Ryan McDermott, Army veteran of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and author of Downriver: Memoir of a Warrior Poet, joins the show to talk about his combat experiences.
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• 01:13 Introduction
• 01:55 Seeking purpose
• 04:11 West Point
• 06:48 9/11
• 08:41 3rd Infantry Division
• 10:12 Platoon tactics
• 14:51 “Crossing tonight”
• 18:08 Preparing for combat
• 23:40 Tired
• 29:37 Baghdad
• 35:51 Thunder Runs
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Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack
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38:26
Ep 214: Bryan Clark on the Coming Sensor War with China
Bryan Clark, senior fellow and director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at Hudson Institute, joins the show to talk about how a war with China could play out.
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Times
• 01:51 Introduction
• 02:00 Submariner
• 10:10 Environmental conditions
• 12:40 State of play
• 20:04 Complacency
• 23:36 Hellscape
• 32:14 Cultural differences
• 37:20 Party control
• 43:40 Degraded environment
• 48:02 Practice now
• 51:45 Deterrence
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Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack
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57:43
Ep 213: Paul Lay on Cromwell and the English Civil War
Paul Lay, Senior Editor of Engelsberg Ideas and author of Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell's Protectorate,joins the show to talk about the turbulent age of the English Civil War, Cromwell, and the Protectorate.
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Times
• 01:45 Introduction
• 02:00 17th century
• 03:51 The Thirty Years War
• 12:40 Anti-Catholicism
• 15:24 Underlying causes
• 21:46 Cromwell
• 30:34 Thatcher
• 33:04 The Rump Parliament
• 37:07 Western Design
• 54:44 Reverberations
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58:29
Ep 212: Arnold Punaro on Fighting in Vietnam and Washington
Arnold Punaro, retired USMC Major General and author of If Confirmed: An Insider's View of the National Security Confirmation Process, joins the show to talk about his infantry service in Vietnam and his experiences serving in Washington DC.
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Times
• 01:35 Introduction
• 05:40 5 weeks
• 10:51 Officer training
• 13:18 3/7
• 16:37 Jungle fighting
• 23:25 Wounded
• 31:32 Payback
• 36:35 Bad situation
• 40:10 Getting home
• 45:46 The Senate
• 49:28 Getting the facts
• 54:00 Service
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1:00:39
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1:00:39
Ep 211: Daniel Samet on the Origins of the U.S.-Israel Relationship
Daniel Samet, the George P. Shultz Fellow at the Ronald Reagan Institute and author of U.S. Defense Policy toward Israel: A Cold War History, joins the show to breakdown the origins of the important, if at times contentious, U.S.-Israel relationship.
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Times
• 01:30 Introduction
• 02:28 1948
• 05:44 Arabist strategy
• 08:13 11 minutes
• 10:37 Looking for friends
• 15:40 Soviet-Arab relations
• 19:25 Republicans
• 25:16 Kennedy
• 29:29 Strong friends
• 32:02 Nuclear program
• 37:33 6 Day War
• 43:19 Mistake?
• 47:41 Kissinger
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Find a transcripts of episodes on our School of War Substack
This podcast seeks to learn what war teaches. There has been a steady decline in the study of military history and its associated theoretical discipline, strategy.This podcast seeks to fill that gap through in-depth interviews on military and diplomatic history. Our guests have included former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis, and former China Select Committee chairman Mike Gallagher. We discuss the battlefield commanders, diplomats, strategists, policymakers, and statesmen who have had to make wartime decisions in the ancient and modern eras. The subject of an episode may be an historical battle, campaign, or conflict; the conduct of policy in the course of a major international incident; the work of a famous strategist; the nature of a famous weapon; or the legacy of an important military commander or political leader.
Aaron MacLean is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute. He has worked as a foreign policy advisor and legislative director to Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and spent seven years in the U.S. Marine Corps.
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