Podcasts about soviets

On July 12, 1943, Soviet Armies come at the SS 2nd Panzer Army. The Germans have attack plans, but the Soviets have attacking numbers. And then the German Army High Command gets horrible news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Le Carre's son, Nick Harkaway, joins Simon and Matt for a chat about his new Circus novel. They discuss the challenges (and joys) of taking on the mantel of such an iconic character (George Smiley) and writing in his father's footsteps, as well as the research it takes to get the technology of the time right. As well as lots of espionage stories, they chat about John Le Carre, his voice, his style - and why Nick decided to write this novel in the first place. The book is Karla's Choice - and you can read more about it here: It is spring in 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus. With the wreckage of the West's spy war with the Soviets strewn across Europe, he has eyes only on a more peaceful life. And indeed, with his marriage more secure than ever, there is a rumour in Whitehall – unconfirmed and a little scandalous – that George Smiley might almost be happy.But Control has other plans. A Russian agent has defected in the most unusual of circumstances, and the man he was sent to kill in London is nowhere to be found. Smiley reluctantly agrees to one last simple task: interview Susanna, a Hungarian émigré and employee of the missing man, and sniff out a lead. But in his absence the shadows of Moscow have lengthened. Smiley will soon find himself entangled in a perilous mystery that will define the battles to come, and strike at the heart of his greatest enemy… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Victor Davis Hanson and co-host Jack Fowler answer listener questions on WWII. Topics covered include the failure of the Western Allies declare war on the Nazi-allied USSR in 1939, Patton's role on the Western Front and his desire to take on the Soviets, reading recommendations for the post-war era, and more. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A British man hadn't seen his Russian wife for nearly five years. The Soviets repeatedly refused to allow him into the USSR, and they denied her request to leave. He became so desperate that he decided to risk his life to see her. Would he survive? There are two videos on YouTube about this story: Brian Grover Home at Last (1939) (British Pathé) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fJVeQbmjRY Mr. Grover and His Wife Return Home (British Movietone) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXfJgbTvOIQ Images, links, and transcripts for this podcast can be found at https://uselessinformation.org/to-russia-for-love-podcast-242/ You can follow the Useless Information Podcast on these platforms: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uselessinformationpodcast X (Twitter): https://t.co/7pV2H8iXJV Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/FlipSideofHistory/ The Useless Information Podcast is a member of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit https://www.airwavemedia.com/ to listen to more great podcasts just like this one. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com if you would like to advertise on our podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week Seth Paridon and co-host Jon Parshall dig into a little-known event that had massive implications on the future progression of the Pacific War. In 1939, the renegade Japanese Kwangtung Army decided, on their own, to launch an offensive against Soviet and Mongolian forces near the small village of Nomonhan. Initial Japanese successes were later destroyed when the Soviets launched a massive counter-offensive led by the one and only Georgy Zhukov. In a series of battles that lasted over several weeks in July and August 1939, Japan and the Soviet Union came incredibly close to outright war against one another. The crushing defeat that the Soviets threw on the Japanese forced a complete change in the IJA's future plans and led directly to the path to war with the United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands.  #wwiihistory #wwiihistory #ww2 #usnavy #usa #usarmy #medalofhonor #enterprise #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #cv6 #midway #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #worldwar2 #usnavy #usnavyseals #usmc #usmarines #saipan #usa #usarmy #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #battleship #battleships #ussenterprise #aircraftcarriers #museum #essex #halsey #taskforce38 #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #usnavy #usa #usarmy #medalofhonor #enterprise #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #cv6 #midway #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #worldwar2 #usnavy #usnavyseals #usmc #usmarines #saipan #usa #usarmy #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #battleship #battleships #ussenterprise #aircraftcarriers #museum #hollywood #movie #movies #books #mastersoftheair #8thairforce #mightyeighth #100thbombgroup #bloodyhundredth #b17 #boeing #airforce wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #usnavy #usa #usarmy #medalofhonor #enterprise #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #cv6 #midway #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #worldwar2 #usnavy #usnavyseals #usmc #usmarines #saipan #usa #usarmy #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #battleship #battleships #ussenterprise #aircraftcarriers #museum #hollywood #movie #movies #books #oldbreed #1stMarineDivision #thepacific #Peleliu #army #marines #marinecorps #worldwar2 #worldwar #worldwarii #leytegulf #battleofleytegulf #rodserling #twilightzone #liberation #blacksheep #power #prisoner #prisonerofwar #typhoon #hurricane #weather #iwojima#bullhalsey #ace #p47 #p38 #fighter #fighterpilot #b29 #strategicstudying #tokyo #boeing #incendiary #usa #franklin #okinawa #yamato #kamikaze #Q&A #questions #questionsandanswers #history #jaws #atomicbomb #nuclear #nationalarchives #nara #johnford #hollywood

Gen. Hoth's 4th Panzer Army reaches the Psel River, which threatens both the city of Prokhorovka and Oboyan. But taking from their Reserve forces, the Soviets launch a massive counter attack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,America is embarking upon a New Space Age, with companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin ready to partner with NASA to take Americans to a new frontier — possibly as far as Mars. Lately, however, the world is witnessing uncertainty surrounding NASA leadership and even an odd feud between SpaceX boss Elon Musk and the White House. At a critical time for US space competition, let's hope key players can stick the landing.Today on Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I chat with James Meigs about the SLS rocket, NASA reforms, and the evolving private sector landscape.Meigs is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He is a contributing editor of City Journal and writer of the Tech Commentary column at Commentary magazine. He is also the former editor of Popular Mechanics.Meigs is the author of a recent report from the Manhattan Institute, U.S. Space Policy: The Next Frontier.In This Episode* So long, Jared Isaacman (1:29)* Public sector priorities (5:36)* Supporting the space ecosystem (11:52)* A new role for NASA (17:27)* American space leadership (21:17)Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. So long, Jared Isaacman (1:29)The withdrawal of Jared Isaacman . . . has really been met with total dismay in the space community. Everyone felt like he was the right kind of change agent for the agency that desperately needs reform, but not destruction.Pethokoukis: We're going to talk a lot about your great space policy report, which you wrote before the withdrawal of President Trump's NASA nominee, Jared Isaacman.What do you think of that? Does that change your conclusions? Good move, bad move? Just sort of your general thoughts apart from the surprising nature of it.Meigs: I worked sort of on and off for about a year on this report for the Manhattan Institute about recommendations for space policy, and it just came out a couple of months ago and already it's a different world. So much has happened. The withdrawal of Jared Isaacman — or the yanking of his nomination — has really been met with total dismay in the space community. Everyone felt like he was the right kind of change agent for the agency that desperately needs reform, but not destruction.Now, it remains to be seen what happens in terms of his replacement, but it certainly pulled the rug out from under the idea that NASA could be reformed and yet stay on track for some ambitious goals. I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic that some of these things will happen, but my sense is that the White House is not particularly interested in space.Interestingly, Musk wasn't really that involved in his role of DOGE and stuff. He didn't spend that much time on NASA. He wasn't micromanaging NASA policy, and I don't think Isaacman would've been just a mouthpiece for Musk either. He showed a sense of independence. So it remains to be seen, but my recommendations . . . and I share this with a lot of people advocating reform, is that NASA more or less needs to get out of the rocket-building business, and the Space Launch System, this big overpriced rocket they've been working on for years — we may need to fly it two more times to get us back to the moon, but after that, that thing should be retired. If there's a way to retire it sooner, that would be great. At more than $4 billion a launch, it's simply not affordable, and NASA will not be an agency that can routinely send people into space if we're relying on that white elephant.To me what was exciting about Isaacman was his genuine enthusiasm about space. It seemed like he understood that NASA needed reform and changes to the budget, but that the result would be an agency that still does big things. Is there a fear that his replacement won't be interested in NASA creative destruction, just destruction?We don't know for sure, but the budget that's been proposed is pretty draconian, cutting NASA's funding by about a quarter and recommending particularly heavy cuts in the science missions, which would require cutting short some existing missions that are underway and not moving ahead with other planned missions.There is room for saving in some of these things. I advocate a more nimble approach to NASA's big science missions. Instead of sending one $4 billion rover to Mars every 20 years, once launch costs come down, how about we send ten little ones and if a couple of them don't make it, we could still be getting much more science done for the same price or less. So that's the kind of thing Isaacman was talking about, and that's the kind of thing that will be made possible as launch costs continue to fall, as you've written about, Jim. So it requires a new way of thinking at NASA. It requires a more entrepreneurial spirit and it remains to be seen whether another administrator can bring that along the way. We were hoping that Isaacman would.Public sector priorities (5:36)Congress has never deviated from focusing more on keeping these projects alive than on whether these projects achieve their goals.It seems to me that there are only two reasons, at this point, to be in favor of the SLS rocket. One: There's a political pork jobs aspect. And the other is that it's important to beat China to the moon, which the Artemis program is meant to do. Does that seem accurate?Pretty much, yeah. You can be for beating China the moon and still be against the SLS rocket, you kind of just grit your teeth and say, okay, we've got to fly it two more times because it would be hard to cobble together, in the timeframe available, a different approach — but not impossible. There are other heavy lift rockets. Once you can refuel in orbit and do other things, there's a lot of ways to get a heavy payload into orbit. When I started my report, it looked like SLS was the only game in town, but that's really not the case. There are other options.The Starship has to quit blowing up.I would've loved to have seen the last couple of Starship missions be a little more successful. That's unfortunate. The pork part of SLS just can't be underestimated. From the get go, going way back to when the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011, and even before to when after the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster — that's the second disaster — there was a really big effort to figure out how to replace the space shuttle, what would come next. There was a strong movement in Congress at that time to say, “Well, whatever you build, whatever you do, all the factories that are involved in working on the Space Shuttle, all of the huge workforces in NASA that work on the space shuttle, all of this manpower has to be retained.” And Congress talked a lot about keeping the experience, the expertise, the talent going.I can see some legitimacy to that argument, but if you looked at the world that way, then you would always focus on keeping the jobs of the past viable instead of the jobs of the future: What are we going to do with the blacksmiths who shoe horses? If we lose all this technological capability of shoeing horses . . . we'd better not bring in all these cars! That's an exaggeration, but as a result, first they aim to replace the Space Shuttle with a rocket called Constellation that would recycle some of the Shuttle components. And then eventually they realized that that was just too bloated, too expensive. That got canceled during the Obama administration replaced with the Space Launch System, which is supposed to be cheaper, more efficient, able to be built in a reasonable amount of time.It wound up being just as bloated and also technologically backward. They're still keeping technology from the Shuttle era. The solid fuel engines, which, as we recall from the first Shuttle disaster, were problematic, and the Shuttle main engine design as well. So when SLS flies with humans on board for the first time, supposedly next year, it'll be using technology that was designed before any of the astronauts were even born.In this day and age, that's kind of mind-blowing, and it will retain these enormous workforces in these plants that happen to be located in states with powerful lawmakers. So there's an incredible incentive to just keep it all going, not to let things change, not to let anything be retired, and to keep that money flowing to contractors, to workers and to individual states. Congress has never deviated from focusing more on keeping these projects alive than on whether these projects achieve their goals.I've seen a video of congressional hearings from 15 years ago, and the hostility toward the idea of there being a private-sector alternative to NASA, now it seems almost inexplicable seeing that even some of these people were Republicans from Texas.Seeing where we are now, it's just amazing because now that we have the private sector, we're seeing innovation, we're seeing the drop in launch costs, the reusability — just a completely different world than what existed 15, 16, 17 years ago.I don't think people really realize how revolutionary NASA's commercial programs were. They really sort of snuck them in quietly at first, starting as far back as 2005, a small program to help companies develop their own space transportation systems that could deliver cargo to the International Space Station.SpaceX was initially not necessarily considered a leader in that. It was a little startup company nobody took very seriously, but they wound up doing the best job. Then later they also led the race to be the first to deliver astronauts to the International Space Station, saved NASA billions of dollars, and helped launch this private-industry revolution in space that we're seeing today that's really exciting.It's easy to say, “Oh, NASA's just this old sclerotic bureaucracy,” and there's some truth to that, but NASA has always had a lot of innovative people, and a lot of the pressure of the push to move to this commercial approach where NASA essentially charters a rocket the way you would charter a fishing boat rather than trying to build and own its own equipment. That's the key distinction. You've got to give them credit for that and you also have to give SpaceX enormous credit for endless technological innovation that has brought down these prices.So I totally agree, it's inconceivable to think of trying to run NASA today without their commercial partners. Of course, we'd like to see more than just SpaceX in there. That's been a surprise to people. In a weird way, SpaceX's success is a problem because you want an ecosystem of competitors that NASA can choose from, not just one dominant supplier.Supporting the space ecosystem (11:52)There's a reason that the private space industry is booming in the US much more than elsewhere in the world. But I think they could do better and I'd like to see reform there.Other than the technical difficulty of the task, is there something government could be doing or not doing, perhaps on the regulatory side, to encourage a more sort of a bigger, more vibrant space ecosystem.In my Manhattan Institute report, I recommend some changes, particularly, the FAA needs to continue reforming its launch regulations. They're more restrictive and take longer than they should. I think they're making some progress. They recently authorized more launches of the experimental SpaceX Starship, but it shouldn't take months to go through the paperwork to authorize the launch of a new spacecraft.I think the US, we're currently better than most countries in terms of allowing private space. There's a reason that the private space industry is booming in the US much more than elsewhere in the world. But I think they could do better and I'd like to see reform there.I also think NASA needs to continue its efforts to work with a wide range of vendors in this commercial paradigm and accept that a lot of them might not pan out. We've seen a really neat NASA program to help a lot of different companies, but a lot of startups have been involved in trying to build and land small rovers on the moon. Well, a lot of them have crashed.Not an easy task apparently.No. When I used to be editor of Popular Mechanics magazine, one of the great things I got to do was hang out with Buzz Aldrin, and Buzz Aldrin talking about landing on the moon — now, looking back, you realize just how insanely risky that was. You see all these rovers designed today with all the modern technology failing to land a much smaller, lighter object safely on the moon, and you just think, “Wow, that was an incredible accomplishment.” And you have so much admiration for the guts of the guys who did it.As they always say, space is hard, and I think NASA working with commercial vendors to help them, give them some seed money, help them get started, pay them a set fee for the mission that you're asking for, but also build into your planning — just the way an entrepreneur would — that some product launches aren't going to work, some ideas are going to fail, sometimes you're going to have to start over. That's just part of the process, and if you're not spending ridiculous amounts of money, that's okay.When we talk about vendors, who are we talking about? When we talk about this ecosystem as it currently exists, what do these companies do besides SpaceX?The big one that everybody always mentions first, of course, is Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos's startup that's been around as long as SpaceX, but just moved much more slowly. Partly because when it first started up, it was almost as much of a think tank to explore different ideas about space and less of a scrappy startup trying to just make money by launching satellites for paying customers as soon as possible. That was Musk's model. But they've finally launched. They've launched a bunch of suborbital flights, you've seen where they carry various celebrities and stuff up to the edge of space for a few minutes and they come right back down. That's been a chance for them to test out their engines, which have seemed solid and reliable, but they've finally done one mission with their New Glenn rocket. Like SpaceX, it's a reusable rocket which can launch pretty heavy payloads. Once that gets proven and they've had a few more launches under their belt, should be an important part of this ecosystem.But you've got other companies, you've got Stoke Aerospace, you've got Firefly . . . You've got a few companies that are in the launch business, so they want to compete with SpaceX to launch mostly satellites for paying customers, also cargo for payloads for governments. And then you have a lot of other companies that are doing various kinds of space services and they're not necessarily going to try to be in the launch business per se. We don't need 40 different companies doing launches with different engines, different designs, different fuels, and stuff like that. Eight or 10 might be great, six might be great. We'll see how the market sorts out.But then if you look at the development of the auto industry, it started with probably hundreds of little small shops, hand-building cars, but by the mid-century it had settled down to a few big companies through consolidation. And instead of hundreds of engine designs that were given 1950, there were probably in the US, I don't know, 12 engine designs or something like that. Stuff got standardized — we'll see the same thing happen in space — but you also saw an enormous ecosystem of companies building batteries, tires, transmissions, parts, wipers, all sorts of little things and servicing in an industry to service the automobile. Now, rockets are a lot more centralized and high-tech, but you're going to see something like that in the space economy, and it's already happening.A new role for NASA (17:27)I think NASA should get more ambitious in deep-space flight, both crewed and uncrewed.What do you see NASA should be doing? We don't want them designing rockets anymore, so what should they do? What does that portfolio look like?That's an excellent question. I think that we are in this pivotal time when, because of the success of SpaceX, and hopefully soon other vendors, they can relieve themselves of that responsibility to build their own rockets. That gets out of a lot of the problems of Congress meddling to maximize pork flowing to their states and all of that kind of stuff. So that's a positive in itself.Perhaps a bug rather than a feature for Congress.Right, but it also means that technology will move much, much faster as private companies are innovating and competing with each other. That gives NASA an opportunity. What should they do with it? I think NASA should get more ambitious in deep-space flight, both crewed and uncrewed. Because it'll get much cheaper to get cargo into orbit to get payload up there, as I said, they can launch more science missions, and then when it comes to human missions, I like the overall plan of Artemis. The details were really pulled together during the first Trump administration, which had a really good space policy overall, which is to return to the moon, set up a permanent or long-term habitation on the moon. The way NASA sketches it out, not all the burden is carried by NASA.They envision — or did envision — a kind of ecosystem on the moon where you might have private vendors there providing services. You might have a company that mines ice and makes oxygen, and fuel, and water for the residents of these space stations. You might have somebody else building habitation that could be used by visiting scientists who are not NASA astronauts, but also used by NASA.There's all this possibility to combine what NASA does with the private sector, and what NASA should always do is be focused on the stuff the private sector can't yet do. That would be the deep-space probes. That would be sending astronauts on the most daring non-routine missions. As the private sector develops the ability to do some of those things, then NASA can move on to the next thing. That's one set of goals.Another set of goals is to do the research into technologies, things that are hard for the private sector to undertake. In particular, things like new propulsion for deep-space travel. There's a couple of different designs for nuclear rocket engines that I think are really promising, super efficient. Sadly, under the current budget cuts that are proposed at NASA, that's one of the programs that's being cut, and if you really want to do deep space travel routinely, ultimately, chemical fuels, they're not impossible, but they're not as feasible because you've got to get all that heavy — whatever your fuel is, methane or whatever it is — up into either into orbit or you've got to manufacture it on the moon or somewhere. The energy density of plutonium or uranium is just so much higher and it just allows you to do so much more with lighter weight. So I'd like to see them research those kinds of things that no individual private company could really afford to do at this point, and then when the technology is more mature, hand it off to the private sector.American space leadership (21:17)Exploration's never been totally safe, and if people want to take risks on behalf of a spirit of adventure and on behalf of humanity at large, I say we let them.If things go well —reforms, funding, lower launch costs — what does America's role in space look like in 10 to 15 years, and what's your concern if things go a darker route, like cutting nuclear engine research you were just talking about?I'll sketch out the bright scenario. This is very up your alley, Jim.Yeah, I viewed this as a good thing, so you tell me what it is.In 15 years I would love to see a small permanent colony at the south pole of the moon where you can harvest ice from the craters and maybe you'd have some habitation there, maybe even a little bit of space tourism starting up. People turn up their nose at space tourism, but it's a great way to help fund really important research. Remember the Golden Age of Exploration, James Cook and Darwin, those expeditions were self-funded. They were funded by rich people. If rich people want to go to space, I say I'm all for it.So a little base on the moon, important research going on, we're learning how to have people live on a foreign body, NASA is gathering tons of information and training for the next goal, which I think is even more important: I do agree we should get people to Mars. I don't think we should bypass the moon to get to Mars, I don't think that's feasible, that's what Elon Musk keeps suggesting. I think it's too soon for that. We want to learn about how people handle living off-planet for a long period of time closer to home — and how to mine ice and how to do all these things — closer to home, three or four days away, not months and months away. If something goes wrong, they'll be a lot more accessible.But I'd like to see, by then, some Mars missions and maybe an attempt to start the first long-term habitation of Mars. I don't think we're going to see that in 10 years, but I think that's a great goal, and I don't think it's a goal that taxpayers should be expected to fund 100 percent. I think by then we should see even more partnerships where the private companies that really want to do this — and I'm looking at Elon Musk because he's been talking about it for 20 years — they should shoulder a lot of the costs of that. If they see a benefit in that, they should also bear some of the costs. So that's the bright scenario.Along with that, all kinds of stuff going on in low-earth orbit: manufacturing drugs, seeing if you can harness solar energy, private space stations, better communications, and a robust science program exploring deep space with unmanned spacecraft. I'd like to see all of that. I think that could be done for a reasonable amount of money with the proper planning.The darker scenario is that we've just had too much chaos and indecision in NASA for years. We think of NASA as being this agency of great exploration, but they've done very little for 20 years . . . I take that back — NASA's uncrewed space program has had a lot of successes. It's done some great stuff. But when it comes to manned space flight, it's pretty much just been the International Space Station, and I think we've gotten most of the benefit out of that. They're planning to retire that in 2030. So then what happens? After we retired the Space Shuttle, space practically went into a very low-growth period. We haven't had a human being outside of low-earth orbit since Apollo, and that's embarrassing, frankly. We should be much more ambitious.I'm afraid we're entering a period where, without strong leadership and without a strong focus on really grand goals, then Congress will reassert its desire to use NASA as a piggy bank for their states and districts and aerospace manufacturers will build the stuff they're asked to build, but nothing will move very quickly. That's the worst-case scenario. We'll see, but right now, with all of the kind of disorder in Washington, I think we are in a period where we should be concerned.Can America still call itself the world's space leader if its role is mainly launching things into Earth orbit, with private companies running space stations for activities like drug testing or movie production if, meanwhile, China is building space stations and establishing a presence on the Moon? In that scenario, doesn't it seem like China is the world's leader in space?That's a real issue. China has a coherent nationalistic plan for space, and they are pursuing it, they're pouring a lot of resources into it, and they're making a lot of headway. As always, when China rolls out its new, cutting-edge technology, it usually looks a lot like something originally built in the US, and they're certainly following SpaceX's model as closely as they can in terms of reusable rockets right now.China wants to get to the moon. They see this as a space race the way the Soviets saw a space race. It's a battle for national prestige. One thing that worries me, is under the Artemis plan during the first Trump administration, there was also something called the Artemis Accords — it still exists — which is an international agreement among countries to A) join in where they can if they want, with various American initiatives. So we've got partners that we're planning to build different parts of the Artemis program, including a space station around the moon called Gateway, which actually isn't the greatest idea, but the European Space Agency and others were involved in helping build it.But also, all these countries, more than 50 countries have signed on to these aspirational goals of the Artemis Accords, which are: freedom of navigation, shared use of space, going for purposes of peaceful exploration, being transparent about what you're doing in space so that other countries can see it, avoiding generating more space junk, space debris, which is a huge problem with all the stuff we've got up there now, including a lot of old decrepit satellites and rocket bodies. So committing to not just leaving your upper-stage rocket bodies drifting around in space. A lot of different good goals, and the fact that all these countries wanted to join in on this shows America's preeminence. But if we back away, or become chaotic, or start disrespecting those allies who've signed on, they're going to look for another partner in space and China is going to roll out the red carpet for them.You get a phone call from SpaceX. They've made some great leap forwards. That Starship, it's ready to go to Mars. They're going to create a human habitation out there. They need a journalist. By the way, it's a one-way trip. Do you go?I don't go to Mars. I've got family here. That comes first for me. But I know some people want to do that, and I think that we should celebrate that. The space journalist Rand Simberg wrote a book years ago called Safe Is Not An Option — that we should not be too hung up on trying to make space exploration totally safe. Exploration's never been totally safe, and if people want to take risks on behalf of a spirit of adventure and on behalf of humanity at large, I say we let them. So maybe that first trip to Mars is a one-way trip, or at least a one-way for a couple of years until more flights become feasible and more back-and-forth return flights become something that can be done routinely. It doesn't really appeal to me, but it'll appeal to somebody, and I'm glad we have those kinds of people in our society.On sale everywhere The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi World We Were PromisedMicro Reads▶ Economics* Trump economy shows surprising resilience despite tariff impacts - Wapo* Supply Chains Become New Battleground in the Global Trade War - WSJ* This A.I. 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What Will We Do With It? - WSJ* Oil's Lost Decade Is About to Be Repeated - Bberg Opinion* How the Pentagon Secretly Sparked America's Clean Energy Boom - The Debrief▶ Space/Transportation* Musk-Trump feud is a wake-up call on space - FT* Trump's 2026 budget cuts would force the world's most powerful solar telescope to close - Space▶ Up Wing/Down Wing* ‘Invasive Species'? Japan's Growing Pains on Immigration - Bberg Opinion* Incredible Testimonies - Aeon* How and When Was the Wheel Invented? - Real Clear Science▶ Substacks/Newsletters* Trump's "beautiful" bill wrecks our energy future - Slow Boring* DOGE Looked Broken Before the Trump-Musk Breakup - The Dispatch* Steve Teles on abundance: prehistory, present, and future - The Permanent Problem* Is Macroeconomics a Mature Science? - Conversable EconomistFaster, Please! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. 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The Germans launched “Operation Citadel” on July 5th, 1943.  They wanted to encircle and destroy Soviet forces in a salient centered on the city of Kursk.  The Soviets knew they were coming and had spent months preparing.  What followed was the greatest land battle in history.  About two million men with 6,000 tanks, 35,000 guns, and 5,000 aircraft fought into late August.  Despite horrific losses, the Soviets stood their ground.  Lloyd Clark tells the story in “The Battle of the Tanks: Kursk 1943”.

In several recent episodes of the podcast, we have featured books about the World War II era. An important figure from that time has been mentioned but not discussed during any of those interviews. Her name is Elizabeth Bentley. She was the first person to reveal, to the FBI and the Congress, the names of people living in the United States and spying for the Soviets, both Americans and foreign-born operatives. To better understand this former communist spy turned informant, we asked Kathryn Olmsted, author of "Red Spy Queen," a biography of Elizabeth Bentley, to tell us the late spy's story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In several recent episodes of the podcast, we have featured books about the World War II era. An important figure from that time has been mentioned but not discussed during any of those interviews. Her name is Elizabeth Bentley. She was the first person to reveal, to the FBI and the Congress, the names of people living in the United States and spying for the Soviets, both Americans and foreign-born operatives. To better understand this former communist spy turned informant, we asked Kathryn Olmsted, author of "Red Spy Queen," a biography of Elizabeth Bentley, to tell us the late spy's story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the annals of history, few leaders have faced the monumental challenges that Mikhail Gorbachev encountered when he rose to power in the Soviet Union in 1985. His ascent came at a time when the nation was grappling with stagnation, disillusionment, and an economy on the brink of collapse. Gorbachev, the youngest General Secretary in Soviet history, was thrust into a leadership role that demanded not only a vision for reform but also the courage to confront an entrenched bureaucracy resistant to change. In a new format I explore the life of Mikhail Gorbachev without a guest. Recommended episodes Face to face with the Soviets at the Cold War Reykjavik Summit between President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev https://pod.fo/e/244e66 On the Streets of Cold War Estonia fighting for Independence https://pod.fo/e/222e82 Eyewitness to the 1991 Soviet Coup https://pod.fo/e/f7f7 Episode extras https://coldwarconversations.com/episode406/ The fight to preserve Cold War history continues and via a simple monthly donation, you will give me the ammunition to continue to preserve Cold War history. You'll become part of our community, get ad-free episodes, and get a sought-after CWC coaster as a thank you and you'll bask in the warm glow of knowing you are helping to preserve Cold War history. Just go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/⁠⁠⁠⁠ If a monthly contribution is not your cup of tea, we welcome one-off donations via the same link. Find the ideal gift for the Cold War enthusiast in your life! Just go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://coldwarconversations.com/store/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us on BlueSky ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bsky.app/profile/coldwarpod.bsky.social⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us on Threads ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.threads.net/@coldwarconversations⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/ColdWarPod⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/coldwarpod/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/coldwarconversations/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Youtube ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtube.com/@ColdWarConversations⁠⁠⁠⁠ Love history? Join Intohistory ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://intohistory.com/coldwarpod⁠⁠ 00:00:00 Introduction 0:01:10 The Man from Stavropol 0:06:35 Acceleration and the Mirage of Momentum 0:13:15 The Opening to the West 0:20:26 Opening the Gates 0:28:08 Signing Away the Missiles 0:34:37 Nations within a Nation 0:40:36 The Centre Cannot Hold 0:46:51 The Coup that Failed 0:58:00 The Weight of Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What would Nelson Mandela say about South Africa today? Larry O'Connor and South African entrepreneur Rob Herzov expose the hidden Soviet influence in the ANC’s National Democratic Revolution and the rise of corruption, farm attacks, and genocide-like conditions. Discover how Soviet-trained leaders have driven South Africa’s economy into the ground and learn why America’s intervention is urgently needed. SHOP OUR MERCH: https://store.townhallmedia.com/ BUY A LARRY MUG: https://store.townhallmedia.com/products/larry-mug Watch LARRY with Larry O'Connor LIVE — Monday-Thursday at 12PM Eastern on YouTube, Facebook, & Rumble! Find LARRY with Larry O'Connor wherever you get your podcasts! SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/7i8F7K4fqIDmqZSIHJNhMh?si=814ce2f8478944c0&nd=1&dlsi=e799ca22e81b456f APPLE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/larry/id1730596733 Become a Townhall VIP Member today and use promo code LARRY for 50% off: https://townhall.com/subscribe?tpcc=poddescription https://townhall.com/ https://rumble.com/c/c-5769468 https://www.facebook.com/townhallcom/ https://www.instagram.com/townhallmedia/ https://twitter.com/townhallcomBecome a Townhall VIP member with promo code "LARRY": https://townhall.com/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

C'est un anarchiste au pays des Soviets, un Ukrainien qui rêvait d'un monde sans maîtres ni esclaves, en pleine révolution russe. Mais l'utopie sera de courte durée car l'histoire, elle, ne se laisse pas dompter facilement. Suivez la chevauchée solitaire de ce Robin des Steppes, un héros libertaire au destin fulgurant, qui finira ses jours en exil, à Paris. Crédits : Lorànt Deutsch, Bruno Calvès. Du lundi au vendredi de 15h à 15h30, Lorànt Deutsch vous révèle les secrets des personnages historiques les plus captivants !Distribué par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

In America's Cold Warrior, James Graham Wilson traces Paul Nitze's career path in national security after World War II, a time when many of his mentors and peers returned to civilian life. Serving in eight presidential administrations, Nitze commanded White House attention even when he was out of government, especially with his withering criticism of Jimmy Carter during Carter's presidency. While Nitze is perhaps best known for leading the formulation of NSC-68, which Harry Truman signed in 1950, Wilson contends that Nitze's most significant contribution to American peace and security came in the painstaking work done in the 1980s to negotiate successful treaties with the Soviets to reduce nuclear weapons while simultaneously deflecting skeptics surrounding Ronald Reagan. America's Cold Warrior connects Nitze's career and concerns about strategic vulnerability to the post-9/11 era and the challenges of the 2020s, where the United States finds itself locked in geopolitical competition with the People's Republic of China and Russia. Short Bio: James Graham Wilson is a Supervisory Historian in the Office of the Historian at the Department of State. He has compiled 11 volumes in the Foreign Relations of the United States series, including the sequence of National Security Policy volumes covering 1977–1992. He is the author of America's Cold Warrior: Paul Nitze and National Security from Roosevelt to Reagan (Cornell Press, 2024) and The Triumph of Improvisation: Gorbachev's Adaptability, Reagan's Engagement, and the End of the Cold War (Cornell Press, 2014). He received his PhD from the University of Virginia in 2011, where he studied with Melvyn Leffler. Mentioned: Susan Colbourn, Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO (2022). Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days (1969). Nicholas Thompson, The Hawk and the Dove (2010). Also mentioned: Foreign Relations of the United States Volumes, here. The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection, here. Luca Trenta is an Associate Professor in International Relations at Swansea University, in Wales (UK). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In America's Cold Warrior, James Graham Wilson traces Paul Nitze's career path in national security after World War II, a time when many of his mentors and peers returned to civilian life. Serving in eight presidential administrations, Nitze commanded White House attention even when he was out of government, especially with his withering criticism of Jimmy Carter during Carter's presidency. While Nitze is perhaps best known for leading the formulation of NSC-68, which Harry Truman signed in 1950, Wilson contends that Nitze's most significant contribution to American peace and security came in the painstaking work done in the 1980s to negotiate successful treaties with the Soviets to reduce nuclear weapons while simultaneously deflecting skeptics surrounding Ronald Reagan. America's Cold Warrior connects Nitze's career and concerns about strategic vulnerability to the post-9/11 era and the challenges of the 2020s, where the United States finds itself locked in geopolitical competition with the People's Republic of China and Russia. Short Bio: James Graham Wilson is a Supervisory Historian in the Office of the Historian at the Department of State. He has compiled 11 volumes in the Foreign Relations of the United States series, including the sequence of National Security Policy volumes covering 1977–1992. He is the author of America's Cold Warrior: Paul Nitze and National Security from Roosevelt to Reagan (Cornell Press, 2024) and The Triumph of Improvisation: Gorbachev's Adaptability, Reagan's Engagement, and the End of the Cold War (Cornell Press, 2014). He received his PhD from the University of Virginia in 2011, where he studied with Melvyn Leffler. Mentioned: Susan Colbourn, Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO (2022). Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days (1969). Nicholas Thompson, The Hawk and the Dove (2010). Also mentioned: Foreign Relations of the United States Volumes, here. The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection, here. Luca Trenta is an Associate Professor in International Relations at Swansea University, in Wales (UK). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

In America's Cold Warrior, James Graham Wilson traces Paul Nitze's career path in national security after World War II, a time when many of his mentors and peers returned to civilian life. Serving in eight presidential administrations, Nitze commanded White House attention even when he was out of government, especially with his withering criticism of Jimmy Carter during Carter's presidency. While Nitze is perhaps best known for leading the formulation of NSC-68, which Harry Truman signed in 1950, Wilson contends that Nitze's most significant contribution to American peace and security came in the painstaking work done in the 1980s to negotiate successful treaties with the Soviets to reduce nuclear weapons while simultaneously deflecting skeptics surrounding Ronald Reagan. America's Cold Warrior connects Nitze's career and concerns about strategic vulnerability to the post-9/11 era and the challenges of the 2020s, where the United States finds itself locked in geopolitical competition with the People's Republic of China and Russia. Short Bio: James Graham Wilson is a Supervisory Historian in the Office of the Historian at the Department of State. He has compiled 11 volumes in the Foreign Relations of the United States series, including the sequence of National Security Policy volumes covering 1977–1992. He is the author of America's Cold Warrior: Paul Nitze and National Security from Roosevelt to Reagan (Cornell Press, 2024) and The Triumph of Improvisation: Gorbachev's Adaptability, Reagan's Engagement, and the End of the Cold War (Cornell Press, 2014). He received his PhD from the University of Virginia in 2011, where he studied with Melvyn Leffler. Mentioned: Susan Colbourn, Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO (2022). Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days (1969). Nicholas Thompson, The Hawk and the Dove (2010). Also mentioned: Foreign Relations of the United States Volumes, here. The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection, here. Luca Trenta is an Associate Professor in International Relations at Swansea University, in Wales (UK). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

In America's Cold Warrior, James Graham Wilson traces Paul Nitze's career path in national security after World War II, a time when many of his mentors and peers returned to civilian life. Serving in eight presidential administrations, Nitze commanded White House attention even when he was out of government, especially with his withering criticism of Jimmy Carter during Carter's presidency. While Nitze is perhaps best known for leading the formulation of NSC-68, which Harry Truman signed in 1950, Wilson contends that Nitze's most significant contribution to American peace and security came in the painstaking work done in the 1980s to negotiate successful treaties with the Soviets to reduce nuclear weapons while simultaneously deflecting skeptics surrounding Ronald Reagan. America's Cold Warrior connects Nitze's career and concerns about strategic vulnerability to the post-9/11 era and the challenges of the 2020s, where the United States finds itself locked in geopolitical competition with the People's Republic of China and Russia. Short Bio: James Graham Wilson is a Supervisory Historian in the Office of the Historian at the Department of State. He has compiled 11 volumes in the Foreign Relations of the United States series, including the sequence of National Security Policy volumes covering 1977–1992. He is the author of America's Cold Warrior: Paul Nitze and National Security from Roosevelt to Reagan (Cornell Press, 2024) and The Triumph of Improvisation: Gorbachev's Adaptability, Reagan's Engagement, and the End of the Cold War (Cornell Press, 2014). He received his PhD from the University of Virginia in 2011, where he studied with Melvyn Leffler. Mentioned: Susan Colbourn, Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO (2022). Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days (1969). Nicholas Thompson, The Hawk and the Dove (2010). Also mentioned: Foreign Relations of the United States Volumes, here. The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection, here. Luca Trenta is an Associate Professor in International Relations at Swansea University, in Wales (UK). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

In America's Cold Warrior, James Graham Wilson traces Paul Nitze's career path in national security after World War II, a time when many of his mentors and peers returned to civilian life. Serving in eight presidential administrations, Nitze commanded White House attention even when he was out of government, especially with his withering criticism of Jimmy Carter during Carter's presidency. While Nitze is perhaps best known for leading the formulation of NSC-68, which Harry Truman signed in 1950, Wilson contends that Nitze's most significant contribution to American peace and security came in the painstaking work done in the 1980s to negotiate successful treaties with the Soviets to reduce nuclear weapons while simultaneously deflecting skeptics surrounding Ronald Reagan. America's Cold Warrior connects Nitze's career and concerns about strategic vulnerability to the post-9/11 era and the challenges of the 2020s, where the United States finds itself locked in geopolitical competition with the People's Republic of China and Russia. Short Bio: James Graham Wilson is a Supervisory Historian in the Office of the Historian at the Department of State. He has compiled 11 volumes in the Foreign Relations of the United States series, including the sequence of National Security Policy volumes covering 1977–1992. He is the author of America's Cold Warrior: Paul Nitze and National Security from Roosevelt to Reagan (Cornell Press, 2024) and The Triumph of Improvisation: Gorbachev's Adaptability, Reagan's Engagement, and the End of the Cold War (Cornell Press, 2014). He received his PhD from the University of Virginia in 2011, where he studied with Melvyn Leffler. Mentioned: Susan Colbourn, Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO (2022). Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days (1969). Nicholas Thompson, The Hawk and the Dove (2010). Also mentioned: Foreign Relations of the United States Volumes, here. The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection, here. Luca Trenta is an Associate Professor in International Relations at Swansea University, in Wales (UK). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

In America's Cold Warrior, James Graham Wilson traces Paul Nitze's career path in national security after World War II, a time when many of his mentors and peers returned to civilian life. Serving in eight presidential administrations, Nitze commanded White House attention even when he was out of government, especially with his withering criticism of Jimmy Carter during Carter's presidency. While Nitze is perhaps best known for leading the formulation of NSC-68, which Harry Truman signed in 1950, Wilson contends that Nitze's most significant contribution to American peace and security came in the painstaking work done in the 1980s to negotiate successful treaties with the Soviets to reduce nuclear weapons while simultaneously deflecting skeptics surrounding Ronald Reagan. America's Cold Warrior connects Nitze's career and concerns about strategic vulnerability to the post-9/11 era and the challenges of the 2020s, where the United States finds itself locked in geopolitical competition with the People's Republic of China and Russia. Short Bio: James Graham Wilson is a Supervisory Historian in the Office of the Historian at the Department of State. He has compiled 11 volumes in the Foreign Relations of the United States series, including the sequence of National Security Policy volumes covering 1977–1992. He is the author of America's Cold Warrior: Paul Nitze and National Security from Roosevelt to Reagan (Cornell Press, 2024) and The Triumph of Improvisation: Gorbachev's Adaptability, Reagan's Engagement, and the End of the Cold War (Cornell Press, 2014). He received his PhD from the University of Virginia in 2011, where he studied with Melvyn Leffler. Mentioned: Susan Colbourn, Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO (2022). Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days (1969). Nicholas Thompson, The Hawk and the Dove (2010). Also mentioned: Foreign Relations of the United States Volumes, here. The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection, here. Luca Trenta is an Associate Professor in International Relations at Swansea University, in Wales (UK). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In order to become rich, powerful, and prestigious in the pre-modern world, nothing mattered more than horses. They were the fundamental unit of warfare, enabling cavalry charges, and logistical support. They facilitated the creation of the Silk Road (which could arguably be called the “Horse Road”) since China largely built it to enable the purchase of millions of horses to fight its nomadic neighbors to the north. The term "caballero," meaning a gentleman or knight in Spanish, derived from the Latin "caballus" (horse), reflecting how wealth, status, and the skilled ability to ride a horse defined chivalric ideals in medieval society. From the windswept Eurasian steppe to the royal stables of Persia and the warpaths of Genghis Khan, today’s guest, David Chaffetz, author of Raiders, Rulers, and Traders traces the story of how horses changed the world—not just in warfare, but in statecraft, commerce, and culture. Chaffetz makes the case that the so-called “Silk Road” might more accurately be remembered as the Horse Road. Horse-driven mobility shaped empires from Assyria and the Achaemenids to the Mughals and the Soviets. Just as we rely on the Internet today, ancient societies depended on the horse as a transformative technology that shaped everything from warfare to governance.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  Last time we spoke about China's preparations for War. In December 1936, the tension in China reached a boiling point as Nationalist General Chiang Kai-shek was captured by his own commanders, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng. Disillusioned by Chiang's focus on fighting communists instead of the encroaching Japanese forces, the generals sought a unified response to Japanese aggression. After being held in Xi'an, Chiang reluctantly agreed to collaborate with the Chinese Communist Party, marking a significant shift in strategy against Japan. Amidst the rising chaos, Chiang's government reviewed historical military strategies and prepared for a prolonged conflict. However, they faced challenges, including inadequate supplies and a lack of modern equipment compared to the Japanese. By 1937, China was ill-prepared for war, with Chiang later expressing regret about their military readiness. Despite these setbacks, the alliance formed with the communists laid a foundation for a united Chinese front against the brutalities of the Sino-Japanese War that would follow.   #153 Japan Prepares for War Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. So in the last episode we talked about how China was preparing itself for war, now its time for Japan. Since Japan's invasion of North China, Japanese field armies had promoted a series of autonomous zones in northern China. Officers from the Kwantung Army, skeptical of China's capacity to modernize, believed that the vast region would inevitably fragment into regional factions. This policy effectively maintained a weak and divided China, which served Japan's to defend Manchukuo. However many Japanese military leaders frequently pointed to the threat posed by the KMT's five-year plan, initiated in 1933 with assistance from German military advisors, aimed at modernizing and expanding the national army. To counter what they perceived as a Chinese threat, the field armies advocated for a preemptive war to dismantle Chiang Kai-shek's regime. Any attempt by Tokyo to alter the military's China policy faced vigorous opposition from the Kwantung Army, which, in February 1937, pushed for intensified covert actions to expel the KMT from northern China and supported a preemptive war to secure strategic areas for future operations against the Soviet Union. At a March meeting in Tokyo, staff officers from the China Garrison and Kwantung armies insisted that any concessions to China would be a grave mistake and would likely yield only temporary outcomes. In early spring 1937, Prince Konoe Fumimaro inherited a China policy fraught with competing views, however, there was consensus that China must not distract the empire from its preparations against the USSR. The end goal was clear, but the means to achieve it remained uncertain. The cabinet's approval of the "Fundamentals of National Policy" in August 1936 indicated a need for stability as the army and navy reconfigured Japan's war machine. The challenge lay in aligning long-term strategic goals with practical short-term interests in northern China without upsetting the existing balance of power. Expanding demands propelled the army's contingency planning, which had traditionally focused on safeguarding Japanese interests and the approximately 13,000 Japanese citizens residing in the region. Tokyo typically responded to serious incidents by deploying troops from homeland garrisons to address localized emergencies and then withdrawing them. However, by the mid-1930s, the growing Soviet threat to Manchukuo rendered this doctrine obsolete. Incidents in northern China gained strategic importance as they diverted resources from the Kwantung Army's preparations against the Soviet Union. Disruptions in northern China hindered access to essential raw materials necessary for army modernization and rearmament, while hostile Chinese forces threatened the Kwantung Army's strategic left flank in the event of war with the Soviets. With these considerations in mind, the army revised its operational war plans, assuming that northern China would serve as Japan's strategic rear area for operations against the USSR. In 1911 Japan's plan for general war mandated thirteen divisions to occupy southern Manchuria, capture Beijing, and subsequently occupy Zhejiang and Fujian. Limited contingency operations in northern China required two divisions to secure rail communications from Beijing to the coast. In the weeks following the 1931 Manchurian Incident, the General Staff in Tokyo drafted plans to counter a Sino-Soviet alliance, anticipating a 2 month campaign involving 15-16 divisions, with the majority engaged against the Soviet Red Army. 2 divisions were designated to secure northern China, while smaller units would monitor the Inner Mongolian front to protect Japan's western flank in Manchuria. After further refinement, the General Staff identified three contingencies for China in early 1932: maintaining the traditional mission of safeguarding Japanese interests and citizens with a standard two-division force; ensuring a secure line of communication between the Chinese capital and the sea with the China Garrison Army, which consisted of approximately 1,700 officers and men, reinforced by one division; and, in a worst-case scenario of all-out war, deploying three divisions to reinforce the Kwantung Army, along with 7 additional divisions and 3 cavalry brigades to suppress resistance in northern China and the Shandong Peninsula, while two additional divisions secured key areas in central China. Between 1932-1936, China received less attention as the General Staff focused on the Soviet military buildup in the Far East. Anxiety, stemming from the Soviet buildup in the Far East, was a pervasive concern reflected in the draft rearmament plan submitted to the throne on May 21, 1936, as part of the national budget formulation process. The army proposed countering the Soviet threat by enhancing Japanese strategic mobility in Manchukuo through the renovation and expansion of airfields, ports, roads, and rail infrastructure, and by constructing army air force arsenals, storage depots, and medical facilities. The positioning of Japanese divisions in eastern Manchuria suggested their wartime objectives, with the Kwantung Army relying on a mobile independent mixed brigade composed of armored car and mounted cavalry units stationed in Gongzhuling, central Manchuria, as its immediate response force for contingencies in northern China. Major units were not concentrated in western Manchuria, where they would be expected to deploy before any planned invasion of northern China. Nevertheless, General Staff planners remained vigilant regarding developments in China, where the resurgence of nationalism, Communist movements advancing north of the Yellow River in February 1936, and the spread of anti-Japanese sentiments across northern China raised the specter of limited military operations escalating into full-scale warfare. China's improving military capabilities would likely hinder Japanese forces from accomplishing their objectives. For example, around Shanghai, Chinese defenses were bolstered by extensive, in-depth, and permanent fortifications. In mid-September 1936, the General Staff in Tokyo issued orders to preempt significant outbreaks in northern China by repositioning a division in Manchukuo closer to the boundary. If hostilities broke out, the China Garrison Army, supported by Kwantung Army units, would launch punitive operations against Chinese forces as necessary. Higher headquarters expected local commanders to act swiftly and decisively, employing rapid maneuvers and shock tactics to address outbreaks with minimal force. Given that no alternative responses were considered, Japanese operational planning for northern China relied on an all-or-nothing approach to force deployment, even for minor incidents. Yet, the senior leadership of the army remained deeply divided over its China policy. Influenced by Ishiwara, the General Staff wanted to avoid military actions that could lead to a full-scale war with China, focusing instead on advancing the army's extensive rearmament and modernization program. In contrast, a majority of high-ranking officers in the Army Ministry and General Staff, particularly within the 2nd Operations Section and the Kwantung Army, favored forceful action against China, believing it necessary to quell rising anti-Japanese sentiments. Drawing from past experiences, these officers anticipated that the Chinese would quickly capitulate once hostilities commenced. This lack of a unified military strategy reflected broader disagreements among the army's leadership regarding operations in China. While operational planning called for the permanent occupation of large regions in northern and central China, the General Staff aimed to contain outbreaks to maintain focus on Soviet threats. There was a clear absence of long-term operational planning; instead, the army concentrated on initial battles while relegating planning for prolonged combat operations to contingent circumstances. In summary, the Japanese army preferred to avoid military force to address Chinese issues whenever feasible but was equally unwilling to concede to Chinese demands. Since 1914, Tosui Koryo or “Principles of Command” had served as the foundational doctrine for senior Japanese army commanders and staff officers engaged in combined arms warfare at the corps and army levels. The advent of new weapons, tactics, and organizational changes during World War I compelled all major military forces to reassess their existing military doctrines across strategic, operational, and tactical dimensions. In response, Japan modified the Principles of Command to blend its traditional post-Russo-Japanese War focus on the intangible factors in battle with the newest concepts of modern total war. A revision in 1918 recognized the significance of “recent great advances in materiel” for total warfare, yet it maintained that ultimate victory in battle relied on dedication, patriotism, and selfless service. In the 1920s, the General Staff's Operations Section, led by Major General Araki Sadao, who would become the leader of the Kodoha faction, had produced the most significant and impactful revision of the Principles. A staunch anti-communist and ideologue who valued the intangible elements of combat, Araki appointed Lieutenant Colonel Obata Toshishiro and Captain Suzuki Yorimichi as the principal authors of the manual's rewrite. Obata, a Soviet expert, was strongly influenced by German General Count Alfred von Schlieffen's classic theories of a “war of annihilation,” while Suzuki, the top graduate of the thirtieth Staff College class, shared Araki's focus on “spiritual” or intangible advantages in warfare. Both men were brilliant yet arrogant, working in secrecy to create a doctrine based on what Leonard Humphreys describes as “intense spiritual training” and bayonet-led assaults to counter the opponent's material superiority.  The latest version of the Principles of Command preserved the operational concept of rapid Japanese mobile offensive operations, aiming to induce a decisive battle or “kaisen” early in the campaign. It reaffirmed the sokusen sokketsu or “rapid victory' principle of rapid warfare. Attaining these goals relied exclusively on offensive action, with the army expecting commanders at all levels to press forward, defeat enemy units, and capture key territories. The troops were indoctrinated with a spirit of aggression and trained to anticipate certain victory. The emphasis on offensive action was so pronounced that Araki eliminated terms like surrender, retreat, and defense from the manual, believing they negatively affected troop morale. This aggressive mindset also infused the Sento Koryo or “Principles of Operations”, first published in 1929 as a handbook for combined arms warfare tailored for division and regimental commanders. The manual emphasized hand-to-hand combat as the culminating stage of battle, a principle regarded as unchanging in Japanese military doctrine since 1910. Senior commanders were expected to demonstrate initiative in skillfully maneuvering their units to encircle the enemy, setting the stage for climactic assaults with cold steel. Infantry was deemed the primary maneuver force, supported by artillery. To complement rapid infantry advances, the army developed light and mobile artillery. Operationally, encirclement and night attacks were vital components of victory, and even outnumbered units were expected to aggressively envelop enemy flanks. In assaults against fortified positions, units would advance under the cover of darkness, avoiding enemy artillery fire and positioning themselves for dawn attacks that combined firepower with shock action to overwhelm enemy defenses. In encounters with opposing forces, commanders would maneuver to flank the enemy, surround their units, and destroy them. If forced onto the defensive, commanders were expected to seize opportunities for decisive counterattacks to regain the initiative. These high-level operational doctrines were distilled into tactical guidelines in the January 1928 edition of the Infantry Manual or “Hohei Soten”, which saw a provisional revision in May 1937 . Both editions opened with identical introductions emphasizing the necessity for a rapid victory through the overpowering and destruction of enemy forces. Infantry was identified as the primary arm in combined arms warfare, and soldiers were taught to rely on cold steel as fundamental to their attacking spirit. The 1928 Infantry Manual underscored the commander's role in instilling a faith in certain victory or “hissho shinnen”, drawing from the glorious traditions of Japanese military history. The 1928 infantry tactics employed an extended skirmish line with four paces between soldiers. Individual initiative in combat was generally discouraged, except under exceptional circumstances, as success relied on concentrating firepower and manpower on narrow frontages to overwhelm defenders. An infantry company would create a skirmish line featuring two light machine gun squads and four rifle squads, preparing for a bayonet-driven breakthrough of enemy defenses. For the final assault, the infantry company would line up along a 150-yard front, likely facing casualties of up to 50% while breaching the enemy's main defensive line. Historical analysis reveals the shortcomings of these tactics. During World War I, armies constructed extensive, multi-layered defenses, trenches, pillboxes, and strong points, each independent yet all covered by artillery. If assaulting infantry suffered heavy losses breaching the first line, how could they successfully prosecute their assault against multiple defense lines? The 1937 revision elaborated on new tactics to overcome entrenched Soviet defenses, drafted in anticipation of arms and equipment that were either in development or production but not yet available for deployment. This became official doctrine in 1940, but as early as summer 1937, units from the China Garrison Army were field-testing these new tactics. The provisional manual adopted combat team tactics, forming an umbrella-like skirmish formation. This involved a light machine gun team at the forefront with two ammunition bearers flanking it to the rear. Behind the machine gun team were riflemen arranged in a column formation, maintaining six paces between each. The light machine gun provided cover fire as the formation closed in on the enemy for hand-to-hand combat. Increased firepower expanded the assault front to 200 yards. The combination of wider dispersion and night movement aimed to reduce losses from enemy artillery fire while the infantry advanced through successive lines of resistance. Commanders at the platoon level were responsible for leading the final assault into enemy lines, with increased tactical responsibility shifting from platoon to squad leaders, allowing for greater initiative from junior officers and non-commissioned officers. This emphasis on broader dispersal and fluidity on the battlefield required frontline infantry to exhibit aggressiveness and initiative. Contrary to popular belief, the Japanese military did not solely rely on the bayonet or an offensive spirit during engagements with Chinese forces. They effectively employed superior firepower and modern equipment within their combined arms framework, using heavy weapons and artillery to soften enemy positions before launching infantry attacks. Without such firepower, unsupported infantry attacks would have struggled to achieve their objectives. In January 1937, the Imperial Japanese Army consisted of approximately 247,000 officers and men, organized in a structure comprising seventeen standing infantry divisions, four tank regiments, and fifty-four air squadrons equipped with a total of 549 aircraft. The China Garrison Army and the Taiwan Garrison Army each included two infantry regiments, while a separate independent mixed brigade was stationed in Manchuria. Two divisions were permanently based in Korea, with four more assigned on a rotating basis to the Kwantung Army in Manchukuo. The remainder of the forces were stationed in the Japanese home islands. A substantial pool of reservists and partially trained replacements was available to mobilize, enabling the expansion of peacetime units to their wartime strength as needed. Conscription provided the primary source of enlisted manpower for the army, though a handful of young men volunteered for active duty. For conscription purposes, Japan was divided into divisional areas, which were further subdivided into regimental districts responsible for conscription, mobilization, individual activations, and veteran affairs within their jurisdictions. Typically, conscripts served with the regiment associated with their region or prefecture. However, the Imperial Guards regiments in Tokyo selected conscripts from across the nation, as did the Seventh Infantry Division, which recruited from the sparsely populated Hokkaido area and from regular army units stationed in Korea, China, and Taiwan. Draftees from Okinawa Prefecture usually served with Kyushu-based regiments. All males reaching the age of 20 underwent an army-administered pre-induction physical examination conducted between December 1 and January 30 of the following year. This evaluation classified potential conscripts into three categories: A “suitable for active duty”, B1, and B2, while others were deemed unfit for the demands of military life. In 1935, 29.7% of those examined received A classifications, while 41.2% were graded as B1 or B2. Among the 742,422 individuals eligible for conscription in 1937, approximately 170,000 were drafted, amounting to 22.9% of the cohort; this figure had remained relatively consistent since the post-Russo-Japanese War years. Within the conscripted group, 153,000 men were classified as A and an additional 17,000 as B. Conscripts served for two years of active duty, with variations based on their military specialty and any prior civilian military training. After their discharge, they were subject to a lengthy reserve obligation. In total, 470,635 individuals fell into the B category, being otherwise fit for service but excess to the army's active personnel needs. These men were assigned to the First Replacement Pool, where they underwent around 120 days of basic military training, primarily focused on small arms usage and fundamental tactics. Regular officers and NCOs led the training in their respective regimental districts. Following their initial training, the army called these replacements and reservists to active duty annually for several days of refresher training. Army leaders regarded discipline as the cornerstone of military effectiveness. Basic training emphasized the necessity of unquestioning obedience to orders at all levels. Subsequent training focused on fieldcraft, such as utilizing terrain strategically to surprise or encircle the enemy. However, training exercises often lacked diversity due to the limited maneuver areas available in Japan, leading to predictable solutions to field problems. The training regimen was rigorous, merging strict formal discipline and regulated corporal punishment with harsh informal sanctions and unregulated violence from leaders to instill unwavering compliance to orders. As an undergrad taking a course specifically on the Pacific War, it was this variable my professor argued contributed the most to the atrocities performed by the Japanese during WW2. He often described it as a giant pecking order of abuse. The most senior commanders abused, often physically their subordinates, who abused theirs, going through the ranks to the common grunts who had no one else but civilians and the enemy to peck at so to speak. Of course there were a large number of other variables at play, but to understand that you outta join my Patreon Account over at the www.patreon.com/pacificwarchannel , where I made a fan favorite episode on “why the Japanese army performed so many atrocities”. In there I basically hit a big 10 reason list, well in depth, I highly recommend it! As the concept of the “Imperial Army” and the cult of the emperor gained prominence, appeals to imperial symbols and authority bolstered this unquestioning obedience to superiors, who were seen as the conduits of the emperor's will. It was during this period that the term kogun or “imperial army” gained favor over kokugun or “national army”, reflecting a deliberate effort by military authorities to forge a direct connection between the military and the imperial throne. The 1937 Japanese infantry division was structured as a square formation, with a peacetime strength established at approximately 12,000 officers and men organized into two brigades, each comprising about 4,000 personnel, formed from two infantry regiments, about 2,000 men each. The division included a field artillery regiment, an engineer regiment, and a transport battalion as organic units. Each infantry regiment was composed of three battalions, approximately 600 men each, which contained three rifle companies, 160 men each and a weapons platoon. A rifle company consisted of three rifle platoons and one light machine gun platoon. Regiments also included infantry assault gun platoons, and battalions contained a heavy machine gun company. Upon mobilization, a fourth infantry company augmented each battalion, along with reserve fillers, nearly 5,000 personnel assigned as transport and service troops, raising the authorized wartime strength of an infantry division to over 25,000 officers and men.  Reforms implemented in 1922 reduced personnel numbers in favor of new and improved weapons and equipment. Among these advancements, the 75 mm Type 90 field artillery piece, which boasted increased range and accuracy, was integrated into the forces in 1930, along with the 105 mm Type 10 howitzer and 75 mm pack mountain artillery which could be disassembled for transport using pack animals. These became standard artillery components for divisions. The emphasis on light, mobile, and smaller-caliber field artillery enabled swift deployment during fast-moving engagements. By minimizing the size of the baggage train, infantry and artillery units could quickly set up off the march formation and maneuver around enemy flanks. Army leaders further streamlined road march formations by eliminating the fourth artillery battery from each regiment, thus sacrificing some firepower for enhanced speed and mobility. Heavier artillery pieces were still used in set-piece battles where mobility was less critical. In a typical 1936 division, the field artillery regiment, equipped with Type 90 field artillery or lighter Type 94 mountain artillery, had thirty-six guns. Training focused on quality rather than quantity, reflecting the conservative doctrine of “one-round-one-hit”. Live-fire training was infrequent due to the scarcity of artillery firing ranges in Japan. Ammunition stockpiles were inadequate for anticipated operational needs; government arsenals produced over 111,000 artillery shells in 1936, which was fewer than one-tenth of the quantities specified in wartime consumption tables. Similar industrial shortcomings also hampered advancements in motorization and armor. Motorization proved costly and relied on foreign supply, presenting challenges given the inferior road networks in Manchuria, northern China, and the Soviet Far East. Military estimates suggested a need for 250,000 trucks to fully motorize the army, a goal beyond the capabilities of the nascent Japanese automotive industry, which produced fewer than 1,000 cars annually until 1933. Japanese tanks, described as “handcrafted, beautifully polished, and hoarded” by Alvin Coox, suffered from shortages similar to heavy artillery and ammunition. The army prioritized light weighing ten tons or less and medium tanks sixteen tons or less due to the necessity of deploying armor overseas, size and weight were crucial for loading and unloading from transport ships. Smaller tanks were also more suitable for the terrains of northern China and Manchuria, as they could traverse unbridged rivers using pontoons or ferries. The Japanese industrial base, however, struggled to mass-produce tanks; by 1939, factories were producing an average of only twenty-eight tanks of all models per month. Consequently, in 1937, foot soldiers remained as reliant on animal transport for mobility as their ancestors had been during the Russo-Japanese War. Despite enjoying technological and material superiority over disorganized Chinese forces, these deficiencies in heavy artillery, armor, and vehicles would prove catastrophic against more formidable opponents. Another significant factor constraining Japanese industry's capacity to produce tanks, trucks, and artillery was the 1936 decision to expand the army's air wing and homeland air defense network. This policy diverted resources, capital, and technology away from the army's ground forces. The nascent Japanese Army Air Force or “JAAF” aimed to support ground operations through reconnaissance, bombing enemy bases, and achieving air superiority. However, direct support for ground operations was limited, and Japanese military planners did not anticipate that aerial bombardment could supplement or replace artillery bombardments. The expanded air arm's strategic mission centered on executing preemptive air strikes against Soviet air bases in the Far East to thwart potential air attacks on Japan. By the mid-1930s, the army had approximately 650 aircraft, roughly 450 of which were operational. The JAAF emphasized rigorous training that prioritized quality over quantity, producing only about 750 pilots annually up until December 1941. Basic flight skills were developed through this training, while specialized tactical instruction was deferred to newly established pilot units. According to logistics doctrine, Japanese maneuver units typically operated within a 120 to 180-mile radius of a railhead to facilitate resupply and reinforcement. A field train transport unit was responsible for moving supplies daily from the railhead to a division control point for distribution. The division established a field depot to manage the transfer of supplies from field transport to company and lower-echelon units. At the depot, transport troops would hand over supplies to a combat train that ferried ammunition, rations, and equipment directly to frontline units. Horse-drawn wagons and pack animals were the primary means of transportation. Each wartime division included a transport battalion, which varied in size from approximately 2,200 to 3,700 personnel, depending on the type of division supported. The division typically carried enough supplies for one day. Upon mobilization, the logistical framework was reinforced with the addition of an ordnance unit, a field hospital, a sanitation unit, and additional field and combat trains. The size of the transport regiment grew from around 1,500 officers and men with over 300 horses to nearly 3,500 troops and more than 2,600 animals. In the battalion, one company generally transported small-arms ammunition while two companies handled artillery shells and two others carried rations; this arrangement was flexible based on operational needs. Pack horses and dray horses were assigned to each company to carry or tow infantry assault artillery, mortars, artillery ammunition, and rations. Infantry soldiers carried minimal rations, approximately two and a half pounds, primarily rice, along with tinned condiments and salt. Consequently, the field train included a field kitchen stocked with fresh vegetables, rice or bread, soy sauce, and pickles. Each evening, a forward echelon train distributed supplies received from the field transport unit to the combat unit's bivouac area. When combat seemed imminent, a section of the transport battalion would move forward to deliver essential combat supplies, ordnance, equipment, medical supplies, directly to frontline units. These units would also handle resupply, medical evacuation, and repair of ordnance and equipment once fighting commenced.  On the evening of September 18, 1936, the fifth anniversary of the Manchurian Incident, Chinese troops from the Twenty-Ninth Army clashed with Japanese soldiers from the Seventh Company's rear-guard medical unit at Fengtai. When a Japanese officer arrived on horseback, a Chinese soldier struck his horse, prompting the Chinese troops to retreat to their barracks. Major Ichiki Kiyonao, the battalion commander, ordered an emergency assembly, surrounded the Chinese encampment, and demanded that Chinese authorities surrender the aggressors immediately. To defuse the situation, Major General Kawabe Masakazu, the brigade commander and Ichiki's superior, instructed Regimental Commander Mutaguchi to resolve the incident swiftly. Mutaguchi negotiated an agreement that required the Chinese to apologize, punish those responsible, withdraw from the vicinity of the Japanese barracks, and maintain a distance of two miles. Although Mutaguchi and Ichiki wanted to disarm the Chinese forces, they ultimately complied with Kawabe's wishes and allowed the Chinese to retain their weapons “in the spirit of Bushido.” Later, the Chinese claimed the Japanese had refrained from disarming them due to their fear of the strength and influence of the 29th Army. This insult infuriated Mutaguchi, who vowed not to make any further concessions and promised to eliminate the anti-Japanese provocateurs decisively if another incident occurred. He warned his officers against allowing an “overly tolerant attitude toward the Chinese” to undermine the prestige of the imperial army and emphasized the need for swift, decisive action to prevent such incidents in the future. Tensions were further exacerbated by large-scale Japanese field exercises conducted from late October to early November. These maneuvers, the largest ever executed by Japanese forces in China, mobilized about 6,700 active-duty and reserve troops for a series of complex battle drills, night maneuvers, and tactical field problems. During these exercises, Japanese troops were quartered in Chinese homes. Although local residents were compensated for any damage caused, the exercises nonetheless heightened tensions between the two sides. The fallout from the Suiyuan Fiasco in December 1936, coupled with a tumultuous summer and fall, led to rising anti-Japanese sentiment and prompted Tokyo to caution the Kawabe brigade against actions that might escalate the already precarious situation. In March 1937, during the annual personnel assignments, Ishiwara was promoted to major general and appointed chief of the 1st Department Operations of the General Staff. However, Army Vice Minister Umezu, a hardliner regarding China and a rival of Ishiwara, successfully maneuvered the Hayashi cabinet into approving the command choices for army and navy ministers, overriding Ishiwara's proposals. General Sugiyama Hajime, another hawk on China, replaced the terminally ill General Nakamura Kotaro as army minister shortly after Nakamura's appointment and remained in that position until June 1938. Lieutenant General Imai Kiyoshi, army vice chief of staff and an Ishiwara supporter, was also battling a terminal illness that rendered him largely ineffective during his short five-month tenure from March to August 1937. Imai was expected to play a crucial role in high command because the army chief of staff, Prince Kan'in, had been appointed in 1931 as a figurehead due to internal factions preventing agreement on a candidate. Ishiwara further complicated his conciliatory approach by selecting Colonel Muto Akira, a known hardliner who believed force was the only means to resolve the Japan-China conflict, for the vital position of chief of Operations Section within the General Staff. From Kwantung Army headquarters, Commanding General Ueda Kenkichi and his chief of staff, Lieutenant General Tojo Hideki, advocated for a preemptive war against China to serve the Kwantung Army's interests. In contrast, the China Garrison Army, under Lieutenant General Tashiro and his chief of staff, adopted a more moderate stance, aligning with central headquarters' policy of restraint. The China Garrison Army estimated the 29th Army to consist of 15,000–16,000 troops, with its main strength centered around Peking and an additional 10,000 troops in the surrounding area. Starting in spring 1937, Japanese units began observing tactical indicators suggesting that the Chinese were preparing for war. These indicators included increased guard presence at Peking's gates in June, bolstering units near the Marco Polo Bridge to over two battalions, preparing new fighting positions, digging trenches and constructing concrete pillboxes near the Marco Polo Bridge, infiltrating agents into Japanese maneuver areas for intelligence on night tactical exercises, and heightened strictness among Chinese railroad guards evident since late June. Nevertheless, the Japanese commanders did not view China as a formidable opponent. They believed that Chinese armies would quickly disintegrate due to what they perceived as a lack of fighting spirit and ineffective leadership. By 1937, Japan's national policy was shifting away from the persistent and aggressive efforts of field armies to undermine Chinese political authority in northern China toward a more conciliatory stance. This shift resulted in increased tensions between field armies and the General Staff in Tokyo, leading to substantial fractures among senior officers regarding the “solution” to their so-called China problem. Those tensions broke the camels back that year.  I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. The Japanese grossly underestimated their enemy and their own logistical capabilities. There was to say “too many cooks in the kitchen” of the Japanese military and competing visions ultimately were leading Japan and China into an official full blown war. Japan assumed they could bully China until it was so fragmented it would be a simple matter of grabbing the pieces it liked, that was not to be the case at all.   

We are in a war for the hearts, minds, and support of the general public. The power holders are violating our values, so we have to raise consciousness around these violations. The movement's strategy needs to accomplish the following:Publicly show that the social conditions and powerholder policies violate values, traditions, and self-interests of the general public. This includes publicly revealing the difference between official and operative policies and doctrines.Keep the issue and moral violations in the public spotlight and on society' agenda of hotly contested issues.Keep the issue and powerholders' policies on society's political agenda, such as having aid to the contras voted on in Congress rather than carried out secretly by the CIA.Counter the powerholders' social myths, justifications, anddenials that the problem exists.Counter the powerholders' demonology. For example, the thousands of American "citizen diplomats" who visit Russia counter the Reagan demonology that the Soviets are monsters and an "evil empire" by revealing that the Russians are people like us.Involve increasingly larger portions of the public in programs that challenge the powerholders' policies and promote alternative visions and programs.Don't compromise too much too soon.After a large majority of public opinion is won, have an "endgame" strategy that mobilizes the populace and institutions to create change, despite the determined opposition of the central powerholders.Finally the movement's organizations and leadership, especially at the national and regional levels, should serve, nurture, and empower the grassroots activists and promote participatory democracy within the movement.THE SOURCE: Bill Moyer's (MAP): https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/moyermap.htmlDONATE:www.pcrf.netGet Involved:Operation Olive Branch: Spreadsheets + LinksGET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTUNE IN ON INSTAGRAM FOR COOL CONTENT: www.instagram.com/mydbpodcastOR BE A REAL GEM + TUNE IN ON PATREON: www.patreon.com/MYDBpodcastOR WATCH ON YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/juliemerica The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, we are exploring a topic that doesn't get talked about much — the British tanks that ended up serving with the Red Army during the Second World War. We often think about the Soviet Union producing huge numbers of its own tanks like the T-34, but in the early years of the war—and even before it—the Soviets were looking abroad for armoured vehicles to strengthen their forces. Britain, with its long history of tank development stretching back to the First World War, was one of the countries they turned to. Joining me is Peter Samsonov, who's spent a lot of time researching Soviet armoured warfare and is the author of 'British Tanks of the Red Army'.   patreon.com/ww2podcast  

fWotD Episode 2947: Radar, Gun Laying, Mk. I and Mk. II Welcome to Featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia's finest articles.The featured article for Friday, 30 May 2025, is Radar, Gun Laying, Mk. I and Mk. II.Radar, Gun Laying, Mark I, or GL Mk. I for short, was a pre-World War II radar system developed by the British Army to provide range information to associated anti-aircraft artillery. There were two upgrades to the same basic system, GL/EF (Elevation Finder) and GL Mk. II, both of which added the ability to accurately determine bearing and elevation. The name refers to the radar's ability to direct the guns onto a target, known as gun laying.The first GL set was an elementary design developed from 1936 onward. Based on the early Chain Home radar's electronics, GL used separate transmitters and receivers located in wooden cabins mounted on gun carriages, each with its own antennas that had to be rotated to point at the target. The transmitted signal was quite wide, in a fan shape about 120 degrees across. This made it useful only for measuring slant range information; target bearing accuracy was approximately 20 degrees, and it could not provide any elevation information. Several were deployed with the British Expeditionary Force and at least one was captured by German forces during the Dunkirk evacuation. The subsequent German evaluation led them to believe that British radar was much less advanced than German radar.Plans to address these shortcomings were underway even as the first Mk. I units were reaching service in 1939, but these Mk. II units would not be available until 1940 at the earliest. An expedient solution was the GL/EF attachment, which provided bearing and elevation measurements accurate to about a degree. With these improvements, the number of rounds needed to destroy an aircraft fell to 4,100, a tenfold improvement over early-war results. About 410 of the Mk. I and slightly modified Mk. I* units had been produced when production moved to the Mk. II, which had enough accuracy to directly guide the guns. Higher accuracy and simpler operation lowered the rounds-per-kill to 2,750 with Mk. II. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, about 200 Mk. II units were supplied to the Soviets who used them under the name SON-2. By the end of the production run, 1,679 Mk. IIs had been produced.The introduction of the cavity magnetron in 1940 led to a new design effort using highly directional parabolic antennas to allow accurate ranging and bearing measurements from much smaller antennas. These GL Mk. III radar units were produced in the UK as the Mk. IIIB and a locally designed model from Canada as the Mk. IIIC. Mk. II remained in service in secondary roles as Mk. III's replaced them at the front. Both of these were replaced by the superior SCR-584 starting in 1944.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:30 UTC on Friday, 30 May 2025.For the full current version of the article, see Radar, Gun Laying, Mk. I and Mk. II on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm neural Arthur.

Support our independent journalism by joining here. The greatest rivalries of the 1980s! This week, we have a commissioned episode from Club Gym Nerd member Kimo, who asked for an episode all about the 1980s rivalries between the Romanians and the Soviets, both team and individually. We are oh so happy to oblige! Setting the scene A history of Soviet dominance Romania's 1976 emergence The 1977 Europeans Romanian WALKOUT! The first great Romanian/Soviet rivalry—Nadia vs. Nellie and how it may or may not have influenced the future of gymnastics Romania wins in 1979, where Nadia saves the day with one hand. The Rivalry The 1980 Olympics of crazy judging Nadia vs. Davydova and the case of the 30-minute delay Nadia vs. Nellie and the case of the “computer malfunction” Mukhina's paralysis and the race for innovative difficulty 1981 Worlds The silliest scores of 1981 (oh, it's 9.800 for this) The case of the Szabo/Agache impersonation of 1981 Romania ends up 4th. That's right 4th. 1983 Worlds Innovation from an all-star Soviet team—YURCHENKO vaults, the SHISHOVA Just fangirling about Mostepanova for a while More fun with bonkers scoring 1984 boycott gives us an opportunity to talk about China 1985 Worlds Soviet Union casually adds Omelianchik and Shushunova to its already stellar 1983 team The Soviets were so deep that Shushunova placed FIFTH on her own team in qualification The evolution of Romanian floor to be less “chicken dance” and whether it contributed to what happened next 1987 and THE TIDE TURNS Silivas wins the European AA title in Moscow, and the Soviets (gasp) fall Romania gets its first world team title in 8 years How the addition of Aurelia Dobre changed the game for Romania Pro-Soviet bias in skill naming Dobre vs. Shushunova vs. Silivas vs. Baitova vs. Omelianchik. This was no two-way rivalry The 1988 Olympics and how timing is everything Thanks to our sponsor, Huel. Get Huel today with this exclusive offer for New Customers of 15% OFF + a FREE Gift with code GymCastic at https://huel.com/GymCastic (Minimum $75 purchase). UP NEXT Behind The Scenes: at noon Pacific on Friday 3:00pm Eastern/7:00pm GMT OUT NOW IN US & EUROPE The Balance: My Years Coaching Simone Biles by Aimee Boorman with Fact Checker is topping the sport charts - SUCK IT SPORTS BALLS! Get your copy now. And if you loved reading (or listening) to the book, please leave a review. PARIS FX FINAL : LIVE SHOW with the ROMANIAN HEAD COACHES Jessica and Spencer were joined by former professional musical theater boys turned super choreo-coaching duo, Daymon Jones and Patrick Kiens to discuss Celine van Gerner's iconic Cats makeup, the Paris Olympic FX final from their perspective as Romanian team head coaches, choreographing in over 15 countries combined and being the new coaches at WCC.  Replay tickets available for a limited time. BONUS CONTENT  Join Club Gym Nerd (or give it as a gift!) for access to weekly Behind the Scenes episodes. Club Gym Nerd members can watch the podcast being recorded and get access to all of our exclusive extended interviews, Behind The Scenes and College & Cocktails. MERCH GymCastic Store: clothing and gifts to let your gym nerd flag fly and even “tapestries” (banners, the perfect to display in an arena) to support your favorite gymnast! Baseball hats available now in the GymCastic store RELATED  The Karolyi Secret Police Files Olympic Gymnast Claims Karolyi Beat Her KRCA 2008 Dateline: Silent No More. Bela Karolyi "probably over 50 years ago in Romania" when asked if he ever hit a gymnast. Heavy Medals A seven-part story about the Karolyis and the steep price of gold. Firsts, Named Skills, and Innovators in Women's Artistic Gymnastics Nadia and the Secret Police: Interview part one and two Nadia Comaneci and the Secret Police book by Stejarel Olaru Olympic coach John Geddert criminal charges and death Doug Boger: OC Register: Doug Boger banned Story on Colorado resident, Doug Boger: “Gymnasts Accuse Colorado Coach Of Sex Abuse, Torture” GymCastic episode Preventing Abuse in Gymnastics Episode where we predict the future: Biggest Olympic Judging Scandals  344: Shushunova vs. Silivas 1988 (Commissioned) 342: A Quitter's Try – The CNN Parkettes Documentary (Commissioned) 341: The Call Is Coming from Inside the House 340: USAG and The Case of the Missing Documents 327: 1993 NCAA Nationals (Commissioned) 325: Olympics of Difference Makers (Commissioned) 313: Best Floor Routines EVAH! (Commissioned) 312: 4th Is the New 1st (Commissioned) 309: Perfect Form – The O'Beirne Code (Commissioned) 308: 2004 Olympic All-Around Final (Commissioned) 306: Gymnastics Fails (Commissioned) 304: The GymCastic Olympics (Commissioned) 281: Myths, Legends, and Unexpected Moments PART 2 (Commissioned) 279: A Diva Is Magical: The Svetlana Khorkina Episode (Commissioned) 278: 2000 Sydney All-Around Final (Commissioned) 262: 1996 Olympic Event Finals (Commissioned) 258: The Fluff Cast (Commissioned) 256: 1996 Olympic All-Around Final (Commissioned) 255: 1996 Olympic Team Final (Commissioned) 252: Myths, Legends and Unexpected Moments in Gymnastics History (Commissioned) 228: Leotards (Commissioned) 225: 1992 Olympics Recap with Wendy Bruce (Commissioned) 185: 2008 Olympic All-Around Finals (Commissioned) Find all our recent episodes here NEWSLETTERS Sign up for all three GymCastic newsletters  RECENT  Behind The Scenes: Calzones Confessions Demand More Behind The Scenes: Pottery Wheel Massacre RESOURCES Spencer's essential website The Balance Beam Situation  Gymnastics History and Code of Points Archive from Uncle Tim RESISTANCE  Submitted by our listeners. ACTION Indivisible Practical ideas about what you can actually do in this moment, check it out: indivisi.org/muskorus 5Calls App will call your Congresspeople by issue with a script to guide you Make 2 to your Congressional rep (local and DC office). 2 each to your US Senators (local and state offices) State your name and zip code or district Be concise with your question or demand (i.e. What specific steps is Senator X taking to stop XYZ) Wait for answer Ask for action items -  tell them what you want them to do (i.e. draft articles of impeachment immediately, I want to see you holding a press conference in front of...etc.) ResistBot Turns your texts into faxes, postal mail, or emails to your representatives in minutes ACLU Mobile Justice App Allows you to record encounters with public officials while streaming to your closest contacts and your local ACLU; REPORT any abuse by authorities to the ACLU and its networks. 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How did FDR become the mediator between Stalin and Churchill at the 1945 conference? Why did Churchill call Yalta the “Hades Riviera”? What was Mussolini's rude nickname for FDR? Anita and William dive into the backstories of Churchill and FDR ahead of their arrival in Yalta, and explore the meetings that led up to the eight days that changed the world, including Churchill's “naughty document” that signed away Eastern Europe to the Soviets... Love History? Get our exclusive History Today deal! You can get started with a 3-month trial for only £5 at https://historytoday.com/empire  ----------------- Empire Club: Become a member of the Empire Club to receive early access to miniseries, ad-free listening, early access to live show tickets, bonus episodes, book discounts, our exclusive newsletter, and access to our members' chatroom on Discord! Head to empirepoduk.com to sign up. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com.  ----------------- Email: empire@goalhanger.com Instagram: @empirepoduk  Blue Sky: @empirepoduk  X: @empirepoduk Assistant Producer: Becki Hills Producer: Anouska Lewis Senior Producer: Callum Hill Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Send us a textFrank Lavin served under Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush in positions as varied as personnel, national security, international trade negotiations, Ambassador to Singapore, among others. In this conversation, we discuss his 8+ years in the Reagan White House from 1981-1989 - which is chronicled in his recent book Inside the Reagan White House. In the Reagan White House, he wore several different hats, was in hundreds of meetings with President Reagan, worked alongside some of the most influential administration officials - culminating in his stint as White House Political Director during the 1988 elections.IN THIS EPISODEFrank grows up in small-town Ohio in a tensely political time...Frank talks the establishment vs. conservative sparring in the GOP of the 1970s...Frank's early campaign activities in the late 70s and working for an IE backing Reagan as a college student in 1980...An important political lesson Frank learned from James Baker in Baker's 1978 race for Texas Attorney General...Memories of how Jim Baker ran the Reagan White House as Chief of Staff...How Reagan borrowed from FDR to become a powerful political communicator...How Reagan led the White House in meetings behind closer doors...Frank's first White House job of letting unsuccessful job applicants down easy...How the White House was a tug-of-war between "true believers" and "pragmatists"...Memories of his time at the Office of Public Liasion and how the President would "freeze" the first 10 minutes of a meeting...The 1984 Democratic challenger the White House was most worried about and how Reagan bounced back from a bad '82 midterm to win an '84 landslide...The difference in "desk truth" and "street truth"...How Reagan staffer Mike Deaver fundamentally changed the way a White House handles presidential travel...Frank's time as a White House national security staffer negotiating with the Soviets and spending time with President Reagan and Margaret Thatcher at Camp David...Frank demystifies his role as White House Political Director during the 1988 elections...The origin of the famous Reagan "11th Commandment" maxim...How Reagan initially won - and successfully held - the voters who came to be known as "Reagan Democrats"...Frank's memories of being around President George H.W. Bush...The low point of Frank's time in the Reagan White House...Quick memories from Frank of prominent figures including Karl Rove, Colin Powell, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Roger Stone, and Pat Buchanan...AND Al Haig Disease, Lee Atwater, Jimmy Carter, George Christopher, Bill Clinton, creative tension, Peter DelGiorno, Terry Dolan, Tony Dolan, Frank Donatelli, Mike Dukakis, exotic tendencies, the FEC, fireside chats, forced marriages, force multipliers, Gerald Ford, John Glenn, Barry Goldwater, Mikhail Gorbachev, Bob Haldeman, Warren Harding, Kamala Harris, Gary Hart, hatchet men, horizontal management, LBJ, jelly beans, Dick Lyng, Paul Manafort, Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Ed Meese, Walter Mondale, Brian Mulroney, Daniel Murphy, Ed Muskie, NCPAC, neutral recapitulations, the New Left, non sequiturs, Oliver North, John Poindexter, the Reykjavik Summit, Stu Spencer, Robert Taft, Donald Trump, Bob Weed, George Wortley...& more!

Why do so many people believe Hitler escaped Nazi Germany at the end of WW2? What did the Soviets cover up in the ruins of The Third Reich? How did modern forensic science finally prove the truth behind Hitler's teeth? Join Al Murray and James Holland as they crack the true crime cold case that has fascinated the world since 1945. Listen ad-free on Patreon - sign up at patreon.com/wehaveways A Goalhanger Production Produced by James Regan Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Social: @WeHaveWaysPod Email: wehavewayspodcast@gmail.com Join our ‘Independent Company' to watch exclusive livestreams, get presale events, and our weekly newsletter - packed with discounts. Membership Club: patreon.com/wehaveways Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  Last time we spoke about the February 26th incident. Within the turbulent “ government of assassination” period of 1936 Japan, a faction of discontented junior officers, known as the Kodoha, believed that their emperor, Hirohito, was being manipulated by corrupt politicians. In a desperate bid for what they termed a "Showa Restoration," they meticulously plotted a coup d'état. On February 26, they launched a rebellion in Tokyo, attempting to assassinate key figures they deemed responsible for undermining the emperor's authority. The young officers executed coordinated attacks on prominent leaders, resulting in several deaths, while hoping to seize control of the Imperial Palace. However, their plan unraveled when their actions met with unexpected resistance, and they failed to secure strategic locations. Dark snow blanketed the city as Hirohito, outraged by the violence, quickly moved to suppress the uprising, which ultimately led to the downfall of the Kodoha faction and solidified the military's grip on power, ushering in a new era marked by militarism and radicalism.   #151 The Suiyuan Operation Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. So we last left off with the February 26th incident breaking out in Japan, but now I would like to return to China. Now we spoke a little bit about some influential Japanese politicians in the previous episode. Prime Minister Satio Makoto oversaw Japan from May 1932 to July 1934, succeeded by Prime Minister Keisuke Okada from July 1934 to March 1936. The foreign policy of Japan towards China during the Saitō and Okada administrations exhibited a notable paradox, characterized by two conflicting elements. On one hand, Foreign Minister Hirota championed a diplomatic approach that emphasized friendship, cooperation, and accommodation with China. On the other hand, the military actively undermined the authority of the Nationalist government in northern China, creating a significant rift between diplomatic rhetoric and military action.    The Okada cabinet then endorsed the Army Ministry's "Outline of Policy to Deal with North China" on January 13, 1936. This policy document explicitly proposed the eventual detachment of five provinces, Hubei, Chahar, Shanxi, Suiyuan, and Shandong from the Nationalist government in Nanking. The approval of this outline marked a pivotal moment, as it represented the first official government endorsement of the military's longstanding agenda and underscored the army's evolution from a mere rogue entity operating in the region to the de facto authority dictating the course of Japan's policy towards China. Despite this, on January 22, during the 68th Diet session, Hirota reaffirmed his dedication to fostering better ties with China, to which a representative from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded positively. The Nationalist government in Nanjing also expressed interest in engaging in formal negotiations. However, this diplomatic initiative quickly faltered, and the expected discussions in Nanjing never took place. Shortly thereafter, a mutiny by young army officers on February 26, 1936, led to the fall of the Okada cabinet. Following Prince Konoe Fumimaro's refusal of the imperial mandate to form a new government, Hirota stepped in to establish a cabinet on March 9. General Terauchi Hisaichi was appointed as the Minister of the Army, Admiral Nagano Osami took charge of the Navy Ministry, and Baba Eiichi became the finance minister. Hirota briefly served as foreign minister until Arita Hachirö, who had just submitted his credentials as ambassador to China on March 6, returned to Japan. The Hirota Koki cabinet, established immediately following the February 26 incident further entrenched military influence in politics while allowing interservice rivalries to impede national objectives. In May 1936, Hirota, influenced by army and navy ministers, reinstated the practice of appointing military ministers solely from the ranks of high-ranking active-duty officers. He believed this would prevent associations with the discredited Imperial Way faction from regaining power. By narrowing the candidate pool and enhancing the army's power relative to the prime minister, Hirota's decision set the stage for army leaders to leverage this advantage to overthrow Admiral Yonai's cabinet in July 1940. Arita began his new job by meeting with Foreign Minister Chang Chen while hearing views from the Kwantung Army chief of staff General, Itagaki Seishiro. Yes, our old friend received a lot of promotions. Itagaki had this to say about the Kwantung Army's policy in China "The primary aim of Japan's foreign policy, is the sound development of Manchukuo based upon the principle of the indivisibility of Japan and Manchukuo. If, as is probable, the existing situation continues, Japan is destined sooner or later to clash with the Soviet Union, and the attitude of China at that time will gravely influence operations [against the Soviet Union]." The Kwantung Army's was growing more and more nervous about the USSR following its 7th comintern congress held in July and August of 1935. There it publicly designated Japan, Germany and Poland as its main targets of comintern actions. Japanese intelligence in the Red Army also knew the Soviets were gradually planning to expand the military strength so they could face a simultaneous west and east front war. This was further emboldened by the latest USSR 5 year plan. Alongside the growing Red northern menace, the CCP issued on August 1st a declaration calling upon the Nationalist Government to end their civil war so they could oppose Japan. By this time the CCP was reaching the end of its Long March and organizing a new base of operations in Yenan in northern Shanxi. The developments by the USSR and CCP had a profound effect on Japan's foreign policy in China. The Kwantung Army believed a war with the USSR was imminent and began to concentrate its main force along the border of Manchukuo. The Kwantung Army's plan in the case of war was to seize Vladivostok while advancing motorized units towards Ulan Bator in Outer Mongolia, hoping to threaten the Trans-Siberian Railway near Lake Baikal. Their intelligence indicated the USSR could muster a maximum of 250,000 troops in eastern Siberia and that Japan could deal with them with a force two-thirds of that number. The IJA at that point had inferior air forces and armaments, thus urgent funding was needed. The Kwantung Army proposed that forces in the home islands should be reduced greatly so all could be concentrated in Manchuria. To increase funding so Kwantung leadership proposed doing away with special allowances for Japanese officials in Manchuria and reorganizing the Japanese economic structure. The Kwantung leaders also knew the submarine base at Vladivostok posed a threat to Japanese shipping so the IJN would have to participate, especially against ports and airfields. All said and done, the Kwantung Army planned for a war set in 1941 and advised immediate preparations. On July 23, 1936, Kanji Ishiwara presented the army's document titled “Request Concerning the Development of Industries in Preparation for War” to the Army Ministry. He asserted that in order to prepare for potential conflict with the Soviet Union, Japan, Manchukuo, and North China must have the industries critical for war fully developed by 1941. Ishiwara emphasized the urgent need for rapid industrial growth, particularly in Manchukuo. He followed this request on July 29 with a draft of a “Policy on Preparations for War” regarding the Soviet Union, advocating for immediate reforms to Japan's political and economic systems to facilitate economic expansion and lay the groundwork for future fundamental changes. However, he cautioned that if significant turmoil erupted in economic sectors, Japan must be ready to execute a comprehensive overhaul without delay. At the same time, the Hirota cabinet initiated a review of its policy towards China. In the spring of 1936, a secret committee focused on the Current Situation was formed, consisting of officials from the Army, Navy, and Foreign ministries. Their discussions led to the adoption of the "Measures to Implement Policy toward China" by the Four Ministers Conference on August 11, along with the "Second Outline of Policy to Address North China," which the cabinet approved as part of the "Fundamentals of National Policy" on the same day. The first of these documents outlined the following actionable steps: “1. Conclusion of an anti-Communist military pact. a) To prepare for the conclusion of such a pact, a special secret committee of military experts from both countries should be organized. b) Their discussions should cover the scope and substance of the pact and ways and means of realizing the objectives of the pact.  2. Conclusion of a Sino-Japanese military alliance. A special secret committee, composed of an equal number of delegates from each nation, should be organized to prepare for the conclusion of an offensive and defensive alliance against attack by a third country.  3. Acceleration of solutions of pending questions between China and Japan. a) Engagement of a senior political adviser: The Nationalist government should engage a senior Japanese political adviser to assist in the conduct of the domestic and foreign affairs of the Nationalist government. b) Engagement of military advisers: The Nationalist government should engage military advisers, along with military instructors. c) Opening of airline services between China and Japan: Airline services between China and Japan should be opened immediately. To realize such a service, various means should be used to induce the Nanking authorities to establish an airline corporation in North China, to begin flights between Formosa and Fukien province, and to start test flights between Shanghai and Fukuoka. d) Conclusion of a reciprocal tariff treaty: A reciprocal tariff treaty should be concluded promptly between China and Japan, on the basis of the policy approved by the ministries concerned, with regard to the abolition of the special trade in eastern Hopei province and the lowering of the prohibitively high tariffs. For this purpose Japan should, if necessary, propose the creation of a special committee composed of Japanese and Chinese representatives.  4. Promotion of economic cooperation between China and Japan. Japan should promote cooperation with the common people of China to establish realistic and inseparable economic relations between China and Japan that will promote coexistence and co-prosperity and will be unaffected by changes in the Chinese political situation. “ The document also included suggestions for Japan's economic expansion into South China. This included tapping into the natural resources of the provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi, building a railway between Guangzhou and Swatow, and establishing air routes between Fuchoz and Taipei, which would connect to services in Japan and Thailand. It also called for survey teams to be dispatched to explore the resources of Sichuan, Gansu, Xinjiang, and Qinghai provinces, and for support to be provided to the independence movement in Inner Mongolia. However, these initiatives presented significant challenges. The preface to the "Second Outline of Policy to Deal with North China" cautioned, "In implementing this policy, we must carefully consider the Nanking government's prestige and avoid actions that could prompt it to adopt an anti-Japanese stance in response to the desires of the Chinese people."  On September 19th, six fundamental points for a settlement in North China were dictated to China to “establish a common defense against communism, promoting economic cooperation, lowering tariffs, initiating an airline service between the two nations, employing Japanese advisers, and controlling subversive Koreans." September 22 was set as the deadline for a response from China. While agreeing to some Japanese requests, the Chinese included several counter-demands that the Japanese found completely unacceptable. These demands required Japan to “(a) refrain from using armed intervention or arbitrary actions in its dealings with China, (b) recognize China as an equal and sovereign state, (c) avoid leveraging antigovernment groups or communist elements, and (d) remove any derogatory references to China from Japanese textbooks. The Chinese also insisted that any agreement regarding North China “must precede the annulment of the Tanggu and Shanghai cease-fire agreements, the disbanding of the East Hopei regime, a prohibition on unauthorized Japanese flights over North China, a ban on smuggling activities by Japanese, the restoration of China's right to control smuggling, and the disbandment of the illegal East Hopei government along with the armies of Wang Ying and Prince De in Suiyuan”. Now that mention of a Prince De in Suiyuan brings us to a whole new incident. This podcast series should almost be called “the history of Japanese related incidents in China”. Now we've spoken at great lengths about Japan's obsession with Manchuria. She wanted it for resources, growing space and as a buffer state. Japan also had her eyes set on Inner Mongolia to be used as a buffer state between Manchukuo, the USSR and China proper. Not to mention after the invasion of North China, Inner Mongolia could be instrumental as a wedge to be used to control Northern China. Thus the Kwantung Army began fostering a Mongolian independence movement back in August of 1933. They did so through a special organ led by chief of the general staff Koiso Kuniaki. He began work with the Silingol League led by Prince Sonormurabdan or “Prince So” and another influential Mongol, Prince Demchukdongrob or “Prince De”. Prince De was the West Sunid Banner in Northern Chahar. Likewise the Kwantung Army was grooming Li Xuxin, a Mongol commoner born in southern Manchuria. He had been a bandit turned soldier absorbed into Zhang Xueliangs army. Li had distinguished himself in a campaign against a group of Mongols trying to restore the Qing dynasty to further establish an independent Mongolia. During Operation Nekka Li had served in a cavalry brigade under Zu Xingwu, reputed to be the best unit in Zhang Xueliangs Northeastern border defense army. He led the army's advance unit into western Shandong. Afterwards Li suddenly became friends with Major Tanaka Hisashi, the head of the Special Service Agency at Dungliao where he defected to the Kwantung Army. He soon was leading a force too strong to be incorporated into the Manchukuo Army, thus it was disbanded, but his Kwantung Army buddies encouraged him to move to Tolun in Rehe province. At one point during the Nekka campaign, Li's army was threatened by a strong Chinese counterattack, but they had Manchukuo air support allowing them to capture Tolun. This victory launched what became the East Chahar Special Autonomous District with Li becoming a garrison commander and chief administrator.  Back in time, upon the founding of the Chinese Republic, the affairs of Inner Mongolia fell upon the Bureau of Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs. This was reorganized in 1930 into the Commission on Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs when the provinces of Chahar, Suiyuan and Ningxia were organized. Prince De had been a member of a nationalist group known as the Young Mongols, although his aim was self-determination for Inner Mongolia within China, not independence. The Nationalist government's support for Chinese settlement in Mongol territories and its disregard for Mongol perspectives quickly triggered a rise in Mongol nationalism and anti-Chinese feelings. This was exacerbated by the government's introduction of a law on October 12, 1931, requiring local Mongolian administrative units to consult with hsien officials on matters concerning their administration. The nationalist sentiment was further fueled by the presence of the neighboring Mongolian People's Republic in Outer Mongolia and the establishment of Xingan province in western Manchuria by Manchukuo authorities in March 1932. This new province included the tribes of eastern Inner Mongolia and granted them greater autonomy than other Manchukuo provinces while banning Chinese immigration into it. When Nanjing did not react to these developments, Prince De and his supporters took steps toward gaining autonomy. On July 15th, 1933, Mongol leaders from western Inner Mongolia gathered at Pailingmiao for two weeks to deliberate on a declaration for regional independence. Although many princes were initially hesitant to take this step, they reconvened on August 14 and sent a cable to Nanjing announcing their decision to create an autonomous Mongolian government. The cable was signed by Prince So and Prince De. Over the following two months, additional conferences at Pailingmiao were held to organize the new government, which would operate under Nanking's guidance but without involvement from provincial chairmen. On October 22, Prince Yun, head of the Ulanchap League and a close ally of Prince De, was elected to lead the new regime, with Prince De assuming the role of chief of its political affairs bureau. After receiving a cable from the Mongolian leaders in August, Nanjing quickly sent Minister of the Interior Huang Shao-hung and Xu Qingyang, head of the Commission on Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs, to halt the movement. However, the Mongols declined to travel to Kalgan or Kueisui to meet Huang. In November, as the leader of a special commission appointed by Nanjing, Huang reached an agreement with Yun De and other Mongolian leaders concerning a proposal that abandoned the Mongols' demand for an autonomous government. This agreement was later altered by Nanjing, and its essential points were excluded from a measure approved by the Central Political Council of the Kuomintang on January 17, 1934. The dispute reignited, fueled by the Nationalist government's rising concerns over the anticipated enthronement of Pu Yi in Manchukuo. On February 28, the Central Political Council enacted a measure that outlined "eight principles of Inner Mongolian autonomy" and created the Mongolian Local Autonomous Political Council. Since these principles did not grant authority over foreign and military affairs, powers explicitly reserved for the central government in the January measure, they were seen as a concession to the Mongols and were accepted. On March 7, the central government issued regulations to establish a semi autonomous regime for Inner Mongolia, which was officially launched at Pailingmiao on April 23. Although the council was led by three moderate princes, Prince Yun, supported by Princes So and Sha, the real administrative authority was held by Prince De, who served as the secretary-general. Most of the twenty-five council members were of Mongolian royalty, through whom Prince De aimed to fulfill his objectives. Nevertheless, the Nationalist government seemed to consider the council merely a token gesture to placate De, as Nanking never provided the promised administrative funds outlined in the "eight principle declaration." Was not much of a shock Prince De sought support from the Kwantung Army, which had established contact with him as early as June 1934. Japanese pressures in North China were starting to alter the power dynamics, and after the first Western incident in Jehol in February 1935, it compelled the relocation of Sung Queyuan's army from Chahar to Hopei, providing encouragement to Prince De. In May, he met with Kwantung Army Vice Chief of Staff Itagaki Seishirö, Intelligence Section Chief Kawabe Torashirö, and staff officer Tanaka Ryükichi, where he was officially informed for the first time about the Kwantung Army's intention to assist him. On July 25, the Kwantung Army drafted its "Essentials of Policy toward Inner Mongolia," which regarded Japanese support for cooperation between De and Li Xuxin as part of their strategic preparations for a potential conflict with the Soviet Union. Shortly after this policy was adopted, a conflict arose over who had the authority to appoint the head of the Mongol Xukung banner, situated north of the Yellow River and Paot'ou. Following the death of the previous administrator, Prince Xu declared that he had taken control of the position. In response to a request from the local abbot, Prince Yun, acting in his capacity as chairman of the Mongolian Political Council, dismissed Xu. Xu then turned to Nanking through Suiyuan Provincial Chairman Fu Zuoyi, arguing that the central government held the authority to appoint heads of administrative units. In retaliation, Prince De dispatched troops to Xukung. On November 10, Fu presented a mediation proposal, which was rejected since it not only failed to acknowledge Shih's dismissal but also demanded the withdrawal of De's forces. De refused to pull back, further intensifying his hostility toward the Nanking government. In December, the Kwantung Army attempted to move Li's forces from eastern Chahar into the six Xun to the north of Kalgan, which serves as Chahar's granary. Following the Qin-Doihara agreement, Matsui Gennosuke from the Kalgan Special Service Agency secured a deal to separate these six districts from the southern region predominantly populated by Chinese; a Mongolian peace preservation corps was tasked with maintaining order in the northern area, while a Chinese corps was responsible for the south. During the discussions for an autonomous regime centered around Song Queyuan in North China in November 1935, Kwantung Army troops were concentrated around Gubeikou. To exert pressure on Song's rear, the Kwantung Army proposed replacing the Chinese peace preservation unit in the area north of Kalgan with Li Xuxin's army, which would establish this territory as its base.   The operation commenced on December 8. In a surprise attack just before dawn, Li captured Paochang. By December 12, despite facing strong Chinese resistance and the heaviest snowfall in sixty years, Li, aided by Kwantung Army planes disguised as those of the Manchukuo Airline Corporation, had taken control of Kuyuan. Further advances were halted by an order from Kwantung Army headquarters, and on December 13, it was reported that, had the operation not been stopped, Tokyo would have issued an imperial command. The operation had faced opposition from the Tientsin army, which feared it would weaken Song Queyuan's position just as they were informing Tokyo that the autonomy movement was going smoothly. Additionally, both Britain and the United States publicly expressed strong opposition to the Kwantung Army's involvement in the autonomy movement. However, the directive was ultimately prompted by the emperor's anger upon discovering that a unit of the Kwantung Army led by Colonel Matsui Takurö had advanced to Tolun to support Li's progress. Although Li's advance was halted, the operation undeniably contributed to the formation of the Hopei-Chahar Political Council.   Although the operation was halted, the Kwantung Army remained committed to its objectives. They contended that Li's army's advance into the six districts north of Kalgan was merely a peace preservation unit moving into territory within the truce line established by the Tanggu Agreement. Consequently, on December 29, they ordered Li to advance southward. Li peacefully occupied Changpei the following day and entered Shangtu on December 31. Manchukuo civil officials were appointed to oversee the six districts, and the currency of Manchukuo was introduced, although the existing tax system initially remained unchanged. The Kwantung Army allocated silver worth 6 million yuan to support administrative expenses. This outcome, known as the Eastern Chahar incident, marked a complete success for the Kwantung Army, which then redirected its focus toward Suiyuan Province. Each year, the Kwantung Army developed a secret plan for covert operations for the following year. The 1936 plan included strategies to secure air bases for routes connecting Europe and Asia, targeting Tsinghai and Sinkiang provinces, Outer Mongolia, Western Mongolia, and even remote areas of Ningxia province. In January 1936, staff officer Tanaka Ryūkichi formulated a document titled "Essentials of Policy Toward (Northwestern) Inner Mongolia." This document advocated for the establishment of a Mongolian military government to facilitate Japanese operations in northwestern Mongolia and suggested pushing Fu Tso-yi out of Suiyuan into Shansi province. Tanaka's proposals were incorporated into the final plan of the Kwantung Army, ultimately leading to the Suiyuan incident of November 1936. In February 1936, a meeting at Pailingmiao, where Prince De proposed the independence of Inner Mongolia, resulted in the departure of Prince So and several other Mongolian leaders from the coalition. They sought to establish a rival political council at Kueisui under the protection of Fu Zuoyi. By April, De and his supporters decided to form a military government at Tehua in Chahar, which was officially inaugurated in June as the Inner Mongolian government, headed by De with Li Shou-hsin as his deputy. This new government quickly signed a mutual assistance treaty with Manchukuo, and the emperor granted De the title of prince.   In July, at a conference in Tehua, Tanaka was appointed as the head of the Special Service Agency for Inner Mongolia with the mission of implementing the army's Intelligence Section plans. He traveled to Pingtiqüan alongside Chief of Staff Itagaki and Intelligence Chief Mutō Akira to propose a local anti-Communist agreement to Fu. After failing to convince Fu, he attempted to persuade Sun Tien-ying to form a puppet army but managed to recruit only a bandit from Suiyuan, Wang Ying. The February 26 mutiny in Tokyo heightened anti-Japanese sentiments in China, resulting in increased violence. By August, the construction of an airplane hangar in Paot'ou was halted due to riots by local Chinese residents. On August 13, a group of fifteen Japanese, led by Nakajima Manzo, was ambushed while delivering ammunition to a pro-Japanese leader who was shortly thereafter assassinated. Chinese soldiers from Wang Qingkuo's 70th Division carried out the attack, and tensions escalated as the arrival of ammunition and Japanese laborers in Kalgan prompted border villages to strengthen their defenses.   By late September, Tanaka's "Guidelines for the Execution of the Suiyuan Operation" received approval, with operations set to commence in early November. The plan evolved from a covert mission into a personal initiative by Tanaka, financed largely through funds from the Kwantung Army's secret services and profits from special trading in eastern Hopei. Tanaka claimed to have transported 600,000 yen to Tehua in October and later sent 200,000 yuan into Inner Mongolia, estimating total expenses at approximately 6 million yen. He acquired new weaponry from the disbanded Northeast Army and established three clandestine forces: Wang Ying led 500 men, including artillery; Qin Xiashan commanded 3,000 from Sun Tienying's army; and Chang Futang also led 3,000 specialized units. During strategic meetings, Tanaka dismissed proposals for unified command and refusing to integrate secret units into the Mongolian army. He advocated for the slogan "Overthrow Chiang Kai-shek," while Matsui managed to include "Independence for Inner Mongolia."   The Japanese had developed the entire battle strategy. The 1st Army, commanded by Li Xuxin, would serve as the left flank, while the 2nd Army, led by Demchugdongrub, would be positioned on the right. Wang Ying's forces were designated as the central force. Their initial targets would be Hongort, Xinghe, Tuchengzi, and Guisui city, followed by a division to seize Jinging, Baotou, and Hetao. On November 13, Prince Demchugdongrub's and Wang Ying's forces left Shandu in two columns to assault Xinghe and Hongort. By the 15th, 1,500 troops reached Hongort, where they engaged the 1st Cavalry Division led by Peng Yubin. The next day, Ryukichi Tanaka, Demchugdongrub's chief advisor, sent two cavalry brigades and one infantry brigade to capture the town, effectively overrunning its defenders. Meanwhile, Wang Ying dispatched a smaller group to secure Tuchengzi.   Fu Zuoyi established his headquarters in Jining that same day. After assessing the situation, he concluded that if the enemy secured Hongort, it would diminish his defenders' morale. Consequently, he launched a counterattack. Peng Yubin led a joint force of the 1st Cavalry Division and Dong Qiwu's 218th Brigade to confront around 400 of Wang Ying's men defending Hongort and Tuchengzi. By 7 AM on the 18th, Tuchengzi was reclaimed, and at 8:30 AM, the 1st Cavalry Division entered Hongort, charging through 500 of Wang Ying's soldiers. The struggle for Hongort persisted for over three days, resulting in nearly 1,000 casualties before Fu Zuoyi regained control.   As the tide shifted against the invaders, Fu Zuoyi initiated an offensive toward the Bailing Temple, the rear base of the enemy, well-stocked and defended by 3,000 men under Prince Demchugdongrub. Fu Zuoyi ordered the 2nd Cavalry Division, along with the 211th and 315th Brigades, the 21st Artillery Regiment, and a convoy of 20 trucks and 24 armored vehicles to assault the Bailing Temple as quickly as possible. Taking advantage of the Mongolian chaos, Fu Zuoyi's 35th Brigade executed a flanking maneuver west of the Bailing Temple amid a severe snowstorm.   At 1 AM on the 24th, the battle for the Bailing Temple commenced as the Chinese engaged the Mongolians for the fortified positions around the temple. From 2 to 4 AM, the Chinese advanced closer to the temple walls, facing artillery and machine-gun fire. They launched desperate frontal assaults against the city gates, suffering heavy losses. A fierce stalemate ensued, with Japanese aerial bombardments causing significant casualties to the Chinese forces. Fu Zuoyi subsequently ordered all armored vehicles to converge at the main city gate. Despite intense fire, the armored cars managed to breach the gate, allowing Chinese infantry to flood into the temple area. The resulting carnage within the temple walls led to 900 Mongol deaths, with 300 captured as the rest fled. The Chinese suffered 300 casualties but secured the strategically vital rear base, along with a substantial stockpile of provisions, including 500 barrels of petrol, 600 rifles, 10 machine guns, vehicles, and field guns. Following the devastating defeat at Bailing Temple, the invaders regrouped at Xilamuleng Temple. On the 28th, the Japanese sent 100 vehicles to transport 3,000 troops to prepare for a significant counteroffensive to recapture Bailing Temple. On the 29th, Wang Ying personally led 2,000 cavalry north of Shangdu to Taolin in an attempt to contain the enemy. However, after he left the bulk of his forces at Xilamuleng Temple, officers from the Grand Han Righteous Army secretly began negotiating to defect to the Chinese side, undermining the forces needed for the counterattack against Bailing Temple.   The counteroffensive commenced on December 2nd, with 10 armored vehicles and 1,000 Mongol troops leading the charge at 6 AM. They were pushed back by the heavily fortified 211th Brigade, which was well-supplied with machine guns and artillery. The following day, at 3 AM, the Mongols attempted a surprise attack but faced an ambush as they crept toward the temple. They incurred hundreds of casualties, with 230 men either captured or having defected. After this, the counterattack stalled, as the Mongol forces couldn't approach within 3 miles of the temple. Subsequently, the Chinese 2nd Cavalry Division launched a pincer maneuver, causing significant casualties among the invaders. By 9 AM, the enemy had suffered 500 casualties and was in retreat. At 7 PM, Fu Zuoyi ordered another counteroffensive. By the next morning, hundreds more had been lost, and several hundred soldiers were captured. With such heavy losses, the defense of Xilamuleng Temple weakened significantly, prompting more officers to defect to the Chinese. Late on the 4th, Fu Zuoyi assembled a force comprising two cavalry regiments, one infantry regiment, one artillery battalion, four armored vehicles, and a squadron of cars to launch a nighttime assault on Xilamuleng Temple.   Meanwhile, the 2nd Cavalry Division clashed with Wang Ying's cavalry 30 miles northeast of Wulanhua. Wang Ying's 2,000 cavalry had been raiding nearby villages to create diversions, drawing enemy forces away from the Bailing-Xilamuleng theater. By the 9th, Wang Ying's cavalry were encircled in Xiaobei, where they were nearly annihilated, with Wang escaping with around a hundred guards toward Changpei. On the 7th, some Grand Han Righteous Army officers set in motion plans to defect to the Chinese side. Early on the 9th, these officers led their men to invade the residence of Japanese advisors, killing all 27 Japanese officers under Colonel Obama. Simultaneously, Fu Zuoyi's forces executed a flanking maneuver against the Xilamuleng Temple amidst the chaos. With mass defections, the Chinese forces surged into the temple area, resulting in the invader army disintegrating in confusion and surrender. After seizing the temple, the invaders were routed, their lines of communication severed, and only isolated pockets continued to resist. Taking advantage of the confusion, Fu Zuoyi launched simultaneous attacks, attempting to capture Shangdu. However, Yan Xishan sent him a telegram, ordering him to halt, stating that Shangdu fell under the jurisdiction of Shanxi and not Suiyuan.   In response to the loss, Tanaka planned a counteroffensive with Qin's troops, but Chiang kai-shek commanded a strong defense of Pailingmiao, successfully outmaneuvering Tanaka's strategies. The resurgence of Chinese forces led to the disintegration of Qin's troops, who revolted and eventually joined the Nationalist army. The Kwantung Army aimed to redeploy its forces for recovery but faced opposition from Tokyo, which criticized the situation. After Chiang kai-shek was kidnapped by Zhang Xueliang on December 12, Tanaka and Prince De seized the opportunity to reassess their strategy. Ultimately, the Kwantung Army decided to abandon efforts to reclaim Pailingmiao, marking the official end of hostilities on December 21. The Suiyuan incident ultimately strengthened Chinese resolve against Japan and increased international distrust.   The defeat of Japan's proxy forces inspired many Chinese to advocate for a more vigorous resistance against the Japanese. The triumph in Suiyuan was celebrated throughout China and surprised the international media, marking the first occasion where the Chinese army successfully halted a Japanese unit. Delegations traveled from as distant as southern Chinese provinces to encourage the defenders to continue their fight. Captured Japanese weapons and equipment served as proof of Japan's involvement in the conflict, despite Japan's Foreign Minister Hachirō Arita claiming that "Japan was not involved in this conflict in Suiyuan at all." After his defeat, Prince Demchugdongrub and his Inner Mongolian troops retreated to northern Chahar, where he had to reconstruct his army due to significant losses. The Japanese implemented new regulations for the Mongolian Army to enhance its effectiveness, and efforts to recruit new soldiers commenced.   I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. More incidents and more battles to seize territory raged in North China. However things did not go according to plan for the Japanese and their puppets. The tides had turned, and now a more angry and invigorating China would begin lashing out against the encroachment. It was only a matter of time before a full blown war was declared. 

Please note: I wrote this on April 28th, and then was traveling abroad for the last few weeks, so I had no opportunity to post this until now, sorry about that: but nothing I have said here has been rendered wrong by Operation Sindoor and the near-war that happened after I wrote this. Deccan Herald ran a slightly edited version as my regular column on May 4th at https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/on-pahalgam-imperial-fortresses-and-kashmir-s-settler-colonialism-3523731 With good reason, India has focused on Pakistan as the culprit behind the Pahalgam atrocity. It is telling that their army chief declared to Pakistanis that Hindus and Muslims are two different nations and that Kashmir is Pakistan's jugular vein. He implied that Pakistan is the ideal Islamic state as in Venkat Dhulipala's “Creating a New Medina: State Power, Islam, and the Quest for Pakistan in Late Colonial North India”. This could have been a signal to the terrorists to create maximum offence while massacring Hindus.Given Kargil, IC 814, Bombay 26/11, Uri, Pulwama, and now Pahalgam, India is justified in cutting ties to Pakistan, including trade, sports, the cringe Attari circus, even diplomatic relations. India did once mass its forces at the Line of Control in Operation Parakram, but honoring the Shimla Agreement, did not cross. Now that Pakistan has canceled the Agreement, there is no legal reason for restraint, especially since the nuclear bogey is no longer credible.But there is more. The Pakistani defense minister said that his country had been doing the dirty work for the US and the West for decades. Maybe he meant the Afghan war against the Soviets and post-9/11 somersaults by Pakistan. But that's only scratching the surface.Britain explicitly created Pakistan as a Great Game weapon against Russia/Soviet Union, and when that collapsed, against india. Britain has been using Pakistan as an “imperial fortress”, as I pointed out in “Britain's outsized, malign role in global chaos”. Whitehall tilts strongly towards Pakistani interests, even in the case of widespread gang-rapes of minor white girls, not to mention their antics against Hindus in Leicester.Official mouthpiece BBC never speaks of Pakistani terrorists, only ‘gunmen'; it's always “Indian-controlled Kashmir”; and an extraordinary headline recently said: “Pakistan suspends visas for Indians after deadly Kashmir attack on tourists”. These are not accidents.Britain and the US Deep State (eg. Madeleine Albright and other Atlanticists) worry about the waning influence of Europe (or “northwest Asia” as I wrote in “The End of the European Century”). Naturally, incumbent powers go to war with a rising power (Thucydides Trap: Graham Allison's thesis). This has been the rationale for containing Russia, now it is being turned to Asia. China is rather inscrutable and impregnable, so they attack India, which is easier prey.Then there is the Otherization of Hindus and thus Indians. Even as staunch an atheist as Richard Dawkins (“The Blind Watchmaker”) admits Judeo-Christian cultural biases. Only Christopher Hitchens among modern atheists was self-reflective enough to avoid this. Abrahamics would like to make us disappear, and so engendered great famines in India (“Late Victorian Holocausts”). Now this is reprising through climatism (at an Alexandra Ocasio Cortez rally there was a woman earnestly saying “we have to eat babies” to reduce emissions). Covid was possibly another attempt at depopulating ‘deplorables', that is black and brown people.Let's not forget China, also unhappy about India's possible economic rise; so it dutifully regurgitated “all-weather” support for Pakistan. They have used Pakistan to keep India down, as a force multiplier for violence and trouble. Then China can market itself as a safe investment destination compared to a dangerous India where FDI may be risky. I suspect this is part of their siren-song to big firms (eg. Apple) now.Finally, and most importantly, there is the settler-colonial complex of Muslim Kashmiris. They trot out South Africa, other European conquests and Gaza as examples of colonialists violating natives' rights and imply the same in Kashmir. The bitter irony of course is that it is the Muslims who are the colonialists wiping out Kashmir's indigenous Hindus who have a 5000 year history there. They have turned the logic on its head: see the Harvard Law Review paper “From Domicile to Dominion, India's Settler Colonial Agenda in Kashmir”.There have been seven tragic exoduses of Hindus from Kashmir: 1. 1389–1413 (Sultan Sikandar Shah), 2. 1505–1514 (Fateh Shah II), 3. 16th–17th Century (Timurid Period), 4. 1752–1819 (Durrani Rule), 5. 1931 (Anti-Dogra Riots), 6. 1986 (Anantnag Riots), 7. 1989–1990 (Militancy-Driven Exodus). Most Hindu Kashmiris now rot in refugee camps.I wrote long ago in “India, the Kashmiri colony” about Muslim Kashmiris extracting tribute from the Indian/Hindu taxpayer. Worse, there is evidence emerging that local overground workers (eg. mule handlers) arranged the logistics for the Pahalgam massacre. Acts of terror need local support, possibly including from local politicians (a former CM referred to terrorists as “the boys with guns from the mountains”).Yes, it's good to punish Pakistan (eg. Indus Water Treaty), but terror will persist until Muslim Kashmiris realize their future lies with rising, multi-religious India, not jihadi failed-state Pakistan; and the Deep State desists from further mischief.798 words, Apr 28, 2025 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/subscribe

Fifty-three years ago, on March 31, 1972, the Soviet Union launched a spacecraft that was supposed to go to Venus. But it never made it to Venus. Some malfunction in the rocket prevented it from leaving the earth's orbit. The Soviets named this spacecraft Cosmos 482—which became code in Soviet lexicon for epic failure. For 53 years, the spacecraft that could never make it to Venus circled the earth. Year after year never getting to where it was meant to go. Year after year stuck in a perpetual orbit. But it turns out that every year it lost a little bit of height in its orbital wanderings so that, last Saturday, on Shabbos, Cosmos 482 could finally find rest. Last Saturday, Cosmos 482 fell back to the earth, into the sea, without causing harm to people or property.I am not a space person. I don't follow NASA. But the minute I heard this crazy story, I thought to myself: There is a sermon in that! Because what happened to Cosmos 482 happens to every one of us in our own way.

In the final weeks of the Second World War, as Soviet forces closed in on Berlin, tens of thousands of German soldiers and civilians found themselves encircled in what became known as the Halbe Pocket. In a desperate attempt to break out west and surrender to the Americans rather than the Soviets, brutal fighting erupted in the forests south of Berlin. The result was one of the bloodiest and most chaotic battles of the war's final days. Joining me is David Sumner. David is a British-German World War II historian and podcaster based in Berlin. He's the producer and host of Europe At War, a weekly podcast that explores lesser-known battles and stories of the Second World War, with a particular focus on the Eastern Front. You can find David at davidsumnerhistory.com.   patreon.com/ww2podcast  

On 14 May 1955, the leader of the Soviet Union and leaders from seven European countries met to sign the Warsaw Pact. In the years following World War Two, the Soviet Union and the United States started the worldwide Cold War. While Western powers feared the spread of communism, the Soviets worried about US atomic bombs. What resulted was the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1949. The Warsaw Pact was signed six years later in response to West Germany joining NATO. Natasha Fernandes uses archive of East Germany's leader Otto Grotewohl to tell the story.Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic' and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy's Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they've had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America's occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.(Photo: Soviet Premier, Nikolai Bulganin (centre) addresses Soviet leaders at the Warsaw Conference on 14 May 1955. From left to right: Marshal Ivan Koniev, Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, Bulganin and Marshal Gregori Zhukov. Credit: Bettmann via Getty images)

The Axis retreat from the Don River was haphazard. Armies were lost as was much equipment. Army Group South would regroup and form another line, but it was much reduced and the Soviets were only getting stronger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

May 9, 1945. The Soviet Union celebrates Victory Day after Germany's unconditional surrender brings an end to World War II in Europe. This episode originally aired in 2022.Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more.History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Donald Trump briefly tried to change "Veterans Day" to a Victory in War (both I and II) Day until rebuked by vets, but his explanation needs to also be rebuked. Trump said the U.S., more than any other country, won the world wars. Of course, that flies in the face of the actual history of World War II. On this 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, we discussed the reality of the second world war . . . how the west stalled on establishing a second front while the USSR was bearing the brunt of the war, how the Soviets reversed the German offensive in 1941-42 and then liberated Europe from the Nazis, how the Red Army killed 80 percent of the Germans killed in the war, and how the Soviet Union suffered immense losses (20-25 million killed, a million farms and factories destroyed, half the economy devastated).********Outro- "Green and Red Blues" by MoodyLinks//+G&R: Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 78 Years Later (https://apple.co/3WSbppd)Follow Green and Red// +G&R Linktree: ⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/greenandredpodcast⁠⁠⁠ +Our rad website: ⁠⁠⁠https://greenandredpodcast.org/⁠⁠⁠ + Join our Discord community (https://discord.gg/hKRAGQv6)+Follow us on Substack (https://greenandredpodcast.substack.com)+Follow us on Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/podcastgreenred.bsky.social)Support the Green and Red Podcast// +Become a Patron at https://www.patreon.com/greenredpodcast +Or make a one time donation here: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/DonateGandR⁠⁠⁠ Our Networks// + We're part of the Labor Podcast Network: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.laborradionetwork.org/⁠⁠ +We're part of the Anti-Capitalist Podcast Network: linktr.ee/anticapitalistpodcastnetwork +Listen to us on WAMF (90.3 FM) in New Orleans (https://wamf.org/) + Check us out! We made it into the top 100 Progressive Podcasts lists (#68) (https://bit.ly/432XNJT) This is a Green and Red Podcast (@PodcastGreenRed) production. Produced by Bob (@bobbuzzanco) and Scott (@sparki1969). Edited by Scott.

My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,As we seemingly grow closer to achieving artificial general intelligence — machines that are smarter than humans at basically everything — we might be incurring some serious geopolitical risks.In the paper Superintelligence Strategy, his joint project with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Alexandr Wang, Dan Hendrycks introduces the idea of Mutual Assured AI Malfunction: a system of deterrence where any state's attempt at total AI dominance is sabotaged by its peers. From the abstract: Just as nations once developed nuclear strategies to secure their survival, we now need a coherent superintelligence strategy to navigate a new period of transformative change. We introduce the concept of Mutual Assured AI Malfunction (MAIM): a deterrence regime resembling nuclear mutual assured destruction (MAD) where any state's aggressive bid for unilateral AI dominance is met with preventive sabotage by rivals. Given the relative ease of sabotaging a destabilizing AI project—through interventions ranging from covert cyberattacks to potential kinetic strikes on datacenters—MAIM already describes the strategic picture AI superpowers find themselves in. Alongside this, states can increase their competitiveness by bolstering their economies and militaries through AI, and they can engage in nonproliferation to rogue actors to keep weaponizable AI capabilities out of their hands. Taken together, the three-part framework of deterrence, nonproliferation, and competitiveness outlines a robust strategy to superintelligence in the years ahead.Today on Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I talk with Hendrycks about the potential threats posed by superintelligent AI in the hands of state and rogue adversaries, and what a strong deterrence strategy might look like.Hendrycks is the executive director of the Center for AI Safety. He is an advisor to Elon Musk's xAI and Scale AI, and is a prolific researcher and writer.In This Episode* Development of AI capabilities (1:34)* Strategically relevant capabilities (6:00)* Learning from the Cold War (16:12)* Race for strategic advantage (18:56)* Doomsday scenario (28:18)* Maximal progress, minimal risk (33:25)Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. Development of AI capabilities (1:34). . . mostly the systems aren't that impressive currently. People use them to some extent, but I'd more emphasize the trajectory that we're on rather than the current capabilities.Pethokoukis: How would you compare your view of AI . . . as a powerful technology with economic, national security, and broader societal implications . . . today versus November of 2022 when OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT?Hendrycks: I think that the main difference now is that we have the reasoning paradigm. Back in 2022, GPT couldn't think for an extended period of time before answering and try out multiple different ways of dissolving a problem. The main new capability is its ability to handle more complicated reasoning and science, technology, engineering, mathematics sorts of tasks. It's a lot better at coding, it's a lot better at graduate school mathematics, and physics, and virology.An implication of that for national security is that AIs have some virology capabilities that they didn't before, and virology is dual-use that can be used for civilian applications and weaponization applications. That's a new concerning capability that they have, but I think, overall, the AI systems are still fairly similar in their capabilities profile. They're better in lots of different ways, but not substantially.I think the next large shift is when they can be agents, when they can operate more autonomously, when they can book you flights reliably, make PowerPoints, play through long-form games for extended periods of time, and that seems like it's potentially on the horizon this year. It didn't seem like that two years ago. That's something that a lot of people are keeping an eye on and think could be arriving fairly soon. Overall, I think the capabilities profile is mostly the same except now it has some dual-use capabilities that they didn't have earlier, in particular virology capabilities.To what extent are your national security concerns based on the capabilities of the technology as it is today versus where you think it will be in five years? This is also a way of me asking about the extent that you view AGI as a useful framing device — so this is also a question about your timeline.I think that mostly the systems aren't that impressive currently. People use them to some extent, but I'd more emphasize the trajectory that we're on rather than the current capabilities. They still can't do very interesting cyber offense, for instance. The virology capabilities is very recent. We just, I think maybe a week ago, put out a study with SecureBio from MIT where we had Harvard, MIT virology postdocs doing wet lab skills, trying to work on viruses. So, “Here's a picture of my petri dish, I heated it to 37 degrees, what went wrong? Help me troubleshoot, help me guide me through this step by step.” We were seeing that it was getting around 95th percentile compared to those Harvard-MIT virology postdocs in their area of expertise. This is not a capability that the models had two years ago.That is a national security concern, but I think most of the national security concerns where it's strategically relevant, where it can be used for more targeted weapons, where it affects the basis of a nation's power, I think that's something that happens in the next, say, two to five years. I think that's what we mostly need to be thinking about. I'm not particularly trying to raise the alarm saying that the AI systems right now are extremely scary in all these different ways because they're not even agential. They can't book flights yet.Strategically relevant capabilities (6:00). . . when thinking about the future of AI . . . it's useful to think in terms of specific capabilities, strategically-relevant capabilities, as opposed to when is it truly intelligent . . .So that two-to-five-year timeline — and you can debate whether this is a good way of thinking about it — is that a trajectory or timeline to something that could be called “human-level AI” — you can define that any way you want — and what are the capabilities that make AI potentially dangerous and a strategic player when thinking about national security?I think having a monolithic term for AGI or for advanced AI systems is a little difficult, largely because there's been a consistently-moving goalpost. So right now people say, “AIs are dumb because they can't do this and that.” They can't play video games at the level of a teenager, they can't code for a day-long project, and things like that. Neither can my grandmother. That doesn't mean that she's not human-level intelligence, it's just a lot of people don't have some of these capabilities.I think when thinking about the future of AI, especially when thinking about national security, it's useful to think in terms of specific capabilities, strategically-relevant capabilities, as opposed to when is it truly intelligent or something like that. This is because the capabilities of AI systems are very jagged: they're good at some things and terrible at others. They can't fold clothes that reliably — most of the AI can't —and they're okay at driving in some cities but not others, but they can solve really difficult mathematics problems, they can write really long essays and provide pretty good legal analysis very rapidly, and they can also forecast geopolitical events better than most forecasters. It's a really weird capabilities profile.When I'm thinking about national security from a malicious-use standpoint, I'm thinking about weapon capabilities, I'm thinking about cyber-offensive capabilities, which they don't yet have, but that's an important one to track, and, outside of malicious use, I'm thinking about what's their ability to do AI research and how much of that can they automate? Because if they can automate AI research, then you could just run 100,000 of these artificial AGI researchers to build the next generations of AGI, and that could get very explosive extremely quickly. You're moving from human-speed research to machine-speed research. They're typing 100 times faster than people, they're running tons of experiments simultaneously. That could be quite explosive, and that's something that the founders of AI pointed at as a really relevant capability, like Alan Turing and others, where that's you could have a potential loss-of-control type of event is with this sort of runaway process of AI's building future generations of AIs quite rapidly.So that's another capability. What fraction of AI research can they automate? For weaponization, I think if it gets extremely smart, able to do research in lots of other sorts of fields, then that would raise concerns of its ability to be used to disrupt the balance of power. For instance, if it can do research well, perhaps it could come up with a breakthrough that makes oceans more transparent so we can find where nuclear submarines are or find the mobile launches extremely reliably, or a breakthrough in driving down the cost by some orders of magnitude of anti-ballistic missile systems, which would disrupt having a secure second-strike, and these would be very geopolitically salient. To do those things, though, that seems like a bundle of capabilities as opposed to a specific thing like cyber-offensive capabilities, but those are the things that I'm thinking about that can really disrupt the geopolitical landscape.If we put them in a bucket called, to use your phrase, “strategically-relevant capabilities,” are we on a trajectory of a data- and computing-power-driven trajectory to those capabilities? Or do there need to be one or two key innovations before those relevant capabilities are possible?It doesn't seem like it currently that we need some new big insights, in large part because the rate of improvement is pretty good. So if we look at their coding capabilities — there's a benchmark called SWE-bench verified (SWE is software engineering). Given a set of coding tasks — and this benchmark was weighed in some years ago — the models are poised to get something like 90 percent on this this summer. Right now they're in this 60 percent range. If we just extrapolate the trend line out some more months, then they'll be doing nine out of 10 of those software engineering tasks that were set some years ago. That doesn't mean that that's the entirety of software engineering. Still need coders. It's not 100 percent, obviously, but that suggests that the capability is still improving fairly rapidly in some of these domains. And likewise, with their ability to play that take games that take 20-plus hours, a few months ago they couldn't — Pokémon, for instance, is something that kids play and that takes 20 hours or so to beat. The models from a few months ago couldn't beat the game. Now, the current models can beat the game, but it takes them a few hundred hours. It would not surprise me if in a few months they'll get it down to around human-level on the order of tens of hours, and then from there they'll be able to play harder and harder sorts of games that take longer periods of time, and I think that this would be indicative of higher general capabilities.I think that there's a lot of steam in the current way that things are being done and I think that they've been trapped at the floor in their agent capabilities for a while, but I think we're starting to see the shift. I think that most people at the major AI companies would also think that agents are on the horizon and I don't think they were thinking that, myself included, a year ago. We were not seeing the signs that we're seeing now.So what we're talking about is AIs is having, to use your phrase, which I like, “strategically-relevant capabilities” on a timeline that is soon enough that we should be having the kinds of conversations and the kind of thinking that you put forward in Superintelligence [Strategy]. We should be thinking about that right now very seriously.Yeah, it's very difficult to wrap one's head around because, unlike other domains, AI is much more general and broad in its impacts. So if one's thinking about nuclear strategy, you obviously need to think about bombs going off, and survivability, and second strike. The failure modes are: one state strikes the other, and then there's also, in the civilian applications, fissile material leaking or there being a nuclear power plant meltdown. That's the scenario space, there's what states can do and then there's also some of these civilian application issues.Meanwhile, with AI, we've got much more than power plants melting down or bombs going off. We've got to think about how it transforms the economy, how it transforms people's private life, the sort of issues with them being sentient. We've got to think about it potentially disrupting mutual assured destruction. We've got to think about the AIs themselves being threats. We've got to think about regulations for autonomous AI agents and who's accountable. We've got to think about this open-weight, closed-weight issue. We've got, I think, a larger host of issues that touch on all the important spheres society. So it's not a very delimited problem and I think it's a very large pill to swallow, this possibility that it will be not just strategically relevant but strategically decisive this decade.Consequently, and thinking a little bit beforehand about it is, useful. Otherwise, if we just ignore it, I think we reality will slap us across the face and AI will hit us like a truck, and then we're going, “Wow, I wish we did something, had some more break-glass measures at a time right now, but the cupboard is bare in terms of strategic options because we didn't do some prudent things a while ago, or we didn't even bother thinking about what those are.”I keep thinking of the Situation Room in two years and they get news that China's doing some new big AI project, and it's fairly secretive, and then in the Situation Room they're thinking, “Okay, what do we know?” And the answer is nothing. We don't have really anybody on this. We're not collecting any information about this. We didn't have many concerted programs in the IC really tracking this, so we're flying blind. I really don't want to be in that situationLearning from the Cold War (16:12). . . mutual assured destruction is an ugly reality that took decision-makers a long time to internalize, but that's just what the game theory showed would make the most sense. As I'm sure you know, throughout the course of the Cold War, there was a considerable amount of time and money spent on thinking about these kinds of problems. I went to college just before the end of the Cold War and I took an undergraduate class on nuclear war theory. There was a lot of thinking. To what extent does that volume of research and analysis over the course of a half-century, to what extent is that helpful for what you're trying to accomplish here?I think it's very fortunate that, because of the Cold War, a lot of people started getting more of a sense of game theory and when it's rational to conflict versus negotiate, and offense can provide a good defense, some of these counterintuitive things. I think mutual assured destruction is an ugly reality that took decision-makers a long time to internalize, but that's just what the game theory showed would make the most sense. Hopefully we'll do a lot better with AI because strategic thinking can be a lot more precise and some of these things that are initially counterintuitive, if you reason through them, you go, actually no, this makes a lot of sense. We're trying to shape each other's intentions in this kind of complicated way. I think that makes us much better poised to address these geopolitical issues than last time.I think of the Soviets, for instance, when talking about anti-ballistic missile systems. At one point, I forget who said that offense is immoral, defense is moral. So pointing these nuclear weapons at each other, this is the immoral thing. We need missile-defense systems. That's the moral option. It's just like, no, this is just going to eat up all of our budget. We're going to keep building these defense systems and it's not going to make us safer, we're just going to be spending more and more.That was not intuitive. Offense does feel viscerally more mean, hostile, but that's what you want. That's what you want, to preserve for strategic stability. I think that a lot of the thinking is helpful with that, and I think the education for appreciating the strategic dynamics is more in the water, it's more diffused across the decision-makers now, and I think that that's great.Race for strategic advantage (18:56)There is also a risk that China builds [AGI] first, so I think what we want to do in the US is build up the capabilities to surgically prevent them . . .I was recently reviewing a scenario slash world-building exercise among technologists, economists, forecasting people, and they were looking at various scenarios assuming that we're able to, on a rather short timeline, develop what they termed AGI. And one of the scenarios was that the US gets there first . . . probably not by very long, but the US got there first. I don't know how far China was behind, but that gave us the capability to sort of dictate terms to China about what their foreign policy would be: You're going to leave Taiwan alone . . . So it gave us an amazing strategic advantage.I'm sure there are a lot of American policymakers who would read that scenario and say, “That's the dream,” that we are able to accelerate progress, that we are able to get there first, we can dictate foreign policy terms to China, game over, we win. If I've read Superintelligence correctly, that scenario would play out in a far more complicated way than what I've just described.I think so. I think any bid for being a, not just unipolar force, but having a near-strategic-monopoly on power and able to cause all other superpowers to capitulate in arbitrary ways, concerns the other superpower. There is also a risk that China builds it first, so I think what we want to do in the US is build up the capabilities to surgically prevent them, if they are near or eminently going to gain a decisive advantage that would become durable and sustained over us, we want the ability to prevent that.There's a variety of ways one can do things. There's the classic grayer ways like arson, and cutting wires in data centers, and things like that, or for power plants . . . There's cyber offense, and there's other sorts of kinetic sabotage, but we want it nice and surgical and having a good, credible threat so that we can deter that from happening and shaping their intentions.I think it will be difficult to limit their capabilities, their ability to build these powerful systems, but I think being able to shape their intentions is something that is more tractable. They will be building powerful AI systems, but if they are making an attempt at leapfrogging us in a way that we never catch up and lose our standing and they get AIs that could also potentially disrupt MAD, for instance, we want to be able to prevent that. That is an important strategic priority, is developing a credible deterrent and saying there are some AI scenarios that are totally unacceptable to us and we want to block them off through credible threats.They'll do the same to us, as well, and they can do it more easily to us. They know what's going on at all of our AI companies, and this will not change because we have a double digit percentage of the employees who are Chinese nationals, easily extortable, they have family back home, and the companies do not have good information security — that will probably not change because that will slow them down if they really try and lock them up and move everybody to North Dakota or wherever to work in the middle of nowhere and have everything air-gapped. We are an open book to them and I think they can make very credible threats for sabotage and preventing that type of outcome.If we are making a bid for dictating their foreign policy and all of this, if we're making a bid for a strategic monopoly on power, they will not sit idly by, they will not take kindly to that when they recognize the stakes. If the US were to do a $500 billion program to achieve this faster than them, that would not go unnoticed. There's not a way of hiding that.But we are trying to achieve it faster than them.I would distinguish between trying to develop just generally more capable AI technologies than some of these strategically relevant capabilities or some of these strategically relevant programs. Like if we get AI systems that are generally useful for healthcare and for . . . whatever your pet cause area, we can have that. That is different from applying the AI systems to rapidly build the next generation of AIs, and the next generation of that. Just imagine if you have, right now, OpenAI's got a few hundred AI researchers, imagine if you've got ones that are at that level that are artificial, AGI-type of researchers or are artificial researchers. You run 10,000, 100,000 thousand of them, they're operating around the clock at a hundred X speed, I think expecting a decade's worth of development compressed or telescoped into a year, that seems very plausible — not certain, but certainly double-digit percent chance.China or Russia for instance, would perceive that as, “This is really risky. They could get a huge leap from this because these rate of development will be so high that we could never catch up,” and they could use their new gains to clobber us. Or, if they don't control it, then we're also dead, or lose our power. So if the US controls it, China would reason that, “Our survival is threatened and how we do things is threatened,” and if they lose control of it, “Our survival is also threatened.” Either way, provided that this automated AI research and development loop produces some extremely powerful AI systems, China would be fearing for their survival.It's not just China: India, the global south, all the other countries, if they're more attuned to this situation, would be very concerned. Russia as well. Russia doesn't have the hope about competing, they don't have a $100 billion data centers, they're busy with Ukraine, and when they're finished with that, they may reassess it, but they're too many years behind. I think the best they can do is actually try and shape other states' intents rather than try to make a bid for outcompeting them.If we're thinking about deterrence and what you call Mutually Assured AI Malfunction [MAIM], there's a capability aspect that we want to make sure that we would have the capability to check that kind of dash for dominance. But there's also a communication aspect where both sides have to understand and trust what the other side is trying to do, which was a key part of classic Cold War deterrence. Is that happening?Information problems, yeah, if there's worse information then that can lead to conflict. I think China doesn't really need to worry about their access to information of what's going on. I think the US will need to develop more of its capabilities to have more reliable signals abroad. But I think there's different ways of getting information and producing misunderstandings, like the confidence-building measures, all these sorts of things. I think that the unilateral one is just espionage, and then the multilateral one is verification mechanisms and building some of that institutional or international infrastructure.I think the first step in all of this is the states need to at least take matters into their own hands by building up these unilateral options, the unilateral option to prevent adversaries from doing a dash for domination and also know what's going on with each other's projects. I think that's what the US should focus on right now. Later on, as the salience of AI increases, I think then just international discussions to increase more strategic stability around this would be more plausible to emerge. But if they're not trying to take basic things to defend themselves and protect their own security, then I don't think international stuff that makes that much sense. That's kind of out of order.Doomsday scenario (28:18)If our institutions wake up to this more and do some of the basic stuff . . . to prevent another state dominating the other, I think that will make this go quite a bit better. . .I have in my notes here that you think there's an 80 percent chance that an AI arms race would result in a catastrophe that would kill most of humanity. Do I have that right?I think it's not necessarily just the race. Let's think of people's probabilities for this. There's a wide spectrum of probability. Elon, who I work with at xAI, a company I advise, xAI is his company, Elon thinks it's generally on the order of 20 to 30 percent. Dario Amodei, the CEO of philanthropic, I think thinks it's around 20 percent, as well. Sam Altman around 10 percent. I think it's more likely than not that this doesn't go that well for people, but there's a lot of tractability and a lot of volatility here.If our institutions wake up to this more and do some of the basic stuff of knowing what's going on and sharpen your ability to have credible threats, credible, targeted threats to prevent another state dominating the other, I think that will make this go quite a bit better. . . I think if we went back in time in the 1940s and were saying, “Do we think that this whole nuclear thing is going to turn out well in 50 years?” I think we actually got a little lucky. I mean the Cuban Missile Crisis itself was . . .There were a lot of bad moments in the '60s. There were quite a few . . .I think it's more likely than not, but there's substantial tractability and it's important not to be fatalistic about it or just deny it's an issue, itself. I think it's like, do we think AI will go well? I don't know, it depends on what our policy is. Right now, we're in the very early days and I'm still not noticing many of our institutions that are rising to the occasion that I think is warranted, but this could easily change in a few months with some larger event.Not to be science fictional or anything, but you talk about a catastrophe, are you talking about: AI creates some sort of biological weapon? Back and forth cyber attacks destroy all the electrical infrastructure for China and the United States, so all of a sudden we're back into the 1800s? Are you talking about some sort of more “Terminator”-like scenario, rogue AI? When you think about the kind of catastrophe that could be that dangerous humanity, what do you think about?We have three risk sources: one are states, the other are rogue actors like terrorists and pariah states, and then there's the AI themselves. The AI themselves are not relevant right now, but I think could be quite capable of causing damage on their own in even a year or two. That's the space of threat actors; so yes, AI could in the future . . . I don't see anything that makes them logically not controllable. They're mostly controllable right now. Maybe it's one out of 100, one out of 1000 of the times you run these AI systems and deploy them in some sort of environments [that] they do try breaking free. That's a bit of a problem later on when they actually gain the capability to break free and when they are able to operate autonomously.There's been lots of studies on this and you can see this in OpenAI's reports whenever they release new models. It's like, “Oh, it's only a 0.1 percent chance of it trying to break free,” but if you run a million of these AI agents, that's a lot of them that are going to be trying to break free. They're just not very capable currently. So I think that the AIs themselves are risky, and if you're having humanity going up against AIs that aren't controlled by anybody, or AIs that broke free, that could get quite dangerous if you also have, as we're seeing now, China and others building more of these humanoid robots in the next few years. This could make them be concerning in that they could just by themselves create some sort of bioweapon. You don't need even human hands to do it, you can just instruct a robot to do it and disperse it. I think that's a pretty easy way to take out biological opposition, so to speak, in kind of an eccentric way.That's a concern. Rogue actors themselves doing this, them reasoning that, “Oh, this bioweapon gives us a secure second strike,” things like that would be a concern from rogue actors. Then, of course, states using this to make an attempt to crush the other state or develop a technology that disables an adversary's secure second strike. I think these are real problems.Maximal progress, minimal risk (33:25)I think what we want to shoot for is [a world] where people have enough resources and the ability to just live their lives in ways as they self-determine . . .Let me finish with this: I want continuing AI progress such that we can cure all the major chronic diseases, that we can get commercial nuclear fusion, that we can get faster rockets, all the kinds of optimistic stuff, accelerate economic growth to a pace that we've never seen. I want all of that.Can I get all of that and also avoid the kinds of scenarios you're worried about without turning the optimistic AI project into something that arrives at the end of the century, rather than arrives midcentury? I'm just worried about slowing down all that progress.I think we can. In the Superintelligence Strategy, we have three parts to that: We have the deterrence part, which I'm speaking about here, and we have making sure that the capabilities aren't falling into the hands of rogue actors — and I think this isn't that difficult, good export controls and add some just basic safeguards of we need to know who you are if we're going to be helping you manipulate viruses, things like that. That's easy to handle.Then on the competition aspect, there are many ways the US can make itself more competitive, like having more guaranteed supply chains for AI chips, so more manufacturing here or in allied states instead of all of it being in Taiwan. Currently, all the cutting-edge AI chips are made in Taiwan, so if there's a Taiwan invasion, the US loses in this AI race. They lose. This is double-digit probability. This is very foreseeable. So trying to robustify our manufacturing capabilities, quite essential; likewise for making robotics and drones.I think there's still many axes to compete in. I don't think it makes sense to try and compete in building a sort of superintelligence versus one of these potentially mutual assured destruction-disrupting AIs. I don't think you want to be building those, but I think you can have your AIs for healthcare, you can have your AIs doing all the complicated math you want, and whatever, all this coding, and driving your vehicles, and folding your laundry. You can have all of that. I think it's definitely feasible.What we did in the Cold War with the prospect of nuclear weapons, we obviously got through it, and we had deterrence through mutual assured destruction. We had non-proliferation of fissile materials to lesser states and rogue actors, and we had containment of the Soviet Union. I think the Superintelligence Strategy is somewhat similar: If you deter some of the most stabilizing AI projects, you make sure that some of these capabilities are not proliferating to random rogue actors, and you increase your competitiveness relative to China through things like incorporating AI into your military by, for instance, improving your ability to manufacture drones and improving your ability to reliably get your hands on AI chips even if there's a Taiwan conflict.I think that's the strategy and this doesn't make us uncompetitive. We are still focusing on competitiveness, but this does put barriers around some of the threats that different states could pose to us and that rogue actors using AI could pose to us while still shoring up economic security and positioning ourselves if AI becomes really relevant.I lied, I had one more short question: If we avoid the dire scenarios, what does the world look like in 2045?I would guess that it would be utterly transformed. I wouldn't expect people would be working then as much, hopefully. If you've controlled it well, there could be many ways of living, as there is now, and people would have resources to do so. It's not like there's one way of living — that seems bad because there's many different values to pursue. So letting people pursue their own values, so long as it doesn't destroy the system, and things like that, as we have today. It seems like an abstract version of the picture.People keep thinking, “Are we in zoos? Are AIs keeping us in zoos?” or something like that. It's like, no. Or like, “Are we just all in the Zuckerberg sort of virtual reality, AI friend thing?” It's like no, you can choose to do otherwise, as well. I think we want to preserve that ability.Good news: we won't have to fold laundry. Bad news: in zoos. There's many scenarios.I think what we want to shoot for is one where people have enough resources and the ability to just live their lives in ways as they self-determine, subject to not harming others in severe ways. But people tend to think there's same sort of forced dichotomy of it's going to be aWALL-EWALL-E world where everybody has to live the same way, or everybody's in zoos, or everybody's just pleasured-out and drugged-up or something. It's forced choices. Some people do that, some people choose to have drugs, and we don't hear much from them, and others choose to flourish, and pursue projects, and raise children and so on.On sale everywhere The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi World We Were PromisedMicro Reads▶ Economics* Is College Still Worth It? - Liberty Street Economics* Scalable versus Productive Technologies - Fed in Print▶ Business* AI's Threat to Google Just Got Real - WSJ* AI Has Upended the Search Game. Marketers Are Scrambling to Catch Up. - WSJ▶ Policy/Politics* U.S. pushes nations facing tariffs to approve Musk's Starlink, cables show - Wapo* US scraps Biden-era rule that aimed to limit exports of AI chips - FT* Singapore's Vision for AI Safety Bridges the US-China Divide - Wired* A ‘Trump Card Visa' Is Already Showing Up in Immigration Forms - Wired▶ AI/Digital* AI agents: from co-pilot to autopilot - FT* China's AI Strategy: Adoption Over AGI - AEI* How to build a better AI benchmark - MIT* Introducing OpenAI for Countries - OpenAI* Why humans are still much better than AI at forecasting the future - Vox* Outperformed by AI: Time to Replace Your Analyst? Find Out Which GenAI Model Does It Best - SSRN▶ Biotech/Health* Scientists Hail This Medical Breakthrough. A Political Storm Could Cripple It. - NYT* DARPA-Funded Research Develops Novel Technology to Combat Treatment-Resistant PTSD - The Debrief▶ Clean Energy/Climate* What's the carbon footprint of using ChatGPT? - Sustainability by Numbers* OpenAI and the FDA Are Holding Talks About Using AI In Drug Evaluation - Wired▶ Robotics/AVs* Jesse Levinson of Amazon Zoox: ‘The public has less patience for robotaxi mistakes' - FT▶ Space/Transportation* NASA scrambles to cut ISS activity due to budget issues - Ars* Statistically Speaking, We Should Have Heard from Aliens by Now - Universe Today▶ Substacks/Newsletters* Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class - Noahpinion* The Banality of Blind Men - Risk & Progress* Toys, Pencils, and Poverty at the Margins - The Dispatch* Don't Bet the Future on Winning an AI Arms Race - AI Prospects* Why Is the US Economy Surging Ahead of the UK? - Conversable EconomistFaster, Please! is a reader-supported publication. 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This week we talk about the Marshall Plan, standardization, and USB.We also discuss artificial intelligence, Anthropic, and protocols.Recommended Book: Fuzz by Mary RoachTranscriptIn the wake of WWII, the US government implemented the European Recovery Program, more commonly known as the Marshall Plan, to help Western Europe recover from a conflict that had devastated the afflicted countries' populations, infrastructure, and economies.It kicked off in April of 1948, and though it was replaced by a successor program, the Mutual Security Act, just three years later in 1951—which was similar to the Marshall Plan, but which had a more militant, anti-communism bent, the idea being to keep the Soviets from expanding their influence across the continent and around the world—the general goal of both programs was similar: the US was in pretty good shape, post-war, and in fact by waiting to enter as long as it did, and by becoming the arsenal of the Allied side in the conflict, its economy was flourishing, its manufacturing base was all revved up and needed something to do with all the extra output capacity it had available, all the resources committed to producing hardware and food and so on, so by sharing these resources with allies, by basically just giving a bunch of money and assets and infrastructural necessities to these European governments, the US could get everybody on side, bulwarked against the Soviet Union's counterinfluence, at a moment in which these governments were otherwise prone to that influence; because they were suffering and weaker than usual, and thus, if the Soviets came in with the right offer, or with enough guns, they could conceivably grab a lot of support and even territory. So it was considered to be in everyone's best interest, those who wanted to keep the Soviet Union from expanding, at least, to get Europe back on its feet, posthaste.So this program, and its successor program, were highly influential during this period, and it's generally considered to be one of the better things the US government has done for the world, as while there were clear anti-Soviet incentives at play, it was also a relatively hands-off, large-scale give-away that favorably compared with the Soviets' more demanding and less generous version of the same.One interesting side effect of the Marshall Plan is that because US manufacturers were sending so much stuff to these foreign ports, their machines and screws and lumber used to rebuild entire cities across Europe, the types of machines and screws and lumber, which were the standard models of each in the US, but many of which were foreign to Europe at the time, became the de facto standard in some of these European cities, as well.Such standards aren't always the best of all possible options, sometimes they stick around long past their period of ideal utility, and they don't always stick, but the standards and protocols within an industry or technology do tend to shape that industry or technology's trajectory for decades into the future, as has been the case with many Marshall Plan-era US standards that rapidly spread around the world as a result of these giveaways.And standards and protocols are what I'd like to talk about today. In particular a new protocol that seems primed to shape the path today's AI tools are taking.—Today's artificial intelligence, or AI, which is an ill-defined type of software that generally refers to applications capable of doing vaguely human-like things, like producing text and images, but also somewhat superhuman things, like working with large data-sets and bringing meaning to them, are developing rapidly, becoming more potent and capable seemingly every day.This period of AI development has been in the works for decades, and the technologies required to make the current batch of generative AI tools—the type that makes stuff based on libraries of training data, deriving patterns from that data and then coming up with new stuff based on the prompting of human users—were originally developed in the 1970s, but the transformer, which was a fresh approach to what's called deep learning architectures, was first proposed in 2017 by a researcher at Google, and that led to the development of the generative pre-trained transformer, or GPT, in 2018.The average non-tech-world person probably started to hear about this generation of AI tools a few years later, maybe when the first transformer-based voice and image tools started popping up around the internet, mostly as novelties, or even more likely in late-2022 when OpenAI released the first version of ChatGPT, a generative AI system attached to a chatbot interface, which made these sorts of tools more accessible to the average person.Since then, there's been a wave of investment and interest in AI tools, and we've reached a point where the seemingly obvious next-step is removing humans from the loop in more AI-related processes.What that means in practice is that while today these tools require human prompting for most of what they do—you have to ask an AI for a specific image, then ask it to refine that image in order to customize it for your intended use-case, for instance—it's possible to have AI do more things on their own, working from broader instructions to refine their creations themselves over multiple steps and longer periods of time.So rather than chatting with an AI to come up with a marketing plan for your business, prompting it dozens or hundreds of times to refine the sales copy, the logo, the images for the website, the code for the website, and so on, you might tell an AI tool that you're building a business that does X and ask it to spin up all the assets that you need. From there, the AI might research what a new business in that industry requires, make all the assets you need for it, go back and tweak all those assets based on feedback from other AI tools, and then deploy those assets for you on web hosting services, social media accounts, and the like.It's possible that at some point these tools could become so capable in this regard that humans won't need to be involved at all, even for the initial ideation. You could ask an AI what sorts of businesses make sense at the moment, and tell it to build you a dozen minimum viable products for those businesses, and then ask it to run those businesses for you—completely hands off, except for the expressing your wishes part, almost like you're working with a digital genie.At the moment, components of that potential future are possible, but one of the main things standing in the way is that AI systems largely aren't agentic enough, which in this context means they need a lot of hand-holding for things that a human being would be capable of doing, but which they largely, with rare exceptions, aren't yet, and they often don't have the permission or ability to interact with other tools required to do that kind of building—and that includes things like the ability to create a business account on Shopify, but also the ability to access and handle money, which would be required to set up business and bank accounts, to receive money from customers, and so on.This is changing at a rapid pace, and more companies are making their offerings accessible to specific AI tools; Shopify has deployed its own cluster of internal AI systems, for instance, meant to manage various aspects of a business its customers perch on its platform.What's missing right now, though, is a unifying scaffolding that allows these services and assets and systems to all play nice with each other.And that's the issue the Model Context Protocol is meant to address.The Model Context Protocol, or MCP, is a standard developed by AI company Anthropic, and it's open and designed to be universal. The company intends for it to be the mycelium that connects large language model-based AI to all sorts of data and tools and other systems, a bit like the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP, allows data on the web to be used and shared and processed, universally, in a standardized way, and to dip back into the world of physical objects, how standardized shipping containers make global trade a lot more efficient because everyone's working with the same sized boxes, cargo vessels, and so on.The Universal Serial Bus standard, usually shorthanded as USB, is also a good comparison here, as the USB was introduced to replaced a bunch of other standards in the early days of personal computing, which varied by computer maker, and which made it difficult for those makers, plus those who developed accessories, to make their products accessible and inexpensive for end-users, as you might buy a mouse that doesn't work with your specific computer hardware, or you might have a cable that fits in the hole on your computer, but doesn't send the right amount of data, or provide the power you need.USB standards ensured that all devices had the same holes, and that a certain basic level of data and power transmission would be available. And while this standard has since fractured a bit, a period of many different types of USB leading to a lot of confusion, and the deployment of the USB C standard simplying things somewhat, but still being a bit confounding at times, as the same shaped plug may carry different amounts of data and power, despite all that, it has still made things a lot easier for both consumers and producers of electronic goods, as there are fewer plugs and charger types to purchase, and thus less waste, confusion, and so on. We've moved on from the wild west era of computer hardware connectivity into something less varied and thus, more predictable and interoperable.The MCP, if it's successful, could go on to be something like the USB standard in that it would serve as a universal connector between various AI systems and all the things you might want those AI systems to access and use.That might mean you want one of Anthropic's AI systems to build you a business, without you having to do much or anything at all, and it may be capable of doing so, asking you questions along the way if it requires more clarity or additional permissiosn—to open a bank account in your name, for instance—but otherwise acting more agentically, as intended, even to the point that it could run social media accounts, work with manufacturers of the goods you sell, and handle customer service inquiries on your behalf.What makes this standard a standout compared to other options, though—and there are many other proposed options, right now, as this space is still kind of a wild west—is that though it was developed by Anthropic, which originally made it to work with its Claude family of AI tools, it has since also been adopted by OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and several of the other largest players in the AI world.That means, although there are other options here, all with their own pros and cons, as was the case with USB compared to other connection options back in the day, MCP is usable with many of the biggest and most spendy and powerful entities in the AI world, right now, and that gives it a sort of credibility and gravity that the other standards don't currently enjoy.This standard is also rapidly being adopted by companies like Block, Apollo, PayPal, CloudFlare, Asana, Plaid, and Sentry, among many, many others—including other connectors, like Zapier, which basically allows stuff to connect to other stuff, further broadening the capacity of AI tools that adopt this standard.While this isn't a done deal, then, there's a good chance that MCP will be the first big connective, near-universal standard in this space, which in turn means many of the next-step moves and tools in this space will need to work with it, in order to gain adoption and flourish, and that means, like the standards spread around the world by the Marshall Plan, it will go on to shape the look and feel and capabilities, including the limitations, of future AI tools and scaffoldings.Show Noteshttps://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2025/04/mcp-the-new-usb-c-for-ai-thats-bringing-fierce-rivals-together/https://blog.cloudflare.com/remote-model-context-protocol-servers-mcp/https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2025/05/what-went-wrong-with-wireless-usb.htmlhttps://arxiv.org/html/2504.16736v2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_Context_Protocol#cite_note-anthropic_mcp-1https://github.com/modelcontextprotocolhttps://www.anthropic.com/news/integrationshttps://www.theverge.com/2024/11/25/24305774/anthropic-model-context-protocol-data-sourceshttps://beebom.com/model-context-protocol-mcp-explained/https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/26/openai-adopts-rival-anthropics-standard-for-connecting-ai-models-to-data/https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/09/google-says-itll-embrace-anthropics-standard-for-connecting-ai-models-to-data/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_artificial_intelligencehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USBhttps://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/marshall-planhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Planhttps://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R45079https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/marshall-planhttps://www.history.com/articles/marshall-plan This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

With the 8th Italian Army destroyed, the Soviets will now focus on the German forces SE of Stalingrad and the 2nd Hungarian Army. The US liaison officer will see the results of these battles and report the slaughter to FDR. Meanwhile, Gen. Manstein is forced to order a pull back of all forces. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe now for an ad-free experience and much more content⁠. Please listen to ⁠our Sino-Soviet primer episode⁠ and part one of this discussion for some background! Danny and Derek welcome back Jeremy Friedman, assistant professor in the Business, Government, and International Economy at Harvard, to talk about the Sino-Soviet Split. The conversation picks up in the 1960s with the Soviets' push for peaceful coexistence vs the PRC and developing world's push for anti-imperialist armed struggle, how the Cultural Revolution affects the calculation, Mao's growing distrust of the USSR, the split itself, ideological vanguardism vs elitism, imperialism without capitalism, whether a split was inevitable, and more.   Grab a copy of Jeremy's book⁠ ⁠⁠Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World⁠! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Christmas Day, 1941, as bombs tear Hong Kong apart, gunrunner Morris "Two Gun" Cohen — a street hustler from the slums of London turned Canadian frontiersman turned Chinese general — stares down death from a hotel room. From underground boxing rings to arms deals, Cohen fought the Japanese and Soviets, battled communists, warlords and mercenaries, and drank his way through China's bloodiest years. This is the story of the outlaw who ran guns and dodged death while becoming the bodyguard to the father of modern China. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Please listen to ⁠⁠our Sino-Soviet primer episode⁠⁠ and ⁠part one of this discussion⁠ for some background!On this episode of American Prestige, Danny and Derek welcome back Jeremy Friedman, assistant professor in the Business, Government, and International Economy at Harvard, to talk about the Sino-Soviet Split. The conversation picks up in the 1960s with the Soviets' push for peaceful coexistence vs the PRC and developing world's push for anti-imperialist armed struggle, how the Cultural Revolution affects the calculation, Mao's growing distrust of the USSR, the split itself, ideological vanguardism vs elitism, imperialism without capitalism, whether a split was inevitable, and more. Grab a copy of Jeremy's book⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World⁠⁠!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Operation Mars was the sister Soviet counter attack to Uranus, which freed Stalingrad. But Mars would end very differently for the Soviets. When it was all over, the Stavka would turn their attention back to the south.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SEASON 3 EPISODE 119: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Senator Lisa Murkowski may be the most important person in the country right now. Her public confession that she too is afraid of the Trump nightmare and her HINTS at talking to Senate colleagues ABOUT her fear – could provide just enough Republican rebellion to rein Trump in. It feels as if she just got it, as if she just understood that yes Trump is Nazi-esque and yes Trump often emulates the Soviets but the closest parallel to him is O'Brien and "The Party" in Orwell's "1984" and the simple terrifying conviction that "the object of power is power." That's why I think when Kristi Garden Noem and Secretary of Defense (and Vodka) Hegseth (if he's still on the job after ANOTHER Signal chat came to light) file their report on the border to Trump this week and tell him no, they don't need to invoke The Insurrection Act, he may do it anyway because... the object of power is power. Murkowski and thirteen other Republican Senators and at most four Republican Representatives can stop this. They can save the country. They can impeach Trump or if they still can’t get over the hump, the 18 of you can use the THREAT to impeach him, to virtually fetter him, to at least control the width and breadth of his damage, to make him know the Senate WILL vote against him. She can also talk to anybody on the Supreme Court except Alito or Thomas. The other seven, in the middle of the damn night - at 1 AM Saturday - stepped in to freeze any further disappearing Americans under the phony premise of The Alien Enemies Act. And there is reason to hope that these Murkowski-led conversations might happen before the iron curtain of dictatorship descends: Later in her confession of fear, she hinted at doing exactly what I just suggested. Meanwhile, how many times can you self-destruct on this? Gavin Newsom dismisses the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case as a "distraction" and calls Democrats sheep for defending the constitution. On the other hand, Senator Ed Markey is crafting a sense of the senate resolution stating Trump cannot again be elected, and cannot again serve, as president or vice president. Damn Straight. B-Block (40:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Musk Crappertruck Owner who claims to also be a "girl dad"; Pennsylvania congressman Dan Meuser kinda blames Governor Josh Shapiro's criticizing Trump for provoking the attempt to incinerate him and his family in the governor's mansion on Passover. And Trump DEI hire Pam Bondi lies that compulsive martyr and 85th Place Olympic Trials finisher Riley Gaines "went to the Olympics." Not unless she bought a ticket, Pam Blondie. C-Block (55:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The renewed Trump bid to ban the Associated Press got me talking to a friend: How MANY times have I been banned, as a reporter? Do you mean this century, or in total? It's... a lot. From the LA Clippers to the ESPN Campus, I've been banned... a lot. And je ne regret rien!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Warning: this episode includes discussion of subjects like suicide and sexual assault that some listeners may find disturbing.80 years ago, the Soviets launched their final assault on the German capital. Having swept across Eastern Europe with the Wehrmacht fleeing before them, this was to be the final, apocalyptic battle that marked the collapse of the Nazi regime.Joining us is one of the great military historians, Anthony Beevor, author of 'Berlin: The Downfall 1945'. He explains the strategic moves that brought the Red Army to the gates of Berlin, the desperation of the German defence and the tragic fate of Berlin's civilian population.Produced by Dougal Patmore and James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on.You can also email the podcast directly at ds.hh@historyhit.com.

Gen. von Manstein is sent north to capture Leningrad. But days before his attack is launched, the Soviets launch their own. And the results of this battle will be felt all the way to Stalingrad. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On June 22, 1941, German forces crossed into the Soviet Union. It was, and remains, the largest military operation in human history. The force that the Germans assembled for the invasion was staggering, consisting of over 3 million men. However, the decision to go to war with the Soviets and break the alliance Germany had with them has puzzled historians for decades.  It ultimately was an extremely costly failure that resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people.  Learn more about Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Mint Mobile Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/eed Quince Go to quince.com/daily for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order! Stitch Fix Go to stitchfix.com/everywhere to have a stylist help you look your best Tourist Office of Spain Plan your next adventure at Spain.info  Stash Go to get.stash.com/EVERYTHING to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Austin Oetken & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The German 17th Army on the Taman peninsula is bending, but not breaking. Then the Soviets realize, they don't have to win, just hold. For events at Kursk will decide the fate of the Caucasus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By April 1945, Soviet forces stood at the gates of Berlin. From the summer of 1944, Hitler's armies had suffered a series of cataclysmic defeats that had left them shattered and desperately trying to hold on in front of the capital of the Third Reich. But how the Soviets' been able to bring the once mighty German Army to the brink of total defeat, and did the Wehrmacht have one last throw of the dice to save the Nazi regime?In this episode, Dan is joined by Professor Evan Maudsley, author of Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War 1941-1945 and former Professor of International History at the University of Glasgow. Evan helps Dan explore the stark differences in the narrative of World War II's final months across Western and Eastern Europe. They also discuss the key events from Operation Bagration in June 1944 to the Soviets' advance on Berlin in 1945 and how these tie in with the advance of the Western Allies. Also, could Stalin's strategic decisions have brought the war to an end sooner, and what did Hitler's last offensive in Hungary reveal about the dictator's priorities?Produced and edited by Dougal Patmore.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on.You can also email the podcast directly at ds.hh@historyhit.com.