Conversations about conflict on an angry planet. Created, produced, and hosted by Matthew Gault and Jason Fields
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Conversations about conflict on an angry planet. Created, produced, and hosted by Matthew Gault and Jason Fields
781951
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Earlier this year journalist Ben Makuch caught a glimpse of Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, dancing at a club in Kyiv. It was a surreal moment, a snapshot of a tragic war that the West thinks is defining the future of conflict. Tech executives have flocked to Ukraine, courting the country in an attempt to get at a resource more precious than gold: data. Makuch was just there and has written about what he saw for The New Republic and he’s on the show today to talk about it.
New York Times on Military Reform
The Medieval—and Highly Effective—Tactics of the Ukrainian Protests
Who Is St. Javelin and Why Is She a Symbol of the War in Ukraine?
‘Cope Cages’ on Busted Tanks Are a Symbol of Russia’s Military Failures
‘Unauthorized’ Edit to Ukraine’s Frontline Maps Point to Polymarket’s War Betting
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Another week and another Angry Planet about the horrifying systems that rule our lives.
Is there a depressive theme running through the work right now? Possibly. I promise we’ll soon replace it with rage.
This week on the show we have Sven Beckert to talk about his new book Capitalism: A Global History. Beckert is a professor of history at Harvard and his tome is an attempt to capture the entire history of an economic system in one book. It’s a doorstop, but it’s also readable and clear-eyed. Some come with me on a journey that runs through the plantations of South Carolina to the tech markets of Shenzhen.
The Old Order Is Dead. Do Not Resuscitate.
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The White House is portraying the race to adopt AI as an existential crisis. It’s the next Manhattan Project, they say, a technology so important it will require an unprecedented build out of energy infrastructure and massive data centers. But the Manhattan Project was a government-led technological drive whereas AI is led by salesmen and corporations.
What could possibly go wrong?
On this episode of Angry Planet, Ben Buchanan is here to tell us about the government’s role in fostering AI. Buchanan was an AI advisor during the Biden administration where he helped write the policy that paved the way for private-public partnerships between DC and AI companies. Now he’s a professor at John Hopkins and, though he’s still an AI advocate, he’s got concerns. Slop, public land use, and autonomous weapons. We get into it all on this episode of Angry Planet.
DOE on federal lands for data centers
Anthropic Has a Plan to Keep Its AI From Building a Nuclear Weapon. Will It Work?
DoD Direction 3000.09 Autonomy in Weapons Systems
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This week on Angry Planet we’re taking a break from the horrors of the present to explore horrors of a past distant enough now that they’re entertaining. But then, America found those horrors pretty entertaining at the time, too. Even when it was still a thriving community and a going concern, the town of Deadwood, South Dakota, was the subject of dimestore novels and tall tales.
Peter Cozzens is here with us to talk about his new book Deadwood: Gold, Guns, and Greed in the American West. Cozzens is a historian who has written 17 books that focus on the U.S. Civil War, the Wild West, and the American Indian Wars. His latest work is all about Deadwood and the wild cast of characters who inhabited it. Come sit with us a spell and learn about the real Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickok, and Al Swearengen.
Deadwood: Gold, Guns, and Greed in the American West
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Is your Empire feeling less than fresh? Does it feel like the modern world’s best days are behind it? Do conquest and global power politics not hit as good as they used to? Welcome to the Age of Stagnation, a time when the fruits of the Industrial Revolution can be enjoyed but not replicated.
It’s making us all a little crazy, especially world leaders. With us today on the show is Michael Beckley, a political science professor at Tufts University and his career includes stretches at the Pentagon, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the RAND Corporation. To hear Beckley tell it, stagnation might not be such a bad thing. If we can avoid repeating the worst mistakes of the 20th century and let go of a “number go up” mind set, then maybe we can all learn to enjoy a long age of stabilization.
I Tried the Robot That’s Coming to Live With You. It’s Still Part Human.
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We’re obsessed with apocalypses, big and small. We fantasize about what the future might look like after the fall of society and fear the coming tribulation. Rome fretted about decline until its end. Stories of the Sea Peoples terrified the monarchs of the Late Bronze Age. During the 30 Years’ War, Europeans imagined Armageddon had finally begun.
But a funny thing happens after the collapse: things tend to get a little better for everyone.
Luke Kemp is here to hold our hands through the end of the world as we know it. Kemp is a researcher at Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and the author of the book Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse.
Centre for the Study of Existential Risk
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This week on Angry Planet we have returning guest and former judge advocate Dan Maurer. The last time he was on the show, Maurer walked us through the consequences of a Supreme Court ruling that asked the question: is it illegal for the President to order SEAL Team Six to kill people? It was a surreal question that now feels more pressing.
A US Carrier Strike Group is moving into South American waters to support America’s highly kinetic War on Drugs. Military lawyers might have advised the Trump administration that extra-judiciously executing alleged criminals in international waters is, in fact, illegal. But Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is no fan of military lawyers and fired the Judge Advocate General (JAG) of both the Army and the Air Force. The Pentagon plans to turn as many as 600 of the remaining military lawyers into immigration judges.
The second Trump administration is perverting the law and sidelining anyone that might tell them it’s a bad idea. Since he was last on the show, Maurer has retired from the Army and is now a professor at Ohio Northern University’s college of law. He’s here to tell us how bad things are and how much worse they might get.
Are Military Lawyers Being Sidelined?
Defining ‘Rebellion’ in 10 U.S.C. § 12406 and the Insurrection Act
“Anna, Lindsey Halligan Here.”
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The episode is about Vanessa Guillén, a US soldier who was murdered at Fort Hood in 2020. She also experienced sexual harassment while in the military. I spoke with ABC Special Correspondent John Quiñones about his new podcast, Vanished. It’s a good podcast that covers Guillén’s case in-depth and highlights the reforms the Pentagon instituted after.
We recorded the show on September 30, Guillén’s birthday. That morning, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth delivered a long speech about his own military reforms. Many of the changes Hegseth has pushed through conflict with the changes that Guillén’s death ushered in.
As such, I thought it was important to get John’s reaction to Hegseth’s speech. Before we began recording,I told him I planned to ask him about this and he agreed to talk about it.
When I asked the question during recording, a public relations person from ABC jumped on the line and asked me to stop talking about Hegseth. I pushed back, but not hard enough.
The next day, ABC PR reached out via email to ask if I would cut this moment from the show.
I will not. It’s included here in full.
Further, I want to take a moment at the top to highlight the reasons why I brought up Hegseth’s speech. There’s a lot to it and, honestly, it demands its own episode. Here are Hegseth’s thoughts on toxic leaders.
“Today, at my direction, we’re undertaking a full review of the Department’s Definitions of so-called toxic leadership, bullying and hazing, to empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second guessing. Of course, you can’t do, like nasty bullying and hazing. We’re talking about words like bullying and hazing and toxic. They’ve been weaponized and bastardized inside our formations, undercutting commanders and NCOs. No more. Setting, achieving, and maintaining high standards is what you all do. And if that makes me toxic, then so be it.”
Guillén’s case also changed the way the Army investigates sexual harassment. Here are the secretary’s thoughts on the current state of official internal military investigations:
“We are overhauling an inspector-general process, the IG that has been weaponized, putting complainers, ideologues and poor performers in the driver’s seat. We’re doing the same with the Equal Opportunity and Military Equal Opportunity policies, the EO and MEO, at our department. No more frivolous complaints, no more anonymous complaints, no more repeat complaints, no more smearing reputations, no more endless waiting, no more legal limbo, no more side-tracking careers, no more walking on eggshells. “Of course, being a racist has been illegal in our formation since 1948. The same goes for sexual harassment. Both are wrong and illegal. Those kinds of infractions will be ruthlessly enforced.”
After the speech, Hegseth signed 11 memos that detailed these changes. I’ll link them in the show notes. The memos say that the military’s definition of “harassment” is overly broad, calls for the end of “anonymous complaints”—something Hegesth also said in his speech, and asks that investigations be completed quickly with the assistance of artificial intelligence.
I believe that is all important context for this episode. I also believe that Hegseth’s speech and the policy directives represent a regression in the American armed services. I will not pretend otherwise.
Listen to the All-New ‘Vanished: What Happened to Vanessa’ Podcast
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Political assassins often have incoherent politics and Tyler Robinson is no different. The young man who killed Charlie Kirk inscribed the shell casings of his bullets with obscure memes that say less about what he believed and more about where he spent time online. Robinson isn’t alone. Earlier this year the Annunciation Church shooter showed off a rifle inscribed with similar memes pulled from the internet. The Christchurch shooter in 2019 livestreamed their killing and left behind a meme laden manifesto.
So what the hell is going on? On this episode of Angry Planet, Michael Senters—a PhD candidate at Virginia Tech—has some unsatisfying answers. Senters painstakingly walks us through each message on Robinson’s bullets and explains the online spaces from whence they came.
If you don’t know a gropyer from a Helldiver or have never heard “OwO” said aloud, this episode is for you.
It will not make you feel better.
What the shell casings in the assassination of Charlie Kirk do – and don't – tell us
Yes, It’s the Guns. It’s Also the Phones.
Read the Charges Against Tyler Robinson
Exclusive: Leaked Messages from Charlie Kirk Assassin
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On September 2, 2025 the United States escalated its decades long War on Drugs with a tactic borrowed from the War on Terror. It used a drone to blow up a boat it said was full of drugs then said the 11 people killed in the strike were terrorists.
Is this legal? Does that matter?
On this week’s Angry Planet, journalist Mike LaSusa of InSight Crime comes on the show to walk us through the ins and outs of America’s long-running War on Drugs and how War on Terror tactics are shaping the fight.
How War-on-Terror Tactics Could Change the Fight Against Organized Crime
Boat Suspected of Smuggling Drugs Is Said to Have Turned Before U.S. Attacked It
Rand Paul Reveals Venezuela Boat Attack Was a Drone Strike
Tren de Aragua: Fact vs. Fiction
How Trump’s Anti-Money Laundering Rollback Could Help LatAm Criminals
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The Pacific Northwest is known for its startling natural beauty, precocious rainfall, and propensity to birth serial killers. Why? Caroline Fraser has a theory and it’s a good one.
This week on Angry Planet, Fraser takes us on a journey through the American past and into the dark heart of the PNW. Her new book Murderland weaves together memoir, true crime, history, and science into a compelling narrative that’s as beautiful and deadly as the forests around Tacoma.
Murdlerand: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers
A look back at the I-90 floating bridges before light-rail work begins
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All things move towards their end, even seemingly omnipotent political leaders, and authoritarian systems are shaped by the question of succession long before the leader dies. Xi Jinping is 72 years old and the Chinese Communist Party has started to consider what comes next. Those conversations are shaping the political reality of the country.
On this episode of Angry Planet, Brown University professor Tyler Jost comes on the show to explain China is navigating what life may look like after Xi.
After Xi—The Succession Question Obscuring China’s Future—and Unsettling Its Present
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If the internet is a battlefield, does that mean the United States needs a new military force to dominate it?
On this episode of Angry Planet, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Edward Charles Cardon and former House Armed Services Committee Democratic staffer Joshua Stiefel make the case for spinning off the Cyber Force into an independent branch. Both are part of a new commission at the Center for Strategic and International Studies — partnered with Jason’s new bosses at Foundation for Defense of Democracies — with the goal of preparing for a new branch that both feel is inevitable.
It’s a wild and wandering conversation that touches on Neuromancer, AI, and fighting a cyber war against the Islamic State.
CSIS Launches Commission on Cyber Force Generation in Partnership With Cyber Solarium
United States Cyber Force: A Defense Imperative
The Rise of ‘Vibe Hacking’ Is the Next AI Nightmare
Russia Is Suspected to Be Behind Breach of Federal Court Filing System
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Journalists and Nazis have changed a lot in the years since the end of World War II; journalists are on the outs while Nazis are having a bit of a moment. Across the U.S. and Canada, avowed fascists have committed murder, attempted to destroy the power grid, and actively recruit online and in person. As these extremists work to hide their identity, journalists and law enforcement use advanced tech to expose them. But at what cost?
On this episode of Angry Planet, Jordan Pearson of the CBC’s visual investigations unit talks us through how he and his co-workers use open source intelligence to expose fascists. We also discuss the ethical struggles that come with using the tools of the surveillance state to track them down.
How a Northern Irish town descended into 3 days of anti-immigrant violence
Man accused of facilitating terrorism used quarry outside Quebec City for target practice
Tracking Canada’s fascist fight clubs
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The world is living with a Cold War hangover. The logic of deterrence, which dominates the minds of the people who plan nuclear wars, means that America must have enough nuclear weapons to credibly threaten to destroy the world should someone launch nukes at it. That thinking led to a world with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, and that was just when the U.S. had the Soviet Union to think about. Now it’s facing the twin threats of Russia and China. Does that mean America needs twice the nukes to handle twice the threats?
Some in the Pentagon seem to think so, and the world is embarking on a radical and expensive nuclear build up the likes of which it hasn’t seen in a generation.
What if there’s another way? James Acton is here to pitch us on a world where Optimal Deterrence does not mean spending trillions of dollars on new world-ending weapons just to make sure everyone else doesn’t use theirs.
Acton is a co-director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Nuclear Policy Program and the author of a new article that outlines the 21st century nuclear arms race and a new plan to stop it.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
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Sometimes it’s good to back up and ask the basic questions: How do we know Iran was even developing nuclear weapons?
On this episode of the show, the Arms Control Wonk Jeffrey Lewis walks us through the history of the Iranian nuclear (weapons and energy) program. It’s got it all: diplomacy, assassinations, cowardly politicians, and uranium fever.
Lewis is a professor at the Middlebury Institute, member of the National Academies Committee on International Security and Arms Control, and former member of the State Department's International Security Advisory Board. He knows the tale well and he’s here to tell it straight.
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Pauline Shanks Kaurin PhD. was, until recently, the Stockdale Chair for Professional Military Ethics at the U.S. Naval War College. She’d been there since 2018, teaching philosophy and ethics to U.S. military officers and the occasional civilian. Then came Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, and marching orders she said stifled academic freedom.
So she resigned.
On this episode of Angry Planet, Pauline talks us through her decision and tells us what she saw from the inside of one of the U.S. military’s most lauded academic institutions as the new administration seeks to restrict what’s taught in the classroom.
A Military-Ethics Professor Resigns in Protest
Disgraceful Pardons: Dishonoring Our Honorable
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You can’t win a war with airpower alone, despite what the U.S. Air Force will tell you. For more than 100 years, the masters of the air have promised that military and political objectives can be achieved if you just let them drop enough bombs.
It’s a theory that’s been tested, and fallen short, many times. Operation Midnight Hammer, the Trump administration’s use of 14 GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrators on Iranian nuclear sites, is just the latest test. The promise is that this has set back Iran’s nuclear program (it probably has) but Israel is hoping for much more—regime change in the Islamic Republic.
Time will tell, but I’m not betting on it.
On this episode of Angry Planet we zoom out and talk about the strategy behind airpower in the 21st century. Robert Farley, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Kentucky, is on the show today to give us his thoughts on the Iran strikes, airpower in general, and the lessons to be learned from watching the war in Ukraine.
Strikes on Iran Show the Force, and Limits, of Airpower
Buy Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force
The Five-Ring Circus: How Airpower Enthusiasts Forgot About Interdiction
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The ocean is vast, beautiful, and lawless. Thousands of miles from any coast, power belongs to those who seize it.
On this episode of Angry Planet, journalist Ian Urbina stops by to discuss the Outlaw Ocean Project and the second season of its incredible podcast. Urbina and his team of investigative journalists are telling stories about human rights, labor, and the environment on the vast swaths of the planet covered in water.
Listen to the Outlaw Ocean Podcast
Inside a migrant detention center in Libya
China: The Superpower of Seafood
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The futures of the past have curdled into the nightmares of the present. The richest and most powerful people the world has ever known want to colonize mars, live forever, and digitize human consciousness. To make these technological miracles come to pass, they say, will require people to dramatically change the way they live and work. Will it be worth it? Does science even say it’s possible?
On this Angry Planet, astrophysicist and author Adam Becker joins us to explain all the problems with Silicon Valley’s dreams of the future. It’s not a short list. Much of the tech, and even the physics, don’t work the way techno-utopians say it does. Some of the people hawking robot slaves and immortality are chasing the impossible for tragic personal reasons. Others are just trying to sell you something. It’s all the subject of Becker’s new book: More Everything Forever.
Against Life Extension by Francis Fukuyama
More Everything Forever on Bookshop
More Everything Forever on Amazon
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