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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 how Iran has worked to reconstitute its missile program since the summer, and what the U.S. and Israel might do to stop it.
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Kevin Passmore, professor of History at Cardiff University and author of ⁠The Maginot Line: A New History⁠, joins the show to talk about the most elaborate fortification system of the 20th century and why it failed.
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Christian Brose, President and Chief Strategy Officer at Anduril Industries and author of ⁠The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare⁠, joins the show to talk about American industry and the future of war.
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Eric Cline, Professor of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies and of Anthropology at The George Washington University and author of ⁠1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed⁠, joins the show to break down the collapse of the Bronze Age civilization and why it matters today.
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Elliott Abrams, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela and Iran from 2019 to 2021, joins the show to discuss events in the Caribbean.
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