by Scott | Sep 6, 2021 | Interviews
Scott interviews Danny Sjursen and gets his reaction to the Taliban victory in Afghanistan. Sjursen thinks the Taliban’s campaign to take control of the country may soon be studied in war colleges. He also thinks that Scott’s book Fool’s Errand should be studied at...
by Scott | Jul 14, 2021 | Interviews
Scott talks to Danny Sjursen about U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which at the moment the Biden administration appears poised to follow through with. Sjursen is concerned about the response from the mainstream media and both party establishments—Republicans claim...
by Scott | Apr 12, 2021 | Interviews
Danny Sjursen talks about the absurdity of the recent announcement that America is sending special forces troops to Mozambique, a country that he says has basically no strategic relevance to the United States whatsoever. Those who argue that this is only a dozen...
by Scott | Mar 13, 2021 | Interviews
Scott talks to Danny Sjursen about the leaked Biden administration plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The document evidently represents the Biden administration’s new take on the deal reached with the Taliban during the Trump administration, which laid...
by Scott | Feb 14, 2021 | Interviews
Scott talks with Danny Sjursen about President Biden’s foreign policy moves during his first few weeks in office. Most notably, the administration has announced an end to all support for “offensive operations” in Yemen. Sjursen agrees that this is great news, but...
by Scott | Dec 23, 2020 | Interviews
Scott interviews Danny Sjursen about two prominent conflicts facing the world in 2020. In Nagorno-Karabakh, an uneasy, Russian-brokered peace deal is holding between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but Sjursen worries that this peace won’t last forever, as each country still...
by Scott | Dec 7, 2020 | Interviews
Danny Sjursen is back for a look at Biden’s foreign policy team, in particular his new National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan. Sjursen says that Sullivan fits right in with many of Biden’s other cabinet picks: extremely talented, well-credentialed, respectable...
by Scott | Nov 13, 2020 | Interviews
Scott interviews Danny Sjursen about where his former commanders from Afghanistan have ended up in the years since the surge. Sjursen goes through a handful of these men: almost without fail, his former generals have ended up with profitable jobs in the arms industry...
by Scott | Oct 24, 2020 | Interviews
Scott talks to Danny Sjursen about the latest in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, where Sjursen says about 5,000 people have likely been killed. The media narrative about this situation, explains Sjursen, has always been that Russia is...
by Scott | Oct 5, 2020 | Interviews
Danny Sjursen explains the complicated situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, a piece of Azerbaijani territory that has been under de facto Armenian control since the 1990s. Nagorno-Karabakh is the result of Stalin’s territorial divisions, which very often failed to conform...
by Scott | Sep 13, 2020 | Interviews
Scott interviews Danny Sjursen about his new book, which chronicles his own story of disillusionment with America’s endless wars, in addition to outlining what he believes should be the new attitude of true American patriotism. He calls this type of patriotism...
by Scott | Aug 24, 2020 | Interviews
Scott talks to Danny Sjursen about Lebanon, which has been in the news recently after a disastrous, and apparently accidental, explosion left hundreds dead there. Today Sjursen discusses Lebanon’s past, a history that has seen it become a battleground for many proxy...
by Scott | Jun 24, 2020 | Interviews
Danny Sjursen talks about the Mexican-American War, a seldom-discussed conflict that he maintains holds lessons for America today. Sjursen describes a pattern that by now—with our long experience of the war on terrorism—should be all too familiar: a U.S. president...
by Scott | May 31, 2020 | Interviews
Danny Sjursen discusses America’s absurd Afghan War strategy for the last nearly two decades. Sjursen served in Afghanistan during the Obama surge, seeing firsthand the utter futility of America’s attempt to conquer and rule a country that for centuries has been the...
by Scott | May 17, 2020 | Interviews
Danny Sjursen talks about America’s long history of intervention in Somalia, beginning after World War II, continuing during the Cold War, and persisting today through the War on Terror. Too often, he says, the mainstream narrative around U.S. interventions starts...
by Scott | Mar 10, 2020 | Interviews
Danny Sjursen discusses the recent deal to withdraw most of the U.S. troops from Afghanistan. He begins by describing the reactions of his military friends to the idea that this deal represents “surrender” to the Taliban, which some on the right would have you...
by Scott | Feb 14, 2020 | Interviews
Danny Sjursen is back for part two of his conversation with Scott about America’s foreign policy disasters, this time focusing on what Sjursen calls “the coming battle for Eurasia.” According to an old theory of geopolitics, the power that controls central...
by Scott | Feb 11, 2020 | Interviews
Scott talks to Danny Sjursen about the many catastrophic failures of American foreign policy, and most recently the proposed plan to carve out an autonomous Sunni region in western Iraq, which the U.S. could use to help control the Middle East and prevent Iranian...
by Scott | Nov 25, 2019 | Interviews
Danny Sjursen talks about the ways his experience in Iraq convinced him of the futility of that war, allowing him to see things that the generals and the war planners often could not. Sjursen says that not all officers paid attention to the local situation or to the...
by Scott | Nov 13, 2019 | Interviews
Danny Sjursen advocates for a reclaiming of Veterans Day and a return to the principles of the holiday originally known as Armistice Day. Armistice Day celebrated the end to one of the bloodiest wars in world history, and Sjursen reminds us how eminently worthy of...