John Spencer is the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies for the Modern War Institute at West Point.

Lt Col Jahara “FRANKY” Matisek is currently a U.S. Naval War College professor.

In this episode, we discuss classified leaks, drones in Gaza, exploding pagers, commercial technology in war, and more!

Biographies:

John W. Spencer currently serves as the chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute, codirector of the Urban Warfare Project, and host of the Urban Warfare Project Podcast. He is also a founding member of the International Working Group on Subterranean Warfare.

He served over twenty-five years in the Army as an infantry soldier having held ranks from private to sergeant first class and second lieutenant to major. His

assignments as an active duty Army officer included two combat deployments to Iraq as both an infantry platoon leader and company commander, Ranger instructor with the Army’s Ranger School, Joint Chiefs of Staff and Army Staff intern, fellow with the chief of staff of the Army’s Strategic Studies Group, and strategic planner and then deputy director of the Modern War Institute where he was instrumental in the design and formation of the institute.

After active duty, he served as a colonel in the California State Guard with assignment to the 40th Infantry Division, California Army National Guard as the director of urban warfare training.

His research focuses on military operations in dense urban areas, megacities, and urban and subterranean warfare. He is an internationally recognized subject matter expert in urban warfare who regularly consults for United States Army Forces Command units, Training and Doctrine Command, Defense Advanced Research

Projects Agency, the United Nations, and many other military and national security organizations.

His writing has appeared in the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the LA Times, NY Daily News, Wired, Politico, The Hill,

Foreign Policy, Defense One, Army Magazine, and many other publications. He is the author of Understanding Urban Warfare, (Howgate Publishing, 2022),

Connected Soldiers: Life, Leadership, and Social Connections in Modern War (Potomac Books, 2022), The Mini-Manual for the Urban Defender (John Spencer,

2022)

Lt Col Jahara “FRANKY” Matisek is a U.S. Air Force Command Pilot with a political science PhD from Northwestern University. He is a military professor at the U.S. Naval War College and is a Fellow at the European Resilience Initiative Center and the Payne Institute of Public Policy. FRANKY has published over 100 articles on strategy, warfare, and security assistance, and he has conducted research in Ukraine, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other fragile states.