SSI Live Podcast

About SSI Live Podcast

USAWC professors and esteemed guests discuss topics ranging from military strategy to geopolitical issues and wide-ranging military topics. Questions or feedback? E-mail usarmy.carlisle.awc.mbx.parameters@army.mil

Publisher

U.S. Army War College Public Affairs

Category

education · government · history

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

31 Jul 2018

Latest episode

12 Jun 2026

Latest episodes

61 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   12 Jun 2026

   SSI Live Podcast – Ep 125 – Europe’s Role in a Taiwan Crisis

   In this episode of SSI Live, Major Brennan Deveraux interviews Dr. John Deni on his ongoing research concerning Europe’s potential involvement in a war in the Pacific. The conversation explores the challenges of coalition management and the unique contributions the United States could request from its European allies. John Deni Hello and welcome to SSI Live (https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/SSI-Media/Podcasts/SSI-Live-Podcast/). You’ve long known the Strategic Studies Institute, or SSI, at the US Army War College, as the go-to location for issues related to national security and military strategy, with an emphasis on geostrategic analysis. SSI conducts strategic research and analysis to support the US Army War College curricula; assist and inform Army, DoD, and US government leadership; and serve as a bridge to the wider strategic community. Now, we are bringing you access to SSI analyses, scholars, and guests, through this, the SSI Live podcast series. Thanks for joining us. Brennan Deveraux Welcome back to SSI Live. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those are the guests and not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. I’m Brennan Deveraux, your guest host for the last time. And it’s only fitting that for my final guest, I welcome back the show’s regular host, Dr. John Deni, who just returned from his sabbatical. Dr. Deni is a research professor of security studies at the US Army War College’s newly established Strategic Research and Assessments Department, formerly the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI). He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a senior fellow at the NATO Defense College, and an adjunct professorial lecturer at American University School of International Service. Previously, John worked for eight years as a political advisor to senior US military commanders in Europe. He is a political scientist who received his doctorate from George Washington University. For this conversation, will be exploring John’s ongoing work examining Europe’s potential role in a US-China conflict. John, thanks for coming on. John Deni Brennan, my pleasure and thanks for hosting. Deveraux Well, thanks for letting me host for this last year. It’s actually been a really cool experience, I had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people. And I appreciate the trust you put in me to do that. So, we’ll go ahead and jump right in. So I had the chance to host for a year because you took a sabbatical. Can you tell us a little bit about why you decided to take a sabbatical, and a little bit of what you worked on while you were off? Deni Yeah, certainly Brennan. At the US Army War College, as at many, perhaps most, academic institutions, faculty have the ability to request or apply for a sabbatical, which is kind of an intellectual break, if you will, from the day-to-day duties of being a faculty member at whatever institution you’re a part of. And it gives you a chance to, gives a faculty member a chance to sink his or her teeth into a, typically into a larger research project that could unfold. Let’s say the research could unfold over a period of many months. In contrast to the effort it takes to write a journal article, for example, or an op-ed, or a blog entry, which can typically be done in a much shorter time frame. To write, for example, a book, you usually need months, if not years, and that can be difficult to do for an academic with a standard teaching load. And so here at the US Army War College, after, I think the regulation states six years of service, a faculty member can apply for. Deveraux And real quick, it’s not just writing the book, not something you can just do on nights and weekends. When you start talking about in your line of work, you’re doing intense research. You’re traveling. There’s a lot more to it than just some listeners might think of finding the time. It’s more than just finding the time Deni You know? Yeah, that is true. The time, though, I must tell you, is kind of a, it’s the focal point. I mean, there’s certainly more to it than just researching and writing. You’re right. There’s, there’s the, a part of the research is the travel, right, necessary to get the information from archives or from interviews or from exercises that you need to write a book in the national security field. Right. But you know, from the typical faculty members perspective, the issue really is one mostly of time. Having concentrated time to write a book. That is a rare thing in our world. And so, the opportunity to do that came, and I chose to pursue it. Of course, you’ve got to pitch a project. It’s not a right. But you’ve got the potential to have a sabbatical. You apply for it. And so, I put together an application on this project that we’re going to discuss. And, and I was lucky enough to have the War college bless it. And so I had this academic year, ten months to work on this book project and attempt to complete it in that space of time. Deveraux That’s awesome. That’s a really neat opportunity. I’m excited to see what came out of it. And I did get a chance to see a little teaser article that that’s out and about. But if you could tell us a little bit about your pitch from what you thought the project was going to be, and then kind of how it’s developed over these last ten months? Deni Sure. Well, the project is about Europe’s role in a US China flight, probably over Taiwan, but I include other scenarios as well. And the reason why I chose to tackle that topic was that I saw in the literature on US-Chinese competition, strategic competition, or conflict over Taiwan, most experts in our country, most academics in North America, tend to pay very little attention to allies. If they do, they address the Japanese, the Australians, allies in the Indo-Pacific. And of course, that makes sense, right? If they devote any attention at all to Europe, and Europe is largely disregarded, if they devote any attention to it, they sort of wave it off in nearly the same breath, because the argument is typically that Europe doesn’t have the capacity or the capability to do much of anything in the Indo-Pacific. So why would we look at them to help us in what could be a big fight against the Chinese? Right. I just thought that was frankly inaccurate, and it underestimated the scale of the conflict that could be coming. And it’s breadth, right? I think of this as a potential conflict between the US and China as far more than just a military fight. If something like this happened, it’s very likely to spread into the economic domain. It may even begin their effect. It will include the diplomatic realm, obviously, the information space, cyber, space, etc. multiple domains. Well beyond the question of whether or not Europe can deploy an aircraft carrier into the Indo-Pacific. So that’s why I chose to do it. And I’ve sort of tried to frame the project in, again, the sort of broad context of what could a potential conflict with China look like. And then what kind of help would the US need in these various domains? And that’s really that’s probably the second half of the book. The first half of the book is more about how would we bring allies on board in this effort. How has the US in the past built coalitions to engage in diplomatic or military initiatives near and far from home? And so those that’s really the broad framing and then the two specific halves of the book, if you will. And at the very end, I take those two halves of the book and try to kind of marry them. Okay. If this is what we need from Europe for this kind of a scenario, what do we pull from our toolkit of coalition building and coalition maintenance to make it happen so that we can successfully gain the resistance? Deveraux It’s really neat, and I would assume based on especially the comment about the maintenance, but based on your findings, a lot of the recommendations are going to be pre-conflict. What are we doing to try to build the capabilities, build the partnership, and maybe just help others understand that the problem isn’t isolated necessarily just to the Pacific? Deni Yeah, a lot of it is pre-conflict Brennan. And I think that’s where one of the major recommendations is that we should not, in the US, presume simultaneity. Okay. Simultaneity is this concept very popular right now in political science and national security circles regarding the potential for a simultaneous war between the US and China and between, let’s say, the West, broadly speaking, anchored by the US and Russia. Okay. And the thinking, the sort of conventional wisdom right now is that simultaneity is likely to occur. But if it doesn’t, we need to plan for that, in any case. It’s a worst-case scenario, right? We should plan for it. I’m not saying we shouldn’t, but what it has led to in some cases is from a policymaking perspective, is an effort on the part of some and policymaking circles to essentially tell the Europeans, “Thanks, but no thanks. Even at this pre conflict stage, we don’t want your assistance in the Indo-Pacific. We want you to focus on the Russia challenge. We’ll worry about China. You stay focused on the Russia challenge in Europe.” And we’ve seen this emerge in open-source reporting. In fact, that was a major impetus to the project. When I began to see there was a news article, I want to say last spring or early summer regarding comments made by senior Department of Defense or Department of War officials to the United Kingdom regarding a deployment of an aircraft carrier, a British carrier group, to the Indo-Pacific. And the opinion was expressed by...

2. 

   4 May 2026

   SSI Live Podcast – Ep 124 – The Selective Service System

   In this episode of SSI Live, Major Brennan Deveraux interviews Dr. Michael Lynch on his involvement with the Selective Service System. The conversation explores the history of the military draft and the contemporary challenges of implementing a modern-day draft to support a large-scale war. John Deni Hello and welcome to SSI Live (https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/SSI-Media/Podcasts/SSI-Live-Podcast/). You’ve long known the Strategic Studies Institute, or SSI, at the US Army War College, as the go-to location for issues related to national security and military strategy, with an emphasis on geostrategic analysis. SSI conducts strategic research and analysis to support the US Army War College curricula; assist and inform Army, DoD, and US government leadership; and serve as a bridge to the wider strategic community. Now, we are bringing you access to SSI analyses, scholars, and guests, through this, the SSI Live podcast series. Thanks for joining us. Brennan Deveraux Welcome back to SSI Live. I’m your host, Major Brennan Deveraux. Still waiting on John Deni and his awesome book that’s going to come out of that sabbatical. I’m joined today by Dr. Mike Lynch. He’s a national security research professor with me over at the Strategic Studies Institute. Mike covers a myriad of topics in his research, from homeland defense to force structure and mobilization. He retired from the US Army in 2005 and subsequently earned his PhD in history at Temple University. For this conversation, we’re going to be exploring the Army War College’s relationship with the Selective Service System and Mike’s role as the liaison to this often-overlooked organization. Mike, before we jump into the Selective Service System, can you just talk to me a little bit about your background and how that helped you land this unique role of working with the Selective Service System? Mike Lynch Sure, Brennan, and thanks for the opportunity to do this. I started researching mobilization when I arrived here as a civilian in 2005. But it actually goes back before that. My interest goes back before that. In 2002, while I was still on active duty, I was fortunate enough to attend a conference sponsored by the US Army War College. I was not at the War College at the time. But it was in Paris. And it brought together the armies of the United States. Great Britain, France, and Germany. And the purpose of that was to help Germany figure out how to end conscription. It’s interesting that Germany is now thinking about restarting conscription, but from that it gave me an interest in in mobilization generally in conscription specifically. Deveraux Okay. So, you had a, a couple of opportunities. You started looking at mobilization when you got here as a civilian research professor, historian. Talk to me about how you then kind of stumbled your way into working specifically with the Selective Service System. Lynch So I had done a couple of studies on how the Army has mobilized in the past. And one issue was the Army’s strategic planning guidance of 2012 seemed to be very inadequate in terms of what we would need to do to build a large army. So, I did a, a study called “The Myths of Expansibility,” and sort of surveyed how we’ve expanded in the past. And that was in 2014. And then in 2024, purely by happy chance, I happened to be walking into the, to Root Hall, the US Army War College school building, and I ran into a group of people who were having a conference in one of our multi-purpose rooms. I actually helped somebody find the room, and it turned out that it was the Selective Service System staff here, doing an offsite at Carlisle Barracks in preparation for a Gettysburg staff ride. When I discovered that it was the Selective Service System, I talked to them a little bit about the research I had done in the past, and they got very interested and it rolled on from there. They invited me to several workshops and those kinds of things. Deveraux So real quick, if we could take a step back. The Selective Service System. So not an organization too many people are that familiar with, maybe the older generation for different reasons. For a lot of the younger generation, that’s, a thing of the past, right? We’re an all-volunteer force. There is no draft. Can you talk a little bit about the Selective Service System? Kind of what it is, who it falls under? Because this was a unique thing for me to learn. I thought it was different than it is. And then kind of how it still exists today. And what its purpose is. Lynch Right. And that, that’s a great question, Brennan, because, to be perfectly honest, I did not know that we still had a Selective Service System until I ran into it. I thought that would be generated in, in case of war or whatever. But the Selective Service System, going back throughout the history of the 20th century wars, particularly World War Two and forward, the Selective Service System is the organization that runs the draft to conscript people to go into the military. Now its current form is very small. I don’t know what the total number of Selective Service employees is, but it is very, very small. And it’s designed to expand, to much larger in the event that we go to, go to a draft. It is a standalone organization, does not belong to the Department of War. And it is a, as we would say in the military, it’s a direct report to the president, so. Deveraux And I think we at least have some aspect of it exists, it’s this nebulous thing because all young men, and I specifically used the word men because it’s still, I know that’s been, are still required to register. I remember having to do this as a thing, right? You register when you turn 18, it comes up in forms later ensuring that you did register, you know, 20 years ago for a, and I joke because I’m in the Army. So yes, I registered. But also like, “don’t worry about it.” I did my paperwork, right. So, it at least exists and I think they’re, they’re moving to a more electronic aspect of how they do things from, you know, when I first registered. But it’s kind of existed there in the background. I don’t think many people think about it because we’re not thinking about a draft, which is a scary concept. But if we look at what’s going on in Europe with the war in Ukraine, the type of casualties we could have in a large-scale war, that, you know, hopefully we never have to fight, the all-volunteer force might not be enough to get through it. Lynch That’s correct. Deveraux Okay. And so one of the first things you got to do with the Selective Service is actually go out to their organization and kind of see, I want to say how the old-school, lottery works, but I think it’s fairly similar today than it was way back when. Lynch It is, it is. And it’s important to note, Brennan, that, even though we’re talking about the draft, the draft requires an act of Congress to restart. So, this is background study and research in case. But there is no push to restart a draft. But you’re correct. I was invited to go to what the Selective Service System calls a lottery exercise. And that is literally how the lottery process operates. The lottery being what, how we generate the names. Now, I can break this down. One of the things that the Selective Service is required to do is provide a fair and transparent process because of abuses in the past of the deferment system, that sort of thing. It’s important to provide a fair and transparent process. So there are observers there who will watch everything that happens. And it’s ultimately fair because it’s simply based on birthdays. The lottery is called a lottery exercise because they use lottery machines that are identical to the state lottery machines that you may see on Friday night drawing Powerball numbers, a series of… Deveraux Like the bingo wheel. Lynch Exactly, exactly. Deveraux It’s for that for those that don’t necessarily do the lottery, that’s all I’m envisioning is someone spinning the giant cage and pulling out the ball. Lynch That’s essentially it. And in that case, there are two giant cages. In one giant cage. You have all the birthdays from January 1st to December 31st, including February 29th. And then in the other giant cage, you have 366 balls. So you would turn those cages and two balls come out. And for instance, my birthday is May 28th, and if that that ball comes out of one cage and the other cage, the ball comes out 15, then I would be in the 15th draft call for that period. Deveraux Okay. No. That’s neat. To your point, no one’s reinstituting the draft soon, right? But this has been going on consistently. I mean, for generations, correct? Since before, Vietnam, which is when we really associate ourselves with the draft and I think, if I have my history right, there’s only about maybe a four-year period once we transitioned out of the draft into an all-volunteer force where we stopped registering, and then, it got reinstituted, I believe that was under President Ford. Lynch Correct. The registration stopped in 1975, and then that was, President Ford, and then, restarted, I believe it was under President Ford, but then stopped again and then restarted again under President Carter. It was re-stopped and started for a brief period of time, but registration was restarted in time for me to register in 1980. And then, it lapsed for, a few months or a year and then came back in in 1981. And to your point, when I was in regular Army basic training as a private at Fort Dix, New Jersey, in May of 1981, one of the pieces of mail my mother sent me was a reminder from Select...

3. 

   1 Apr 2026

   SSI Live Podcast – Ep 123 – Obama and the Bomb

   In this episode of SSI Live, Major Brennan Deveraux interviews Dr. Frank Jones, a distinguished fellow of the US Army War College, on his recently published book Obama and the Bomb: New START, Russia, and the Politics of post-Cold War Arms Control. The conversation explores the historical significance of this now expired bi-lateral treaty and Frank’s assessment of the conditions required to achieve this type of great-power cooperation.           Brennan Deveraux   Welcome back to SSI Live. I’m your host, Brennan Deveraux, still filling in for John Deni. I’m joined today by Dr. Frank Jones, a distinguished fellow of the US Army War College, where he taught in the Department of National Security and Strategy. Previously, Frank had retired from the Office of the Secretary of Defense as a senior executive. He’s the author or editor of four books and numerous articles on US national security.For this conversation, we’ll be discussing Frank’s recently published book, Obama and the Bomb: New START, Russia, and the Politics of post-Cold War Arms Control. Thanks for joining me today, Frank.        Frank Jones  Well, thank you for the invitation.      Deveraux       Obama and the Bomb is a detailed account of the administration’s efforts to negotiate a new version of one of the last remnants of the Cold War, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Or START. I guess, in this case, New START. The book follows the steps from concept through negotiation and eventually ratification, dropping readers behind the scenes of the frustrating bureaucratic process of debate and compromise required to formalize a treaty.So, Frank, I’ll just jump right in. This is a pretty specific topic. I’m curious why you chose it.Frank Jones  Yeah, it’s a combination of interests. Really. The first aspect of it was I was just interested in international negotiations. I’d been doing some work on the Korean armistice, and I became fascinated with how negotiations occur. The second aspect was that I just published a few years earlier, a book on Senator Sam Nunn, who had been on the Armed Services Committee in the Senate. Chairman of that. He was very interested in arms control issues. And then the third reason really is I used to be in charge of a course here at the War College called “The Theory of War and Strategy.” I reintroduced or introduced into the curriculum nuclear strategy as a lesson. I felt that that had, in the post-Cold War era, had gone out of people’s mind.But at the same time, Iran was looking to build a nuclear arsenal. And also, North Korea was in the news. So, I thought students in joint PME, professional military education, had to be aware of nuclear weapons again and the strategy and the theories of deterrence.Deveraux       It’s an interesting time for the conversation. I know over the past few years some of these treaties have gone away naturally. Some of them we’ve chose to walk out of. As a rocket guy, the INF [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces] Treaty, was a big one for me when we walked out of it. So I found this really interesting, which is why I kind of jumped on this opportunity.So I appreciate you writing it. I really enjoyed the book. Thanks for sharing it with me. If you can, for listeners who are maybe a little less familiar with the treaty itself, can you just talk about the START Treaty? What it, what it is, what it was, what the New START is? And then today, being a pretty significant day, the treaty ended. So it expired. So now it’s a little bit more historical than the application.Jones  The New START Treaty, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, is a response by the Obama administration in 2009 through when the treaty went into effect in 2011,

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