Shows
The Libertarian Institute - All Podcasts10/31/25 Bill Buppert on the Follies of American Militarism
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Scott interviews Bill Buppert about his new course on the Scott Horton Academy.
Discussed on the show:
Scott Horton Academy
Yes Minister (IMDb)
Bill Buppert is the Smedley D. Butler Fellow for Military Affairs at the Libertarian Institute and host of Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast. He served in the military for nearly a quarter century and was a combat tourist in a number of neo-imperialist shit-pits planet-wide. He can be found on Twitter at @wbuppert and reached via email at cgpodcast@pm.me.
For mo...
2025-11-0335 min
The Scott Horton Show from The Libertarian Institute10/31/25 Bill Buppert on the Follies of American Militarism
Download Audio.
Scott interviews Bill Buppert about his new course on the Scott Horton Academy.
Discussed on the show:
Scott Horton Academy
Yes Minister (IMDb)
Bill Buppert is the Smedley D. Butler Fellow for Military Affairs at the Libertarian Institute and host of Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast. He served in the military for nearly a quarter century and was a combat tourist in a number of neo-imperialist shit-pits planet-wide. He can be found on Twitter at @wbuppert and reached via email at cgpodcast@pm.me.
For mo...
2025-11-0335 min
Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews10/31/25 Bill Buppert on the Follies of American MilitarismScott interviews Bill Buppert about his new course on the Scott Horton Academy.
Discussed on the show:
Scott Horton Academy
Yes Minister (IMDb)
Bill Buppert is the Smedley D. Butler Fellow for Military Affairs at the Libertarian Institute and host of Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast. He served in the military for nearly a quarter century and was a combat tourist in a number of neo-imperialist shit-pits planet-wide. He can be found on Twitter at @wbuppert and reached via email at cgpodcast@pm.me.
For more on Scott’s wor...
2025-11-0335 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 069 "The CG Mailbag: Question Time and the Backbenchers Lament"It's been quite some time since I have responded to "mail" so I have curated five questions to address:.What are your personal weapons of choice: rifle or pistol?How do you fix the defense acquisition system?Is the American military really in terminal collapse?Storming America; is it still coming to the US?Is America headed to civil war?I'll offer some more recommendations and a path forward.References:RAND wish-casting on drones in 2015.Slaughterbots (2017)Slaughterbots: if human: kill() (2021)How are Drones Changing Modern Warfare?
2025-08-041h 04
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 018 "American Military Stalemate and Defeat: A Sterling Record"I discuss the thumbnail sketches of US military failure since the end of WWI and try to elucidate some of the reasons for the failure and the existential threat this cavalcade of calamities is to 21st century America if the ship of state doesn't reverse course.This a a dangerous time for America to continue its bad habits of wars of choice and allowing its intelligence organizations and their cutout mischief-makers to poke the bear and create black swan events out of whole cloth.America boasts a magnificent 20th century war machine not fit for...
2025-07-211h 01
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 068 "The Military Drone Revolution: Make All Flesh Forfeit"Despite what you are told by the mainstream news sources in the media, the drone war is here to stay and it will be the most significant war modality for the next generation. It has literally exposed all ground troops and the exquisite platforms the West relies upon in war-making for detailed neutralization and destruction.In concert with the democratized distribution of ubiquitous missile technology, it is the end of Western dominance in warfare.Despite what you may think, the US conventional forces are in terminal collapse and completely unprepared for 21st century peer conflict.
2025-07-0759 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 067 "The Mountains of Madness: Military Defeat and Terrain Part II"This will be the first CG episode to get the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series. The WarNotes episode catalog has been completely re-fabbed using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.Let me know what you think.We discuss the latest missteps by the West in Iran.The recent American involvement in direct military intervention in Iran changed the temper and nature of the war inevitably.I assess how the RMAs rapidly displacing centuries-old conflict norms are going to look for...
2025-06-2354 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 066 "Civil War on the Horizon: The Empire Strikes Back"This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.This episode examines civil war manifesting itself in the world in the west in the 21st century and some of my modest forecasts of war weather in the next few years.Dr. David Betz and others have started to float the balloons of probability and possibility of civil kinetic conflict in the West.My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what a...
2025-06-161h 06
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 065 "Color Revolutions: Weaponizing Subterfuge"This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.We discuss coups, color revolutions and the changing face of political manipulation in the world.The world is not what it seems even in non-military political manipulation. The hybrid and grey zone conflict is real. Color revolution have hijacked Western democracy and precipitated he slow decline of modern civilization.ReferencesGlobal Instances of Coups from 1950 to 2010: A New Dataset...
2025-06-0251 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 064 "War and Remembrance: Drawing the Wrong Lessons"This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.Memorial Day is a day to reflect on the existential moral outrage and trail of tears American military might has draped over the planet since the end of the nineteenth century.Wars of choice are by their very nature a path to corruption, excess and unintended consequences.The concept of moral injuries for soldiers and non-soldiers alike, the gift of fear and being...
2025-05-2655 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 063 "Spanner in the Works: Sabotage and War"This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.Military sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a government effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, demoralization, destabilization, division, disruption, or destruction. It can take place left of bang or during war with the object the weakening of the military effort by an adversary.Military sabotage has been taking place since the early military adventures of men. The apocryphal story of the Trojan Horse...
2025-05-051h 02The Scott Horton Show from The Libertarian Institute4/10/25 Bill Buppert on the Prospects for War in Iran and Northern Mexico
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Scott interviews Bill Buppert about two potential conflicts that some groups within the Trump administration appear to be pushing for. They start with the reported interest shown in carrying out direct military operations against the Mexican cartels. Scott and Buppert discuss why this would be a terrible idea and that it would likely not stay contained in Northern Mexico. They then take a look at the prospects for a war with Iran and draw similar conclusions.
Discussed on the show:
Sicario (IMDb)
Chasing Ghosts Podcast
WarNotes Podcast
Bil...
2025-04-2941 min
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 017 "Military Science Fiction and the Profession of Arms""The noblest fate that a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war's desolation."Robert Heinlein, Starship TroopersEffective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.I think the military science fiction milieu provides a great tool for forecasting and predicting possible conflict futures.It may be yet another tool to take this magnificent US 20th century fighting machine and make it a peer combat competitor...
2025-04-2858 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 062 "Storming America: One Year Later"This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.This episode examines American landscape one year later and whether the probability of attack is reduced or increased.My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what the spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland.I cover it in Episodes 37, 41-43 and 49-50 of my Chasing Ghosts podcast.I...
2025-04-1456 minScott Horton Show - Just the Interviews4/10/25 Bill Buppert on the Prospects for War in Iran and Northern MexicoScott interviews Bill Buppert about two potential conflicts that some groups within the Trump administration appear to be pushing for. They start with the reported interest shown in carrying out direct military operations against the Mexican cartels. Scott and Buppert discuss why this would be a terrible idea and that it would likely not stay contained in Northern Mexico. They then take a look at the prospects for a war with Iran and draw similar conclusions. Discussed on the show:
Sicario (IMDb)
Chasing Ghosts Podcast
WarNotes Podcast
Bill Buppert is the Smedley D. Butler Fellow f...
2025-04-1341 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 061 "The Mountains of Madness: Military Defeat and Terrain Part I"This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.With Western conflict possible in Yemen and Iran, I discuss the vagaries and verities of mountain warfare. The special hell of high altitude and colder temperatures and their effect on fighting and warfare.I assess how the RMAs rapidly displacing centuries-old conflict norms are going to look for the remainder of the century.Buppert’s Law of Military Topography:“Mountainous terrain held...
2025-03-3153 min
Year ZeroChasing Ghosts w/Bill BuppertBill Buppert of Chasing Ghosts joined me to discuss the modern warfare of politics. ALP
2025-03-281h 02
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 016 "Fixing Fight Club: Just Say No to NATO: Part Two"Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.A continued discussion of the NATO debacle.It is time for America to completely reassess alliances and partnership around the world starting with NATO and then working its way down the list of useless and toxic relationships and promises to commit American blood and treasure to flashpoints planet-wide. The sheer insanity of EU/SSR behavior and the total inadequacy of NATO as a military organization across the entire martial spectrum.
2025-03-2454 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 060 "The Military Historian's Craft: Past Tense Imperfect"This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.I am an un-credentialed amateur historian who has done very little archive work and lack the substantial infrastructure credentialed historians have to practice their craft. I have debated esteemed historians and won on stage (Daniel Walker Howe looked at my CV and did not prepare) but that doesn't make me better than them.I think my various detours in life mostly outside the formal academy...
2025-03-1751 min
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 015 "Freeboot Reboot: 21st Century PMC in War""Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.This episode examines what private military companies and campaigns look like.I discuss traditional and emerging trends in private military warfare which tends to still take place in nation-state warfare. While combat support and combat service support billets have been filled with private military entities for all know history, the emergence of larger and larger forces of private kinetic and trigger puller entities has gotten larger over time.References:
2025-03-1059 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 059 "The Mexican Cartel Conundrum: War Without End Part Two"This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.Here is Part One:Ep 058 "The Mexican Cartel Conundrum: War Without End Part One"We continue the inquiry into the implications and future returns on going kinetic in the drug war as elucidated by worthies in the new administration.I examine the implications and the second and third order effects of this endeavor which is, by extension, a declaration of war...
2025-03-0359 min
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 014 "The Pause That Refreshes""Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.I am taking a brief pause to reassess and re-calibrate the direction of my two podcasts.Take the time to do the same.Despite what you may think, the US conventional forces are in terminal collapse and completely unprepared for 21st century peer conflict.Keep reading, taking care of your family and friends and always question both authority and obedience.References:Sun Tzu...
2025-02-2416 min
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 013 "End of an Era: The Infantry Folds Its Colors"Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.The age of the infantry is over after a thousands-year long reign in human warfare and conflict.The next 75 years in the 21st century will put paid to an august and enduring institution in human conflict.The combination of salvo competition, reduced costs of combat UAS munitions, targeting of exquisite platforms, intelligence/reconnaissance/surveillance (ISR) ubiquity, and anti-fragility/fragility are some of the factors informing this demise....
2025-02-1759 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 058 "The Mexican Cartel Conundrum: War Without End Part One"Chasing Ghosts is back!This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.There has been chatter and enthusiasm to use military means to take on the drugs and human trafficking organizations and cartels in Mexico (and I imagine the cartels in the north in Canada), this will not end well.I examine the implications and the second and third order effects of this endeavor which is, by extension, a declaration of...
2025-02-1055 min
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 012 "Fixing Fight Club: Closing Thoughts on War in the 21st Century"Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.After nearly twelve hours of a blistering and unapologetic critique of the American military, I wanted to post a conclusion where I can tie a bow on the jeremiad and offer some cogent and abbreviated recommendations on the road forward.In this new venture, I wanted to expand my portfolio of investigation and elucidation on war in the broader scope. I wanted to leave the more arcane and less well-known milieu...
2025-02-1043 min
Coffee and a MikeMatt Bracken and Bill Buppert #1065Navy Seal Author and Historian Matt Bracken joins military vet and podcast host of both “The Chasing Ghosts” and “WarNotes: A Conflict Podcast” Bill Buppert to discuss free speech, USAID, DOGE, the Middle East, Trump’s comments on Gaza, Panama Canal, war against the cartels, and much more. PLEASE SUBSCRIBE LIKE AND SHARE THIS PODCAST!!! WatchShow Rumble- https://rumble.com/v6i00zm-coffee-and-a-mike-with-matt-bracken-and-bill-buppert-usaid-is-8-of-the-bbc-.html YouTube- https://youtu.be/aypBnh1IXIs Follow Me X- https://x.com/CoffeeandaMike IG- https://www.instagram.com/coffeeandami...
2025-02-071h 22
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 011 "Fixing Fight Club: The Death of Manned Air Power"Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.The US Air Force is at a turning point in 21st century warfare and in danger of whistling past the graveyard if they fail to take notice and action on the emerging Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMA).The era of manned combat aircraft is coming to a close.The era of manned bombers with gravity bombs is over.The era of fixed site nuclear missiles is in...
2025-02-0357 min
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 010 "Fixing Fight Club: Naval Warfare in the 21st Century"Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.In the future near-peer and peer fight, salvo competition and missiles will be the preeminent means by which one country will kinetically overwhelm the other in a fight. I discuss the way the US Navy is in an existential hazard of being woefully under-prepared to meet the threat if Western forces go toe toe with regional hegemons in the East or West.Let’s anticipate the disasters now that are the Sp...
2025-01-271h 00
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 009 "Fixing Fight Club: Just Say No to NATO: Part One"Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.It is time for America to completely reassess alliances and partnership around the world starting with NATO and then working its way down the list of useless and toxic relationships and promises to commit American blood and treasure to flashpoints planet-wide.NATO insisted after the wall 1989-91 fell that the NATO blob would NOT expand eastward.It did.America should take a non-interventionist pause and get its...
2025-01-2059 min
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 008 "Fixing Fight Club: Reimagining Land Warfare or Else"Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.I take the time to discuss some of the conventional ramifications of modern warfare and book & article recommendations that have given me a deeper and more nuanced understanding of why wars begin and end as they do.Robotics, autonomous targeting and hyper-velocity munitions are democratizing the battle field in a way heretofore unimagined. Drones are the new "low tech" answer to the First World's exquisite military platform that are over priced...
2025-01-141h 11
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 008 "Fixing Fight Club: Reimagining Land Warfare or Else"***Just discovered there was an audio synchronization problem that is now fixed.***I take the time to discuss some of the conventional ramifications of modern warfare and book & article recommendations that have given me a deeper and more nuanced understanding of why wars begin and end as they do.Robotics, autonomous targeting and hyper-velocity munitions are democratizing the battle field in a way heretofore unimagined. 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....
2025-01-131h 11
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 007 "Fixing Fight Club: Kill the Corps"Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.The US Marine Corps has seen its time and it is now the opportunity to sunset it and wish it well in memorium. Two historical moments have destroyed the efficacy and primacy of the USMC: missiles and the sad Commandant tenure of GEN David H. Berger who will be remembered as the man who murdered the Corps.The US has not made a contested beach landing since Inchon in 1-19 September 1950...
2025-01-0657 min
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 006 "Fixing Fight Club: Escalation Dominance and Salvo Competition"Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.In the future near-peer and peer fight, salvo competition will be the preeminent means by which one country will kinetically overwhelm the other in a fight. I discuss the way the West is in an existential hazard of being woefully under-prepared to meet the threat if Western forces go toe to toe with regional hegemons in the East or West.The US is NOT prepared for the war of leakers in...
2024-12-2354 min
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 005 "Fixing Fight Club: 21st Century Nuclear Renaissance"Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.A complete reassessment of American nuclear weapons has to be done.In the future near-peer and peer fight, nuclear weapons will be an option in the 21st century and no one can predict how they will used.In concert with the emerging Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMA) such as robotics, autonomous targeting and hyper-velocity weapons systems that are earth shattering and millennial bending, it is time to calibrate and...
2024-12-161h 00
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 004 "Fixing Fight Club: Intelligence Failure is a Feature and Not a Bug"Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.In this episode, I will examine what intelligence looks like from a professional perspective and why America and the West consistently engage in existential chaos avalanches that make the world a worse place.The bureaucratic impulse in the West has been a significant factor in making the intelligence community (IC), like the military community, a paper tiger that is a far greater danger to the inhabitants of the west than an...
2024-12-0956 min
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 003 "Fixing Fight Club: The Joint Illusion"Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.The joint concept is the synchronization function for individual services and by extension, allied and coalition forces in multinational war-fighting. The US has the parts and components committed on paper but nothing works in reality.References: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 Warfare...
2024-12-021h 02
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 057: "CG Announcement November 2024: WarNotes Podcast Rising"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 series, WarNotes: A Conflict Podcast as a companion podcast focusing on conventional conflict and strategic thought.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 21...
2024-11-2506 min
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 002 "Fixing Fight Club: The Hegemon Steps Back"Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.It is time for the most expensive military in the world to seek a reset, this episode will continue to suggest that a strategic and grand strategic reframing has to take place to facilitate a wholesale re-imagining of the martial enterprises of America.References:Sun Tzu The Art of WarCarl von Clausewitz On WarMiyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide...
2024-11-251h 01
WarNotes: A Conflict PodcastEp 001 "Fixing Fight Club: The Collapse of American Military Power"Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.Here's the premier episode of my new podcast, WarNotes: A Conflict Podcast and I am introducing the first series of 'casts I will do on base-lining problems and offering solutions to the immense military incompetence, malfeasance and rank stupidity that informs so much of contemporary Western military history.In the companion Chasing Ghosts podcast I produce, I am often scolded on being so overwhelmingly negative in my portrait of America and...
2024-11-1848 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 056 "Pearl Snap Tactical Interview with Mark Booher"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 don'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...
2024-11-1158 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 055 "The Shapiro-Ferguson Kerfuffle: History at War""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...
2024-10-2838 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 054 "CG Excursion: The American Military Empire is in Terminal Collapse"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 platforms 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...
2024-10-141h 03
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 053 "CG Excursion: The Revolution Will Be Televised: Near Peer and Peer Conflict in the 21st Century"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....
2024-09-301h 01
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 052 "CG Excursion: Churchill: Imperial Bombast and the Death of the West"This is an episode to examine what Churchill really did for the West after witnessing the emotional & ahistorical outbursts by the usual suspects after Darryl Cooper from the Martyrmade Podcast appeared on Tucker Carlson on 2 SEP 2024.I am simply addressing the claims of Churchill as "the chief villain" which I think was hyperbolic (Cooper accedes to this) because I think Churchill was one of many villains during WWII. I am a reluctant Anglophile and I think historical revisionism is a healthy reaction to triumphalist historiography in the West that has made questioning accepted narratives a scholar crime.
2024-09-161h 01
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 051 "Cellular Ecology: Guerrilla Organizations and Grunt Math"This is an episode to examine what cell structures look like and the methodologies of guerrillas and insurgents use to conduct clandestine or covert action.I further discuss traditional, subversive, critical cell and mass-oriented and unconventional cell structures. We visit some historical parallels and why the US and the West may not catch the next wave of terror in America (not cooked up by the clownish FBI like the Whitmer disaster).References:How They HuntAQ Training ManualThe IRA GreenbookHunting the SleepersAn...
2024-09-021h 05
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 050 "Storming America: TTP to Make you Free (Part II)"My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what the spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland.I cover it further in Episodes 37, 41-43 and 49 of my Chasing Ghosts podcast.This is an episode to examine what you can do about the coming civil unrest in America. I discuss some of the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) the free range human can employ to prepare and protect themselves for the coming unpleasantness.I further discuss weapons, kit, preps and training to...
2024-08-2655 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 049 "Storming America: TTP to Make you Free (Part I)"My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what the spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland.I cover it further in Episodes 37, 41-43 and 50 of my Chasing Ghosts podcast.This is an episode to examine what you can do about the coming civil unrest in America. I discuss some of the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) the free range human can employ to prepare and protect themselves for the coming unpleasantness.I wanted to add a great note from one...
2024-08-121h 07
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 048 "CG Excursion: Peer Strike ISR Complex: The Need for Rational Fires Coordination"***Apologies; this episode appears to have some technical issues that I will address on return to my home studio; I am on the road right now.***Fires synchronization is the effective coordination of sensors and effectors in near-real time or real time in a hostile non-permissive combat environment.The West has no working system to coordinate its artillery, air and Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) assets in a peer or near-peer fight that works.The Russians do.The Russian Strike Reconnaissance Complex has come of age and the Russians have...
2024-07-291h 22
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 047 "Nagorno-Karabakh: A Dark and Robotic Future"I discuss the Fall 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the tiny sliver of Nagorno-Karabakh and why I would suggest that it was a glimpse into the future of warfare for the remainder of this century. the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) for the following reasons: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...
2024-07-1547 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 046 "Review and Discussion: My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness by Howard Jones"I discuss the slaughter of over 500 unarmed men, women and children in My Lai in March 1968 by American soldiers.In concert with the Tet Offensive in 1968, this was the end of American arms in Vietnam.The collision of barbarism, toxic leadership and moral injury make everyone of these pages bleed. One of the most searing indictments of American arms you will read. This book is an acquired taste because it may crush your soul.I caution you before you listen to this that the telling of this tale is will haunt any decent...
2024-07-0153 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 045 "CG Excursion Praxis: Rational Concepts of Operations (CONOPS) (Part Two)"I continue a rather technical treatment of developing and using Concepts of Operations (CONOPS).This episode examines the finer points of getting baselines and expectations right for small and large projects alike.If you take these simple concepts for building a CONOPS to include how to do decomposition in Product Breakdown Structures (PBS) and Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) as described in MILSTD 881F and apply it wherever you happen to work at a small or large company, everybody will be in awe of the black magic you perform and it a. guaranteed Return on Investment...
2024-06-1756 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 044 "CG Excursion Praxis: Rational Concepts of Operations (CONOPS) (Part One)"I discuss a rather technical treatment of developing and using Concepts of Operations (CONOPS).This episode examines the timeless and tedious process of getting baselines and expectations right for small and large projects alike.References:Special Forces Detachment Mission Planning Guide GTA 31-01-003 January 2020DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE STANDARD PRACTICE WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURES FOR DEFENSE MATERIEL ITEMS MILSTD 881F 13 May 2022NASA Systems Engineering Handbook Rev 2Cost of 13 NASA projects skyrocket due to improper reviewsMy SubstackEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me
2024-06-0359 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 043 "Storming America: The Aftermath"My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what the spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland.I cover it further in Episodes 37, 41-42 and 49-50 of my Chasing Ghosts podcast.I discuss the outcome of the probable jihadist invasion of America. America is in a unique position in history in which it has facilitated the unfettered invasion of its borders and a large swath of military age males have been granted asylum or gone undetected to link up with legacy underground Islamist...
2024-05-2757 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 042 "Storming America: War Comes Home"My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what the spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland.I cover it further in Episodes 37, 41, 43 and 49-50 of my Chasing Ghosts podcast.In this episode I discuss what the attack looks like in America.This is not if, this is when.The country is poised to experience this through a combination of neglect and the sheer hubris of meddling in the world without realize the unintended consequences.I wish...
2024-05-1358 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 041 "Storming America: Intelligence Failure is Now and Forever"My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what the spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland.I cover it further in Episodes 37, 42-43 and 49-50 of my Chasing Ghosts podcast.This is a continuation of my "Storming America Series" where I will tease out and describe why the inevitable internal attack on America by external forces will be made real.In this episode, I will examine what intelligence looks like from a professional perspective and why America and the West...
2024-04-291h 24Scott Horton Show - Just the InterviewsBill Buppert on the Threat of Terrorist Attacks after October 7 and the Changing Nature of WarfareScott interviews Bill Buppert, the new Smedley D. Butler Fellow for Military Affairs at the Libertarian Institute, about some of the topics he’s covered on his podcast, Chasing Ghosts. They discuss stoicism, Scott’s concern about a bin Ladenite terrorist attack happening in America, the ongoing slaughter in Gaza, the changing nature of warfare and more.Discussed on the show:
Bridge of Spies (IMDb)
Chasing Ghosts Episode 39 Stoicism: Who Dares Leads
“A Military Solution to a Political Problem (Substack)
Debate - Should U.S. Fund Ukraine War Again?
Day of Wrath by William R. Forstchen
The At...
2024-04-231h 11
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 040 "The Middle East: Shuffling to the Apocalypse (Part Two)""This episode will be an addendum to my initial coverage in October 2023 of the Gaza-Israel conflict in Episode 027 and riffing off the domestic implications in Episode 037 of a similar attack on CONUS. If you wish to listen to those before you do this one, you may but I have crafted this so that isn’t necessary.The clock is closer to midnight than it was in October 2023.References:William Forstchen Day of WrathKurt Schlichter The AttackMatt Bracken:Enemies Foreign and Domestic.Foreign Enemies An...
2024-04-1555 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 039 "CG Excursion: Stoicism: Who Dares Leads"I am reusing a previous episode I used in the now moribund Stoicism podcast I started, The Dash, which I ran out of steam on.Applying Stoic values and discipline to the vocation and avocations we practice in life may be the hardest part outside of making a Stoic life a lived lifestyle. I find the management industry is a giant cargo cult that publishes books whose pages number in the hundreds but could simply be a page or two.References:James Clear Atomic HabitsMarcus Aurelius MeditationsWhitney...
2024-04-0131 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 038 "Moral Injury: The Invisible Warrior Marks"The concept of moral injuries for soldiers and non-soldiers alike, the gift of fear and being a dead man walking and how to handle regret and shame.“As beasts are beneath human restraints, gods are above them... It would be foolish and untruthful to deny the appeal of exalted, godlike intoxication....We have seen the paradox that these godlike exalted moments often correspond to times when the men who have survived them say that they have acted like beasts....Above all, a sense of merely human virtue, a sense of being valued and of valuing anything seems to...
2024-03-1826 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 037 "Storming America: Another War Will Come Home"My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what the spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland.I cover it further in Episodes 41-43 and 49-50 of my Chasing Ghosts podcast.The hybrid and gray zone fight will come to America in the next war. Once the declining American colossus shuffles into the next near-peer and peer conflict, the 21st century will see the continental US come under a unified attack by external forces for the first time since the War of 1812 and...
2024-03-041h 13
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 036 "Drunk on Direct Action: The Destruction of Army Special Forces in the GWOT"The direct action concentration of US Army Special Forces (SF) in the conduct of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan at the expense of the specialized and storied legend of what SF could do in non-permissive environments raising partisan forces behind enemy lines. The Army SF concentrated on perfecting a craft that numerous other combat organizations like the USMC 0311, .Army 11Bs and the exquisitely talented Ranger Regiment could do handily not to mention the legendary prowess of the Tier One units.SF could capitalize on the rich heritage of a regional expertise harnessed to a deep cultural...
2024-02-1944 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 035 "Review and Discussion: Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War by Douglas Porch"Everyone and everything has an origin story, while I had a sneaking suspicion early on in my modest career in special operations and irregular warfare (IW) that something was fundamentally wrong with the western way of war in these endeavors, it was Douglas Porch who probably set my course straight. In this book, he makes a compelling historical and logical case for why the IW efforts planet-wide have not only been a failure but ones that repeat themselves again and again.References:Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War
2024-02-0546 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 034 "CG Excursions: Deep Six the Carrier Force: Naval Power in the 21st Century" Excursions is a new addition to the CG universe to cover adjacent conflict issues to the irregular warfare fight.***In the future near-peer and peer fight, salvo competition will be the preeminent means by which one country will kinetically overwhelm the other in a fight. I discuss the way the West is in an existential hazard of being woefully under-prepared to meet the threat if Western forces go toe toe with regional hegemons in the East or West.Let’s anticipate the disasters now that are the Spanish in the English Channel in 1588, th...
2024-01-2249 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 033 "CG Excursions: Salvo Competition and the Big Fight" Excursions will be a new addition to the CG universe to cover adjacent conflict issues to the irregular warfare fight.In the future near-peer and peer fight, salvo competition will be the preeminent means by which one country will kinetically overwhelm the other in a fight. I discuss the way the West is in an existential hazard of being woefully under-prepared to meet the threat if Western forces go toe toe with regional hegemons in the East or West.The Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of AgeReferences:Nassim Taleb Antifragile...
2024-01-081h 03
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 032 "US Military Special Operations Forces Can't Do UW (Part Two)" The emerging anti-fragile forces of indigenous irregular warfare forces in concert or independent of near-peer and peer competitors challenging US and western global hegemony are on the march and will in the end succeed.References:David Maxwell Counter-Unconventional Warfare (2014)Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of WarAnn Scott Tyson American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim GrantH. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to WarfareMark Bowden Blackhawk Down: A St...
2023-12-2635 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 031 "US Military Special Operations Forces Can't Do UW (Part One)" In this episode, I will be a heretic to the current military establishment in America and the west. They can't do unconventional warfare and I must be very specific in the conditional problem I propose: the western military has no capability to conduct long term partisan warfare in concert with indigenous forces fighting an insurgency in a non-permissive environment. It doesn't have the language skills, cultural IQ, sophisticated intelligence/communications infrastructure to support stay-behind missions, isolated stand-in force capability (nor does the USMC for FD2030 fantasies) comprehensive bushcraft and primitive skills for long loiter missions nor a fighting force...
2023-12-1849 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 030 "US Military Special Operations Forces: US Army Special Forces" Here we do a deep dive in US Army Special Forces (SF) and why a complete overhaul is needed to resurrect the original charter to save SF from itself. Over two decades of fighting neo-colonial conflicts throughout the Middle East and Africa has decimated the original construct and mission of what made SF so special.References:Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of WarAnn Scott Tyson American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim GrantH. John Poole The Last...
2023-12-0458 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 029 "US Military Special Operations Forces: US Army" Today, I'll do a deep dive into the US Army vanilla SOF organziations and get acquainted with the capabilities and opportunities for US Army special operations.My Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.
2023-11-2047 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 028 "US Military Special Operations Forces: A Primer" A brief introduction to the Department of Defense activities in special operations. I will not be discussing the dark organizations and specifically address the "vanilla" SOF in all the services.References:Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of WarAnn Scott Tyson American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim GrantH. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to WarfareMark Bowden Blackhawk Down: A Story of Modern WarBob Scales Scales on Wa...
2023-11-1358 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 027 "The Middle East: Shuffling to the Apocalypse (Part One)"We discuss the Israeli emergency in its latest iteration in the horrific attacks by Hamas into Israel in October 2023 and the simmering conflict bands that emerging globally in which this is another explosion in the global conflict rift. For those who thought the podcast died, its death has been greatly exaggerated. My move to FL from AZ is now complete and many apologies for the disturbance of my fortnightly podcast episode rhythm by being late two weeks with a new episode.The podcast studio took some time to resurrect but here we are.I said...
2023-10-3045 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 026 "Review and Discussion: Tattoo Zoo by Paul Avallone" Every war has a seminal novel, a book that really resonates with generation that wrote it and the following generations from the Iliad to Gore Vidal's historical fiction to The Centurions by Jean Larteguy to From Here to Eternity by James Jones to this one.References:Paul Avallone Tattoo Zoo: A Novel of the Afghan WarJean Larteguy The CenturionsAnton Myrer Once an EagleMy Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.
2023-10-0232 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 025 "Technicals: Toyotas Go To War"" In the one year anniversary episode (!), we chat about the use of thin-skinned vehicles in the modern age and the asymmetric nature of the fight. The employment of commercially produced vehicles for conduct of raids and ambushes employing a wide array of weapons medium- to heavy-machine guns to mortars to ATGMs and everything in between. Please note that Toyota outside of Japan does not produce these for purpose-built military employment. And to my fellow CruiserHeads, I salute you.References:Leigh Neville Technicals: Non-Standard Tactical Vehicles from the Great Toyota War to modern Special...
2023-09-1847 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 024 "The Other Fight: Understanding the Conventional Conflict""I take the time to discuss some of the conventional ramifications of modern warfare and book recommendations that have given me a deeper and more nuanced understanding of why wars begin and end as they do.References:Sun Tzu The Art of WarCarl von Clausewitz On WarMiyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to StrategyH. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to WarfareChristian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare...
2023-09-0440 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 023 "Afghanistan: The Soviet Debacle 1978-1989" The defeat of the USSR in Afghanistan was part of a broad tapestry of disasters that eventually brought the Russian communist state crashing down. The shattering of Soviet forces by the indigenous rebels aided by foreign fighters and sophisticated weapons technology from the West doomed the USSR to failure. The Americans would later respond with: "Hold my beer..."References:Ahmed Rashid Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central AsiaRodric Braithewaite Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-89Daniel P. Bolger Feast of Bones: A NovelMy Substack:
2023-08-2137 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 022 "Review and Discussion: Day of the Rangers: The Battle of Mogadishu 25 Years On"" We examine the Day of the Rangers: The Battle of Mogadishu 25 Years On by Leigh Neville and Matt Eversmann to discuss the book, the event and what led up to the event.References:Leigh Neville & Matt Eversmann Day of the Rangers: The Battle of Mogadishu 25 Years OnMark Bowden Blackhawk DownMy Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.
2023-08-0742 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 021 "Review and Discussion: Jack Hinson's One-Man War by Tom C. McKinney " We discuss the book, guerrilla and insurgency warfare during the American war in 1861-65, the atrocity cycle, guerrilla math and the hopelessness of occupation avoiding the injury of civilians.References:Tom McKinney Jack Hinson's One-Man War, A Civil War SniperDaniel E. Sutherland A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil WarMy Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.
2023-07-2442 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 020 "COIN Malpractice: Lessons Never Learned (Part One)" It appears the West just can't get counterinsurgency right. I talk about some of the framework ideas that would be good lessons learned for those who I think wisely and would try to avoid COIN. The major takeaway is that insurgencies are rather antifragile and bureaucracies are the enemy of effectiveness and innovation.References:Nassim Taleb Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, Skin in the GameDouglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of WarMy Substack:https://t.co/7...
2023-07-1047 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 019 "Murphy Rex: Complexity and War" I discuss the complex adaptive system that is war that Clausewitz categorically identified as "friction" in the nineteenth century. We'll examine what chaos and complexity has to do with conflict, why it is inevitable and why wars are won by the least incompetent armies and navies.References:Nassim Taleb Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, Skin in the GameCarl von Clausewitz On WarMy Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.
2023-06-2632 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 018 "French COIN: Paras in Paris (Part Three)" The April 1961 Generals’ Putsch of Algiers (Putsch des généraux), was a failed military action to press French President Charles de Gaulle to not abandon French Algeria, along with French people and pro-French Arabs living there. The putsch in French Algeria was conducted by four retired generals, led by Maurice Challe, the commander of the French Armed Forces in Algeria in 1958-60 and the author of the successful Challe Plan. The plan which in effect helped to defeat militant rebels across Algeria.References:Martin Windrow Our Friends Beneath the Sands: The Foreign Legion in Fran...
2023-06-121h 03
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 017 Memorial Day MailbagIn this episode, I go through some of the more interesting emails and comments I have gotten since the podcast began in September 2022.My Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.
2023-05-2950 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 016 "TE Lawrence and the Guerrilla Mind (Part Three)" his episodes examines the unconventional and eccentric mind sets of Lawrence and other famous and obscure military figures. We examine the way some armies embrace this while others discourage it.References:Scott Anderson Lawrence of Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle EastJames J. Schneider Guerrilla Leader: TE Lawrence and the Arab RevoltTE Lawrence Seven Pillars of WisdomDesmond Stewart TE Lawrence: A New BiographyJeremy Wilson Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography of TE LawrenceRanulph Fiennes...
2023-05-1633 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 015 "TE Lawrence and the Guerrilla Mind (Part Two)" In this episode we will discuss how Lawrence's medievalism gave him a tremendous advantage serendipitously advising and leading the local Arab revolt during WWI against the Turks and more deeply, Allied efforts to map a post-war world. His predilections in study, preparation and application of his 27 points led to a success the British army and the larger Allied effort could not have achieved without him.References:Scott Anderson Lawrence of Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle EastJames J. Schneider Guerrilla Leader: TE Lawrence and the Arab...
2023-05-0137 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 014 "TE Lawrence and the Guerrilla Mind (Part One)" One of the peak guerrilla fountainheads in the early twentieth century, TE Lawrence has been in both the popular imagination and a large part of the engine in the Middle East that signed the death knell for foreign colonial powers to leave the region, Eccentric and brilliant, one of the few successful insurgency leaders during WWI.References:Scott Anderson Lawrence of Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle EastJames J. Schneider Guerrilla Leader: TE Lawrence and the Arab RevoltTE Lawrence Seven Pillars of Wisdom
2023-04-1744 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 013 "CG Goes to the Movies: Red Dawn (1984)"The brilliant John Milius helmed this production in the thick of the cold war waning with the USSR. This will be the first episode where we examine the collision between irregular warfare and popular culture.My Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.
2023-04-0224 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 012 "Sisyphus is God: Government Incompetence and Martial Failure"Government, for a variety of reasons, is manifestly incompetent in everything it does and this lends parts of the explanatory framework in why systemic failure is the feature not a bug in Western martial efforts.The critiques of the government supremacist mindset are legion and one can find many rational and elegant theses if you start at the Mises Institute and listen to the podcasts of Scott Horton at Antiwar.com. Scott and I recently did a deep dive together in Episode 5850 "Bill Buppert: A Deep Dive into Irregular Warfare" on 17 February 2023.References:...
2023-03-2043 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 011 "Three Strikes of the Match: American Divorce 1775"As a former Appleseed instructor and Shoot Boss in AZ, I had the opportunity to teach a marksmanship/history project that had me master the origins and details of the first month of the First American Revolution. I cover the "Three Strikes of the Match" that we used as an organization to educate folks about the marriage between marksmanship and liberty that initiated the divorce from London in 1775.References:David Hackett Fischer Paul Revere's RideJ. L. Bell The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary WarRobert...
2023-03-0649 minScott Horton Show - Just the InterviewsBill Buppert: A Deep Dive into Irregular WarfareScott brings Bill Buppert on the show for a long discussion centering around U.S. attempts at utilizing irregular warfare since 1945. The two touch on the Afghan surge, the battle of Tora Bora, the Vietnam War, Color Revolutions, Suicide Bombings, Austrian Economics and much more. Discussed on the show:
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
Quigley Down Under (IMDb)
“A Clean Break” (The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies)
Stalin’s War by Sean McMeekin
Jawbreaker by Gary Berntsen
Kill Bin Laden by Thomas Greer AKA Dalton Fury
“T...
2023-02-232h 30
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 010 "Review and Discussion: Stalin's War by Sean McMeekin"I review and discuss Sean McMeekin's brilliant tome on Stalin being the ascendant and most successful antagonist in WWII.References:Sean McMeekin Stalin's War: A New History of World War IIJohn Koster Operation Snow: How a Soviet Mole in FDR's White House Triggered Pearl HarborHerbert Romerstein, Eric Breindel The Venona Secrets, Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's TraitorsM. Stanton Evans, Herbert Romerstein Stalin's Secret Agents: The Subversion of Roosevelt's GovernmentMy Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast...
2023-02-2133 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 009 "French COIN: Algeria: Losing Afrique (Part Two)" I discuss the French experience in north Africa and the devastating consequences of the double blow of losing Indochina in the same time-frame in Algeria in north Africa.References:Martin Windrow Our Friends Beneath the Sands: The Foreign Legion in France's Colonial Conquests 1870-1935Douglas Porch The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting ForceDouglas Porch CounterinsurgencyMy Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.
2023-02-0643 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 008 "French COIN: Introduction and the Indochina Dénouement (Part One)"In this first episode, I discuss the fundamentals of French irregular warfare doctrine with a concentration on COIN, French martial history in a thumbnail and the tragedy of French arms in post-WWII Indochina.References:Martin Windrow The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in VietnamBernard Fall Hell in a Very Small PlaceBernard Fall Street Without JoyTed Morgan Valley of Death: The Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu That Led America into the Vietnam WarMy Substack:https://t.co/7a8...
2023-01-2340 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 007 "Review and Discussion: Wrong Turn by Gian Gentile"A short but effective tome that is a sound introduction to why the western COIN complex is so wrong-headed and intellectually bankrupt.References:Colonel Gian Gentile Wrong Turn: America’s Deadly Embrace of CounterinsurgencyMy Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.
2023-01-0946 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 006 "Frameworks and Strategic Deficit Disorder"I discuss the combat framework from the tactical to the operational to the strategic level and mission command for both regular and irregular warfare (IW). A deep knowledge of conventional warfare is very useful to fully grokking how IW works hence the inclusion of that perspective.References:ADP 6-0 Mission CommandGrant Tedrick Hammond The Mind of War: John Boyd and American SecurityStephen Robinson Blind Strategist: John Boyd and the American Art of WarColin Gray Modern StrategyCarl von Clausewitz On WarMy...
2022-12-1837 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 005 "Peak Guerrilla: The Origins of Modern Irregular Warfare"In this episode, I sketch the lives and exploits of three guerrilla luminaries: TE Lawrence, GEN Paul Emil von Letter-Vorbeck and Michael Collins. I want to use them to illustrate what I consider the next step in guerrilla evolution employing age-old techniques and strategies harnessed to modern technology and employment within the new age of mechanized warfare.References:Tim Pat Coogan Michael CollinsJames Gleeson Bloody SundayTom Barry Guerrilla Days in IrelandPeter Hart Michael CollinsEdwin P. Hoyt Guerrilla: COL Lettow-Vorbeck and Germany’s East Af...
2022-12-0449 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 004 "The Impossibility of Successful Western Counterinsurgency" Despite trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of deaths, the West has nothing to show for the counterinsurgency campaigns it has waged. Despite the enormous industry and vast intellectual and historical apologetics combine, the wasteland is evident to all who take the time to examine the details. The emperor of COIN is naked.References:Nassim Taleb: The Black Swan, Antifragile: Things That Gain from DisorderDouglas Porch: Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of WarRobert Asprey War in the ShadowsMy Substack:https...
2022-11-2044 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 003 "Michael Collins: The Empire Blinks"The Irish Rebellion in 1916-1922 is what I characterize as in the era of "Peak Guerrilla" in concert with the exploits of TE Lawrence and GEN Paul Emil von Letter-Vorbeck that set the stage for the modern irregular warfare era in the twentieth century. I will examine the exploits of Collins and the curious currents of history on a global basis that came to have great impacts on what appear to be local and regional conflicts and their final resolution.References:Tim Pat Coogan Michael CollinsJames Gleeson Bloody SundayTom...
2022-11-0636 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 002 "Antifragility and Irregular Warfare"In this episode, I make the case that insurgencies are antifragile and that counterinsurgencies are fragile for the most part; we discuss the concepts, examine historical and contemporary examples and set the stage for practitioners and scholars to leverage this model to gain a more true understanding of how IW works.References:Nassim Taleb: The Black Swan and Antifragile: Things That Gain from DisorderDouglas Porch: Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of WarMy Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast...
2022-10-1156 min
Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare PodcastEp 001 "Terms of Endearment"This charter episode will discuss the intent of the podcast and get started with the basics to create a framework of common understanding. This episode will discuss the National Defense Strategy, generations of warfare, civil war and the regional conflict complexes that emerge from larger wars and conflicts. Irregular warfare (IW) is rather complex and tends to be muddier, more nuanced and subject to interpretative misconceptions and we'll lay the groundwork for understanding these in both the larger and smaller contexts.My Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at cgpodcast@pm...
2022-09-2637 min
Anarcho-Yakitalism PodcastEp.41 Stoicism and Belt Fed Tangents with Bill Buppert.Anarcho-Yakitalism PodcastBill Buppert comes on with me to talk about Stoicism, but we get off topic quite a bit. We’re Freedom Feens, we live off belt fed tangents. Check out these links: Bill’s website: http://zerogov.com/ Bill’s book “Limited Government, Unicorns, and Other … <a href="http://an-yak.com/ep-41-stoicism-and-belt-fed-tangents-with-bill-buppert-anarcho-yakitalism-podcast/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
2015-07-1523 min
TigerLily's Freedom ROAR Podcast2012 06 03 Radio Interview of Bill Buppert, Founder ZeroGov.comPlease see show sources on this link: http://tlroar.blogspot.com/2012/06/guest-bill-buppert-sunday-june-3-2012.html
2012-06-041h 14
Southern Nationalist Network's PodcastBill Buppert on the South, Secession, the Media & AnarchyBill Buppert is a former US military officer and instructor at Ole Miss and now is a freedom advocate and proprietor of ZeroGov.com. He also writes for LewRockwell.com and speaks at various pro-liberty events in North America.
2012-02-1636 min