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Radio War Nerd EP #603 — Operation Barbarossa, pt. 9: Battle of Moscow (II), feat. Annibale + Assassination Tension (Patreon)

Published:
2026-05-01 00:53:16
Edited:
2026-05-01 13:03:47
Imported:
2026-05
Tags:

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Guest: AnnibaleRecorded: April 29, 2026

In this installment of our Operation Barbarossa series, Annibale brings us to the brink of the Soviet counteroffensive outside Moscow, as the Nazi invasion force is stretched beyond its limits, the result of a delusional invasion plan and the many contradictions of the Nazi regime and political economy.

First - we discuss Cole Allen's delusional assassination plan over the weekendAt 39:30 - Music interlude by Brendon Anderegg. Check out music from his group Mountains hereAt 42:40 - Operation Barbarossa, pt. 9

Annibale's Operation Barbarossa:-Operation Barbarossa, pt 1: German Military Mindset (EP #552)-Operation Barbarossa, pt 2: Germany's Allies & Poland (EP #554)-Operation Barbarossa, pt. 3: Soviet Military Preparations (EP #555)-Operation Barbarossa, pt. 4: The Invasion (EP #559)-Operation Barbarossa, pt. 5: Battle of Smolensk (EP #565)-Operation Barbarossa, pt. 6: Battle of Kiev (EP #567)-Operation Barbarossa, pt. 7: Battle of Moscow (I) (EP #569)-Operation Barbarossa, pt. 8: Soviet Union in Wartime (EP #592)

Total time: 1:47:07Direct 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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Comments

etienne

I love all my friends who learned english by reading and do silly stuff like pronouncing the "L" in "half"

David Haigh

The would-be assasin could've at least gone for throwing-knives, or maybe even throwing forks/spoons, given the seriousness of the attempt.

Alex

Guys I love the show as always, but looking at the whole assassination story: - The "assassin" is from a top school, and an engineer to boot (should be extremely bright) - Picking one of the worst times to do this - DJT has always hated the WHCD - The way things have been, it's not clear that DJT can to stay awake for more than 20 minutes - The closest he got was 355feet from DJT (a full football-field american unit away from the president, so not sure how well you could assassinate with knives a whole football field away) (also why would you need multiple knives? do they need to be reloaded?) - The hotel not considering guests as potential assassins? - 5 shots at point blank range and not a single hit? from the Secret Service? - The bizarre follow up meeting that was quite chipper & light-hearted - (they're all smiling after an assassination?) - The coordinated social media campaign from MAGA leaders afterwards re: "I don't want to hear anything about building the ballroom again!" Maybe everyone wants to stay under the radar but ... I don't know. This just seems fishy to me. I'm not sure if you guys have looked into the reporter Aaron Good, but he has some interesting perspectives. Ultimately, who knows, but still - the facts seem too strange. Also regarding the violence/impact of the shootings - I think the Big Beautiful Bill will cause an estimated ~50,000 additional deaths per year https://ysph.yale.edu/news-article/proposed-federal-budget-could-lead-to-over-51000-preventable-deaths-researchers-warn-in-letter-to-senate-leaders/ Is death by writ any less violent? Anyway, just a thought of course. Always love the show and of course, love any Annibale episode!

Schaeffer Mallory

Hard to relate to believing either the conspiracy or non conspiracy version of the shooting. To me there is nothing compelling that says it was definitely a conspiracy but also literally nothing makes sense about it so I don't get having confidence it wasn't. Like, having zero security at the event wouldn't be the result of arrogance, because what, the secret service is now arrogant about its ability to do security so they just said nah we don't need it? And 5 point blank shots all missing but the he ends up disarmed on the floor? Idk, none of it makes sense.

Schaeffer Mallory

Well, if Annibale thinks it's SOT, then I'm leaning that way!

teh_drewski

There's a joking meme on the NBA Reddit about "legacy points", the idea is that everything a player does basically doesn't matter expect in how it affects his "legacy", or how history will see his time in the league. Do something good? Legacy points added. Do something bad? Legacy points deducted. I feel that's how America treats politics now. There seems to be no care for how policies affect *reality* - only how someone is perceived. Bomb Iran the first time? Strong leader. Good for Empire. Legacy points added. Bomb Iran again and ruin the world economy? America looks weak. Economic growth shattered. Legacy points deducted. Stealing an election? Well, tut tut! *Big* loss of legacy points there! But nobody will do anything. I'm Team John. America will idly watch as their democracy is sold to the most corrupt bidder, and all they'll do is think "that's not very Presidential".

Miko

More civil war eps, we need civil war eps, we crave civil war eps.

Aidan Coffey

I agree that the US military and officer corps is passive and apolitical. I can't see them doing anything on their own. But they all want jobs at Lockheed, and if their masters in the private sector tell them to put together a coup to save the empire they will. The question is if its a pro Trump or an anti Trump coup. I don't see Trump putting together a coup. He doesn't need to. Even if the democrats sweep the Senate and the House they are nowhere near the 2/3 Senate majority to remove him from office. As long as Trump can hold onto 34 republican senators he can ignore Congress and rule by decree But an anti Trump coup on the grounds that hes doing a terrible job managing the war and the empire is possible. Whats left of the country club Republicans will welcome it and so will the libs because orange man bad.

joe smith

With Luigi + this guy there is definitely a trend of ultra-elite assassins. Given Thiel fellows, etc. I wouldn't be shocked if we find out there was a common link between the two, maybe in a few decades. I've read that even prior to the Affirmative Action ban, Caltech had an extremely test score heavy admission regime with little to no boost for black/Hispanic applicants. The decision of someone who is biracial to chose to attend there in the first place almost seems political in itself. It makes me think his family background was probably fairly right wing.

Ander Pierce

It's plausible to me that the assassination attempt was a false flag, either that or the security was so incompetent that an even moderately competent assassin would have succeeded...

Ander Pierce

Which, when you consider the last few attempts, would check out. You had a teen graze Trump's ear after all :P

Schaeffer Mallory

If Trump steals the election, there will be insane riots. The base of the democratic party is primed to explode

Schaeffer Mallory

The combination of widespread blueanon and the complete hopelessness and rage within Gen Z will make the George Floyd uprising look like a picnic

Terry Dunk

I majorly doubt that. There will be several of the largest No Kings ever held, 99.9% of the participants will go home and resume watching the news and the remainder will attempt to carry out harebrained acts of domestic terrorism. 2020 was an eruption of long simmering, deeply felt rage at police violence and the general state of life in this country in black communities. The office of the president stirs up no such visceral feeling one way or the other despite people caring about it in an abstract or intellectual way.

Terry Dunk

This one really strikes me as organic

JoR

Regarding a potential coup of Trump that anibale suggests , I lean more towards the cohosts opinion. If only because, no matter how disastrous the war is, what prominent figure in the military is going to be”capitulate” to their most hated enemy in Iran? Presumably any high figure in the military is, what, 50-70 years old? So they either went through the humiliations of the 80s directly, or heard about it constantly growing up. While the war is unequivocally going horribly, wha exactly is the solution for try s Us at this point besides “keep it going , hot and cold, and hope they collapse”

Ian H

@22:30 I believe it was a French general reacting on tv to the mooted Spec Ops raid to seize Iran's enriched Uranium. He kept blurting out "C'est Dien Bien Phu! C'est Dien Bien Phu!" and then suggested the joint chiefs stop doing cocaine before planning sessions.

Joshua

This country had a military-intelligence coup on November 22nd, 1963. Peter Dale Scott wrote about this meticulously in the UC Press. Another coup is very possible.

Gergely Gáli

I don't really get what people expect from the midterms. 2006 was a blue wave. Did that change things? Not much.

Alex

Hey Joshua, not sure if you've heard of Aaron Good but he is Peter Dale Scott's collaborator/protege. The two of them have a Patreon page called "American Exception" - Aaron Good's been carrying out Dale Scott's work since he had a stroke. Their Patreon seems good if you haven't checked it out!

Schaeffer Mallory

Nah, people are cracked. And the office of the president literally is the only political office in America which does stir up such visceral feeling. We're gonna see trump derangement syndrome on crack

Schaeffer Mallory

And he would be stealing the election in the middle of what might be come the worst energy crisis ever. People will be paying $10/gallon in Ohio and then Trump steal the election. I think it will explode

Miko

For moderate libs going postal vs left wing people I think the issue is the moderates believed the systems and norms would protect them. They've spent decades tutting at leftists for not also believing in the power of norms and system and to now see the thing they believed not only fail, but actively be used against them has essentially radicalized them "beyond the left" as far as the actions they're willing to take. It's something to watch the moderates turn into a cohort of John Browns, but here we are. No idea what this means long term, but I don't know if they're going to turn their brains off and go "back to brunch" after this.

Muirneach

Great episode....where do we get the bibliography of these episodes

JoR

You mean a list of al RWN episodes? It used to be stickied post but you should still be able to find it by using the filters . Sort by text posts

Muirneach

Nah.... bibliography of the books Annibal referred to

No

I'm agnostic on the assassination being real or not (it doesn't really matter either way), but the interesting thing is that every single American I've talked to thinks its a false flag. Even non-conspiracy minded people aren't buying this at all anymore

William

Both are correct; the US strategy of tension is more focused on keeping people in an incredibly precarious financial situation, which, is probably just as psychologically damaging as the ever present risk of terror

Jacob Kreier

The episode description for the first in the Barbarossa series has a list of books, not sure if it is comprehensive

William

Gonna play fast and loose here, but the main reason why counterfactuals of Nazi Germany are irrelevant is because to get the victories wheraboos want in 41-43, you have to have a Nazi germany that has a vastly diminished capability to achieve the same domination of 39-41. The victory in France gives the overconfidence that leads to Barbarossa

William

The counterfactuals also mostly boil down to “what if the Nazis weren’t Nazis” which, yeah, what if three little pigs flew down and gave every soldier in army group center hot chocolate and warm fluffy blankets.

Annibale

Hi, we will post a recap bibliography in the last episode

Muirneach

Thanks Annibale your'e a legend 😄😄

DylanY Zou

Great Ep as always! Just wanted to say that my cats loved the music lol

Xander Udo

You guys are on some streak. Thanks!!

Quinn

I dont have a strong conviction one way or another and definitely respect John & Marks intellectual prudence here. I think Anibale's assessment is at least more realistic today than in the past, not because assassinations and social chaos are unprecedented, but because this is the first time since the 40s that new generations have a lower standard of living than their parents, and the first times since the 40s that US military hegemony has been in retreat. Doesnt mean anythings a sure thing, but wherever the odds stand it definitely weighs them a little more in the direction of a sudden collapse of the status quo.

Quinn

Thought the same exact thing. Young idealistic leftists are naive about plenty of things, but thinking the world is fair and your merit will be rewarded isnt one of them. Even if it comes as an emotional shock for a bright young lefty to hit their 30s and realize, oh fuck im not going to be important this is just going to keep being hard and im going to age, I really do think that there is a level of immunization that comes from even just formally understanding that youre being fucked and things are unfair.

SB

David Talbot had a stroke, not Peter. Otherwise, correct.