School of Advanced Air and Space Studies
52 episodes listed below
Strategy, from syllabus to battlefield implication.
Books to Battles is a measured, interview-driven look at how strategic theory becomes military practice. Episodes move from SAASS coursework and thesis work to Iran, Artemis, air superiority, cyber power, publishing, drones, and defense strategy.
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Books to Battles presents military strategy as a living argument between books, classrooms, technology, and operational reality. Its center of gravity is air and space strategy, but the range is wider than that label suggests. Recent conversations move from Iran and the JCPOA to Artemis, cyber power, Air University Press, student thesis work, drone incursions, directed energy, and the 2026 National Defense Strategy. The show has an academic frame, yet it is not content to leave ideas in academic language. A claim usually gets defined, qualified, challenged, and then carried into a concrete example. That habit gives the series its value. It is careful without being slow. It is technical without assuming that every listener already speaks the dialect. The discussions of air superiority show the show at its sharpest, especially when arguments about Ukraine, quadcopters, air bases, and attrition are separated from sweeping doctrinal conclusions. The space episodes bring a lighter classroom energy, but still return to policy, public attention, and military consequence. Course-focused episodes offer a useful view inside SAASS, including how students think about space power, information power, cyber operations, and thesis research. The show also has a visible editorial conscience about timing. When current events move too quickly, the speakers say so rather than pretending an obsolete discussion is still fresh. That restraint matters. Books to Battles is not personality theater, though Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb and Colonel Corey Holland give the conversations enough warmth and correction to keep them human. Guests are used for substance, not decoration. The best episodes feel like a graduate seminar with better microphones and clearer stakes. Listeners get precedent, doctrine, institutional detail, and practical consequence in one place. The show is best for people who want military affairs explained through argument rather than adrenaline. Its recurring question is simple: what changes when an idea has to guide action?
Made for: For listeners interested in military strategy, air and space power, cyber operations, defense policy, and higher-level professional military education. It rewards people who like definitions, precedent, and practical consequences more than quick takes.
What sets it apart: Books to Battles stands apart by showing how SAASS-style academic work becomes operational thinking. It connects courses, theses, books, current events, and expert interviews without flattening the material into simple punditry.
Books to Battles is the official podcast of the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAASS), where rigorous academic thought meets real-world military application. In each episode, we'll take you inside our school to explore its courses, students, and faculty. We'll show how foundational ideas—from classic works of strategy to cutting-edge scholarship—inform the development and execution of air and space power in today’s complex strategic environment. Join us as we bridge the gap between theory and practice, bringing deep intellectual insight to the art of war in the air and beyond.All views expressed in this series...
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Books to Battles makes strategic thought legible by testing doctrine against policy choices, military operations, historical cases, and competing academic judgments.
Books to Battles turns strategy education into a working conversation. Wendy Whitman Cobb and Corey Holland move between current security questions, classroom material, and academic interviews, asking what doctrine explains once it meets an actual policy choice or military…
Cheetahs and crocodiles enter a cyber strategy class; your next defense debate might get more interesting.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A direct defense of air superiority in the age of drones and missile strikes.
Books to Battles keeps its focus on a blunt question: what has changed in air warfare, and what has not. Lt Gen (Ret) David Deptula draws a clear line between quadcopters as a tactical nuisance and the larger claim that air superiority no longer matters.
A clear look at Iran policy through the machinery of the JCPOA.
Books to Battles takes on the Israeli and American bombing campaigns against Iran and uses that debate to frame the JCPOA, the 2015 nuclear agreement reached after long negotiations. Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb is joined by Dr. Wes Hutto, Dr. David Sorensen, and Dr.
Books to Battles keeps things grounded with a clear look at drone incursions, laser limits, and the risks of using directed energy near busy airspace.
Books to Battles starts a little stiff, with a correction-heavy opening that takes a while to settle down. Once it gets to drones, lasers, and border surveillance, the episode finds firmer ground.
A classroom-centered look at cyber power, effects, coercion, and the different ways operations can signal.
Information and Cyber Power frames cyber power through effects, signaling, coercion, and its place alongside the rest of the force. The discussion stays anchored in the classroom, but it still reaches beyond it, moving from what cyberspace can do to how those ideas shape real…
A compact strategic review that keeps asking what pressure can actually change.
Books to Battles narrows a year in review into a close look at December, showing how quickly the mood can shift around a new administration, leadership changes, and ongoing conflicts.
Campus radio from the wrong side of reality.
Campus decisions, Northeast news, and Northeast priorities.
How research culture changes in practice.
Conversations from inside the IT channel.
["Books to Battles interviews Lt.
Dr.
This episode discusses NASA's Artemis mission to the moon, exploring its implications for air and space strategy while humorously contrasting it with Andy Weir's novel of the same name.
This episode introduces SAASS 665 Space Power course and the accompanying podcast series Space Power Discussions, discussing its academic and strategic significance in air and space studies.
The hosts interview Dr.
This episode features an interview with representatives from Air University Press discussing their academic journals and publications related to air and space strategy.
The hosts open with a quick correction and then shift to the administration's defense plan.
Books to Battles centers a live discussion of SAS 667, Information and Cyber Power.
This episode reviews the Netflix movie 'House of Dynamite' as a case study in real-world security studies and air and space strategy through a pop culture lens.
Wendy Whitman Cobb and Corey Holland use a December 2025 review to compare U.S.
This episode features an interview with Dr.
This episode features a discussion with the teaching team of the 601 Foundations of Strategy course at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, exploring their backgrounds and the course's role in the curriculum.