The Libertarian Institute

(*This is a reissue of a Dangerous History Episode first published in Aug. 2015)

In this episode, CJ discusses two different paradigms of what war is supposed to be and how it is supposed to be fought.  One is the Western (or European) Way, which originated in Greece and from there filtered through the Romans to become the dominant paradigm among Westerners to this day. The other is the Eastern (or Asian) Way, which originated in China and from there filtered to other parts of the Asian world and beyond, and which forms the intellectual basis of much o...

A blockade of the Strait of Hormuz sounds like a clean, decisive move until you run it through the real world: geography, international law, ship insurance, and the uncomfortable question of what happens when the other side shoots back. We sit down with Lt Col Karen Kwiatkowski to parse Trump’s threat to interdict ships tied to Iranian oil and why “the greatest navy in the world” is not the same thing as a navy that can safely enforce a blockade in a narrow, heavily contested chokepoint.

We dig into the operational side of maritime power, from US...



Download Audio.

Scott interviews Matt Wolfson about an article he recently wrote about the United Arab Emirates. Wolfson argues that the US and Israel have helped build up the UAE into a regional power with an increasingly interventionist foreign policy of its own.

Discussed on the show:

The fastest way to understand the Iran war scare isn’t cable news hype, it’s leverage. We sit down with Larry Johnson to map what Tehran is demanding, why Washington looks desperate for an exit plan, and how a single chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz, can squeeze the global economy. If ships need to pay a steep user fee to move in and out of the Persian Gulf, the story instantly becomes bigger than battlefield headlines: it’s oil prices, shipping risk, inflation pressure, and a potential global recession.

We also pressure-test Trump’s public posture...

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”

Richard P. Feynman

***

“Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of...

John and I continue to read and comment on Rules for Radicals



Download Audio.

Scott brought Robert Pape of the University of Chicago back to discuss the attempted ceasefire that went into effect on Wednesday night. Pape explains why this is not actually a meaningful step away from the escalation to a full-on war that he’s long been warning about. He also talks about how this is war is cementing Iran’s status as a world power and why he expects the Iranians to abandon their previous stance, begin earnestly pursuing nuclear weapons and attain them quickly.

Discussed on the show:

“We’re winning” is easy to post. It’s much harder to define when the missiles keep flying, the Strait of Hormuz becomes a choke point, and the only clear destination seems to be a negotiation table. We sit down with Chief Fritz, a former Command Chief Master Sergeant, to pressure test the confidence, separate opinion from fact, and ask the uncomfortable question: if the U.S. is dominating Iran, why does the strategy feel so improvised?

We talk through the military reality behind an air campaign, including readiness, munitions, interceptors, and what an attrition war look...

Iran isn’t just trading blows with the US and Israel. According to our guest, the fight is turning fixed American advantages like bases, radars, and regional headquarters into fragile targets, forcing withdrawals and relocations across the Middle East. We walk through what it means when places like Al-Udeid, Bahrain’s Fifth Fleet footprint, and multiple high-end radar sites take hits and why “no massive casualties” does not automatically mean “no massive damage.”

From there, we connect the battlefield to the economy. Oil and LNG infrastructure disruption is framed as the kind of shock that can ripple i...

Things are getting weirder.

Vital Dissent website

Join my email list and become a premium member: http://www.vitaldissent.club

Vital Dissent Merch 10% off with code VD10

Show notes: 

Terence McKenna ‘s Final Interview

http://www.vitaldissent.com/email

John and I continue to read and comment on Rules for Radicals

$200 billion is not a rounding error, it’s a signal that Washington is settling in for a long Iran war while pretending it can buy its way out of the consequences. We walk through the Pentagon’s latest funding push, why leaders keep hinting the price tag will rise, and what “replenishing stockpiles” really means when Patriot interceptors, THAAD systems, and advanced radar take years to replace. If you care about defense spending, Pentagon accountability, and the defense industrial base, this conversation connects the dollars to the hard limits nobody wants to admit.

We also challeng...

The part that doesn’t get said out loud often enough is this: you can be “aligned” in a war and still be on a collision course. We dig into why U.S. goals in Iran and Israel’s goals in Iran don’t just differ, they actively clash and how that clash shows up in assassinations that erase diplomatic options and strikes that look designed to cripple Iran’s long-term ability to function as a state.

We also zoom out to the stories getting buried while everyone watches missiles and maps. Using recent UN reporting an...

New Chasing Ghosts Podcast episode is live Monday 30 April 2026.   Ep 080 “The Cargo Cult of Martial Belief, Wishcasting and Bloodshed”   Episode 100!   Well, when I combine the 20 episodes of WarNotes with the CG podcasts but a chance to pop the bubbly anyway.  



Download Audio.

Jason Jones of the Vulnerable People Project returns to the show to give Scott an update on how his organization is working to rescue and rehabilitate the people impacted directly by the escalating violence the Israeli government and Israeli settlers are unleashing across the Middle East.

Discussed on the show:

Jason Jones is a film producer, author, activist, popular podcast host, and dedicated human rights worker. And he is the founder and president of The Vulnerab...



Download Audio.

Scott interviews Dan Vergano of Scientific American about an article he wrote exposing how scientifically absurd the claim that Iran was close to even having the ability to fully weaponize the enriched Uranium they possessed was when Washington and Tel Aviv launched this war.

Discussed on the show:

Dan Vergano is senior editor, Washington, D.C., at Scientific American. He has previously written for Grid News, BuzzFeed News, National Geographic and USA Today. He is chair of...



Download Audio.

Scott interviews Patrick Pillow about Anatomy of a Regime Change, the series he’s writing on the so-called Color Revolutions. While Iraq and Afghanistan get the most attention, the majority of Washington-backed regime change attempts since the end of the Cold War have taken the form of these CIA-organized political revolutions. Scott and Pillow walk through the specifics of several examples and discuss the importance of this often overlooked aspect of American foreign policy.

Discussed on the show: