Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast

Jun 03 2024 325

Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast artwork

An unauthorized podcast series peeking behind the curtain at the vast machinery and briar patch politics of fighting terrorism and insurgency and everything in between. I'm a "COINtra" and not a "COINdinista", the latter are the vast army of apparatchiks and apologists who fire the engines of Irregular Warfare (IW) planet-wide. We're the skeptics and doubters of all things IW and special operations. And we are a tiny sliver of the IW community. I have noticed a jarring gap in this part of the discussion and intend on filling the breach.I am NOT Special Forces (SF) nor Ranger tabbed nor a graduate of the SF Qualification Course. I was an 18E candidate in A/3-12 SFG(A) who received an active duty US Army commission (OCS) in lieu of attendance of the SF qualification training pipeline as an US Army NCO.Substack: Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast Smedley D. Butler Fellow for Military Affairs at the Libertarian Institute:I am an Amazon Affiliate.You can contact me at [email protected].

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Ep 044 "CG Excursion Praxis: Rational Concepts of Operations (CONOPS) (Part One)"

Jun 03 2024 59 mins

I discuss a rather technical treatment of developing and using Concepts of Operations (CONOPS).This episode examines the timeless and tedious process of getting baselines and expectations right for small and large projects alike.References:Special Forces Detachment Mission Planning Guide GTA 31-01-003 January 2020DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE STANDARD PRACTICE WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURES FOR

Ep 043 "Storming America: The Aftermath"

May 27 2024 57 mins

I discuss the outcome of the probable jihadist invasion of America. America is in a unique position in history in which it has facilitated the unfettered invasion of its borders and a large swath of military age males have been granted asylum or gone undetected to link up with legacy underground Islamist and terrorist groups across the country.This episodes examines the smoking rui

Ep 042 "Storming America: War Comes Home"

May 13 2024 58 mins

In this episode I discuss what the attack looks like in America.This is not if, this is when.The country is poised to experience this through a combination of neglect and the sheer hubris of meddling in the world without realize the unintended consequences.I wish I had better news but you have been warned, it's on the horizon.I talk about William Forstchen's "Day of Wrath" and Kurt

Ep 041 "Storming America: Intelligence Failure is Now and Forever"

Apr 29 2024 84 mins

This is a continuation of my "Storming America Series" where I will tease out and describe why the inevitable internal attack on America by external forces will be made real.In this episode, I will examine what intelligence looks like from a professional perspective and why America and the West consistently engage in existential chaos avalanches that make the world a worse place.Th

Ep 040 "The Middle East: Shuffling to the Apocalypse (Part Two)""

Apr 15 2024 55 mins

This episode will be an addendum to my initial coverage in October 2023 of the Gaza-Israel conflict in Episode 027 and riffing off the domestic implications in Episode 037 of a similar attack on CONUS. If you wish to listen to those before you do this one, you may but I have crafted this so that isn’t necessary.The clock is closer to midnight than it was in October 2023.Reference

Ep 039 "CG Excursion: Stoicism: Who Dares Leads"

Apr 01 2024 31 mins

I am reusing a previous episode I used in the now moribund Stoicism podcast I started, The Dash, which I ran out of steam on.Applying Stoic values and discipline to the vocation and avocations we practice in life may be the hardest part outside of making a Stoic life a lived lifestyle. I find the management industry is a giant cargo cult that publishes books whose pages number in t

Ep 038 "Moral Injury: The Invisible Warrior Marks"

Mar 18 2024 26 mins

The concept of moral injuries for soldiers and non-soldiers alike, the gift of fear and being a dead man walking and how to handle regret and shame.“As beasts are beneath human restraints, gods are above them... It would be foolish and untruthful to deny the appeal of exalted, godlike intoxication....We have seen the paradox that these godlike exalted moments often correspond to

Ep 037 "Storming America: Another War Will Come Home"

Mar 04 2024 73 mins

The hybrid and gray zone fight will come to America in the next war. Once the declining American colossus shuffles into the next near-peer and peer conflict, the 21st century will see the continental US come under a unified attack by external forces for the first time since the War of 1812 and the Mexican border issues in 1916. How the 9/11/2001 events have not been replicated is a

Ep 036 "Drunk on Direct Action: The Destruction of Army Special Forces in the GWOT"

Feb 19 2024 44 mins

The direct action concentration of US Army Special Forces (SF) in the conduct of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan at the expense of the specialized and storied legend of what SF could do in non-permissive environments raising partisan forces behind enemy lines. The Army SF concentrated on perfecting a craft that numerous other combat organizations like the USMC 0311, .Army 11Bs and

Ep 035 "Review and Discussion: Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War by Douglas Porch"

Feb 05 2024 46 mins

Everyone and everything has an origin story, while I had a sneaking suspicion early on in my modest career in special operations and irregular warfare (IW) that something was fundamentally wrong with the western way of war in these endeavors, it was Douglas Porch who probably set my course straight. In this book, he makes a compelling historical and logical case for why the IW effo