Sweden joined NATO in 2024. What took them so long? Historian Johan Wennström, author of The Stay Behinds: Sweden’s Cold War Guardians, joins Aaron MacLean to uncover how Sweden secretly collaborated with NATO for decades while remaining publicly neutral for fear the Soviet Union would invade Finland if they did. With Russia threatening Europe again, Wennström discusses the history of Sweden’s balancing act, how it built an army of sleeper cells, and whether NATO membership risks giving countries a false sense of security.

03:13 The Soviet Threat

08:00 Was Sweden Neutral?

15:52 Sweden in World War II

20:10 Sweden’s Military Might

20:50 Building the Resistance

25:11 Legalizing a Secret Army

28:35 Soviet Invasion Plans

33:05 The Resistance Leaders

37:09 Is Europe Prepared?

41:09 Was NATO a Mistake?

42:41 The Case for Deterrence

44:29 Preparing for Defeat

This episode of School of War is brought to you by Maven Smart System, the builder platform for the American warfighter, fielded across the force and live on the frontline today. Learn more at palantir.com.

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Russia is losing ground in eastern Ukraine and suffering mounting casualties. So why is the White House handing Vladimir Putin a lifeline? Retired Australian Army major general Mick Ryan, author of the newsletter Futura Doctrina, joins Aaron MacLean to examine the links between the Iran war and Ukraine, and explains why Ukraine’s battlefield successes aren’t translating into political advantage. Putin’s best hope, Ryan argues, is getting Donald Trump on his side: “He’s tried everything else and it hasn’t worked.” Could Washington give Putin what his army can’t?

03:07 Ukraine and Iran

05:58 Putin’s American Lifeline

08:04 Rising Diesel Prices

11:22 Ukraine’s Starlink Dependence

13:30 Satellite Speed Limits

18:00 Russia’s Jet-Powered Drones

19:40 Ukraine Without America

22:34 Stalled Peace Talks

25:39 Economic Warfare Against Iran

31:08 Ukraine’s Counteroffensive

36:40 Adapting on the Battlefield

39:14 China’s Lessons From War

This episode of School of War is brought to you by Maven Smart System, the builder platform for the American warfighter, fielded across the force and live on the frontline today. Learn more at palantir.com.

This episode of School of War is also brought to you by Stratolaunch, a leading pure-play hypersonics company.  Stratolaunch helps the U.S. and its allies move new hypersonic technologies from concept to capability, faster and cheaper.  Learn more about how Stratolaunch is accelerating the future of hypersonics at Stratolaunch.com.

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During the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Communist Party purged Xi Jinping’s father and subjected him to 16 years of persecution and imprisonment—so how did the current president of China emerge more devoted to the party than ever? “It’s like a comic book villain origin story,” says Aaron MacLean. Today, Joseph Torigian, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping, joins School of War to explore the strange and dark story of China’s current president, the brutality of Mao’s China, and how it all shaped the power dynamics in Beijing today.

03:24 – The Xi Family and Communist Loyalty

08:14 – Why Xi Jinping Never Abandoned the Party

10:05 – China's Revolutionary Origins

13:23 – The Books That Shaped Xi Jinping

18:34 – Why China Embraced Communism

22:13 – Xi Zhongxun's Rise and Near-Execution

29:21 – Mao's Loyalty Test

35:30 – The Great Leap Forward and Famine

45:14 – Xi Jinping's Brutal Childhood

47:38 – His Father's 16 Years of Persecution

52:11 – Mao and the Cultural Revolution

59:17 – The Xi Family's Tragedy

This episode of School of War is brought to you by Maven Smart System, the builder platform for the American warfighter, fielded across the force and live on the frontline today. Learn more at palantir.com.

This episode of School of War is also brought to you by Stratolaunch, a leading pure-play hypersonics company.  Stratolaunch helps the U.S. and its allies move new hypersonic technologies from concept to capability, faster and cheaper.  Learn more about how Stratolaunch is accelerating the future of hypersonics at Stratolaunch.com.

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In the Baltics, war with Russia is no abstraction. Putin could take Lithuania’s capital if he achieved surprise, the nation’s army commander told Aaron MacLean. This week, Aaron travels through Lithuania and Latvia to speak with Brigadier General Nerijus Stankevičius, Lithuanian defense Minister Robertas Kaunas, and Latvian foreign minister Baiba Braže about why Lithuania is amending its constitution to allow weapons of mass destruction on its soil, what schoolchildren are learning in their war-preparedness exercises, and what each country is doing now to make sure they’re ready if war comes. 

02:58 — Brig. Gen. Nerijus Stankevičius

04:25 — Russia Could Take Vilnius

06:03 — How Lithuania Would Fight

09:58 — “Never Again”

14:14 — Robertas Kaunas, Lithuania’s Defense Strategy

17:28 — Drones, AI & the Eastern Flank

22:31 — Nuclear Deterrence

23:58 — Preparing the Whole Country

29:16 — A Message to Putin

31:29 — Baiba Braže, Latvia on the Front Line

36:12 — Drones Over Latvia

37:28 — Joining Latvia’s National Guard

40:30 — Russia’s “Sub-Conventional” War

48:46 — What If Russia Wins in Ukraine?

55:54 — Can Russia Be Pressured Into Peace? 

This episode of School of War is brought to you by Maven Smart System, the builder platform for the American warfighter, fielded across the force and live on the frontline today. Learn more at palantir.com.

This episode of School of War is also brought to you by Stratolaunch, a leading pure-play hypersonics company.  Stratolaunch helps the U.S. and its allies move new hypersonic technologies from concept to capability, faster and cheaper.  Learn more about how Stratolaunch is accelerating the future of hypersonics at Stratolaunch.com.

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America is running low on munitions, its shipyards can’t keep pace, and the materials its weapons depend on too often run through China. Michael Cadenazzi is the Pentagon official charged with turning that around, putting billions of dollars behind the factories, materials, and supply chains that make America’s military power possible. He joins School of War to explain how the Pentagon plans to ramp up weapons production, attract private investment, and break decades of bad habits in how the Pentagon does business. Cadenazzi is confident America can still mobilize its industrial might for a major war, but he warns that waiting until the shooting starts would be “way more expensive in blood and treasure.” The race to rearm is on, and the question is whether America can win it before the next great-power war begins. 

03:40 – America's Industrial Decline

06:15 – Dependence on China

09:12 – Pentagon Spending

12:40 – Rare Earth Production

16:59 – Defense Supply Chains

20:41 – Weapons Manufacturing

23:26 – High-End Weapons vs. Mass

28:01 – Blood and Treasure

31:56 – Private Investment

34:58 – Outproducing China

41:29 – Pentagon Equity Stakes

45:00 – Managing Investments

This episode of School of War is brought to you by Maven Smart System, the builder platform for the American warfighter, fielded across the force and live on the frontline today. Learn more at palantir.com.

This episode of School of War is also brought to you by Stratolaunch, a leading pure-play hypersonics company.  Stratolaunch helps the U.S. and its allies move new hypersonic technologies from concept to capability, faster and cheaper.  Learn more about how Stratolaunch is accelerating the future of hypersonics at Stratolaunch.com.

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A young researcher in Siberia has died under mysterious circumstances, raising questions about a potential lab leak. Russia won’t say how it happened. Marshall Billingslea, former Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control, says Moscow has scrubbed news reports, had officials walk back talk of an outbreak, and kept the World Health Organization in the dark. He joins School of War to fill in what the Kremlin won’t, taking us inside Russia’s expanding bioweapons program and the institute at the heart of the mystery, which defectors say ran a covert effort to weaponize the disease and make it resistant to antibiotics. He also explains how Moscow thinks about using these weapons, how China is building a program of its own, and why the most frightening of them pose a risk even nuclear weapons don’t.

2:32 — Mystery at a Russian Plague Lab

5:29 — Russia’s Bioweapons Program

7:14 — Weaponizing Plague

10:39 — How Russia Would Use Bioweapons

13:01 — Smallpox and Ebola

15:07 — Controlling the Spread

16:40 — “Your Vaccines Wouldn’t Have Worked”

18:20 — A Soviet Bioweapons Defector

20:30 — Why Bioweapons Bans Are Hard to Verify

24:58 — Irkutsk and Wuhan

29:48 — Another Pandemic?

32:45 — China and North Korea

This episode of School of War is brought to you by Maven Smart System, the builder platform for the American warfighter, fielded across the force and live on the frontline today. Learn more at palantir.com.

This episode of School of War is also brought to you by Stratolaunch, a leading pure-play hypersonics company.  Stratolaunch helps the U.S. and its allies move new hypersonic technologies from concept to capability, faster and cheaper.  Learn more about how Stratolaunch is accelerating the future of hypersonics at Stratolaunch.com.

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Three years after October 7, the deadliest terror attack in Israeli history looms large over the Jewish state’s upcoming election. Former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren says whomever takes the helm next is unlikely to “remove a single soldier from Lebanon, from Gaza, from Syria.” Today, Oren joins School of War to discuss Israel’s “80 percent” consensus on national security, why he thinks Hezbollah “cannot be destroyed militarily,” and the deepening political divide between religious Zionists and ultra-Orthodox Jews over the Jewish state’s future. 

3:33 How October 7 Changed Israel

8:54 The Ultra-Orthodox Draft Fight

13:52 Israel’s Election and the Draft

17:17 Why the Ultra-Orthodox Don’t Serve

19:17 Oren's Path to the IDF

24:45 How Israel Defeated Hezbollah

26:50 Israel’s New Security Consensus

29:58 Can Iran Survive the Blockade?

32:40 What Comes Next in Gaza?

34:52 Hunting the October 7 Terrorists

37:02 Why Michael Oren Chose Israel

41:11 What Happens if Iran’s Regime Falls?

This episode of School of War is brought to you by Maven Smart System, the builder platform for the American warfighter, fielded across the force and live on the frontline today. Learn more at palantir.com.

This episode of School of War is also brought to you by Stratolaunch, a leading pure-play hypersonics company.  Stratolaunch helps the U.S. and its allies move new hypersonic technologies from concept to capability, faster and cheaper.  Learn more about how Stratolaunch is accelerating the future of hypersonics at Stratolaunch.com.

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How do you fight a superpower you can’t afford to stop trading with? The Dutch faced that problem at the start of the 17th century in their war against Spain, and their answer was the Dutch West India Company, a business built to wage war. Alexander Bick, a historian who served on the National Security Council under Barack Obama and Joe Biden, joins School of War to discuss his new book, Minutes of Empire. He explains how the company helped secure Dutch independence and why the Dutch kept trading with Spain while fighting it, taxing certain exports to “plow that money back into the military,” and what that reveals about America’s tangled relationship with China. All of which raises a question about Donald Trump’s foreign policy: Is America reviving an older style of empire?

02:52 — The Rise of the Dutch Republic

06:25 — How Dutch Trading Companies Began

09:47 — Shareholder Profits vs. National Strategy

11:59 — Who Invested in the Company?

14:33 — Challenging Spain in the New World

19:19 — The Costs of Conquering Brazil

22:49 — Who Ran the West India Company?

31:58 — Business Failure, Strategic Success

39:36 — The Dutch Legacy in Britain

43:16 — America and Trading with the Enemy

49:13 — Biden and Trump: What Changed?

55:30 — Trump, Venezuelan Oil, and Empire

This episode of School of War is brought to you by Maven Smart System, the builder platform for the American warfighter, fielded across the force and live on the frontline today. Learn more at palantir.com.

This episode of School of War is also brought to you by Stratolaunch, a leading pure-play hypersonics company.  Stratolaunch helps the U.S. and its allies move new hypersonic technologies from concept to capability, faster and cheaper.  Learn more about how Stratolaunch is accelerating the future of hypersonics at Stratolaunch.com.

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“Let’s whisper it,” said historian Simon Sebag Montefiore. “The Trump blockade is working.” It can be hard to parse the state of play in the Middle East amid escalating rhetoric, but history gives us the necessary perspective to call balls and strikes in the present day. Today, the author of The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East joins School of War to discuss the forces that created the modern Middle East, why he thinks Trump’s strategy in Iran is working, and the growing rivalry between Israel and Turkey. “There is a real danger that Erdoğan will talk himself into a war with Israel,” he warns.

05:22 — The Middle East Is Not Monochrome  

09:49 — Four Eras of the Modern Middle East  

11:45 — The Problem With Nation-States  

18:30 — Why 1979 Changed the Middle East  

25:22 — Can Iran’s Revolution Survive Regime Change?  

34:28 — Iran, Hormuz, and the Nuclear Question  

39:57 — Could Iran’s Regime Reach a Breaking Point?  

44:42 — Why Iran’s Regime Is Built for War  

50:46 — Trump, Soleimani, and the 12-Day War  

52:28 — Can the Iran Blockade Work?  

54:23 — Israel’s Post–October 7 Grand Strategy  

1:04:56 — Israel, Turkey, and Erdoğan’s Neo-Ottoman Ambitions

This episode of School of War is brought to you by Maven Smart System, the builder platform for the American warfighter, fielded across the force and live on the frontline today. Learn more at palantir.com.

This episode of School of War is also brought to you by Stratolaunch, a leading pure-play hypersonics company.  Stratolaunch helps the U.S. and its allies move new hypersonic technologies from concept to capability, faster and cheaper.  Learn more about how Stratolaunch is accelerating the future of hypersonics at Stratolaunch.com.

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If America wants to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty, it needs to build more warships. China currently dominates global shipbuilding—producing vessels at a scale the United States can no longer match. Alex Wong, an executive at South Korean shipbuilding giant Hanwha Group and a former Trump administration national security adviser, thinks he has the solution. Today, Wong joins Aaron MacLean to discuss how the United States lost its shipbuilding capacity, how South Korean technology and investment could help revive American shipyards, and what it will take to rebuild the country’s naval industrial base. “America doesn’t have 20 years” to regain its maritime dominance, he warns. 

02:23 — America’s Shipbuilding Crisis

05:44 — How America Lost Its Shipbuilding Industry

09:43 — Why Commercial Shipbuilding Matters to the Navy

12:28 — America vs. China’s Shipbuilding Capacity

13:54 — Rebuilding America’s Shipyards

16:16 — Robots and the Future of Shipbuilding

23:52 — Rebuilding America’s Shipbuilding Workforce

29:11 — Building Ships for Golden Dome

30:11 — Can America Build Enough Ships?

32:46 — Replacing Ships in Wartime

34:54 — Trump, Kim Jong Un, and North Korea

43:06 — Taiwan, Korea, and a Two-Front Crisis

This episode of School of War is brought to you by Maven Smart System, the builder platform for the American warfighter, fielded across the force and live on the frontline today. Learn more at palantir.com.

This episode of School of War is also brought to you by Stratolaunch, a leading pure-play hypersonics company.  Stratolaunch helps the U.S. and its allies move new hypersonic technologies from concept to capability, faster and cheaper.  Learn more about how Stratolaunch is accelerating the future of hypersonics at Stratolaunch.com.

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Could Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey form a “Muslim NATO?” Pakistan has the nuclear arsenal, Saudi Arabia has the wealth, and Turkey has the NATO-trained military—“you put these three together and it becomes a pretty formidable force,” says CBS News senior foreign correspondent Imtiaz Tyab. Today, he joins School of War to discuss whether the pact could really become an effective alliance, what the effort reveals about America’s changing role in the Middle East, and what five years of Taliban rule have meant for Afghanistan: “I’ve never seen the Taliban more confident,” he said.

02:14 — Reporting From Afghanistan

05:42 — The War in Afghanistan

11:29 — A More Confident Taliban

13:09 — Life Under Taliban Rule

16:13 — Afghanistan’s Secret Girls’ Schools

20:26 — Letters From Afghan Girls

25:30 — Afghanistan Under the Taliban

28:47 — A Girl’s Plea to the World

30:07 — The Pakistan-Saudi-Turkey Alliance

31:47 — A “Muslim NATO”?

40:33 — The Abraham Accords

44:27 — Testing the New Defense Pact

This episode of School of War is brought to you by Maven Smart System, the builder platform for the American warfighter, fielded across the force and live on the frontline today. Learn more at palantir.com.

This episode of School of War is also brought to you by Stratolaunch, a leading pure-play hypersonics company.  Stratolaunch helps the U.S. and its allies move new hypersonic technologies from concept to capability, faster and cheaper.  Learn more about how Stratolaunch is accelerating the future of hypersonics at Stratolaunch.com.

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