Chasing Ghosts Podcast

I will be pausing Chasing Ghosts from its fortnightly cadence of issuance for the remainder of the year.I am taking the time to regroup and focus on the new occasional podcast, WarNotes: A Conflict Podcast as a companion podcast focusing on conventional conflict and strategic thought. My first WarNotes series will be a comprehensive survey of how to fix the broken, shattered and most expensive paper tiger in the history of the world, the US military complex.The Fixing Fight Club series will be weekly until I finish the survey.I think the new election results may be the time for the western military complexes to take a knee and refocus and re-calibrate strategic and grand strategic opportunities in addressing the real-time shortfalls in facing Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMA) that are littering the battlefields of the 21st century.The US is at a crossroads: continue to invest and spend on exquisite platforms that will simply be missile sponges in the emerging salvo competition landscape or retool a more thoughtful application of military power in concert with rationally extrapolating second and third order effects to stymie the pristine track record of military failure and stalemate since 1945.I suggest the American military complex has a mere generation to reset its arthritic, sclerotic and top heavy platforms and stratagems before irrelevance and abject systemic military failure becomes the sole avenue left.You can find the WarNotes podcast at my substack or look for it on your podcast vendor of choice.Email me at [email protected] Get full access to Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast at cgpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Mark Booher at Pearl Snap Tactical interviewed me discussing irregular warfare and the threat to the homeland.We discuss irregular warfare and the impacts of an up-sized catastrophic attack on the US homeland. We riff on and discuss my "Storming America" series (episodes 37, 41-43 and 49-50 on the CG podcast.The election results doesn't change the imminent danger but may alter the warp and woof of the probability and timeline of attack.Pearl Snap Tactical interview can be found here:https://substack.com/home/post/p-150848439?source=queueI talk about William Forstchen's "Day of Wrath" and Kurt Schlichter's "The Attack".References:William Forstchen Day of WrathKurt Schlichter The AttackMatt Bracken:Enemies Foreign and Domestic.Foreign Enemies And Traitors.Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista.The Red Cliffs of Zerhoun.Castigo Cay.Eric Frank Russell The WaspMichael Z. Williamson The Weapon (and the entire Freehold series)Ernest R. May Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of FranceRobert Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh MistressRobert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In HistoryMy SubstackEmail at [email protected] Get full access to Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast at cgpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

I am the Smedley D. Butler Fellow for Military Affairs at the Libertarian Institute.They asked me to comment on the recent podcast interview between Ben Shapiro and Niall Ferguson which of course, was a reaction to Darryl Cooper's (Martyrmade Podcast) recent appearance on Tucker Carlson.I find members of the academic historian cartel (even "right of center" types like Ferguson) are horrified that non-credentialed historical observers are weighing in on the consequences of war in history. I urge everyone to deprogram yourselves and listen to the rogue but right historians like Martyrmade and ProfCJ's Dangerous History podcasts to get the better and more accurate view of what actually happened in the past that shapes our present.Here's what you must realize about war: wars are won by the least incompetent forces and the world will not be shiny and new at the conclusion but it will different.I address some of these issues.I would urge you to listen to CG podcast Episode 052 on Churchill for a more in-depth indictment of His Nibs.My blogging at the Libertarian Institute.My SubstackWrite me at [email protected] Get full access to Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast at cgpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

The trillions dollar fragile American military complex is in big trouble in big war.It doesn't work.Robotics and drones are the new "low tech" answer to the First World's exquisite military platforma that are over priced and have the same provenance of battleships planet-wide in January 1942.Autonomous targeting will become more and more relevant as the speed of munitions increases and the salvo competition costs are driven down.Hypervelocity munitions are here to stay.The life of the light infantryman will change significantly since for the first time in human history, the cost of hunting individual soldiers and small groups of soldiers in an effective fashion has reached a cost in concert with technology [I will treat this with more detail in a future episode on the end of the legacy infantryman].In my next podcast, we will discuss how to recover from the current collapse."Quantity has a quality all of its own." - Thomas A. Callaghan Jr.References:A Retrospective on RMA, 2000-2020.The Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of AgeArmy Futures Command Concept for Fires 2028Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech WarfareDaniel Bolger Why We Lost: A General's Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan WarsCraig Whitlock The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the WarEmail at [email protected]. Get full access to Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast at cgpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Robotics and drones are the new "low tech" answer to the First World's exquisite military platform that are over priced and have the same provenance of battleships planet-wide in January 1942.The electronic emissions environment in future conflicts will be a two-way street that will put any active acquisition sensors and attached effectors in the hazards if they emit and remain in one place.Autonomous targeting will become more and more relevant as the speed of munitions increases and the salvo competition costs are driven down.Hypervelocity munitions are here to stay.The life of the light infantryman will change significantly since for the first time in human history, the cost of hunting individual soldiers and small groups of soldiers in an effective fashion has reached a cost in concert with technology [I will treat this with more detail in a future episode on the end of the legacy infantryman].The Russian Strike Reconnaissance Complex has come of age and the Russians have one of the most effective fires synchronization modalities on Earth. The system is now battle proven in the first near-peer and peer conflict of the 21st century.Fires synchronization is the effective coordination of sensors and effectors in near-real time or real time in a hostile non-permissive combat environment to bring the metal on target."Quantity has a quality all of its own." - Thomas A. Callaghan Jr.References:A Retrospective on RMA, 2000-2020.The Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of AgeArmy Futures Command Concept for Fires 2028Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech WarfareLester Grau & Charles K. Bartles The Russian Way of War: Force Structure, Tactics, and Modernization of the Russian Ground ForcesDavid Glantz Soviet Operational and Tactical Combat in Manchuria, 1945 (Soviet (Russian) Study of War)David Glantz Soviet Military Operational Art: In Pursuit of Deep Battle (Soviet (Russian) Military Theory and Practice)Georgii Samoilovich Isserson G.S. Isserson and the War of the Future: Key Writings of a Soviet Military TheoristEmail at [email protected]. Get full access to Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast at cgpodcast.substack.com/subscribe