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Radio War Nerd EP #599 — World of Wars: Triumph of the Arch + Cuba War Talk, Iran Ceasefire Talk (Patreon)

Published:
2026-04-16 22:18:19
Imported:
2026-04
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Recorded: April 16, 2026

As the War Nerd prepares to have his brain checked in Turin, we discuss Trump's Triumphal Arch and plans for a war on Cuba, as well as the shaky ceasefire in the US-Israel war on Iran and Lebanon.

Total time: 1:10:51Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

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Buy & review John Dolan's new book, They Should Have Been Hanged: War Nerd Essays on the U.S. Civil War

Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio

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HeyB00B00

Loving the number of uploads lately 🔥

Schaeffer Mallory

Would be sick to have an episode elaborating the point about the structural barriers to 3rd parties

frequency

It’s the First Past The Post system—means you split the left (right) vote if >2 parties run unless the third party is truly not drawing any people from left or right.

JoR

Maybe a guest can articulate or answer this question better, but: what will a ceasefire even look like if agreed upon again? Or even a full “peace deal”? It seems very easy for Israel to just claim a provocation, break the ceasefire, and have the US (Trump and both parties) to go along with it. Maybe that’s a bit simplistic, but a simple solution (say, the US saying “no more weapon deals until you stop”) seems impossible too. Unless we’re literally a few days away from an economic apocalypse? I dunno .

GC

@joe -- absolutely. Ranked choice voting would fix 80% of the problem. I'd call it a paleolithic way to run an electoral democracy if I didn't suspect that plenty of paleolithic societies were a good bit more democratically sophisticated

John Waaben

I believe Mark was comparing the UAE to Scrappy Doo?

William

Idk why, but at ~ 13:00 a vision of John as Wallace Shawn’s character in The Princess Bride appeared in my head saying, “Ever heard of Alexander the Great? Clausewitz? Suvorov? .. Morons”

Jim Campbell

In addition to the effects of First Past The Post, U.S. federal elections have always been run and funded by the contemporary major parties themselves. When the federal election cannot practically occur, by which I mean it is not funded and staffed without the participation of the major parties, it creates an opportunity for all of the state and local entities operating federal elections to cater to the needs of their funders. Would it surprise you to learn that during the last 230-odd years, major parties have used this authority to create barriers to entry?

William

I thought the FT said Iran *bought* the satellite from the Chinese?

Mungo Franczak

John Fetterman suffered a stroke a couple years ago following his election to the senate and ever since he’s just gone more and more off the deep end

Mungo Franczak

I only have access to the Reuters article about it cause I don’t sub to FT but Reuters says: “Iran secretly acquired a Chinese ‌spy satellite in late 2024 that has allowed it to target U.S. military bases across the Middle East during the current war, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, an account Beijing dismissed as untrue. The TEE-01B satellite, built and launched by Chinese company Earth ​Eye Co, was acquired by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Aerospace Force after it was launched ​into space from China, the report said, citing leaked Iranian military documents.” Still not entirely clear

Schaeffer Mallory

Right, I know about the first past the post system but that to me is a weak argument against 3rd parties, especially in the context of both of the two parties being as weak/unpopular as they are now. In my opinion, a left populist alternative/"third" party (if started with high profile national progressives like Bernie) could destroy the electoral base of the Democratic Party, maybe it would take 5-10 years, but I think people are begging for an alternative. All that to say, I think this "third" party could just replace the Democratic Party

Schaeffer Mallory

But, this is exactly why I'd love an ep on this! I generally think the old arguments against the viability of third parties need to be re calibrated to a reality in which the duopoly is maaaaasively unpopular, which has never (to my knowledge) happened before in US history, at least not to this extreme

William

Bay of pigs 2 will likely go down the same as isreal’s recent “invasion” of Lebanon. I do want to see the US humiliated but I don’t want to see war come to the island

John Miller

Seth Ackerman wrote the definitive article on this issue, it was published in Jacobin the day Trump won in 2016. There are so many structural barriers beyond first past the post, It makes your head spin. I don’t know if I’m allowed to post links in here but here it is, with a choice quote: The Council of Europe, the pan-European intergovernmental body, maintains a “Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters,” which catalogs electoral practices that contravene international standards. Such violations often read like a manual of US election procedure. In 2006, the council condemned the Republic of Belarus for violating the provision of the code proscribing signature requirements larger than 1 percent of a district’s voters, a level the council regards as extremely high; in 2014, Illinois required more than triple that number for House candidacies. In 2004, the council rebuked Azerbaijan for its rule forbidding voters from signing nomination petitions for candidates from more than one party; California and many other states do essentially the same thing. In fact, some US electoral procedures are unknown outside of dictatorships: “Unlike other established democracies, the USA permits one set of standards of ballot access for established ‘major’ parties and a different set for all other parties.” That America’s election system is uniquely repressive is common knowledge among experts. “Nowhere is the concern [about governing-party repression] greater than in the United States, as partisan influence is possible at all stages of the electoral contest,” concludes a recent survey of comparative election law. “Perhaps the clearest case of overt partisan manipulation of the rules is the United States, where Democrats and Republicans appear automatically on the ballot, but third parties and independents have to overcome a maze of cumbersome legal requirements,” writes Pippa Norris, a world elections authority at Harvard and director of democratic governance at the United Nations Development Program. “One of the best-kept secrets in American politics,” the eminent political scientist Theodore Lowi has written, “is that the two-party system has long been brain dead — kept alive by support systems like state electoral laws that protect the established parties from rivals and by federal subsidies and so-called campaign reform. The two-party system would collapse in an instant if the tubes were pulled and the IVs were cut.” https://jacobin.com/2016/11/bernie-sanders-democratic-labor-party-ackerman

John Miller

Oh … should’ve listened to the full episode first… this is the one Mark cites around the 29:30 …mark

Tristan

We have an Arch in Hartford for the Civil War

Rory Flaherty

Trump building a triumphal arch now is like if Napoleon built the arc de triumph after the battle of Waterloo

Miko

Graham Platner is 100% going to be the next fetterman/sinema. Both of them also ran as "truth talkers", made progressive noises, had cleaner records, and far fewer red flags, than this guy. Nazi tattoo blackwater guy from the wealthy family is just an obvious disaster in the making, he's a bunch of red flags in a trenchcoat.

Boobs123

I myself will only vote for vagrants with no family, it's the only way I can be sure that a candidate is pure.

Ezra de Leon

Multiple COVID infections probably damaged his brain on top of that.

Jonathan Penn

With respect to John's remark about the stupidity of needing to move US troops into hotels, I remind everyone of the single largest mass casualty event in Operation Desert Storm, when a Scud missile hit a re-purposed warehouse used to house US troops, killing 28 and wounding over 100. Same stupidity of not preparing appropriate shelter for in-theater troops. It is amazing how slowly militaries learn.

Xander Udo

Loved the airplane chat as well. As a kid I enjoyed nerdily reading magazines about jets.

etienne

basically erecting a Triump Arch over winning an election by 1.5% in a cost of living crisis and thinking you got dispatched by the almighty lord

a clash of purple

I hear what you're saying, but at the same time, the whole concept of triumph is a matter of perspective and propaganda. If you tell everyone you won the biggest victory of all time, and no one convincingly and publicly smacks you down for it, then who's to say you're wrong?

a clash of purple

Technically, the Arc de Triomph wasn't finished until after the Bourbon Restoration, so...

etienne

me, I'm saying it. that they're wrong

a clash of purple

"You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia!'" Maybe Americans don't realize that the Middle East is part of Asia... Actually, friend of the show Brace Belden interviewed Wallace Shawn on TrueAnon podcast just recently, funnily enough.

a clash of purple

Won't it just be yet another "frozen conflict" where the shooting (mostly) stops and everyone agrees to passive-aggressively stare at each other in silence until someone snaps?

a clash of purple

"Boobs123" may be the most generic internet handle I've ever seen, and I love it.

etienne

I've thought of that, it could totally come true. There's no indication that the guy has the strength and support network to withstand everything when he gets to congress, he's going to be naked and afraid and they're going to pick him off easily and make him look foolish like they did with AOC maybe maybe not

LET ME DELETE MY ACCOUNT YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES

"Coverage of..." Like Greenland and Venezuela? The outrage over Greenland compared to Venezuela, they abducted their fucking President and we moved on. The discrepancy and reason for that discrepancy is pretty stark.

Tom Warner

traditionally it was up to the gods to smite you for your hubris. today.... it might still work the same actually

etienne

Allah's time to shine

Maggie+Al

On Cuba I think i'm not willing to assume that the revolutionary fervour held on for nearly 70 years and they are still up for it. These things have a half life and possibly the key mistake of Trump in Iran was to go after them when the generation of frontline officers who fought the Iraq war was still providing the countries leadership. That said if any American adversary had thought to give Cuba drones and satellite Intel the Trump clique is heavily invested in Florida, now I haven't seen the range bubble or Iranian strategic munitions super imposed on to Cuba but you have to wonder what Mara Lago's air defences are like.

William

“But only less well known is this: never fight Iran in a war of attrition, when the Hormuz straight is on the line!!”

J P 3

The prospective location of Trump's DC arch is a place called Columbia Island. Columbia Island was built up over time thanks to dredging from the Potomac River and nearby areas. Maybe some engineer can weigh in here. However, I wonder if a 250 foot marble arch placed on top of dredged up land is going to be the most stable structure.

JoR

For the war itself I believe they made some book recommendations on the original episode they did for it. I wanna say episode 80