School of War

In the Baltics, war with Russia is no abstraction. Putin could take Lithuania’s capital if he achieved surprise, the nation’s army commander told Aaron MacLean. This week, Aaron travels through Lithuania and Latvia to speak with Brigadier General Nerijus Stankevičius, Lithuanian defense Minister Robertas Kaunas, and Latvian foreign minister Baiba Braže about why Lithuania is amending its constitution to allow weapons of mass destruction on its soil, what schoolchildren are learning in their war-preparedness exercises, and what each country is doing now to make sure they’re ready if war comes.

02:58 — Brig. Gen. Nerijus Stankevičius

04:25 — Russia Could Take Vilnius

06:03 — How Lithuania Would Fight

09:58 — “Never Again”

14:14 — Robertas Kaunas, Lithuania’s Defense Strategy

17:28 — Drones, AI & the Eastern Flank

22:31 — Nuclear Deterrence

23:58 — Preparing the Whole Country

29:16 — A Message to Putin

31:29 — Baiba Braže, Latvia on the Front Line

36:12 — Drones Over Latvia

37:28 — Joining Latvia’s National Guard

40:30 — Russia’s “Sub-Conventional” War

48:46 — What If Russia Wins in Ukraine?

55:54 — Can Russia Be Pressured Into Peace?

This episode of School of War is brought to you by Maven Smart System, the builder platform for the American warfighter, fielded across the force and live on the frontline today. Learn more at palantir.com.

This episode of School of War is also brought to you by Stratolaunch, a leading pure-play hypersonics company. Stratolaunch helps the U.S. and its allies move new hypersonic technologies from concept to capability, faster and cheaper. Learn more about how Stratolaunch is accelerating the future of hypersonics at Stratolaunch.com.

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America is running low on munitions, its shipyards can’t keep pace, and the materials its weapons depend on too often run through China. Michael Cadenazzi is the Pentagon official charged with turning that around, putting billions of dollars behind the factories, materials, and supply chains that make America’s military power possible. He joins School of War to explain how the Pentagon plans to ramp up weapons production, attract private investment, and break decades of bad habits in how the Pentagon does business. Cadenazzi is confident America can still mobilize its industrial might for a major war, but he warns that waiting until the shooting starts would be “way more expensive in blood and treasure.” The race to rearm is on, and the question is whether America can win it before the next great-power war begins.

03:40 – America's Industrial Decline

06:15 – Dependence on China

09:12 – Pentagon Spending

12:40 – Rare Earth Production

16:59 – Defense Supply Chains

20:41 – Weapons Manufacturing

23:26 – High-End Weapons vs. Mass

28:01 – Blood and Treasure

31:56 – Private Investment

34:58 – Outproducing China

41:29 – Pentagon Equity Stakes

45:00 – Managing Investments

This episode of School of War is brought to you by Maven Smart System, the builder platform for the American warfighter, fielded across the force and live on the frontline today. Learn more at palantir.com.

This episode of School of War is also brought to you by Stratolaunch, a leading pure-play hypersonics company. Stratolaunch helps the U.S. and its allies move new hypersonic technologies from concept to capability, faster and cheaper. Learn more about how Stratolaunch is accelerating the future of hypersonics at Stratolaunch.com.

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A young researcher in Siberia has died under mysterious circumstances, raising questions about a potential lab leak. Russia won’t say how it happened. Marshall Billingslea, former Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control, says Moscow has scrubbed news reports, had officials walk back talk of an outbreak, and kept the World Health Organization in the dark. He joins School of War to fill in what the Kremlin won’t, taking us inside Russia’s expanding bioweapons program and the institute at the heart of the mystery, which defectors say ran a covert effort to weaponize the disease and make it resistant to antibiotics. He also explains how Moscow thinks about using these weapons, how China is building a program of its own, and why the most frightening of them pose a risk even nuclear weapons don’t.

2:32 — Mystery at a Russian Plague Lab

5:29 — Russia’s Bioweapons Program

7:14 — Weaponizing Plague

10:39 — How Russia Would Use Bioweapons

13:01 — Smallpox and Ebola

15:07 — Controlling the Spread

16:40 — “Your Vaccines Wouldn’t Have Worked”

18:20 — A Soviet Bioweapons Defector

20:30 — Why Bioweapons Bans Are Hard to Verify

24:58 — Irkutsk and Wuhan

29:48 — Another Pandemic?

32:45 — China and North Korea

This episode of School of War is brought to you by Maven Smart System, the builder platform for the American warfighter, fielded across the force and live on the frontline today. Learn more at palantir.com.

This episode of School of War is also brought to you by Stratolaunch, a leading pure-play hypersonics company. Stratolaunch helps the U.S. and its allies move new hypersonic technologies from concept to capability, faster and cheaper. Learn more about how Stratolaunch is accelerating the future of hypersonics at Stratolaunch.com.

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Three years after October 7, the deadliest terror attack in Israeli history looms large over the Jewish state’s upcoming election. Former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren says whomever takes the helm next is unlikely to “remove a single soldier from Lebanon, from Gaza, from Syria.” Today, Oren joins School of War to discuss Israel’s “80 percent” consensus on national security, why he thinks Hezbollah “cannot be destroyed militarily,” and the deepening political divide between religious Zionists and ultra-Orthodox Jews over the Jewish state’s future.

3:33 How October 7 Changed Israel

8:54 The Ultra-Orthodox Draft Fight

13:52 Israel’s Election and the Draft

17:17 Why the Ultra-Orthodox Don’t Serve

19:17 Oren's Path to the IDF

24:45 How Israel Defeated Hezbollah

26:50 Israel’s New Security Consensus

29:58 Can Iran Survive the Blockade?

32:40 What Comes Next in Gaza?

34:52 Hunting the October 7 Terrorists

37:02 Why Michael Oren Chose Israel

41:11 What Happens if Iran’s Regime Falls?

This episode of School of War is brought to you by Maven Smart System, the builder platform for the American warfighter, fielded across the force and live on the frontline today. Learn more at palantir.com.

This episode of School of War is also brought to you by Stratolaunch, a leading pure-play hypersonics company. Stratolaunch helps the U.S. and its allies move new hypersonic technologies from concept to capability, faster and cheaper. Learn more about how Stratolaunch is accelerating the future of hypersonics at Stratolaunch.com.

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How do you fight a superpower you can’t afford to stop trading with? The Dutch faced that problem at the start of the 17th century in their war against Spain, and their answer was the Dutch West India Company, a business built to wage war. Alexander Bick, a historian who served on the National Security Council under Barack Obama and Joe Biden, joins School of War to discuss his new book, Minutes of Empire. He explains how the company helped secure Dutch independence and why the Dutch kept trading with Spain while fighting it, taxing certain exports to “plow that money back into the military,” and what that reveals about America’s tangled relationship with China. All of which raises a question about Donald Trump’s foreign policy: Is America reviving an older style of empire?

02:52 — The Rise of the Dutch Republic

06:25 — How Dutch Trading Companies Began

09:47 — Shareholder Profits vs. National Strategy

11:59 — Who Invested in the Company?

14:33 — Challenging Spain in the New World

19:19 — The Costs of Conquering Brazil

22:49 — Who Ran the West India Company?

31:58 — Business Failure, Strategic Success

39:36 — The Dutch Legacy in Britain

43:16 — America and Trading with the Enemy

49:13 — Biden and Trump: What Changed?

55:30 — Trump, Venezuelan Oil, and Empire

This episode of School of War is brought to you by Maven Smart System, the builder platform for the American warfighter, fielded across the force and live on the frontline today. Learn more at palantir.com.

This episode of School of War is also brought to you by Stratolaunch, a leading pure-play hypersonics company. Stratolaunch helps the U.S. and its allies move new hypersonic technologies from concept to capability, faster and cheaper. Learn more about how Stratolaunch is accelerating the future of hypersonics at Stratolaunch.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices