Battle Rhythm, Year 2!

Hey, it is year 2 of Battle Rhythm!  Today was our 27th episode, marking the first anniversary of the podcast!  Woot!  I am most proud of what we have accomplished over the year and most grateful to Stéfanie von Hlatky who has been a most excellent co-host.  We are grateful to Melissa Jennings for being a fantastic podcast producer; Alvine Nintai for doing most of the research for our prep; Ammar Shirwani for his research assistance; CGAI and especially Dave Perry and Jared Malthais and Jay Rankin; and to all the folks who agreed to be interviewed.  And we are very thankful to all those who listened to the podcast!  We toast them all in the picture to the right.

I am going to resurrect an old Spew theme to discuss the year of podcasting: what was surprising, troubling, enchanting, and humbling about the first year of podcasting.

• I am surprised that my sister is a fan of the show.  She never seemed that interested in defence/security stuff and especially not the maple-flavoured variety.  I am also surprised that our listenership is more than the seven people we joked about.  The numbers vary and may not be entirely reliable, but I do keep bumping into people who listen to the podcast. Ok, I did until the pandemic reduced the bumping opportunities.  My favorite example of this was chatting with a young DND policy officer as we were both waiting for the helicopter to take us back to the base during last fall's military exercise.  
• I am troubled by how much stress this process can put on our staff since we tend to record on Tuesdays for episodes dropping on Wednesdays.  Melissa does a great job editing and posting our stuff, but I wish we could give her more time.  The problem is that we often feel overcome by events as things change from day to day.  One of my tasks for year two is to make this less stressful for all involved.
• I am enchanted by my co-host.  I thought I was going to be the funny one, but Stéfanie makes me laugh far more than I make laugh.  Which is probably not great for our listeners since my laugh is less than soothing.  She also prepares intensely for each episode, is a tougher critic of herself and of us.  In short, whatever quality we have, it is due to her efforts.  
• I am humbled by this medium.  Recording audio is much different from anything I have ever had to do--it is not like writing, tweeting, blogging, or teaching.  I need to get better about eliminating the uh's and um's, and I, well, hate the sound of my voice.  Stef sounds so natural and professional when she does the introductions, and I just don't feel as comfy.  On the other hand, I am pretty sure she does not feel that comfortable either.  We have gotten much better at this thing, but have much more to learn.  

We started the podcast because the aims of the Canadian Defence and Security Network including amplifying the work of others (our emerging scholars and feature interviews) and to improve the defence and security literacy of Canadians.  I know that we have accomplished the first goal.  Whether we have made progress on the second one is hard to assess.

Thanks for listening.  If you have questions that you want us to answer on the podcast, email them to us at info@cdsn-rcds.com

Battle Rhythm

After many conversations, some twitter crowd-sourcing, and yet more discussion, Stéfanie von Hlatky of Queen's University and I have agreed to name our new Canadian Defence and Security Network podcast: Battle Rhythm.  We both picked up this piece of jargon while hanging out with the military.  I learned it in the Pentagon during my fellowship on the Joint Staff, and Stéfanie picked it up while doing fieldwork on her project on gender and NATO.  

What does the term mean?  It refers to the daily routine, which you would think would be sufficient.  For the military types, battle rhythm means having a regular schedule that helps keep everybody synchronized--in rhythm.  

Why did we choose it?  Good question.  I think it speaks to the larger CDSN effort of trying to connect and coordinate the defence and security folks (those who study it, those who do it, those who are involved in it).  We have no expectations of getting everybody to be in sync, but we do hope the podcast forces us to develop our own rhythm--of sharing the research the CDSN is generating, of providing our perspectives on defence and security issues, and of interviewing people on a regular basis, and of responding to our listeners (folks can send questions or comments to

cdsn.rcds@outlook.com).

We will use the podcast to preview events in the CDSN network--not just those organized by CDSN HQ but those of our thirty plus partners and 100+ participants--and share their findings.  So, some of the interviews will be of participants from these events.  Other interviews will be with those in and near government to understand how they think about the stuff they do. One of the key goals of the CDSN is to help foster a more inclusive and diverse next generation of defence scholars, scientists, and policy-makers.  So, we will bring those voices that have not been heard much to a wider audience (assuming the podcast develops a wider audience!).  

We are sure that the podcast will evolve, so that some recurring segments will develop and ones we started may be dropped.  It will take a while to figure out our rhythm.  I hope you can join us for this ride.   

Favorite National Security Podcast: Bombshell

I only listen to one* national security/IR podcast on a regular basis: Bombshell.  Why? Well, Erin Simpson might hurt me if I didn't.  Ok, maybe not but you can never be sure.  Seriously, these three woman provide sharp perspectives on US foreign policy/national security issues based on real experience in the policy world and with no b.s.  The three women are:

• Erin Simpson, who used to run Caerus, a DC consulting firm and previously served as a consultant to ISAF, and now runs Archer Avenue Consulting.  I met her long ago when I was a Council on Foreign Relations International Fellow and she was a Term member.  We re-met via twitterfight club and having lots of common friends in the twitter universe.  She is very critical of my clothing choices, and we used to compete about who is more narcissistic before Trump came along.
• Loren DeJonge Schulman  is Deputy Director of Studies and the Leon E. Panetta Fellow at the Center for a New American Security.  She served as Senior Advisor to National Security Adviser Susan Rice.  Before that she was Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense (ASD) for International Security Affairs. I have only met her on twitter, but really appreciate the insights she has had about how the NSC works.  I might have ended up on the NSC in 2001 if Condoleezza Rice was more cooperative with CFR, so Loren's insights on NSC are glimpses into what might have been.
• Radha Iyengar works at RAND as a senior economist and previously served as Deputy Chief of Staff to the DepSec of Energy.  She previously worked on the NSC on Defense, Personnel, Readiness and Partnerships and as policy adviser to ASD of Special Ops and Low Intensity Conflict.  She also prof-ed at LSE.

Each week, the women go through a series of segments and have one guest.  The guests thus far have always been women, and, I assume, always will be (the title of the podcast is Bombshells, duh).  Which is great since despite general underrepresentation in government, there are plenty of super-sharp women who have significant experience, expertise and insights, and these women tend not to get as much media attention as the men.

The podcast is quite clever in moving along the segments quickly without any one of them being rushed but with me wanting more of each. They discuss:

• the booze they are drinking (here I am just a padawan, and they are masters).  
• things that are still things. Latest issue was the unmasking stuff.  They provide much clarity quickly on this stuff, clearing away the b.s. 
• the guest with a heap of intro icebreaking questions (best meal while traveling, book they re-read the most, what fan club have you belonged to, twitter crush, favorite museum, favorite statistical distribution) and then talk about the current issue that this woman has much insight on.
• fashion advice for Jared Kushner (ok, not a regular segment).
• a pop culture segment, so this week they talked about favorite spy novels.

 The Syria discussion emphasized something that Americans take for granted--the US has limited skin in the game and thus limited leverage.  This is a common problem that American foreign policy just has not grokked.  

Erin, Loren and Radha are just very smart, funny, and insightful.  They use their experiences to get folks inside the policy process. Even though I had a year in DC and spent plenty of time at the meetings that are several layers below the PC's and the DC's, there is much I didn't see or experience.  These podcasts get you inside those rooms and also provide perspectives we don't hear enough because journalists and other media types tend to go the top of the rolodex where the boys are. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is biweekly so far, so it will not fill up your ipod unlike some other podcasts that proliferate so much that I have given up on following the subsequent franchisees (that would be Crooked Media's spinoffs).


*  Why don't I listen to more than this one national security podcast?  Because I don't want to be thinking about my business whenever I am listening to a podcast--which is when I am driving, cooking, doing the dishes, errands around the house, etc.  I listen to sports and entertainment stuff most of the time with Doug Loves Movies, The Moth, some Ringer and some ESPN, and Sepinwall's new one--TV Avalanche. 

Pondering Podcasting or Ponderous Podcasting

After taping a segment for a CBC radio program (to be broadcast sometime on December 6th with to be posted eventually) to discuss the use of sci-fi for the teaching of IR, Stephanie Carvin (who was anti- and thus wrong) and I (pro) started talking about doing a podcast to talk about international relations, Canadian foreign policy and whatever. 

It got some immediate interest from our friends and a couple of potential outlets.  So, I asked the following:

what would you call a podcast with myself and @StephanieCarvin? 2/2

— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman) November 24, 2015

Only 20% thought it was a really bad idea or thought that "A Really Bad Idea" might be the right name for the podcast.

We are still thinking about it, so any ideas for titles, for stuff to cover, for ideas about organizing or any insights into what should or should not go into this adventure, let us know.  

Podcasting at CIGI

While I was in Waterloo, I was invited to be on David Welch's Inside the Issues Podcast:


Check it out.  How many more books could I have plugged?

Previewing the Next Book Via Macleans Podcast

I got to do a short interview with John Geddes of Macleans, Canada's Time/Newsweek/USNews magazine (is there a better equivalent?).  Tis now a podcast (see bottom of the page).  He was asking me about Canada's mission in Afghanistan since it officially ended last week with the return of the training mission. 

My answers largely reflect my thoughts after writing my next book, When the Gloves Dropped (yes, a hockey reference), which I am finishing this weekend.  The snow is a good thing for finishing this.  ISA being next week?  Yes and no.  Anyhow, check it out if you want to see where my line of thought is heading, while the book makes it through the publication process.

Oh, and if you have any ideas for cover pics for the book, let me know.

Great Minds Think Alike

Ok, my mind is not so great as those of Will Moore and Christian Davenport, but I was glad to hear that I am not alone: the Egyptian political change of 2011 was not a revolution but a coup.  I made this distinction before: here and here.  Changing the leader and changing the political system are entirely two separate things, whether one needs heaps of social change (Skocpol) to count a political change as a revolution.

Mubarak was a former military commander, leading an authoritarian regime.  The "transitional" military folks running Egypt now are leading an authoritarian regime that has a patina of democracy gloss.  Events of this past week suggest that little has fundamentally changed: serious repression when dissent gets to be a bit troublesome.  Sure, constitutions are being written, but until they are actually implemented and until they re-distribute power away from the military, not a revolution, not a regime change, just a coup. 

Do listen to the Will and Chris podcast for a discussion of coups versus revolutions but also far more than that, as they consider the coverage by the media in depth, and raise all kinds of good questions, including:

Who should the media be talking to?  Area experts may know Egypt or Tunisia or Syria well, but if they do not study dissent, social movements and/or repression, how much insight can they shed? 

Riots in Retrospect

Christian Davenport and Will Moore have a new podcast, where they discuss their views on media coverage of occasions of dissent/repression/human rights violations.  They do a very nice job with their first effort of talking about how they think about conflict and media coverage of it.  It is not jargony at all, but does a nice of applying some good social science ideas to the topics at hand.  They also provide a nice counter-balance since they tend to see dissent as a good thing (or at least not as inherently bad). 

The first one is on the London riots.  I just want to speak to one bit of the conclusion where they consider a prediction someone made about riots next occurring the US after the Arab Spring and after London.  CD suggests Detroit as a potential place to spark, given how badly it has done as a city.  I would suggest that a different way to approach it is to figure which cities have the worst records of police violence and police reputations.  The key spark in London was a guy (a black guy) who got shot by the cops, and the cops were less than responsive when the community sought more information.  The LA riots were not just in the aftermath of the Rodney King beating and the officers being acquitted--we learned later that police abuse--Rampart division in particular--was pretty extreme. 

So, if we had good data (which we probably do not have), we could predict (if I am right) where riots would be most likely.  Still, all it takes really is for one person to get shot by the police to raise questions about the legitimacy of the police and about who has authority.  When that happens, we tend to see anarchy (from the IR sense--absence of government) writ small--alliances, arms races, and conflict spirals.  It was the LA riots that initially inspired by adaptation of the Security Dilemma to Ethnic Conflict (Barry Posen published it first, but I had already been playing with the idea).

Anyhow, I look forward to future CD/WM podcasts, and so should you.