Geoffrey Wawro, founding director of the Military History Center at the University of North Texas and author of The Vietnam War: A Military History, joins the show to discuss the causes of U.S. failure in Vietnam.
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• 01:21 Introduction
• 01:50 Schools of thought
• 07:45 Orthodoxy
• 13:24 A war of choice
• 17:49 Ambivalence
• 20:15 Korean nightmare
• 23:53 Lessons
• 28:38 Policy makers
• 32:34 Obvious flaws
• 37:10 Ground war
• 42:21 South Vietnam
• 51:30 Certain defeat
• 56:21 Local politics
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Ep 225: Geoff Ball on the Evacuation of Kabul
Major Geoff Ball, USMC, co-founder of the Connecting File, commanded Company G, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines during the evacuation at Kabul International Airport in 2021, including the suicide bombing at Abbey Gate on 26 August. He shares the story of his company and their extraordinary service in Afghanistan.
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• 01:51 Introduction
• 02:03 The Marines
• 08:20 Quantico
• 13:07 29 Palms
• 16:32 On the job training
• 21:54 Ghost Company
• 26:44 The call
• 32:10 Isolation
• 38:30 Abbey Gate
• 46:16 Unity of effort
• 48:53 Who got through
• 51:40 The Taliban
• 52:54 26 August
• 56:52 Take command
• 59:47 No good choices
• 01:06:42 The Fallen
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Ep 224: Barry Strauss on Ancient Rome’s Wars with Israel
Barry Strauss, Corliss Page Dean Fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of Jews vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World's Mightiest Empire, joins the show to discuss the long, fractious, often violent relationship between Ancient Rome and her Jewish subjects.
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• 01:11 Introduction
• 01:37 Rome and Parthia
• 07:50 Judea
• 12:07 Roman control
• 17:58 Jewish warfighting
• 20:20 Herod
• 26:03 The Great Revolt
• 31:06 Enter Parthia
• 33:23 The Temple
• 35:01 70 years
• 40:24 Driven out
• 42:02 Parallels with today
• 44:33 Donald Kagan
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Ep 223: Mick Ryan on Ukraine Negotiations and Fighting
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 break down the latest on Ukraine, from the battlefield to the White House.
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Times
• 01:05 Introduction
• 02:06 The front
• 06:23 Fortress belt
• 08:38 ROI
• 10:55 Shifting feelings
• 14:41 A realistic settlement
• 20:53 After Alaska
• 23:15 Boots on the ground
• 25:45 Unpredictability
• 28:49 A different vibe
• 31:31 Stop the killing
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Ep 222: Peter Mansoor on MacArthur’s Return to the Philippines
Colonel Peter Mansoor, U.S. Army (retired), General Raymond E. Mason Jr. Chair in Military History at The Ohio State University and authors of Redemption: MacArthur and the Campaign for the Philippines, joins the show to discuss the largest campaign of the Pacific War, the liberation of the Philippines.
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• 01:08 Introduction
• 01:30 Why West Point?
• 06:11 Petraeus
• 09:55 A huge scale
• 11:25 War Plan Orange
• 16:25 Inevitable
• 20:07 The guerrilla war
• 26:53 Mindanao & Luzon
• 31:33 Leyte Gulf
• 37:52 A do or die campaign
• 40:04 Manila
• 44:34 Command responsibility
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Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack
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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