Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast

We examine the emerging Venezuelan kerfuffle.There are many currents and undercurrents in the latest incipient war debacle in America history. This will be a disaster for America if it clacks off and; expect the American government to make this a preamble to go kinetic on the drug war generally and the following catastrophes.I covered this in detail in both parts of Ep 059 and 059 "The Mexican Cartel Conundrum: War Without End".Gird your loins for the first war in American history that will lead to significant foreign-born bad actors making war on American soil.***References:US Treasury Sanctions Venezuelan Cartel Headed by MaduroMarie Arana Bolivar: American LiberatorCarlos Lizarralde Venezuela's Collapse: The Long Story of How Things Fell ApartJustin Podur Extraordinary Threat: The U.S. Empire, the Media, and Twenty Years of Coup Attempts in VenezuelaTom Wainwright Narconomics: How to Run a Drug CartelBenjamin T. Smith The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug TradeAnabel Hernandez Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their GodfathersIoan Grillo El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal InsurgencyDavid F. Marley Mexican Cartels: An Encyclopedia of Mexico's Crime and Drug WarsCarmen Boullosa A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the “Mexican Drug War”Patrick Winn Narcotopia: In Search of the Asian Drug Cartel That Survived the CIAJesse Fink Pure Narco: One Man's True Story of 25 Years Inside the CartelsMy SubstackEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me

Despite what you are told by the mainstream news sources in the media, the drone war is here to stay and it will be the most significant war modality for the next generation. It has literally exposed all ground troops and the exquisite platforms the West relies upon in war-making for detailed neutralization and destruction.In concert with the democratized distribution of ubiquitous missile technology, it is the end of Western dominance in warfare.Despite what you may think, the US conventional forces are in terminal collapse and completely unprepared for 21st century peer conflict.I'll offer some more recommendations and a path forward.References:RAND wish-casting on drones in 2015.Slaughterbots (2017)Slaughterbots: if human: kill() (2021)How are Drones Changing Modern Warfare?Sun Tzu The Art of WarCarl von Clausewitz On WarMiyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to StrategyH. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to WarfareChristian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech WarfareQiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy AmericaMy SubstackEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me

This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.This episode examines civil war manifesting itself in the world in the west in the 21st century and some of my modest forecasts of war weather in the next few years.Dr. David Betz and others have started to float the balloons of probability and possibility of civil kinetic conflict in the West.My Storming America Series covers the gamut of what a spontaneous attack in the US will look like when terror cells launch a simultaneous attack on the US homeland which in my mind is the primary man-made vector for civil war in America.I cover it in Episodes 37, 41-43, 49-50 and 62 of my Chasing Ghosts podcast.References:Video:Winston Marshall The UNTOLD History of The White Slave Trade & How Islam Conquered 3/4 of The Christian WorldAndrew Gold CIVIL WAR is Coming - Professor David BetzBooks:Barbara Walter How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop ThemDavid Armitage Civil Wars: A History in IdeasWilliam Forstchen Day of WrathKurt Schlichter The AttackKarl DahlFactionFaction: With the CrusadersMatt Bracken:Enemies Foreign and DomesticForeign Enemies And TraitorsDomestic Enemies: The ReconquistaThe Red Cliffs of ZerhounCastigo CayEric Frank Russell The WaspMichael Z. Williamson The Weapon (and the entire Freehold series)Ernest R. May Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of FranceRobert Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh MistressRobert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In HistoryHoward Jones My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into DarknessMy SubstackEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me

This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.Memorial Day is a day to reflect on the existential moral outrage and trail of tears American military might has draped over the planet since the end of the nineteenth century.Wars of choice are by their very nature a path to corruption, excess and unintended consequences.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 above them... It would be foolish and untruthful to deny the appeal of exalted, godlike intoxication....We have seen the paradox that these godlike exalted moments often correspond to times when the men who have survived them say that they have acted like beasts....Above all, a sense of merely human virtue, a sense of being valued and of valuing anything seems to have fled their lives....However, all of our virtues come from not being gods. Generosity is meaningless to a god, who never suffers shortage or want. Courage is meaningless to a god, who is immortal and can never suffer permanent injury. The godlike berserk state can destroy the capacity for virtue. Whether the berserker is beneath humanity as an animal, above it as a god, or both, he is cut off from all human community when he is in this state.”― Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of CharacterThose millions of men who have been in combat over the millennia have always brought home invisible scar tissue and regret that manifests in many ways but most of us take it to our graves.References:The Roots Tribunal in CongressNick Turse Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in VietnamBill Russel Edmonds God is Not Here: A Soldier's Struggle with Torture, Trauma, and the Moral Injuries of WarClark Savage King of All Things: A Guide to Man's Martial PurposeDick Couch A Tactical Ethic: Moral Conduct in the Insurgent BattlespaceAndrew Bacevich Paths of Dissent: Soldiers Speak Out Against America's Misguided WarsShauna Springer WARRIOR: How to Support Those Who Protect UsJonathan Shay Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of CharacterJonathan Shay Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of HomecomingMy SubstackEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me.

This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.This episode examines American landscape one year later and whether the probability of attack is reduced or increased.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 in Episodes 37, 41-43 and 49-50 of my Chasing Ghosts podcast.I discuss the outcome of the probable jihadist invasion of America. America is in a unique position in history in which it has facilitated the unfettered invasion of its borders and a large swath of military age males have been granted asylum or gone undetected to link up with legacy underground Islamist and terrorist groups across the country.References:William Forstchen Day of WrathKurt Schlichter The AttackKarl DahlFactionFaction: With the CrusadersMatt Bracken:Enemies Foreign and DomesticForeign Enemies And TraitorsDomestic Enemies: The ReconquistaThe Red Cliffs of ZerhounCastigo CayEric Frank Russell The WaspMichael Z. Williamson The Weapon (and the entire Freehold series)Ernest R. May Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of FranceRobert Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh MistressRobert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In HistoryHoward Jones My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into DarknessMy SubstackEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me

This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth.I am an un-credentialed amateur historian who has done very little archive work and lack the substantial infrastructure credentialed historians have to practice their craft. I have debated esteemed historians and won on stage (Daniel Walker Howe looked at my CV and did not prepare) but that doesn't make me better than them.I think my various detours in life mostly outside the formal academy gives me a unique insight into how history works and why I think I am more sober than university historians.I describe some of the reasons I do it and the techniques I employ to get the single most accurate picture of what happened then to determine what's going on now.I am the Smedley D. Butler Fellow for Military Affairs at the Libertarian Institute.Recommended Reading:Mortimer Adler How To Read a BookRobert Strassler The Landmark Xenophon's Hellenika (Landmark Series)Mike Snook How Can Man Die Better: The Secrets of Isandlwana RevealedMike Snook Like Wolves on the Fold: The Defence of Rorke’s DriftDavid Stahel Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the EastDavid Hackett Fischer Historians' Fallacies : Toward a Logic of Historical ThoughtKeith Windschuttle The Killing of HistoryJohn Burrow A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth CenturyHarry Elmer Barnes A History of Historical WritingUS Army Center of Military HistoryMy SubstackEmail at cgpodcast@pm.me