"The noblest fate that a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war's desolation."

Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.

I think the military science fiction milieu provides a great tool for forecasting and predicting possible conflict futures.

It may be yet another tool to take this magnificent US 20th century fighting machine and make it a peer combat competitor in the 21st century.

Speculative fiction provides a means to extrapolate what possible war futures are peering over the horizon.

Books:

Military Fiction

Eric Frank Russell The Wasp

Karl Marlantes Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War

James Jones From Here to Eternity

James Gould Cozzens Guard of Honor

Anton Myrer Once an Eagle

Paul Avallone Tattoo Zoo

Military Science Fiction

Michael Z. Williamson The Weapon (Freehold Series)

Joe Haldeman The Forever War (The Forever War Series)

Robert A. Heinlein Starship Troopers

Kali Altsoba Invasion!: The Orion War

Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven Legacy of Beowulf

Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven Footfall

Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling West of Honor (CoDominium Future History Book 1)

Craig Dilouie Tooth and Nail

My Substack

Email at cgpodcast@pm.me

Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.

A continued discussion of the NATO debacle.

It is time for America to completely reassess alliances and partnership around the world starting with NATO and then working its way down the list of useless and toxic relationships and promises to commit American blood and treasure to flashpoints planet-wide. The sheer insanity of EU/SSR behavior and the total inadequacy of NATO as a military organization across the entire martial spectrum.

NATO insisted after the wall 1989-91 fell that the NATO blob would NOT expand eastward.

It did.

America should take a non-interventionist pause and get its internal house in order before standing astride the world again and lighting fires that never go away and continuously make things worse.

Stop the madness.

First part here: Ep 009 "Fixing Fight Club: Just Say No to NATO: Part One"

References:

Winning The Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air And Missile Defenses

The Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of Age

Nyet Means Nyet (William Burns 2008)

Pat Buchanan Where Does NATO Enlargement End?

DoS Cable: NATO ENLARGEMENT: RUSSIAN ASSERTIONS REGARDING THE TWO-PLUS-FOUR AGREEMENT ON GERMAN UNIFICATION

Books:

Edward Bernays Propaganda

Sevim Dagdelen NATO: A Reckoning with the Atlantic Alliance

Matt Kennard The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The American Empire

Daniel Ellsberg The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

Scott Horton Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine

Nassim Taleb Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, Skin in the Game

Mark Gunzinger & Bryan Clark Winning the Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air and Missile Defense

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

My Substack

Email at cgpodcast@pm.me

Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.

This episode examines what private military companies and campaigns look like.

I discuss traditional and emerging trends in private military warfare which tends to still take place in nation-state warfare. While combat support and combat service support billets have been filled with private military entities for all know history, the emergence of larger and larger forces of private kinetic and trigger puller entities has gotten larger over time.

References:

'The last supper': How a 1993 Pentagon dinner reshaped the defense industry...

Erik Prince at Hillsdale: "The Future of Dynamic Warfare"

Sean McFate Mercenaries and War: Understanding Private Armies Today

The mercenary boom: How private military contractors are redefining modern warfare

International Stability Operations Association

Eeben Barlow Executive Outcomes: Against all Odds

Al J. Venter War Dog: Fighting Other People's Wars

***

HR Kedward In Search of the Maquis: Rural Resistance in Southern France, 1942-1944

George Millar Maquis: An Englishman in the French Resistance

Ian Wellsted SAS with the Maquis: In Action with the French Resistance, June–September 1944

Stephen Biddle Nonstate Warfare: The Military Methods of Guerillas, Warlords, and Militias

Anyone attending the Special Operations Forces Week festivities in Tampa on 5-8 May 2025?

If so, we should arrange a rendezvous.

My Substack

Email at cgpodcast@pm.me