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We’re joined by the officer in charge of the U.S. military in the Middle East — Marine General Frank McKenzie. He recently sat down with Defense One’s senior national security correspondent Katie Bo Williams for the second in our Outlook 2021 event series.

Defense One Tech Editor Patrick Tucker recently spoke with America’s Vice Commander of Space Operations, Lt. General David Thompson. It was the fourth installment in our ongoing State of Defense event series where we’re looking at the future of each military service. Underwritten by Long Term Care Partners.

Defense One Global Business Editor Marcus Weisgerber recently sat down with U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Brown, Jr. It was the second in our State of Defense event series where we at Defense One take a look at the future of each military service. You can read more about the series here. Underwritten by Long Term Care Partners.

This episode, we'll explore emerging trends in unmanned systems. We’ll start in the air, before turning to the land and sea in a review of Russian-made systems and military thinking. And we’ll end with a discussion about trust and artificial intelligence. (Music by Bob Bradley, Paul Clarvis, Thomas Balmforth; Guy Farley, Andrew Carroll; Richard Lacy; Paul Mottram; Jeff Meegan, David Tobin, Rob Kelly; Theo Travis, Paul Ressel; Sue Verran, Paul Ressel; and David Kelly — via Audionetwork.com) Part One: The aerial events in Arizona, Colorado and Mexico (at the 3:41 mark); Part Two: From Russia, by land and sea (24:10); Part Three: Beyond AlphaDogfight (33:48). Find a transcript of this episode here. Guests: Arthur Holland Michel, associate researcher at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva, where he researches autonomous systems and artificial intelligence.  Brett Velicovich, U.S. Army veteran and author of the book “Drone Warrior.”  Samuel Bendett, analyst with the Center for Naval Analyses' International Affairs Group. Read more about the Arizona drone incident from Sept. 2019 at The Drive, here. This episode is underwritten by Aerovironment.

Defense One Executive Editor Kevin Baron recently sat down with U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville. The conversation kicked off our State of Defense event series where Defense One looks at the future of each military service. You can read more about the series here. In today’s episode, Gen. McConville said his branch is working hard to maintain the trust of the American people and build a force free of racism, extremism, and other influences that could hurt the unity of its soldiers, from Confederate flags to QAnon conspiracy theorists. Watch the conversation on YouTube here. Find Baron's post-interview essay here. Underwritten by Long Term Care Partners.

This episode, we’re going to take a closer look at terrorism trends and far-right extremists in America. We’ll see how oftentimes right-wing violence works inside the seams of American security and law enforcement discourse, challenging our definition of terrorism. We’ll also discuss America’s wars abroad, and how many veterans have brought the war home, as it were.  Then we’ll visit Charlottesville, Virginia, where we’ll tour a few Confederate monuments — monuments that are playing host to a new generation of vigilantes. Guests this episode include: Erin Miller, program manager for the Global Terrorism Database at the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism; that conversation begins at the 1:52 mark; Kathleen Belew, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Chicago (at the 9:33 mark); Jalane Schmidt, University of Virginia professor and local public historian in Charlottesville, Virginia (at the 38:04 mark). Find her work in a special feature from WTJU's 91.1 FM entitled, "Marked by these Monuments."

We take a new look at what China means to American voters, and how opinions and perceptions about China have changed since President Trump took office three and a half years ago. Our episode is broken into three parts:   How Americans feel about China, with Laura Silver of the Pew Research Center; The tech and values challenge posed by China, with Rui Zhong of the Wilson Center; and Kara Frederick of the Center for a New American Security; From 1517 to 2020, with Michael Schuman, author of “Superpower Interrupted: The Chinese History of the World.”      

U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Karl Schultz explains how his service is responding to growing access to the arctic, which is quickly becoming a place for great powers like Russia, China and the U.S. to compete and try to outmaneuver one another.  Then we'll hear from arctic policy wonks David Auerswald of the National War College and Abbie Tingstad of the RAND Corporation.  This episode is sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton.

This episode we'll hear from Peter W. Singer and August Cole, the authors of “Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution.” The title comes from the term for deliberately pushing technology to the breaking point, in order to learn from it. Then we'll pivot to military recruiting and the world of competitive video gaming when we speak to Sergeant First Class Chris Jones, the NCO-in-charge of the U.S. Army's Esports team. // Music by Gareth Johnson, Kes Loy and Gavin Harrison, as well as Jason Pedder, Philip Guyler and Ben Ziapour — via AudioNetwork.com. This episode is sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton.

Richard Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations. His book “The World: A Brief Introduction” is available for purchase online today.   This episode is sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton.

Today we’re going to look at America’s changing place in a rapidly-changing world. It’s part of a broader series of reporting, commentaries and discussions Defense One and the Center for a New American Security are hosting throughout the year. They’re all inspired by the theme of military readiness in 2020. And we’re calling it the American Readiness Project. The guiding question is this: Are Americans ready, willing, and able to be the global security leaders of this century?  This episode, Defense One Executive Editor Kevin Baron explores those ideas and more along with Ivo Daalder, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. This episode is sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton.

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey has a new book coming out in May called “No Time For Spectators: The Lessons That Mattered Most From West Point To The West Wing.” Dempsey talks about politics and leadership during a pandemic; why the U.S. didn't do more in Syria sooner, and more. This episode is sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton.

More American soldiers died from the flu in 1918 than died from combat in World War I. And more Americans died from that 1918 flu pandemic than died from all the wars in the last century. That's why we’re gonna learn a bit more about what the Influenza of 1918 did to the U.S. military. Special Guest: Angry Staff Officer  Part One: The First Wave (at the 1:35 mark); Part Two: The Second Wave (11:40); Part Three: The Show Must Go On (22:38). Find a transcript of this episode here. Find Carol Byerly's "Fever of War" on Amazon here. See also Byerly's additional research on the topic at the National Institutes of Health, here. See also PBS American Experience's 2010 documentary, "Influenza 1918," here. This episode is sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton.

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Part One: The costs of acknowledging a pandemic, with Annie Lowrey of The Atlantic (at the 3:29 mark); find her report, "Quantifying the Coming Recession," here. Part Two: On China's initiative and trustworthiness, with Peter W. Singer of New America (at 12:34); find Singer's two pieces on China here and here; Part Three: The downside of ‘America First’ and the upside of America, with Kori Schake of the American Enterprise Institute (at 27:56); find her op-ed, "'America First' Is Making the Pandemic Worse," here. This episode is sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton.

We decided to take stock of how the coronavirus and the disease it causes, Covid-19, are affecting the U.S. government and the national security establishment. So we’re try to figure out what maybe to expect next. Guests include Defense One Global Business Editor Marcus Weisgerber (at the 3:10 mark), Defense One National Security Correspondent Katie Bo Williams (11:27), Ross Gianfortune of the podcast "GovExec Daily" (at 20:26), and Defense One's Tech Editor Patrick Tucker (at the 30:31 mark).

The United States Space Force is now officially a thing, complete with a commander and plans to put about 16,000 members of the military to work defending U.S. interests in space. But what exactly does it mean for the U.S. military to “deter aggression” in space? How could a war in space happen? And what are American interests in space, anyway?This episode, we’re going to answer those questions as best we can with the help of four experts on space weapons and policy and strategy: Jeffrey Lewis, professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, Calif.; Jonathan McDowell, astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.; Bleddyn Bowen, lecturer in International Relations at the University of Leicester, in the UK; and Brian Weeden, director of Program Planning at the Secure World Foundation. Music used by permission via Audionetwork.com. Find a transcript of this episode: https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/03/ep-63-war-space/163611/

We’re going to take a closer look at Russian private military contractors. How much do we understand about what these groups are up to? And how much should the U.S. and its allies be concerned? It’s a phenomenon with a history; and it’s something that doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. The episode is broken into four parts: • Behind the Battle of Khasham (at the 1:53 mark) • Prigozhin's Path (8:09) • An Ignominious Invasion (23:16) • Into Africa (27:47) Guests include Kimberly Marten of Columbia University's Barnard College; Candace Rondeaux of Arizona State University and a Senior Fellow with the New America think tank's Center on the Future of War; and Aric Toler, who leads research and training activities on eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union for the investigative journalism collective Bellingcat. Transcript: https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/01/ep-62-wagner-and-russian-private-military-contractors/162447/

With less than a year until the next U.S. election, we’ve got a few experts to help break down what they think is ahead in U.S.-directed influence operations. They include Alina Polyakova of the Brookings Institution; Clint Watts of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the Alliance for Securing Democracy; retired CIA agent John Sipher; and (briefly) Mark Galeotti of the Royal United Services Institute. // Music is by Paul Mottram; Bob Bradley; David O'Brien; Lincoln Grounds; and Matt Hill — via AudioNetwork.com. • Find the full 2019 Reagan National Defense Survey (PDF), here: https://www.reaganfoundation.org/media/355292/reagan-foundation-survey-charts-112519.pdf

Defense One's Patrick Tucker sat down with Pakistan’s top diplomat in Washington to discuss the U.S. troop pullout in Afghanistan, the worsening situation in Kashmir, and efforts to fight extremism.