Shows / School of War
School of War
In School of War, CBS News National Security Analyst and Free Press columnist Aaron MacLean sits down with secretaries of state, top military historians, war planners, and key political decision-makers to help understand the lessons of war. Tune in as School of War takes you to the front lines. Aaron MacLean is a former senior fellow at Hudson Institute. He has worked as a foreign policy advisor and legislative director to Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and spent seven years in the U.S. Marine…
Episodes
- School of War
Israel’s Fight in the North
Reporting from northern Israel, Aaron sits down with two unidentified Israeli army officers and Druze community leader Tamir Murad to explore the threats…
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Why Another Iran Strike Looks Inevitable
Will Iran cost Republicans the midterms? What happens when half of the GOP turns against Israel? Middle East expert Mike Doran returns to School of War for a…
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What Israel’s Election Is Really About, with Haviv Rettig Gur
“It feels like an election where the nature of the country, the future of this foundational ethos of solidarity, is at stake,” says Haviv Rettig Gur. The Free…
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Sweden’s Secret Army
Sweden joined NATO in 2024. What took them so long? Historian Johan Wennström, author of The Stay Behinds: Sweden’s Cold War Guardians, joins Aaron MacLean to…
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Can Ukraine Win Without America?
Russia is losing ground in eastern Ukraine and suffering mounting casualties. So why is the White House handing Vladimir Putin a lifeline? Retired Australian…
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The Making of Xi Jinping
During the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Communist Party purged Xi Jinping’s father and subjected him to 16 years of persecution and imprisonment—so how did…
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When, Not If: The Baltics Prepare for War
In the Baltics, war with Russia is no abstraction. Putin could take Lithuania’s capital if he achieved surprise, the nation’s army commander told Aaron…
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Rebuilding America’s War Machine
America is running low on munitions, its shipyards can’t keep pace, and the materials its weapons depend on too often run through China. Michael Cadenazzi is…
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What Happened Inside Russia’s Plague Lab?
A young researcher in Siberia has died under mysterious circumstances, raising questions about a potential lab leak. Russia won’t say how it happened. Marshall…
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Michael Oren: October 7 and the Cost of Defending Israel
Three years after October 7, the deadliest terror attack in Israeli history looms large over the Jewish state’s upcoming election. Former Israeli ambassador to…
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What the Dutch Empire Reveals About America Today
How do you fight a superpower you can’t afford to stop trading with? The Dutch faced that problem at the start of the 17th century in their war against Spain…
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How the Middle East Got So Screwed Up, with Simon Sebag Montefiore
“Let’s whisper it,” said historian Simon Sebag Montefiore. “The Trump blockade is working.” It can be hard to parse the state of play in the Middle East amid…
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America’s Aging Shipyards Are a Crisis Waiting to Happen
If America wants to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty, it needs to build more warships. China currently dominates global shipbuilding—producing vessels at a scale…
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The Middle East After America?
Could Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey form a “Muslim NATO?” Pakistan has the nuclear arsenal, Saudi Arabia has the wealth, and Turkey has the NATO-trained…
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Why John Boyd Still Matters
John Boyd was one of the most influential military thinkers of the 20th century, and the intellectual godfather of the U.S. Marines’ military strategy. Today…
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What War Teaches Us—If We Survive It
People think retired Army Major John Spencer lost part of his ear in combat. He didn’t; he lost it in a fight behind a bar that cost him his spot in the Army…
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‘We Are Going to War’: H.R. McMaster Remembers 9/11
Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster was on the phone with the Pentagon when the plane struck the building on September 11, 2001. “I thought, Okay, we are going to…
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Ten-Minute Warning: The Hypersonic Threat
A Chinese hypersonic missile targeting either U.S. coast would leave room for “about 10 minutes of warning time.” Zachary Krevor, CEO of Stratolaunch, is…
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What to Expect When You’re Expecting Great Power Conflict
When it comes to world superpowers, Cambridge historian Brendan Simms argues there are only four that matter—and two of them are fading. Today, Simms joins…
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Shot Down over Serbia: General Goldfein’s Incredible Story
The story of Air Force General David Goldfein, who miraculously survived after his plane was shot down over Serbia in 1999, has since become military legend…
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Our Foreign Policy Divide Began with the Korean War
More than 75 years after the Korean War, its lessons endure—and divisions over isolationism and American power continue to shape the discourse around modern…
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Inside America’s Fight for Drone Dominance
The U.S. military needs more drones, and it needs to build them without Chinese parts. Today, Defense Innovation Unit Deputy Director Travis Metz joins School…
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When Terrorists Become the Heroes to Young Americans
In prerevolutionary Russia, it was not uncommon for children to dream of becoming terrorists when they grew up. “It was a respected profession,” says…
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Senator McCormick Thinks That America’s Military Is Stuck in the Past
Pennsylvania senator Dave McCormick, a West Point graduate, Desert Storm veteran, and former CEO of Bridgewater Associates, is concerned about America’s wealth…
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Tanks vs. Drones
Is the tank obsolete? As drones and precision strikes transform modern battlefields, some have predicted that armored vehicles may soon meet the fate of the…
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Boris Johnson on Why Europe and America Still Need Each Other
As war in Ukraine grinds towards its fifth year and tensions strain the transatlantic alliance, former British prime minister Boris Johnson says he remains…
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Ted Cruz’s Plan to Bring Down Iran’s Regime—and Tucker Carlson
As the American right and left are increasingly pulled toward their ideological extremes, many politicians have chosen to appease the loudest voices in their…
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Ukraine’s Top Drone Commander on What the Pentagon Keeps Missing
Yuri Fedorenko has spent four years turning a volunteer rifle company into the 429th “Achilles” Brigade, one of the most lethal units in Ukraine’s Defense…
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What It’s Really Like Inside Ukraine in 2026, with Aidan Stretch
For months, it was conventional wisdom among large swaths of the American right that Ukraine would inevitably have to cede its Donbas region to Russia to end…
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The Dangerous Pause in Iran, with Mark Montgomery
Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a retired U.S. Navy rear…
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The Rise of the Navy SEALs, with Ben Milligan
Ben Milligan, a former U.S. Navy SEAL, Bronze Star recipient, and author of By Water Beneath the Walls: The Rise of the Navy SEALs, joins School of War to…
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How Trump Decided to Go to War with Iran, with Jonathan Swan
Jonathan Swan, a White House reporter for The New York Times, joins School of War to discuss the reporting behind his new book, Regime Change: Inside the…
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‘The Odyssey’ and the Search for Historical Truth, with James Diggle and John Underhill
James Diggle, emeritus professor of Greek and Latin at Cambridge University, and John Underhill, professor of geoscience and energy transition at the…
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America’s Iran Problem Isn’t Going Away, with Mike Doran
Mike Doran, senior fellow and director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at the Hudson Institute, returns to School of War to examine why…
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Lindsey Graham: The Last of the ‘Three Amigos’ with Vance Serchuk
Vance Serchuk, executive director and Partner at the KKR Global Institute, and former senior national security adviser to Senator Joe Lieberman, was uniquely…
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How Choke Points Became Weapons of War, with Edward Fishman
Edward Fishman, senior fellow and director of the Greenberg Center for Geoeconomics at the Council on Foreign Relations, joins School of War to discuss his New…
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Four Years Fighting Russia: An American Soldier’s Testimony
David, a U.S. military veteran who has been fighting voluntarily alongside Ukrainian forces, joins School of War to discuss how four years on the front lines…
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The American Revolution Was a World War, with Richard Bell
Richard Bell, historian, professor at the University of Maryland, and author of The American Revolution and the Fate of the World, joins School of War to…
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One Battle of Hormuz After Another, with Sal Mercogliano
Sal Mercogliano, professor of history at Campbell University and host of the What’s Going on with Shipping YouTube channel, joins the show once again to…
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Why Chimpanzees Go to War, with John Mitani
Dr. John Mitani, professor emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan and recipient of the Charles R. Darwin Lifetime Achievement…
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From Teenage Soldier to Commander in Ukraine, with Mamuka Mamulashvili
Earlier this year, Aaron MacLean visited Ukraine, where he met with Georgian Legion commander Mamuka Mamulashvili. What happens when a boy goes to war at 14…
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Can Courage Save America? With Rye Barcott
Rye Barcott, co-founder and CEO of With Honor, veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, and author of Courage Can Save Us, joins School of War to discuss the meaning…
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Reading Trump’s Iran Deal So You Don’t Have To, with Mark Dubowitz
Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, returns to School of War to discuss the newly released memorandum of understanding between the…
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Auditing the Iran War, with Eliot Cohen
Eliot Cohen, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced…
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The Start-Up Spirit Behind America's Founding, with Arthur Herman
Arthur Herman, senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Founder’s Fire: From 1776 to the Age of…
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Why a Weakened Iran Remains Dangerous, with Behnam Ben Taleblu
Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ (FDD) Iran Program and a senior fellow specializing in Iranian security and…
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The AI Arms Race: Can Our Intel Community Keep Up? With Anthony Vinci
Anthony Vinci—co-founder and CEO of Vico, an AI company that empowers judgment and analysis in finance and national security, and author of The Fourth…
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The Iran War and a New World Order in Asia, with Rep. Michael Baumgartner
Rep. Michael Baumgartner, who represents Washington’s 5th Congressional District, joins the show from Singapore at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue. What was the…
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The Secret Mission to Save Europe’s Jews, with Matti Friedman
Matti Friedman is an award-winning journalist and columnist at The Free Press. He joins the show to discuss his latest book, Out of the Sky: Heroism and…
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The Democratic Party’s Worldview, with Jake Sullivan
Jake Sullivan, former U.S. national security adviser under President Joe Biden, Kissinger professor of the practice of statecraft and world order at the…
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Niall Ferguson on Cold War II and the Rise of Anti-History
Sir Niall Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and columnist at The Free Press, joins the show in front of a live audience to…
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Grading Operation Epic Fury, with Christian Brose
Christian Brose, president and chief strategy officer of Anduril Industries and author of The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare…
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The New Middle Eastern Balance of Power, with Elliott Abrams
Elliott Abrams, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and chairman of the Vandenberg Coalition and the Tikvah Fund…
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China’s War on Faith and Trump’s Trip to Beijing, with Governor Sam Brownback
Sam Brownback, former Kansas senator and governor, co-chair of the International Religious Freedom Summit, and author of China’s War on Faith, joins School of…
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Trump Heads to China: Who Has the Upper Hand? With Dan Blumenthal
Dan Blumenthal, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, joins the show to discuss the president’s upcoming summit in Beijing with President Xi…
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America’s Coming Population Crash—and China’s, with Nicholas Eberstadt
Nicholas Eberstadt, the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute, joins School of War to discuss global population decline…
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Is Trump Forcing the Strait of Hormuz Open? With Rich Goldberg and Garrett Exner
Rich Goldberg, senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Garrett Exner, adjunct fellow at Hudson Institute, return to School of War to…
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NORAD and Protecting America From Nuclear Attack, With Lance Blythe
Lance R. Blyth, command historian of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), joins School of War…
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The Attempt on Trump’s Life and Political Violence in America, with Douglas Murray
Douglas Murray, journalist and author of On Democracies and Death Cults, joins School of War to discuss the assassination attempt that we both witnessed in…
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How the British Army Learned to Win, with Huw Davies
Huw Davies, an associate dean and professor of British military history at King’s College London and author of several books, including The Wandering Army…