Angry Planet

From Roadside Picnic to Fallout, the stories a culture tells about can tell you a lot about the culture. On this bonus episode of War College, Matthew and Jake Hanrahan of the Popular Front podcast sit down to puzzle out what’s going on these days with nuclear culture.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.

From 1971 to 1972, the FBI reported more than 2,500 bombings in America. That’s five explosions a day, and most were tied to radical underground political movements. Political violence is on the rise in the US but many of its perpetrators are disorganized loners, attached to fringe movements that foment online but rarely follow through. In the 1970s and into the 1980s, dozens of violent political groups agitated for change and attempted the violent overthrow of the government.Today’s political violence is scary and terrible, but it’s a far cry from the explosive 1970s. Here to help us understand it is Bryan Burrough, author of Barbarians at the Gate, Public Enemies and Days of Rage: America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence.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 all over the planet and the American public doesn’t seem to care. Since the end of the Cold War, Americans have largely checked out of foreign policy concerns. Today on War College, American foreign policy analyst Stephen M. Walt walks us through how we got here, and how to fix it.Walt’s new book is The Hell of Good Intentions: America's Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The life of a combat medic is hard. When you’re a combat medic in Afghanistan, it’s hard and surreal. This week on War College former U.S. Army medic walks us through what it’s like to save lives in Afghanistan and how he, and his squad, avoided self destruction, the Taliban, and America’s own Special Forces.It’s all captured in Dulak’s new comic book memoir Machete Squad.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why do soldiers fight? Maybe it’s patriotism. Maybe it’s comradeship. Maybe it’s fear of their own side.Or maybe it’s the drugs.For as long as there have been people, there have been people trying to get high. It’s no different in warfare. Fighters have used drugs to make themselves bloodier, stronger, more able to go without sleep. Lukasz Kamienski, author of "Shooting Up: A Short History of Drugs and War," joins us.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Taylor Swift and Islamic State are in a battle for our hearts, minds and eyeballs. Russia wants your vote, or for you not to vote at all. And if you think the amount of false information out there online is dangerous now, just wait. Artificial intelligence is about to make fake news virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.Peter W. Singer, author of the new book "LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media," takes us beyond the troll farms and into some even creepier territory.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More than 2,400 years ago, Thucydides of Athens wrote about his city's war with Sparta. Today, that book is still read at military academies all over the world.Why?That's what we asked Dr. Cliff Rogers of West Point.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Xi Jinping’s China tends to look at itself as a historical victim, an underdog fighting to roll back indignities of the past and prove its strength. Author and journalist Paul French has been chronicling China’s rise since the 1980s, but has also focused on understanding the development of the country since the Opium Wars of the 19th century.In this episode, French offers his view of how China’s past is informing its aggressive foreign policy now.You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. You can reach us on our new 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.

Qanon is a conspiracy theory that supposes President Donald Trump is at war with an ancient pedophile cult. When Qanon believers began to show up at Trump rallies, the mainstream media took notice. In early August, BuzzFeed published an article that theorized the whole thing was an elaborate prank by leftists activists. Their evidence was a 1999 book about religious rebellions during the 16th century. It’s title? Q.Wu Ming 1, one of the authors of that book joins us today to talk about Q, Qanon, and the importance of conspiracy theories in modern life.Take our listener survey!https://podcastsurvey.typeform.com/to/C5LsSOSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The man behind defunct mercenary provider Blackwater sees private air power as the key to winning the war in Afghanistan. A new report links Erik Prince to efforts to buy or build private gunships - the kind of weapon only the United States and a few other countries have at their disposal.David Axe, who writes for the Daily Beast, joins us to discuss the results of his investigation.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.