War College

AI enthusiasts love to say that the technology is as revolutionary and important as nuclear weapons. Even the Trump administration has adopted the metaphor. The President and the Department of Energy have repeatedly referred to the development of AI in the US as “Manhattan Project 2.0.”But is the buildout of LLMs and machine learning systems really as important as the development of the atom bomb? And what are the lessons from the atomic age that AI scientists should then learn? Do we need an AI Non Proliferation Treaty? An AI International Atomic Energy Agency?On this episode of Angry Planet, Ankit Panda comes on to talk about the uses and limitations of the “AI as nuclear weapons” metaphor. Panda is an expert in nukes and a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He’s been sharing his extended thoughts on the AI-nuclear connection at his Nukesletter Substack.Stanislav PetrovAI as nuclear weaponsWhy nuclear weapons resonate with people in the AI fieldThe Strategic Air Command storyTh

Things have gotten very surreal in the dark corners of the internet. AI-generated prophets are preaching jihad in Facebook groups, Minecraft servers host digital caliphates, and school shooting fandoms gather to study their heroes and plot how to up beat their score. It’s a double bill on this episode of Angry Planet as two experts from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a nonprofit that studies and works to mitigate violent extremists, discuss the brave new world of online-born violence.First up is Milo Comerford, the co-author of a study about nihilistic violence. Then we’ve got Moustafa Ayad to talk about how the Islamic State is circumventing bans and pushing its message on social media.Staying sane on the internetViolence without ideologyThe Comm764True Crime CommunitySaints CultureWhen fandom becomes a killingAn aesthetics driven movementOnline and offline have mergedModeration is impossibleYou don’t have to hand it to ISISBroken text postingCopyright strikes and the Islamic StateFacebook profe

America spent most of the 19th century at war with itself. It conquered its western expanse then collapsed into civil war. Once the North beat the South, partisan politics consumed the country for a generation. A string of assassinations, progressive firebrands, and civil service reforms burned people out on domestic politics and a bored and febrile nation began to search for meaning beyond its borders. It noticed the Spanish Empire was awfully close.In Splendid Liberators, award winning journalist Joe Jackson chronicles the beginning of the American myth of the “good war.” He’s on the show today to talk to us about Teddy Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and a general who lay in state at the Alamo.Recurring patterns in American historyRoscoe Conkling jumpscareRemnants of the Spanish-American War in South CarolinaWhat did liberty mean in the 19th century?Clara Barton, Leonard Wood and the dual American personalityThe first modern concentration campsThe Battleship of MaineWhen Congress used to fight, physicallyDrones won

Greenland fever has faded for now but it will return. The world’s polar region, you see, is pretty damn important. As the planet heats and the ice melts, what was once an impassible warren of ice and snow has become a geopolitical opportunity.On today’s Angry Planet, we host journalist Kenneth R. Rosen who just published the book Polar War. He’s spent the past few years among the ice and snow, embedding with troops, yearning for snus, and smoking cigarettes with morticians in the long dark.Rosen knows what makes the Arctic so important and can see the truths that undergird the obsession with Greenland.Getting bombastic and angry about Greenland“We already have Greenland”How is Turkey “near Arctic?”The Greenland obsession as proof of climate changeWhat makes a good Arctic forceAccession to NATOServicing subs in the ArcticTrying to embed on a nuclear submarineMispronouncing place namesThe most powerful navy in the world doesn’t have an icebreakerSpies in the polar regions“It should have been an article.”Smoking

There was a time, just before the pandemic, when folks would say “Twitter isn’t real life” as a means of dismissing the horrors of social media. This was a cope, a way to ignore the worst political and cultural actors who now dominate our psychic landscape. Now those people are in charge and they’ve manifested Twitter into real life in a way previously thought impossible.The White House is posting Stardew Valley memes about whole milk. A Customs and Border Patrol official is asking people if they’re triggered when they respond with empathy to the murder of a woman. Laura Loomer, one of the most online gargoyles to ever live, is a serious policy player in administration. The Secretary of War has a video game tattoo.How did we get here? Michael Senters, a PhD candidate at Virginia Tech, is here to explain how online culture became the culture.It’s all for the postsA YouTuber comes to townWhat, exactly, does it mean to be terminally online?The right goes all in on identity politicsThe pandemic drove us all crazy

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comOn January 28, 2025, I sat down with Aram Shabanian to talk about how we thought the first year of the Trump administration would go. I put the audio in a vault and didn’t listen to it until now.We focused on geopolitics and the American military and our hit rate for predictions was about fifty percent. Domestically, it’s been much worse than I expected. Abroad it’s been much weirder than I expected. The bit about America seeking violence though? Right now that feels spot on.Hegseth’s reforms got worse for women (vindicated)Conscription is not back (wrong)The yearning for violence when the gloves come off (vindicated)All the episodes that weren’t producedSicarioifciation continues apaceThe bigger problem was that people felt badThe dangers of boredom“Drugs won the war on drugs and then looted the armories.”Against burning it all downGreenland is still on the tableThe ceasefire didn’t last and war did not spread to Europe (wrong)Elon Musk is o

On the last Angry Planet of 2025, novelist and Marine Corps veteran Phil Klay returns to reflect on a year of spectacle and cruelty.Between the Pentagon’s boat strikes and the administration’s constant barrage of grotesque memes, it feels like America is a crueler and cruder place. For better and worse, the Presidency sets a moral standard for the country and Trump has lowered that standard. Klay wrote about all this in a piece at The New York Times and he’s here with us today to talk through it.“It’s too easy to condemn.”The project is spectacles of cruelty“You’re not supposed to be joining a gang of thugs.”What is this doing to us as a nation?The lust for cruelty and dominationKlay’s review of Hegseth’s first yearWar vs. Defense“Read long things.”Living in the Hell of opinionsEnding on a high noteWhat Trump Is Really Doing With His Boat StrikesTrump Admin’s Racist Halo Memes Are ‘A New Level of Dehumanization of Immigrants’Trump has accused boat crews of being narco-terrorists. The truth, AP found, is more

Earlier this year journalist Ben Makuch caught a glimpse of Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, dancing at a club in Kyiv. It was a surreal moment, a snapshot of a tragic war that the West thinks is defining the future of conflict. Tech executives have flocked to Ukraine, courting the country in an attempt to get at a resource more precious than gold: data. Makuch was just there and has written about what he saw for The New Republic and he’s on the show today to talk about it.Some light smoking banterBen’s timelineGoogle’s CEO dancing in a bar in KyivUkraine as laboratory for war techThe JSOC era is overIn defense of the majestic American turkeyThe great America vs China speculationWar, cheaperOn the actual frontlineWheat fields of fiber optic lineThe buzz of the droneLife in the bloodlandsThe human suffering of living in UkraineFPV-made propaganda“Never underestimate human innovation when it comes to killing other humans.”What’s Erik Prince doing in Ukraine?New York Times on Military ReformThe Medieval—a

Another week and another Angry Planet about the horrifying systems that rule our lives.Is there a depressive theme running through the work right now? Possibly. I promise we’ll soon replace it with rage.This week on the show we have Sven Beckert to talk about his new book Capitalism: A Global History. Beckert is a professor of history at Harvard and his tome is an attempt to capture the entire history of an economic system in one book. It’s a doorstop, but it’s also readable and clear-eyed. Some come with me on a journey that runs through the plantations of South Carolina to the tech markets of Shenzhen.Cotton as an entry point to the history of capitalismThe economic big bangIndustrial Revolution as mutation“It’s still being born.”Human data is oil to be frackedThe Quaker Oats metaphor“The market is God.”Ascribing morality to economicsWhen Gary Hart ushered in Neoliberalism“Capitalism is a series of regime changes.”Moments of great change offer opportunitiesCapitalism: A Global HistoryThe Old Order Is Dead.

The White House is portraying the race to adopt AI as an existential crisis. It’s the next Manhattan Project, they say, a technology so important it will require an unprecedented build out of energy infrastructure and massive data centers. But the Manhattan Project was a government-led technological drive whereas AI is led by salesmen and corporations.What could possibly go wrong?On this episode of Angry Planet, Ben Buchanan is here to tell us about the government’s role in fostering AI. Buchanan was an AI advisor during the Biden administration where he helped write the policy that paved the way for private-public partnerships between DC and AI companies. Now he’s a professor at John Hopkins and, though he’s still an AI advocate, he’s got concerns. Slop, public land use, and autonomous weapons. We get into it all on this episode of Angry Planet.AI as an arm’s raceNukes are cheaper than AIGovernment’s role in the construction of AI infrastructureWhat are the stakes of the AI competition between the United Sta

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comThis week on Angry Planet we’re taking a break from the horrors of the present to explore horrors of a past distant enough now that they’re entertaining. But then, America found those horrors pretty entertaining at the time, too. Even when it was still a thriving community and a going concern, the town of Deadwood, South Dakota, was the subject of dimestore novels and tall tales.Peter Cozzens is here with us to talk about his new book Deadwood: Gold, Guns, and Greed in the American West. Cozzens is a historian who has written 17 books that focus on the U.S. Civil War, the Wild West, and the American Indian Wars. His latest work is all about Deadwood and the wild cast of characters who inhabited it. Come sit with us a spell and learn about the real Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickok, and Al Swearengen.“Power comes to any man who has the color.”Black Elk and how the West Was LostConflicting perceptions of Wild Bill HickockProfessional gamblersCrea

Is your Empire feeling less than fresh? Does it feel like the modern world’s best days are behind it? Do conquest and global power politics not hit as good as they used to? Welcome to the Age of Stagnation, a time when the fruits of the Industrial Revolution can be enjoyed but not replicated.It’s making us all a little crazy, especially world leaders. With us today on the show is Michael Beckley, a political science professor at Tufts University and his career includes stretches at the Pentagon, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the RAND Corporation. To hear Beckley tell it, stagnation might not be such a bad thing. If we can avoid repeating the worst mistakes of the 20th century and let go of a “number go up” mind set, then maybe we can all learn to enjoy a long age of stabilization.The diminishing returns of the Industrial RevolutionWinners and losers in the Age of AscentMoore’s Law sputters outStabilization isn’t so bad. “We’re some of the luckiest people who’ve ever lived.”Shenanigans an

We’re obsessed with apocalypses, big and small. We fantasize about what the future might look like after the fall of society and fear the coming tribulation. Rome fretted about decline until its end. Stories of the Sea Peoples terrified the monarchs of the Late Bronze Age. During the 30 Years’ War, Europeans imagined Armageddon had finally begun.But a funny thing happens after the collapse: things tend to get a little better for everyone.Luke Kemp is here to hold our hands through the end of the world as we know it. Kemp is a researcher at Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and the author of the book Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse.Beauty in collapseMatthew’s AI testThe Doctor Doom mask“Collapse was good for most people.”Sea People’s mentionedWhy a Goliath and not a Leviathan?Down with Thomas HobbesFear of a mass panic driving collapse“Emergency powers have a very funny tendency to stick around”The problem with guns, germs, and steelThe Tree of EvilOn the purpose

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comThis week on Angry Planet we have returning guest and former judge advocate Dan Maurer. The last time he was on the show, Maurer walked us through the consequences of a Supreme Court ruling that asked the question: is it illegal for the President to order SEAL Team Six to kill people? It was a surreal question that now feels more pressing.A US Carrier Strike Group is moving into South American waters to support America’s highly kinetic War on Drugs. Military lawyers might have advised the Trump administration that extra-judiciously executing alleged criminals in international waters is, in fact, illegal. But Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is no fan of military lawyers and fired the Judge Advocate General (JAG) of both the Army and the Air Force. The Pentagon plans to turn as many as 600 of the remaining military lawyers into immigration judges.The second Trump administration is perverting the law and sidelining anyone that might tell them it’s

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comThe episode is about Vanessa Guillén, a US soldier who was murdered at Fort Hood in 2020. She also experienced sexual harassment while in the military. I spoke with ABC Special Correspondent John Quiñones about his new podcast, Vanished. It’s a good podcast that covers Guillén’s case in-depth and highlights the reforms the Pentagon instituted after.We recorded the show on September 30, Guillén’s birthday. That morning, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth delivered a long speech about his own military reforms. Many of the changes Hegseth has pushed through conflict with the changes that Guillén’s death ushered in.As such, I thought it was important to get John’s reaction to Hegseth’s speech. Before we began recording,I told him I planned to ask him about this and he agreed to talk about it.When I asked the question during recording, a public relations person from ABC jumped on the line and asked me to stop talking about Hegseth. I pushed back, but n

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comPolitical assassins often have incoherent politics and Tyler Robinson is no different. The young man who killed Charlie Kirk inscribed the shell casings of his bullets with obscure memes that say less about what he believed and more about where he spent time online. Robinson isn’t alone. Earlier this year the Annunciation Church shooter showed off a rifle inscribed with similar memes pulled from the internet. The Christchurch shooter in 2019 livestreamed their killing and left behind a meme laden manifesto.So what the hell is going on? On this episode of Angry Planet, Michael Senters—a PhD candidate at Virginia Tech—has some unsatisfying answers. Senters painstakingly walks us through each message on Robinson’s bullets and explains the online spaces from whence they came.If you don’t know a gropyer from a Helldiver or have never heard “OwO” said aloud, this episode is for you.It will not make you feel better.4,000 hours in seven gamesA painfu

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comOn September 2, 2025 the United States escalated its decades long War on Drugs with a tactic borrowed from the War on Terror. It used a drone to blow up a boat it said was full of drugs then said the 11 people killed in the strike were terrorists.Is this legal? Does that matter?On this week’s Angry Planet, journalist Mike LaSusa of InSight Crime comes on the show to walk us through the ins and outs of America’s long-running War on Drugs and how War on Terror tactics are shaping the fight.What’s Tren de Aragua?The real connections between Tren de Aragua and the government of VenezuelaIs this legal?How America’s drug interdiction worksDoes violence deter?On narcoterrorismCartel as misnomerViolence isn’t sustainable“We don’t even know these people’s names.”America’s partners in the War on Terror on Drugs“Motivations matter.”How do you solve a problem like illicit drugs?How the Trump admin hurt its own cause in the drug warPoppies in AfghanistanD

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comThe Pacific Northwest is known for its startling natural beauty, precocious rainfall, and propensity to birth serial killers. Why? Caroline Fraser has a theory and it’s a good one.This week on Angry Planet, Fraser takes us on a journey through the American past and into the dark heart of the PNW. Her new book Murderland weaves together memoir, true crime, history, and science into a compelling narrative that’s as beautiful and deadly as the forests around Tacoma.Lead in the time of serial killersCrazywall as mapAmerica’s ultra-leaded 1970sThe killer hubristic roadways of the Pacific NorthwestThe unique draw of Ted BundyThe beauty and horror of the PNW’s woodsLead poisoned psychos become pop culture geniusesAnne Rule and the different eras of true crime writingThe Olympic–Wallowa lineamentThe current state of the true crime genreMurdlerand: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial KillersTacoma Smelter Plume projectHouses of ButterfliesA look

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comAll things move towards their end, even seemingly omnipotent political leaders, and authoritarian systems are shaped by the question of succession long before the leader dies. Xi Jinping is 72 years old and the Chinese Communist Party has started to consider what comes next. Those conversations are shaping the political reality of the country.On this episode of Angry Planet, Brown University professor Tyler Jost comes on the show to explain China is navigating what life may look like after Xi.How succession shapes politics in an authoritarian systemHow does China’s government actually work?The path to the Chinese presidencyAs always, it’s all about who you knowPrincelingsXi’s path to powerCorruption as influenceWhen the eye of the leader lands upon you“Cyberpunk hellscape”Some parting notes on American MaoismAfter Xi—The Succession Question Obscuring China’s Future—and Unsettling Its PresentBureaucracies at WarSupport this show http://support

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comIf the internet is a battlefield, does that mean the United States needs a new military force to dominate it?On this episode of Angry Planet, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Edward Charles Cardon and former House Armed Services Committee staffer Joshua Stiefel make the case for spinning off the Cyber Force into an independent branch. Both are part of a new commission at the Center for Strategic and International Studies — partnered with Jason’s new bosses at Foundation for Defense of Democracies — with the goal of preparing for a new branch that both feel is inevitable.It’s a wild and wandering conversation that touches on Neuromancer, AI, and fighting a cyber war against the Islamic State.“A Cyber Force is inevitable”How cyber works nowFrom Army Air Service to Air Force to Space ForceVolt Typhoon as warningIt’s hard to recruit hackersThe Goldwater-Nichols Act mentioned, drinkBasic training for hackers?A retired Lt. General at DefconThe