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School of War
Learn what war teaches

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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Behnam Ben Taleblu, Senior Director (Iran Program) and Senior Fellow at FDD, joins the show to talk about the build-up of American military power in the Middle East and what it might mean for Iran and the Iranian regime.
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Charlie Laderman, associate professor at the University of Florida’s Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education, joins the show to discuss parallels between Reagan’s policy towards Cold War Poland and the crisis in Iran today.
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Rep. Michael Baumgartner of Washington State’s 5th Congressional District joins the show to give his key takeaways from the Munich Security Conference.
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Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College London and author of ⁠On Strategists and Strategy: Collected Essays, 2014-2024⁠, joins the show to talk about a lifetime among strategists, and to give an update on the war in Ukraine.
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Matthew Kroenig, Professor in the Department of Government and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, joins the show to talk about the new nuclear age the world is entering.
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