On 3rd October 1993, amid the ongoing Somali Civil War, American forces of Task Force Ranger received a tipoff on the location of a meeting of Mohamed Farrah Aidid’s Somali National Alliance in Mogadishu, Somalia. The Americans hoped to capture two of Aidid's advisors to get closer to capturing Aidid himself.

Due to an earlier attack on and rescue of US Marines in another part of Mogadishu, Aidid's forces are put on alert and they were prepared to protect the meeting with small arms and RPGs.

The shooting begins as soon as the US helicopters arrived outside the building where the meeting was taking place. Things quickly go wrong for the troops of Task Force Ranger and these American forces engaged in their largest sustained firefight they have fought in since the Vietnam War.

Thanks to:

• Dr. Jonathan Carroll, Associate Professor of Military History and Modern War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and the author of Beyond Black Hawk Down: Intervention, Nation-building and Insurgency in Somalia, 1992-1995.

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On the 7th of August 2008, Georgian military forces moved into breakaway region of South Ossetia, hoping to capture its capital of Tskhinvali. Under the orders of President Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia launches an offensive to reclaim what it believes is its rightful sovereign territory.

They will have to go through South Ossetia’s small military but a larger threat looms to the north: Russia. The ensuing Russian counterattack in South Ossetia and into Georgia itself will lead to Europe’s first large-scale conflict of the 21st Century and the dawn of a new age of Russian expansionism.

Thanks to:

• Professor Stephen Jones the founding director of the Program on Georgian Studies at Harvard University and the author of ‘Georgia: A Political History Since Independence

• Professor Ronald Grigor Suny, Professor Emeritus of History and Political Science at the Universities of Michigan and Chicago and author of ‘Forging the Nation: The Making and Faking of Nationalisms’.

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New episodes will be released every Tuesday morning. If you enjoy the episodes, please help us grow the podcast by subscribing, liking, sharing, commenting, and listening to future releases.

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The Korean War saw significant changes in military aviation in a short period. In June 1950, the aerial war began with piston-driven aircraft of the Second World War such as the Yak-11 and IL-10s battling F-82 Twin Mustangs and F-80 Shooting Star jet fighters over Kimpo Air Base near Seoul. By April 1951, MiG-15s were dueling with F-86 Sabres as B-29s were bombing railways connecting North Korea with China in an effort to slow the Chinese offensive overrunning United Nations forces. In December 1951 Australian Gloster Meteors are heavily outclassed by MiG-15s forcing changes in UN aerial tactics.

The lessons learned in these battles will shape the next half-century of aerial warfare from Vietnam to the Persian Gulf and beyond.

Thanks to:

• Dr. Conrad Crane, military historian, retired United States Army officer, former professor at the United States Army War College and at West Point and the author of American Airpower Strategy in Korea, 1950-1953
• Dr. Andrew Wackerfuss, historian at the United States Air Force history office. Dr. Wackerfuss' views in this podcast represent his own analysis and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. government.

You can listen to The War Office on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or The War Office Podcast YouTube Channel.

New episodes will be released every Tuesday morning. If you enjoy the episodes, please help us grow the podcast by subscribing, liking, sharing, commenting, and listening to future releases.

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