Sign up at angryplanetpod.com to get instant access to the full episode. A direct link to the episode on Substack. In Russia there’s a revolving door between prisons and the frontlines. What began as a Wanger program is now official: the Kremlin will pardon nearly any crime if the convict agrees to serve on the front lines in Ukraine. After a six month stint at war, murderers and rapists are free to return to the scene of the crime. Some come home to kill again. On this episode of Angry...

Luke Paxton and Han Lee know a good cause when they see one. When Russia invades Ukraine in 2022, the American vets know what they need to do. Their time in Afghanistan has given them the skills to help fight a war and the moral clarity needed to know when a cause is just. But are they going to fight in Ukraine for the right reason? Do Ukrainians want them there? And does either matter when bombs are dropping all over the country? On this episode of Angry Planet, author Matt Gallagher returns...

The war between Israel and Hamas, which began on Oct. 7 when terrorists overran the Gaza frontier and killed more than 1,200 Israelis, is now more than six months old. More than 100 Israeli hostages are still being held in Gaza. Israel, in return, has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, with two thirds of that number likely to be civilians, including women and children. There are negotiations for a ceasefire going on—at least sporadically—but Dan Perry, former Associated Press bureau chief...

Sign up at angryplanetpod.com to get instant access to the full episode. A direct link to the episode on Substack. A successful TV adaptation of the Fallout video game franchise has everyone excited about the post-apocalypse again so we thought it was a good time to finally do a bonus episode we’ve been threatening for a long time. Cultural critic, journalist, and YouTuber Noah Caldwell-Gervais comes on this episode of Angry Planet to discuss all things Fallout. It’s a long episode, we dive...

Go here to listen to Face-Off Jane Perlez is a veteran foreign correspondent, the former Bejing Bureau Chief for The New York Times, and host of the new podcast “Face-Off.” She’s on Angry Planet today to talk to us about the show and her experiences reporting on China. “Face-Off” is all about America’s complicated relationship with China. Perlez says she started the show because she was tired of the hysterical conversations she hears about Beijing in Washington. In this episode we learn...

Violence thrives in countries where political solutions to conflict have failed. On this episode of Angry Planet, Jeffsky Poincy comes on the show to walk us through the origins of Haiti’s gang problems and lay out the complicated history that gave rise to them. Poincy, who is Haitian, is a program manager at PartnersGlobal, an NGO that helps foster democratic conflict resolution. Poincy’s perspective on the violence in Haiti is that it will require complicated and lengthy political...

Sign up at angryplanetpod.com to get instant access to the full episode. Recorded 4/4/24 The U.S. State Department has been working hard to get Americans out of Haiti. The island nation’s government is in shambles and gangs run much of the urban center of Port-au-Prince. Haitians have struggled for hundreds of years at the hands of gangs, brutal authoritarian dictators, and colonial rule. One of its biggest problems has always been its nearest Imperial neighbor: America. On this episode of...

Yemen has become a battlefield of technological firsts. The Houthis have turned the Red Sea into a proving ground for Iranian weapons, and Tehran is learning what works and what doesn’t. It’s become a place where the Khamenei and his crew can test new technologies and new strategies. It’s a win for Iran and a win for the Houthis in the short-term, but missiles on their own don’t win wars. On this bonus episode of Angry Planet, Fabian Hinz of the International Institute for Strategic Studies...

Defense contractors and governments can run a thousand simulations, but the data they get will never be as good as what’s generated on a battlefield. When Russia invaded Ukraine, tech companies saw an opportunity. A land war in Europe presented a unique chance to test cutting-edge technologies. That’s why, a few months after the 2022 invasion, Palantir CEO Alex Karp drove into the capital to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  TIME Senior Correspondent Vera Bergengruen is here...

Sign up at angryplanetpod.com to get instant access to the full episode. Writing, even fiction writing, about war provides a clear-eyed and honest view of conflict that the best movies and television shows can’t replicate. Civilians and soldiers on all sides of conflicts have always turned to poetry and prose to express feelings that are hard to articulate any other way.  On March 10, the literary magazine Guernica published a personal essay from British-Israeli writer Joannna Chen about the...

The U.S. is spending $2 trillion to overhaul its nuclear weapons. China is building ICBM silos in the desert. Russia has spent the last ten years talking about its fancy new nukes. After decades of drawdown, the world’s great powers are reversing course and rebuilding their nuclear arsenals. We have forgotten the power and terror of these weapons. W.J. Hennigan of The New York Times wants the world to remember.  On this episode of Angry Planet, Hennigan discusses the Time’s new series: At the...

It's easy to say the words "two-state solution" between Israel and the Palestinians, but as Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations explains, there are plenty of reasons why there hasn't been one so far. We also take another look at "moral" war in a tight space. What's the difference between collateral damage and a war crime? And has world opinion turned permanently against Israel?  We also talk to Steven about his upcoming book, The End of Ambition: American's Past, Present, and...

Since the middle of December, a U.S.-led coalition has been trading munitions with Houthis in Yemen. The day after Christmas, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower began participating in strikes against targets along the coast. It hasn’t left since and the conflict between a group of international allies and the Houthis has continued. On this episode of Angry Planet, former fighter pilot and current YouTuber Ward Carroll sits down to walk us through the ins and outs of Operation Prosperity Guardian. The...

One of the persistent themes of Angry Planet has been that smaller countries in the spheres of influence of great powers have far greater control over their destinies than it would appear. If the recent fighting in the Middle East has taught us anything, it’s that local partners have plans of their own and it’s impossible for a patron to have complete control over what happens on the ground. On this episode of Angry Planet, Barbara Elias of Bowdoin College comes on to make the case for...

Retired Colonel John Spencer, who is a combat veteran who now teaches at West Point, joins Matthew and Jason for a second time. This time we're not talking about how to carry out urban warfare, but we're looking at how you fight morally under impossible circumstances. John recently wrote a piece for Newsweek (Jason's day job), making the controversial case that the Israelis are doing more than any other modern military to limit civilian casualties. You can see if he's persuasive for...

Oil makes the world go ‘round, for now. But rare earth minerals such as lithium are increasingly in demand and, as a result, the source of conflict. With us on the show today is Reuters journalist Ernest Scheyder. His new book The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives explores the new resource war that’s sucking in community activists, titans of industry, and global superpowers. Scheyder’s work at Reuters The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to...

Joining your faithful Angry Planet crew this week are Rose Gottemoeller and Michael Ryan, both national security experts and both with a strong view that the war in Ukraine can still be won. And they'll even tell you how, if you listen to this week's show. You can read more of their thoughts in Foreign Policy: Ukraine Has a Pathway to Victory Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in...

Vice News reporter Any Hayward spent the better part of the last year in Russia reporting on the domestic situation there. His work has appeared in various segments on Vice’s website, but he’s got a new documentary coming out on the anniversary of fullscale invasion called Warped by War. Hayward is here to walk us through what he saw, who he talked to, and the unique dangers of reporting in Putin’s Russia as a foreign journalist. The Vice YouTube channel is here. Warped by War will be...

Welcome to the new year at Angry Planet. For the last 100 years, American defense policy has been aided by elaborate war games. SIGMA, the Cold War Game, and the Millenium Challenge are just some of the most famous. Sometimes these games are played with dice and boards, other times they’re purely electronic. Why do we do this, when did we start, and what does it all mean? More importantly, how do we make sure the board games don’t play us? Here to answer those questions is Director of the...

When President Dwight David Eisenhower left the stage as president of the United States in 1961, he warned of the military-industrial complex he was leaving behind. Sounds ominous, right? And that complex has had 60 years to harden in place since Eisenhower’s farewell address. But what is the military-industrial complex? Is it a war-mongering machine out to kill us all at a profit? Is it a bunch of old boys networking to sell $700 hammers to the Pentagon through no-bid deals? Was Eisenhower...

Forty years ago, a made for TV movie aired on ABC that changed the world. It was called The Day After, and it depicted life in Kansas and Missouri after a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. More than 100 million people watched it when it aired. One of them was president Ronald Reagan. “I ran the tape of the movie ABC is running on the air Nov. 20. It’s called “The Day After.” It has Lawrence Kansas wiped out in a nuclear war with Russia. It is powerfully done—all $7 mil. worth. It’s very...

Here’s an episode for anyone who thinks art can’t change the world. Tom Clancy topped the best seller charts for decades. He’s so popular that even his death couldn’t stop sales, and the flow of new products. Books, TV shows, movies, and video games all bear his name. But Clancy wasn’t just a popular author—he was also a geopolitical player. On the show this week is writer Matt Farwell, creator of the The Hunt For Tom Clancy substack. Farwell’s unique blend of memoir, history, and critique...

The war between Israel and Hamas shows no sign of slowing. More and more (just as was predicted on this show) sympathy for the Jewish State is drying up around the world amid horrific losses among Palestinian civilians, especially children. College campuses are flooded with students and faculty calling for the end of Israel itself. In this episode, we look into the origins of the conflict, as well as its causes, with Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign relations. Everyone's done that,...

This week on the show we talked with Canadian-Palestinian doctor Tarek Loubani about his work as an emergency room doctor in Gaza. Loubani helped pioneer the use of 3D printers in Gaza to produce low-cost medical equipment like stethoscopes. In 2018, he was shot in the legs by the IDF while delivering medical supplies. In this wide ranging conversation, he talks about the importance of low cost medical supplies, the 3D printing revolution, and what it’s like to work in a hospital under...