Major General Mick Ryan, Australian Army (retired), Senior Fellow for Military Studies the Lowy Institute and author of the Futura Doctrina substack, joins the show to discuss the current state of the Ukraine war. We cover tactical innovations, the challenges of operations and strategy, the structure of the Ukrainian military, the political landscape under Zelensky, and the industrial capabilities of both Ukraine and Russia.
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00:00 State of Play
02:28 Tactical Innovations and Challenges in Ukraine
05:38 The Role of Drones
08:36 Russian Tactical Innovations and the Rubikon Units
11:45 Historical Parallels: Lessons from World War I
14:37 The Thousand Bites Approach: Russian Strategy Explained
17:46 Ukrainian Brigade Composition and Organizational Changes
23:19 Understanding the Ukrainian Military Structure
29:47 Challenges in Casualty Ratios and Manpower
37:37 Long-Range Strike Capabilities and Adaptation
40:29 Strategic Thinking in the Ukrainian Military
46:18 Industrial Base and Support Dynamics
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Ep 248: Marc Milner on D-Day and the US-UK Battle for Hegemony
Marc Milner, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of New Brunswick and author of Second Front: Anglo-American Rivalry and the Hidden Story of the Normandy Campaign, joins the show to discuss the turbulent passing of the torch of Western hegemony during WWII.
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02:50 1917
10:52 American Battle Monuments Commission
14:31 FDR and the British Empire
21:36 American views on the Nazis
30:40 FDR at the Tehran Conference
35:42 Plans Before the Invasion of France
40:48 The British Empire and National Strategy
50:25 Churchill and the Russians in 1944
56:00 A Sophisticated Understanding of Imperial Politics
01:00:18 Revisionist Views of WWII
01:06:00 Communist and Fascist Extremism
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Ep 247: Nicholas Wright on the Brain Science of War
Nicholas Wright, neuroscientist and author of Warhead: How the Brain Shapes War and War Shapes the Brain, joins the show to explore the implications of neuroscience for warmaking.
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01:20 Neurology
02:57 Intelligence Defined
07:06 Mapping the Brain
17:05 How Modeling Happens
27:15 Outthinking and Outlearning the Enemy
30:25 Prioritization and Survival
35:15 Fear and the Fall of France in 1940
44:48 Enhancing Military Training
49:47 AI and Its Impact on Human Cognition
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Ep 246: Veterans Day Special — Remembering Angus MacLean
Host Aaron MacLean pays tribute to his father, World War Two and Vietnam Veteran Angus MacLean. This memorial originally ran in the publication Engelsberg Ideas.
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Ep 245: Edward Luce on Zbigniew Brzezinski’s Twentieth Century
Edward Luce, U.S. national editor and columnist at the Financial Times and author of Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet,joins the show to discuss one of the most interesting characters of the Cold War, Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski.
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00:00 The Life and Legacy of Zbigniew Brzezinski
02:55 Carter's Foreign Policy and Brzezinski's Influence
05:56 Contrasting Worldviews: Brzezinski vs. Kissinger
08:52 The Formative Years: War and Identity
11:35 The Cold War Landscape and Brzezinski's Rise
14:34 Order vs. Justice: Diverging Philosophies
17:55 Brzezinski's Strategic Vision for the Cold War
20:57 The Vietnam War and Its Impact on Brzezinski
23:47 Brzezinski's Approach to Foreign Policy
28:35 The Rise of Jimmy Carter and the Trilateral Commission
32:12 Carter's Foreign Policy Challenges: The Middle East and Iran
37:15 Human Rights and the Shift from Nixon to Carter
45:27 Reagan's Continuity and Change: A New Era in Foreign Policy
51:19 The Iranian Revolution and Brzezinski's Legacy
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Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack
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 former 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 Hudson Institute. 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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