School of War

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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John Boyd was one of the most influential military thinkers of the 20th century, and the intellectual godfather of the U.S. Marines’ military strategy. Today, as artificial intelligence continues to transform battlefields in Ukraine and the Middle East, author and retired Marine officer Ian Brown argues that Boyd’s ideas are more relevant than ever. Today, Brown joins Aaron MacLean to discuss how Ukraine is harnessing Boyd’s concept of narrative warfare, what Boyd can teach us about conflict in the age of AI, drones, and precision strikes, and his new book co-authored with Frans P. B. Osinga, Snowmobiles and Grand Ideals.

2:20 Who Was John Boyd?7:25 What Boyd Learned From Dogfighting15:37 From Air Combat to the OODA Loop23:49 Is the OODA Loop Really About Speed?29:33 What Do Blitzkrieg and Insurgency Have in Common?36:44 Surfaces and Gaps41:25 Why Did the Marine Corps Embrace Boyd?48:25 The Marine Corps’ Warfighting Doctrine50:25 Does Modern Warfare Challenge Boyd?53:18 Information as a Weapon53:53 Boyd’s Ideas Meet Drone Warfare54:55 From Nagorno-Karabakh to Ukraine

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.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices