Angry Planet

Does it feel like there’s just too much information out there and you can’t get a handle on it? Do you have trouble parsing the lies from the truth? Do you know all the places America is at war? Can we even technically call them wars? Are your Twitter followers even real or are they just bots? Are Antifa and the Proud Boys rumbling in the streets a natural extension of electoral politics or just street theater organized online? What if it’s both? Are you tired ALL THE TIME, like me?The answers, or kind of answers, to these questions and more at the heart of the new book This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality. Its author is Peter Pomerantsev, a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Global Affairs at the London School of Economics, and a former Russian TV producer.You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fascism. It’s back and it’s….Ironic?From Hungary to Brazil to the United States of America, facism—yes, fascism—is back in a big way. When our grandfathers beat back the Nazis in World War II, we assumed we’d beaten the ideology into dust. The problem is that fascism isn’t so much a coherent set of beliefs as it is a mutation, perversion, and reaction to the politics of the moment. The truth is, fascism is as American as apple pie and it’s been lingering in the wings for years.Here with us today to talk about the neo-fascist movement and its rise to current prominence is Robert Evans. Evans works with Bellingcat and is the host of the Behind the Bastards Podcast and has just published a free audiobook, The War On Everyone, that charts the rise of America’s fascists.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you like independent journalism? Do you like learning about conflict from the best in the business. Well Jake Hanrahan is one of the best in the business and he’s the mind behind Popular Front—a podcast, a website, a documentary series, and a home to independent journalism. Popular Front goes places other journalists don’t go and asks questions other journalist don’t ask.Jake Hanrahan is here with us today to tell us about his recent trip to Rojava, and a new campaign he’s launched on Indiegogo to raise money to keep reporting from the frontlines. If you like this conversation with Jake, you have to check out his podcast Popular Front. He’s also got a great new mini-doc where he goes on patrol in Raqqa and sees what it takes to guard against Islamic State sleeper cells. That’s on youtube.com/popularfrontIf you can, I urge you to go to popularfront.co/10k and donate what you can. You can also pledge monthly support at Patreon.com/popularfrontYou can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After a year of protests, Standing Rock began to die down in late winter this year. But to one observer, the standoff stood out for how much it resembled a war zone.Marty Skovlund Jr. is a U.S. Army veteran who served in the 1st Ranger Battalion. He served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Since coming home he’s run a small business, written books and freelanced for several news outlets. In December, he chronicled the final days of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, where state and local police milled with private military contractors and some of the remaining protesters set structures on fire.This week on War College, Skovlund Jr. walks us through the end of one of the largest protracted protests in American history. According to Skovlund, the scene reminded him of forward operating bases in Iraq. In the end, he thinks the police changed the paradigm for how to deal with peaceful protests and, to this day, he can’t believe that no one died.You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nuclear war. These days it feels like we’re closer to Global Thermonuclear Annihilation than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists—an organization of experts that calculates humanity’s odd of Armageddon—seems to agree. The Doomsday Clock is set at two midnight to midnight. It’s easy to see why. On August 2, the US pulled out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, North Korea continues to test ballistic missiles, Russia keeps talking about all its fancy new nuclear weapons, and Democratic presidential candidates are on stage talking about America’s lack of a “no first use” policy. Here to help us figure out how doomed we are is John Carl Baker.Baker is the Nuclear Field Coordinator and Senior Program Officer at Ploughshares Fund. His work has appeared in The New Republic and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Libya. Dictator Muammar Gaddafi ruled the country from 1969 to 2011. The Arab Spring led to a Civil War and the deposition and death of Gadaffi in 2011. The country never quite recovered and remains in the throws of a violent Civil War. One most of us in the West, myself included, have not paid much attention to.Someone who did pay attention is today’s guest Robert Young Pelton. Pelton is an author and documentarian with extensive experience covering conflicts. He’s just back from Libya.You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on War College, producer Kevin Knodell is back from his trip to the Middle East and he’s got stories. He shares his experiences climbing a mountain in Kurdistan, eating at KFCs that are better than the ones in America, and talks about the future of the region.You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thinking about geopolitics is all about picking the right metaphor. After World War II, America’s elite conceived of a world engaged in a Cold War, where the United States and Soviet Union played a game of spies and skirmishes to spread political ideology across the planet. In the 19th century, the British and Russian Empires engaged in the Great Game, a political and diplomatic game of shadows that played out in Afghanistan and its neighboring territories. The problem with metaphors is that the map is not the territory. The menu is not the meal and if you get caught up in a great power competition, it can be hard to see the world any other way.Here to help us sort through this, and try to figure out what metaphors best fit our troubled times, is Ali Wyne. Wyne is a policy analyst at RAND, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center on International Security, and a nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute. His work, especially on this topic, has appeared in The National Interest.You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Adolf Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess, was obsessed with the occult. He attempted to read minds and used astrological star charts to inform his battle plans. On the allied side, English magician Aleister Crowley kept in contact with German occultists, fed them false information, and even created the V for Victory.Today on War College, we sit down with media theorist, documentarian and author Douglas Rushkoff to talk about the bizarre occult history of World War II and how it affected strategic decisions during the war.His latest book – Aleister & Adolf – is a historical fiction that tells the story of a strange ‘magickal’ battle between the Allies and Axis powers during World War II. It spans the globe, and connects Crowley, Hitler, General Patton, Heinrich Himmler and even Ian Fleming – the creator of super spy James Bond.You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Misinformation. Grainy and low resolution images from government sources. Signals intelligence. Satellite imagery. Photographs and social media posts from those nearby. Online databases of vast and public knowledge. These, and more, are the tools by which Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat suss out truth in a complicated world.On June 13, something attacked two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. The United States blamed Iran, producing footage it claimed linked Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to the incident. Iran denied responsibility and people aboard the tanker say the story the US is telling doesn’t add up.So is this a clever sleight of hand from Iran, a Gulf of Tonkin style operation meant to draw the US into war, or something else entirely. Here to help us figure that out, and more importantly how he came to the conclusion, is Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat.You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.