1/22/2025, Ep 73, Philippines: America’s Ally & Strategic Archipelago. The Philippines told us to close Subic, Cubi Pt & Clark and get out by the end of 1992. The joke at the time, was that all the Filipino Senators that voted for the US to get out of the Philippines, all had green cards in case things got bad. I was a GS-11 civilian mariner (and an O-3 former SWO navy reservist) on a navy MSCPAC ship in Subic. It seemed like the Filipino government was playing with fire & it was obvious the PRC would take advantage of them without the US around & we would be back (I should have written an article for Proceedings). But they were big boys; we were holding them back, and they didn’t want or need our help. I remember Olongapo City Mayor Brown resigned to become the Subic Bay Port Commissioner because it would be more lucrative position than mayor; and his wife became the mayor because it was still a lucrative enough position to keep in the family. It cost the US taxpayer a lot of money to close the bases, redistribute our assets to Guam, Singapore, Japan, Hawaii the west coast. And now (because of the Filipino government’s ineptness & greed), more US taxpayer money to come back to reestablish bases to defend the Philippines. The US taxpayer, who paid the old & new bills is also providing an additional $500M of military aid. Perhaps the US should have let the Philippines live with their original decision - that they did not need the US military to protect them against the PRC. We didn’t have bases in the Philippines when the PRC constructed military islets (because the Philippines didn’t want us there). But now that the US military is back - did the Filipino government (or the Brown family) reimburse the US taxpayer to remove & reestablish US military presence? All-in-all its just another brick in the ($36T national debt) wall. Sounds like waste, fraud & abuse at the highest level.

An absolute pleasure to hear what HR has to say on all things geopolitical/warfare, I just wish he’d run for president. Please? Please General?

Hey General…care to editorialize on Trump’s recent comment about General Milley? After all you used to work for the man.

The best podcast on strategy, diplomacy, and national security topics bar none

According to McMaster & his guests, neither the American nor the British publics have any agency. Anything they do that the elites did not expect & do not approve, is the result of Russian & Chinese manipulation.

Very educational!

I really love this lady.

Regarding your September 7th discussion on civics education and history with Paul Carrese, can you at least please get the name of the author and the title of the book right that you obviously disdain, Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States! For you to call it arrogant just underscores the utter contempt elite apologists like you have for the average American. Zinn’s book should be required reading for all high school and college students, as well as Michael Parenti’s, Against Empire, and Noam Chomsky’s, Year 501: The Conquest Continues. Chomsky said it best that intellectuals have the ultimate responsibility to expose the real history of US foreign policy. We don’t need more of the top down history approach that you and Paul are advocating. You two espouse only the elite perspective and dare to neglect the bottom up approach that historians have painstakingly put forth. Spare us the accolades to MLK and Susan B Anthony. You’re only interested in developing future guardians for the, dare I say, ruling class. Enough of empire and imperial history. Americans need to know the American empire is not in their interest or well-being! I guess you might say this is too much of the New Left or Critical Theory.

The podcast from hosted from General H.R. McMaster is just fantastic. It is so fun to hear about how a world class strategist thinks about global goings-on. Thanks for a fantastic podcast General and Hoover! It is nice to bring a specialist view to the general public, I couldn’t get this insight almost anywhere else.

Fascinating to hear from primary sources about what’s going on in the world militarily. Thank you, Gen. McMaster, and to your generous guests—thank you!

A military-historical strategist and tactician of the highest order. Neither pessimist nor optimist, General McMaster is a hopeful patriot. His podcasts provide clear analysis.

Very well presented insights.

This is a gem of a show. I’ve learned an incredible amount from this show, not just about the shifting tectonics and geopolitics, but world history. Thank you to everyone involved in making what will one day be considered a masterpiece in the podcasting scene.

Top notch conversation on important topics in the world today, presented with the background to tie it all together. A must listen.

It is extremely difficult to think of another podcast out there that makes such a holistic approach to a given foreign policy issue. HR does a wonderful job in consistently giving us a deep-dive on a given issue, bringing on a series of respected experts on an extremely wide variety of issues. I am thankful for this podcast, and recommend it to my peers in academia as well as the military.