And I think the pattern is clear here.

We could see the disenfranchised, disillusioned, forgotten and excluded Sunni leadership in Iraq as the roots of the next version, maybe, you know, Jihad 3.0, even after the fall of ISIS.

He does this by, on the one hand, it's the use of proxies.

On the other hand, it's pretty blatant.

I mean, he's providing Russian advisors, Russian command of control, Russian heavy equipment.

We have pictures of Russian tanks on Russian tank transporters crossing the border from Russia into Ukraine and being

handed off to Ukrainian separatists.

Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Modern War Institute podcast.

I'm John Amble, editorial director at MWI.

And for this episode, MWI's Major Jake Morali

got the chance to speak with Ambassador Doug Lute, a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General

who held senior positions in both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations,

both in uniform and after retiring from the Army.

In his time in the White House, he played a key role in strategies for Iraq and Afghanistan,

and when he left his White House job and was named U.S. ambassador to NATO,

he gained even more firsthand experience with a range of challenges confronting the alliance.

He talks about all of these experiences and more in what is really a fascinating

conversation. Before we get to it, though, just a couple quick notes. First, remember that if

you're not following MWI on social media, you can find us on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

It really is a great way to stay up to date on all of the articles, podcast episodes, research,

and more that we're publishing every day. And second, as always, what you hear in this episode are the views of the articles, podcast episodes, research, and more that we're publishing every

day. And second, as always, what you hear in this episode are the views of the participants

...