Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast

Excursions will be a new addition to the CG universe to cover adjacent conflict issues to the irregular warfare fight.In the future near-peer and peer fight, salvo competition will be the preeminent means by which one country will kinetically overwhelm the other in a fight. I discuss the way the West is in an existential hazard of being woefully under-prepared to meet the threat if Western forces go toe toe with regional hegemons in the East or West.The Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of AgeReferences:Nassim Taleb Antifragile: Things That Gain from DisorderMark 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 Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.

The emerging anti-fragile forces of indigenous irregular warfare forces in concert or independent of near-peer and peer competitors challenging US and western global hegemony are on the march and will in the end succeed.References:David Maxwell Counter-Unconventional Warfare (2014)Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of WarAnn Scott Tyson American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim GrantH. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to WarfareMark Bowden Blackhawk Down: A Story of Modern WarBob Scales Scales on War: The Future of America’s Military at RiskAaron B. O’Connell Our Latest Longest War: Losing Hearts and MindsHy S. Rothstein Afghanistan and the Troubled Future of Unconventional WarfareRobert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In HistorySpecial Forces Detachment Mission Planning Guide HQDA January 2020My Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.

In this episode, I will be a heretic to the current military establishment in America and the west. They can't do unconventional warfare and I must be very specific in the conditional problem I propose: the western military has no capability to conduct long term partisan warfare in concert with indigenous forces fighting an insurgency in a non-permissive environment. It doesn't have the language skills, cultural IQ, sophisticated intelligence/communications infrastructure to support stay-behind missions, isolated stand-in force capability (nor does the USMC for FD2030 fantasies) comprehensive bushcraft and primitive skills for long loiter missions nor a fighting force that is capable of living in third world conditions for years (rotational longevity) at a time.This is Part One of a two part series in which we will discuss the converse capabilities conundrum in counter UW for the west in Part Two published o/a 26 December 2023.References:David Maxwell Counter-Unconventional Warfare (2014)Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of WarAnn Scott Tyson American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim GrantH. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to WarfareMark Bowden Blackhawk Down: A Story of Modern WarBob Scales Scales on War: The Future of America’s Military at RiskAaron B. O’Connell Our Latest Longest War: Losing Hearts and MindsHy S. Rothstein Afghanistan and the Troubled Future of Unconventional WarfareRobert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In HistorySpecial Forces Detachment Mission Planning Guide HQDA January 2020My Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.

Here we do a deep dive in US Army Special Forces (SF) and why a complete overhaul is needed to resurrect the original charter to save SF from itself. Over two decades of fighting neo-colonial conflicts throughout the Middle East and Africa has decimated the original construct and mission of what made SF so special.References:Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of WarAnn Scott Tyson American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim GrantH. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to WarfareMark Bowden Blackhawk Down: A Story of Modern WarBob Scales Scales on War: The Future of America’s Military at RiskAaron B. O’Connell Our Latest Longest War: Losing Hearts and MindsHy S. Rothstein Afghanistan and the Troubled Future of Unconventional WarfareRobert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In HistorySpecial Forces Detachment Mission Planning Guide HQDA January 2020My Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.

Today, I'll do a deep dive into the US Army vanilla SOF organziations and get acquainted with the capabilities and opportunities for US Army special operations.My Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.

A brief introduction to the Department of Defense activities in special operations. I will not be discussing the dark organizations and specifically address the "vanilla" SOF in all the services.References:Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of WarAnn Scott Tyson American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim GrantH. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to WarfareMark Bowden Blackhawk Down: A Story of Modern WarBob Scales Scales on War: The Future of America’s Military at RiskAaron B. O’Connell Our Latest Longest War: Losing Hearts and MindsHy S. Rothstein Afghanistan and the Troubled Future of Unconventional WarfareRobert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In HistorySpecial Forces Detachment Mission Planning Guide HQDA January 2020My Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.

We discuss the Israeli emergency in its latest iteration in the horrific attacks by Hamas into Israel in October 2023 and the simmering conflict bands that emerging globally in which this is another explosion in the global conflict rift. For those who thought the podcast died, its death has been greatly exaggerated. My move to FL from AZ is now complete and many apologies for the disturbance of my fortnightly podcast episode rhythm by being late two weeks with a new episode.The podcast studio took some time to resurrect but here we are.I said Pat Keller in the the podcast, it is Bob Keller; apologies Bob, senior moment.References:David Fromkin A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle EastJonathan Schneer The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli ConflictKenneth Pollack Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military EffectivenessDarryl Cooper & MartyrMade Fear & Loathing in the New Jerusalem [podcast]My Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.

Every war has a seminal novel, a book that really resonates with generation that wrote it and the following generations from the Iliad to Gore Vidal's historical fiction to The Centurions by Jean Larteguy to From Here to Eternity by James Jones to this one.References:Paul Avallone Tattoo Zoo: A Novel of the Afghan WarJean Larteguy The CenturionsAnton Myrer Once an EagleMy Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.

In the one year anniversary episode (!), we chat about the use of thin-skinned vehicles in the modern age and the asymmetric nature of the fight. The employment of commercially produced vehicles for conduct of raids and ambushes employing a wide array of weapons medium- to heavy-machine guns to mortars to ATGMs and everything in between. Please note that Toyota outside of Japan does not produce these for purpose-built military employment. And to my fellow CruiserHeads, I salute you.References:Leigh Neville Technicals: Non-Standard Tactical Vehicles from the Great Toyota War to modern Special ForcesAlaric Searle & Ed Nash Kurdish Armour Against ISIS: YPG/SDF tanks, technicals and AFVs in the Syrian Civil War, 2014–19My Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.

I take the time to discuss some of the conventional ramifications of modern warfare and book recommendations that have given me a deeper and more nuanced understanding of why wars begin and end as they do.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 Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.