The Strategy Bridge

Dr. John McManus returns to the Strategy Bridge Podcast to talk about the final book in his trilogy on the U.S. Army in the Pacific War, “To the End of the Earth: The US Army and the Downfall of Japan, 1945.” McManus is the Curator's Distinguished Professor of US military history at the Missouri University of Science and Technology.   

Sebastian Bae joins the Strategy Bridge Podcast to talk about wargaming education and design and his new game “Littoral Commander: Indo-Pacific.” Bae is the editor of the book “Forging Wargamers: A Framework for Professional Military Education.” He works as a research analyst and game designer in the defense industry and serves as an adjunct assistant professor at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University, where he teaches a graduate course on designing educational wargames.  

During the Vietnam War, a joint Army and Navy unit known as the Mobile Riverine Force (MRF) was established to operate in the maritime environment of the Mekong Delta. In the episode we talk about the Mobile Riverine Force with Erik Villard, the digital military historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History and a historian of the Vietnam War. Villard is the author of “Combat Operations: Staying the Course, October 1967 to September 1968.”

National Park Service Ranger Troy Harman joins the Strategy Bridge Podcast to talk about the role of the location of water, roads, and rail in the decision making during the Gettysburg campaign. We also talk about how symbolism built into the design of the park shapes views of the battle. Harman has served as a ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park since 1989 and he is the author of “All Roads Led to Gettysburg: A New Look at the Civil War’s Pivotal Campaign.”  

Elizabeth Samet joins the Strategy Bridge Podcast to talk about the mythology surrounding World War II, the literature and film that emerged following the war, and the mythology’s effect on our beliefs about the use of American military force. Samet is the author of “Looking for the Good War: American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness” and a professor of English at West Point.

In this insightful discussion, Trent Hone, an award-winning naval historian and author, sheds light on Admiral Chester Nimitz's strategic leadership during the Pacific War. He explores how Nimitz reorganized his staff as the war evolved and navigated complex relationships with the Army and the British Pacific Fleet. The conversation delves into the importance of open dialogue in command, critical leadership dynamics post-Pearl Harbor, and the innovative tactics he championed, illustrating how adaptive leadership was essential in overcoming wartime challenges.

In this episode of the Strategy Bridge Podcast we talk with Matt Kriner and Jon Lewis about the history, ideology, and organization of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Matt Kriner is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at Middlebury Institue of International Studies. He is an intelligence analyst with almost a decade of experience researching and analyzing US domestic violent extremism, transnational far-right extremism, and radicalization.  Jon Lewis is a Research Fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, where he studies domestic violent extremism and homegrown violent extremism, with a specialization in the evolution of white supremacist and anti-government movements in the United States and federal responses to the threat.  They are the authors of the articles “Pride & Prejudice: The Violent Evolution of the Proud Boys” and “The Oath Keepers and their Role in the January 6 Insurrection,” published in the Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point’s CTC Sentinel.

In this episode of the Strategy Bridge Podcast, we talk with Ali Wyne about the concept of great-power competition and what it means for American foreign policy. Wyne is a senior analyst at the Eurasia Group and is the author of “America’s Great-Power Opportunity: Revitalizing U.S. Foreign Policy to Meet the Challenges of Strategic Competition.”

In this episode of the Strategy Bridge Podcast, we talk with Matthew Kruer about the Susquehannock wars of the 1670s and 1680s in the mid-Atlantic and Bacon’s Rebellion in colonial Virginia. Kruer is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Chicago and author of “Time of Anarchy: Indigenous Power and the Crisis of Colonialism in Early America.” 

In this episode of the Strategy Bridge Podcast, Dr. John McManus returns to talk about “Island Infernos: The U.S. Army’s Pacific War Odyssey, 1944” the second book in his series on the Army in the Pacific during World War Two. McManus is the Curators’ Distinguished Professor of U.S. Military History at the Missouri University of Science and Technology.