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War Isn’t What You Think It Is
Major John Spencer joins Whiskey Tango to discuss what pundits get wrong about urban warfare.
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There are never good reasons to fight a war. Killing is always unjustifiable. Wars should never be waged under any circumstances.
When it comes to understanding modern war, simplifications like these are par for the course. Sometimes they’re partially true. More often than not, they feel morally convenient. Ultimately, they’re soothing fictions—peddled by polished thought leaders, academics, and keyboard warriors who’ve rarely known the realities of combat.
The truth is much harder to accept.
War is never clean. It can be fought for good reasons and bad—and few emerge unscathed. War is hell. It is a battlefield of contradictions, where moral clarity is often the first casualty.
So how do we reclaim a more honest conversation about war—one that grapples with its brutal complexities without losing sight of what matters? We begin by listening to a diverse array of voices, especially those who’ve lived it.
Major John Spencer is one of those voices. As Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point’s Modern War Institute, Spencer combines firsthand combat experience with deep expertise in urban military environments. His work spans war zones from Nagorno-Karabakh to Ukraine to Gaza, and he’s widely regarded as one of the world’s leading authorities on urban warfare. Major Spencer is not without controversy, but I found his analysis thoughtful and precise.
In the second episode of Whiskey Tango, our limited series on military leadership and modern conflict, I sit down with Spencer to discuss the myths distorting our common understanding of war.
Our conversation covers the siegecraft of ancient Greece all the way to today’s battles in Gaza and Ukraine. We explore why the laws of war exist, how nations prepare for urban combat, and why democracies—however reluctantly—sometimes must fight wars.
One of RDI’s goals is to reignite the Free World’s survival instinct and in this case, that means reexamining how we fight when we actually decide to do so.
You can watch the first part of our interview now. The full episode—and future ones like it—are available to paid subscribers of The Next Move. Your investment supports our team and sustains our efforts to offer a vision for the future worth fighting for.
Check it out. Sit with it. And let us know what you think in the comments.
Watch the First Episode Here
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