Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast

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In this episode, I sketch the life and exploits of one of my three Peak Guerrillas from the beginning of the 20th century, German GEN Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck. I want to explore 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 and not so mechanized warfare as the Allies would discover during their four year campaign against the poorly supported but brilliant innovations and TTP of Lettow-Vorbeck and his Schutztruppe (German for "Protection Force") .
References:
Edward Paice World War I: The African Front: An Imperial War on the Dark Continent
Edwin P. Hoyt Guerrilla: COL Lettow-Vorbeck and Germany’s East African Empire
Isabel Hull Absolute Destruction: Military Culture And The Practices Of War In Imperial Germany
Bruce Gilley In Defense of German Colonialism: And How Its Critics Empowered Nazis, Communists, and the Enemies of the West
Tim Pat Coogan Michael Collins
James Gleeson Bloody Sunday
Tom Barry Guerrilla Days in Ireland
Peter Hart Michael Collins
Scott Anderson Lawrence of Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East
James J. Schneider Guerrilla Leader: TE Lawrence and the Arab Revolt
My Substack
Email me at cgpodcast@pm.me

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!
It's been quite some time since I have responded to "mail" so I have curated these questions to address:.
Why the future of warfare is not clone wars?
The Fall of Europe is inevitable, here is what it will look like.
The rifle is no longer the future in any form of warfare.
How systems engineering is ultimately the way of war now and forever
Events and Ephemera:
The Arcata Summit in Bozeman 13-14 November 2026
Hearts of Space Subscription Service
References:
Why the M7 is Wrong with Ian McCollum
Unauthorized History of the Pacific War Podcast
RAND wish-casting on drones in 2015.
Slaughterbots (2017)
Slaughterbots: if human: kill() (2021)
How are Drones Changing Modern Warfare?
Sun Tzu The Art of War
Carl von Clausewitz On War
Miyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy
H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare
Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare
Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America
My Substack
Email at cgpodcast@pm.me

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!
Hybrid warfare is a can of worms, a fascinating conjoining of kinetic and non-kinetic means of achieving victory or stale between warring nations.
We continue our conversation.
References:
The Arcata Summit 13-14 November 2026
War Without a Center: Iran’s Mosaic Defense
Richard J. Samuels Special Duty: A History of the Japanese Intelligence Community
John Llewelyn The Imperial Japanese Army’s Tokumu Kikan – Special Service Organisations: Connections Between Wartime and Peacetime Intelligence Activities
Simon Hall BLINDED BY THE RISING SUN JAPANESE MILITARY INTELLIGENCE FROM THE FIRST SINO-JAPANESE WAR TO THE END OF WORLD WAR I
Interrogation of IJF CDR Miyazaki
Report to Congress on Russian Hybrid Warfare in Europe 11 August 2026
The Future of Hybrid Warfare
Hybrid Warfare: How to Escape the Conceptual Gray-Zone
The Evolution of Hybrid Warfare: Implications for Strategy and the Military Profession
Richard Feynman Cargo Cult speech at CalTech 1974
RAND wish-casting on drones in 2015.
Slaughterbots (2017)
Slaughterbots: if human: kill() (2021)
How are Drones Changing Modern Warfare?
H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare
Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare
Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America
Email at cgpodcast@pm.me

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!
Hybrid warfare Is a can of worms, a fascinating conjoining of kinetic and non-kinetic means of achieving victory or stale between warring nations.
This second episode examines an historical example of what I think is the closest modern hybrid warfare modality in the Japanese Empire in the 1930s leading to WWII; the.Imperial Japanese Army’s Tokumu Kikan – Special Service Organizations that laid the groundwork for this phenomenon in the modern west.
References:
Richard J. Samuels Special Duty: A History of the Japanese Intelligence Community
John Llewelyn The Imperial Japanese Army’s Tokumu Kikan – Special Service Organisations: Connections Between Wartime and Peacetime Intelligence Activities
Report to Congress on Russian Hybrid Warfare in Europe 11 August 2026
The Future of Hybrid Warfare
Hybrid Warfare: How to Escape the Conceptual Gray-Zone
The Evolution of Hybrid Warfare: Implications for Strategy and the Military Profession
Richard Feynman Cargo Cult speech at CalTech 1974
RAND wish-casting on drones in 2015.
Slaughterbots (2017)
Slaughterbots: if human: kill() (2021)
How are Drones Changing Modern Warfare?
Sun Tzu The Art of War
Carl von Clausewitz On War
Miyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy
H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare
Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare
Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America
My Substack
Email at cgpodcast@pm.me

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!
Hybrid warfare Is a can of worms, a fascinating conjoining of kinetic and non-kinetic means of achieving victory or stale between warring nations. This first episode tries to lay the ground work of what it is and in the next two episodes we will examine an historical and a contemporary example of hybrid warfare in meat-space.
References:
Report to Congress on Russian Hybrid Warfare in Europe 11 August 2026
The Future of Hybrid Warfare
Hybrid Warfare: How to Escape the Conceptual Gray-Zone
The Evolution of Hybrid Warfare: Implications for Strategy and the Military Profession
Richard Feynman Cargo Cult speech at CalTech 1974
RAND wish-casting on drones in 2015.
Slaughterbots (2017)
Slaughterbots: if human: kill() (2021)
How are Drones Changing Modern Warfare?
Sun Tzu The Art of War
Carl von Clausewitz On War
Miyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy
H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare
Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare
Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America
My Substack
Email at cgpodcast@pm.me