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This episode is broken into three parts: 'No front line,' with former Explosive Ordnance Disposal officer Brian Castner (at the 1:59 mark); The Weight, with Marine Corps Infantry officer Walker Mills (at 15:09); The Future, featuring Army Maj. Gen. Ross Coffman, director of the Next-Generation Combat Vehicles Cross-Functional Team; Deputy Program Executive Officer for Army Ground Combat Vehicles, Jim Schirmer; and Mike Cadieux, director of the Army’s Ground Vehicle Systems Center (starting at 24:02). Extra reading: "Projected Acquisition Costs for the Army’s Ground Combat Vehicles," Congressional Budget Office, April 2021 (PDF); Read Mills' take on the JLTV (from Sept. 2020) at the Modern War Institute, here; Watch "Pentagon Wars" on HBO, here; or find the book on Amazon, here. Find a transcript of this episode here.

Guests include Stacie Pettyjohn, Senior Fellow and Director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security; Becca Wasser, fellow in the Defense Program at CNAS (both Wasser and Pettyjohn begin at the 2:44 mark); Zachary Kallenborn, research affiliate with the Unconventional Weapons and Technology Division of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (at the 21:14 mark); and Sam Bendett, Adviser with CNA and a member of its Russia Studies Program (at 29:25). Extra reading: Find Pettyjohn and Wasser's War on the Rocks columns here and here; Read Kallenborn's analysis of the Israeli Defense Forces recent swarm operations here; Read a CNA report Bendett co-authored in May entitled "Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy in Russia" (PDF) here. Find a transcript here.

Defense One's Patrick Tucker helps explain the U.S. military's growing climate security portfolio (at the 4:05 mark); John Conger of the Center for Climate and Security joins us later (at 14:28), followed by Gabriel Collins of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy (at 23:38). Extra reading: Read Conger's Defense One op-ed here; Find the report Gabe co-authored on U.S.-China competition (PDF), here; Read more from Tucker's interview with Richard Kidd, the deputy assistant defense secretary for environment and energy resilience, here. Find a transcript of this episode here.

This episode we speak about where Afghanistan might go from here—with help former Afghan translator Habib Hassan and former State Department official Elizabeth Threlkeld, currently of the Stimson Center. Find a transcript of this episode here.

This episode we’re going to share a few of the more memorable exchanges from this year’s Tech Summit, including Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks; Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Dennis Crall; Director of the Space Development Agency Derek Tournear; Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation; Kelly Hammett, of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Directed Energy Directorate; Air Force Col. Eric Felt, the Director of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate; Mieke Eoyang, who is the Pentagon’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy; Ylli Bajraktari, Executive Director of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence; and the NSA’s Director of Cybersecurity Rob Joyce. To watch any of these interviews in video, go here. Or read a transcript of this episode here.

This episode we’re going to take a look at some of the most important issues shaping the future of U.S.-European security, including NATO, the EU, fringe politics, lessons from the Cold War, and evolving perceptions of both China and the U.S. Guests include: Dr. Alina Polyakova, president and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis; Elisabeth Braw, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute And former NATO Ambassador Ivo Daalder, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Find a transcript of this episode here: https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2021/06/defense-one-radio-ep-84-biden-europe-and-future-transatlantic-security/174681/

This episode we’re going to learn about the Combahee River Raid, the first U.S. military operation to be organized and led by a woman. That woman was abolitionist Harriet Tubman. Dr. Edda Fields-Black of Carnegie Mellon University joins us to tell the story. Find a transcript of this episode here.

Retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule talks about the Confederacy, U.S. race relations, and inclusive changes throughout the recent history of the U.S. military. Seidule's memoir is called “Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause.” Find a transcript of this episode here.

What lies ahead for Afghanistan? And what does that war look like today from the perspective of a Green Beret who spent several months trying to build Afghanistan’s military and police? We’ll break down those questions and a lot more in this episode of Defense One Radio, featuring Bill Roggio of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

There’s a new way of thinking about war that’s taking over the Pentagon. A lot has happened for its generals and for the country over the past 30 years of American warfare. And if this latest crop of generals get their wish, a lot could happen in just the first 30 minutes of America’s next large-scale war.  So — kind of like our last episode — preparing ourselves for the next world war is what this episode is all about, in three parts: From old capabilities to new ones (at the 1:21 mark) Opportunity and vulnerability (17:19) Mr. JADC2 Goes to Washington (31:47) Find a transcript of this episode here.

2034 could be a disastrous year for U.S.-China relations — and most of the rest of the world, according to a new work of fiction by former NATO Commander retired U.S. Navy Adm. Jim Stavridis and Marine veteran, journalist and writer Elliot Ackerman. The two have teamed up to write “2034: A Novel of the Next World War,” which was published this week by Penguin Random House.

Today we’re going to hear from journalist and author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon. She’s traveled to Syria several times over the past four years. And her new book, “The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage, and Justice,” arrived on bookshelves just this week. Much of her reporting in it originated on Defense One, when she filed dispatches from Syria to Executive Editor Kevin Baron. The two of them talk about that story, the book, and what to expect for Syria's future, including from the Biden administration.

This episode, we’ll ask how we can better understand those hundreds of Americans who stormed the Capitol. We’ll also look into how now may really be the time to truly expand the way we think about certain key things like what “national security” means when an insurrection can be stoked so openly, as it was in the days leading up to January 6. Our guests are Robert Pape of the University of Chicago and director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (at the 2:45 mark); Divya Ramjee of the Center for Security, Innovation, and New Technology and Elsa Kania of the Center for a New American Security (at 11:54); and Peter W. Singer from the New America think tank (at 21:33). A transcript for this episode is available here.

This episode Defense One's Katie Bo Williams and Patrick Tucker unpack the national security policies and possible changes from an incoming Biden administration.

This episode, Defense One's Ben Watson asks Army Chief Gen. James McConville how the service is dealing with the coronavirus and the threat posed by Russia. The Army chief also discusses a joint Air Force project to link everything on the battlefield — known as Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control, or CJADC2 — as well as what non-military books he's reading. Find a transcript of this conversation here.

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.

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.