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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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Toshi Yoshihara, Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and author of ⁠Mao's Army Goes to Sea: The Island Campaigns and the Founding of China's Navy⁠, joins the show to discuss how the PLA took Beijing in 1949 by subversion, and how they may yet seize Taiwan.   
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Joshua Rovner, Associate Professor in the School of International Service at American University and author of ⁠Strategy and Grand Strategy⁠, joins the show to discuss the tension between pursuing military victory and securing a nation.    
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Tyler Grey, Delta Force veteran and author of Forged in Chaos: A Warrior's Origin Story, joins the show to discuss his experiences as a member of the U.S. Army’s most elite combat unit, his journey as a warrior, and the continuing struggle to understand post-traumatic stress.
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A. Wess Mitchell, former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, historian, and author of ⁠Great Power Diplomacy: The Skill of Statecraft from Attila the Hun to Kissinger⁠, joins the show to discuss just what diplomacy is.
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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 his latest piece, Translating Ukraine Lessons for the Pacific Theatre.
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