Conversations about conflict on an angry planet. Created, produced, and hosted by Matthew Gault and Jason Fields 781951 Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Journalist Jasper Craven joins the show today to talk about his new book God Forgives, Brothers Don’t . The book is a deep dive into the history of the American military academy and how it has shaped the country’s conception of manhood. Craven’s investigation led him from Valley Forge to West Point, uncovered a strange 20th century Joe Rogan who changed his name so it sounded like a lion’s roar,…
The world I grew up in no longer exists. The decades after World War II were boom times for free trade lovers. During the Pax Americana it seemed that most diplomatic problems could be solved by exporting blue jeans and lowering the cost of consumer goods for everyone. But in 2026 trade is a serious weapon and economic policy seems less a path to prosperity and more a weapon for waging war. On…
Recorded in May. Join angryplanetpod.com to hear episodes early and commercial free. America’s war against Iran has gone on for more than two months and the United States has achieved none of its political objectives. American power has diminished, its munitions stockpile is low, and Iran now controls the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has all the cards. To hear Robert Pape tell it, this was all…
On the morning of April 21, Trump posted an image of eight women on Truth Social, claimed they were Iranian dissidents set to be executed, and demanded that Tehran release them. Detractors, and several Iranian sources , claimed the women were AI-generated. A day later Trump claimed the women would no longer be executed and that he’d saved them. The truth is that the women are real and many are…
Kim Song Ju, the man who would become Kim Il Sung, was born to devout Presbyterian parents. Billy Graham’s wife was born to christian missionaries in China and went to high school in Pyongyang. American protestants once spread the gospel in northwest Korea and found fertile ground for their gospel message. Kim listened, learned, and used those teachings to shape a cult of personality that rules…
Recorded March 24, 2026. Subscribe at angryplanetpod.com to hear episodes first and commercial free. Last week an article published in Al Jazeera by an academic at the University of Doha in Qatar proposed something that felt crazy to some western war watchers: America and Israel’s strategy in Iran is working. On this episode of Angry Planet, author Muhanad Seloom is here to explain his position.…
America went to war in Iran, we’re told, because the idea of the country developing nuclear weapons was intolerable. Nukes are complicated and technical weapons that require scientists and experts to build, maintain, and manage. Highly enriched uranium (HEU) is core to the design and unless all of Iran’s HEU is accounted for the threat of it becoming a nuclear power will linger. So what would it…
AI enthusiasts love to say that the technology is as revolutionary and important as nuclear weapons. Even the Trump administration has adopted the metaphor. The President and the Department of Energy have repeatedly referred to the development of AI in the US as “Manhattan Project 2.0.” But is the buildout of LLMs and machine learning systems really as important as the development of the atom…
Things have gotten very surreal in the dark corners of the internet. AI-generated prophets are preaching jihad in Facebook groups, Minecraft servers host digital caliphates, and school shooting fandoms gather to study their heroes and plot how to up beat their score. It’s a double bill on this episode of Angry Planet as two experts from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a nonprofit that…
America spent most of the 19th century at war with itself. It conquered its western expanse then collapsed into civil war. Once the North beat the South, partisan politics consumed the country for a generation. A string of assassinations, progressive firebrands, and civil service reforms burned people out on domestic politics and a bored and febrile nation began to search for meaning beyond its…
Greenland fever has faded for now but it will return. The world’s polar region, you see, is pretty damn important. As the planet heats and the ice melts, what was once an impassible warren of ice and snow has become a geopolitical opportunity. On today’s Angry Planet, we host journalist Kenneth R. Rosen who just published the book Polar War . He’s spent the past few years among the ice and snow,…
There was a time, just before the pandemic, when folks would say “Twitter isn’t real life” as a means of dismissing the horrors of social media. This was a cope, a way to ignore the worst political and cultural actors who now dominate our psychic landscape. Now those people are in charge and they’ve manifested Twitter into real life in a way previously thought impossible. The White House is…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com On January 28, 2025, I sat down with Aram Shabanian to talk about how we thought the first year of the Trump administration would go. I put the audio in a vault and didn’t listen to it until now. We focused on geopolitics and the American military and our hit rate for predictions was about fifty percent. Domestically, it’s been…
On the last Angry Planet of 2025, novelist and Marine Corps veteran Phil Klay returns to reflect on a year of spectacle and cruelty. Between the Pentagon’s boat strikes and the administration’s constant barrage of grotesque memes, it feels like America is a crueler and cruder place. For better and worse, the Presidency sets a moral standard for the country and Trump has lowered that standard. Klay…
Earlier this year journalist Ben Makuch caught a glimpse of Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, dancing at a club in Kyiv. It was a surreal moment, a snapshot of a tragic war that the West thinks is defining the future of conflict. Tech executives have flocked to Ukraine, courting the country in an attempt to get at a resource more precious than gold: data. Makuch was just there and has…
Another week and another Angry Planet about the horrifying systems that rule our lives. Is there a depressive theme running through the work right now? Possibly. I promise we’ll soon replace it with rage. This week on the show we have Sven Beckert to talk about his new book Capitalism: A Global History . Beckert is a professor of history at Harvard and his tome is an attempt to capture the entire…
The White House is portraying the race to adopt AI as an existential crisis. It’s the next Manhattan Project, they say, a technology so important it will require an unprecedented build out of energy infrastructure and massive data centers. But the Manhattan Project was a government-led technological drive whereas AI is led by salesmen and corporations. What could possibly go wrong? On this episode…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com This week on Angry Planet we’re taking a break from the horrors of the present to explore horrors of a past distant enough now that they’re entertaining. But then, America found those horrors pretty entertaining at the time, too. Even when it was still a thriving community and a going concern, the town of Deadwood, South Dakota,…
Is your Empire feeling less than fresh? Does it feel like the modern world’s best days are behind it? Do conquest and global power politics not hit as good as they used to? Welcome to the Age of Stagnation, a time when the fruits of the Industrial Revolution can be enjoyed but not replicated. It’s making us all a little crazy, especially world leaders. With us today on the show is Michael Beckley,…
We’re obsessed with apocalypses, big and small. We fantasize about what the future might look like after the fall of society and fear the coming tribulation. Rome fretted about decline until its end. Stories of the Sea Peoples terrified the monarchs of the Late Bronze Age. During the 30 Years’ War, Europeans imagined Armageddon had finally begun. But a funny thing happens after the collapse:…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com This week on Angry Planet we have returning guest and former judge advocate Dan Maurer. The last time he was on the show, Maurer walked us through the consequences of a Supreme Court ruling that asked the question: is it illegal for the President to order SEAL Team Six to kill people? It was a surreal question that now feels more…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com The episode is about Vanessa Guillén, a US soldier who was murdered at Fort Hood in 2020. She also experienced sexual harassment while in the military. I spoke with ABC Special Correspondent John Quiñones about his new podcast, Vanished. It’s a good podcast that covers Guillén’s case in-depth and highlights the reforms the…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com Political assassins often have incoherent politics and Tyler Robinson is no different. The young man who killed Charlie Kirk inscribed the shell casings of his bullets with obscure memes that say less about what he believed and more about where he spent time online. Robinson isn’t alone. Earlier this year the Annunciation Church…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com On September 2, 2025 the United States escalated its decades long War on Drugs with a tactic borrowed from the War on Terror. It used a drone to blow up a boat it said was full of drugs then said the 11 people killed in the strike were terrorists. Is this legal? Does that matter? On this week’s Angry Planet, journalist Mike…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com The Pacific Northwest is known for its startling natural beauty, precocious rainfall, and propensity to birth serial killers. Why? Caroline Fraser has a theory and it’s a good one. This week on Angry Planet, Fraser takes us on a journey through the American past and into the dark heart of the PNW. Her new book Murderland weaves…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com All things move towards their end, even seemingly omnipotent political leaders, and authoritarian systems are shaped by the question of succession long before the leader dies. Xi Jinping is 72 years old and the Chinese Communist Party has started to consider what comes next. Those conversations are shaping the political reality…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com If the internet is a battlefield, does that mean the United States needs a new military force to dominate it? On this episode of Angry Planet, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Edward Charles Cardon and former House Armed Services Committee staffer Joshua Stiefel make the case for spinning off the Cyber Force into an…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com Journalists and Nazis have changed a lot in the years since the end of World War II; journalists are on the outs while Nazis are having a bit of a moment. Across the U.S. and Canada, avowed fascists have committed murder, attempted to destroy the power grid, and actively recruit online and in person. As these extremists work to…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com The world is living with a Cold War hangover. The logic of deterrence, which dominates the minds of the people who plan nuclear wars, means that America must have enough nuclear weapons to credibly threaten to destroy the world should someone launch nukes at it. That thinking led to a world with tens of thousands of nuclear…
Sometimes it’s good to back up and ask the basic questions: How do we know Iran was even developing nuclear weapons? On this episode of the show, the Arms Control Wonk Jeffrey Lewis walks us through the history of the Iranian nuclear (weapons and energy) program. It’s got it all: diplomacy, assassinations, cowardly politicians, and uranium fever. Lewis is a professor at the Middlebury Institute,…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com Pauline Shanks Kaurin PhD. was, until recently, the Stockdale Chair for Professional Military Ethics at the U.S. Naval War College. She’d been there since 2018, teaching philosophy and ethics to U.S. military officers and the occasional civilian. Then came Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, and marching orders she said stifled academic…
You can’t win a war with airpower alone, despite what the U.S. Air Force will tell you. For more than 100 years, the masters of the air have promised that military and political objectives can be achieved if you just let them drop enough bombs. It’s a theory that’s been tested, and fallen short, many times. Operation Midnight Hammer, the Trump administration’s use of 14 GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com The ocean is vast, beautiful, and lawless. Thousands of miles from any coast, power belongs to those who seize it. On this episode of Angry Planet, journalist Ian Urbina stops by to discuss the Outlaw Ocean Project and the second season of its incredible podcast. Urbina and his team of investigative journalists are telling…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com The futures of the past have curdled into the nightmares of the present. The richest and most powerful people the world has ever known want to colonize mars, live forever, and digitize human consciousness. To make these technological miracles come to pass, they say, will require people to dramatically change the way they live and…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com America loves the Western. Stories about frontier towns, outlaws and lawmen, and—most of all—killing. How did the myth and legend of the gunfighter come to permeate the U.S.? Were there rules to gunfights? How did you become famous by killing people? Did Texas, yes Texas, make all this possible? We’ll answer those questions in…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com Palantir, Anduril and a suite of other Tolkien-inspired tech nightmares want to integrate artificial intelligence into every aspect of the U.S. military. Both companies have software suites they’re pitching as agents that will help make command decisions during combat. An AI general, if you will. Yes, that’s a terrible idea. On…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com The Pentagon has been trying to pivot to the Pacific for years now. Under President Donald Trump 2.0, who is focused on China, it just might happen. It’s a complicated body of water with dozens of players and a bloody history. One where Beijing is increasingly asserting itself. Here to walk us through some of it is Angry Planet…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com Recorded 5/7/25 India and Pakistan have been unhappy neighbors since 1947 and Britain’s decolonization of the subcontinent. They’ve fought four wars and there have been countless skirmishes. As Indian jets streak over Pakistani skies and that Muslim nation threatens retaliation, it’s unclear if this is war or just another blip…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com Great power competition has gotten old for President Donald Trump—never one for a fair fight. He’s looking for a little great power collusion instead, dividing the world with his best buds, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. This kind of thing isn’t new, though, Stacie Goddard, a professor at Wellesley, tells us, in fact it’s the…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com Conquest is back baby! Eastern Europe, Taiwan, Greenland, Canada? It’s all on the table—and maybe up for grabs. Here to help us sort through this new age of empire building is University of Chicago political scientist Michael Albertus. As always, climate change Whither Canada? The coming Canadian century “Territorial ambitions…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com Turkey’s president has grabbed a bit more power for himself with the recent arrest of the mayor of Istanbul. The mayor was thought to be one of the few politicians who could challenge Erdogan. Steven Cook will take us through it. Talking about authoritarians is one of the things we do here, so strap in for another tale of turmoil…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com Special for our international listeners, did you know you can now buy a pathway to U.S. citizenship for the low, low price of $5 million sent directly to the U.S. treasury? For decades America’s immigration policies were a boon to its national defense. No one has better intelligence on a rival country than a fleeing dissident…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com For mercenaries, death is a business. It’s all about finding the right market. Wagner and other Russian mercenary groups have found willing markets in Africa. Journalist John Lechner spent years in Africa among the mercenaries and he’s on the show today to tell us about what he learned. Lechner tells us how Wagner’s men think the…
A lot of the people designing America’s technology and close to the center of American power believe some deeply weird shit. We already talked to journalist Gil Duran about the Nerd Reich , the rise of the destructive anti-democratic ideology. In this episode, we dive into another weird section of Silicon Valley: the cult of Rationalism. Max Read, the journalist behind the Read Max Substack, is…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com The Israeli military is using AI products from Microsoft to conduct its war in Gaza. Off the shelf AI products powered by the tech company’s Azure cloud computing system and OpenAI are helping the IDF sort through data, translate Arabic, and even pick targets. But AI translations aren’t perfect and these systems often make…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com We’re living in a bizarre age of technofascism. The richest man who has ever lived, a man who dreams of colonizing Mars with his children , is America’s CEO. Donald Trump, the man people voted for, is just the chairman of the board. What does Elon Musk believe? Is there a playbook for DOGE? How bad are things going to get? On…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com President Donald Trump wants to build an American Iron Dome. He even signed an executive order to make it happen. It’s a terrible idea, one we’ve tried before, and one that will make America less safe. In this episode, Joseph Cirincione returns to the program to detail his personal history with complicated and costly missile…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is the interim head of USAID, for however much longer the agency lasts. For 60 years, the massive bureaucracy was a vehicle for American soft power abroad. Trump, Elon Musk, and all their creatures don’t like it. It might soon be gone. Nicole Widdersheim is the deputy Washington director of…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com The pros and cons of globalization The end of trust in the global system What was behind the WTO protests of the 1990s How 1999's WTO Protests Influenced the Policing of Protests Today China, China, China The Covid shock White goods ? And we have to talk about McDonald’s How sanctions created the multipolar world “There’s no…
Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com Between the idea and the reality falls the shadow. Marine Corps veteran J.D. Vance will soon be vice president. Pete Hegseth, a man with a Crusader Kings tattoo who doesn’t want women to serve in combat roles, is probably going to be confirmed as secretary of defense. Over New Years, two members of the U.S. military committed…
