Angry Planet

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com/We used to build things in America, things like fallout shelters. There’s a luxury hotel on the border between Virginia and West Virginia that’s been a favorite retreat of the D.C. elite for generations. After the fall of the atom bombs in World War II, Washington commissioned an addition to the hotel: a secret fallout shelter that would house Congress in the event of a nuclear war.Matt Farwell of The Hunt for Tom Clancy is here to tell that story and others from the golden age of Atomic America. There was a time when Las Vegas casinos sold tickets to watch nuclear tests. It was an era when the concrete flowed like water and America built bunkers under a hotel and a military base in the heart of a mountain.We might even talk about Nazis and aliens. It’s a wild one. Join us.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sign up at angryplanetpod.com to get instant access to the full episode.A direct link to the episode on Substack.Back in 2020, Daniel Perry was driving for Uber to make ends meet. He ran a red light and dove his car into a crowd at a Black Lives Matter protest. Garret Foster was there to protect the crowd and he’d brought an AK-47 along to do it. Foster, an Air Force veteran, approached Perry’s car. Perry, an Army sergeant, pulled out a pistol and killed Foster from the car and drove away.After a trial and a deep dive into Perry’s online history, a jury of his peers found him guilty of murder. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott pardoned him. Why? Perry had become a symbol that transcended justice.Christopher Hooks is here to walk us through the particulars of the case. Hooks is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and The Atlantic. He’s been writing about the Perry case and its consequences for Texas Monthly. Hooks tells us exactly what happened in 2020, when Perry committed the murder, and walks us through the colorful cast of Texas politicians who may soon take the national stage.Why Did Greg Abbott Pardon a Racist Murderer?Ken Paxton Takes ManhattanWhat Azerbaijan Wants From Texas PoliticiansD.A. Seeks to Overturn Texas Governor’s Pardon of Man Who Killed ProtesterSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com/No one is really sure how many nuclear weapons are out there. Every number you see is a best guess. Russia and the U.S. have the most, sitting at around 5,000 each. France has just under 200, China has about 500 (and is probably building more), and North Korea has around 50. The world’s nuclear powers love to keep the details of these weapons secret, but not too secret. It’s a complex game of signaling and secrets, one that can be difficult to parse from the outside.Matt Korda of the Federation of American Scientists is here today to walk us through the world’s nuclear powers and the wannabes. Over at the FAS, Korda spends his days looking at high resolution satellite photos of Chinese deserts, pouring over footage of Russian military drills, and reading every line of Pentagon budgets. All that information is mixed together to produce the Nuclear Notebook: a constantly updated inventory of world ending weapons. The Nuclear NotebookNuclear Threats Are Looming, And Nobody Knows How Many Nukes Are Out ThereSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sign up at angryplanetpod.com to get instant access to the full episode.A direct link to the episode on Substack.American politics was bizarre in 2016. Alt-right figures dominated many news cycles and shared pictures of cartoon frogs online. A lot of those personalities, like Baked Alaska and Richard Spencer, flamed out and vanished from the scene. But there’s always money to be made and political power to be gained by playing to people’s base fears and a new brand of online far right weirdo has risen to take their places.On this episode of Angry Planet we check in on the so-called “New Right” with investigative journalist Jason Wilson. Wilson has chronicled far-right movements for years and recently exposed some of their thought leaders in The Guardian. If you want to learn why some people care about the “longhouse” or the importance of online anonymity when spreading weird ideas online, then this is the episode for you. Revealed: US university lecturer behind far-right Twitter account and publishing houseRevealed: the extremist Maga lobbying group driving far-right Republican policiesAt least 66 members of far-right group in rural Oregon standing for officeRevealed: how a US far-right group is influencing anti-gay policies in AfricaSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

International criminal organizations are more concerned about message security than the average citizen. The end-to-end encryption of WhatsApp or Signal is great, but drug traffickers are looking for a little extra. Enter services like Anom, EncroChat, Sky, and Phantom Secure— discrete messaging services that charged big bucks and promised criminals a chat experience free from the prying eyes of law enforcement. But the cops always find a way. And one of those services was actually purpose built by the FBI to act as a spying tool on the world’s criminals.In Dark Wire, investigative journalist Joseph Cox tells the story of how the FBI built and maintained a phone service just for criminals. He’s on Angry Plant today to tell us all about it.Buy DARK WIRE here.You could have heard an early, and commercial free, version of this episode. Sign up for the Angry Planet newsletter to get started.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A lot goes into keeping a navy afloat. There’s ship husbanding, maintenance, and buckets of haze gray. The U.S. used to be good at this, but it hasn’t been on an active war-footing for a long time and the manufacturing base that created its massive navy has seen better days. So what happens if there’s a war and America doesn’t have enough welders, let alone drydocks, to build out its fleets?Gil Barndollar is a senior analyst at Defense Priorities and the co-author of a recent piece in Foreign Policy about America’s inability to build new ships. Barndollar sounds the alarm on a number of different issues facing the U.S. military: the recruitment crisis, manufacturing issues, and sailors pushed to the limits of their physical abilities.We might even talk about arming container ships with missile batteries to augment existing forces.The U.S. Navy Can’t Build ShipsConverting Merchant Ships to Missile Ships for the WinSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sign up at angryplanetpod.com to get instant access to the full episode.A direct link to the episode on Substack.The big picture in Europe doesn’t look good. Russia is moving to encircle key cities in Ukraine and is shaking its nuclear saber at the West. Ukraine’s nearest neighbors are, understandably, concerned about Moscow’s aggression and militarizing at an alarming rate. This summer, NATO will conduct Operation Steadfast Defender, a military exercise the Pentagon said is the largest since the Cold War. To Moscow, an enormous military exercise on its border could seem a tad aggressive.Add to this Russia’s recent nuclear rhetoric and missile exercise and the geopolitical situation is looking a bit tense. On this episode of Angry Planet, Aram Shabanian stops by to talk us through the troubling signs he’s seeing about a brewing conflict between Russia and NATO. Shabanian is the Open-Source Information Gathering Manager at the New Lines Institute. We also get into what happens when you mix Coke and Pepsi, how Reagan navigated a similar situation, and when it’s OK for everyone to stop worrying about the bomb. (Never.)Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Americans love shrimp. They love it so much they don’t think too hard about where it comes from—or the virtual slaves who are farming them. Joshua Farinella doesn’t have that luxury.A few years ago, Farinella took a job working for a shrimp production company in India. The money they were paying would set his family up for a long time to come, but what he saw when he landed in the country made him realize the cash wasn’t worth it. He chose to blow the whistle.On this episode of Angry Planet, Farinella sits down with us to talk about what he saw in the shrimp factory. It all starts one fateful night when he receives a WhatsApp message telling him that one of the plant’s workers was caught in the place’s water treatment facility. “She was searching for a way out of there,” the message said. “Her contractor is not allowing her to go home.”After Farinella decided to blow the whistle, he began to document what he saw at the plant. Video, audio, and documents he secured can be viewed at The Outlaw Ocean Project. Read The Whistleblower at The Outlaw Ocean ProjectRead through the documents.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sign up at angryplanetpod.com to get instant access to the full episode.A direct link to the episode on Substack.In Russia there’s a revolving door between prisons and the frontlines. What began as a Wanger program is now official: the Kremlin will pardon nearly any crime if the convict agrees to serve on the front lines in Ukraine. After a six month stint at war, murderers and rapists are free to return to the scene of the crime. Some come home to kill again.On this episode of Angry Planet, New York Times journalist Milana Mazaeva is here to talk about what happens to Russian communities when criminals return to them after going to war. The first half of the conversation covers the articles and details harrowing stories of Russian murderers who became soldiers who became murderers again. The latter half of the episode is about how hard it is to report from Russia right now, the incredible games of telephone Mazaeva plays to get the stories she does, and what’s lost when you can’t visit the place you’re reporting on.Pardoned for Serving in Ukraine, They Return to Russia to Kill AgainSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Luke Paxton and Han Lee know a good cause when they see one. When Russia invades Ukraine in 2022, the American vets know what they need to do. Their time in Afghanistan has given them the skills to help fight a war and the moral clarity needed to know when a cause is just.But are they going to fight in Ukraine for the right reason? Do Ukrainians want them there? And does either matter when bombs are dropping all over the country?On this episode of Angry Planet, author Matt Gallagher returns to the podcast to talk about his novel Daybreak. It’s the story of Paxton and Lee as they travel to Ukraine to fight. It’s a work of fiction that strikes at deeper emotional truths about the conflict. It’s also pieced together from Gallagher’s own experiences in Ukraine, some of which wouldn’t fit neatly into a work of journalistic non-fiction.What fiction can do that non-fiction can’t.Exploring Lviv’s mystical toy barter alley.The contractually required Joan Didion quote.Why Ukrainians are suspicious of Americans who say “I want to help.”The structure of a Daybreak movie.Recorded 4/23/24Go here to buy Daybreak.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The war between Israel and Hamas, which began on Oct. 7 when terrorists overran the Gaza frontier and killed more than 1,200 Israelis, is now more than six months old. More than 100 Israeli hostages are still being held in Gaza.Israel, in return, has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, with two thirds of that number likely to be civilians, including women and children. There are negotiations for a ceasefire going on—at least sporadically—but Dan Perry, former Associated Press bureau chief in the region, says that Hamas isn't playing by the same rules as Israel, or anyone else.Hamas, according to Perry, welcomes the deaths of Palestinian civilians. Anyone and everyone can be a martyr for Hamas's cause, which is not peace, but a complete destruction of Israel. Whoever must be sacrificed in the process, well, other people's live are a price Hamas is willing to pay.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sign up at angryplanetpod.com to get instant access to the full episode.A direct link to the episode on Substack.A successful TV adaptation of the Fallout video game franchise has everyone excited about the post-apocalypse again so we thought it was a good time to finally do a bonus episode we’ve been threatening for a long time.Cultural critic, journalist, and YouTuber Noah Caldwell-Gervais comes on this episode of Angry Planet to discuss all things Fallout. It’s a long episode, we dive into a lot of topics includingJason’s globe from 1937The peculiar pleasure of vacuum tube technologyCold War memoriesThe anxiety of worrying about dying in a nuclear blastWest Coast vs East Coast Fallout In defense of Fallout 76Power armor and Soviet TanksVault-Tec the ultimate villainFull spoiler warning for all of the Fallout video games and the entire TV show.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Go here to listen to Face-OffJane Perlez is a veteran foreign correspondent, the former Bejing Bureau Chief for The New York Times, and host of the new podcast “Face-Off.” She’s on Angry Planet today to talk to us about the show and her experiences reporting on China. “Face-Off” is all about America’s complicated relationship with China. Perlez says she started the show because she was tired of the hysterical conversations she hears about Beijing in Washington.In this episode we learn …Why On the Beach is Perlez’s favorite nuclear war movie.What it’s like to visit China for the first time at the height of the Cultural Revolution.What “Communism” means in a country with a growing bourgeoisie.What it takes for someone to lead China.When Mao and Khrushchev Went SwimmingSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Violence thrives in countries where political solutions to conflict have failed. On this episode of Angry Planet, Jeffsky Poincy comes on the show to walk us through the origins of Haiti’s gang problems and lay out the complicated history that gave rise to them.Poincy, who is Haitian, is a program manager at PartnersGlobal, an NGO that helps foster democratic conflict resolution. Poincy’s perspective on the violence in Haiti is that it will require complicated and lengthy political solutions. The gangs thrive, he says, because of their place in a complicated transnational criminal network. It’s a local problem that requires local solutions. A thousand Kenyan soldiers on the ground in the devastated country won’t provide long term relief. Real political change will.Recorded 4/5/24Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sign up at angryplanetpod.com to get instant access to the full episode.Recorded 4/4/24The U.S. State Department has been working hard to get Americans out of Haiti. The island nation’s government is in shambles and gangs run much of the urban center of Port-au-Prince. Haitians have struggled for hundreds of years at the hands of gangs, brutal authoritarian dictators, and colonial rule. One of its biggest problems has always been its nearest Imperial neighbor: America.On this episode of Angry Planet, we get America’s side of the story. Keith Mines is the Vice President for Latin America at U.S. Institute of Peace. If you’ve never heard of the USIP, you aren’t alone. As Mines says in the show, it is bad at branding. Part of a Congressional initiative from 1984, the USIP was founded to pursue peaceful resolutions to worldwide conflict.Mines has a storied career of government service. He’s worked for the State Department and been all across the world. His unique point of view gives listeners a window into the mind of a member of the U.S. political establishment. Mines has a deep knowledge of Haiti and a deeper understanding of how badly America has screwed up its efforts to help.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Yemen has become a battlefield of technological firsts. The Houthis have turned the Red Sea into a proving ground for Iranian weapons, and Tehran is learning what works and what doesn’t. It’s become a place where the Khamenei and his crew can test new technologies and new strategies. It’s a win for Iran and a win for the Houthis in the short-term, but missiles on their own don’t win wars.On this bonus episode of Angry Planet, Fabian Hinz of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London comes on to tell us about the technological capabilities of the Houthis.Recorded on 3/21/24A quick and dirty history of the Houthi movementIts mysterious founderJason learns about lasersMatthew learns about Manhattan allergiesSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Defense contractors and governments can run a thousand simulations, but the data they get will never be as good as what’s generated on a battlefield. When Russia invaded Ukraine, tech companies saw an opportunity. A land war in Europe presented a unique chance to test cutting-edge technologies. That’s why, a few months after the 2022 invasion, Palantir CEO Alex Karp drove into the capital to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. TIME Senior Correspondent Vera Bergengruen is here on Angry Planet to tell the story. She traveled to Ukraine herself to see how tech companies have turned the country into a test bed for AI and other advanced technologies. As the war grinds on, Kyiv is singing the praises of the companies that help keep it safe. But wars aren’t forever and what becomes of some of the more invasive technology like facial recognition when the fighting stops?How Tech Giants Turned Ukraine Into an AI War LabA Palantir-published tech demoSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sign up at angryplanetpod.com to get instant access to the full episode.Writing, even fiction writing, about war provides a clear-eyed and honest view of conflict that the best movies and television shows can’t replicate. Civilians and soldiers on all sides of conflicts have always turned to poetry and prose to express feelings that are hard to articulate any other way. On March 10, the literary magazine Guernica published a personal essay from British-Israeli writer Joannna Chen about the Israel-Hamas War. After a backlash to the essay that came from both inside and out, Guernica pulled the piece.“Guernica regrets having published this piece and has retracted it. A more fulsome explanation will follow,” the literary magazine published in place of the essay. As of this writing, that more fulsome explanation has not arrived.On this bonus episode of Angry Planet, author, journalist, and veteran Matt Galagher comes on to the show to walk us through the Guernica dustup and the importance of war writing. He talks to us about his recent trips to Ukraine, his relationship with the literary world, and his new novel: Daybreak. In Daybreak, Gallagher tells the story of American veterans who travel to Ukraine looking to fight a war that isn’t their own.Recorded on 3/14/24“From the Edges of a Broken World,” republished by Washington Monthly. “Looking Back on the Spanish Civil War” by George OrwellBuy Daybreak here.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The U.S. is spending $2 trillion to overhaul its nuclear weapons. China is building ICBM silos in the desert. Russia has spent the last ten years talking about its fancy new nukes. After decades of drawdown, the world’s great powers are reversing course and rebuilding their nuclear arsenals. We have forgotten the power and terror of these weapons.W.J. Hennigan of The New York Times wants the world to remember. On this episode of Angry Planet, Hennigan discusses the Time’s new series: At the Brink. He’s spent the last year interviewing experts about the threat of nuclear war. His reporting asks its reader to imagine the unimaginable.Nuclear War Is Called Unimaginable. In Fact, It’s Not Imagined Enough.How America Made Nuclear War the President's DecisionSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's easy to say the words "two-state solution" between Israel and the Palestinians, but as Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations explains, there are plenty of reasons why there hasn't been one so far. We also take another look at "moral" war in a tight space. What's the difference between collateral damage and a war crime? And has world opinion turned permanently against Israel? We also talk to Steven about his upcoming book, The End of Ambition: American's Past, Present, and Future in the Middle East.Recorded 3/8/24.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.