Angry Planet

Once a year, leaders from around the world leave their capitals behind them for a trip to the Big City, New York. What could pull these powerful men—and far fewer women—away from affairs of state? Is it the revival of Spamalot on Broadway? No, the opening is still a few weeks away. Could it be the glittering bars, restaurants, and hotels? The easy availability of the ingredients for every vice known to humanity? Is it simply the lights on Broadway?Nope.It’s the one, the only United Nations General Assembly, which comes to town every September and plays to rave reviews—if you ask the delegates themselves. In reality, many of these leaders are addressing empty seats or facing interns sharpening their pencils for notes they may never take.So, why come?We’re going to tell you why with the help of Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group, who knows the arcane, backroom secrets of this annual get together of the powerful and—if they’re stealing—the rich.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Aram Shabanian stops by this week to talk to us about the strong men of the Caucasus.We start with a deep dive into what’s going on in Armenia and Azerbaijan right now with a focus on the 1990s. Shabanian calls Azerbaijan’s President, Ilham Aliyevl, the “Saddam Hussein of the Caucasus” and comes to grip with the realpolitik of the conflict.Then we turn our attention to Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov and discuss rumors of his failing health, mixed martial arts, and how a brutal warlord became an internet meme.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re taking another look at the climate here at Angry Planet. This week we’re joined by Peter Kalmus of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Talking to a scientist about how hot the planet is getting can be jarring. Kalmus, like other experts in the field, brings a sense of doom to the subject that fits perfectly in the Angry Planet cannon.Kalmus talks about dining with oil executives and shares his thoughts on How to Blow Up a Pipeline. We cover a lot of ground in this episode and we’re happy to have our listeners along for the ride. Next week we’ll try to get back to something more traditionally depressing like Ramzan Kadyrov or Armenia and Azerbaijan.Check out Peter’s research here.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mysterious producer Kevin Knodell comes on to Angry Planet this week to tell us about his recent reporting trip to Maui. A timeline of the firePlaying the blame gameMatthew screws up island namesThe politics of taro farmingYakistanThe Range 12 FireDon’t ask him about the fucking treeOur fiery futureAngry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On July 26, a military junta deposed and imprisoned Niger’s duly elected president, Mohamed Bazoum. You are probably saying three things—perhaps all at the same time:Where the hell is Niger? Who is Bazoum? Why the fuck would I care?That’s what this episode is all about. We answer those three questions and fill you in on the context around the event as well as the region where it happened, the Sahel, which is where Saharan Africa meets sub-Saharan Africa. It’s a place that’s at the mercy of natural disasters like severe drought and extreme flooding, and human disasters like mismanagement of the land and laws, jihadists, and just plain bandits.Aneliese Bernard joins us and knows what she’s talking about to a simply frightening degree. When not slumming on podcasts like ours, Bernard is director at Strategic Stabilization Advisors and Director of Research and Programs at Elva Community Engagement, and formerly worked in the Sahel with the U.S. State Department.She’s not a spy. She said so herself.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Christopher Atwood returns to the show this week to talk about a report he helped write for at the New Lines Institute. It’s an in-depth analysis of Russia’s ongoing genocide in Ukraine.Here’s a link to the report:The Russian Federation’s Escalating Commission of Genocide in Ukraine: A Legal AnalysisAngry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joe Cirincione is back on the podcast this week to walk us through the science of nuclear weapons and give us his preliminary thoughts on Oppenheimer.Cirincione is a national security analyst and author with over 40 years of experience. He’s been a congressional staffer, a program director, a philanthropist, an advisor the the State Department and three presidential campaigns. Now, he writes at a substack.He’s recently completed a six part series detaling the history of the nuclear world. Get started on it by clicking below.https://joecirincione.substack.com/p/history-of-the-nuclear-world-partAngry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Freelance journalist Kelsey Atherton joins Angry Planet to talk about Oppenheimer. The movie does a good, but not perfect, job with history and tends toward mythmaking. Matthew loved it and Atherton had some issues with it. In this wide-ranging conversation that covers nuclear history, our renewed atomic fears, and the people left out of the story, the two nuclear journalists dissect Hollywood’s latest blockbuster.The People Building AI with 'Existential Risk' Are Really Not Getting 'Oppenheimer'We Are All OppenheimerAtherton’s Wars of the Future Past12 Books and Movies to Check Out After 'Oppenheimer'What ‘Oppenheimer’ doesn’t tell you about atomic bombsAngry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When you’re talking about disasters, natural and manmade, it’s always the first responders—soldiers, police, EMTs—who get all the credit. But what about the people who not only support the first responders, but who help people once the front line has moved on?On this show, we talk a lot about wars and weapons and such. We talk about geopolitics and strategy. We rarely talk about people who are working to make things just that little bit better.Today we’re changing that in the case of Ukraine. We’re going to talk about humanitarian efforts and what’s happening to people—not just soldiers—on the ground.Joining us are Britta Ellwanger of For Peace and Nelli Isaieva of Helping to Leave. Their efforts, and the efforts of those they work with make a huge difference in people’s lives in Ukraine, getting civilians and soldiers the aid they need when they need it, but also helping people get out of some pretty sticky situations using mostly the power of the mobile phone.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this subscribers only episode of Angry Planet, Kremlin expert Mark Galeotti comes on to walk us through the military and political machinations of Russia’s “adhocracy.” According to Galeotti, Russia is a modern state that’s run by a Medieval court.He walks us through the implications of the Wagner mutiny, the different court players, and what the future of Putin’s court might be.Here’s Mark’s piece in The Economist that details Putin’s “self inflicted wounds.”Mark’s excellent podcast In Moscow’s Shadows is avaiable everywhere.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nobody outside of the Kremlin—and maybe inside the Kremlin, too—knows exactly what happened over the last weekend. We do know that Yevgeny Prigozhin led something that looked like a rebellion against Vladimir Putin’s government. Columns of troops and tanks turned toward the motherland and elements of the Wagner Group made it inside of 200 miles from Moscow. What did Prigozhin really want? And what happened to end the crisis? And is the crisis really over?Joining us today is Mark Katz of George Mason University. He’s a longtime Russia watcher and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, in addition to his teaching duties.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive is well under way. One of the best places to go to get stories and reporting about what’s happening is counteroffensive.news, a substack run by former U.S. Army Medic and NPR investigative journalist Tim Mak.He’s here with us today to talk about the war, the counteroffensive, and the charms of Kyiv.This is my mom’s brain on Russian propagandaFrench fighter for Ukraine, musing about God, heads to the frontlines; update on early counteroffensiveShe secretly sneaks to the frontlines to feed cats and dogs in the ruins of her cityAngry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The results of Turkey's presidential election are finally in and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had been forced into a runoff against his chief opponent, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, gets to keep his job as leader of NATO’s most troublesome member.Were the elections free and fair? Meh, says Foreign Policy/Council on Foreign Relations expert Steven Cook. This week he joins us to wrap up one of the world’s most anticipated elections—even if the suspense was never more than mild.Erdogan isn’t either a benevolent dictator or a tyrant. He's an authoritarian of his own flavor—and at least 52 percent of Turks can’t get enough of it. In the 20 years he's been in power, he's mostly been a man for his moment, mixing Islamist beliefs with strong ties to at least military modernity. Before the May 28 vote, the 69-year-old had won many elections—by a lot. He was a popular reformist mayor of Turkey’s largest and most storied city, Istanbul. He did so well there that he and his Islamist Justice and Development Party, AKP, moved up to the national stage.So, Steven, what’s next for Erdogan and the rest of the world that has to deal with him?Listen to the show to find out.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

World War II is still killing people. Unexploded ordnance, the remnants of globe spanning conflict, litters the fields of Europe and the waters of the Pacific. The world spends a lot of money and time cleaning up UX in Europe and helping its victims. In the Pacific? Well, there it’s a different story. Especially in the Solomon Islands.Thomas Heaton is a reporter for Civil Beat and the author of its ‘Lethal Legacy’ series, which focuses on the devastation World War II is still wreaking in the Pacific.Civil Beat’s Lethal Legacy series.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s 2023. It’s time for authoritarian leaders to update their aesthetic. Sure a stuffy military uniform used to lend an air of authority, but today’s young leaders are looking more and more like silicon valley tech billionaires. A backwards baseball cap. Laser eyes on their Twitter profile. Plans to build a city powered by a volcano that mines bitcoin. Mega-prisons ripped from the pages of Judge Dredd. That kind of thing.This week we’re talking about El Salvador and its millennial leader Nayib Bukele. With us here to do that is Tiziano Breda, an expert on the region who has covered it for the International Crisis Group and is now with IAI, the Italian international affairs institute.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T6atCMAVfEAngry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are authoritarians and there are tyrants, and sometimes they’re the same person. But would a true tyrant put himself up to face the people in an election that could be free and maybe even fair?With Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, we’re going to find out the exact flavor of authoritarian he is on Sunday, May 14, and in the days immediately following. Erdogan has been in power in his nation of more than 80 million people for nearly two decades, and in some ways, he’s brought it to near ruin, with economic policies based more on his gut than sound economic theory.He’s also not much on newspapers, freedom of information, or freedom of speech.On the other hand, no one is going to doubt the importance of his country on the world stage. Erdogan has become something like the Bosporus itself, a gateway or meeting point between NATO and Moscow, and even Iran occasionally. That sounds good, but it hasn’t made the West particularly happy. In one of the most recent examples, Turkey’s veto is the only thing standing between Sweden and NATO membership. Erdogan says it has to do with Sweden harboring Kurdish terrorists, but, like buying S-400 missile batteries from Russia, it could just be a thumb in the eye of all concerned.Maybe the U.S. should just sell Turkey those F-16s it wants.The main question, however, is what Erdogan will do when all the votes are counted. If he loses, does he go away? If he wins, does he take away more freedoms from Turks and become the tyrant he always had the potential of becoming?To answer these questions, Angry Planet spoke with Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign relations. He had some surprising thoughts—and a wager.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s a subscriber only episode of Angry Planet where we sit down with drone and UAP journalist Kelsey Atherton to deliver on an old promise: making up for a balloon-related episode from February some of you didn’t like.But first, we got into the news of the drone attack on the Kremlin, which occurred a few hours before we sat down to record. After that, Atherton takes us through his thoughts on the great high altitude object panic of 2023 and we dig into the meat of the episode: why it’s so hard to report on UAPs and why it’s often deeply professionally unpleasant to do so.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You may have noticed that we end our show with a snippet of the video game Fallout (my favorite). “War - war never changes.”What if that’s both true and not true? You have to love a dichotomy. Anyway, we are lucky today to have University of Chicago professor Paul Poast on the show. He looks at foreign policy—war—using statistics to make some sense of it all.This is a break down of why wars popular on the history channel (World War II, the Civil War) aren’t indicative of how wars are actually fought. The smaller proxy wars the U.S. and Russia have been fighting for the past 30 years are the status-quo, not some new kind of conflict.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How is that a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman posted government secrets to a private Discord group for almost a year before anyone noticed? On today’s episode of Angry Planet, Bellingcat’s Aric Toler walks us through the culture that created poster and edgelord Jack Teixeira.Toler also talks about working with The New York Times, dodging phone calls from the FBI, and the digital forensics he used to identify Teixeira. We talk about the Something Awful Forums, 4chan and KiwiFarms, and why Teixeira isn’t a “leaker” at all, he’s a poster.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Islamic State has largely fallen out of the western press with the weird exception of ISIS brides. And when we talk about the Islamic State, western press often ignores its broader crimes. The plight of the Yazidi, specifically, is largely ignored by press and NGOs.The plight of the so-called “ISIS bride,” however, is very much in fasion. But I wanted that photo and that testimony to lead off this post. Today’s episode is mostly about the women of the Islamic State, but the Yazidis are a crucial part of that story and we shouldn’t forget them.When Islamic State still had a caliphate that galvanized Western militaries, young men and women from around the world left their homes to join up. Their reasons were varied but their passion seems unwavering. Now the Islamic State is fractured and the Caliphate is in ruin but many of the fighters and so-called ISIS brides remain. Now, some of them want to go home, and Western media has looked at them with a shockingly sympathetic eye.Today’s show is a long interview with journalist Norma Costello, who has spent time in al-Hol where many of the women of the Islamic State now live. She’s written about them in UnHerd.Around the beginning of the pandemic, family and friends of Isis members began to gently craft a new narrative about their women. They had never supported the caliphate. They were innocents forced to travel there by men. They were, in their own way, victims. These grown women had been “trafficked” into Isis territory. Ignore the fact that many of them bought their own tickets.After we’re done talking about the Islamic State, Norma and I switch gears and get onto a very Angry Planet topic: Irish tankies and their strained relationship with Russia and its war in Ukraine.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan stood before the American public and promised to put lasers in space. The Strategic Defense Initiative was meant to be the ultimate bulwark against communist intercontinental ballistic missile. It didn’t work.Deriseively called Star Wars, the system never worked. To this day, methods for shooting an ICBM out of the sky are shoddy at best and fantasy at worst. Joining us today is Joe Cirincione. In his own words on his substack at joecirincione.substack.com. He is a national security expert and author with 40 years of experience on these issues in Washington, D.C. and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has held a number of prestigious roles in the nation’s capitol.To see the clip of science fiction authors Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven talking about meeting with Reagan and “winnninng the Cold War with Star Wars” go here:https://youtu.be/i-lSr2ud8NcAngry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dictatorships of the last century had some famous youth groups. Hitler had his Youth, Lenin had his Young Pioneers, and Mussolini had his Opera Nazionale Balilla.Such groups once attracted huge followings but have largely fallen out of favor in the West. But, like so much else with the irredentist Vladimir Putin, he’s bringing it back.To help us understand this new youth movement and what it means for the future, we have the perfect guest.Ian Garner is a historian and analyst of Russian culture and war propaganda. He’s got a new book that’s coming out this spring Z Generation Into the Heart of Russia’s Fascist Youth. He’s also a professor. Queens University Kingston Ontario.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You know, we wanted to talk about European (and especially German) views of the war in Ukraine today. And we still will. What’s an IRIS-T, for example. What’s up with those Leopard tanks? But then a Russian Su-27 fighter jet crashed into an American MQ-9 Reaper above the Black Sea and the guest we planned to have on, well, she knows a lot about drones.With us today is Ulrike Franke. Franke is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. She’s an expert in all things Germany, drones, and AI. She got a PhD from Oxford and she hosts a podcast on German defense, the name of which I will absolutely butcher if I attempt to pronounce.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Angry Planet talks with Caleb Larson who has been working as a journalist in and around Ukraine’s Donbas region where much of the war is currently being fought. He paints a picture of the situation on the ground and tells us where to buy groceries in time of war.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the planet slowly broils, we keep hoping that some technological revolution will save us. Not just carbon capture or seeding the oceans with iron to grow algae that will drink in all the carbon dioxide right out of the atmosphere, but solutions that we can power our homes with and drive around. But what if we’ve put all of our money on the wrong horse? David Ko and Richard Busellato former hedge fund managers, have a different solution, but can it really save the Earth?After you listen to the show, you can check out:https://rethinkingchoices.com/Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1973, as most American troops left Vietnam, President Richard M. Nixon ended compulsory military service for males over the age of 18. It was an end of system that had been in place since the Second World War and came in answer—at least in part—to an ever-growing anti-war, anti-draft movement. Historian and writer Max Boot joins us to talk about the history of the draft and the all-volunteer force that now has 50 years under its belt.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What’s the biggest Chinese threat to the United States? Well, if you ask security expert Stephanie Carvin, it’s not a balloon—no matter how large and how many missiles it takes to shoot down. So, what should we really be worried about from China’s security apparatus? Well, you could start with more traditional spying, but there’s a lot more to it than that.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

All three Angry Planet guys are on the show today. Kevin went to South Korea in September and he’s here to tell us all about it.“A shrimp stuck between two whales.”Shopping for a frigate in a glossy catalogWhy America doesn’t remember the Korean WarThe Don Draper connection“MASH was about Vietnam.”A nuclear penninsula?No one knows what’s going in in North Korea.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Only Nixon can go to China. The now-forgotten aphorism once represented so much in American politics. After Nixon met with Mao, relations between the Communist country and America thawed. Trade opened up and, the popular notion went, with economic benefits would come a lessening of authoritarianism in China and the eventual end of Communism.Here in 2023 the idea that economic modernization and prosperity would lead to a flourishing of democracy in China seems quaint. What happened? And do the West’s preconceptions of what democracy and freedom are vibe with what’s actually going on in China.That’s what we’re here today to talk about. With us is Sungmin Cho, the author of the new article Does China’s Case Falsify Modernization Theory? Cho is a professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s only human to play games. Some might argue it’s in the DNA. Games are part of how we learn, and can be the best way to teach or solve a problem. But some games are more serious than others. A game recently played at a Washington think tank is about as serious as it gets. It looked at what might happen if China attacked Taiwan, and the results weren’t pretty for anyone.Joining us today to discuss what they found in playing the game is Mark Cancian. He is a retired marine corps colonel and is a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies International Security Program.Here’s a link to the report.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Bradley Fighting Vehicle is on its way to Ukraine. Fifty of them, to be precise. This armored personnel carrier on tracks is not a tank. Don’t call it a tank. Once maligned as a boondoggle that represented everything wrong with Pentagon weapon’s programs, the Bradley is now a much desired piece of armor.With us today to suss this all out is Sebastian Roblin. Roblin is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in NBC, Forbes, and—of course—War Is Boring.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Benjamin Netanyahu is back and he's brought a right-wing coalition like nothing Israel has seen.Dan Perry knows the game and all the players and and he joins Angry Planet to talk about what might be the end of democracy in the Jewish State and what it means for the Palestinians and relations with the U.S.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The shine has come off Russia’s regular armed forces. We’ve all seen the pictures in Ukraine of burned out vehicles and crashed drones, everything already starting to rust. Casualties for the Russian military are estimated to be over 100,000. But the Russian Army isn’t the only force in Ukraine fighting on Moscow’s behalf. The Wagner Group is there, too, and we know far less about them and what they’re doing.To help us get a better view, we’re joined by Jason Blazakis. He’s Director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, and a senior research fellow at the Soufan Group. and wrote an op-ed for Newsweek on Wagner last week.Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Or: Why Jason has a Velcro mezuzah.An episode about Kanye West and violent family histories.Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’ve talked a lot on this program about electronic intelligence—the amazing stuff you can do with satellites, user generated content and sophisticated software.Nice.But we’ve left out all the men and women who still do work on the ground, all over the world.Paul Kolbe is here to remind us about human intelligence and the role it plays. Kolbe is a CIA veteran, having worked in the directorate of operations for 25 years before moving on to private industry. He’s currently director of the Intelligence project at the Belfer Center at Harvard.Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reign has been defined by constant conflict. From Chechnya to Ukraine and many other wars in between, Putin’s Russia has constantly been pushing at its borders and sending troops abroad. How have those wars shaped Russia and the world? And what does it all have to do with Ukraine?That’s the subject of the new book Putin’s Wars. Its author is here with us today. Its friend of the show: Mark Galeotti. Galeotti is a public policy fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC. He’s also the host of the excellent In Moscow’s Shadows podcast.Click here to buy Mark's book, Putin's Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine. Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re running our Thanksgiving break episode a week early. We’ll be back next week to talk with Mark Galeotti about Russia, Kherson, and the missiles that just hit Poland.This week, we’re going far back into our past. It’s a Timothy Snyder double feature. Both of these episodes are from our “War College” days and feature the famous historian at two different points in his journey to the cable news pundit we feel (well, I feel) weirdly ambivalent towards today.The first is from 2015, and is a disucssion about his book Black Earth. The second is from 2018 and is about his book Road to Unfreedom.Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today it’s all about the bomb. Nuclear weapons are back in a big way and everything about the Cold War suddenly feels very fresh. Nukes are strange things. They’ve only been used twice and the language and knowledge around them can often feel arcane, almost religious. There’s all these little rituals in nuclear space. We’re gonna talk about one of those rituals today—the Nuclear Posture Review. Once in every U.S. presidential administration, the nuclear curtain is withdrawn and we get a glimpse at what the Pentagon, and critically, the President is thinking. But what is the Nuclear Posture Review? Who writes it? And what does it have to do with the price of gas in an apocalyptic nuclear hellscape.Here to answer some of those questions for us today is Stephen Young. Young is the Senior Washington Representative for the Union of Concerned Scientists, the former Deputy Director of the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, and consulted on this most recent review.The Nuclear Posture ReviewNuke Experts Are Horrified by Biden’s New ‘Nuclear Posture Review’Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I’m sorry, we have to talk about Elon Musk one more time. Or, as Jason said. “Twitter: Now With More Musk!”But seriously. This episode is about more than Musk. It’s about how conflict has gotten … weird. We start with a conversation about a new podcast about the weird future of war. Then we asked one question about Musk and things spiraled out of control.Has conflict gotten …weirder? Have the lines gotten blurrier? Why are cartoon Shiba Inu dogs yelling at Russian officials online? Why is the JAVELIN weapons system a saint? Why does that HIMARS system look … horny? When is an innocent meme not an innocent meme and what has the internet done to the way we fight?War … was has changed. Shitposts, disinformation, trolls farms in Macedonia, and Telegram channels full of gore videos that would make the average Ogrish visitor weep. (That was for you very old heads)So much of this feels like war …. Not exactly war but … something close. If only there were a podcast that explored these various phenomena and explained the recent origin of them.Well … it just so happens there is. It’s called LikeWar and returning guest Peter W. Singer is one of its hosts. He’s here with us today to talk about the show.Listen to Likewar on iTunes.Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we’re talking about Elon Musk — not because we want to, but because we have to. As we all know, the man is rich. I don’t mean merely wealthy, I mean he could pay off a good portion of the national deficit.He’s also not shy, to the point where he likes to tell entire countries what to do. They may not do it, but they’re forced to react.Bloomberg’s Iain Marlow, who covers diplomacy, has written a great piece about what Musk is up to now.Musk Tweets Complicate US Diplomacy From Ukraine to TaiwanThe CNN piece where the DoD throws Musk under the busAngry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alt Weeklies are an important part of America’s media landscape. It’s local reporting from people with a different point of view and different goals. If you’re mad at mainstream narratives you could do worse than picking up, say, the Inlander out of the Pacific Northwest. If you want to know what’s really going on there, how worried you should be about budding extremist movements, and what role politicians are playing in our current various crises, it’s a good place to start.With us today is Daniel Walters. Walters is an award-winning investigative journalist at the Inlander where he covers right-wing extremism, politics, and maybe just a little bit of pop culture.Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In an attempt to shore up its rapidly crumbling position in Ukraine, Moscow has partially mobilized the people. In response, many of those people are fleeing. But where can they go? Russia has spent the last 100 years bullying, invading, and killing its immediate neighbors. Places like Georgia are seeing a huge influx of Russian military aged males. How do the Georgians feel about this? It’s complicated.With us today to talk about this is James Jackson. Jackson is a freelance journalist in German and Central and Eastern Europe. He was in Tbilisi, the capitol of Georgia when Russians fleeing mobilization started to show up. And he’s here with us today to talk about it. It’s the subject of his latest in Time: Why a Fresh Russian Exodus to Georgia is So Polarizing.Here’s a link to the video Jackson describes in the show.Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There’s unrest in Iran right now. People have taken to the streets, the internet has been restricted for “security reasons” authorities say, and there’s been clashes with police. This all started after a young woman, Mahsa Amini, was arrested by Iranian moral police. She died while in custody. Her death and the circumstances around it kicked off the current protests, but the unrest is part of a long continuum of uprising and suppression in Iran that’s as old as the Islamic Revolution of 1979.With us today is Maral Karimi. Karimi is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto and the author of The Iranian Green Movement of 2009, Reverberating Echoes of Resistance.Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The vast majority of Chinese people come from a single ethnic group—the Han. So what’s life like for the millions of people who aren’t Han? Tough, it’s fair to say. Ask any Tibetan.But one group has been singled out for particular persecution, the Uyghurs. There are about 12 million Uyghurs, they mostly live in a province called Xinjiang and mostly Muslim.And the Chinese appear to be trying to wipe out at least their culture. Many countries have condemned the Chinese for this, but the United Nations has been slow, slow, slow to take any action.That’s finally changed with a new report.Joining us to talk about the situation are two people working for Human Rights Watch, Louis Charboneau, at the UN, and Sophie Richardson, who works on issues in China.Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What seemed unthinkable a year ago has come to pass. Ukraine has started its counter offensive and in a shockingly short amount of time has pushed Russia out of much of its territory. The Russian military appears to be collapsing with a rapidity that is shocking pretty much everyone.Well, maybe not everyone. People who’ve been paying attention to the minutiae of the war aren’t as surprised as the rest of us. That’s kind of been a pattern in coverage and punditry of Russia’s invasion.One of those smart guys is here to talk with us today on Angry Planet. It’s returning guest Aram Shabanian. He’s the Open-Source Information Gathering Manager at New Lines Institute, one of the minds behind The Fulda Gap, and one of the best Twitter follows you can snag @ShabanianAram.Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This will be the last episode we do on Afghanistan for a bit. We wanted to give the final word to a U.S. Marine who served there.We’re now a year out from the fall of Kabul and what looks like the end of America’s uniformed involvement in Afghanistan. There are as many as 70,000 Afghans who helped the United States during the war who are still looking to get out.Elliot Ackerman, who served in the region as a Marine and as a CIA operative, was trying to help as the last flights were taking off from Kabul’s Airport.It was, as Ackerman saw it, the Fifth Act of the Afghan War.He’s joining us today to talk about both his war and his views of the fall. He’s the author of both novels and non-fiction, including Dark at the Crossing, Green on Blue, and Red Dress in Black and White. We’ll put the full list in the show notes. His latest book, looking at these final days is The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan.Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s been a year since the U.S. left Afghanistan in disarray. We’ve spoken to a number of people who have been to Afghanistan over the years on this show. That includes journalists who walked into Kabul with the Taliban the first time, in 1996, soldiers who fought in Afghanistan throughout the war, and more recently, a man who was supposed to be fighting corruption but found it to be worse than a losing battle.Today, NPR’s Steve Inskeep joins us. He recently visited Afghanistan and spent some time with the Taliban.Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dissent. It’s a word people don’t like to hear, especially coming from the military. But it’s also a vitally important component of any vibrant democracy. Dissent, especially informed dissent, can pull us back from the brink and help us make better choices. We are one year out from the end of America’s direct involvement in Afghanistan and, after two decades of war, it’s time to start listening to the dissenters.That’s what the new book Paths of Dissent: Soldiers Speak Out Against America’s Misguided Wars hopes to do: give voice to that informed dissent.With us today is one of the books’ editors, returning guest Andrew Bacevich. Bacevich is a West Point graduate, a 23 year U.S. Army Veteran, a professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University, and … a dissenter.Buy the book here.Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To say there are widespread reports of abuses by Russian troops in Ukraine is to undersell it. There have been hundreds and hundreds of cases claiming rape, torture, and murder. Last week, a video of the torture and execution of a Ukrainian soldier at the hands of Russian soldiers shocked the world.We call these things war crimes and crimes against humanity. But that’s a relatively new concept. Today we’re going to talk about the Nuremberg Trials, which took some vague ideals and put them into practice.Joining us today to talk about the Nuremberg Trials is John Barrett. He’s a Professor of Law at St. John's University, a biographer of former U.S. Attorney General and Nuremberg chief prosecutor Robert H. Jackson.Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

WNBA star Britney Griner is imprisoned in Russia and, apparently, the U.S. is making Russia an incredible offer to get her out. Last week Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that America had “put a substantial proposal on the table.”That proposal? The return to Russia of convicted international arms dealer Viktor Bout. This so-called Merchant of Death’s story is an amazing one. It even inspired a 2005 Nicolas Cage movie, some six years before Bout’s arrest. With us today to talk about it is Sean Williams. Williams is a journalist and the co-host of the excellent Underworld Pod, a show about the worldwide phenomenon of organized crime.Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.