Angry Planet

The world I grew up in no longer exists. The decades after World War II were boom times for free trade lovers. During the Pax Americana it seemed that most diplomatic problems could be solved by exporting blue jeans and lowering the cost of consumer goods for everyone. But in 2026 trade is a serious weapon and economic policy seems less a path to prosperity and more a weapon for waging war.

On this episode of Angry Planet, Chad P Bown is here to talk about his new book How to Win a Trade War. Bown is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and co-authored the book with journalist Soumaya Keynes. The book is a brisk walk through a history of economic conflict full of humor and history.

The world according to nerd trade economists
If we must fight, fight this way
“It’s a China story”
Rare earth minerals, magnets, and the weaponization of trade
What’s the goal of our trade war?
The Hormuz of it all
The trade war against China isn’t going great
China’s delicate dance
Trade war as precursor to kinetic war
Some thoughts on robotics and AI

Buy How to Win a Trade War

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Recorded in May. Join angryplanetpod.com to hear episodes early and commercial free.

America’s war against Iran has gone on for more than two months and the United States has achieved none of its political objectives. American power has diminished, its munitions stockpile is low, and Iran now controls the Strait of Hormuz.

Tehran has all the cards.

To hear Robert Pape tell it, this was all predictable. Pape is a political scientist who teaches at the University of Chicago and specializes in the use of violence to achieve political goals. He’s the author of Bombing to Win and a scholar of air power failures. On this episode of Angry Planet, Pape walks us through the uses of air power, why it never achieves victory on its own, and why the Pentagon keeps promising it will.

How you become an air power expert
Losing Vietnam after such perfect precision
Man as meme
“You don’t learn this by real estate deals.”
There has not been a single case in history where air power alone has succeeded.
“Our power is declining as a result of this.”
The persistent myth of winning through air power
Dumb bombs to precision weapons
“It’s a dismal record of failure.”
NATO in Kosovo
What are America’s definable political goals?
Iran’s political goals
Iran says seized tanker in Gulf of Oman, as US ‘disables’ two ships
Punishment, denial, and decapitation
The fragmenting GCC
Pape as Casandra
Breaking Trump in the Strait of Hormuz
“This will end up being America’s worst defeat since Vietnam.”
A grim prediction

The Escalation Trap

The Gulf States Just Voted on American Power

From Kosovo to Iran: The Smart Bomb Trap and the Risk of Catastrophic Escalation

Buy Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War
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On the morning of April 21, Trump posted an image of eight women on Truth Social, claimed they were Iranian dissidents set to be executed, and demanded that Tehran release them. Detractors, and several Iranian sources, claimed the women were AI-generated. A day later Trump claimed the women would no longer be executed and that he’d saved them.

The truth is that the women are real and many are still in danger. Trump’s post made real Iranian women who protested the Iranian regime appear fake. The story speaks to a moment we’re in where it’s become impossible to parse truth from lies online. This was already difficult before AI-generated pictures and video. Now it feels impossible.

On this episode of Angry Planet, Mahsa Alimardani is here to tell us the story. Alimardani is the Associate Director of Technology Threats and Opportunities at WITNESS.

Eight real women turned into AI propaganda
Real crimes bastardized into regime propaganda
“We need to come to terms with the fact that our information environment is structurally different.”
Content Credentials as a partial solution
How AI is supercharging our chosen reality tunnels
The cycle of uprising and repression in Iran
The structure of Iran’s internet and how its blackouts work
Domestic intranet as an alternative form of communication
AI-generated Lego propaganda videos
Iran Reframed
Explosive Media’s deep connections to the Islamic Republic
Politics as fandom, fandom as politics
“Everything is becoming flattened.”
“The onus on the person scrolling is a bit unfair.”

Mahsa Alimardani’s LinkedIn

The Real Iranian Women Protesters Trump Made Look Synthetic

In the Room With Iran’s Social Media Savants

How AI Content Detection is Being Weaponized in the Iran War

Iran Is Winning the AI Slop Propaganda War
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Kim Song Ju, the man who would become Kim Il Sung, was born to devout Presbyterian parents. Billy Graham’s wife was born to christian missionaries in China and went to high school in Pyongyang. American protestants once spread the gospel in northwest Korea and found fertile ground for their gospel message. Kim listened, learned, and used those teachings to shape a cult of personality that rules North Korea to this day.

On this episode of Angry Planet I’m joined by Wall Street Journal China bureau chief Jonathan Cheng to talk about his new book Korean Messiah. Cheng’s work is an exploration of the origins of North Korea and Kim’s deep ties to American Christianity.
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Angry Planet as dress rehearsal
Billy Graham in the Hermit Kingdom
19th century Protestant missionaries in Korea
Presbyterians in the untamed northwest
Untangling the history of a self-made godking
The Kim Song Ju nativity
Women without names
Attending church during the Fire and Fury period
The Soviet era
Leading from beyond the grave
Kim bombs his first public appearance

Buy Korean Messiah
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Recorded March 24, 2026. Subscribe at angryplanetpod.com to hear episodes first and commercial free.

Last week an article published in Al Jazeera by an academic at the University of Doha in Qatar proposed something that felt crazy to some western war watchers: America and Israel’s strategy in Iran is working.

On this episode of Angry Planet, author Muhanad Seloom is here to explain his position. Seloom is an assistant professor of international politics and security at the University of Doha. He’s also an Iraqi who lived through the Iran-Iraq war and both US invasions. From his perspective, the US has degraded Iran’s ability to hurt its neighbors in the long term and changed the regime.
What comes next is a more complicated question.

Why did this war even start?
Setting aside morality and legality to look at ground truths
“Iran is much weaker”
Missile production, missile range
The highly enriched uranium is in one place
“The regime has changed. Whether we like it or not, the regime has changed.”
The case against the new Khamenei
What is it like to live nextdoor to Iran?
There’s a reason no one is standing up for Iran
Why isn’t the GCC doing more?
What happens if we pick up and leave?
What’s the plan for what happens next?
“It’s not easy to rise up.”
Charging tolls on Hormuz
“I have to say this: I am against the war in any way.”
What about the JCPOA?
A great unanswered question of history
Air campaigns don’t win wars
…did America really lose in Afghanistan and Iraq?
“War is hell.”

Labelling Ethno-Political Groups as Terrorists

The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is why
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