In this episode of Outside the Box, co-host (and six-time novelist) Jim Webb switches to the interviewee seat to join University of Notre Dame English Professor, Iraq War Army veteran, and novelist Roy Scranton to talk about novels and war. In a wide-ranging discussion, the authors of Fields of Fire and War Porn discuss how their experiences in war led them to become novelists, the creative writing process, and how fiction can convey truths about war in a way that history cannot. Recorded: April 28, 2022

Roseanne W. McManus is an Associate Professor in the Political Science Department at the Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on signaling and coercion in an international security context. She received her B.A. from the University of Maryland and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before pursuing an academic career, she was a Senior Analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Recorded: April 19, 2022

In this episode of ‘Students Talk Security’, Dr. Farr, the leading expert in the interconnection between international religious freedom, human rights, and United States National Security will discuss his work on the implications rights internationally have on defense and security domestically. His work has led to not only scholarship and legislative and State Department action, but to the creation of the Religious Freedom Institute, the leading scholarly institution on global religious freedom. Dr. Farr and I will be discussing this argument for increased emphasis on religious freedom in U.S. foreign policy, its implications within policy itself, and its usage in current issues of national security. Interviewee: Dr. Thomas Farr Interviewer: Maura Brennan

Matt Duss is a congressional staffer and has worked with Senator Bernie Sanders since 2017. Previously he was the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, and a national security and international policy analyst at the Center for American Progress. Recorded: March 29, 2022

This episode will cover how the Senate can influence foreign policy in the face of new threats and increasing executive power, and what an NSA for a Senator sees as the biggest future threats to American security and power. Interviewer: Christopher Libero Interviewee: Thomas Mancinelli

In this episode of Outside the Box, Mike and Jim engage LtGen Gregory Newbold, former Director of Operations (J-3) for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a hard-hitting and wide-ranging discussion of proposed modernization of the U.S. Marine Corps in the XXIst Century, the role of the U.S. Congress in shaping the development of the armed forces, the legitimate avenues of military dissent, and how to grow a more effective general officer corps for the U.S. military in the years to come. Recorded: March 14, 2022

Major Jeremy Grunert is an officer in the United States Air Force Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps. In this capacity, he has served as a military prosecutor and legal advisor at assignments in Afghanistan, Qatar, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Major Grunert is currently assigned to the United States Air Force Academy, where he serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Law. He instructs the Academy’s core “Law for Air Force Officers” course and is the course director for the Academy’s new “Space Law” course. Major Grunert is also the Chief of Research for the Academy’s Law, Technology, and Warfare Research Cell; in this capacity, he hosts a monthly webinar series on the subject of space law. Finally, Major Grunert has published a number of journal articles and commentaries in publications such as War on the Rocks, the Air Force Law Review, the Journal of Drone Law & Policy, and the Pepperdine Law Review. Recorded: March 1, 2022

Šumit Ganguly is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science and holds the Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is a specialist on the international and comparative politics of South Asia. His most recent book (edited with M. Chris Mason) is The Future of US-India Security Cooperation (Manchester University Press, 2021).

In 2014 Lt. Gen. Daniel Bolger published his book Why We Lost: A General’s Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghan Wars. Seven years before the fall of Kabul, he had already foreseen the chaotic end of that campaign in the Global War on Terrorism. Bolger says there is much blame to go around but focuses his fire on his profession and colleagues: the senior leadership of the U.S. military. In this episode, General Bolger joins Jim and Mike to discuss why we lost and what we need to do to win our wars in the future.

Bear F. Braumoeller is Professor in the Department of Political Science at The Ohio State University and the holder of the Baronov and Timashev Chair in Data Analytics. He conducts research in the areas of international relations, political methodology, and complexity and human behavior. He received his B.A. from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, and he held faculty positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Harvard University before moving to Ohio State. His present work focuses on the decline-of-war thesis, the relationship between international order and international conflict, and causal inference based on observational data. He currently co-directs the Computational Social Science community of practice under the Translational Data Analytics Institute at Ohio State. For more information, visit the Computational Social Science CoP page at TDAI.