Top 10 Professional Military Education Podcasts for 2025

Looking for some quick and easy additions to your Professional Military Education program for 2025? Here is a list of the Top 10 PME Podcasts, based mostly on what I am listening and learning from. Have a listen to a new episode from any one of these great PME podcasts and start sharpening the intellectual edge today.

10.	The Cove	The Cove is the Australian Army’s PME podcast. Its delivers a mix of interviews, discussions, and commentary, aiming to improve the intellectual edge. It covers leadership concepts, tactical and operational lessons, strategic thinking, and the integration of technology into modern military practice. This year it has become more focused, now looking at some of the pressing issues facing Army as it prepares for the next five years.  DCA is always worth a listen and there are a series of episodes looking at accelerated readiness and the new MAJGEN Chris Field discusses the new Decision Making and Planning Process.
9.	The BruteCast	I can’t believe that the BruteCast is number 9.  This is my favourite podcast.  I really like the way Marines are thinking about the next war and the BruteCast reflects it.  The BruteCast is the official podcast of the Marine Corps University’s Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Creativity. It has a diverse range of guests—scholars, seasoned officers, and thought leaders— looking at emerging ideas and historical precedents in strategy, leadership, and innovation. The podcast highlights new technologies, unconventional thinking, and lessons drawn from joint and combined operations. The BruteCast creates  learning environment that encourages creativity, adaptability, and intellectual rigor.
8.	RUSI Talking Strategy	RUSI Talking Strategy is hosted by the Royal United Services Institute, the UK’s oldest independent defense and security think tank. Hosted by Professor Beatrice Heuser and Paul O’Neill, the podcast offers discussions that connect historical perspectives, strategic theory, and contemporary defense policy. They have a great range of experts—former military leaders, policymakers, and academics— who bring global views on emerging threats, alliances, great-power competition, and the integration of technology into military practice. Each episode looks at pressing questions of national security, statecraft, and military planning, providing intellectually rich analysis grounded in rigorous research. The episode on Field Marshall Slim was excellent and the are a good range of discussions about famous military leaders.
7.	Sea Control	To make the list JPME friendly, I have included Sea Control, my goto podcast when I need to get an understanding of a topic in the maritime domain.  Sea Control, produced by the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC), focuses on the maritime domain’s strategic, operational, and technological dimensions. Each episode hosts naval officers, academics, and maritime security experts discussing a wide range of topics—from modern naval doctrine and emerging technologies to historical lessons and evolving threats. There are over 550 episodes, so there is plenty to listen to.  The episode looking at “Girt by Sea” was excellent from an antipodean point of view.
6.	School of War	I haven’t listened to School of War, but the algorithm recommended it as a podcast that people listen to as well as most of the other podcasts in this list.  School of War covers  historical insights and contemporary strategic challenges. Featuring historians, military experts, and security professionals, it revisits past campaigns, doctrines, and military thinkers to extract enduring principles that remain relevant today. These discussions illuminate how influential leaders solved complex problems, how armies adapted to shifting circumstances, and which strategies proved most resilient. By connecting historical wisdom to present dilemmas, School of War encourages listeners to think critically about decision-making, operational art, and long-term planning. I am keen to listen to the episode with Nick Lloyd on the First World War Eastern Front.
5.	Principles of War	My own humble contribution to PME – Principles of War, has a strong slant to Australian military history. I try to tie up current doctrine with historic case studies to make PME more interesting and ensure a wider understanding of the doctrine. I dissect historical campaigns, to clarify how enduring principles like surprise, economy of force, and initiative manifest in modern contexts. I have a range of experts on the podcast as well to lend their wisdom to the conversation to help break down complex scenarios, tying them to doctrinal frameworks and creating tangible examples of doctrine and concepts in action. The podcast’s systematic approach to learning—from analysis of battles and operations to reflections on military theory—helps military professionals and enthusiasts alike translate historical wisdom into actionable guidance. Principles of War ultimately aims to enhance strategic thinking, operational planning, and tactical effectiveness in future conflicts.
4.	The Spear	If it is tactical lessons you want, The Spear is the number one podcast to listen to.  Produced by the Modern War Institute at West Point, it takes a personal, ground-level view of warfare. Each episode invites a guest to recount firsthand experiences in combat or high-stakes training events. There are some great lessons learnt covered in these podcasts. By showcasing individual leaders navigating uncertainty and adversity, The Spear illuminates the human dimension of conflict. Listeners learn how adaptability, moral courage, and empathy influence outcomes at the tactical edge. This is great listening, especially for Junior Officers and Senior NCOs.
3.	Irregular Warfare Podcast	I listen to the Irregular Warfare podcast for their China, cyber and evolution in warfare type podcasts.  The podcast is a collaboration between the Modern War Institute and Princeton’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, delves into unconventional conflicts and hybrid threats. Its episodes engage counterinsurgency experts, counterterrorism professionals, and scholars who dissect topics like insurgent tactics, stabilization efforts, and non-state actors influencing global stability. By highlighting historical trends, data-driven research, and evolving doctrine, the gives excellent insights into what future combat may look like.  This podcast also has the highest listens per podcast, a tribute to how engaging and important the content is.
2.	Modern War Institute	The Modern War Institute Podcast, based at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, discusses the challenges shaping 21st-century warfare. Each episode features experts—military professionals, academics, and strategists—discussing emerging technologies, great-power competition, terrorism, and the changing character of war. Rooted in research and firsthand experience, these conversations help listeners understand evolving doctrines, strategic dilemmas, and the interplay of societal and political factors in conflict. The show bridges theoretical perspectives and practical lessons from recent operations, fostering critical thinking and informed debate. There are some great episodes on developing TTPS in Ukraine.
1.	War on the Rocks	This is the leading podcast for contemporary trends in warfare. There is a lot of discussion about lessons learned in Ukraine, War on the Rocks is a leading podcast platform for candid, insightful discussions on defense, foreign policy, and strategy. It convenes academics, policymakers, senior military officers, and journalists to dissect pressing international security issues. Topics range from regional conflicts and alliance dynamics to technological disruptions and strategic innovation. Host Ryan Evans does an excellent job of getting a stellar list of expert guests and the interviews are very insightful. The WotR team also produce Jaw Jaw which has just started but has some excellent high level China episodes.

Methodology for ranking podcasts.

I have chosen a quantitative approach to ranking and a qualitative approach to creating the list.  I have started with Podcast US ratings and reviews.  Reviews are a proxy for the number of listeners.  Some podcasts have big swings in popularity between platforms, eg Spotify vs Android players vs Apple, but I needed to start somewhere.  These are US reviews, which creates a disadvantage for non-US podcasts, but it also highlights the difficulty in conducting expeditionary operations, so I will wear that.  The rankings come from the total downloads from www.castbox.com, an Android podcast player that publishes download data.  The total downloads would be much, much higher for all of the podcasts.  The Principles of War is currently at 949,360 downloads, but Castbox shows just 40,792, which is 4.2% of total downloads.  If you multiply each podcast’s downloads by 25, you will get an indication of total downloads.  This means that War on the Rocks has a massive 4.2 million downloads.  That is a lot of PME!

A couple of honourable mentions –

The Convergence – An Army Mad Scientist Podcast.  This covers a wide range of topics, but it is always worthwhile scanning the last 10 episodes.  There are usual a few nuggets of gold in there.

War Studies – The podcast of King’s College London, it has a range of eclectic topics and has some very interesting guests, making a quick scan of their recent episodes worthwhile as well.  The Laughton Naval Unit has some excellent content.

Balloons to Drones – Produced by the team from Balloons to Drones, a great air centric podcast.

Why podcasts for Professional Military Education?

Podcast PME is a great way to leverage technology.  The ability to broadcast around the world to millions of people would have been prohibitively expensive 20 years ago.  Now, for less than $200 outlay (a good microphone) and $10 a month for hosting, you can produce content and access an audience.  Podcasts leverage a key fact in the changing demographics in society, in that everyone is a lot busier than they used to be.  Podcasts enable people to better utilise their time.  Rather than commute to work, walk the dog, or do some PT, it can be commute to work and learn, walk the dog and learn and do some PT and learn.  I would listen to around 5 hours of PME, be it an audiobook or a podcast each week, and slowly that makes a difference.

Congratulations to the team at the Modern Warfare Institute, scoring 3 of the top 4 podcasts, a huge commitment in resources and a testament to how important podcasts have become to educating our soldiers, sailors and airmen.

A big shout out to all of the hosts, producers, guest experts and those who are using all of the podcasts listed (and unlisted) in their PME programs.  In conflict, the lessons are usually the same, it is just how we pay for them that changes.  It is all of our responsibility to ensure that our nations pay the least price to relearn lessons that have been very expensive in the past. The BruteCast states with a quote. “Education is what is important.  Training preparation for the expected.  Education preparation for the unexpected.”  We all need more education to be ready to fight a new war, in a new war, particularly as there are few nations with contemporary experience of LSCO.  Listen to a podcast today!

/* Castbox is an Android podcast player that publishes podcast plays. It is around 3-5% of the total plays for most podcasts.