Lincoln Square
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History of the Present with Guest Phillips OBrien
Posted
July 6, 2026
Views
616
Likes
43
Comments
3
Engagement
7.47%
July 6, 2026
616
43
3
7.47%
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47:03Now PlayingStrategist Phillips Payson O'Brien didn't just get the war in Ukraine right — he got it right when almost everyone with access to the best intelligence in the world got it wrong. In this wide-ranging conversation, the University of St. Andrews professor and author of War and Power: Who Wins Wars and Why? joins Brian Datesman to explain why Kyiv didn't fall in three days, why the "unstoppable" Russian army was a myth built on lazy, Moscow-centric analysis, and how drones and mass production have rewritten the rules of modern war.
From there the conversation turns to the present crises: America's disastrous war of choice with Iran, the January 2026 Greenland standoff that O'Brien calls NATO's Rubicon, Trump's zero-sum worldview and what it's costing U.S. alliances, China's calculations on Taiwan, the corruption "crumbling" American democracy, and why handing a $1.5 trillion budget to this Pentagon is, in his words, insanity.
A clear-eyed, unsparing look at power, war, and where the world goes from here.
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