Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at FDD and contributor to The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan, joins the show to talk about Taiwan, tensions in the South China Sea, and more.

▪️

Times 

    •      01:27 Introduction 

    •      02:00 Why the Navy?

    •      04:05 PACOM

    •     06:53 Working with Senator McCain 

    •      10:51 Resource prioritization 

    •      15:19 Shortsighted decisions

    •      19:56 Sink China’s Navy

    •      25:30 Is Taiwan ready?

    •      30:35 Imitate Estonia

    •      33:31 Sensor complexes 

    •      37:26 Missile defense

    •      43:30 Nuclear escalation

Follow along  on Instagram

Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

Sabin Howard, sculptor of A Soldier’s Journey, the central feature of the new World War I Memorial in Washington, DC, joins the show to talk about his work and the art of memorializing war and honoring veterans.

▪️

Times 

    •      01:50 Introduction 

    •      02:07 Becoming an artist

    •      07:03 Spiritually classical

    •     10:04 WWI 

    •      14:24 Getting it right

    •      18:35 Daughter and father

    •      21:37 The ordeal

    •      25:00 The charging man 

    •      28:18 Modern methods

    •      33:52 Aftermath

    •      41:11 Return 

    •      51:00 Excite and engage

Follow along  on Instagram

Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny, joins the show to give his thoughts on Tucker Carlson’s controversial guest Darryl Cooper.

▪️

Times 

    •      01:25 Introduction 

    •      02:34 Churchill the villain

    •      05:20 Pat Buchanan

    •     08:57 Dragging America into war 

    •      14:50 Barbarossa

    •      20:06 “Mr. Cooper simply can’t have read Mein Kampf…”

    •      21:37 Terror bombings

    •      24:19 Dog whistles 

    •      26:11 Founding mythology

Follow along  on Instagram

Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

Matt Pottinger, distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, Chairman of FDD’s China Program, and author of The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan, joins the show to talk about how a war over Taiwan might start and how it may be prevented.

▪️

Times 

    •      01:13 Introduction 

    •      03:11 The Boiling Moat

    •      04:54 Is Xi serious?

    •      11:35 How to deter China 

    •      17:40 Out with the old, in with the new

    •      24:30 Mapping the scenarios

    •      30:14 No such thing as an accidental war

    •      35:44 A cognitive trap

    •      39:22 Left with no choice

Follow along  on Instagram

Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, joins the show to discuss his plan to spend five percent of America’s GDP on defense. Click the link to read more Peace through Strength: A Generational Investment in the U.S. Military 

▪️

Times 

    •      01:31 Introduction 

    •      01:40 Service years

    •      04:39 3% vs 5%

    •      9:00 Peace through Strength   

    •      12:50 More money, more problems?

    •      16:40 “Let’s get some more shipyards…”

    •      19:37 Modernizing the nuclear arsenal

    •      23:14 Force Design 2030

Follow along  on Instagram

Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

General Kenneth F. McKenzie, USMC, retired as the fourteenth commander of U.S. Central Command in 2022 and is the author of The Melting Point: High Command and War in the 21st Century (https://a.co/d/a2RmIDK). He joins the show to talk about the strategic significance of the Middle East.

▪️

Times 

    •      01:16 Introduction 

    •      01:38 The Citadel

    •      04:15 The humanities

    •      10:00 Central Command   

    •      13:43 Thinking globally

    •      17:53 Iran pushes back

    •      23:05 Pursuing peace

    •      26:15 Afghanistan

    •      32:01 Collapse

    •      37:58 A regional war

Follow along on Instagram

Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

Joshua S. Treviño, Chief of Intelligence and Research and the Director for Texas Identity at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, joins the show to talk about the crisis on the U.S. southern border.

▪️

Times 

    •      01:28 Introduction 

    •      02:03 “The border itself is insecure…”

    •      06:06 Immigration is not the issue 

    •      08:58 Texas remembers    

    •      21:44 The Mexican side

    •      31:34 WWI in Mexico

    •      32:25 PRC and cartels

    •      39:24 DoD and the border

    •      44:01 “A sincere security partner…”

    •      46:03 The Caroline affair

Follow along  on Instagram

Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

Richard Frank, historian and author of Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire and Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War: July 1937-May 1942, joins the show to talk about the controversial legacy of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

▪️

Times 

    •      02:05 Introduction 

    •      02:15 Soldier/Lawyer/Historian

    •      09:19 Early controversy 

    •      14:55 Counting all the dead    

    •      21:54 Contemplating invasion

    •      30:10 1:1 ratio, recipe for a bloodbath

    •      38:03 Why unconditional surrender? 

    •      40:48 Two steps to end the war

    •      46:54 A combination of forces 

    •      51:08 How many bombs?

    •      54:01 Thinking as your enemy does

Follow along  on Instagram

Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

Ronald C. White, Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum and author of On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, joins the show to talk about the hero of Little Round Top, Joshua L. Chamberlain.

▪️

Times 

    •      01:37 Introduction 

    •      01:51 Why Chamberlain?

    •      09:01 Fighting for the Union 

    •      14:05 The 20th Maine  

    •      18:10 Arriving at Gettysburg

    •      21:34 The 15th & 47th Alabama 

    •      24:25 “Bayonets”

    •      29:31 Fighting for Grant

    •      33:40 Appomattox 

    •      35:53 Home

    •      29:31 Battle Cry of Freedom

Follow along  on Instagram

Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

Rich Goldberg, senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, joins the show to talk about the expanding war between Israel and Iran.

▪️

Times 

    •      01:40 Introduction 

    •      03:30 Where things stand

    •      15:25 Israeli expectations 

    •      24:44 Retaliation  

    •      31:39 Iran’s strategic concept

    •      36:16 American interests

    •      44:20 Projection

    •      50:36 Once Iran has nuclear weapons

Follow along  on Instagram

Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

Michael Sobolik, author of Countering China's Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance and Senior Fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, joins the show to talk about China.

▪️

Times 

    •      01:38 Introduction 

    •      04:29 Belt and Road

    •      07:54 The Beginning 

    •      13:12 Chinese imperialism

    •      20:50 Mackinder’s math

    •      25:19 Nazi geostrategic thinking

    •      28:21 Spykman and BRI

    •      31:42 Imperialism is not a relic

    •      35:43 Countering China

    •      40:40 Tracing BRI back to Beijing 

    •      46:55 Keeping Taiwan safe

Follow along  on Instagram

Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack