In this episode of The Cold War, Cameron and Ray take us to Havana in 1952, when Fulgencio Batista staged a meticulously planned coup d’état. They walk through the midnight maneuvers at Camp Columbia, the arrest of generals, the swift control of communication hubs, and the apathy of the Cuban people after years of corruption. We see how Batista positioned himself as “the man” while suspending civil liberties, dissolving Congress, and reassuring both the Americans and local elites. Alongside this, Fidel Castro makes his first serious moves as a revolutionary—drafting a proclamation condemning Batista’s coup and beginning the trajectory that would define his life. The conversation ties Batista’s actions to lessons from Rome, Mussolini, and even contemporary American politics, blending history, irony, and sharp commentary.

In this episode of Cold War, Cameron and Ray dig into the aftermath of Batista’s March 1952 coup in Cuba and how it shaped Fidel Castro’s early strategies. The conversation explores Castro’s proclamation denouncing the coup, his first failed attempts to rally the public, and why the Cuban people weren’t yet ready for revolution. We see how Castro pivoted from politics to pamphlets, protests, lawsuits, and eventually the realization that only a professional revolutionary force could succeed. Along the way, the hosts connect Batista’s propaganda playbook with U.S. media bias, draw parallels to Iran’s 1953 coup, and reflect on the timeless tactics of seizing power. They also detour into the Mob’s growing influence in Havana and the darker history of honeypot operations linking Epstein, Maxwell, and intelligence agencies.

Fidel Castro’s first attempt to ignite revolution in Cuba ends in disaster — but also forges the legend. We follow the aftermath of the failed 1953 Moncada Barracks raid: the brutal reprisals, Fidel’s near-execution, the unlikely lieutenant who saves him, the public opinion shift as Batista’s regime overreaches, and Fidel’s transformation from fiery idealist to imprisoned revolutionary intellectual. We hear how History Will Absolve Me is born, what Fidel is reading behind bars (spoiler: Trotsky and Roosevelt), and how his personal life gets… complicated. By the time he’s released after only two years, Castro is no longer just a nuisance — he’s become the most famous man in Cuba and an unstoppable symbol of rebellion. 

Part 3 of our three-part series on economics and war, where we drill down into the various ways companies profiteer from war and how it stimulates the economy via “Military Keynesianism”.

For nearly two decades, the CIA ran a covert operation designed to train Tibetan insurgents and gather intelligence about the Chinese, while smuggling weapons and money into Tibet, pushing Tibetan supporters of the Dalai Lama to launch violent uprisings, and using “black propaganda” to spread lies about Chinese atrocities in the region. But the U.S. never supported Tibetan independence. They were just another pawn in the Cold War.

In this episode, we delve into the history of Iran, focusing on the US’s role in ending democratic rule in 1953 and installing Mohammad Reza Shah’s dictatorship, a fact well-known in Iran but only admitted by the US in the 90s. This event led to the Islamic Revolution of 1979, headed by Ayatollah Khomeini, and fueled anti-Western sentiments across the Middle East. We discuss the significant figure of Mohammad Mossadegh, and the history of Iran under the Qajar shahs, the stagnation and foreign exploitation during this period, and the controversial Reuter concession of 1872, which was a significant surrender of Iran’s industrial resources to foreign control, but was quickly cancelled due to widespread opposition.

This is going to be the first in a series of episodes where we talk about economics and war. I know – economics is a scary boring subject, but it’s really just the study of how people make and spend money. In this episode we’re going to argue that economics (money) was a significant factor in the genesis of the Cold War (and pretty much every other war in history too). We’ll talk about imperialism, gunboat diplomacy, big stick diplomacy, dollar diplomacy, propaganda, Edward Bernays, Walter Lippman, economic hit men, and the Monroe Doctrine. As Major General Smedley Butler wrote: “War is a racket”.

In this episode, Cam and Ray bring their trademark banter and historical nerdery to the story of Fidel Castro’s first attempt at revolution — the ill-fated 1953 Moncada Barracks attack. What starts as a coup joke about Batista’s boredom quickly spirals into a lively mix of history and comedy. We follow a 26-year-old Fidel as he decides that ballots and lawsuits won’t topple a corrupt regime, so he turns to bullets instead. The episode explores his planning, paranoia, and sheer audacity as he leads a small group of poorly armed men in a doomed assault on one of Cuba’s largest military garrisons. Along the way, the boys detour into mobsters, Catholic apostles, ham-radio fanatics, and whether Ray actually has friends who play pool. By the end, we’re left with Fidel’s first great failure — the Moncada disaster — and the foreshadowing of the revolution to come.

Things in Palestine really started to heat up in 1908 – the year of The Young Turk Revolution. It was around this time that the violence between the Jews and the Arabs started to escalate beyond what was mostly localised troubles over property rights. And it took on a nationalist feel. The Jews started to arm themselves. The governor of Jerusalem, Azmi Bey, wrote: “We are not xenophobes; we welcome all strangers. We are not anti-Semites; we value the economic superiority of the Jews. But no nation, no government could open its arms to groups … aiming to take Palestine from us.”

In 1915, Britain and France sat down to work out who was going to control what in the Middle East after the war – what became known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement. By 1917, when the Allies were bogged down on the Western Front, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration. They hoped it would bring the American Jews to their cause, would help bring the United States into the war and keep Russia involved – and would stop the Jews from allying themselves with Ze Germans.

 Part One of our mini-biography of everyone’s favorite wheelchair pilot, FDR. His family background (opium traders), his rise, his polio, his affairs, his reforms, his ballsy attitude, his assassination attempt, his concentration camps and how incredibly fucked America was when he was sworn in. In 1933, the US was in dire straits. Three years into the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and a third-rate military. When he died in 1945, it was the world’s leading economic and military superpower.

We all know that Tibet and China have a history, and that the U.S.A. is always in the middle of it. But you may not know that The United States recognizes Tibet to be part of the People’s Republic of China or that the UK and the U.S.A. have spent over a century trying to wrest control over Tibet away from China. This is part one of that story.

This is part one of a few episodes that will explain the military, ideological and economic conflicts and tensions between the US, UK and USSR before the Cold War. In this episode, we look at the “Polar Bear Expedition” and the first “Red Scare” in the US.

Some people have said 1983 was the most dangerous year in human history. On four separate occasions, the U.S.A. and the USSR nearly ended up in a hot nuclear war. Soviet leaders apparently became deeply worried that the US was preparing to launch a surprise nuclear attack on the USSR under the cover of a NATO exercise titled ‘Able Archer.’ Brian J. Morra is a former U.S. intelligence officer and a retired senior aerospace executive who took part in the events of 1983 and has written an excellent and terrifying book on the topic, “The Able Archers”. He’s our guest today. We talk about the events of 1983, why 2024 might be even more dangerous, and why world leaders haven’t learned the lessons of 1983. 

As the Yalta conference now turns to whether or not France should have a role in the occupation of Germany, the Allied Control Commission and the UN Security Council, we thought it was a good time to do a quick bio on France’s post-WWII leader, Charles de Gaulle, aka “The Big Asparagus Stalk”, aka “Chucky D”.

After The Peel Commission recommending moving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians off their land by force, the Arab Revolt re-emerged with hundreds of terrorist attacks during 1937-38 against the British and Jews – and even against Arab collaborators. The British cracked down and deported many of their leaders. Irgun, the Jewish militant group, met this threat with their own terrorism. Hitler used the situation to score propaganda points against the Jews and the British.