My concern today is that the military, you know, I hope the military is not going to repeat the mistake that it made after Vietnam of imagining that just because we didn't like one of these wars, whether it was Vietnam or Iraq,

we can just kind of go back to preparing to fight peer competitors and not worry about this

this low-intensity conflict.

Even if you think about how countries like Russia, Iran, or China are going to contest our military

supremacy, most of what they do is not going to be in head-on-head operations.

Nobody is eager, you know, to fight, you know, the battle of Latee Gulf against us or, you know,

to fight the Battle of 73 Easting.

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

I'm John Amble, editorial director at MWI, and in this episode, I sat down to talk with Max Boot.

Max is, as most listeners will know, a best-selling author, a renowned historian, and really a very keen observer of the world.

In this episode, he explains why he thinks there's a risk that the U.S. military will repeat the mistakes it made after the Vietnam War,

when it almost deliberately forgot the lessons it learned about counterinsurgency and political warfare.

He also gives his assessment of the current situation in Syria and Ukraine and discusses the really broad range of ways that, as he argues, the U.S.-led international order is under threat.

It's a great discussion that I really enjoyed recording and I hope you enjoyed listening to,

but before we get into it, really quickly, a couple notes.

First, if you're not already doing so, remember, you can follow MWI on Twitter, Facebook,

and LinkedIn.

It's a really easy way to stay up to date on all of the new articles, podcast episodes,

and research we're publishing every day.

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

and don't represent those of West Point, the Army, or any other agency of the U.S. government.

All right, here's my conversation with Max Boot.

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