Radio War Nerd

Recorded: November 21, 2024 For once, the timing-gods delivered two major events hours BEFORE we recorded: ICC's arrest warrant for Bibi Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant; and, following a series of escalatory policies by Biden in Ukraine, noted "bluffer" "coward" Vladimir Putin responded by detonating an

Recorded: August 22, 2024 Update on Ukraine's incursion into Kursk and Russia's accelerating push in Donetsk towards Pokrovsk and Toretsk... Total time: 59:52 Direct link to this episode's mp3 here * Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd Sound production by Telescope Audio Check ou

Recorded: February 20, 2024 We look back at the life, politics & death of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, and the many ways he intersected with the radical writer and opposition leader Edward Limonov. Texts cited: -"My Fear and Loathing" by Alexei Navalny, August 11, 2023 -"ANALYSIS: Is Ja

Recorded: August 24, 2023 We look back at the events leading up to yesterday's apparent assassination-by-aircrash of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, why he was taken out the same day that Surovikin was demoted & run down a brief history of assassinations-by-aircrashes both in Russia & around the wor

Guest: Anatol Lieven, author & journalist Recorded: June 25, 2023 RWN emergency episode with guest Anatol Lieven on Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's failed Russian coup-slash-mutiny, Kremlin succession, class warfare in the trenches & the stalled Ukrainian counteroffensive. Anatol guested on RWN EP

Guest: Annibale Recorded: June 8, 2023 Last year, Conventional Wisdom had it that Putin might drop a nuke on Ukraine as Russia's military seemed to implode; this year, Conventional Wisdom says only dupes worry about Russian nukes. We talk to RWN favorite Annibale about the history & science of nukes

Guest: Philip Short, author Recorded: April 18, 2023 We talk to celebrated biographer Philip Short (Mao: A Life; Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare) about his controversial new biography on Vladimir Putin. First: we briefly discuss events in Sudan. At 15:00 - our interview with Short begins. Buy Philip

Guest: Joshua Landis, Director of Center for Middle East Studies Recorded: December 9, 2022 The war in Ukraine has sucked all the west's attention away from other wars around the world, including the Syria war, which was once the star of the NATO thinktank world. Dr. Joshua Landis is of the few west

Guest: Yasha Levine, journalist & author Recorded: December 6, 2022 Friend of the show Yasha Levine joins us to discuss the big Twitter brouhaha, journalism in the age of oligarchy, former eXile colleague Matt Taibbi, and Yasha's doomed family trip to Russia on the eve of Putin's mobilization drive.

Recorded: November 15, 2022 Nine months into Russia's disastrous war on Ukraine, we try making sense of Putin's strategy as Russian forces abandon Kherson and the right bank of the Dniepr, just weeks after Putin declared Kherson was "forever" part of Russia. Defeat & failure, somehow we always wind

Recorded: October 18, 2022 Latest developments in the Russia-Ukraine war — Russia's change in strategy targeting Ukraine's critical infrastructure with Shahed-136s, coinciding with naming new Russian war commander, "General Armageddon" Sergei Surovikin... Nordstream pipeline sabotage mystery...Ukrai

Recorded: October 12, 2022 The Nerd & Ames discuss tactical nukes — such as they are a thing — from the Cold War, through Putin's maybe/maybe not-bluffing. Total time: 1:42:48 Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

Recorded: September 15, 2022 We wrap up our RWN series on Turkey's 1974 invasion of Cyprus (EP #337, #339). This episode, Kissinger takes control of the Empire during the chaos of Watergate, making the world an even shittier place than ever — greenlighting the Greek junta's coup against Makarios, an

Recorded: September 13, 2022 The Nerd & Ames return after a long break to update the latest out of the Ukraine war & the rout of Russian forces in the Kharkiv region. Total time: 1:09:51 Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

Recorded: May 26, 2022 Part 4 in our series on the Chechen Wars. This episode, following Shamil Basayev and Khattab's invasion into Chechnya, Vladimir Putin is named Prime Minister, and apartment buildings start blowing up. First - We discuss recent mass shootings in the US. At 24:23 - We discuss th

Recorded: April 14, 2022 Your humble RWN hosts respond to subscriber comments about Russia's war on Ukraine. Total time: 1:34:00 Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

Recorded: April 5, 2022 In part 3 of our Russia-Chechnya Wars series, we start with Chechnya's first declaration of independence in 1991, the long slide to war in 1994, and end with Russia's shock military defeat in August 1996, on the same day that zombie-Yeltsin was inaugurated for his second term

Recorded: March 24, 2022 This episode, the War Nerd & Ames discuss the latest in Russia's war on Ukraine. At 52:00 - Ames goes back a few centuries in the long gory history of the Russian-Chechen Wars, from Sheikh Mansur in the late 18th-c. up to Dzhokhar Dudayev's return to Chechnya as its independ

Recorded: March 17, 2022 First: the War Nerd & Ames catch up on the last week of Russia's war on Ukraine. At 1:10:00 - Ames introduces the Chechen Wars series, with some surprising parallels between Yeltsin's western-financed invasion of Chechnya in 1994, and Putin's war on Ukraine today. Total time

Guest: Ben Aris, editor BNE IntelliNews Recorded: March 7, 2022 We talk to previous RWN guest Ben Aris [RWN #316] about sanctions, Russia's resource weapons and economic warfare in the Ukraine-Russia war. Check out Ben's media outlet BNE IntelliNews, and follow Ben on Twitter. Total time: 1:23:14 Di

Guest: Peter Korotaev ("George Andersen") Recorded: March 1, 2022 We talk to American-Ukrainian George Andersen about life in Kiev under Russian bombs, his escape to the western edge of the country, and about where the war is heading. Total time: 1:44:03 Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

Recorded: February 24, 2022 Emergency RWN episode on Russia's invasion of Ukraine. *Here's a war map of Russia's battle plan intentions, tweeted out by Michael Kofman, who did call the war right in the months leading up to the invasion. Total time: 53:37 Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

Guest: Ben Aris, editor BNE IntelliNews Recorded: February 12, 2022 Journalist Ben Aris clears the methane-soaked air on Russian gas & pipeline politics, helping us understand the deeper politics of the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Read Ben Aris's article on Russia's pipeline politics: "How a V-shaped mar

Guest: Joshua Landis, Director of Center for Middle East Studies & blogger Recorded: January 25, 2022 Our monthly World Of Wars looks at two wars: the phony Russia-Ukraine war that NATO & western media is screaming about...and the grim, real ongoing war in Syria, which NATO and the western media don

Recorded: January 21, 2022 Who remembers the Kazakhstan uprisings? Just a couple of weeks ago, over 225 people were killed, over 10,000 arrested...but the story quickly fell off the front pages, and all pages. Why? What happened? Why is Washington so selectively unconcerned with human rights in Kaza

Guest: Leonid Ragozin, journalist Originally recorded: November 29, 2021 Hysteria about an imminent Russia-Ukraine war—almost entirely manufactured from the bowels of certain DC/London thinktanks—has only worsened since we recorded this excellent, wide-ranging discussion with Riga-based journalist L

Guest: Leonid Ragozin, journalist Recorded: November 29, 2021 There's been a lot of noise lately about a large-scale Russian military buildup on its border with Ukraine, with Serious People in DC claiming Putin is planning to invade by February. Riga-based journalist Leonid Ragozin joins the Nerd &

Recorded: March 26, 2021 In part two of our series on the National Endowment for Democracy, we look at how the Reagan's subversion weapon created havoc in Haiti and Venezuela to undermine rulers deemed unfriendly to US interests & business. We also recover the famous quote by NED co-founder Allen We

Recorded: January 28, 2021 We take a break from historical war stories to make some sense of the miserable present tense: war & repression in Ethiopia's Tigray province; Team Biden & imperial stagnation; and the recent unrest in Russia over Alexei Navalny's arrest. Total time: 1:35:04 Direct link to

Recorded: November 11, 2020 The latest Nagorno-Karabakh war for control over the Armenian region of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) ended this past Monday, November 9, with a Russian-brokered peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The deal represents a massive victory for Azerbaijan, and a shock

Recorded November 30, 2018 Guests: Filmmaker Rowan Wernham & journalist Yasha Levine The War Nerd & Ames talk about the weirdly stylized naval "clash" in the Azov Sea between Russian naval forces and a few Ukrainian boats. More interesting than the one-sided sumo match is the larger political and mi

Guest: Yasha Levine, author and journalist Technology reporter & Soviet emigre Yasha Levine joins the War Nerd from the evil lair—St Petersburg, Russia—to talk about the latest developments in the Russia hacking panic and how the Washington DC freakout is being received inside Russia itself . . . Af

"Red Scare!", Russian Disinformation Panic & "The Spike" First — Chelsea pressure cooker bombing + suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami (show recorded Sept 19 morning) . . . US-backed Syrian FSA rebels chase US Special Forces out of Al-Rai . . . US-UK bombs Syrian Army, helping Islamic State . . . Michael Weis