I was recently flattered when former Air Force Para-Rescuemen and my old Columbia classmate Doug Kechijian asked me to come on his podcast to speak about Syria, military journalism, and a myriad of other foreign policy topics. Give the podcast a listen on the Resilient Performance website. Here are some of the topics we covered:
- What makes the Special Forces mission unique
- What is SOFREP and what was the impetus for starting it? Balancing transparency and operational security.
- Avoiding identity politics and why the military shouldn’t be exempt from scrutiny
- Discrepancy between mainstream media reports of special operations missions and the reality on the ground
- Maintaining a sense of purpose at the tactical level in the face of strategic ambiguity
- The downside of messing with stability
- How Iraq and Afghanistan differ strategically and politically