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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• 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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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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• 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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Ep 210: Scott Boorman on Sun Tzu
Scott Boorman, Professor of Sociology at Yale University and author of Three Faces of Sun Tzu, joins the show to discuss the world and ideas of Sun Tzu.
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• 01:48 Introduction
• 02:10 “Know your enemy”
• 05:18 The Protracted Game
• 09:59 Text and application
• 16:05 Warring states
• 21:14 Chinese thinking
• 24:58 Net assessment
• 29:05 Cunning
• 32:02 Omissions
• 37:05 Memorization
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Ep 209: Jonathan Schanzer on the Israel-Iran Ceasefire
Jonathan Schanzer, executive director at FDD, joins the show to break down his time on the ground in Israel at the beginning of the war and what may come with the Israel-Iran ceasefire in place.
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• 01:27 Introduction
• 02:10 Extraction
• 05:50 Different
• 09:25 In the shelter
• 12:03 Damage taken
• 16:18 Stress
• 17:45 Getting out
• 24:57 Road ahead
• 30:40 Iranian risks
• 32:10 Hamas
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Ep 208: Mike Doran on America’s Strikes in Iran
Mike Doran, senior fellow and director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at the Hudson Institute, joins the show to break down America’s strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities and what might come next.
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Times
• 01:00 Reactions
• 08:00 Deception
• 12:00 More to come
• 17:00 Self-deception
• 24:00 Next few days
• 31:00 Escalation
• 34:00 Not over
• 41:00 Trump is serious
• 44:00 Restraintists
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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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