Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast

My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what the spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland.

I cover it in Episodes 37, 41-43 and 49-50 of my Chasing Ghosts podcast.

In this episode I discuss what the attack looks like in America.

This is not if, this is when.

The country is poised to experience this through a combination of neglect and the sheer hubris of meddling in the world without realize the unintended consequences.

I wish I had better news but you have been warned, it's on the horizon.

I talk about William Forstchen's "Day of Wrath" and Kurt Schlichter's "The Attack".

References:

William Forstchen Day of Wrath

Kurt Schlichter The Attack

Matt Bracken:

Enemies Foreign and Domestic.

Foreign Enemies And Traitors.

Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista.

The Red Cliffs of Zerhoun.

Castigo Cay.

Eric Frank Russell The Wasp

Michael Z. Williamson The Weapon (and the entire Freehold series)

Ernest R. May Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of France

Robert Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Robert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In History

My Substack

Email at [email protected].

My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what the spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland.

I cover it in Episodes 37, 41-43 and 49-50 of my Chasing Ghosts podcast.

This is a continuation of my "Storming America Series" where I will tease out and describe why the inevitable internal attack on America by external forces will be made real.

In this episode, I will examine what intelligence looks like from a professional perspective and why America and the West consistently engage in existential chaos avalanches that make the world a worse place.

The bureaucratic impulse in the West has been a significant factor in making the intelligence community (IC), like the military community, a paper tiger that is a far greater danger to the inhabitants of the west than an ally. Until the IC is restructured and made more effective, it will consume roughly 100 billion a year to produce shoddy analysis, inform bad policy and a Keystone Kops foreign covert operations history that is a national shame.

Like 9/11 and its existential failures, the next attack on America will have them simply asking for more money and more power.

If you leveled the FBI, NSA and CIA tomorrow morning, made each of their budgets one dollar and fired all their employees, you would still be safe as a country.

References:

Richard J. Heuer The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis

David Talbot The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government

Mortimer Adler How to Read a Book

Tim Weiner Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

John Prado The Ghosts of Langley: Into the CIA's Heart of Darkness

My Substack.

Contact me at [email protected].

This episode will be an addendum to my initial coverage in October 2023 of the Gaza-Israel conflict in Episode 027 and riffing off the domestic implications in Episode 037 of a similar attack on CONUS. If you wish to listen to those before you do this one, you may but I have crafted this so that isn’t necessary.

The clock is closer to midnight than it was in October 2023.

References:

William Forstchen Day of Wrath

Kurt Schlichter The Attack

Matt Bracken:

Enemies Foreign and Domestic.

Foreign Enemies And Traitors.

Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista.

The Red Cliffs of Zerhoun.

Castigo Cay.

Eric Frank Russell The Wasp

Michael Z. Williamson The Weapon (and the entire Freehold series)

Ernest R. May Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of France

Robert Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Robert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In History

My Substack

Email me at [email protected].

I am reusing a previous episode I used in the now moribund Stoicism podcast I started, The Dash, which I ran out of steam on.

Applying Stoic values and discipline to the vocation and avocations we practice in life may be the hardest part outside of making a Stoic life a lived lifestyle. I find the management industry is a giant cargo cult that publishes books whose pages number in the hundreds but could simply be a page or two.

References:

James Clear Atomic Habits

Marcus Aurelius Meditations

Whitney J. Oakes (editor) The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers: The Complete Extant Writings of Epicurus, Epictetus, Lucretius and Marcus Aurelius

My Substack

Email me at [email protected].

The concept of moral injuries for soldiers and non-soldiers alike, the gift of fear and being a dead man walking and how to handle regret and shame.

“As beasts are beneath human restraints, gods are above them... It would be foolish and untruthful to deny the appeal of exalted, godlike intoxication....We have seen the paradox that these godlike exalted moments often correspond to times when the men who have survived them say that they have acted like beasts....Above all, a sense of merely human virtue, a sense of being valued and of valuing anything seems to have fled their lives....However, all of our virtues come from not being gods. Generosity is meaningless to a god, who never suffers shortage or want. Courage is meaningless to a god, who is immortal and can never suffer permanent injury. The godlike berserk state can destroy the capacity for virtue. Whether the berserker is beneath humanity as an animal, above it as a god, or both, he is cut off from all human community when he is in this state.”

― Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character

Those millions of men who have been in combat over the millennia have always brought home invisible scar tissue and regret that manifests in many ways but most of us take it to our graves.

“…or the pilots doing nine-to-five jobs at computer consoles in Nevada killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan with drones and commuting to and from their homes like any other commuters. Imagine the psychic split that must ensue from bringing in death and destruction from the sky on a group of terrorists—young men who have mothers and a misplaced idealism that has led them into horrible criminal acts, but nevertheless young and brave men—and then driving home from the base to dinner with the spouse and kids. “Have a nice day at the office, hon?”

― Karl Marlantes, What It is Like to Go to War

References:

Karl Marlantes What It Is Like to Go to War

Bill Russel Edmonds God is Not Here: A Soldier's Struggle with Torture, Trauma, and the Moral Injuries of War

Clark Savage King of All Things: A Guide to Man's Martial Purpose

Dick Couch A Tactical Ethic: Moral Conduct in the Insurgent Battlespace

Andrew Bacevich Paths of Dissent: Soldiers Speak Out Against America's Misguided Wars

Shauna Springer WARRIOR: How to Support Those Who Protect Us

Jonathan Shay Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character

Jonathan Shay Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming

My Substack

Email at [email protected].

My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what the spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland.

I cover it in Episodes 37, 41-43 and 49-50 of my Chasing Ghosts podcast.

The hybrid and gray zone fight will come to America in the next war. Once the declining American colossus shuffles into the next near-peer and peer conflict, the 21st century will see the continental US come under a unified attack by external forces for the first time since the War of 1812 and the Mexican border issues in 1916. How the 9/11/2001 events have not been replicated is a cipher to me. We need to war-game all the possibilities once a war is initiated with a near-peer or peer adversary. The kinetic forces on the ground will be sleepers, NOCs or recently arrived illegals in addition to cadres recruited over time and left in place.

The police have no duty to protect citizens.

Supreme Court cases per police protection:

Castle Rock v. Gonzalez

Warren v. District of Columbia

DeShaney v. Winnebago County

Per the attack on Israel out of Gaza on 7 October 2023, only 140,000 Israelis out of a population of 9 million, or under two percent, were allowed to own a firearm prior to October and that is restricted to a handgun only and ammunition was limited to 50 rounds.

I talk about William Forstchen's "Day of Wrath" and Kurt Schlichter's "The Attack".

References:

William Forstchen Day of Wrath

Kurt Schlichter The Attack

Matt Bracken:

Enemies Foreign and Domestic.

Foreign Enemies And Traitors.

Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista.

The Red Cliffs of Zerhoun.

Castigo Cay.

Eric Frank Russell The Wasp

Michael Z. Williamson The Weapon (and the entire Freehold series)

Ernest R. May Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of France

Robert Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Robert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In History

My Substack

Email at [email protected].

The direct action concentration of US Army Special Forces (SF) in the conduct of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan at the expense of the specialized and storied legend of what SF could do in non-permissive environments raising partisan forces behind enemy lines. The Army SF concentrated on perfecting a craft that numerous other combat organizations like the USMC 0311, .Army 11Bs and the exquisitely talented Ranger Regiment could do handily not to mention the legendary prowess of the Tier One units.

SF could capitalize on the rich heritage of a regional expertise harnessed to a deep cultural IQ and understanding of allied and coalition fighting organizations. In concert with the deep intelligence and actionable intelligence infrastructure in a naturally expeditionary mindset practice strategic compression: the employment of tactical means to achieve and satisfy strategic end-states.

SF needs to carve out their talent-stacks and showcase what makes them unique.

References:

David Maxwell Counter-Unconventional Warfare (2014)

Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War

Ann Scott Tyson American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Grant

H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare

Mark Bowden Blackhawk Down: A Story of Modern War

Bob Scales Scales on War: The Future of America’s Military at Risk

Aaron B. O’Connell Our Latest Longest War: Losing Hearts and Minds

Hy S. Rothstein Afghanistan and the Troubled Future of Unconventional Warfare

Robert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In History

Special Forces Detachment Mission Planning Guide HQDA January 2020

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

Everyone and everything has an origin story, while I had a sneaking suspicion early on in my modest career in special operations and irregular warfare (IW) that something was fundamentally wrong with the western way of war in these endeavors, it was Douglas Porch who probably set my course straight. In this book, he makes a compelling historical and logical case for why the IW efforts planet-wide have not only been a failure but ones that repeat themselves again and again.

References:

Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War

Nathaniel Moir Number One Realist: Bernard Fall and Vietnamese Revolutionary Warfare

Martin Windrow The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam

Ted Morgan Valley of Death: The Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu That Led America into the Vietnam War

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

Excursions is a new addition to the CG universe to cover adjacent conflict issues to the irregular warfare fight.

***

In the future near-peer and peer fight, salvo competition will be the preeminent means by which one country will kinetically overwhelm the other in a fight. I discuss the way the West is in an existential hazard of being woefully under-prepared to meet the threat if Western forces go toe toe with regional hegemons in the East or West.

Let’s anticipate the disasters now that are the Spanish in the English Channel in 1588, the British Royal Navy at Jutland in 1916, and the discovery in WWII all these battleships were not really capital ships, or had adequate armaments, yet their political dimensions compel not only their continuous construction but are the most devastating when lost.

The aircraft carrier has been a signature component of US naval power and prestige for more than a century. The utility has continued to diminish since the end of WWII. The tremendous disadvantage of putting so much manpower and treasure into these single use leviathan systems in the modern world of distributed missile and PGM systems, emerging near-peer & peer adversaries and concentration of power in vulnerable systems is a recipe for future disaster.

References:

Gerry Doyle Carrier Killer: China's Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles and Theater of Operations in the early 21st Century

David Lee Russell Early U.S. Navy Carrier Raids, February-April 1942: Five Operations That Tested a New Dimension of American Air Power

Jeff Vandenengel Questioning the Carrier: Opportunities in Fleet Design for the U.S. Navy

Jeff Vandenengel interview on Midrats with CDR Salamander

Ivan Gogin Fighting ships of the PEOPLE LIBERATION ARMY NAVY 1949 - 2023

Jerry Hendrix Retreat From Range: The Rise and Fall of Carrier Aviation

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

Excursions will be a new addition to the CG universe to cover adjacent conflict issues to the irregular warfare fight.

In the future near-peer and peer fight, salvo competition will be the preeminent means by which one country will kinetically overwhelm the other in a fight. I discuss the way the West is in an existential hazard of being woefully under-prepared to meet the threat if Western forces go toe toe with regional hegemons in the East or West.

The Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of Age

References:

Nassim Taleb Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Mark Gunzinger & Bryan Clark Winning the Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air and Missile Defense

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

The emerging anti-fragile forces of indigenous irregular warfare forces in concert or independent of near-peer and peer competitors challenging US and western global hegemony are on the march and will in the end succeed.

References:

David Maxwell Counter-Unconventional Warfare (2014)

Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War

Ann Scott Tyson American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Grant

H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare

Mark Bowden Blackhawk Down: A Story of Modern War

Bob Scales Scales on War: The Future of America’s Military at Risk

Aaron B. O’Connell Our Latest Longest War: Losing Hearts and Minds

Hy S. Rothstein Afghanistan and the Troubled Future of Unconventional Warfare

Robert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In History

Special Forces Detachment Mission Planning Guide HQDA January 2020

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

In this episode, I will be a heretic to the current military establishment in America and the west. They can't do unconventional warfare and I must be very specific in the conditional problem I propose: the western military has no capability to conduct long term partisan warfare in concert with indigenous forces fighting an insurgency in a non-permissive environment. It doesn't have the language skills, cultural IQ, sophisticated intelligence/communications infrastructure to support stay-behind missions, isolated stand-in force capability (nor does the USMC for FD2030 fantasies) comprehensive bushcraft and primitive skills for long loiter missions nor a fighting force that is capable of living in third world conditions for years (rotational longevity) at a time.

This is Part One of a two part series in which we will discuss the converse capabilities conundrum in counter UW for the west in Part Two published o/a 26 December 2023.

References:

David Maxwell Counter-Unconventional Warfare (2014)

Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War

Ann Scott Tyson American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Grant

H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare

Mark Bowden Blackhawk Down: A Story of Modern War

Bob Scales Scales on War: The Future of America’s Military at Risk

Aaron B. O’Connell Our Latest Longest War: Losing Hearts and Minds

Hy S. Rothstein Afghanistan and the Troubled Future of Unconventional Warfare

Robert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In History

Special Forces Detachment Mission Planning Guide HQDA January 2020

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

Here we do a deep dive in US Army Special Forces (SF) and why a complete overhaul is needed to resurrect the original charter to save SF from itself. Over two decades of fighting neo-colonial conflicts throughout the Middle East and Africa has decimated the original construct and mission of what made SF so special.

References:

Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War

Ann Scott Tyson American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Grant

H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare

Mark Bowden Blackhawk Down: A Story of Modern War

Bob Scales Scales on War: The Future of America’s Military at Risk

Aaron B. O’Connell Our Latest Longest War: Losing Hearts and Minds

Hy S. Rothstein Afghanistan and the Troubled Future of Unconventional Warfare

Robert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In History

Special Forces Detachment Mission Planning Guide HQDA January 2020

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

Today, I'll do a deep dive into the US Army vanilla SOF organziations and get acquainted with the capabilities and opportunities for US Army special operations.

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

A brief introduction to the Department of Defense activities in special operations. I will not be discussing the dark organizations and specifically address the "vanilla" SOF in all the services.

References:

Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War

Ann Scott Tyson American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Grant

H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare

Mark Bowden Blackhawk Down: A Story of Modern War

Bob Scales Scales on War: The Future of America’s Military at Risk

Aaron B. O’Connell Our Latest Longest War: Losing Hearts and Minds

Hy S. Rothstein Afghanistan and the Troubled Future of Unconventional Warfare

Robert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In History

Special Forces Detachment Mission Planning Guide HQDA January 2020

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

We discuss the Israeli emergency in its latest iteration in the horrific attacks by Hamas into Israel in October 2023 and the simmering conflict bands that emerging globally in which this is another explosion in the global conflict rift. For those who thought the podcast died, its death has been greatly exaggerated. My move to FL from AZ is now complete and many apologies for the disturbance of my fortnightly podcast episode rhythm by being late two weeks with a new episode.

The podcast studio took some time to resurrect but here we are.

I said Pat Keller in the the podcast, it is Bob Keller; apologies Bob, senior moment.

References:

David Fromkin A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East

Jonathan Schneer The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Kenneth Pollack Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness

Darryl Cooper & MartyrMade Fear & Loathing in the New Jerusalem [podcast]

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

Every war has a seminal novel, a book that really resonates with generation that wrote it and the following generations from the Iliad to Gore Vidal's historical fiction to The Centurions by Jean Larteguy to From Here to Eternity by James Jones to this one.

References:

Paul Avallone Tattoo Zoo: A Novel of the Afghan War

Jean Larteguy The Centurions

Anton Myrer Once an Eagle

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

In the one year anniversary episode (!), we chat about the use of thin-skinned vehicles in the modern age and the asymmetric nature of the fight. The employment of commercially produced vehicles for conduct of raids and ambushes employing a wide array of weapons medium- to heavy-machine guns to mortars to ATGMs and everything in between. Please note that Toyota outside of Japan does not produce these for purpose-built military employment.

And to my fellow CruiserHeads, I salute you.

References:

Leigh Neville Technicals: Non-Standard Tactical Vehicles from the Great Toyota War to modern Special Forces

Alaric Searle & Ed Nash Kurdish Armour Against ISIS: YPG/SDF tanks, technicals and AFVs in the Syrian Civil War, 2014–19

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

I take the time to discuss some of the conventional ramifications of modern warfare and book recommendations that have given me a deeper and more nuanced understanding of why wars begin and end as they do.

References:

Sun Tzu The Art of War

Carl von Clausewitz On War

Miyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

The defeat of the USSR in Afghanistan was part of a broad tapestry of disasters that eventually brought the Russian communist state crashing down. The shattering of Soviet forces by the indigenous rebels aided by foreign fighters and sophisticated weapons technology from the West doomed the USSR to failure. The Americans would later respond with: "Hold my beer..."

References:

Ahmed Rashid Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia

Rodric Braithewaite Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-89

Daniel P. Bolger Feast of Bones: A Novel

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

We examine the Day of the Rangers: The Battle of Mogadishu 25 Years On by Leigh Neville and Matt Eversmann to discuss the book, the event and what led up to the event.

References:

Leigh Neville & Matt Eversmann Day of the Rangers: The Battle of Mogadishu 25 Years On

Mark Bowden Blackhawk Down

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

We discuss the book, guerrilla and insurgency warfare during the American war in 1861-65, the atrocity cycle, guerrilla math and the hopelessness of occupation avoiding the injury of civilians.

References:

Tom McKinney Jack Hinson's One-Man War, A Civil War Sniper

Daniel E. Sutherland A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil War

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

It appears the West just can't get counterinsurgency right. I talk about some of the framework ideas that would be good lessons learned for those who I think wisely and would try to avoid COIN. The major takeaway is that insurgencies are rather antifragile and bureaucracies are the enemy of effectiveness and innovation.

References:

Nassim Taleb Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, Skin in the Game

Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

I discuss the complex adaptive system that is war that Clausewitz categorically identified as "friction" in the nineteenth century. We'll examine what chaos and complexity has to do with conflict, why it is inevitable and why wars are won by the least incompetent armies and navies.

References:

Nassim Taleb Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, Skin in the Game

Carl von Clausewitz On War

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

The April 1961 Generals’ Putsch of Algiers (Putsch des généraux), was a failed military action to press French President Charles de Gaulle to not abandon French Algeria, along with French people and pro-French Arabs living there. The putsch in French Algeria was conducted by four retired generals, led by Maurice Challe, the commander of the French Armed Forces in Algeria in 1958-60 and the author of the successful Challe Plan. The plan which in effect helped to defeat militant rebels across Algeria.

References:

Martin Windrow Our Friends Beneath the Sands: The Foreign Legion in France's Colonial Conquests 1870-1935

Douglas Porch The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force

Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency

Alistair Horne A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962

Martin Evans Algeria: France's Undeclared War (Making of the Modern World)

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

In this episode, I go through some of the more interesting emails and comments I have gotten since the podcast began in September 2022.

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

his episodes examines the unconventional and eccentric mind sets of Lawrence and other famous and obscure military figures. We examine the way some armies embrace this while others discourage it.

References:

Scott Anderson Lawrence of Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East

James J. Schneider Guerrilla Leader: TE Lawrence and the Arab Revolt

TE Lawrence Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Desmond Stewart TE Lawrence: A New Biography

Jeremy Wilson Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography of TE Lawrence

Ranulph Fiennes Lawrence of Arabia: My Journey in Search of T. E. Lawrence

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

In this episode we will discuss how Lawrence's medievalism gave him a tremendous advantage serendipitously advising and leading the local Arab revolt during WWI against the Turks and more deeply, Allied efforts to map a post-war world. His predilections in study, preparation and application of his 27 points led to a success the British army and the larger Allied effort could not have achieved without him.

References:

Scott Anderson Lawrence of Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East

James J. Schneider Guerrilla Leader: TE Lawrence and the Arab Revolt

TE Lawrence Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Desmond Stewart TE Lawrence: A New Biography

Jeremy Wilson Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography of TE Lawrence

Ranulph Fiennes Lawrence of Arabia: My Journey in Search of T. E. Lawrence

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

One of the peak guerrilla fountainheads in the early twentieth century, TE Lawrence has been in both the popular imagination and a large part of the engine in the Middle East that signed the death knell for foreign colonial powers to leave the region, Eccentric and brilliant, one of the few successful insurgency leaders during WWI.

References:

Scott Anderson Lawrence of Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East

James J. Schneider Guerrilla Leader: TE Lawrence and the Arab Revolt

TE Lawrence Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Desmond Stewart TE Lawrence: A New Biography

Jeremy Wilson Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography of TE Lawrence

Ranulph Fiennes Lawrence of Arabia: My Journey in Search of T. E. Lawrence

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

The brilliant John Milius helmed this production in the thick of the cold war waning with the USSR. This will be the first episode where we examine the collision between irregular warfare and popular culture.

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

Government, for a variety of reasons, is manifestly incompetent in everything it does and this lends parts of the explanatory framework in why systemic failure is the feature not a bug in Western martial efforts.

The critiques of the government supremacist mindset are legion and one can find many rational and elegant theses if you start at the Mises Institute and listen to the podcasts of Scott Horton at Antiwar.com. Scott and I recently did a deep dive together in Episode 5850 "Bill Buppert: A Deep Dive into Irregular Warfare" on 17 February 2023.

References:

Ludwig von Mises Bureaucracy

Colin Gray Modern Strategy

Thomas Sowell Knowledge and Decision

Daniel P. Bolger How We Lost: A General’s Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

As a former Appleseed instructor and Shoot Boss in AZ, I had the opportunity to teach a marksmanship/history project that had me master the origins and details of the first month of the First American Revolution. I cover the "Three Strikes of the Match" that we used as an organization to educate folks about the marriage between marksmanship and liberty that initiated the divorce from London in 1775.

References:

David Hackett Fischer Paul Revere's Ride

J. L. Bell The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War

Robert A. Gross The Minutemen and Their World

John R. Galvin The Minute Men: The First Fight: Myths and Realities of the American Revolution

Kevin Phillips The Cousins War: Religion, Politics, Civil Warfare, And The Triumph Of Anglo-America

John F. Ross War on the Run: The Epic Story of Robert Rogers and the Conquest of America's First Frontier

Stephen Brumwell White Devil: A True Story of War, Savagery And Vengeance in Colonial America

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

I review and discuss Sean McMeekin's brilliant tome on Stalin being the ascendant and most successful antagonist in WWII.

References:

Sean McMeekin Stalin's War: A New History of World War II

John Koster Operation Snow: How a Soviet Mole in FDR's White House Triggered Pearl Harbor

Herbert Romerstein, Eric Breindel The Venona Secrets, Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors

M. Stanton Evans, Herbert Romerstein Stalin's Secret Agents: The Subversion of Roosevelt's Government

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

I discuss the French experience in north Africa and the devastating consequences of the double blow of losing Indochina in the same time-frame in Algeria in north Africa.

References:

Martin Windrow Our Friends Beneath the Sands: The Foreign Legion in France's Colonial Conquests 1870-1935

Douglas Porch The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force

Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

In this first episode, I discuss the fundamentals of French irregular warfare doctrine with a concentration on COIN, French martial history in a thumbnail and the tragedy of French arms in post-WWII Indochina.

References:

Martin Windrow The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam

Bernard Fall Hell in a Very Small Place

Bernard Fall Street Without Joy

Ted Morgan Valley of Death: The Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu That Led America into the Vietnam War

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

A short but effective tome that is a sound introduction to why the western COIN complex is so wrong-headed and intellectually bankrupt.

References:

Colonel Gian Gentile Wrong Turn: America’s Deadly Embrace of Counterinsurgency

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

I discuss the combat framework from the tactical to the operational to the strategic level and mission command for both regular and irregular warfare (IW). A deep knowledge of conventional warfare is very useful to fully grokking how IW works hence the inclusion of that perspective.

References:

ADP 6-0 Mission Command

Grant Tedrick Hammond The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security

Stephen Robinson Blind Strategist: John Boyd and the American Art of War

Colin Gray Modern Strategy

Carl von Clausewitz On War

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

In this episode, I sketch the lives and exploits of three guerrilla luminaries: TE Lawrence, GEN Paul Emil von Letter-Vorbeck and Michael Collins. I want to use them to illustrate what I consider the next step in guerrilla evolution employing age-old techniques and strategies harnessed to modern technology and employment within the new age of mechanized warfare.

References:

Tim Pat Coogan Michael Collins

James Gleeson Bloody Sunday

Tom Barry Guerrilla Days in Ireland

Peter Hart Michael Collins

Edwin P. Hoyt Guerrilla: COL Lettow-Vorbeck and Germany’s East African Empire

Scott Anderson Lawrence of Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East

James J. Schneider Guerrilla Leader: TE Lawrence and the Arab Revolt

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email me at [email protected].

Despite trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of deaths, the West has nothing to show for the counterinsurgency campaigns it has waged. Despite the enormous industry and vast intellectual and historical apologetics combine, the wasteland is evident to all who take the time to examine the details. The emperor of COIN is naked.

References:

Nassim Taleb: The Black Swan, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Douglas Porch: Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War

Robert Asprey War in the Shadows

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

The Irish Rebellion in 1916-1922 is what I characterize as in the era of "Peak Guerrilla" in concert with the exploits of TE Lawrence and GEN Paul Emil von Letter-Vorbeck that set the stage for the modern irregular warfare era in the twentieth century. I will examine the exploits of Collins and the curious currents of history on a global basis that came to have great impacts on what appear to be local and regional conflicts and their final resolution.

References:

Tim Pat Coogan Michael Collins

James Gleeson Bloody Sunday

Tom Barry Guerrilla Days in Ireland

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

In this episode, I make the case that insurgencies are antifragile and that counterinsurgencies are fragile for the most part; we discuss the concepts, examine historical and contemporary examples and set the stage for practitioners and scholars to leverage this model to gain a more true understanding of how IW works.

References:

Nassim Taleb: The Black Swan and Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Douglas Porch: Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].

This charter episode will discuss the intent of the podcast and get started with the basics to create a framework of common understanding. This episode will discuss the National Defense Strategy, generations of warfare, civil war and the regional conflict complexes that emerge from larger wars and conflicts. Irregular warfare (IW) is rather complex and tends to be muddier, more nuanced and subject to interpretative misconceptions and we'll lay the groundwork for understanding these in both the larger and smaller contexts.

My Substack:

https://t.co/7a8jn2Mmnx

Email at [email protected].