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 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 the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. 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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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.
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• 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
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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.
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• 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
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