Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Radio War Nerd EP #56 — The Sikhs (Patreon)

Published:
2016-10-30 12:47:05
Imported:
2026-06

Downloads

Content

The War Nerd tries to recover the lost & tragic history of Sikh warriors, destroyed by you-know-who's-majesty's-empire...Also: latest war news from Syria, Mosul, Turkey...Another week of Russia Panic hysteria... Michael Weiss, "the poor man's Charles Lister", trolls for WW3...& more...

Total time: 1:44:10

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

Files

Comments

Jan Meyer

Isn't the whole of warfare about cheating? Being where the enemy is not, misleading him about your intentions, ducking his fire, making most of your assets while trying to nulllify his, etc.?

Rich

Also re: Duterte, his sudden tilt to China and open praise of the Chinese Communist party. Check out his speeches on the Cold War.

Graeme Anfinson

Love the show so far. regarding Trump and his supporters: I grew up in rural North Dakota and know these people quite well. Trump only represents a break from neoliberalism in tone. His policies are very pro-business and anti-government. He is neoliberalism's right wing. Less tolerant regarding social issues, but still market fundamentalist. And his supporters are drawn to him because of identity politics. Yes, that identity is largely white, but it's more complicated than that. It's an identity that sees America in idealistic terms. (Bill Cosby before all the raping went public.) One that doesn't tolerate all these protests that are happening. He's the common sense candidate that tells it like it is. The underlying economics are there, but for most people that's not the conscious issue. (A lot of my personal "friends" have done quite well under Obama, but still think he has ruined the country.) Some of these people really are scary and will have to be confronted eventually because an urban and demographic shifting United States will never be their "real" country. But there's no turning back now.

Patrick Reilly

Hoping for a program on CyberWar soon. Perhaps highlighting Tor, Russophobia and disinformation.

Adrian Johansson

The bankers didn't need to be bailed out to save the world economy, it is more than capable of taking that blow. Also bailing savers would have been much cheaper. That saving the economy crap is just hot air used by the elites to bail out their friends. In capitalism taking losses vital it proves you are incompetent or dishonest and your business model sucks. I think leftists just bought that crap because they like to hear George Bush say that capitalism didn't work and for that emotion they where willing to let criminal banksters get away with murder at the cost of trillions of dollars and a gutting of the working class purchasing power through Federal Reserve money printing!

Mat K

I do not understand how you cannot be a nihilist Gary :) The older I get, the more I see, the more I learn, the less faith I have in any sort of cosmic justice. It just seems to me that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

Lawrence Crimmins

Great. I listened to the BBC In our time podcast on The Sikhs just last week and was nice to hear this as complement/contrast.

Matthew C

what are you implying? Because being dishonest with your actions in war (or anywhere) is hardly a unique trait of English speakers.

Eduardo Olchelvsky

Let me put it this way. Why do you think when the allies made decoy balloons of tanks and planes during ww2 its seen as a neat historical oddity while when the Russians do it today it's an outrageous deceitful trick and a sure sign of their villainous intentions?

Mat K

Eduardo is right. It is only seen a skillful art of war when your side does it, when the other side does the same thing it is villainy. But I would argue that is not unique to English speakers. My side is always honourable and good, the enemy is always dishonourable and bad. It is the only reason to fight after all.

Jan Meyer

It might also be a difference in culture. European Military culture, and that goes for America as well, still has a wrong bent towards chivalry, honorable duels, etc. Eastern thought, such as Sun Tzu, lies much less stress on that. So i think for us, as in 'proper European humans' there is always the expectation that you should be able to bet the opponent in a fair contest if your matter is just. It probably also did not help that Europeans got their asses handed to them by 'sneaky' forces in the decolonization wars.

Eduardo Olchelvsky

I was speaking specifically about the NYT article and the sort of people who'd take it seriously.

Ronald Dahlgren

I appreciate the deep dive on Sikh history here. My Indian friends always seemed to speak of the Sikh with a sort of respectful fear.

The Fakir (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-07 16:00 Loved the dive into a history of the sikh empire. And you are right that it is a story that is not told enough ! One writer who has painted a colourful picture is W. Dalrymple in his book "Return of a king" about the first Anglo-Afghan war. It is amazing how important a role Ranjit Singh played on the subcontinent and what a disaster his death was for the land that is modern Pakistan. Another interesting Indian kingdom you could profile (you did mention them in this podcast) - also largely ignored outside india - is the marathas. They rose in the time of Aurangzeb and he spent decades trying to subdue them, and died in the province of Maharahstra still trying (where he is buried in a simple grave, quite a contrast to the vast world famous mausoleums the other mughals built up north). The marathas rose on the back of guerrilla warfare in the western mountains, and the first king Shivaji was a prolific mountain fort builder. But, they also fought the ethiopians (Siddis) who ruled the coast of western india (from their sea fortress of murud zanjeera (worth a visit if you are ever in the area)), and the central indian islamic sultanates, and the rajput generals who fought extremely successfully for the mughals in delhi. The marathas eventually took delhi. their downfall started when they lost to the afghans under Abdali at panipat, a battle that makes a good case study in light of your excellent podcast on how cultures handle defeat. Though the marathas were eventually finished off by the brits, a few decades after the loss at panipat, it is the battle of panipat that people still agonise over.. you'd enjoy some of the stories connected to the marathas, I suspect :D PS. a lot of the revolt of 1857 against the brits was ex maratha nobility that had lost a lot to the british.
2016-11-29 15:02

radiowarnerd

Thanks for the tip! Is there a good English-language book on the Marathas?

Tom Serengai

Given our experiences over the last few decades, I really enjoy the beatings you dish out to neocons on a regular basis. That said, are any of them actually willing to come on the show? I'd be curious to hear them defend their position ideologically & pragmatically. On the one hand i've never seen one of them sit down and philosophically state the underpinnings of their"shining city on the hill" stuff (i assume it'd be some utilitarian/effects based argument). Whether it's that or something else, i think it'd be great to hear why that phil. framework makes sense in this context and whether their policy perscriptions are actually superior even if you accept their framework (presumaby vs what I assume to be brecher's realpolitik and/or dolan's effete internationalism).

radiowarnerd

We'd love to. I guess I just assumed they'd turn us down. If you know any who would be willing to come on, please let me know. Let a hundred flowers bloom! And so on...

lopakdesbandhu@gmail.com

If you want to read in detail, "New History of the Marathas" by Govind Sakharam Sardesai