This episode of Strategy Matters examines whether American media coverage shaped the trajectory of US involvement in Vietnam. Host Vanya Eftimova Bellinger sits down with historians Dr. Nicholas Evan Sarantakes and Dr. Cavender Sutton to take up the question. Their conversation shows that, despite how it was later remembered, the Saigon Press Corps was largely supportive of the war. The hostility between the military and the press emerged afterward, growing out of the search for someone to blame once South Vietnam fell. Reporters could not overlook the difficulties US forces faced, and the problem was compounded by political and military leaders who failed to articulate a clear and realistic strategy. Turning to the challenges of fighting a war with limited objectives, the host and her guests consider why communication and home front preparedness need to be rethought before entering such a conflict.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.

GUESTS:

Dr. Nicholas Evan Sarantakes is a Professor at the Strategy and Policy Department and earned a B.A. from the University of Texas, an M.A. from the University of Kentucky, and a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, all in history. He is an award-winning author with multiple publications. His most recent book, The Battle of Manila: Poisoned Victory in the Pacific War (2025), is a groundbreaking account of this crucial campaign from the American, Japanese, and, significantly, Filipino perspectives.

Dr. Cavender Sutton is currently an assistant professor at the US Air War College, but previously served as a Postdoctoral Teaching and Research Fellow in the Strategy and Policy Department (2024-2025). He received his B.A. in History from the University of Georgia, his M.A. in History from East Tennessee State University, and his PhD in Military History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before his academic career, Dr. Sutton served four years in the United States Marine Corps, during which he deployed to Afghanistan twice. His forthcoming book is The Road to Hue: US Marine Combined Action Platoons and the Battle that Changed the Vietnam War.

This episode of Strategy Matters supports the Korean War case study by examining the conflict and developments on the Korean Peninsula from an unusual angle: through the Kim family regime that has ruled North Korea since 1948. In modern times, no other political dynasty has matched the Kims' longevity and influence, or presented such a vexing strategic problem for the rest of the world. Host Dr. Vanya Eftimova Bellinger discusses the regime with Dr. Andrew (Dex) Wilson and Dr. Anatol Klass, two East Asia experts from the Strategy and Policy Department. The episode commences with an exploration of the life and times of the dynasty's founder, Kim Il Sung, before turning to the changes his successors, Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un, have introduced to the regime. The guests then assess how this small state has managed to punch above its weight internationally and why, despite common perceptions, North Korea has proven to be a tough proxy for China. They also explain why sending troops to fight in the Russo-Ukrainian War is nothing new, but rather a long-standing North Korean practice. Finally, they consider what else we can expect from the Kims and their relationship with the world.

Guests:

Dr. Andrew R. Wilson is the John A. van Beuren Chair of Asia-Pacific Studies. He has written many books and articles on Chinese military history, Chinese sea power, and Sun Tzu's The Art of War. His most recent book is the edited volume Traversing the Belt and Road: The World According to China and China According to the World (together with Min Ye, Jorge Heine, and Grant Rhode, Harvard University Press, 2026). Dr. Wilson is also featured on The Great Courses, with lecture series including “The Art of War”; “Masters of War: History’s Greatest Strategic Thinkers”; and “Understanding Imperial China: Dynasties, Life and Culture.”

Dr. Anatol Klass is an assistant professor in the Strategy and Policy Department. He studies modern Chinese history and is writing a book about the bureaucratic development of the institutions through which the Chinese state engages with the world and the professional identities of experts working within those institutions. He has a Ph.D. in history from Berkeley and has held fellowships at Harvard University's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, and the Columbia-Harvard China & the World Program. His research has been published in the International History Review and Cold War History, and his writing has appeared in the Washington Post and Foreign Policy.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, the United States Navy, or the U.S. Naval War College.

This episode of Strategy Matters supports the World War II in Europe case study with a close look at the Soviet Union's approach to the conflict. Host Dr. Vanya Eftimova Bellinger discusses the Soviet perspective with Dr. David R. Stone and Dr. Michelle Paranzino. The episode commences with a brief exploration of the conditions and the ideology shaping the Soviet Union, its state on the eve of World War II, and the strategic rationale behind its notorious non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany in 1939. The guests then assess Joseph Stalin's role as a strategic leader and the role of communist ideology in the course and end of the war. Finally, they explore why World War II continues to serve as a foundational myth in today's Russia, and the lessons learned for the war in Ukraine.

Guests:

Professor David R. Stone, the William E. Odom Professor of Russian Studies, joined the Strategy and Policy Department in 2015. He received a B.A. from Wabash College and a Ph.D. in history from Yale. He previously taught at Kansas State University. His book Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union (2000) won the Shulman Prize of ASEEES and the Best First Book Prize of the Historical Society. He has also published A Military History of Russia (2006) and The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 (2015). He edited The Soviet Union at War, 1941-1945 (2010). He has written several dozen articles on Russian military history and foreign policy.

Michelle Paranzino earned her Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied U.S. foreign policy, Soviet history, and Cold War Latin America. She has published numerous articles and book chapters and is the author of The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War: A Short History with Documents (Cambridge: Hackett, 2018). She has held fellowships at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College and is currently working on a book about the war on drugs.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, the United States Navy, or the U.S. Naval War College.

How do we define military professionalism, and what makes a military professional? This episode of Strategy Matters explores this important topic, interwoven with many of the themes and the historical cases in the Strategy and War course. The host, Dr. Vanya Eftimova Bellinger, talks with two professors at the Strategy and Policy Department who specialize in the topic: Dr. Marybeth Ulrich and LTC Jonathan Romaneski, Ph.D. To lay the groundwork for a better understanding of military professionalism, the episode begins with a brief theoretical and historical review. Then it explores ongoing challenges surrounding the issue: from civilian oversight and the so-called unequal dialogue between the political and military realms to free speech and the military’s neutral role in the state. It ends with a discussion of why military professionalism matters in the 21st century.

GUESTS:

Dr. Marybeth Ulrich is a professor and chair of the Strategy and Policy Department. Her publications include Democratizing Communist Militaries: The Cases of the Czech and Russian Armed Forces (University of Michigan Press). Her research focuses on strategic studies, democratization, Eurasian security, NATO, and civil-military relations. Appointments as Senior Fellow at the U.S. Air Force Academy and West Point’s Modern War Institute focus on education for military service in a democracy. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Illinois and is a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. She is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Romaneski, PhD, is an Army Aviation officer. He graduated from James Madison University in 2005, where he majored in history. His operational experience includes multiple combat deployments to Baghdad and to RC-South, Afghanistan, as well as six years in Germany and an AH-64D battalion command in Fort Wainwright, AK. He earned his master’s and Ph.D. in military history from The Ohio State University, with minors in the early American Republic and diplomatic history. He has prior teaching experience in military and international history at West Point.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, the US Navy, or the US Naval War College.

This episode of Strategy Matters supplements the Strategy and War case study on the American War for Independence with a close look at the Southern Campaign. Host LtCol Brendan Neagle is joined by Dr. Stan Carpenter, Dr. Andrew Zwilling, and Dr. Joshua Meeks. Stan, author of Southern Gambit: Cornwallis and the British March to Yorktown, walks through why Britain turned south in 1778, how the campaign unfolded, and Cornwallis's fateful march into Virginia. Andy and Josh describe how the Southern Campaign existed as one theater within a broader, global Anglo-French contest. The conversation closes with the campaign's aftermath at Yorktown and the Battle of the Chesapeake, and with each guest's key takeaways for the contemporary strategic environment.

Guests:

Dr. Stan Carpenter is a Professor Emeritus at the U.S. Naval War College. He publishes on leadership, naval history, and military history. He is the author of Southern Gambit: Cornwallis and the British March to Yorktown.

Dr. Joshua Meeks is a professor of strategy and policy in the College of Distance Education at the U.S. Naval War College. His expertise is on the French Revolution and Napoleonic France, with a focus on the Mediterranean.

Dr. Andrew Zwilling is a professor of strategy and policy in the College of Distance Education at the U.S. Naval War College. His areas of expertise include the British Empire, Colonial America, and early modern Europe.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, the United States Navy, or the U.S. Naval War College.

This episode of Strategy Matters examines the strategic leadership of Pericles during the Peloponnesian War. Host Dr. Vanya Eftimova Bellinger is joined by Dr. Michael Pavković and Dr. Robert Stone, who open with Pericles' background, the geopolitical context and his position within the Athenian political system. The conversation turns to the defensive strategy he designed for Athens as a maritime power trying to offset Sparta’s strengths as a land power. The guests then assess how far that approach shaped Athenian conduct in the later stages of the war. After asserting that Pericles was always depicted with a helmet to conceal a sea onion-shaped head, the guests draw connections between Pericles’ experience and the contemporary strategic environment, presenting lessons for the modern strategist.

Guests:

Dr. Michael F. Pavković currently serves as Vice Admiral William Ledyard Rodgers Professor in Naval History in the Strategy and Policy Department at the college. He received his B.A. in history and classics from Pennsylvania State University and his Ph.D. in history from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He has presented papers at national and international conferences and has also published a number of articles, book chapters and reviews on topics relating to ancient, early modern and Napoleonic military history. He is co-author of "What is Military History?" (Polity Press, 3rd edition, 2017). He is currently writing a book on sea power in the ancient world.

Dr. Robert Stone is an Assistant Professor of Humanities in the Hamilton School. He previously taught at the U.S. Naval War College. His research focuses on Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian War for insights into strategic culture and democratic decision making. His writings have appeared in numerous journals, including History of Political Thought, Review of Politics, the U.S. Naval War College Review, and the Journal of the History of Ideas.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.

This episode of Strategy Matters takes up one of the recurring strategic choices of war: whether to open a secondary theater of operations. Host LtCol Brendan Neagle is joined by Dr. Tim Hoyt and Dr. Kevin McCranie for a discussion that supplements the Strategy and War’s case studies on Carl von Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, Julian Corbett, Alfred Thayer Mahan, and Mao Tse-Tung. The guests define what makes a theater “secondary” and work through how each theorist would answer that question. The conversation closes by applying these frameworks to the contemporary strategist, weighing how a military strategist should judge the line between a valuable economy-of-force effort and a sideshow that turns into an ulcer.

Guests:

Dr. Tim Hoyt is a Professor of Strategy and Policy at the U.S. Naval War College, where he holds the John Nicholas Brown Chair of Counterterrorism and serves as Academic Director and Senior Mentor of the Advanced Strategist Program. He writes extensively on great power competition, irregular warfare, and terrorism.

Dr. Kevin McCranie is the Philip A. Crowl Professor of Comparative Strategy and a former chairman of the Strategy and Policy Department at the U.S. Naval War College. He specializes in maritime history and strategy and is the author of Mahan, Corbett, and the Foundations of Naval Strategic Thought.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.

This episode of Strategy Matters focuses on the regional dynamic between Iran and Iraq and supports the case study on America and the Greater Middle in the Strategy and Policy Course. Host Dr. Vanya Eftimova Bellinger discusses this consequential relationship between the two neighboring countries with historian Dr. Samuel Helfont and political scientist Dr. Shanin Berenji. The episode begins with a historical discussion of the sources of strategic rivalry between Iran and Iraq. The two countries share almost 1,000 miles of border, have long-lasting disputes about waterways, and fought a prolonged and bloody war in the 1980s. Then the host and the guests explore the role Iran played during the US occupation of Iraq (2003-2011). The discussion also touches on the accuracy of the popular perception, in recent years, of Iraq as a client state of Tehran, as well as the state of today’s Iraqi politics and relations with the United States. Finally, the experts outline the influence the current instability in Iran may have on the region.

Guests:

Samuel Helfont is an Associate Professor of Strategy and Policy in the Naval War College program at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Helfont holds a PhD in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. His research focuses on international history and politics in the Middle East, especially Iraq and the Iraq Wars. He is also interested in Israeli, maritime, and post-Cold War global history. He is the author of The Iraq Wars: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, October 2025), Iraq against the World: Saddam, America, and the Post-Cold War Order (Oxford University Press, 2023), and Compulsion in Religion: Saddam Hussein, Islam, and the Roots of Insurgencies in Iraq (Oxford University Press, 2018). He co-edited (with Lisa Blaydes) Ba‘thist Iraq through Archives: Reflections, Explorations, and Opportunities (Stanford University Press, forthcoming 2026). In 2023, Helfont received the Naval War College’s research award, presented annually to the faculty member whose scholarship demonstrated the highest level of excellence over the past three years. In addition to this academic background, Helfont served as an intelligence officer in the US Navy and Navy Reserve. An Iraq War veteran, he completed deployments both afloat and ashore in the Middle East. He also served on Middle Eastern and counterterrorism missions at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Office of Naval Intelligence, among other commands. He is a Golden Shellback.

Shahin Berenji is an Assistant Professor in the Strategy and Policy Department. He earned his Ph.D. and MA from the University of California Los Angeles and his BA from the University of Southern California. Before arriving at the Naval War College, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Albritton Center for Grand Strategy at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A & M University. From 2020 to 2022, he worked at Southern Methodist University where he served as a Visiting Assistant Professor and Colin Powell Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Science and the John G. Tower Center for Public Policy and International Affairs. He studies foreign policy decision-making and diplomacy and has a specialization in the Cold War and regional expertise in the Middle East. His research has been published in such academic journals as International Security and Security Studies, and his commentary and op-eds have been featured online with West Point’s Modern War Institute, the National Interest, and E-International Relations.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.