Episode 9:  We speak with six students at the Army's War College. A handful of colonels, lieutenant colonels, and one civilian. We talk about the future of warfare, what war will look like in 2040, and how the United States Army is preparing for that future. We get a chance to hear from a group of War College students while they're in the midst of finishing their year-end research project and thinking about how they will return to their commands and put to use some of the thought and research...

Episode 8 -- Dr. Michael Vickers is a former Green Beret, CIA operations officer, and national security policymaker with a remarkable 40+ year career. Mike talks about his early career, including being part of the Grenada invasion force as a CIA trainee, taking down the Soviets in Afghanistan, and provides great analysis and assessment of operations and policy decisions, connecting his experiences to conflicts that the U.S. faces today. Among many roles in his career, Vickers served under...

Episode 7, Imagine waking up today to discover an entity among us that's 10 times smarter than any human. What would change immediately? Everything. In this episode of the UnderSimplified Podcast, we delve into Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). How close are we to achieving this groundbreaking technology? If you think you know, or think you understand what will happen when we do, think again. Recent events involving Sam Altman and the OpenAI board shed some light on this question. As...

Imagine waking up today to discover an entity among us that's 10 times smarter than any human. What would change immediately? Everything. In this episode of the UnderSimplified Podcast, we delve into Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). How close are we to achieving this groundbreaking technology? If you think you know, or think you understand what will happen when we do, think again. Recent events involving Sam Altman and the OpenAI board shed some light on this question. As OpenAI's...

Episode six is with former CIA Deputy Director of Operations (DDO) Dave Marlowe.  At the time of this recording, Dave had just given up the DDO reins and was preparing to retire after 32 years at CIA.  During his career, which began in the Army during the Cold War, Dave served in some of CIA's most important roles including as the CIA Assistant Director for the Near East Mission Center, Chief of Station Kabul, Chief of one of CIA's largest Stations in Europe, and across positions in the...

Episode five is with General Jasper Jeffers. General Jeffers has served in the Army for 27 years, and he served more than half that time in Special Operations, both as an Army Ranger and multiple times as a Special Operations Commander. He spent the better part of his 27 years deployed to combat zones and austere environments. His final combat tour was as the senior Special Operations commander in Syria, during a period of enormous success for Special Operations. He now serves as the Deputy...

The Under Simplified Podcast is on a mission to have deep conversations about the most crucial and consequential issues facing society. We will do this by way of myriad topics like technology, philosophy, health, history, and science, all at the crossroads of culture, society, the present and our future. We will take great risks to have provoking and meaningful discussions that push listeners beyond their comfort zones and to new heights of understanding, empathy, moderatism, skepticism and...

Episode four is with Toomas Ilves, the former President of Estonia. Toomas is a statesman, foreign policy expert, and a technologist long before the term existed. He brought the internet into Estonian elementary schools before the internet arrived to some U.S. cities. Toomas is like a visitor from a parallel universe where elected leaders are technocratic, effective, and wise.  During his time as an elected official, Toomas successfully followed through on his promise to get Estonia into both...

In episode three we speak with bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen. Annie is the author of 6 books (listed below) and has a 7th on the way. She is an expert on many areas of the intelligence community and  the U.S. national security apparatus.  In this episode Annie and Aaron discuss aliens and UFOs, new war-fighting technologies, China's surveillance state, biometrics, and whether CIA has an assassination program.    Annie on Twitter: @AnnieJacobsen  Annie's...

Episode two is with the former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Michele Flournoy. At the time Michele was Defense Undersecretary, she was the most senior woman to ever serve in the DoD, and she was on both President Obama and President Biden’s shortlist for Secretary of Defense. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy is effectively the #3 position in DoD and this incumbent attends the deputies committee meetings of the National Security Council–these are the meetings that develop almost...

****Ways to support this podcast**** Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undersimplified Venmo: @UnderSimplified PayPal: paypal.me/UnderSimplified GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/3d1b01b4 UnderSimplified Home: https://www.undersimplified.org/ John Sipher is a senior CIA officer who retired after 28 years, serving many times as a CIA Chief of Station across the world and as the head of CIA’s Russia Operations. As a co-founder of Spycraft Entertainment he now works closely with Hollywood to advise on...

In this introductory episode CIA Operations Officer, Army Ranger, deputy sheriff, technologist, and entrepreneur Aaron Brown will tell you all about some of the amazing conversations we are about to have; the challenges and mysteries we hope to investigate; the new technologies that are changing the world;  and, most of all, introduce you to some extraordinarily interesting people.  Come join us.