billion a year to produce shoddy analysis, inform bad policy and a Keystone Kops foreign covert/clandestine operations history that is a national shame.

Time to level the entire national IC in a controlled demolition and don't replace cancer if found, kill it.

If you leveled the FBI, NSA and CIA tomorrow morning, made each of their budgets one dollar and fired all their employees, you would still be safe as a country.

References:

Randolph H. Pherson and Richards J. Heuer Jr Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis 3 Ed

Richard J. Heuer Jr The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis

David Talbot The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government

Roger Z. George (Ed, et al) Analyzing Intelligence: National Security Practitioners' Perspectives

Tim Weiner Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

John Prado The Ghosts of Langley: Into the CIA's Heart of Darkness

John Prado Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA

Mortimer Adler How to Read a Book

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Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.

The joint concept is the synchronization function for individual services and by extension, allied and coalition forces in multinational war-fighting. The US has the parts and components committed on paper but nothing works in reality.

References:

The Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of Age

Army Futures Command Concept for Fires 2028

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

Lester Grau & Charles K. Bartles The Russian Way of War: Force Structure, Tactics, and Modernization of the Russian Ground Forces

David Glantz Soviet Operational and Tactical Combat in Manchuria, 1945 (Soviet (Russian) Study of War)

David Glantz Soviet Military Operational Art: In Pursuit of Deep Battle (Soviet (Russian) Military Theory and Practice)

Georgii Samoilovich Isserson G.S. Isserson and the War of the Future: Key Writings of a Soviet Military Theorist

Martin van Creveld The Transformation of War: The Most Radical Reinterpretation of Armed Conflict Since Clausewitz

COL Douglas Macgregor:

Navigating the Fiscal Storm: A New Course for U.S. National Defense

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Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.

It is time for the most expensive military in the world to seek a reset, this episode will continue to suggest that a strategic and grand strategic reframing has to take place to facilitate a wholesale re-imagining of the martial enterprises of America.

References:

Sun Tzu The Art of War

Carl von Clausewitz On War

Miyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America

Martin van Creveld

The Transformation of War: The Most Radical Reinterpretation of Armed Conflict Since Clausewitz

Fighting Power: German and U.S. Army Performance, 1939-1945

Colin Gray

Strategy and History: Essays on Theory and Practice

Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace, and Strategy

William Lind Maneuver Warfare Handbook

John Boyd Patterns of Conflict

Michael Weiner Legacy of Ashes: History of the CIA

John Prado The Ghosts of Langley: Into the CIA's Heart of Darkness

My Substack

Email at [email protected].