The Rest Is History
Goalhanger
History
School of War
by The Free Press
Today: #71 in History on our combined chart.
Chart positions today
If you like School of War, try…
The Team House
dee takos
World War II with Tom Hanks
The HISTORY Channel | Back Pocket Studios | Audacy
Lore
Aaron Mahnke
American Scandal
Audible
Throughline
NPR
Ranking history
History builds daily. We started tracking this show on the History chart recently, so the trend line appears after a second day of data.
View as table
| Date | Apple Podcasts |
|---|---|
| Oct 1 | #60 |
About the show
In School of War, CBS News National Security Analyst and Free Press columnist Aaron MacLean sits down with secretaries of state, top military historians, war planners, and key political decision-makers to help understand the lessons of war.
Tune in as School of War takes you to the front lines.
Aaron MacLean is a former senior fellow at Hudson Institute. He has worked as a foreign policy advisor and legislative director to Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and spent seven years in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Visit our Substack for episode transcripts
Follow along on Instagram
Latest episodes
-
How the Middle East Got So Screwed Up, with Simon Sebag Montefiore
September 29, 2026 · 1 hr 15 min“Let’s whisper it,” said historian Simon Sebag Montefiore. “The Trump blockade is working.” It can be hard to parse the state of play in the Middle East amid escalating rhetoric, but history gives us the necessary perspective to call balls…
-
America’s Aging Shipyards Are a Crisis Waiting to Happen
September 25, 2026 · 47 minIf America wants to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty, it needs to build more warships. China currently dominates global shipbuilding—producing vessels at a scale the United States can no longer match. Alex Wong, an executive at South Korean…
-
The Middle East After America?
September 22, 2026 · 49 minCould Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey form a “Muslim NATO?” Pakistan has the nuclear arsenal, Saudi Arabia has the wealth, and Turkey has the NATO-trained military—“you put these three together and it becomes a pretty formidable force,”…
-
Why John Boyd Still Matters
September 18, 2026 · 60 minJohn Boyd was one of the most influential military thinkers of the 20th century, and the intellectual godfather of the U.S. Marines’ military strategy. Today, as artificial intelligence continues to transform battlefields in Ukraine and…
-
What War Teaches Us—If We Survive It
September 15, 2026 · 1 hr 2 minPeople think retired Army Major John Spencer lost part of his ear in combat. He didn’t; he lost it in a fight behind a bar that cost him his spot in the Army Rangers. Spencer went on to serve repeatedly in combat and become one of the…
-
“We Are Going to War”: McMaster Remembers 9/11, 25 Years On
September 11, 2026 · 57 minLieutenant General H.R. McMaster was on the phone with the Pentagon when the plane struck the building on September 11, 2001. “I thought, Okay, we are going to war,” he recalls. Twenty-five years after 9/11, McMaster joins Aaron MacLean to…
-
Ten-Minute Warning: The Hypersonic Threat
September 8, 2026 · 44 minA Chinese hypersonic missile targeting either U.S. coast would leave room for “about 10 minutes of warning time.” Zachary Krevor, CEO of Stratolaunch, is building vehicles to help the Pentagon learn to detect, track, and intercept this…
-
What to Expect When You’re Expecting Great Power Conflict
September 4, 2026 · 55 minWhen it comes to world superpowers, Cambridge historian Brendan Simms argues there are only four that matter—and two of them are fading. Today, Simms joins Aaron MacLean to argue that Britain still belongs among the world’s leading powers…