WarNotes: A Conflict Podcast

• Ep 017 "Military Science Fiction and the Profession of Arms"

  "The noblest fate that a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war's desolation."Robert Heinlein, Starship TroopersI think the military science fiction milieu provides a great tool for forecasting and predicting possible conflict futures.It may be yet another tool to take this magnificent US 20th century fighting machine and make it a peer combat competitor in the 21st century.Speculative fiction provides a means to extrapolate what possible war futures are peering over the horizon.Books:Military FictionEric Frank Russell The WaspKarl Marlantes Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam WarJames Jones From Here to EternityJames Gould Cozzens Guard of HonorAnton Myrer Once an EaglePaul Avallone Tattoo ZooMilitary Science FictionMichael Z. Williamson The Weapon (Freehold Series)Joe Haldeman The Forever War (The Forever War Series)Robert A. Heinlein Starship TroopersKali Altsoba Invasion!: The Orion WarJerry Pournelle and Larry Niven Legacy of BeowulfJerry Pournelle and Larry Niven FootfallJerry Pournelle and SM Stirling West of Honor (CoDominium Future History Book 1)Craig Dilouie Tooth and Nail My SubstackEmail at [email protected]

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• Ep 016 "Fixing Fight Club: Just Say No to NATO: Part Two"

  A continued discussion of the NATO debacle.It is time for America to completely reassess alliances and partnership around the world starting with NATO and then working its way down the list of useless and toxic relationships and promises to commit American blood and treasure to flashpoints planet-wide. The sheer insanity of EU/SSR behavior and the total inadequacy of NATO as a military organization across the entire martial spectrum.NATO insisted after the wall 1989-91 fell that the NATO blob would NOT expand eastward.It did.America should take a non-interventionist pause and get its internal house in order before standing astride the world again and lighting fires that never go away and continuously make things worse.Stop the madness.First part here: Ep 009 "Fixing Fight Club: Just Say No to NATO: Part One"References:Winning The Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air And Missile DefensesThe Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of AgeNyet Means Nyet (William Burns 2008)Pat Buchanan Where Does NATO Enlargement End?DoS Cable: NATO ENLARGEMENT: RUSSIAN ASSERTIONS REGARDING THE TWO-PLUS-FOUR AGREEMENT ON GERMAN UNIFICATIONNavy Matters Get the US Out of NATOBooks:Edward Bernays PropagandaSevim Dagdelen NATO: A Reckoning with the Atlantic AllianceMatt Kennard The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The American EmpireDaniel Ellsberg The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War PlannerScott Horton Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in UkraineNassim Taleb Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, Skin in the GameMark Gunzinger & Bryan Clark Winning the Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air and Missile DefenseChristian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech WarfareMy SubstackEmail at [email protected]

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• Ep 015 "Freeboot Reboot: 21st Century PMC in War""

  This episode examines what private military companies and campaigns look like.I discuss traditional and emerging trends in private military warfare which tends to still take place in nation-state warfare. While combat support and combat service support billets have been filled with private military entities for all know history, the emergence of larger and larger forces of private kinetic and trigger puller entities has gotten larger over time.References:'The last supper': How a 1993 Pentagon dinner reshaped the defense industry...Erik Prince at Hillsdale: "The Future of Dynamic Warfare"Sean McFate Mercenaries and War: Understanding Private Armies TodayThe mercenary boom: How private military contractors are redefining modern warfareInternational Stability Operations AssociationEeben Barlow Executive Outcomes: Against all OddsAl J. Venter War Dog: Fighting Other People's Wars***HR Kedward In Search of the Maquis: Rural Resistance in Southern France, 1942-1944George Millar Maquis: An Englishman in the French ResistanceIan Wellsted SAS with the Maquis: In Action with the French Resistance, June–September 1944Stephen Biddle Nonstate Warfare: The Military Methods of Guerillas, Warlords, and MilitiasAnyone attending the Special Operations Forces Week festivities in Tampa on 5-8 May 2025?If so, we should arrange a rendezvous.My SubstackEmail at [email protected]

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• Ep 014 "The Pause That Refreshes""

  I am taking a brief pause to reassess and re-calibrate the direction of my two podcasts.Take the time to do the same.Despite what you may think, the US conventional forces are in terminal collapse and completely unprepared for 21st century peer conflict.Keep reading, taking care of your family and friends and always question both authority and obedience.References:Sun Tzu The Art of WarCarl von Clausewitz On WarMiyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to StrategyH. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to WarfareChristian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech WarfareQiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy AmericaMy SubstackEmail at [email protected]

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• Ep 013 "End of an Era: The Infantry Folds Its Colors"

  The age of the infantry is over after a thousands-year long reign in human warfare and conflict.The next 75 years in the 21st century will put paid to an august and enduring institution in human conflict.The combination of salvo competition, reduced costs of combat UAS munitions, targeting of exquisite platforms, intelligence/reconnaissance/surveillance (ISR) ubiquity, and anti-fragility/fragility are some of the factors informing this demise.There is no longer near peer competition and there is only peer competition, you will never hear me utter the former phase again. A hybrid of technology and the nature of sensor & effector synchronization has driven cost and opportunity so far down, it is now a rational calculation to destroy individual infantrymen and small units in detail.For the first time in conflict history, the infantry on the battlefield will be targeted in a cost-effective fashion that will annihilate them on any field they step on in any climate at any time on the planet. The difference now is that wholesale elimination of infantry forces is nearly available to every combatant force on Earth.And it will simply become more refined and deadly with time.It's time for some severe self-reflection and reassessment to question the efficacy and utility of the infantry mode of combat. This Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) needs to be faced immediately.This is an existential crisis for combat arms in the West.Tick tock.***Please take the time to listen to my twelve-part series, Fixing Fight Club, here at WarNotes.Despite what you may think, the US conventional forces are in terminal collapse and completely unprepared for 21st century peer conflict.References:The Infantry Rifle and Platoon Squad: The Official U.S. Army Field Manual FM 3-21.8 (FM 7-8), 28 March 2007Ranger Handbook: TC 3-21.76, April 2017 EditionErwin Rommel Infantry AttackSiegfried Sassoon Memoirs of an Infantry OfficerPaul Avallone Tattoo Zoo: A Novel of the Afghan WarKarl Marlantes Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam WarCarl von Clausewitz On WarMiyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to StrategyH. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to WarfareChristian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech WarfareQiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy AmericaMy SubstackEmail at [email protected]

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