In August of this year, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks announced the “Replicator Initiative” a new program to field thousands of less costly autonomous weapon systems. Aimed directly at offsetting China’s growing advantages in the Pacific, the ambitious program is set to deliver all within the next 18-24 months. Replicator is part of a growing concern that, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Charles Q. Brown framed the issue while still Chief of the Air Force, the Pentagon must,...

On today’s episode we return to an interview with Jonathan Schanzer, Senior Vice President for Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and the author of “Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War”. Host John Sorensen and RealClearDefense editor David Craig spoke with Schanzer in November of 2021 about an attack from earlier that year when Hamas launched more than four thousand rockets and mortars toward Israel killing 12 and injuring more than 100. Retaliatory...

As China’s military capabilities grow, discussions about the US posture in the Pacific often return to the question how large a force does the US need to deter or possibly confront the Chinese Navy? If China were to launch an attack on Taiwan, how do the US and Chinese navies match up? To find out, “Hot Wash” host John Sorensen speaks with Tom Shugart an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. During his twenty-five years in the US Navy, Shugart served as a submarine...

On the RealClearDefense podcast “Hot Wash” John Sorensen and RCD contributor John Waters speak with Miles Lagoze, the documentary filmmaker behind “Combat Obscura” a gripping unfiltered look at the war in Afghanistan in 2011 and 2012 during his time as an eighteen year-old Combat Camera with the 1st Battalion 6th Marines. Most recently he is the author of a new book about his experiences in Afghanistan and returning home. It’s called, “Whistles From the Graveyard: My Time Behind the Camera on...

On the RealClearDefense podcast “Hot Wash,” host John Sorensen speaks with Dr. Peter Feaver, a long-time researcher of civil-military affairs about his new book, a comprehensive study of public attitudes towards the military called, “Thanks for Your Service: The Causes and Consequences of Public Confidence in the US Military.” He is also a professor of political science and public policy at Duke University, has served twice on the National Security Council staff, and as an intelligence...

John Waters speaks with entrepreneur, Army veteran, and author Mike Erwin about applying lessons from the military to positive leadership off the battlefield. Erwin is a graduate of West Point and served as an Intelligence officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, earning two Bronze Stars. After studying positive psychology and leadership at the University of Michigan he founded “Team Red, White, and Blue” a nonprofit connecting veterans through physical and social activity. He is also the author of...

As Republican candidates prepare for the first debate, does the GOP have a China strategy? In a recent piece for the Wall Street Journal, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisconsin) challenges the candidates and the party to confront what he calls “America’s greatest geopolitical threat.” RealClearDefense contributor John Waters and guest columnist Stephen Young speak with Gallagher about developing a clearer strategy to deter China.

The war in Ukraine has rapidly reshaped how strategists think about the modern battlefield, especially the use of drones, cyber, social media, and the importance of electronic warfare. Looking at a potential conflict with China, what would a military confrontation over Taiwan look like in this new technological era? On this episode of “Hot Wash,” host John Sorensen speaks with Retired Australian Major Gen Mick Ryan. Ryan is a frequent commentor on the transformation of warfare, and is a...

On today’s “Hot Wash,” CNN’s Jake Tapper talks about his new fiction thriller “All the Demons Are Here” about an AWOL US Marine back from the Vietnam War and lost in the chaos of the 1970’s. We also discuss his nonfiction book, “The Outpost” about the heroism and tragedy of one of the deadliest battles in the Afghanistan War, and the coverage of the current Russian war against Ukraine.

Welcome to the first episode of BLUF: Bottom Line Up Front, presented by Real Clear Defense, in which we ask a member of Congress 7 questions that cut to the chase of what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. Today we hear from Republican Congressman Mark Green of Tennessee, who graduated from West Point, served as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army, and later became an army physician serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, he chairs the House Committee on Homeland Security and sits on...

Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated film “Oppenheimer” opens this weekend. For the story behind one of America’s most consequential and controversial scientific minds, listen to a mini-audio documentary about Robert Oppenheimer: his connections to the Communist party, his troubled relationship with President Truman, and the legacy of his work on the most devastating invention of the 20th century. This episode of the RealClearDefense podcast "Hot Wash" is sponsored by Pratt & Whitney....

On Friday June 23rd Yevgeny Prighozin, the leader of the Russian mercenary Wagner Group, took to Telegram to announce that he would, “march for justice” to stop the Russian defense ministry “evil”. By Saturday morning Wagner forces had claimed control of Rostov-on-Don, the Russian military headquarters near the Ukrainian border. His forces proceeded in a convoy into Russia toward Moscow, getting to within 200 km of the capital. Putin declared him a traitor and seemed destined for a bloody...

RealClearDefense contributor John Waters speaks with Wall Street Journal National Security reporter Brett Forrest about his new bestselling book, "Lost Son: An American Family Trapped Inside the FBI’s Secret Wars.” Expanding on his investigation for the Journal, Forrest explores the disappearance of Billy Reilly, a gifted civilian who volunteered as an undercover FBI source inside Russia. When their son went missing, Reilly’s parents were shut out of the investigation by the FBI and turned to...

Did the Cold War really end? As recently as this week, the New York Times confirmed that in 2020 Russian intelligence attempted to assassinate a defector on US soil, crossing a major red line even during the height of the Cold War. On today’s episode of the RealClearDefense podcast “Hot Wash” host John Sorensen and RCD contributor John Waters speak with Calder Walton, the historian who uncovered that attempted assassination and the author of a new book, “SPIES: The Epic Intelligence War...

On today's "Hot Wash," RCD contributor John Waters talks to the authors of a new book, “Unwavering: The Wives Who Fought to Ensure No Man is Left Behind.” It is the story of how the wives of Prisoners of War and those Missing In Action during the Vietnam War compelled the military and the US government to change policy and focused a nation on the unfinished business of a war it would rather forget. Symbolized by the rapidly ubiquitous black POW/MIA flags around the nation, the movement...

On today's "Hot Wash," RCD contributor John Waters talks to the authors of one the site's most popular recent articles, “The Navy SEAL Who Went to Ukraine Because He Couldn’t Stop Fighting.” The tortured story of Daniel Swift, a decorated Navy SEAL who went AWOL, only to end up on the frontlines of Ukraine's war with Russia. It's a story about the complicated relationship some of America's most experienced veterans have with combat, the challenges of returning home, the desire to make a...

In this episode of the RealClearDefense podcast "Hot Wash," RCD contributor John Waters speaks with Stephen Young the author of a new book from RealClearPublishing, “Kissinger’s Betrayal: How America Lost the Vietnam War.” Young, who served with USAID in Vietnam, gathered new declassified evidence to challenge the conventional view of Henry Kissinger's role in the peace negotiations that ended the Vietnam War. Did Kissinger intentionally withhold options from President Nixon? By allowing the...

In this episode of "Hot Wash" host John Sorensen speaks with authors and national security experts Andrew Hoehn and Thom Shanker about their new book, “Age of Danger: Keeping America Safe in an Era of New Superpowers, New Weapons, and New Threats.” Shanker and Hoehn examine the "Warning Machine" and the "Action Machine" in the National Security and Defense apparatus. Where does it fail, what is it missing, and how do we fix it to prepare for new challenges like the pacing threat of China, the...

On today's episode, host John Sorensen speaks with Jean Lee, a veteran journalist and Korea expert. She was the Associated Press Bureau Chief for the Korean Peninsula from 2008 to 2013. In 2011, she became the first American reporter granted extensive access on the ground in North Korea, and in January 2012 opened AP’s Pyongyang bureau, the only US news bureau based in North Korea. Lee has also served as the Korea Center program director at the Wilson Center for Public Policy. Most recently...

On this episode of the RealClearDefense podcast “Hot Wash,” RCD contributor John Waters speaks with William Swanson, a Marine Corps veteran of the battle of Guadalcanal in World War II’s Pacific campaign. Now 98 years old, Swanson is the author of “The View From My Foxhole” a firsthand account of the brutal fighting at Bougainville, Guam and Iwo Jima.

In this encore presentation of one of the most popular “Hot Wash,” episodes of 2022, host John Sorensen, and RCD contributor John Waters speak with journalist and combat veteran Ben Kesling about his new book, “Bravo Company: An Afghanistan Deployment and Its Aftermath”. It is the story of one unit of the famed 82nd Airborne, their tour in Kandahar’s notorious Arghandab Valley and the impact on their lives in the years after. By the end of their deployment, three soldiers had been killed in...

On this episode of the RealClearDefense podcast “Hot Wash,” host John Sorensen and RCD contributor John Waters speak with the author of one of the most popular articles on RealClearDefense this year: Donald Stoker historian and professor of Strategy and Policy for the US Naval War College, a respected scholar of the 19th century military thinker Carl von Clausewitz, and most recently the author of "Why America Loses Wars: Limited War and U.S. Strategy from the Korean War to the...

On this episode of "Hot Wash" we look at the US military’s peer adversaries from a “Free Markets” perspective. Are defense budgets bloated by threat inflation? RCD contributor John Waters and I speak with John Tamny, a frequent commentator on financial markets and the economy and the Editor at RealClearMarkets, the Vice President at the small government advocacy group FreedomWorks, and the author most recently of “The Money Confusion: How Illiteracy About Currencies and Inflation Sets the...

On today's episode of the RealClearDefense podcast “Hot Wash,” we look at the context behind Putin's catastrophic decision to invade Ukraine. What does the history of Russia's post-Soviet wars tell us about the current conflict? Is Putin really playing 3-dimensional chess? Or has he blundered into a disaster of his own making, victim of an increasingly small information bubble? Host, John Sorensen speaks with Mark Galeotti, a prolific longtime observer of Russian history, defense, and...