WarNotes: A Conflict Podcast

• Ep 015 "Freeboot Reboot: 21st Century PMC in War""

  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:'The last supper': How a 1993 Pentagon dinner reshaped the defense industry...Erik Prince at Hillsdale: "The Future of Dynamic Warfare"Sean McFate Mercenaries and War: Understanding Private Armies TodayThe mercenary boom: How private military contractors are redefining modern warfareInternational Stability Operations AssociationEeben Barlow Executive Outcomes: Against all OddsAl J. Venter War Dog: Fighting Other People's Wars***HR Kedward In Search of the Maquis: Rural Resistance in Southern France, 1942-1944George Millar Maquis: An Englishman in the French ResistanceIan Wellsted SAS with the Maquis: In Action with the French Resistance, June–September 1944Stephen Biddle Nonstate Warfare: The Military Methods of Guerillas, Warlords, and MilitiasAnyone attending the Special Operations Forces Week festivities in Tampa on 5-8 May 2025?If so, we should arrange a rendezvous.My SubstackEmail at [email protected]

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• Ep 014 "The Pause That Refreshes""

  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 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 WarfareQiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy AmericaMy SubstackEmail at [email protected]

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• Ep 013 "End of an Era: The Infantry Folds Its Colors"

  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.There is no longer near peer competition and there is only peer competition, you will never hear me utter the former phase again. A hybrid of technology and the nature of sensor & effector synchronization has driven cost and opportunity so far down, it is now a rational calculation to destroy individual infantrymen and small units in detail.For the first time in conflict history, the infantry on the battlefield will be targeted in a cost-effective fashion that will annihilate them on any field they step on in any climate at any time on the planet. The difference now is that wholesale elimination of infantry forces is nearly available to every combatant force on Earth.And it will simply become more refined and deadly with time.It's time for some severe self-reflection and reassessment to question the efficacy and utility of the infantry mode of combat. This Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) needs to be faced immediately.This is an existential crisis for combat arms in the West.Tick tock.***Please take the time to listen to my twelve-part series, Fixing Fight Club, here at WarNotes.Despite what you may think, the US conventional forces are in terminal collapse and completely unprepared for 21st century peer conflict.References:The Infantry Rifle and Platoon Squad: The Official U.S. Army Field Manual FM 3-21.8 (FM 7-8), 28 March 2007Ranger Handbook: TC 3-21.76, April 2017 EditionErwin Rommel Infantry AttackSiegfried Sassoon Memoirs of an Infantry OfficerPaul Avallone Tattoo Zoo: A Novel of the Afghan WarKarl Marlantes Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam 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 WarfareQiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy AmericaMy SubstackEmail at [email protected]

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• Ep 012 "Fixing Fight Club: Closing Thoughts on War in the 21st Century"

  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 of the other warfare to examine conventional war and the emerging tableau of near-peer and peer fighting that I am dead certain will raise its bloody hand in this century because humans simply can't help themselves.I think theWarNotes series has been a comprehensive survey of how to fix the broken, shattered and most expensive paper tiger in the history of the world, the US military complex.I have purposely not done an episode on either Space Force or the special operations forces complex in the US and allied armories that is near and dear to my heart; there is plenty of other larger items to attend to for now.I have painted a dim and shabby picture of the state of American and western arms in this series and taken a deep dive in the succeeding episodes of what America can do to create a more effective military in the remainder o the 21st century; maybe the defense intellectuals and personnel at the Pentagon and the halls of western military power can pause to reassess, re-frame and find a more realistic means to exercise martial power.Despite what you may think, the US conventional forces are in terminal collapse and completely unprepared for 21st century peer conflict.I'll offer some more recommendations and a path forward.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 WarfareQiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy AmericaMy SubstackEmail at [email protected]

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• Ep 011 "Fixing Fight Club: The Death of Manned Air Power"

  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 great peril.The era of hyper-velocity missiles whether high parabola of IRBM/ICBM or Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) glide vehicles.If the pilot mafia doesn't do something about what is coming, the result will be cataclysmic.The Pentagon will not do the right thing, regretfully.References:A Concise History of the U.S. Air ForceJeffrey J. Smith Tomorrow's Air Force: Tracing the Past, Shaping the FutureDavid Hambling Swarm Troopers: How Small Drones Will Conquer the WorldGarrett Graff Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself--While the Rest of Us DiePaul Ozorak Underground Structures of the Cold War: The World BelowDaniel Ellsberg The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War PlannerNassim Taleb Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, Skin in the GameMark Gunzinger & Bryan Clark Winning the Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air and Missile DefenseChristian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech WarfareMy SubstackEmail at [email protected]

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