Irregular Warfare Podcast

Steven Schwartz, former U.S. Ambassador to Somalia with deep African conflict experience, and Tricia Bacon, scholar of foreign fighters and author of The Counterinsurgency Dilemma, discuss when small numbers of outsiders amplify or undermine insurgencies. They explore combat skills and funding outsiders bring, the cultural and legitimacy costs, al-Shabaab’s local evolution, and using foreigner presence as a diagnostic of insurgent strength.

Mark Grdovic, retired Army officer and writer on SOF partnerships with Kurdish forces. Lieutenant General (Ret.) Ken Tovo, former commander of U.S. Army Special Operations Command. They discuss unconventional warfare as support to resistance, when and where it complements or substitutes conventional forces, lessons from partnering with the Peshmerga in 2003, risks of misaligned partners, and how to sell UW to commanders.

Lieutenant General (ret.) Mike Nagata, a 38‑year special operations leader; Eric Robinson, RAND analyst studying SOF and strategic disruption; Dr. Chris Tripodi, King's College scholar of irregular warfare concepts. They debate three rival ways to define irregular warfare. Short, sharp scenes cover strategic disruption, doctrine drift, operational costs, interagency incentives, and whether disruption should be proactive or reactive.

Daleep Singh, former deputy national security advisor who coordinated economic tools; Jack Lew, former U.S. Treasury Secretary experienced in sanctions design; Eddie Fishman, author and scholar of geoeconomics. They discuss dollar dominance, how sanctions and export controls are crafted, hidden global chokepoints in finance and tech, and the risks of overusing economic tools in great power competition.

General Stephen N. Whiting, Commander of United States Space Command, leads joint space operations and defends U.S. interests in orbit. He discusses how space underpins modern military capabilities, the SOF–space–cyber triad, on-orbit maneuvering and logistics, commercial integration with defense, and how China’s space outreach reshapes global competition.

Episode 150 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast examines the historical and strategic forces that shaped modern Iran and explores how the Islamic Republic uses irregular warfare to advance its interests in the Middle East. Our guests begin by examining the political foundations of modern Iranian politics, tracing the country’s trajectory from the rule of the Shah and the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh to the revolutionary upheaval of 1979. They then explore why the Islamic Republic turned to irregular warfare—particularly the use of proxy groups and militant networks—as a core component of its foreign policy and regional strategy. Finally, our guests assess how Iran’s proxy network evolved over time, why it proved effective for decades, and what recent conflicts may reveal about the future of Iran’s regional influence and internal political stability. Dr. Arman Mahmoudian is a research fellow at the Global and National Security Institute and an adjunct faculty member whose work focuses on Middle Eastern and Russian affairs. His research and commentary have appeared in outlets including Foreign Policy, The National Interest, and the Atlantic Council, and he frequently provides expert analysis for international media. Behnam Ben Taleblu is senior director of the Iran Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he specializes in Iranian security and political issues including nuclear proliferation, missile development, sanctions, and the Islamic Republic’s regional proxy network. Ben Jebb and Alex Chinchilla are the hosts for this episode. Please reach out to Ben and Alex with any questions about this episode or the Irregular Warfare Podcast.

General Joseph Votel, retired four-star and CENTCOM commander, brings practitioner perspective. Chris Blair, Princeton politics professor and researcher of militant alliances, explains the comparative-advantage framework. They discuss why militant groups form alliances, how al-Qaeda and ISIS traded ideology and operations differently, and how alliance content can reveal vulnerabilities and guide disruption strategies.

Dr. Alexander Miller, Army Chief Technology Officer bridging Army, industry, and acquisition. Dr. Seth G. Jones, defense strategy expert and author focused on the industrial base. They discuss how industrial capacity shapes long wars. They compare fast procurement cultures, historic mobilization lessons, commercial scale versus China's production, and reforms to speed acquisition, signal demand, and rebuild surge capacity.

Lieutenant Colonel (Dr.) Matthew Kuhlman, U.S. Army officer and scholar; General (ret.) Wayne Eyre, former Canadian Chief of the Defence Staff; Noel Anderson, political scientist on competitive intervention. They discuss types and frequency of external military aid. They examine how outside support shapes civil war duration, escalation dynamics, proxy strategies, and the rising role of nonstate and regional actors.

Colin Freeman, British journalist who reported from conflict zones and wrote about Ukraine’s foreign volunteers. Dr. David Malet, scholar of foreign fighter recruitment and transnational conflict. They trace a long history of foreign fighters, explore varied motivations from mercenary pay to ideological calling, compare recruitment tactics across theaters, and debate the mixed battlefield effects and policy implications.