Angry Planet

From the Silver Legion to the Aryan Nation, the U.S. has had its share of fascist organizations but its never had anything quite like Atomwaffen Division. Grown and organized online, the group has been linked to five murders and a bomb plot in the past eight months. The group is so extreme that even prominent leaders of the Alt-Right have denounced it.This week on War College, journalist Jake Hanrahan takes us through what the group believes, what it wants, and what it might be willing to do to get it.You can listen to War College on iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/war-c…d1023774600?mt=2, Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/jason-fields/war-college, Google Play: play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/…yfrxlbf6e6ec6difm or follow our RSS directly: rss.acast.com/warcollege. You can reach us on our new Facebook page: www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College: twitter.com/War_College.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Civil Defense! From the dawn of World War II and throughout the 1960s, America had a plan to keep its civilians safe and fit to fight in case of invasion or, god forbid, nuclear armageddon. From duck and cover to the aesthetic of the Fallout video games, American popular culture is enmeshed in the history of its Civil Defense. But what, exactly, is Civil Defense. Where did it come from and do we still practice it today?Here to help with this history is Alex Wellerstein. Wellerstein is a historian of science, secrecy, and nuclear weapons. He lectures on this and more at Stevens Institute of Technology. You may know him as the guy who created the nuke map, a website that allows you to simulate the effect of various nuclear weapons on an interactive map.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.

On March 15, a shooter entered two Mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. He killed fifty and injured 50 more. He left behind a bizarre and meme-laden manifesto. In February, authorities arrested a Coast Guard lieutenant who had been stockpiling weapons in anticipation of kicking off a race war. When it comes to terrorism, America’s problems are overwhelmingly white and nationalist. In terms or raw numbers, it’s not even close.With us here today to talk about our collective white nationalism problem is Robert Evans. Evans is a conflict journalist who has reported on the fighting in Ukraine and Mosul, the host of Behind the Bastards—a podcast that explores the origin stories of the worst people in history, and and author of fine articles at Bellingcat where he charts the growth of online fueled right-wing terrorism. It’s the subject of his forthcoming audiobook—The War on Everyone.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.

America is at war across the world, but it’s also at war at home. For decades, violent crime has been at record lows across the country—but that’s slowly changing as cities such as Baltimore, Chicago, and St. Louis see terrifying amounts of murders and gang violence. To make things worse, the way cops do their job in some of these cities looks more like counterinsurgency than it does community policing.Here to help us unpack what’s going on is Patrick Burke, Burke is a freelance journalist who covered the war at home for War Is Boring, Al Jazeera and the Huffington Post  He’s also a former researcher at the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism.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.

We need to talk about Putin. Of all the leaders of state nobody is as maligned, studied, and over-analyzed as Russian President Vladimir Putin. He’s a KGB thug, he’s playing three dimensional chess while everyone else is playing checkers, and he’s turned a state into decline into a global superpower through information warfare. No one is as cunning as Putin.But that’s not quite true. Here to help us dispel myths and set the record straightish is friend of the show Mark Galeotti. Galeotti is an expert on the Russian military, politics, and underworld, the author of many fine books and  an honorary professor at University of College London and a Senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute.He’s got three books coming out this month. One is We Need to Talk About Putin: How the West Gets Him Wrong and another is Russian Political War: Moving Beyond the Hybrid.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.

War is a racket and damn, business is good. When it comes to the global arms trade, no one sells more weapons than the United States of America. The US controls about a third of the nearly 100 billion global arms trade. Its next closest competitor—Russia—doesn’t do even half the business America does. January 2019 was a record year for the defense industry—profits were up across the board. It was the best month for arms sales in a decade.Here to help us understand the war racket is Amanda Macias. Macias is CNBC’s National Security Reporter. She specializes in the business of war. Amanda, thank you so much for joining us.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.

On February 14, a 20-year old man drove a car packed with explosives into a bus full of Indian Central Reserve Police Forces. 40 of the police officers died in the attack. This happened in an Indian controlled portion of Kashmir and India responded by launching an air strike on a village in Pakistan. Things have escalated since then and, as so often happens in modern conflict, gotten confusing and muddied.With us today to help untangle all this is Suchitra Vijayan. Vijayan is a writer, photographer, and lawyer. Her work has appeared in GQ, the Telegraph, and Foreign Policy. As a lawyer she worked for the United States war crimes tribunal for Yugoslavia and Rwanda. As a journalist, she was embedded with NATO-led troops along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and is currently studying the conflict in Kashmir and India’s borderlands.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.

At the end of World War II and deep into the Cold War, the American Military operated a strange building deep in the Hollywood Hills. It was the 1352nd Photographic Group of the United States Air Force, and for two decades it served as a nexus between the Pentagon and Hollywood. Part movie studio, part propaganda machine, and part meeting hall—it attempted to shaped American minds for a generation. And it’s story is largely untold.Here to tell us the story is Kevin Hamilton and Ned O’Gorman. Hamilton and O’Gorman are both professors at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. They’ve worked together on articles and books about the American Military, the Cold War, and the role of images in the US consciousness. Their new book is Lookout America! The Secret Hollywood Studio at the Heart of the Cold WarYou 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.

The Kurds are a people without a country. They occupy large swaths of land in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran but have no central government. Kurdish fighters have been constant allies in America’s fight against ISIS, and Peshmerga troops fighting on behalf of the semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq fought against the militants after they stormed Mosul. Without the help of Kurdish forces in Mosul, Raqqa, and across the Levant, America couldn’t have defeated ISIS so handily. In December, after a conversation with Turkey’s president, President Donald Trump announced U.S. troops would be leaving Syria on grounds that ISIS is defeated.Things have gotten complicated since then.It’s unclear if the withdrawal will actually take place, Turkey thinks the Kurds are terrorists, and the Kurds are caught between regional power in one of the most complicated conflicts in the world. Here to help us sort this out is Mohammed Salih. Mohammed spent years working as a journalist for international media in Kurdistan. He’s currently a doctoral student at University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication.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.

When you hear the word Sparta, there’s an immediate association with war and the military. Of the Greek City States, it’s the one most associated with battle. Spartan men were expected to be warriors and their society was geared almost entirely toward training for war. For generations, military leaders have drawn inspiration from Sparta.Much of the romance around Sparta centers Around the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE, where the Persian Empire crushed a small and ill-equipped collection of elite soldiers. Since then, historians, propagandists, Hollywood, and the American military have turned Sparta’s epic defeat at the gates of fire into a myth of slavery vs freedom, east vs west, and democracy vs despotism. But the thing is … a lot of what hear about the Spartans is bullshit, the truth is more complicated.Here to help us unpack modern day mythos around Sparta is Pauline Kaurin. Kaurin is the Chair of Military Ethics at the US Naval War College and the author of The Warrior, Military Ethics and Contemporary Warfare: Achilles Goes Asymmetrical.Disclaimer: Pauline Kaurin's opinions are her own and do not reflect the opinions or policy of the US Naval War College.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.