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Radio War Nerd EP #629 — Iran War: Pre-War Intelligence + Missile Races, feat. Amerikanets (Patreon)

Published:
2026-08-14 15:33:45
Imported:
2026-08
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Content

Guest: Eric (Amerikanets)Recorded: August 13, 2026

We talk to the man behind the "debasification" neologism, "Amerikanets", about missiles v missile defense, what the US military-intelligence world knew about how badly the Iran war would go & when they knew it, and about having your neologism ripped off and passed around by a buncha blowhards. (The War Nerd is off this week, just about finished with his odyssey across the southern hemisphere Indo-Pacific.)

Subscribe to Eric's substack Amerikanets. Follow him on Twitter.

Total time: 1:55:13Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

*

John's new essay collection, To The Crows, is now for sale! We'll be making the ebook version available to subscribers.

Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio

Files

Comments

Karl Childers

hell yeah i know this guy from The Internet

ploob

Specs, Specs, SPECS!

CR

The mention of the Alaska system reminds me of that dogshit House of Dynamite movie from this spring.

Yairo Martis

God, I remember seeing Bin Laden's Tora Bora supercomplex/lair in either Newsweek or Time way back when. I don't remember if I bought the issue, but I definitely remember thumbing through it in the bookstore.

blazed uncle

I tried to follow Eric and his Twitter account was locked. What did you guys do?

Karl Childers

lol same, i immediately imagined a panicked jared harris screaming "62 PERCENT??" also lowkey i almost respect that film for re-starting its timeline not twice but three times and then just not having an ending, avant garde netflix slop

Terry Dunk

Been following from the pre-lock days, but maybe send him a PM cause he's by far my favorite follow on Xitter these days.

CR

It’s useful to emphasize that some of these drones are bigger than the 737s or even bigger airliners. There’s a good size comparison chart floating around that is disgusting in this regard.

CR

That’s the only part I liked because the rest was so bad that ending it on a FUCK YOU to everyone stupid enough to watch it was beautiful.

CR

I remember it in Newsweek, but it was in both because it was DOD FUD. Just like the massive Hussein complex diagrams they also plastered all over these tabloids.

Yairo Martis

I definitely bought *that* issue in early 2003, I used it for an essay for English class I had to present orally [pause]. Got a decent grade for it.

Eric

What's your handle on X?

ben s

My 8th or 9th grade social studies teacher made a transparent copy to present it in the overhead projector. We spent an entire class on it.

Kyle Erickson

Casting Jared Harris and not having his character commit suicide challenge: impossible

Tom Warner

i mean to be fair they made it look like an absolutely rockin lair

Hugh Jazz

Absolute banger of an episode

ElGatoMalandrin

Damn yall got the weird Nazi guy from Twitter on the pod?

Isaac Suárez

Brilliant episode! This episode reminds me of why we should never take mainstream media at face value. Their enmeshment with the military industrial complex keeps the public information starved. Great work!

Shane

This is such a great ep… Also for anyone who is interested in the f117 aircraft, there are pieces of it that you can see (and touch) in the military museum in Belgrade, Serbia. That alone is worth the trip, if you ask me

Chalky Default

Second everyone else’s comments about the episode being great, but mainly came to note Mark adding ‘mid’ to his youth vocabulary, along with 6-7

(American spirit menthol

The missile article is so good dude. I've been telling people basically socially at hostage making them listen to the history of missles.

Logan Ausherman

I'm blocked up like the dang strait of hormuz!

Sneb

Asian butterbean hahahaha

Zach

Annie Jacobson‘s ‘Nuclear War: A Scenario’ is a great read regarding US nuclear deterrence and how inadequate it is.

Zach

Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle is such a cool name. Unfortunately, they don’t have a high kill rate.

Jonathan Penn

Some comments and corrections. The Ground Based Mid-Course defense system has interceptors in Alaska and California, not Montana. There are only about 44 interceptors in the system. The system was designed to defend against a very limited nuclear ICBM attack and its tests have been highly scripted. Exoatmospheric interception always involves radar and decoys can make such interceptions nearly impossible. The tests that have been conducted did not allow a "red team" to prepare and deploy decoys without informing the interception team about what they intended to use. Hopefully our sparring partners will be equally considerate. There was some talk for awhile of using lasers to help discriminate between decoys and real warheads, as the decoys would be lighter than the warheads and the slight difference in motion after being struck by the laser could theoretically be detected. The impossible math between ballistic missiles and their interceptors was recognized in 1972 when the ABM treaty was signed. The US was testing and hoping to deploy the Sprint/Spartan combo of interceptor missiles when it became obvious that due to their cost, all the Soviets would have to do is build more ICBMs, which were cheap compared to the interceptors. In the fifty years since, that reality has not changed at all.

Jonathan Penn

John's new Odyssey is puzzling. I had thought that after he and Kathryn bought a house in Italy that their plan was to end their peripatetic ways. Now they are headed to New Zealand again. Is this "permanent" or a long visit? Inquiring minds want to know.

Cody

Excellent interview - Eric is a great guest. Bet John would be impressed by his hardware nerd ways.

Matthew

Hey great episode! Just wondering if the new ebook has been sent out yet?

Blake

Fantastic guest, really interesting discussion both on mil policy and hardware. Cant wait for him to come back.

Emily

Great ep!

Jo

Amazing episode!

GoyBulletStopper

You need to get Brian Berletic on, from The New Atlas. He's pretty incredible. And his understanding is the war isnt to conquer iran. Its so all the energy infrastructure that fuels east Asia the.US wants destroyed to potentially slow the growth of China

GoyBulletStopper

And professor Marandi* has laid all the actions Iran would take if the us sought war YEARS AGO.

GoyBulletStopper

The arrow 3 does not work, we've seen the videos of them making contact with iranian missiles over israel and the warheads still land .

jer

This epi was a banger. Dolan missed out smh

GoyBulletStopper

Watch Ted Postol on dialog works. He walks you thru with complete visuals successful interceptions. They are very rare. Very Very rare

GoyBulletStopper

Cant believe you didnt talk about the thousands of decoys iran used!

Dec

Did I just get ragebaited?

Terry Dunk

Jared Harris is permanently typecast as 'bureaucrat who kills himself'

drizzly_november

I think they visit her family there fairly often. And John can’t settle down for long, not while there are still delivery drivers to unwittingly offend and rare maladies to catch.

Doug Cartel

It's really funny that america spent 25 years threatening Iran and then walked straight into the death trap that the Iranians spent 25 years making, starting somewhere around the time you first started threatening them The only thing I have to say about the Iran war is that america got exactly what it deserved, and more

Kawaii Leonard

Eric approve my follow request, I’m articleconsumer. Shadowbanned from insulting gambling affiliates

Larry Dimes

What is Israel's end game in this whole thing? Are they just motivated by biblical madness as they seem to be, and believe "God will make it all work for His Chosen People" or what? This seems like madness particularly from their perspective. First because it depletes their major patron, making them weaker against other Israeli adversaries in the future, and a war with Iran going bad will make anti-Israeli sentiment (and even anti-Jewish sentiment, particularly on the hard right as the Christian-Zionist boomers die off) more mainstream in American politics. There is no win for Israel here, so why did they want the Americans to jump in so badly?

Peter Z

Given the injury, be good to be in a country with reasonable healthcare I'd say.

Peter Z

As The Expanse resistance leader he is sublime

Peter Z

How many SDI laser programs have been funded since the Zumwalt railgun debacle?

Peter Z

Dahiya for regime change, but if not, degrade. And use proxies where possible. Greater Israel is all about a buffer.

Randy Long

Great episode fellas

John

Why is it so hard to understand that trump is a pedo and israel has the goods on him ? The more i hear the more that narrative makes sense to me.

JoR

Not saying they are correct, but this war is alienating America from its gulf allies. And further making America in the same “unhinged madman” boat Israel is in. May be giving them too much credit , but the goal may be to make America the same bat shit crash mode Israel is in

etienne

this is RWN do you have any idea how little it narrows it down

Sam

Excellent guest. Not just great info, but great on the mic. Some of the blob cats you’ve had on lately are breaking some cardinal rules around having both dogshit opinions and bad mic presence. Not complaining just for the sake of it and I know doing 2+ shows per week without John is difficult. But this was great. More Americanets please!

CR

That’s even dumber than it being to conquer Iran.

GoyBulletStopper

Its dumb, but the government operates on policy papers developed by think tanks. And its within those policy papers this strategy is laid out.

Michael

This was insanely good