Radio War Nerd

Guest: Eric (Amerikanets) Recorded: August 13, 2026 We talk to the man behind the "debasification" neologism, "Amerikanets", about missiles v missile defense, what the US military-intelligence world knew about how badly the Iran war would go & when they knew it, and about having your neologism rippe

Recorded: August 3, 2026 The War Nerd calls in from Kuala Lumpur on his ongoing odyssey to Auckland. We discuss Iran & Ukraine wars plus some ancient history of wars on Persians that went very badly. John's new essay collection, To The Crows, is now for sale! We'll be making the ebook version availa

Guest: Sina Toosi Recorded: July 30, 2026 Sina Toosi joins RWN to discuss evolving IRI policy on the war and the long history of US policy failures towards Iran. Check out Sina's newsletter Dissident Foreign Policy. Follow Sina on Twitter. Further reading: -"America’s Iran Failure Is Bigger Than Tru

Guest: Maryam Jamshidi Recorded: June 3, 2026 As soon as the US lost its war with Iran -- and lost effective control over the vital Strait of Hormuz to the IRI -- Washington and its allies started pontificating about international law and the right of "transit passage" for all shipping. Iran however

Guest: Hamidreza Azizi Recorded: April 28, 2026 We talk to Iran expert Hamidreza Azizi about the IRI's evolving relations with Russia and its allies, how the IRI has evolved in wartime, and how it's informed the Six Week War and the "ceasefire". To read Hamid's work: -Subscribe to his newsletter Ira

Guest: Aamer Recorded: April 21, 2026 During the US-Israel war on Iran, Kuwait got hit harder than the other GCC countries aside from the UAE. In the aftermath, Kuwait is stripping citizenship from 20% of its citizens. We talk to Aamer about the history, politics and economics of Kuwait's reaction t

Guest: Sabrina, security & conflict analyst Recorded: April 9, 2026 We talk to Pakistani analyst Sabrina about Pakistan's relations with Iran and its role as mediator, Pakistan's recent war with the Taliban in Afghanistan, its conflict last year with India, Trump's favorite field marshal, shitpostin

Recorded: April 7, 2026 We discuss Trump's threat to exterminate Iran, the politics of a decaying empire & grim futures Total time: 52:19 Direct link to this episode's mp3 here * Buy & review John Dolan's new book, They Should Have Been Hanged: War Nerd Essays on the U.S. Civil War Subscribe to Radi

Guest: Aamer Originally recorded: March 18, 2026 We're reposting unlocked our discussion with Aamer on Bahrain, how the widely despised royal family is managing the US-Israel-Iran "situation", the videos of Bahrainis cheering on the Iranian missiles hitting US bases, Bahrain's relations with other G

Guest: Aamer Recorded: March 18, 2026 Aamer returns to discuss how Bahrain is managing the US-Israel-Iran "situation", the early videos of Bahrainis cheering on the Iranian missiles hitting US bases, the loathed ruling family, Bahrain's relations with other GCC states, and more. Further listening wi

Recorded: March 1, 2026 Sunday morning. The War Nerd and Ames discuss day 2 of the US-Israeli empire's latest murder rampage on Iran. Total time: 51:08 Direct link to this episode's mp3 here * Buy & review John Dolan's new book, They Should Have Been Hanged: War Nerd Essays on the U.S. Civil War Sub

Guest: Navid Zarinnal Originally recorded: January 21, 2026 We're reposting unlocked our interview with Iranian-American researcher Navid Zarinnal in Tehran about Iran's protests, US imperialism, who supports & opposes the IRI government, and life inside Iran compared to how it's portrayed in the we

Recorded: February 25, 2026 Grapes, SOTU, crumbling Democrats, collapsing Labour, Huckaburger, Iran War... *Maps -Strait of Hormuz -Neocon FDD map to collapse Iran's economy Total time: 1:22:56 Direct link to this episode's mp3 here * Buy & review John Dolan's new book, They Should Have Been Hanged:

Recorded: February 3, 2026 We discuss Bass Pro shops, Trump's imperial armada over Iran, the grim fate of Syria's Kurds and the SDF project, Russian missiles destroying Ukrainian energy infrastructure... Total time: 1:02:00 Direct link to this episode's mp3 here * Buy & review John Dolan's new book,

Guest: Navid Zarinnal Recorded: January 21, 2026 We talk to Iranian-American researcher Navid Zarinnal in Tehran about Iran's protests, US imperialism, who supports & opposes the IRI government, and life inside Iran compared to how it's portrayed in the western media. Subscribe to Navid's podcast Th

Recorded: January 17, 2026 We discuss the timeline of Iran's protests that broke out on December 28th, why the Mossad and US openly boasted of their role, and the Empire's grim plans for a shattered Iran. Images *Mossad account, December 29, 2025 *More Israeli boasting *Iran displays some of the ten

Guest: Mohsen Milani Recorded: September 15, 2025 Here's part 2 of our talk with Mohsen Milani about the Islamic Republic of Iran's evolving geopolitical strategy. In this episode, we discuss Iran's varied relationships with the Axis of Resistance: Hezbollah, Houthis, Hamas, PIJ, Iraqi militias, and

Guest: Mohsen Milani Recorded: September 15, 2025 We talk to Iran scholar Mohsen Milani about his book Iran's Rise and Rivalry with the US in the Middle East. In part 1 of our 2-part interview, we begin at the beginning with the Achaemenid Empire, and take it up through Iran's 1979 Revolution and th

Recorded: July 9, 2025 The War Nerd and Ames discuss raccoon violence, Gaza genocide's Anglo-American profiteers, Yahweh's mixed messages, Iran's refugee expulsions, Ukraine war latest... Music interlude by Brendon Anderegg. Check out music from his group Mountains here Total time: 1:16:08 Direct li

Guest: Ori Goldberg Originally recorded: June 26, 2025 We're reposting unlocked & free our interview with Israeli scholar and Iran expert Ori Goldberg on Israel's cult of assassinations, the war on Iran, the genocide in Gaza, and sanity... Read Ori's latest articles here and here. Follow Ori on Twit

Guest: Ori Goldberg Recorded: June 26, 2025 We talk to Israeli writer and Iran expert Ori Goldberg about Israel's war on Iran, the genocide in Gaza, the logic of Jewish supremacism, and the descent into zombification. Read Ori's latest articles here and here. Follow Ori on Twitter. Total time: 54:29

Recorded: June 23, 2025 Another emergency ep, reviewing Trump's bombing raid on Iran. (Recorded a couple of hours before Trump's most recent 180, from "regime-change" to "ceasefire". Must've had his old clogged heart softened up by all the post-bombing FoxNews flattery...) Music interlude by Brendon

Recorded: June 17, 2025 Five days into Israel's war on Iran, we reassess Iran's offensive missile capabilities even as they continue to suffer savage Israeli blows, and marvel at Trump's eagerness to dive into the war he assumes is already all but won... *Table of Iranian missiles (source here, from

Recorded: June 13, 2025 Just as we put this emergency ep on Israel's war against Iran to bed, Iran fired a series of ballistic missile salvos against Israel (when we recorded, Iran had only fired a feeble salvo of drones). Doesn't change our assessment (yet); Iran's missiles appear to have caused so

Recorded: April 17, 2025 We discuss reports of Trump Admin's factional splits over whether to start bombing Iran now or later + no end to the Ukraine war... *Music interlude by Brendon Anderegg. Check out music from his group Mountains here *Clip of UGV (unmanned ground vehicle) *Map of Kostiantyniv

Recorded: October 2, 2024 Emergency episode update on Israel's now-regional war: Iranian missile strikes on Israeli air bases and cities, deadly Israeli battles with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, plus a brief word on the fall of Vuhledar... *Table of Iran's missile arsenal *Maps *Southern Lebanon t

Guest: Joshua Landis Recorded: September 29, 2024 We talk to Joshua Landis about his 5 Takeaways from Israel's Killing of Nasrallah... Follow Joshua on Twitter. Check out our previous RWN episodes with Joshua: -EP #118 — Turkey, Syrian Kurds & Afrin Invasion -EP #150 — Idlib & the Syria Endgame -EP

Recorded: August 8, 2024 Surveying the latest war news: Ukraine's surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk oblast; waiting for Axis of Resistance response to Israel's assassinations of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran & Hezbollah top commander Fuad Shukr; white riots in the UK; Poles in

Guest: Trita Parsi, Quincy Institute Recorded: July 11, 2024 This episode we're going back to the 2-segment format: making sense of the Iran elections, with Trita Parsi; and we discuss War, the newly-translated antiwar novel by the 20th-c French author Céline. First - We talk tornadoes & dust devils

Recorded: April 16, 2024 The War Nerd & Ames break down Iran's weekend drone-missile attack on Israel, and make the mistake of trying to guess what comes next. FIRST: We chat about home drones, Trump's Gettysburg Address & parrots... AT 22:51 — We discuss Israel's April 1st bombing of Iran's embassy

Guest: Trita Parsi Recorded: February 5, 2024 We talk to Trita Parsi about Washington's unhealthy obsession with Iran, what it means to be an Iran-backed Iraqi militia group & the absurdity of Late American Empire. Read Trita's articles at Responsible Statecraft. Follow Trita on Twitter (formerly kn

Recorded: January 19, 2024 The War Nerd goes back to Yemen's history, and personal experience near the Yemeni border in southern Saudi Arabia, to make sense of the people & region that constitute today's Houthi movement. First — We update current WW3 news as Israel's war on Gaza spreads to Iran and

We talk to analyst Samuel Bendett about the rapidly evolving drone warfare in the Ukraine-Russia war. Guest: Samuel Bendett, Researcher at The Center for Naval Analyses Recorded: October 21, 2022 We talk to Samuel Bendett, who researches Russian drone & AI capabilities, about the rapidly evolving dr

Guest: Aamer Recorded: September 28, 2021 As we've said since the beginning of RWN time, 1979 was a big year in our ancient lives, the year of the Big Reaction. One of the most important events that year, so little understood at the time, was the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by Wahhabi milit

Guest: Aamer, podcaster & writer Recorded: May 12, 2021 What do endangered grouses, Qatari royals, Syrian sectarian population exchanges, and kidnapping have in common? We're joined by RWN guest Aamer to make sense of one of the wildest, dumbest & darkest episodes of the past decade. Check out the n

Recorded: February 17, 2021 Defeatism: it's the ideology of Radio War Nerd, and the subject of this episode. The War Nerd walks us through our defeatist ancestors through their poems and songs of defeat in wars, from Karbala to Vietnam, and many defeats between. Links to songs & poems mentioned: -“R

Guest: Aamer, podcaster & writer Recorded: February 12, 2021 Bahrain is known to USians as "the home of the US Fifth Fleet". But you may be shocked to learn that there's more to this Persian Gulf island kingdom than floating American coffins. We talk to previous RWN guest Aamer about the history of

Guest: Kelley Vlahos, Responsible Statecraft editor Recorded: December 4, 2020 Kelley Vlahos returns to RWN to size up the successes and failures of Trump foreign policy, warn us about the return of the Blob under Biden, and throw us for bit of a loop with some potentially positive developments for

Guest: Lika Zakaryan, journalist Recorded: October 11, 2020 Journalist Lika Zakaryan speaks to us from under Azerbajaini bombardment in her hometown Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh (also known as "Artsakh"). Lika describes war—and life under existential threat—from a very close-up and p

Guest: Patrick Cockburn, author & Middle East correspondent for The Independent (UK) Recorded: July 8, 2020 BELFAST—After a harrowing escape from the looneyland of pandemic America, the War Nerd awakens in Northern Ireland to talk to roving war correspondent & previous RWN guest Patrick Cockburn abo

Recorded: January 3, 2020 A special rushed-out episode to get out our first impressions of Trump's assassination of Iran's legendary Quds leader, Gen. Qasem Soleimani. Total time: 1:39:35 Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

Recorded December 29, 2019 Images: *One of Steven Sotloff's last tweets. 2 months later, he was kidnapped & sold to ISIS. *John McCain posing with Sotloff's soon-to-be-kidnapper, Mohamed Nour of the Northern Storm Brigade (holding gun). May 2013. Total time: 1:48:47 Direct link to this episode's mp3

Guests: Narin Briar & Elijah Magnier Recorded: October 23, 2019 Recorded just after Russia and Turkey announced an agreement on the dismantling of Rojava, we talked first to Kurdish-American activist Narin Briar for the Rojava perspective of this grim moment . . . At 1:05:00 we talk to longtime Midd

Guests: James Dahl, "Cannon Dan," Meredith Avila Recorded: August 12, 2019 August 12, 2019: a date that will live in minor infamy, a day in which Radio War Nerd invaded Brooklyn with nuthin but a bag full of laptops, some hastily typed up notes, and enough anxiety to paralyze an army. It was our fir

Recorded: June 21, 2019 Guest: "Cannon Dan" In this episode, the War Nerd does a bit of gloating over correctly predicting Yemen Houthi rebels' next target in Saudi Arabia . . . Nerd and Ames discuss Iran's downing of America's quarter billion dollar drone-boondoggle & talk about war . . . At 42:00

Originally recorded July 24, 2018 By popular demand from our subscribers, we're reposting free for the public our episode on Iran War scenarios, and the disasters that each scenario brings. War with Iran is reckless, insane, stupid, immoral and doomed to failure — which is exactly why the sleazy imb

Recorded July 24, 2018 Trump and the DC War Party recently rolled out their big blustery marketing campaign for an Iran War. Are they bluffing, or are they just clinically insane?—the eternal question about Washington "experts"... In this episode, the War Nerd considers different war scenarios, and

Guest: Richard Kim The War Nerd talks to fellow War Nerd Richard Kim about the early 7th C China invasions of Korea under the Sui Dynasty — wars that have become a source of hot debate recently between Chinese war nerds and Korean war nerds . . . These wars include some of the largest battles of pre