Modern War Institute

This is a sneak peek at the newest podcast series we're launching at the Modern War Institute: the Urban Warfare Project podcast. Each episode will seek to better understand the challenges cities pose to military forces and examine the ways we can better prepare for them. In this first episode, John Spencer, MWI's Chair of Urban Warfare Studies, speaks to Dr. David Kilcullen, an author, strategist, and former Australian Army officer.

PW Singer, co-author of the new book LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media, joins for this episode of the MWI Podcast. He explains how a convergence of advancements in web-enabled connectivity and the ongoing evolution of the character of war have brought us to where we are today, with social media tools becoming powerful weapons, as well as battlefields themselves.

In this episode, MWI's John Amble talks to US Air Force Lt. Col. Jen Snow of USSOCOM's SOFWERX and author and futurist Dr. James Canton. From robotics to AI to autonomy and more, the guests explore what war is most likely to look like in the future—and explain how vital it is for US warfighters to be kept ahead of ever-quickening technological trends.

CJ Chivers, award-winning New York Times journalist and best-selling author, joins for this episode to discuss his new book, The Fighters. In it, Chivers seeks to tell the story of America's post-9/11 wars not from a policy or strategy level, but from the perspective of the junior officers, noncommissioned officers, and soldiers who fought them.

In this episode of the MWI Podcast, Maj. Jake Miraldi talks to Dr. Charles Morgan, a forensic psychologist whose work has helped us better understand the nature of stress and psychological responses to it on the battlefield. Dr. Morgan engages with a range of important questions about neurobiology and the unique stress of combat.

This episode of the MWI Podcast features a conversation with Matt Larsen, known in many corners of the Army as the father of the modern combatives. He explains why he thinks combatives training is so important, but he also talks a lot about the notion of a warrior ethos—what it is and why, as he argues, it’s something that needs to exist throughout the entire Army, not just in infantry or other combat arms units.

In this episode of the MWI Podcast we talk to historian and bestselling author Max Boot. He gives his assessment of the current situation in Syria and Ukraine, warns of the dangers of repeating mistakes the US military made after the Vietnam War, and describes what he sees as fundamental threats to the US-led international order.

In the era of big data, the minds of human analysts are no match for the processing power of computers fed with terabytes of data and armed with powerful algorithms. But MWI Non-Resident Fellow Dr. Nicholas Krohley argues in this episode that, far from obviating the need for those human analysts, the incorporation of more and more data into military and intelligence analysis makes human judgment more important than ever.

In this episode of the Modern War Institute podcast, MWI editorial director John Amble speaks to Dr. James Giordano, the Chief of the Neuroethics Studies Program at Georgetown University and Scholar-in-Residence in the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics. Dr. Giordano discusses the rapid pace of advancement in neuroscience and neurotechnology—and what that advancement means for the future of war.

In this episode of the Modern War Institute podcast, MWI editorial director John Amble speaks to Dr. Russell Glenn, a senior adviser for plans and policy to the deputy chief of staff, G-2, of the Army's Training and Doctrine Command. Dr. Glenn has spent nearly 25 years studying the city as a battlefield. During this conversation, he discusses the challenges it poses and what the US military should be doing to prepare to operate effectively in dense urban in the future.