Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast

Ep 063 "Spanner in the Works: Sabotage and War"

Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast

Show Notes

This CG episode got the complete audio upgrade and revision to achieve the cleanest sound ever for the podcast series effective 22 June 2025 using the new technology at Chris Williams' Podsworth. Military sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a government effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, demoralization, destabilization, division, disruption, or destruction. It can take place left of bang or during war with the object the weakening of the military effort by an adversary. Military sabotage has been taking place since the early military adventures of men. The apocryphal story of the Trojan Horse is an ancient example and variations on the theme echo through historical warfare. References: Ian Jones Booby Traps!: The History of Deadly Devices, from World War I to Vietnam Gordon L. Rottman World War II Axis Booby Traps and Sabotage Tactics Gordon L. Rottman World War II Allied Sabotage Devices and Booby Traps Lester Grau and Michael Gress The Red Army's Do-it-Yourself, Nazi-Bashing Guerrilla Warfare Manual: The Partizan's Handbook, Updated and Revised Edition, 1942 Roman Mars The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design Access All Areas: A User's Guide to the Art of Urban Exploration OSS Simple Sabotage Field Manual FM 5-31 Boobytraps TM 31-201-1 Unconventional Warfare Devices and Techniques: Incendiaries Eric Frank Russell The Wasp Michael Z. Williamson The Weapon (and the entire Freehold series) Robert Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Robert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In History My Substack Email at [email protected]

More from Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast

Oct 19, 2026

It's been quite some time since I have responded to "mail" so I have curated these questions to address:. Why the future of warfare is not clone wars? The Fall of Europe is inevitable, here is what it will look like. The rifle is no longer the future in any form of warfare. How systems engineering is ultimately the way of war now and forever Events and Ephemera: The Arcata Summit in Bozeman 13-14 November 2026 Hearts of Space Subscription Service References: Why the M7 is Wrong with Ian McCollum Unauthorized History of the Pacific War Podcast RAND wish-casting on drones in 2015. Slaughterbots (2017) Slaughterbots: if human: kill() (2021) How are Drones Changing Modern Warfare? Sun Tzu The Art of War Carl von Clausewitz On War Miyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America My Substack Email at [email protected]

Sep 21, 2026

Hybrid warfare is a can of worms, a fascinating conjoining of kinetic and non-kinetic means of achieving victory or stale between warring nations. We continue our conversation. References: The Arcata Summit 13-14 November 2026 War Without a Center: Iran’s Mosaic Defense Richard J. Samuels Special Duty: A History of the Japanese Intelligence Community John Llewelyn The Imperial Japanese Army’s Tokumu Kikan – Special Service Organisations: Connections Between Wartime and Peacetime Intelligence Activities Simon Hall BLINDED BY THE RISING SUN JAPANESE MILITARY INTELLIGENCE FROM THE FIRST SINO-JAPANESE WAR TO THE END OF WORLD WAR I Interrogation of IJF CDR Miyazaki Report to Congress on Russian Hybrid Warfare in Europe 11 August 2026 The Future of Hybrid Warfare Hybrid Warfare: How to Escape the Conceptual Gray-Zone The Evolution of Hybrid Warfare: Implications for Strategy and the Military Profession Richard Feynman Cargo Cult speech at CalTech 1974 RAND wish-casting on drones in 2015. Slaughterbots (2017) Slaughterbots: if human: kill() (2021) How are Drones Changing Modern Warfare? H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America Email at [email protected]

Sep 8, 2026

Hybrid warfare Is a can of worms, a fascinating conjoining of kinetic and non-kinetic means of achieving victory or stale between warring nations. This second episode examines an historical example of what I think is the closest modern hybrid warfare modality in the Japanese Empire in the 1930s leading to WWII; the.Imperial Japanese Army’s Tokumu Kikan – Special Service Organizations that laid the groundwork for this phenomenon in the modern west. References: Richard J. Samuels Special Duty: A History of the Japanese Intelligence Community John Llewelyn The Imperial Japanese Army’s Tokumu Kikan – Special Service Organisations: Connections Between Wartime and Peacetime Intelligence Activities Report to Congress on Russian Hybrid Warfare in Europe 11 August 2026 The Future of Hybrid Warfare Hybrid Warfare: How to Escape the Conceptual Gray-Zone The Evolution of Hybrid Warfare: Implications for Strategy and the Military Profession Richard Feynman Cargo Cult speech at CalTech 1974 RAND wish-casting on drones in 2015. Slaughterbots (2017) Slaughterbots: if human: kill() (2021) How are Drones Changing Modern Warfare? Sun Tzu The Art of War Carl von Clausewitz On War Miyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America My Substack Email at [email protected]

Aug 24, 2026

Hybrid warfare Is a can of worms, a fascinating conjoining of kinetic and non-kinetic means of achieving victory or stale between warring nations. This first episode tries to lay the ground work of what it is and in the next two episodes we will examine an historical and a contemporary example of hybrid warfare in meat-space. References: Report to Congress on Russian Hybrid Warfare in Europe 11 August 2026 The Future of Hybrid Warfare Hybrid Warfare: How to Escape the Conceptual Gray-Zone The Evolution of Hybrid Warfare: Implications for Strategy and the Military Profession Richard Feynman Cargo Cult speech at CalTech 1974 RAND wish-casting on drones in 2015. Slaughterbots (2017) Slaughterbots: if human: kill() (2021) How are Drones Changing Modern Warfare? Sun Tzu The Art of War Carl von Clausewitz On War Miyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America My Substack Email at [email protected]

Jul 6, 2026

I discuss the possibilities of America relinquishing its global ambition to reduce its footprint to a regional hegemon in the Western hemisphere. The new technologies of AI, UAVs and hypersonics rather easily challenge the spending paradigms and mission architecture of the American armed forces. There are no near-peer competitors, every nation on Earth is now a peer to modern western war machines. America boasts a magnificent 20th century war machine is not fit for purpose for 21st century peer warfare. The crossroads is chock-full of landmines. References: Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America Martin van Creveld The Transformation of War: The Most Radical Reinterpretation of Armed Conflict Since Clausewitz Fighting Power: German and U.S. Army Performance, 1939-1945 Colin Gray Strategy and History: Essays on Theory and Practice Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace, and Strategy William Lind Maneuver Warfare Handbook John Boyd Patterns of Conflict Michael Weiner Legacy of Ashes: History of the CIA John Prado The Ghosts of Langley: Into the CIA's Heart of DarknessSun Tzu The Art of War Carl von Clausewitz On War Miyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare My Substack Email at [email protected]

See all episodes →