After overseeing more than 700 investigations into waste, fraud, and abuse during the 20-year war in Afghanistan, John Sopko explains how America spent trillions, empowered corruption, radicalized populations, and repeated the same mistakes over and over again — while contractors, bureaucracies, and political interests kept the machine running.

Sopko warns that future wars will look nothing like Iraq or Afghanistan, and says the U.S. government is dangerously unprepared for the realities of drone warfare and artificial intelligence.

“It wasn’t just military contractors selling boots and guns and airplanes to the Afghan military, police, and government,” Sopko explained. “It was actually about 30 U.S. government agencies operating in Afghanistan.”

This is one of the clearest insider accounts yet of how modern wars actually work, and who benefits from them. You won’t want to miss it.

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In January 2026, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told the US military to “accelerate like hell” in the use of AI, robots, and autonomous systems.

Now, just over 100 days later, we’re on the ground in Morocco, where AI-powered “robotic forces” are working alongside human soldiers as part of African Lion, the US military’s largest exercise on the African continent.

“The Russia Ukraine Conflict has provided interesting insight into how the battlefield has changed,” 1st. Lt. Vincent Gaspari told us in a tent at Camp America in Tan-Tan, Morocco. “We now have very low-cost solutions that are precise and effective.”

Indeed, the modern battlefield has become much more lethal with drones, creating asymmetrical warfare where one side becomes substantially weaker than the other. Here at Africa Lion, we’re seeing autonomous ground vehicles that are weaponized. But with anything lethal, a human is in the loop.

As this technology advances further, what are the ethics of of autonomy on the battlefield?

This and more as we cover Africa Lion 2026:

As Venezuela continues adjusting to life after the capture of Nicolás Maduro earlier this year, Shane Smith sits down with longtime VICE producer Alex Chitty to look back on their reporting there, from its most chaotic years, to a very different reality today.

They revisit some of VICE’s most infamous shoots, including a trip embedded with cocaine traffickers moving product through West Africa — a story that became legendary during VICE’s early, anything-goes era.

Shane and Alex reflect on filming in Caracas when it was considered the murder capital of the world- covering riots, tear gas, and violent street clashes- and compare it to returning more recently, where parts of the country felt almost unrecognizable.

They also touch on the strange legacy of those early VICE years, from parody to perception, before turning to what the future might hold for Venezuela in the wake of Maduro’s removal and the country’s political transition.

As trials tied to the brutal Assad regime begin this week, Shane Smith talks down with former VICE correspondent Isobel Yeung. They revisit moments from Aleppo and Damascus, where active frontlines and everyday life existed side by side — and reflect on the strange disconnect between what was happening on the ground and what people were allowed to say on camera.

Isobel shares what it was like reporting under constant oversight, navigating government minders, and trying to capture reality inside a system built to control the narrative, along with what didn’t make it into the final cuts.

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Shane Smith and longtime VICE producer Alex Chitty recount their reporting in Iran and the unpredictability of working there. They talk about coming face to face with senior members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and attempting to turn it into an interview, as well the gap between the official narrative and everyday life in Tehran.

On this week’s episode of Shane Smith Has Questions, Shane and Matt Mahan discuss the reality behind homelessness in California, why housing is so expensive, and how bureaucracy and bad incentives have made it nearly impossible to build. Mahan explains how corporate power, regulation, and political complacency have created a system that continually becomes more expensive without delivering better results.

Mahan lays out why he believes California is at an inflection point and what a more pragmatic, results-driven approach could look like if anyone is willing to take it on.

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Jake Burghart joins Shane Smith to talk through VICE’s infamous North Korea trip. They discuss what went wrong behind the scenes, the surreal moments with Dennis Rodman, and how the trip unfolded in ways no one expected.

Jake shares his take on the challenges of filming in North Korea, the absurdity of the situation, and how it all came together, unfiltered and unexpected. It’s a quick dive into the story behind the story.

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Scott Galloway and Shane Smith talk through why the system feels off and why more people are starting to notice now. They dive into how wealth is concentrated among America’s wealthiest, how big tech quietly shapes the rules, and the erosion of America’s middle class. It’s blunt look at where things stand and what could come next if nothing shifts.

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On this episode of Shane Smith Has Questions, Ian Bremmer explains why regime change was a fantasy; how Iran is somehow making more money since the war started; and why the real pain at the pump, at the grocery store, in your portfolio- has not even hit yet.

Bremmer maps out a world unraveling in real time. A world where drone swarms are rewriting the rules of war, disinformation is warping reality, and how miscalculations in the Strait of Hormuz have tipped the global economy into freefall.

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The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed, and energy expert Amos Hochstein is calling this the single greatest energy crisis in global history bigger than the 1973 OPEC embargo. With roughly 10 million barrels of oil per day missing from global markets, prices have surged from $60 to nearly $100 a barrel, gas is climbing toward $4 a gallon, and major producers like Kuwait, Iraq, and Qatar have already slashed production. According to Hochstein, if the Strait remains closed for just 10 more days, the economic damage could become permanent and very difficult to reverse.

The ripple effects are already being felt everywhere. Food prices, shipping, airline tickets, and everyday goods are increasing. Meanwhile, Republican senators are privately warning the White House that if this continues, they risk losing both the House and the Senate. Hochstein breaks down the best case, worst case, and most likely scenario for how this war ends and what it means for everyday Americans already feeling the squeeze at the pump and the grocery store.

The conversation goes beyond oil- connecting the dots between energy, AI, and the new geopolitical battleground.

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During Shane’s conversation with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Bernie warns that a handful of the world’s wealthiest men are quietly engineering the most consequential revolution in human history- one that could wipe out millions of jobs overnight and leave ordinary Americans with nothing but unanswered questions. Driverless trucks, automated warehouses, AI lawyers and accountants. Bernie poses the question- “If people do not have work, what will they do all day?”

Sanders is especially critical of the billionaire class that is fueling this transformation, highlighting how- in his view- wealth and power have never been more dangerously concentrated. Sanders believes a federal wealth tax may be the last line of defense for working people. You won’t want to miss this episode.

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Shane Smith traveled to Venezuela for a special episode of Shane Smith Has Questions, on the ground for the first meeting between U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez: the Trump administration’s first official visit since the regime change.

Reporting from Caracas, Shane gets rare access as U.S. officials engage Venezuela’s new leadership and begin shaping what comes next for the country and its vast oil reserves.

He also sits down with Venezuelan journalist María de los Ángeles Graterol and Wall Street Journal South America Bureau Chief, Juan Manuel Ferero, to unpack the power shift, the stakes for Washington, and what the future may hold for Venezuela.

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Shane and Channel 5/All Gas No Brakes’ Andrew Callaghan traveled to Denmark and Greenland covering the ongoing crisis over Greenland, which the U.S. is threatening to annex. A number of European countries are promising to defend Greenland, if necessary, under Article Five of the North Atlantic Treaty. Canada is weighing whether to send a small number of troops.

Watch the video to see what Shane and Andrew uncovered.

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Shane sits down in Denmark, immediately following today’s high-stakes US–Danish meetings, with former Danish foreign minister Per Stig Møller for an on-the-ground conversation about why Greenland has become one of the most sensitive geopolitical flashpoints right now. Coming off the press conference and escalating rhetoric between Washington and Copenhagen, Møller draws on his role negotiating a key defense treaty with the United States to explain what the agreements actually allow, and why the current moment has raised fresh alarms.

They break down the US narrative around security gaps, rare earth minerals, and competition with Russia and China, questioning whether those claims hold up under scrutiny. The conversation looks at sovereignty, NATO obligations, Arctic militarization, and what it means when long-standing allies begin treating territory and people as leverage rather than partners.

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