This week, A’ndre and Ryan speak with Ambassador Nathan A. Sales, former State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism (2017-2021) and former Special Presidential Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. Ambassador Sales also served as Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights (acting). Ambassador Sales opens the episode by providing a general overview of the state of U.S. Counterterrorism efforts, which is especially insightful given he left office just this past January. Ambassador Sales then spends the majority of the episode discussing the fight against ISIS, outlining how the U.S. and Coalition forces have been successful in recent years against the terror group. Digging deep into how ISIS managed to become so formidable, filling a power vacuum in Iraq and Syria in the early 2010s, Ambassador Sales details the power structure and leadership of ISIS, and how they operated on the ground, before going into how U.S. military strategies were adapted and why they worked to significantly reduce the ground held by ISIS in recent years.
The Burn Bag Podcast