Afleveringen
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NATO just wrapped up its 2026 summit in Ankara, Turkey. Over two days of meetings and other events, the leaders of the alliance's thirty-two member states discussed a range of issues and challenges facing the alliance. But what did we actually learn from the summit? In a period that has been marked by intra-alliance friction, were there signs of closing fissures or do divisions remain? And were there indicators of how much progress members have made toward meeting their defense spending commitments? More importantly, how much has boosted spending translated into improvements in defense capabilities? To explore those questions and more, John Amble is joined on this episode by Rachel Rizzo, a senior fellow with the Observer Research Foundationâs Strategic Studies Programme.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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For years of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, US Army forces, along with their joint and coalition counterparts, benefits from a logistics enterprise that ensured every supply need was met. That enterpriseâextending from installations at home, through sea and air lines, and all the way to small units in contactâoperated largely without disruption by enemy forces. A major war with a peer adversary, however, will present a very different scenario, in which logistics activities will be contested across the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war. To discuss the challenges that will entail and explore what can be done now to improve the resilience and reliability of US and allied logistics systems, John Amble is joined on this episode by Ron Ti. A retired Australian Army officer with extensive practical experience, he earned a PhD researching combat logistics on the modern battlefield and is the author of a forthcoming book on the subject.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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In 1973, the US military took an enormously consequential step when it adopted an all-volunteer force model. That decision has produced the most professional, capable joint force in history. But it hasnât come without costsâfrom the large budgets required to maintain it to a shrinking recruitment base that has serious implications for civil-military relations. So what does the all-volunteer forceâs future look like? How much have the strategic, economic, and social conditions that drove the decision to adopt the model changed over the past fifty years? Would it hold up in a modern, large-scale war? And if strategic realities required it, how would a return to some form of conscription work? John Amble is joined on this episode by Jaron Wharton and Keith Carter, coeditors of Bend But Do Not Break: Shaping the Future of the All-Volunteer Force, to explore those questions and more.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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Shortly after taking power in Moscow, Vladimir Putin began consolidating his authority over the Russian intelligence services that had long been deeply embedded in Russian and Soviet politics and a pervasive influence in society. The degree to which he succeeded was striking, ultimately transforming them into organizational assets that remained effective at what they did but were entirely loyal to him. This episode features a discussion with former CIA senior operations officer Sean Wiswesser. The author of Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks: Russian Intelligence and Putinâs Secret War, he shares his insights on Russian intelligence servicesâ role in pursuing Moscowâs objectives around the worldâfrom the war in Ukraine to influence operations in Africa and the Middle East to information campaigns intended to subvert Western democracies.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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For more than a week, the United States and Israel have struck a wide range of targets in Iran with air and missile strikes. Iranâs response has included missile and drone attacks against targets in neighboring states in the Middle Eastâboth US military and diplomatic facilities and public sites including Dubaiâs airport. What weapons, on both sides of the conflict, have defined the conflict so far? To explore that question, John Amble is joined on this special bonus episode by Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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What were the strategic calculations that drove the United States and Israel to launch a military operation aimed at a wide range of targets in Iran? And are the fundamental objectives of the two partners fully aligned?
Inside Iran, as the regime's resilience and the military's capability are under more pressure than they have been in decades, how are institutions responding? What drove the decision to respond with drone and missile strikes throughout the region?
How are the Gulf states positioning themselves as they have defended against Russian attacks? What role has the Gulf Cooperating Council played? What outcomes might emerge from the conflict and how are Iran's neighbors working to influence those outcomes?
These questions offer insights into the strategic dimension of the ongoing US-Israeli operation against Iran. To examine them, John Amble is joined on this episode by three guests who share their insights on the strategic perspectives of the United States, Israel, Iran, and the Gulf states.
Jonathan Panikoff is the director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council and formerly served as the deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East at the National Intelligence Council. Sydney Laite is a former senior intelligence analyst who spent years focused on Iranian strategic decision-making. And Rory Miller is a professor of international politics at Georgetown University in Qatar, where he is the director of the Small States Research Program.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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The United States has a new National Defense Strategy. Released about every four years, the document offers a window into the way senior defense officials view the global threat environment and identify US defense objectives. But how will the new strategy be interpreted by allies and partners? What about adversaries and competitors? And does formally delineating US priorities offer a degree of predictability on a contemporary strategic landscape characterized by growing instability and a fraying world order?
To examine the strategy, John Amble is joined on this episode by Frank Hoffman, Mark Cancian, and Pat Sullivan.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
Articles referenced during the episode:
"The 2026 National Defense Strategy by the Numbers: Radical Changes, Moderate Changes, and Some Continuities" (CSIS)
"Key Takeaways from the New National Defense Strategy" (WOTR)
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Examined exclusively as a military operation, the US raid that captured Venezuelan President NicolĂĄs Maduro was a stunning success. In the course of just a few hours, the force package launched, accomplished its objective, and returned to base. But before that could happen, planning and rehearsals that likely took place for months set the stage for the missionâs brief execution. To share their perspectives on the operation, John Amble is joined on this episode by Liam Collins, a retired US Army colonel who spent much of his career in special operations units, and Jimmy Blackmon, also a retired colonel and a former helicopter pilot. Both guests have taken part in numerous missions targeting key combatant leaders in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and they share their experiences and their insights on the recent operation in Venezuela.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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Both training and education have always been key elements of the US Armyâs readiness. But as new battlefield challenges arise and new technologies emerge, the character of warfare is changingâand itâs changing faster than ever. Keeping up with those changesâand keeping ahead of adversaries we might fightâmeans that we have to get training and education right. The Armyâs success in tomorrowâs wars will hinge on what we do in classrooms and on training grounds today. To explore that challenge, John Amble is joined by a guest who brings unique perspectives on both education and training to the discussion. Colonel Ethan Diven is the provost of Army University and deputy commandant of the Army Command and General Staff College, and before taking those roles he served as the commander of the operations group at the National Training Center.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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Late on the night of September 9, twenty-one medium-sized, fixed-wing drones entered Polandâs airspace. Several were shot down, while others crashed, some deep inside Polish territory. Later that month, a series of drone sightings were reported around airports and military installations in Denmark, even forcing a brief suspension of flights. Beyond suspicion of Russian involvement and the fact that both of these countries are NATO member states, the two incidents share little in common. But together, they offer a sense of the range of ways in which drones can pose threats. To explore those threatsâand the challenge of developing systems than can both secure sovereign airspace to protect maneuver formations on the battlefieldâJohn Amble is joined on this episode by Dr. Stacie Pettyjohn, a senior fellow and director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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Almost since the very beginning the war in Ukraine triggered by Russiaâs invasion in February 2022, the conflict took on characteristics of a technological arms race, with each side seeking to innovate to gain a battlefield advantage. As the war has continued, that contest for advantage has taken place on an increasingly rapid scale. The rollout of a drone optimized for a new mission, the development of a new tactic, an advance in electronic warfareâeach of these has produced a shorter and shorter window of advantage until the other side counters it with its own innovation. In this episode, John Amble is joined by Sam Bendett, an adviser and member of the Russia Studies Program at CNA and a close observer of the way Ukraine and Russia are leveraging technological innovation in the war.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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The United States is engaged in a strategic competition with China. On issues ranging from Taiwan's security to the question of which country will most shape the geopolitical order in the years and decades to come, Washington seeks to secure its objectives, promote its interests, and deter Chinese aggression. But what are China's core objectives? And more fundamentally, how does Beijing conceptualize the US-China strategic rivalry? To explore those questions, John Amble is joined on this episode by Ali Wyne, the senior research and advocacy advisor for US-China relations at the International Crisis Group and author of the 2022 book America's Great-Power Opportunity: Revitalizing U.S. Foreign Policy to Meet the Challenges of Strategic Competition.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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The US Army is in a period of transformation. And much of that transformation centers on technologyâfrom artificial intelligence and robotics to drones and directed-energy weapons. But leaning forward technologically brings both advantages and new challenges. To explore the way the Army is approaching those challenges and pursuing technology-driven battlefield advantage, John Amble is joined on this episode by Dr. Alex Miller, senior science and technology advisor and chief technology officer to the chief of staff of the Army. He describes the ways small-unit experimentation is driving change from the tactical edge, how senior leaders are rethinking the systems and processes through which the Army acquires new technology, and some of the specific military problems for which the Army is actively pursuing technology-enabled solutions.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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The US government established the National Defense Stockpile in 1939 to ensure that in the event of a major conflict, there would be enough raw materials on hand to continue production of vital equipment. Since the end of the Cold War, it has steadily shrunk, now just a tiny fraction of its peak size. Moreover, while its original purpose was stockpiling materials like steel and rubber, US military systems are now dependent on a wider range of both raw materials and finished productsâlike rare earth minerals and the magnets that require them. And the supply chains for these items are, in some cases, controlled heavily by China. What should US policymakers do to reduce this vulnerability? Thatâs the subject of this episode, featuring a discussion with Dr. Morgan Bazilian, director of the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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When the United States conducted Operation Midnight Hammer, a series of strikes against Iranian nuclear targets, it did so with two key pieces of exquisite hardware: the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator and the B-2 Spirit strategic bomber. But how does the GBU-57 actually work? And whatâs it like to fly this type of long-range bomber mission in a B-2? To examine those questions, John Amble is joined on this episode by Air Force Universityâs Dr. Melvin Deaile, a retired Air Force colonel and strategic bomber pilot with operational combat experience in the B-2.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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The defense industrial base is a critical component of US military readiness. But how should we conceptualize it in the information age, when it isn't just physical materiel like weapons, vehicles, and ammunition that are vital, but also data and software? How have globalization and the consequent emergence of long, complex supply chains extending around the world changed the way defense planning should be conducted? And at its best, what features would define a defense industrial base that is optimized for a potential large-scale, protracted conflict? This episode explores those questions and more. It features a discussion with Becca Wasser, deputy director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security and coauthor of a recent report, "From Production Lines to Front Lines: Revitalizing the U.S. Defense Industrial Base for Future Great Power Conflict."
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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When Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, it galvanized both NATO and the European Union, doing more to unify much of Europe than any event in recent history. But how has political and strategic unity translated to improvements of collective European defense and deterrence? Amid uncertainty about continued US support for Ukraine, which European states are stepping into leadership roles? And most broadly, after three and a half years of war, how much has the European security landscape changed? To explore those questions and more, John Amble is joined on this episode of the MWI Podcast by Ed Arnold, a senior research fellow for European Security at the Royal United Services Institute.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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For more than three years, journalists, researchers, and military professionals have sought to describe the key dynamics of the war in Ukraine and determine what they tell us about the future of warfare. One of the sharpest observers has been retired Australian Army Major General Mick Ryan. He joins this episode to share some of his thoughts about the ongoing warâand what it indicates about the changing character of warfare. He also explores the ways that lessons from Ukraine should be translated and inform our understanding of the very different strategic landscape and operational environment of the Indo-Pacific region.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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National security professionals often conceptualize a continuum of conflict as a framework to understand the wide variety of ways in which conflict can manifest itself. It extends from relative peace on one end, terrorism and low-intensity conflict, up through large-scale combat, all the way to strategic rivalry in which nuclear weapons even come into the picture. But what if that cognitive framework no long holds? In a recent article published by Foreign Affairs, Dr. Mara Karlin explored that question. A professor of practice at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and a former assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and capabilities, she shares insights gleaned from ongoing wars, from Ukraine to the Middle East, and argues that warfare is increasingly defined by a mix of characteristics from across the continuum of conflict.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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When the Chinese company DeepSeek recently released an artificial intelligence model called R1, its surprisingly advanced capability and the efficiency with which DeepSeek claimed to have trained the model sparked a wave of discussion about how rapidly Chinese AI development was progressing. But how is the competition to achieve superior AI technologies between China and the United States shaping up? And, given that the governments of both countries envision important military applications of AI, what implications does this have for the broader US-China strategic competition? To explore these questions and more, John Amble is joined by Bill Hannas, lead analyst at Georgetown Universityâs Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), and Sam Bresnick, a CSET research fellow.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
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