Easy Listening: What are Small Wars?

The Cognitive Warrior Project is dedicated to the continuing education for war fighters that embrace the adaptation required for tomorrow’s battlefield. We seek to promote discussions that bridge the gap between policy maker and warfighter. To aid in this continuing project, here is a new podcast (not mine) for you listening enjoyment.

In this initial post we are going to introduce you to the Irregular Warfare Podcast – Episode One: “What are Small Wars?” You can follow that link to the podcast or go to the Modern Warfare Institute website for more information. From their website:

This is the inaugural episode of a brand-new podcast the Modern War Institute is launching in collaboration with Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project. It’s called the Irregular Warfare Podcast, and in this episode, Kyle Atwell and Nick Lopez discuss the question “What are Small Wars?” with Dr. Jake Shapiro and Col. Patrick Howell. Jake is a professor of political science at Princeton University and a coauthor of the book Small Wars, Big Data: The Information Revolution in Modern Conflict. Col. Howell is the director of the Modern War Institute and has over twenty years of experience participating in irregular wars around the world.

The conversation tackles fundamental questions about irregular warfare: What are small wars? Do they still matter in an era of great-power competition? And what have the United States and its allies learned (and not learned) about how to fight them over the past decades of conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere?  In line with the charter of the Irregular Warfare Podcast, the conversation bridges the gap between scholars and practitioners by identifying important lessons learned from the study and practice of irregular warfare for both policymakers and practitioners.

Listen to the full conversation below, and be sure to subscribe to the Irregular Warfare Podcast wherever you get your podcasts—Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, TuneIn, or your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the podcast on Twitter!

This podcast covers the history of small wars in relation to the cold war, the planning process in the troop surge and most importantly how the lack of a strategy doomed tactical success in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Failure to address the political aspects of counterinsurgency will continue to be a problem unless both civilian and military leaders address those prior to engagement.

https://castbox.fm/app/castbox/player/id2910334/id267679329?utm_source=edm&utm_medium=dlink&utm_campaign=web_share&utm_content=What%20are%20Small%20Wars%3F-CastBox_FM