War on the Rocks

Gen. Xavier T. Brunson is a busy man. As the senior U.S. military leader on the Korean Peninsula, he has three jobs, commanding U.N. Command, South Korean-U.S. Combined Forces Command and U.S. Forces ...

Gen. (ret.) CQ Brown, Jr. may have been removed from his post as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but he isn't finished serving. He joined Ryan at War on the Rocks HQ to talk about how America c...

We're diving into a major development at the intersection of tech, trade, and national security: the U.S. government's decision to allow NVIDIA's H20 chips back into the Chinese market. Brad Carson (f...

In a time of rapid change and global danger, how should the warriors of the future be educated? Ryan sat down with Vice Adm. Peter Garvin, president of the National Defense University, to tackle this ...

Wednesday 30 July 2025...

Gen. Christopher Todd Donahue, who leads U.S. Army Europe and Africa as well as Allied Land Command, joined Ryan for a discussion at WOTR HQ. For the first five minutes, they chat about his Army story...

War on the Rocks is launching a new show called "The Iran Reckoning with Afshon Ostovar." It's a members-only show but this first episode is free for all. Join us as renowned Iran scholar Afshon Ostov...

Last week, a meeting with President Zelensky of Ukraine at the White House exploded into acrimony in front of the cameras. Since then, an era-defining drama has been unfolding across the West as Europ...

We are sharing a free Thanksgiving episode of the Russia Contingency with you all to express our gratitude for your listenership and support. This episode, brought to you by OneBrief, features Michael...

Michael Kofman popped into WOTR HQ to speak with Ryan about the war. They discussed territorial losses in the Donbas, the situation in Kursk, manpower challenges on both sides, and how Ukraine is seei...

A sailor from a landlocked state and a soldier from a state with the country's second longest coastline are trying to accomplish something transformative for American seapower. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) ...

Last year, Rajmund Andrzejczak retired as Poland's chief of the general staff, but he has been busy since. During a recent visit to Washington, he spoke with Ryan about his career, European security, ...

Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall was kind enough to spend some time with Ryan talking about the reorganization of the Department of the Air Force and modernization. They also discussed the cha...

The U.S. Congress finally passed the security supplement, authorizing a large amount of funding and support to keep Ukraine in the fight. This package buys Ukraine another year of time. What will Ukra...

Ryan sat down with three friends to talk about the war in Ukraine through the lens of a new edited volume on the topic. Enjoy this conversation with Andrea Kendall-Taylor (former CIA), Hal Brands, and...

Ryan visited Ambassador Marek Magierowski at the Polish Embassy in Washington. They spoke about Poland's military build-up and the challenges posed by Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine. Much of the...

TechCrunch Disrupt hosted Ryan and a top-notch panel for a conversation on the increasing importance of commercial stakeholders in the exercise of military power in and from space. It features John Pl...

Now that the offensive launched by Ukrainian forces is possibly in the process of petering out,  Mike Kofman shares some of his exploratory thoughts on where Ukraine stands and what 2024 might look li...

Ryan sat down at the War on the Rocks office with Adm. Sir Antony Radakin, the professional head of the United Kingdom's military. The two discussed the United Kingdom's support for the Ukrainian mili...

Nick Danforth sat down with Mike Kofman to discuss the state of the Ukrainain offensive three months in, as well as the challenges of assessing it. Mike also explained why he, as an analyst, was parti...

Ryan and Mike finally found themselves in the same locale after heavy travel and sat down for a in-depth conversation on Ukraine's offensive, how we got here, and what might be coming next....

Ryan sat down with Mike Kofman at WOTR HQ in Washington, DC to talk about Ukraine's coming offensive; the manpower, materiel, and politics behind it; and lingering questions about Team Biden's theory ...

Ryan sat down with Dr. Mara Karlin, who serves as assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and capabilities. They discussed the making of the new National Defense Strategy, the critical top...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit was met with fury and condemnation in Beijing, as well as new Chinese military exercises in the seas surrounding Taiwan. In the aftermath of the visit, Ryan invited three ...

Michael Kofman joined Ryan for yet another conversation about the unfolding tragedy of the Russo-Ukrainian War. In this episode, they focus largely on the potential for a Ukrainian counter-offensive o...

Shinzo Abe, Japan's former prime minister, was gunned down by an assassin earlier this summer. He is credited with having paved the road to his country's far more more prominent role in global affairs...

Mike Kofman joins the show again to update us on the war in Ukraine. In this episode (which was recorded shortly before Russian forces withdrew from Snake Island), he explains that by focusing on the ...

President Joe Biden recently made headlines when he described India as being "somewhat shaky" on the issue of punishing Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution sat...

With Moscow's announcement that the core aim of its invasion of Ukraine is now just to secure the Donbass, the conflict has entered a new phase. Michael Kofman of CNA joins Ryan once again, for the fi...

The armed services are modernizing across the board, perhaps most importantly in the closely related areas of talent development, education, and data. Maj. Gen. Andrea Tullos of the U.S. Air Force, Br...

Will we remember early 2021 as a key escalatory moment in offensive cyber operations? Three top experts join us to unpack the implications of two major recent cyber operations — the SolarWinds hack at...

For many people, terms like "piracy," "stowaway," and "kidnapped" conjure up romantic visions influenced by the literature of Robert Louis Stevenson or C.S. Forester. But as this episode's guests tell...

David McCormick, the CEO of Bridgewater Associates — the world's largest hedge fund, dropped in on the pod to talk about how the United States can prepare itself to compete in a new era in which, more...

Undersecretary of the Army James E. McPherson chats with Ryan about how the Army is coping with COVID-19 — starting with the recruitment pipeline — and the challenges of modernization. He also tells u...

As the world endures a pandemic, we look to a plague of the past: that which struck Athens early in the Peloponnesian War. And we do so with the aid of Neville Morley, professor of classics and ancien...

America has been at war since the fall of 2001. There is no end in sight in Afghanistan, Mesopotamia and the Levant, and beyond. What political and strategic disincentives have stalled Washington's ab...

Is the U.S. military built and positioned to stop or — if necessary — win the next big war? What should the Navy and Marine Corps of the future look like? What's standing in the way? How can the Unite...

Every summer, the War on the Rocks crew travels to Beaver Creek, Colorado, where the Clements Center hosts its summer seminar -- an intimate gathering for PhD students, senior scholars, former policym...

What is Xi Jinping's "revolution" in Chinese politics? How did he amass the power to enact his ambitious agenda? Is he in danger of being toppled? Or is he effectively a dictator for life? In the seco...

In this special episode, Ryan Evans sat down with Ben Buchanan of the Belfer Center at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and in front of an audience! Ben and Ryan chatted about his...

We're going to try something a little different with this episode of the podcast, and I think you're going to like it. If you listened to our last episode, you know our focus was on the Munich Securit...

How will the U.S. military stay competitive? This is about far more than platforms, bombs, and guns. It is fundamentally about people. And with archaic personnel systems plaguing the armed forces and ...

In histories of the Second World War, the Vatican has not fared well. Pope Pius XII has been condemned as "Hitler's Pope" and the Church castigated for not doing enough to avert war and save the victi...

Ah, the 2016 presidential election.  Trump still leads the GOP field, Hillary has been challenged in the polls by Bernie Sanders and the shadow of Joe Biden looms large over the Democratic hopefuls.  ...

Is the American defense industry ready for what is coming next? Can it adapt, survive, and thrive in an era of paradigm-changing new technologies? Can the industry maintain America's military superior...

TM Gibbons-Neff of The Washington Post (and formerly of the U.S. Marine Corps) and ​Dr. Bruce Gudmundsson of Marine Corps University joined WOTR's Ryan Evans to talk about TM's recent reporting from t...

The deadline for a deal on the Iranian nuclear program is on June 30. Just weeks before the deadline, Colin Kahl, the National Security Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, sat down with Ryan Evans to...

Yesterday, Lawrence Freedman of King's College London joined me for a conversation on the state of the world atop the ME Hotel's rooftop bar in central London, Radio. From the Middle East, to Russia, ...

This is the first of a two-part podcast set on the concept, and uses, of Strategic Intelligence.  In this episode, Tom and I lay out the actual, social function of Strategic Intelligence and look at i...

On Friday, I sat down for a great talk over drinks with Raffaello Pantucci, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, and Robin Simcox, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson So...