School of War

If America wants to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty, it needs to build more warships. China currently dominates global shipbuilding—producing vessels at a scale the United States can no longer match. Alex Wong, an executive at South Korean shipbuilding giant Hanwha Group and a former Trump administration national security adviser, thinks he has the solution. Today, Wong joins Aaron MacLean to discuss how the United States lost its shipbuilding capacity, how South Korean technology and investment could help revive American shipyards, and what it will take to rebuild the country’s naval industrial base. “America doesn’t have 20 years” to regain its maritime dominance, he warns.

02:23 — America’s Shipbuilding Crisis

05:44 — How America Lost Its Shipbuilding Industry

09:43 — Why Commercial Shipbuilding Matters to the Navy

12:28 — America vs. China’s Shipbuilding Capacity

13:54 — Rebuilding America’s Shipyards

16:16 — Robots and the Future of Shipbuilding

23:52 — Rebuilding America’s Shipbuilding Workforce

29:11 — Building Ships for Golden Dome

30:11 — Can America Build Enough Ships?

32:46 — Replacing Ships in Wartime

34:54 — Trump, Kim Jong Un, and North Korea

43:06 — Taiwan, Korea, and a Two-Front Crisis

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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Could Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey form a “Muslim NATO?” Pakistan has the nuclear arsenal, Saudi Arabia has the wealth, and Turkey has the NATO-trained military—“you put these three together and it becomes a pretty formidable force,” says CBS News senior foreign correspondent Imtiaz Tyab. Today, he joins School of War to discuss whether the pact could really become an effective alliance, what the effort reveals about America’s changing role in the Middle East, and what five years of Taliban rule have meant for Afghanistan: “I’ve never seen the Taliban more confident,” he said.

02:14 — Reporting From Afghanistan

05:42 — The War in Afghanistan

11:29 — A More Confident Taliban

13:09 — Life Under Taliban Rule

16:13 — Afghanistan’s Secret Girls’ Schools

20:26 — Letters From Afghan Girls

25:30 — Afghanistan Under the Taliban

28:47 — A Girl’s Plea to the World

30:07 — The Pakistan-Saudi-Turkey Alliance

31:47 — A “Muslim NATO”?

40:33 — The Abraham Accords

44:27 — Testing the New Defense Pact

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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John Boyd was one of the most influential military thinkers of the 20th century, and the intellectual godfather of the U.S. Marines’ military strategy. Today, as artificial intelligence continues to transform battlefields in Ukraine and the Middle East, author and retired Marine officer Ian Brown argues that Boyd’s ideas are more relevant than ever. Today, Brown joins Aaron MacLean to discuss how Ukraine is harnessing Boyd’s concept of narrative warfare, what Boyd can teach us about conflict in the age of AI, drones, and precision strikes, and his new book co-authored with Frans P. B. Osinga, Snowmobiles and Grand Ideals.

2:20 Who Was John Boyd?7:25 What Boyd Learned From Dogfighting15:37 From Air Combat to the OODA Loop23:49 Is the OODA Loop Really About Speed?29:33 What Do Blitzkrieg and Insurgency Have in Common?36:44 Surfaces and Gaps41:25 Why Did the Marine Corps Embrace Boyd?48:25 The Marine Corps’ Warfighting Doctrine50:25 Does Modern Warfare Challenge Boyd?53:18 Information as a Weapon53:53 Boyd’s Ideas Meet Drone Warfare54:55 From Nagorno-Karabakh to Ukraine

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

People think retired Army Major John Spencer lost part of his ear in combat. He didn’t; he lost it in a fight behind a bar that cost him his spot in the Army Rangers. Spencer went on to serve repeatedly in combat and become one of the country’s leading experts on urban warfare. He joins Aaron MacLean to discuss his origin story and other anecdotes from his new book, Twenty Times I Almost Died, as well as why he thinks the U.S. “is clearly winning” the war in Iran.

3:30 War With Iran
9:43 Battle of Hormuz
10:42 Wartime Stockpiles
12:32 The Stakes of Failure
15:34 Losing His Ear
23:34 Losing the Rangers
25:51 Resilience
28:58 Invading Iraq
33:59 Common Sense in Combat
39:08 The IED Trap
44:25 Battle of Marjah
51:01 Gangs of Baghdad

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

Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster was on the phone with the Pentagon when the plane struck the building on September 11, 2001. “I thought, Okay, we are going to war,” he recalls. Twenty-five years after 9/11, McMaster joins Aaron MacLean to discuss the wars that followed. Drawing on his experience as a wartime commander and national security adviser, McMaster explains why he considers Afghanistan a self-defeat, how American withdrawal helped enable the rise of ISIS in Iraq, and why he thinks the latest Iran ceasefire was “a big mistake.”

4:39 McMaster on 9/11

7:27 Adapting to Iraq

12:33 Lessons From Iraq

15:13 Counterinsurgency’s Legacy

21:19 The Post-9/11 Wars

23:23 Afghanistan’s “Self-Defeat”

25:07 When America Leaves

29:53 Sustaining Afghanistan

32:14 Defending the Afghan Mission

35:37 The Axis of Aggressors

44:41 Trump’s Messaging About the War

49:07 Politics in the Military

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