Episode 134 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast explores the rising risks of conflict over Taiwan and how the United States and its allies can strengthen deterrence against Beijing.

Our guests begin by assessing why deterrence is faltering globally, from the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and how those events inform Chinese perceptions of American resolve. They then discuss the stakes of a Taiwan contingency—economic, ideological, and strategic—highlighting the island’s critical role in global semiconductor supply chains and as a thriving democracy on China’s periphery. The conversation turns to the balance of forces across the Strait, Taiwan’s defense culture, and the full spectrum of Chinese coercive activity, from gray-zone operations to potential military invasion. Finally, our guests offer recommendations for how Taiwan, the United States, and partners like Japan, Australia, and Europe can bolster deterrence before conflict breaks out.

Matt Pottinger is a distinguished national security professional who served as U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor from 2019 to 2021. He is the editor of The Boiling Moat, a new volume analyzing deterrence and security dynamics across the Taiwan Strait.

Matt Turpin is a former U.S. National Security Council Director for China and a retired U.S. Army officer. He is currently a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, where his research focuses on U.S.-China relations and strategic competition.

Ben Jebb and Katherine Michaelson are the hosts for this episode. Please reach out to Ben and Katherine with any questions about this episode or the Irregular Warfare Podcast.

Episode 133 is the second installment in our two-part series exploring how the United States can leverage non-kinetic instruments of power to compete effectively without resorting to military force.

Building on our previous discussion, our guests examine America's strategic blind spots in treating economics and information as support tools rather than primary domains of competition. They discuss the integration challenges across U.S. government agencies, highlighting how autocratic adversaries coordinate their instruments of power more effectively while the U.S. struggles with inter-agency dysfunction. The conversation explores the military's evolving role in peacetime competition, with insights from Afghanistan on the challenges of integrating all elements of American power. Our guests introduce the concept of "resilient interdependence" as an organizing principle for the 21st century—unlike Cold War containment, this approach emphasizes strengthening connections with allies while hardening soft targets like supply chains and digital infrastructure. Finally, they identify critically underused economic tools including export credits, development finance, outbound investment controls, and industrial policy that could strengthen America's competitive position against strategic rivals.

Lieutenant General David W. Barno (Ret.) is a Professor of Practice at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. During his thirty-year Army career, he commanded at every level including nineteen months as the senior American commander in Afghanistan, where he was responsible for 20,000 U.S. and coalition forces and implemented a new counterinsurgency strategy. Following his military service, he served as Director of the Near East South Asia Center at National Defense University and held positions at the Center for a New American Security. He is the co-author of "Adaptation Under Fire: How Militaries Change in Wartime."

Dr. Rebecca Patterson is the Associate Director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University and Professor of the Practice of International Affairs. A retired U.S. Army officer with over 22 years of experience, she served in Thailand, Korea, Iraq, and Afghanistan. She previously served as Deputy Director in the Office of Peacekeeping Operations, Sanctions, and Counter-terrorism at the State Department. She is the author of "The Challenge of Nation-Building: Implementing Effective Innovation in the U.S. Army from World War II to the Iraq War" and the recently published "Winning Without Fighting."

Don Edwards and Jackie Giunta are the hosts for Episode 133. Please reach out to them with any questions about this episode or the Irregular Warfare Podcast.

Episode 132 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast explores how strategic culture shapes approaches to irregular warfare and competition in the gray zone. This is part one of a two-part series examining why nations conceptualize irregular warfare differently and how cultural biases affect competition below the threshold of armed conflict.

Our guests discuss why irregular warfare must be central to American grand strategy in an age of crisis and competition. Dr. Susan Bryant shares insights from her book "Winning Without Fighting," examining how American strategic culture - with its preference for binaries, belief that war is aberrant, and faith in technological solutions - creates disadvantages against adversaries operating in the gray zone. Drawing from their extensive operational and academic experience, both guests explore historical examples from Afghanistan, Iraq, and El Salvador to illustrate how cultural biases and quantification obsession undermine irregular warfare efforts.

Dr. Susan Bryant is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University. A retired Army Colonel with 28 years of service, she is co-author of "Winning Without Fighting" and currently serves as Executive Director of Strategic Education International.

Dr. Thomas X. Hammes is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at National Defense University. A retired Marine Corps Colonel with 30 years of service, he is the author of "The Sling and the Stone" and has extensive operational experience in insurgency and irregular warfare.

Don Edwards and Julia McClenon are the hosts for Episode 125. Please reach out to them with any questions about this episode or the Irregular Warfare Podcast.

Episode 132 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast explores how strategic culture shapes approaches to irregular warfare and competition in the gray zone. This is part one of a two-part series examining why nations conceptualize irregular warfare differently and how cultural biases affect competition below the threshold of armed conflict.

Our guests discuss why irregular warfare must be central to American grand strategy in an age of crisis and competition. Dr. Susan Bryant shares insights from her book "Winning Without Fighting," examining how American strategic culture - with its preference for binaries, belief that war is aberrant, and faith in technological solutions - creates disadvantages against adversaries operating in the gray zone. Drawing from their extensive operational and academic experience, both guests explore historical examples from Afghanistan, Iraq, and El Salvador to illustrate how cultural biases and quantification obsession undermine irregular warfare efforts.

Dr. Susan Bryant is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University. A retired Army Colonel with 28 years of service, she is co-author of "Winning Without Fighting" and currently serves as Executive Director of Strategic Education International.

Dr. Thomas X. Hammes is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at National Defense University. A retired Marine Corps Colonel with 30 years of service, he is the author of "The Sling and the Stone" and has extensive operational experience in insurgency and irregular warfare.

Don Edwards and Julia McClenon are the hosts for Episode 125. Please reach out to them with any questions about this episode or the Irregular Warfare Podcast.

Episode 130 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast takes listeners inside Operation Spider’s Web—Ukraine’s bold campaign of long-range drone strikes targeting Russian military and industrial infrastructure.

Our guests begin by examining why Ukrainian defense planners opted for this unprecedented strike operation and how it was designed to disrupt Russian strategic depth. They then unpack the technical, operational, and strategic considerations that enabled the operation, including the role of commercial drones, asymmetric targeting, and irregular doctrine. The episode concludes with reflections on how Spider’s Web is reshaping our understanding of deep operations and irregular warfare in the 21st century.

Brigadier General Kip Kahler is the former Senior Defense Official and Defense Attaché to Ukraine, with over two decades of national service in strategic roles across the interagency and foreign militaries.

COL Brian Petit is a retired SF Army officer who teaches and consults on strategy, planning, special operations, and resistance. He is an adjunct for the Joint Special Operations University.

Kateryna Bondar is a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a former advisor to the Ukrainian government, where she led reforms in defense and innovation. Her article, entitled How Ukraine’s Operation “Spider’s Web” Redefines Asymmetric Warfare, serves as the anchor for episode 130.

Episode 129 examines how Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) is recalibrating for great-power competition while still answering today’s crisis-response and counter-VEO demands. Lieutenant General Michael E. Conley and Dr Kerry Chávez join the Irregular Warfare Podcast to unpack strategy, technology, and talent development at the sharp edge of irregular warfare.

Our guests begin by outlining AFSOC’s new strategic guidance—“Raise Air Commandos, Win Tonight’s Fight, and Sustain Relevance through Adaptation”—and describe how it builds on earlier reforms to balance crisis-response duties with preparation for peer competition. They then explore the “democratized skies” created by low-cost uncrewed aircraft systems, discussing implications for pallet-dropped drone swarms, counter-UAS, and agile acquisition. Finally, the conversation turns to force design and human capital, offering insights on cultivating Air Commandos who can integrate AI-enabled decision aids and out-cycle adversaries inside the OODA loop.

Lieutenant General Michael E. Conley is the Commander of Air Force Special Operations Command. A career special-operations aviator with more than 2,400 flight hours in the UH-1, MH-53, and CV-22, he has commanded at the squadron, wing, and combined-joint task-force levels and previously served as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His assignments have ranged from rescuing hostages to leading space-component forces, and his decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal and Bronze Star. As AFSOC’s chief, he oversees 20,800 Air Commandos and a $17 billion portfolio and champions “relevance through adaptation” to integrate SOF agility with Air Force mass.

Dr Kerry Chávez is an assistant professor in the Military & Strategic Studies Department at the U.S. Air Force Academy and an advisor to IWI’s Project Air & Space Power. She is also a two-time nonresident research fellow with the Modern War Institute at West Point and a fellow with the Institute for Global Affairs. Her work blends political science and data science to analyze emerging military technologies; she curates the MONSTr dataset on U.S. operations with novel capabilities and a pioneering global database of non-state-actor drone adoption. Dr Chávez regularly briefs DoD and industry leaders on counter-UAS strategy, synthetic data methods, and technology governance.

Episode 128 marks a special milestone as the Irregular Warfare Podcast celebrates its five-year anniversary. Our guests reflect on the journey from a simple podcast idea in a graduate school classroom to a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with over 70 volunteers worldwide. They share the origin story of IWI, trace its evolution from podcast to comprehensive platform including written content and fellowship programs, and discuss the strategic vision for the next five years—including new initiatives like a peer-reviewed journal and expanded efforts to reach broader audiences across the interagency and international community.

Kyle Atwell is an IWI Co-founder and current Chairman of the Board. An active-duty Army officer and Atlantic Council Senior Fellow, he holds a PhD from Princeton University and previously served as an Assistant Professor at West Point. Kyle co-founded the Irregular Warfare Initiative while in graduate school, recognizing the need to make academic insights accessible to practitioners in the field.

Shawna Sinnott is an IWI Co-founder and Chair of the Board of Advisors. She is an active-duty Marine Corps Major with operational deployments across the Middle East, West Asia, and Africa. Shawna holds a PhD in Political Science from Stanford University and previously served as IWI's Executive Director from 2020-2022.

Guido Torres is IWI's Executive Director and a Harvard National Security Fellow alumnus. A U.S. Army veteran with extensive experience in Latin America and special operations, he also serves as an Atlantic Council Senior Fellow. Guido's journey with IWI began as an avid listener of the podcast before joining as a volunteer and ultimately assuming executive leadership of the organization.

The Irregular Warfare Podcast is always seeking motivated prospective hosts. If you're a military officer on an educational sabbatical, contact us and get involved.