Target USA Podcast by WTOP

Whether its terrorists, anarchists, cyber criminals or nation states, America has a target on its back. WTOP National Security Correspondent J.J. Green investigates the threats facing the U.S., the people behind them, the agencies fighting them and their impact on Americans.

  • 20 minutes 14 seconds
    508 | Living in the Dark: Russia's War on Civilian Life in Ukraine

    This episode pulls back the curtain on daily life inside a country under siege. From a darkened apartment in Kyiv, Ukrainian Member of Parliament and mother Halyna Yanchenko describes nights without electricity, heat, water, or internet. Elevators stop. Food cannot be cooked. Homes go cold. This is not a war fought only on front lines or maps. It is a deliberate campaign aimed at civilians, families, and children, designed to exhaust, frighten, and break a society from the inside out. In her own words, Yanchenko explains what it means to raise children in darkness, and why Ukraine says this is not just war, but an attempt to erase civilian life itself.

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    18 December 2025, 2:00 am
  • 15 minutes 7 seconds
    507 | Ukraine’s War, Ukraine’s Problem: The Fight Within the Fight

    As Russia intensifies its campaign, Ukraine faces another threat from within: systemic corruption undermining its own war effort. In this episode, Kurt Volker, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO, Special Envoy to Ukraine, and Distinguished Fellow at CEPA explains how corruption is weakening Western support. It's also complicating battlefield decisions and giving Moscow strategic breathing room. A hard look at Ukraine’s internal battle and what must change for Kyiv to win the external one.

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    11 December 2025, 2:00 am
  • 19 minutes 1 second
    506 | When the War Follows You Home: The DC National Guard Attack Explained

    An Afghan national shot two National Guard members in Washington, D.C. Counterterrorism expert Hans-Jakob Schindler says this may be more than a mental health case. He warns extremist networks in Taliban-run Afghanistan now reach directly into Afghan diaspora communities online. The attacker’s travel, target selection, and ambush tactics match modern lone-actor terror patterns. Schindler says social media platforms—not law enforcement—hold the real early-warning data. A close look at a threat environment turning darker in the U.S.

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    4 December 2025, 2:00 am
  • 16 minutes 16 seconds
    505 | The Coast Guard’s About-Face: The Hate-Symbol Reversal That Shook the Military

    Today on Target USA, a story that cuts straight to the core of military culture, extremism, and truth. The U.S. Coast Guard, under intense public pressure, has reversed course on a deeply controversial policy shift. A draft manual, first uncovered by The Washington Post, appeared to downgrade the swastika and the noose, two of the most violent, hate-laden symbols in American and world history, from outright banned imagery to merely “potentially divisive.”

    The backlash from veterans, lawmakers, and civil-rights groups was immediate and fierce. Now the Coast Guard says it never changed its stance. But the documents tell a different story. Coast Guard and Navy veteran Lene Mees De Tricht joins us on this.


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    27 November 2025, 2:00 am
  • 22 minutes 57 seconds
    504 | Grenada’s Impossible Choice: The U.S. or Venezuela

    Grenada is facing one of the most consequential national security decisions in its modern history, after the United States quietly requested permission to install a radar system and station military personnel on the island as it pursues action against Venezuela. Veteran Grenadian journalist Linda Straker breaks down the mystery behind the U.S. request, the growing anxiety on the island, and the high-stakes diplomatic trap Grenada now finds itself in. 

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    20 November 2025, 2:00 am
  • 21 minutes 22 seconds
    503 | Trump’s Threat to Nigeria: A Nation on Edge

    U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to send troops or cut aid to Nigeria has triggered a diplomatic and security storm across Africa. In this episode, we speak with humanitarian journalist Usman Abba Zanna from Maiduguri, who explains how Trump’s words could inflame tensions, embolden extremists, and reshape Nigeria’s ties to the West.


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    13 November 2025, 2:00 am
  • 27 minutes 26 seconds
    502 | Alternate Reality: How The Government of Belarus Built its Own Parallel Truth

    In this gripping conversation, Belarusian legal expert and exiled journalist Natalia Belikova explains how disinformation in Belarus isn’t just a tactic; it’s the regime’s operating system.

    She describes how the Lukashenko government has built an alternative reality, where familiar words like “democracy,” “elections,” and “human rights” are redefined to serve state power.

    In a sometimes emotional interview, Natalia shares what it’s like to be exiled from your home, to lose colleagues to prison, and to raise children abroad while fighting to preserve your national identity. She also issues a warning to Western democracies.

     

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    6 November 2025, 2:00 am
  • 13 minutes 51 seconds
    501 | The Summit That Wasn’t: Putin’s Power Play

    When President Trump agreed to meet Vladimir Putin in Budapest, it looked like a potential breakthrough. Instead, it became a masterclass in manipulation. Within 24 hours, the Kremlin pulled the plug — and the world saw how quickly leverage can shift. In this episode, Ambassador Kurt Volker, former US Special Envoy to Ukraine and current Distinguished Fellow at the Center for European Policy analysis unpacks how Putin’s “summit offer” was never about peace talks, but about power, humiliation, and control — and what it reveals about the fragile state of U.S.–Russia diplomacy.

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    23 October 2025, 1:00 am
  • 7 minutes 16 seconds
    500 | I turned in my Pentagon credential — not my commitment

    After twenty years of covering the U.S. military, I turned in my Pentagon press credential today. But that’s all that changes; My commitment to covering the men and women of the U.S. military and the institution they serve remains exactly the same. Let me explain.

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    16 October 2025, 1:00 am
  • 14 minutes 30 seconds
    Arseniy Yatsenyuk: Inside Ukraine’s Fight for Survival and the Future of Freedom

    We go deep inside the mind of one of Ukraine’s most unflinching voices—two-time former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. The man who stood at the helm during the nation’s darkest hour after Russia’s first invasion in 2014 returns with a stark warning and a message of resilience. In this powerful conversation, Yatsenyuk, now Chairman of the Kyiv Security Forum, dissects Vladimir Putin’s endgame, the limits of Western resolve, and what it truly means to fight for democracy when your nation’s survival hangs in the balance. From the corridors of Kyiv to the frontlines of the disinformation war, his words cut through the noise—revealing what Ukraine needs most and what the world stands to lose if it turns away.

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    9 October 2025, 1:00 am
  • 35 minutes 33 seconds
    Echoes of Silence: Andrei Soldatov on Putin, Propaganda, and America’s Warning

    Investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov has tracked the rise of Putin’s propaganda machine from the inside; and paid the price in exile. In this gripping conversation, he connects the dots between Russia’s early media crackdowns and the chilling parallels unfolding in the United States today. From late-night comedy to Pentagon press restrictions, Soldatov explains how free speech erodes step by step; and what Americans must do to fight back. This episode is both a history lesson and a warning: freedom of expression isn’t lost overnight; it’s chipped away until silence becomes the norm.

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    2 October 2025, 1:00 am
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