The road to Ward 17

Only 1 percent of all Americans serve in the military. Even fewer ever see combat. All of those who do are changed by the experience. This week Tony Russo shares some of the stories he’s gathered from...

29 Maj 201824min

When the United States put a machine gun on top of what looked like a bomb-squad robot, it didn’t care much who it was aiming at. But on the whole, drones and other killer robots are pretty effective,...

22 Maj 201837min

Why did the United States stop building the F-22, a fifth generation fighter the Air Force loves? Especially if the F-35 program is very much up in the air - pun intended - with each batch of fighters...

16 Maj 201836min

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in have met. The Trump administration is on its way to talk denuclearization and the formal end of a war that’s lasted 65 years. Is ...

8 Maj 201849min

Luke Skywalker is a household name. Carl von Clausewitz not so much. Learning about the military—especially about strategy and tactics—is a jargon filled slog. War has a language all its own and for d...

1 Maj 201832min

War is a bloody business and few people know this better than the medics, physician assistants, and assorted battlefield doctors. Since Vietnam, the U.S. has gotten a lot better at saving the lives of...

24 Apr 201831min

What does the United States get out of having a human spaceflight program? For that matter, what do Russia and China get out of having one? Especially if it’s not about getting the “ultimate high grou...

17 Apr 201834min

When France fell less than two months after Germany invaded in the spring of 1940, conspiracy theories grew to explain the loss. One of the most common was the idea of a massive German spy network, a ...

9 Apr 201829min