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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Iskander Rehman, Ax:son Johnson Fellow at SAIS’s Kissinger Center and author of Planning for Protraction: A Historically Informed Approach to Great-power War and Sino-US Competition, joins the show to talk about how future wars might be more a test of national endurance than expected.
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Times
• 01:56 Introduction
• 04:01 Sharp and short wars
• 09:07 After the first salvo
• 12:33 Geography as a predictor
• 15:21 Will nuclear deterrence work?
• 21:16 “An informationized local war”
• 25:13 What matters in protracted wars
• 28:59 Innovation and adaptation
• 33:51 The role of national leadership in protracted conflict
• 38:49 Sino-U.S. competition
• 44:50 Absorbing massive casualties
• 48:06 Polybius
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Paul Rahe, Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in the Western Heritage at Hillsdale College, and author of Sparta’s Sicilian Proxy War: The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta, 418-413 BC, joins the show to talk about proxy wars, the strategy of Sparta, and the role of regimes in the shaping of foreign policy.
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Times
• 01:37 Introduction
• 06:43 Donald Kagan
• 08:32 The Spartan point of view
• 11:59 Why change the perspective?
• 17:30 Sparta’s goals
• 24:59 Why does Sparta matter?
• 31:56 “Putin’s completely irrational”
• 33:56 Is Realism dangerous?
• 39:17 Why do the Athenians go to Sicily?
• 44:35 Alcibiades
• 47:06 Could the Athenians have won?
• 49:11 The significance of victory
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Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack
