Listen to this episode commercial free at<a href="https://angryplanetpod.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> https://angryplanetpod.com</a> For mercenaries, death is a business. It’s all about finding the right market. Wagner and other Russian mercenary groups have found willing markets in Africa. Journalist John Lechner spent years in Africa among the mercenaries and he’s on the show today to tell us about what he learned. Lechner tells us how Wagner’s men think the U.S. media killed Prigozhin, why every theater (or market) is different, and the training regimen of a fresh convict recruit. It’s all in his new book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Death-Our-Business-Russian-Mercenaries/dp/1639733361" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Death Is Our Business: Mercenaries and the New Era of Private Warfare</a>. The threats change…but the mercenaries stay the same. <ul><li>Interlinking militant Islam and the rise of modern mercenaries</li><li>Russian mercenaries before Wagner</li><li>Prigozhin rising</li><li>Putin’s Chef was the father of ‘Hybrid War’</li><li>Wagner in Africa</li><li>‘No one said mercenary life was gonna be easy.’</li><li>Life inside Wagner</li><li>‘Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.’</li><li>You can’t judge intent by results</li><li>The Russian “royal” court is full of self starters and entrepreneurs</li></ul> <a href="https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-tip-of-russias-spear-lechner" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Tip of Russia’s Spear</a> <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/death-is-our-business-russian-mercenaries-and-the-new-era-of-private-warfare-john-lechner/21362561" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Death Is Our Business</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/06/world/europe/russia-convicts-war-murder.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pardoned for Serving in Ukraine, They Return to Russia to Kill Again</a> <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/taliban-bureaucrats-hate-working-online-all-day-miss-the-days-of-jihad/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Taliban Bureaucrats Hate Working Online All Day, ‘Miss the Days of Jihad’</a>Support this show <a target="_blank" rel="payment" href="http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege">http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege</a>.<hr> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.

Life Inside Wagner Before and After Prigozhin

Listen to this episode commercial free at<a href="https://angryplanetpod.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> https://angryplanetpod.com</a> Special for our international listeners, did you know you can now buy a pathway to U.S. citizenship for the low, low price of $5 million sent directly to the U.S. treasury? For decades America’s immigration policies were a boon to its national defense. No one has better intelligence on a rival country than a fleeing dissident with firsthand knowledge. Times have changed. Gil Guerra of the Niskanen Center is here to talk all about those changes. It’s an episode packed with bizarre anecdotes and interesting tidbits about how America runs now. You’ll learn why evangelical Christians are turning their back on refugees, why China won’t accept deportation flights, and how to navigate the Darien Gap using short form video posts. <ul><li>Immigration is a foreign policy tool</li><li>Dissident refugees as a strategic win</li><li>What we know about how the “Gold Card” will work</li><li>“You simply can’t create greencards out of nowhere.”</li><li>How Mexico uses immigration to get concessions from the U.S.</li><li>“At a certain point the people who send you into the blades look like the bastards.”</li><li>Dealing with a dictator</li><li>20,000 Chinese nationals at the southern border</li><li>The internet has made it easier to immigrate</li><li>Navigating the Darien Gap, one TikTok video at a time</li></ul> <a href="https://www.niskanencenter.org/op-ed-trumps-gold-card-visa-explained/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Op-ed: Trump’s gold card visa, explained</a> <a href="https://www.niskanencenter.org/domestic-debate-global-strategy-revisiting-immigration-in-u-s-foreign-policy/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Domestic debate, global strategy: Revisiting immigration in U.S. foreign policy</a> <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184053690/chinese-owned-farmland-united-states" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">China owns 380,000 acres of land in the U.S. Here's where</a> <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/weapons-of-mass-migration-forced-displacement-coercion-and-foreign-policy-kelly-m-greenhill/71cd5b4de563a723?ean=9780801457425&amp;next=t" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Weapons of Mass Migration</a>Support this show <a target="_blank" rel="payment" href="http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege">http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege</a>.<hr> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.

Immigration Policy As Defense Policy

Listen to this episode commercial free at<a href="https://angryplanetpod.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> https://angryplanetpod.com</a> Turkey’s president has grabbed a bit more power for himself with the recent arrest of the mayor of Istanbul. The mayor was thought to be one of the few politicians who could challenge Erdogan. Steven Cook will take us through it. Talking about authoritarians is one of the things we do here, so strap in for another tale of turmoil on an angry planet. <ul><li>Shilling for <a href="http://kagi.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">kagi.com</a></li><li>“Competitive authoritarianism”</li><li>Negotiating with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party</li><li>How to court the Kurdish vote while killing Kurds</li><li>A stable of failsons</li><li>“The Turkish Marc Andreessen”</li><li>Why Erdogan hates Pennsylvania</li><li>Disproving McDonald’s Diplomacy, once again</li><li>Leveling a park to build a mall</li><li>How Erdogan processed the Arab Spring</li><li>“Fools, knaves, and rubes”—Oh my!</li></ul> <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/03/25/turkey-protests-erdogan-legacy/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Turkey Can’t Live With, or Without, Erdogan</a> <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/ukraine-has-written-a-folk-song-about-its-drone/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ukraine Has Written a Folk Song About Its Drone</a> <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2025/04/07/turkey-and-israel-are-becoming-deadly-rivals-in-syria" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Turkey and Israel are becoming deadly rivals in Syria</a>Support this show <a target="_blank" rel="payment" href="http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege">http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege</a>.<hr> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.

Erdogan’s Path to Pure Authoritarianism

Listen to this episode commercial free at<a href="https://angryplanetpod.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> https://angryplanetpod.com</a> Conquest is back baby! Eastern Europe, Taiwan, Greenland, Canada? It’s all on the table—and maybe up for grabs. Here to help us sort through this new age of empire building is University of Chicago political scientist Michael Albertus. <ul><li>As always, climate change</li><li>Whither Canada?</li><li>The coming Canadian century</li><li>“Territorial ambitions sometimes bite back”</li><li>The biggest caveats ever uttered on the show</li><li>“An empire eats”</li><li>The stories nations tell themselves</li><li>“Getting more America”</li><li>Picking the winners and losers</li><li>A little optimism at the end</li><li>How land confers power</li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry5GHJifMWY" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Those Were The Days</a></li><li>The false promise of abundance</li></ul> <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/climate-change-coming-age-territorial-expansion" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Coming Age of Territorial Expansion</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Land-Power-Doesnt-Determines-Societies/dp/1541604814" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies</a>Support this show <a target="_blank" rel="payment" href="http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege">http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege</a>.<hr> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.

Why An Empire Eats

Listen to this episode commercial free at<a href="https://angryplanetpod.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> https://angryplanetpod.com</a> Great power competition has gotten old for President Donald Trump—never one for a fair fight. He’s looking for a little great power collusion instead, dividing the world with his best buds, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. This kind of thing isn’t new, though, Stacie Goddard, a professor at Wellesley, tells us, in fact it’s the 1800s on repeat. Well, look how that turned out… World War I, anybody? BTW, check out her <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/rise-and-fall-great-power-competition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">terrific article</a> on this in Foreign Affairs magazine. <ul><li>Welcome to the Concert of Europe</li><li>The post-Napoleon party</li><li>A taxonomy of aspirational Germans</li><li>Retvrn</li><li>Strong men, weak world</li><li>Government by Mafia</li><li>What becomes of the “middle powers”?</li><li>The era of aging dictators</li><li>The long breakdown</li><li>Empire without ickiness</li><li>Turns out might does, in fact, make right</li><li> </li></ul><a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/rise-and-fall-great-power-competition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Rise and Fall of Great-Power Competition</a> <a href="https://ehne.fr/en/encyclopedia/themes/international-relations/organizing-international-system/concert-europe" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Concert of Europe</a>Support this show <a target="_blank" rel="payment" href="http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege">http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege</a>.<hr> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.

Donald Trump Wants to Divide Up the World With His ‘Friends’

Listen to this episode commercial free at<a href="https://angryplanetpod.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> https://angryplanetpod.com</a> Recorded 5/7/25 India and Pakistan have been unhappy neighbors since 1947 and Britain’s decolonization of the subcontinent. They’ve fought four wars and there have been countless skirmishes. As Indian jets streak over Pakistani skies and that Muslim nation threatens retaliation, it’s unclear if this is war or just another blip between nations that plain don’t like each other. Joining us is Sushant Singh, a man with a background that includes academic, journalist and 20-year veteran in the Indian army. He’s written an article <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/india/india-pakistan-kashmir-are-perilously-close-brink" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">on the situation in Foreign Affairs</a>, and brings us up to date. <ul><li>The state of play on the morning of May 7th</li><li>The Pahalgam attack</li><li>‘The Switzerland of India’</li><li>Matthew almost gets everyone into a lot of trouble</li><li>How Pakistan creates instability in Kashmir</li><li>The entire history of the conflict between India and Pakistan in about five minutes</li><li>China’s looming presence</li><li>‘These are non-escaltory strikes’</li><li>Comparing the militaries</li><li>Getting into the nuclear options</li><li>Pakistan’s tactical nuclear arsenal</li><li>The incredible monetary cost of uncertain missile defense</li><li>We go out on a happy note for once</li></ul> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy9vyzzyjzlo" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">More than 20 killed after gunmen open fire on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir</a>Support this show <a target="_blank" rel="payment" href="http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege">http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege</a>.<hr> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.

India and Pakistan: Nuclear Neighbors on the Brink

Blue Ribbon Glee Club from 12/8/15 show at Cafe Mustache

Blue Ribbon Glee Club

JoshThorne