Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast
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.
Substack: Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast
Smedley D. Butler Fellow for Military Affairs at the Libertarian Institute
Chasing Ghosts Podcast on YouTube
I am an Amazon Affiliate.
You can contact me at [email protected]
- Update frequency
- every 13 days
- Average duration
- 50 minutes
- Episodes
- 70
- Years Active
- 2022 - 2025
Ep 050 "Storming America: TTP to Make you Free (Part II)"
My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what the spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland.
I cover it further in Episodes 37…
Ep 049 "Storming America: TTP to Make you Free (Part I)"
My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what the spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland.
I cover it further in Episodes 37…
Ep 048 "CG Excursion: Peer Strike ISR Complex: The Need for Rational Fires Coordination"
***Apologies; this episode appears to have some technical issues that I will address on return to my home studio; I am on the road right now.***
Fires synchronization is the effective coordination of …
Ep 047 "Nagorno-Karabakh: A Dark and Robotic Future"
I discuss the Fall 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the tiny sliver of Nagorno-Karabakh and why I would suggest that it was a glimpse into the future of warfare for the remainder of this ce…
Ep 046 "Review and Discussion: My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness by Howard Jones"
I discuss the slaughter of over 500 unarmed men, women and children in My Lai in March 1968 by American soldiers.
In concert with the Tet Offensive in 1968, this was the end of American arms in Vietna…
Ep 045 "CG Excursion Praxis: Rational Concepts of Operations (CONOPS) (Part Two)"
I continue a rather technical treatment of developing and using Concepts of Operations (CONOPS).
This episode examines the finer points of getting baselines and expectations right for small and large …
Ep 044 "CG Excursion Praxis: Rational Concepts of Operations (CONOPS) (Part One)"
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 s…
Ep 043 "Storming America: The Aftermath"
My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what the spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland.
I cover it further in Episodes 37…
Ep 042 "Storming America: War Comes Home"
My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what the spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland.
I cover it further in Episodes 37…
Ep 041 "Storming America: Intelligence Failure is Now and Forever"
My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what the spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland.
I cover it further in Episodes 37…
Ep 040 "The Middle East: Shuffling to the Apocalypse (Part Two)""
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 CONU…
Ep 039 "CG Excursion: Stoicism: Who Dares Leads"
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 pra…
Ep 038 "Moral Injury: The Invisible Warrior Marks"
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 a…
Ep 037 "Storming America: Another War Will Come Home"
My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what the spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland.
I cover it further in Episodes 41…
Ep 036 "Drunk on Direct Action: The Destruction of Army Special Forces in the GWOT"
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-permis…
Ep 035 "Review and Discussion: Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War by Douglas Porch"
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…
Ep 034 "CG Excursions: Deep Six the Carrier Force: Naval Power in the 21st Century"
Excursions is a new addition to the CG universe to cover adjacent conflict issues to the irregular warfare fight.
***
In the future near-peer and peer fight, salvo competition will be the preeminent me…
Ep 033 "CG Excursions: Salvo Competition and the Big Fight"
Excursions will be a new addition to the CG universe to cover adjacent conflict issues to the irregular warfare fight.
In the future near-peer and peer fight, salvo competition will be the preeminent …
Ep 032 "US Military Special Operations Forces Can't Do UW (Part Two)"
The emerging anti-fragile forces of indigenous irregular warfare forces in concert or independent of near-peer and peer competitors challenging US and western global hegemony are on the march and wil…
Ep 031 "US Military Special Operations Forces Can't Do UW (Part One)"
In this episode, I will be a heretic to the current military establishment in America and the west. They can't do unconventional warfare and I must be very specific in the conditional problem I propo…