E45 – Operational War w/ John Warden

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In this episode, Mike interviews retired Air Force Colonel John Warden.

John is an Air Force pioneer who shaped how the modern world thinks about warfare—specifically the concepts of the operational level of war, parallel attack, and centers of gravity. He is most noted as the creator of Warden’s Five Rings and the architect of the Gulf War air campaign—but there’s much more than that.

We talked about how his thoughts were shaped in Vietnam and the 1980s, how he ended up in the Pentagon, and what series of events led to his framework being used to create Operation Desert Storm.

We applied the real lessons from Desert Storm to discuss China, why it’s a strategic threat, and the blind spot in US national security.

If you’re into history, strategy, warfare, military tactics,
and national security—this episode is for you.

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Show Notes

01:31 intro

03:31 Vietnam experience

05:56 Vietnam reshaped the Air Force

10:36 post-Vietnam thinking about the Middle East

13:56 command structure in the 1980s

16:14 Bitburg to Georgia to Italy

17:38 the 5 Rings - War College origins

18:13 missing the operational level of war

26:17 Warden's 5 rings

29:36 the other usefulness of the 5 rings

32:13 Checkmate

34:25 Checkmate, 5 Rings, and the Soviet Union

35:20 Fuel and the Fulda Gap

39:37 context for Desert Storm

42:44 Checkmate and Desert Storm

45:34 Checkmate gets into Desert Storm

48:26 the original 3-week plan

54:01 Not learning from Desert Storm?

57:24 today's challenges

58:29 China revelation #1

1:00:44 The Gulf War...on US soil

1:02:41 The US cyber vulnerability

1:06:52 China 2027 2035 2049

1:08:36 homeland defense blindspot

1:09:49 coastal defense

1:11:38 self-deterrence?

1:14:42 global reach global power

1:17:48 commitment to defense

1:18:51 outro

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