Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics.
Speaker 1: I'm here with Jonathan Hacket, Mick Molroy, Mark poly Moroopolis,
Speaker 1: and myself. A lot, a lot has happened in the
Speaker 1: last week since we left you last. We just found
Speaker 1: out this morning Lindsay Graham, Senator from South Carolina, passed
Speaker 1: away suddenly in his house, recently returned from a Ukraine trip.
Speaker 1: You know, very sad to see any anyone die. Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't, you know, rest in peace, Lindsay. A lot
Speaker 1: happening to if you got you want to, just want
Speaker 1: to say a little bit about Lindsay first and then
Speaker 1: we'll get into the Iran stuff.
Speaker 2: Marko.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, you know, one of the things that
Speaker 3: that I mean is very complicated legacy.
Speaker 4: I think, first of.
Speaker 3: All, in a time like this, you know everyone and
Speaker 3: you go on social media, everyone has a propensity to
Speaker 3: say kind of shitty stuff.
Speaker 4: So it's not the time for that.
Speaker 3: Because clearly he you know, he had he has had
Speaker 3: an evolution from a kind of foreign policy giant to
Speaker 3: someone to a kind of a sycophant for Trump. But
Speaker 3: I think that that ultimately, you know, his you know,
Speaker 3: his heart was always with the notion that the US
Speaker 3: is stronger when we have a robust, aggressive foreign policy,
Speaker 3: when we have a strong national defense, strong intelligence services,
Speaker 3: where we do champion human rights and democracy. And he,
Speaker 3: you know, he, I mean, he passed away after he
Speaker 3: came back from Ukraine, and that's something where he differed
Speaker 3: with Trump, you know, you know, very strongly on So,
Speaker 3: you know, lots of stuff in the in the news
Speaker 3: about him, but I think his relevance will be that
Speaker 3: he was relevant on foreign policy. And for those of
Speaker 3: us in the US government who had a chance to
Speaker 3: ever see him during congressional delegations, which he was on constantly,
Speaker 3: he generally was on the right side of issues, and
Speaker 3: so put aside his you know, the politics of it.
Speaker 3: And and I was joking with Mick before in the
Speaker 3: green room, there's always this this this story that kind
Speaker 3: of is in our circles. And I don't know if
Speaker 3: it's right or wrong, and if if it's right, I
Speaker 3: probably can't say it. But it's a story that him
Speaker 3: and John McCain, his you know, best friend for a
Speaker 3: long time, came to one of our bases in the
Speaker 3: war zones and they helped launch some mortars at Taliban
Speaker 3: positions from Afghanistan into Pakistan. And then I think that
Speaker 3: endeared him with a lot of people of art Ilk
Speaker 3: and so leave the politics aside of it afterwards. Certainly
Speaker 3: someone who's relevant, I would say that's probably a fair
Speaker 3: a political thing to say. The relevant in terms of
Speaker 3: foreign policy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I briefed them many times. I think he
Speaker 5: at his best, you know, I'm just talking foreign policy,
Speaker 5: not the personal stuff when he was with John McCain, right,
Speaker 5: I agree with what Mark said. He was a champion
Speaker 5: for what I would like to see for the United States,
Speaker 5: be the leader of the free world. Look out for democracies,
Speaker 5: individual liberties around the world, be willing to.
Speaker 2: Fight when you have to. Right.
Speaker 5: Passivity is not a virtue if it is at the
Speaker 5: expense of liberty.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: So I think that was, you know, from a legacy perspective,
Speaker 5: his biggest contributions, and hopefully that continues in both parties.
Speaker 5: Right Republican Party included, have the Reagan kind of ideology,
Speaker 5: come back philosophy, I should say. And then another interesting point,
Speaker 5: because I'm breathed in a couple times in his office,
Speaker 5: but I learned this is that he became the parent
Speaker 5: if you will, a guardian of his sister when he
Speaker 5: was nineteen as he was orphaned. So he did overcome
Speaker 5: some serious challenges in his life, and I think it's
Speaker 5: important to point that out. So, but you know, here's
Speaker 5: thoughts to him. There were his family, I should say,
Speaker 5: and those at his colleagues and his friends.
Speaker 1: John, have you met Senator Graham in your travel.
Speaker 6: I haven't seen him on a codell, But I think
Speaker 6: that even if you disagree with his foreign policy, you
Speaker 6: have to appreciate that he was informed. And I think
Speaker 6: a lot of people in Congress and the Senate today
Speaker 6: are not informed on foreign policy the.
Speaker 1: Way that he was.
Speaker 6: So you have to appreciate that he actually cared, He
Speaker 6: was dedicated. He got out there and actually went on
Speaker 6: those codels and was on the ground, not just in
Speaker 6: the embassy because you know, the embassy's always usually the
Speaker 6: safest place of the country. He got out of the
Speaker 6: embassy and actually went out to go see people around US,
Speaker 6: people and interests around as we just talked about with
Speaker 6: the Afghan example, he did that all over the world,
Speaker 6: and he cared about that. So it wasn't that there
Speaker 6: was just these you know, policy positions that were domestic
Speaker 6: to him, like a lot of people today are. Instead,
Speaker 6: he was thinking long term about US interests globally, and
Speaker 6: I think that's a very important thing to not let
Speaker 6: go of and to appreciate.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, A big topic that he was very much
Speaker 1: into is what's going on with Iran. Now obviously the
Speaker 1: ceasefire is not is no longer. Iran hit a couple
Speaker 1: of ships in straight we retaliated, and then Iran last
Speaker 1: night started shooting ballistic missiles and drones at bought Rain.
Speaker 1: Uh caught her. I think UAE and I think Oman
Speaker 1: got some flak too. No then no mind get like
Speaker 1: something had it in the airway, Which was surprising because
Speaker 1: you know, it seems like Oman and o Ran are
Speaker 1: kind of sort of in lockstep in terms of how
Speaker 1: to like figure out the straight. If I'm missing anything, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: you'd let me know, like fill in the blanks, if
Speaker 1: there's anything else in the timeline that we're missing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, on that missile debris, that's an important point that
Speaker 6: when you fire ballistic missiles there's oftentimes misfires, bad trajectories, miscalculations,
Speaker 6: just pieces that come off. And actually in the Gulf
Speaker 6: War nineteen ninety one. We saw that when Saddam was
Speaker 6: firing scud missiles, some of them landed like way off
Speaker 6: target or just went down in the desert in Jordan
Speaker 6: and western Iraq and all over the place. So these
Speaker 6: are very like very imprecise weapons that are based on
Speaker 6: the V two rocket that the Germans invented in World
Speaker 6: War Two, and they still use basically the same technology.
Speaker 6: They're they're pretty uh low tech as far as you
Speaker 6: know weapons today are concerned. So if peace fell in Oman,
Speaker 6: that would not be shocking. But the problem is that
Speaker 6: means the Iranians have to be careful about how they
Speaker 6: do use their ballistic missiles with the knowledge that they
Speaker 6: could malfunction as they're firing and I could backfire, like
Speaker 6: the use of it if they're trying to strike Bahrain,
Speaker 6: for example, and instead it hits inside of Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 6: that could mess up what they're trying to do diplomatically.
Speaker 6: So they have to measure carefully how much risk are
Speaker 6: be willing to take when we fire each of these
Speaker 6: ballistic missiles. And that's a challenge because we talked about
Speaker 6: previously the decentralized command of control that Iran has over
Speaker 6: the IRGC Aerospace Forces. The individual provincial level brigadier generals
Speaker 6: in charge of those ballistic missiles can in some ways
Speaker 6: fire at will if they think it's the right time,
Speaker 6: whereas the central government in Tehran may not be able
Speaker 6: to intervene and say, hey, we hold off on those
Speaker 6: ballistic missiles today. We're trying to do something here with Oman.
Speaker 6: So you might actually get like a dual track problem
Speaker 6: where you have the localized IERGC Aerospace Force commander launch
Speaker 6: a ballistic missile at a legitimate target in their eyes,
Speaker 6: but that the central government in Tehran was like, ah,
Speaker 6: we didn't want that to happen right now because we're
Speaker 6: trying to do something with Elmand.
Speaker 2: So you might see some of that.
Speaker 6: Cross hairs or crossing of wires as well, which can
Speaker 6: be difficult for Iran to juggle.
Speaker 3: That seems to be the excuse I think, Jonathan, that
Speaker 3: the administration used. I mean, there's really weird reporting over
Speaker 3: the last couple of days when they came back and
Speaker 3: they're talking about you know, they claim that the Iranians
Speaker 3: apologized for some of the strikes, which I frankly don't believe.
Speaker 3: That doesn't seem to me, even in the realm of
Speaker 3: even remote possibility the scenario you lay out, just because
Speaker 3: of the kind of situation they're in in terms of
Speaker 3: issues of command and control. I think that is certainly possible,
Speaker 3: but it's I don't think an apology came from Iran.
Speaker 3: And of course all of that, that notion is all
Speaker 3: thrown out again after what happened over the last you know,
Speaker 3: twelve hours or so, and so this idea of kind
Speaker 3: of these these you know, are there really rogue elements?
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I mean these axios reports that
Speaker 3: come out, everyone kind of just rolls their eyes. Now
Speaker 3: it's kind of a different alternate reality. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think it's what's amazing right now. This entire conflict has
Speaker 3: nothing to do with the nuclear program anymore, does not
Speaker 3: have to do with regime change, doesn't have to do
Speaker 3: with ballistic missiles, doesn't have to do with proxies. It's
Speaker 3: only about the Strait of Hormuz. And to me, that
Speaker 3: is a complete kind of encapsulation of how we have
Speaker 3: failed on the policy level on this because I think
Speaker 3: Trump will declare victory if the strait is opened, and
Speaker 3: so what do we do this for?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 3: And I don't even know if I mean, there's now
Speaker 3: differing interpretations if the strait is open or not. But
Speaker 3: what a what a mess? I mean, it's almost to
Speaker 3: the point where, you know, as they climb the escalatory ladder,
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, you wonder if the Iranians are
Speaker 3: overplaying their hands, and that's certainly possible, but my god,
Speaker 3: are they not deterred by us at all? I mean,
Speaker 3: it's not working. Whatever we're trying to do is not working,
Speaker 3: and I don't know if there's a military solution save
Speaker 3: something really dramatic. So it's going to be kind of
Speaker 3: interesting to see, what, you know, Carmena, Joint chiefs of
Speaker 3: Staff is recommending with Sencom's recommending to the president because
Speaker 3: I don't know what the solution is here because you know, Milik,
Speaker 3: the US strikes, the reprisals are not working right now,
Speaker 3: and so how much do you have to actually up
Speaker 3: the ante and what does that really actually mean? So
Speaker 3: you know, Mike, the thoughts on that, I mean, is
Speaker 3: there is there a military solution to this right now?
Speaker 5: So I think the military can play a part, obviously,
Speaker 5: But what I'd say is, yes, I agree, if the
Speaker 5: strait is open, that does not make it a win.
Speaker 5: That just gets us back to norm. If the strait
Speaker 5: is closed, that does make it a loss. So we
Speaker 5: have to get the straight back open. We can't just say, well,
Speaker 5: we don't get that much, you know, energy from this
Speaker 5: region's it affects everybody, right, So if there's doesn't matter
Speaker 5: where you get your energy, If there's that much less
Speaker 5: energy in the world, everybody's paying more. So like like
Speaker 5: this is I mean, I'm not an economist, but I
Speaker 5: get that right. So it has to it has to
Speaker 5: come open and out. I heard I think it was
Speaker 5: Brett talking about his Brett McGirk talking about his recent
Speaker 5: trip to at least everybody's trying to come up with
Speaker 5: alternatives to the straight, And I think that's a great
Speaker 5: idea because eventually this is going to go away. The
Speaker 5: leverage is going to go away, I think. But I
Speaker 5: know we can't count on that. Man, I don't know
Speaker 5: how long it'll take, but imagine it's too long to
Speaker 5: make an immediate difference. But I think that's the right move.
Speaker 5: So then the question is we need to make it.
Speaker 5: And I agree with Mark, You're saying, like, now it's
Speaker 5: all about straight, but we need to make it stay
Speaker 5: about nuclear weapons, right, because the US needs to win.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know, I say this all the time.
Speaker 2: We need to win.
Speaker 5: I don't care who's I'm not a partisan in that regard.
Speaker 5: I want the US to win. So how are we
Speaker 5: going to do it? We're in it, we started it.
Speaker 5: We can't change that. They close the straight. We need
Speaker 5: to change that. How do we do it?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 5: I think what the Administration or White House is really
Speaker 5: planning is to okay, these negotiations from the US point
Speaker 5: of view, seems to be a stalling tactic. And to
Speaker 5: what you're talking about, Marko and well, I doubt they apologize.
Speaker 5: But I think the problem is you've got this maybe
Speaker 5: new Supreme leader calling the shots, and I think he
Speaker 5: actually is from what I'm being told. And then you
Speaker 5: have the IRGC, and then you have the negotiators, which
Speaker 5: are like the Erochis and the Golley bops.
Speaker 2: Right, these two don't.
Speaker 5: Respond to the other, Like these guys don't control these guys.
Speaker 5: These guys don't control these guys. So they can go
Speaker 5: say all these things over here and agree to things,
Speaker 5: and then the IRGC says, we're still going to close
Speaker 5: the straight, and we're still going to fire at ships
Speaker 5: to do so, because that's the only way they can
Speaker 5: close the straight right is to take direct action. And
Speaker 5: then these guys might be saying, well, I wish they
Speaker 5: wouldn't have done that, because we really want I don't know,
Speaker 5: assets unfrozen, sell our oil. But ultimately that might be
Speaker 5: the problem. We're talking to people who aren't making decisions
Speaker 5: and have no real direct control over the people who
Speaker 5: can blow the whole.
Speaker 2: Agreement, and that's what they're doing, right.
Speaker 5: I mean, if honestly, if I was looking at this objectively,
Speaker 5: I would say, if we're getting to sell our oil
Speaker 5: and we're getting to, you know, get our assets on frozen,
Speaker 5: just act like the straits open, just do right?
Speaker 2: Why not? You're making money and it's goes straight to
Speaker 2: the regime. So I, you know, I just don't get it.
Speaker 5: But ultimately they feel like they have the highest leverage
Speaker 5: that they're ever going to have, and they're gonna use it.
Speaker 5: They know the regime isn't going to change. They won't
Speaker 5: even talk about the nuclear In fact, every comment that
Speaker 5: comes out of like possession and all that is we're
Speaker 5: never gonna give up in Richmond. So the best we
Speaker 5: can do is get back in the JCPOA. If that's true, right,
Speaker 5: I'm just saying they're not letting in spectors in which
Speaker 5: they are required to do as members of the Non
Speaker 5: Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. They're not even doing that. So
Speaker 5: I think that one, they're going to try to get
Speaker 5: a nuclear weapon, we got to prevent them to do that.
Speaker 5: So that's one of the things the military can do.
Speaker 5: And then two, if they don't open the strait, I
Speaker 5: think we're going to go up the escalatory ladder. It's
Speaker 5: not gonna be good. Though, it's not gonna be good,
Speaker 5: but I don't know what else you can do because
Speaker 5: we are in the situation we're in. Yes, economic pressure
Speaker 5: diplomatic pressure should be a hand in hand, but if
Speaker 5: you don't cause cost directly to the regime, which might
Speaker 5: be cutting off these logistical supply lines like the RILL
Speaker 5: and I think Jonathan could certainly touch about how that
Speaker 5: could affect them directly, or I.
Speaker 2: Guess everybody could.
Speaker 5: But it's going to have to go up the esciratory ladder.
Speaker 5: And I don't think they should stop fighting necessarily to
Speaker 5: do the negotiations, because if they do. From the Iranian perspective,
Speaker 5: They're like, fine, we'll talk to you guys. So Kingdom come.
Speaker 5: As long as there's no consequences, they don't care. That's
Speaker 5: the way they were all So I think that's where
Speaker 5: it's heading. It's going to be military action amidst negotiation
Speaker 5: to try to get to the point where it affects
Speaker 5: their position, and they come back to it with a
Speaker 5: real MoU because the last one, at least the way
Speaker 5: Iranian interpret it, is not in our interest.
Speaker 3: I just don't know what that military act is, Jonathan,
Speaker 3: What is that military action? What could we do to
Speaker 3: hurt them that would ever compel them to be more responsible.
Speaker 6: Well, something I don't typically advocate for, which is killing
Speaker 6: specific individuals at the top of this structure is probably
Speaker 6: a helpful way to actually make it happen, even though
Speaker 6: I disagree with that strategy myself because of how the
Speaker 6: long term impacts of that are. But if you want acute,
Speaker 6: short term wins, you need to remove people like Vahiti.
Speaker 6: You need to make sure that Mochaba is actually dead,
Speaker 6: and go after other decision makers that are holding the
Speaker 6: levers of power, including Gollibah, and get rid of them.
Speaker 6: Now that's a short term win. Like I said, there's
Speaker 6: long term negative impacts globally if we do that, because
Speaker 6: we lose control of the situation. Because the devil that
Speaker 6: you know is sometimes better than the devil that you don't,
Speaker 6: and the one like, for example, Vahiti is a really
Speaker 6: bad guy, but we understand him. We know him, at
Speaker 6: least those of us who actually do know and understand
Speaker 6: this problem. Set get rid of him. And now you've
Speaker 6: got like a thirty five year old guy that you
Speaker 6: don't even know his name right now. That was like
Speaker 6: a low level deputy in the Unit four hundred, which
Speaker 6: is there's Special Operations Directorate that nobody knows even on
Speaker 6: the CIA side, And now that guy might be in
Speaker 6: charge of the IRGC and he's going to probably be
Speaker 6: a hothead just from his youth alone, but also forged
Speaker 6: in what he sees as this crucible of the world
Speaker 6: against Iran. So that's that long term problem. But if
Speaker 6: you want a short term win, get the straits open
Speaker 6: and have things flowing smoothly for the next few months. Sure,
Speaker 6: kill all the top level leadership, which is what we
Speaker 6: did from February twenty eighth till now. And there's always
Speaker 6: that tension between the short term military victories, you know,
Speaker 6: tactical and operational strikes which were very good at WE
Speaker 6: and Israel too, versus the long term what happens next
Speaker 6: of that, because you cannot use a military instrument to
Speaker 6: force political change alone. It has to have diplomatic and
Speaker 6: economic buttresses, if not those things being the main effort
Speaker 6: with military as a support. So it's a real challenge
Speaker 6: that we've kind of dug ourselves into here where we've
Speaker 6: basically forced ourselves into a military problem that didn't have
Speaker 6: to be in the first place because of how we're
Speaker 6: we you know, the US government's focusing so much on
Speaker 6: the Straits of Hormuz now, which is chiefly a security concern,
Speaker 6: the military security concern that has economic remnants around it,
Speaker 6: and it should be inverted where the economy is the
Speaker 6: main point. I can't remember which politician it was in
Speaker 6: the early nineties, I said, it's the economy, stupid. Maybe
Speaker 6: it was Bush Senior, but it's it's true. I mean,
Speaker 6: the economy is the.
Speaker 2: Thing driving every Clinton right.
Speaker 6: I can't remember, but I remember that was during that election.
Speaker 2: Clinton. Yeah, there was one of their borrows. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think they should. They're going to go after personalities.
Speaker 5: To your point, Jonathan, we you all heard that there
Speaker 5: was a credible threat to President Trump, so just from
Speaker 5: the emotional perspective, and then you know, allegedly, uh the
Speaker 5: Spring later came out with a statement saying we're going
Speaker 5: to go after the US and Israel from every direction,
Speaker 5: calling on a like an international movement to target them.
Speaker 5: So I think that in Vahidi probably be I on
Speaker 5: the list as most type of as well. But I
Speaker 5: think that's going to be part of it. But the
Speaker 5: other part, just from I mean we've heard this for months,
Speaker 5: is going after infrastructure targets. They're gonna make it miserable
Speaker 5: to live there. I would I would advocate for going
Speaker 5: after you know, ones that are military and ones that
Speaker 5: allow the regime to make money, so the railroad if
Speaker 5: that's if that's one of the main economic lifelines, I
Speaker 5: wouldn't advocate going after which primarily civilian. But I'm not
Speaker 5: in the I'm an administration. So there's like three major
Speaker 5: I think, uh, energy producing facilities and Iran. I think
Speaker 5: they're probably on the list. It's just going to gradually
Speaker 5: go up, and maybe that's that's what the Esculptory Ladder
Speaker 5: is right, it's a gradual going up so that the
Speaker 5: adversary in this case Arenian regime knows if they don't comply,
Speaker 5: then they go up another Wrong. You have to put
Speaker 5: the pressure on and it's not going to come from
Speaker 5: you know, harsh statements or threats on social media. It's
Speaker 5: just they're ignoring all that. Now it has to be
Speaker 5: you know, walks off and carry a big stick. You
Speaker 5: got the stick, You're going to have to use it,
Speaker 5: but you have to use it effect in ligne. With diplomacy,
Speaker 5: economic I think pressure and having the right information. And
Speaker 5: what I mean by information just to use a die
Speaker 5: model is you got to start bringing other countries into this,
Speaker 5: and you're not going to.
Speaker 2: Do it by insults. Right.
Speaker 5: But the Strait is not the war. The Strait affects
Speaker 5: every country in the world. So I don't think we're
Speaker 5: getting a lot of people sign up to fight around,
Speaker 5: but we could get more countries signed up to economically
Speaker 5: isolate them because this is I mean, there's countries, as
Speaker 5: you all know in the Far East that are we're
Speaker 5: about to run out of fuel, right, So this isn't
Speaker 5: about like do you agree with the United States, do
Speaker 5: you like the United States. It is just as much
Speaker 5: their national security issue as it is honors right now.
Speaker 5: So hopefully we can on the information side of the
Speaker 5: die model get more countries to start helping us isolate
Speaker 5: their reshime, which means not buying all things.
Speaker 3: I'm not on the on the Israeli intel. I mean,
Speaker 3: I must admit I was, you know. I look, I've
Speaker 3: worked with these rallies. I like them. He has a
Speaker 3: heart attack when I say that. But I was a
Speaker 3: little skeptical when that came out, and I think of
Speaker 3: the repress reports. There's been a number of US officials
Speaker 3: who said it was not very it was not necessarily credible,
Speaker 3: and it was not very specific. It was just kind
Speaker 3: of the general threat of the Iranians talking about doing
Speaker 3: what they have been planning on doing anyhow. So I
Speaker 3: don't put it past these rallies, especially with the you know,
Speaker 3: the tensions with between BB and But we would have.
Speaker 5: Done our own assessment on the right, I mean, the
Speaker 5: the if it was functioning. We don't just go And
Speaker 5: I like these rallies, I work with them all the
Speaker 5: time and big supporter of a lot of things. But like,
Speaker 5: we would have done our own assessment. But my question
Speaker 5: on that one is like, I don't think President Trump
Speaker 5: really wanted to get off the new Air Force one
Speaker 5: and get on an old one. So that indicates to
Speaker 5: me that there was something that was legitimate to the threat.
Speaker 4: Or finally, the secrets.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, that plane was not mission capable for
Speaker 3: receives travel period every Like, it's amazing that they're trying
Speaker 3: to subpoena the New York Times reporters.
Speaker 1: You know, they raid one of their houses.
Speaker 3: It's just it's so ludicrous. I mean, I know all
Speaker 3: these reporters, they are really good reporters. But I mean,
Speaker 3: anybody in the planet could have said that, like.
Speaker 1: This the democracy. When you're raiding the reporters, fucking the
Speaker 1: houses and subpoena it's.
Speaker 5: It's it's obvious by switching planes that it wasn't you know, like,
Speaker 5: what is it?
Speaker 3: There's no way in aircraft like that with all the
Speaker 3: countermeasures that allegedly Air Force one has, you know that
Speaker 3: that a plane can be retrofitted in a couple of
Speaker 3: months and just and be capable of going to Turkey,
Speaker 3: which is a high threat place. Yeah, maybe the Secret Service,
Speaker 3: you know, use this as as final leverage because Trump
Speaker 3: could say no, Trump can do whatever he wants. You
Speaker 3: can take what every plane he wants. I'm sure the
Speaker 3: Air Force and the Secret Service were not happy about
Speaker 3: this new Cuttery airplane which did fly over my house
Speaker 3: the other day.
Speaker 4: It actually is pretty cool. It's nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't have to go to the celebrations. I
Speaker 3: had f thirty five and b ones, you know, flying
Speaker 3: right over my house. And then I was changing bird food.
Speaker 3: That is what happens when you're fifty seven year old.
Speaker 3: I had a bird feeder. I was putting in bird
Speaker 3: food and I looked up and there's the Covery plane.
Speaker 3: But but uh uh, you know, going back to that,
Speaker 3: but I think that you guys raised a really interesting
Speaker 3: point and time will tell, Like, are we going to
Speaker 3: start doing kind of this targeted you know, assassinations again
Speaker 3: of senior leadership.
Speaker 2: There's a war that it's a war. It's it's on
Speaker 2: right right again.
Speaker 5: Don't just kill the privates, man, don't just kill the
Speaker 5: privates get conscripted to the top?
Speaker 4: Is Trump? And is Trump?
Speaker 3: Is Trump going to want I guess the question is
Speaker 3: Trump gonna want to climb this ladder too? Because every
Speaker 3: time he does this, you risk the US economy right
Speaker 3: before the midterms.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I think that's.
Speaker 4: The big thing. I mean Trump.
Speaker 3: You know, theoretically, if mister tough guy, this should be
Speaker 3: an easy call. I'm going to go fuck the Iranians
Speaker 3: up right now, and we should.
Speaker 5: Here's the question for you, Mark, Yeah, because I talked
Speaker 5: a lot about this, as you do on.
Speaker 2: Uh TV and stuff.
Speaker 5: Everybody's talking about like their election, but nobody's talking about
Speaker 5: the day after I know, right, So they act like
Speaker 5: there's all this pressure on the White House right now
Speaker 5: for the election, and probably true, but the day after
Speaker 5: the election, it.
Speaker 4: Is what it is.
Speaker 2: It is what it is.
Speaker 5: He's not running again and his party doesn't have another election,
Speaker 5: so it's he's he's got the hand is dealt right,
Speaker 5: So it's gonna the Iranians because I go on with
Speaker 5: Iran rates, they know this, but they never talk about
Speaker 5: the day after, Like, okay, you better come up in
Speaker 5: the agreement before election day, mister Supreme later because it's
Speaker 5: it's gonna switch the day after.
Speaker 3: That would be so interesting to see if they get
Speaker 3: more reasonable right before the election. No, anyway, we'll see you.
Speaker 3: But that's a great point.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, like all indications are that, like the
Speaker 1: Democrats going to take back the House for Sharon, possibly
Speaker 1: the Senate. I don't know, if you know after January first,
Speaker 1: when the new new Congress comes in, I don't know
Speaker 1: exactly how much latitude Trump's going to exactly have with
Speaker 1: this where he can put together they're a sizeable force
Speaker 1: to go after I ran for real, I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's.
Speaker 4: Exactly what's going to stop them?
Speaker 2: What are they going to stop them?
Speaker 3: No war powers, it's veto pro It doesn't even matter
Speaker 3: if Congress both votes to restrict funding and what it
Speaker 3: won't be veto proof. I mean, there's there's no stopping
Speaker 3: this guy.
Speaker 1: So the fact is, what the that question that you
Speaker 1: just had, what's going to stop him? Is what's fundamentally
Speaker 1: wrong with this country right now? Generally, I'll be honest
Speaker 1: with you because not only shouldn't I'm editorializing a lunatic
Speaker 1: like Trump have the key to this ship. Nobody should,
Speaker 1: even somebody that I.
Speaker 5: Think that Mark was saying, is there's not legislatively even
Speaker 5: if they win the House, and I don't think they're
Speaker 5: going to win the Senate, but say they win the
Speaker 5: House legislatively, they can't whether you support the war, support
Speaker 5: espalation or not. What is it they can do to
Speaker 5: stop the day?
Speaker 6: Is the only mechanism you.
Speaker 2: Have to get.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when as the NBA, it's.
Speaker 6: Way lack behind anyway, It's like eighteen months behind what
Speaker 6: it's supposed to be as far as policy movements concerned.
Speaker 1: That's crazy, guys.
Speaker 4: Hey.
Speaker 3: One thing that that I just just I've just taken
Speaker 3: notes before on this thing that we should we should
Speaker 3: touch on.
Speaker 4: Are we go ahead?
Speaker 1: Please?
Speaker 3: Is actually an interesting day coming up where you have
Speaker 3: Jay Clayton, the new D and I his confirmation hearing.
Speaker 3: That kind of was just snuck in last second, but
Speaker 3: we did. In our world of intelligence though all of
Speaker 3: us here, that is rather significant only in the sense
Speaker 3: that the Senate senators will actually be able to question
Speaker 3: someone in public. So Clayton's hearing is going to be
Speaker 3: on Wednesday, and I think that was just announced on Friday.
Speaker 3: I was a little surprised at that because obviously Trump
Speaker 3: has put in this acting D and I polty, who
Speaker 3: is everyone is, you know, freaking out over? I don't
Speaker 3: think anything awful has happened yet, but it could, so
Speaker 3: that'll be kind of interesting.
Speaker 4: To see.
Speaker 3: You know, rarely do you get a chance for senators
Speaker 3: actually asked really pointed questions. So we'll see how that goes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be interesting.
Speaker 1: Make I wanted to talk about a point you made
Speaker 1: about like our allies and stuff like that, and you
Speaker 1: kind of mentioned it yourself too, like are our allies
Speaker 1: really going to be interested in helping us out in
Speaker 1: a war that they weren't interested in starting to begin with?
Speaker 1: And also at a NATO summit when they're getting fucking
Speaker 1: berated by the President. I don't know exactly how how
Speaker 1: amp they would be to help us out, frankly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and so we had the NATO summa too, so
Speaker 5: we should talk about that. So, I mean to start with,
Speaker 5: NATO is a defensive alliance. Just think I think everybody
Speaker 5: knows that there's They don't go to the aid of
Speaker 5: a country who starts a war.
Speaker 2: They didn't do it.
Speaker 5: They weren't Vietnam, they weren't in the Falkland Islands, right,
Speaker 5: not saying you know, whether you agreed with the war
Speaker 5: or not, that's not what the alliance does. The alliance
Speaker 5: comes to the defense of somebody in the alliance, and
Speaker 5: it's only done it once as we all know for
Speaker 5: us AH. So on the positive, I think President Trump
Speaker 5: wasn't the only resident that push the countries in NATO
Speaker 5: to do more to meet their obligations for their national security.
Speaker 5: They had decided just let the United States do it.
Speaker 5: We had the biggest military in the world. I mean,
Speaker 5: there's plenty of countries in Europe who couldn't even deploy anything.
Speaker 5: That's changed, right, So now we're going past the two percent,
Speaker 5: and we're everybody's trying to get countries to pledge of
Speaker 5: five percents. We're at three point five percent, just for
Speaker 5: the record, But our country, our economy is so big
Speaker 5: that it's still like dwarfs everybody else when it comes
Speaker 5: to military spending. But now these countries are going to
Speaker 5: five percent. They are building their military to be functional, integrated.
Speaker 5: I think, you know, to a certain extent, President Trump
Speaker 5: and the other US presidents advocated, which was all of
Speaker 5: them can take credit for that. And then of course
Speaker 5: there's the invasion of Iraq I of Ukraine, which probably
Speaker 5: is the primary reason. So I would just keep advocating
Speaker 5: that we're talking about a NATO who's going to be
Speaker 5: more capable than it's probably ever had has been eventually,
Speaker 5: so we want the alliance. It's in our interest period
Speaker 5: it is. It is probably the most significant military alliance
Speaker 5: and history, so I hope we keep that. I know
Speaker 5: that there are many on the obviously on the on
Speaker 5: the far right or the hawk right I should say
Speaker 5: Reagan Wright, uh, and on the on the Democrats to
Speaker 5: believe in that, So hopefully that's the case. Is to
Speaker 5: your direct question, do I get it? They were apparently
Speaker 5: notified asked, But that's why I'm highlighting the straight right.
Speaker 5: The straight affects every country in the world. So you
Speaker 5: can if if you, as a leader of any country
Speaker 5: are getting significantly impacted economically by the straight being closed,
Speaker 5: then you as a as a leader, need to go
Speaker 5: past your I'm hurt because President Trump didn't asked me
Speaker 5: about this in the first place, or I don't like
Speaker 5: his policy, or I don't like him personally, and in
Speaker 5: real life that this is in your own country's interest.
Speaker 5: So what are you going to do to help open
Speaker 5: the straight? You can still be critical of us if
Speaker 5: that's your thing, but what is it you're going to do,
Speaker 5: Because if you're just going to tweet, you're useless, And
Speaker 5: if your people are all paying more for every thing
Speaker 5: that they're purchasing, which is the case in Europe for sure.
Speaker 5: What is it you're doing as a leader of those
Speaker 5: countries to alleviate that?
Speaker 2: And if your.
Speaker 5: Answer is well I didn't start the war, well that's
Speaker 5: not a leader, that's just a commentary a commentator on
Speaker 5: social media.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I think, like the everything, we kind
Speaker 1: of abuse, not abused, but we make fun of European
Speaker 1: leaders because they don't really say shit to Trump, they
Speaker 1: don't stand up to them, they don't do any of
Speaker 1: that basically, and frankly, like, I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: most of these European countries, like our NATO allies, who
Speaker 1: would be a coalition that we try to you know,
Speaker 1: build with, you know, the French, the Italians, the British
Speaker 1: people that have navies that can actually probably do something
Speaker 1: with this. Is it politically worth it to send their
Speaker 1: boys there to die? I don't know. I don't think so,
Speaker 1: I don't know if the option, I mean, I agree
Speaker 1: with you, but like we want the straight to be open,
Speaker 1: and our rants seems to not be interested in playing
Speaker 1: ball whatsoever. They're not backing down clearly, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: If it's politically advantageous for a democratic country to send
Speaker 1: their their you know, uh.
Speaker 5: Send our boys to die. So I'm not advocating for that,
Speaker 5: but what.
Speaker 2: Can we do?
Speaker 1: Thirteen servicemen have died since Sorry, but.
Speaker 5: I mean I mean like sending in forces on the ground. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: but I'm not just advocating for that. It's like, why
Speaker 5: not get what I mean? You can do it the
Speaker 5: you in I mean, it's the system's already there. What
Speaker 5: are we going to do to further isolate diplomatically, economically,
Speaker 5: anything we can the regime. There's more we can do.
Speaker 5: Everybody knows it. Everybody knows it. Like if you just
Speaker 5: got some iron experts, you know, take Jonathan and the
Speaker 5: bunch of guys from me and marks old organization and say,
Speaker 5: what can we do to make this harder on the
Speaker 5: regime that doesn't involve ground forces. I guarantee you there's
Speaker 5: a list, and some of it can be done by
Speaker 5: certain countries but not others. You see what I mean.
Speaker 5: So what I'm saying is if you like us, you
Speaker 5: don't like us, whatever this is about you and your people.
Speaker 5: So if you had a constituent stand up and you
Speaker 5: were the president of filling the blank country and said,
Speaker 5: I get it, you don't like Trump. So what I'm
Speaker 5: still paying too much for everything?
Speaker 2: What do you do? You see what I mean?
Speaker 5: Like, you can't just say well, I don't like them,
Speaker 5: because that's not what a leader does of a country.
Speaker 5: You've got to actually advocate for your people. You can
Speaker 5: be critical, but what is it they're doing other than
Speaker 5: huddling around talking about how they're going to get you know.
Speaker 1: Also, I don't know if it's just I don't like them.
Speaker 1: I think it's also you know, Iraq, we built a
Speaker 1: coalition and sold it to the American people. This we
Speaker 1: bilaterally acted with Israel without a coalition, and we expect
Speaker 1: things to work out, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: But that's they're clearly not.
Speaker 1: And now we're asking for Europe or whoever else allies
Speaker 1: wee could be Japan, South Korea. Right, they have interest
Speaker 1: obviously in the oil price being high because since they
Speaker 1: get a lot of the oil from the Strait to
Speaker 1: jump in or help in some way. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: interested in John, Like, what do you think exactly we
Speaker 1: could do specifically to like squeeze them more economically or
Speaker 1: you know what angles are there.
Speaker 6: Well, One thing I think we're forgetting is that there
Speaker 6: is already a Combined Maritime Task Force that operates in
Speaker 6: the region, both inside the Persian Gulf and outside of it.
Speaker 6: If there are forty seven member nations there, including Japan,
Speaker 6: including France, there's also the UK Maritime Organization or UKMTO,
Speaker 6: which is actually a lot of the announcements about these
Speaker 6: vessels getting struck in, like their locations, is coming from
Speaker 6: the UK Maritime Organization. So there is actually a lot
Speaker 6: of international presence and capability there that needs to kind
Speaker 6: of perhaps orient in a different way or slightly maneuver
Speaker 6: in a way that helps to support the increased flowing
Speaker 6: of goods through the strait, because it's not just oil,
Speaker 6: there are other goods as well, and it puts pressure
Speaker 6: on the port, especially in the Suez Canal, because that's
Speaker 6: the major outlet for a lot of the stuff that
Speaker 6: can't get through the straits. So if for especially the CMF,
Speaker 6: the Combined Maritime Task Force, this has counter piracy experience,
Speaker 6: has boarding experience, They have done opposed boardings of vessels before,
Speaker 6: So this is a very high risk capability that usually
Speaker 6: special operations forces have in the US side that this
Speaker 6: maritime Task Force has and it was actually task organized
Speaker 6: and designed to do exactly that. Board vessels opposed. So
Speaker 6: if that means instead of just boarding pirated vessels and
Speaker 6: boarding rogue vessels, let's say, how about we board blacked
Speaker 6: out ais turned off vessels that belong to the Islamic
Speaker 6: Republic of Iron Shipping Lines or IRISIL that are part
Speaker 6: of the network of shipping oil. How about we start
Speaker 6: boarding and stopping those vessels. How about we start rerouting
Speaker 6: those vessels and pushing them over to Oman and then
Speaker 6: having some of those states sell that oil on the
Speaker 6: market and give that money to fund the Allied effort
Speaker 6: against it, you know, so much what we've been discussing
Speaker 6: about Russian assets for Ukraine. Instead of just using our money,
Speaker 6: let's use the adversaries money to pay for us, you know,
Speaker 6: and to help pay for reconstruction in Bahrain and Katar
Speaker 6: and emirates in Saudi Arabia. That would be helpful or
Speaker 6: to help at least alleviate some of the pressure off
Speaker 6: those Gulf nations, especially Bahrain and Qatar, who are stuck
Speaker 6: inside the weapons engagement zone, relieve some of the pressure
Speaker 6: off with them by bringing in that Maritime Task Force
Speaker 6: to ask to act as either an ally or a
Speaker 6: buffer to help with the northern threat. I think that's
Speaker 6: a good starting point, but it would require some coalition building.
Speaker 6: And I've mentioned this before. Pakistan is a key to
Speaker 6: that because Pakistan has one leg on our side and
Speaker 6: one leg on the other side. They're a great bridge,
Speaker 6: but they have their interests in mind. We have to
Speaker 6: remember that they're not there.
Speaker 5: In the first Trump administration. So it's called the International
Speaker 5: Maritime Security Count struct when we started it still exists
Speaker 5: into Jonathan's that's what they could do. They could help
Speaker 5: us again diplomatically economically isolate the regime because remember this
Speaker 5: was the regime there was killing tens of thousands of
Speaker 5: its own people before the war started. Right, they're bad dudes.
Speaker 5: So that's what they could do without actually directly becoming
Speaker 5: you know, forcing open the straight, which we're not going
Speaker 5: to do.
Speaker 2: I don't see it. I don't see we're going to
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 5: I don't think we're gonna use ground forces to do it,
Speaker 5: and certainly we're not going to.
Speaker 2: Get other people to do it do it for us.
Speaker 2: So what Jonathan's saying is dual and the great thing
Speaker 2: is those assets.
Speaker 1: Who swings like the big stick with that US with
Speaker 1: that maritime So.
Speaker 6: The US doesn't leading that because it's based out of Bahrain,
Speaker 6: and the headquartering of it in Bahrain was designed to
Speaker 6: put it right next to the Fifth Fleet, so that
Speaker 6: the US Naval Forces and Central Command are adjacent to
Speaker 6: the headquarters of this Maritime task Force, which allows us
Speaker 6: very quick movement of US only stuff into that that
Speaker 6: maritime framework of multiple partner nations. So that's important. But
Speaker 6: like I mentioned, Pakistan is important, Qatar and Oman, those
Speaker 6: three countries have to be on board with this. They
Speaker 6: have a huge stake in what happens here, whether it
Speaker 6: goes for Iran or goes to the United States as
Speaker 6: far as who wins quote unquote, because they stand the
Speaker 6: most to lose in both situations. So they have to
Speaker 6: be totally bought in to participating or at least allowing
Speaker 6: their waters to be used, especially visa the Oman, because
Speaker 6: their waters are the waters that will be at risk
Speaker 6: if this Maritime Task Force has to start boarding vessels
Speaker 6: at the mouth of the Straits.
Speaker 1: And the Fifth Lee HQ. I mean you saw the
Speaker 1: videos yesterday, look like it was on fire. It's largely
Speaker 1: abandoned for the most part, So why don't we start
Speaker 1: doing that, like start board.
Speaker 4: Think about it.
Speaker 6: And this MoU that we signed. The MoU we signed
Speaker 6: is an executive agreement between the executive branch of the
Speaker 6: United States, like one branch of the three branches of
Speaker 6: the United States and another sovereign country. This MoU is
Speaker 6: not even strong enough to stand up to us domestic politics.
Speaker 6: Other nations are going to look at that and they're
Speaker 6: going to say it's too high risk. It's too likely
Speaker 6: that this thing's going to fall apart. Because even the
Speaker 6: United States government can't allow this thing to continue if
Speaker 6: Democrats come to power. It has to be some kind
Speaker 6: of sustainable agreement, a treaty, let's say, or at least
Speaker 6: a congressionally supported agreement that can't be destroyed easily or
Speaker 6: taken away easily. So those nations have a lot to
Speaker 6: lose if they look at that and they say, this
Speaker 6: is written on a piece of toilet paper, and if
Speaker 6: a new president comes in, they're going to crumple it
Speaker 6: up and throw it away. They need to either a
Speaker 6: treaty or something in law from the legislative branch, not
Speaker 6: from the executive branch that creates difficulties for the president
Speaker 6: to withdraw them, and NATO is a good example. A
Speaker 6: few years ago, Congress passed a law that made it
Speaker 6: so the president cannot unilaterally withdraw from NATO. There needs
Speaker 6: to be a similar law in place to assuage the
Speaker 6: concerns of these other countries that, Okay, even if a
Speaker 6: different president comes in, there are going to be several
Speaker 6: steps and mechanisms along the way and check some balances
Speaker 6: to prevent them from pulling this thing out like the
Speaker 6: JCPOA and this MoU which, by the way, is not
Speaker 6: a piece agreement, it's a memorandum. It's a piece of paper.
Speaker 6: So there needs to be this broadening of US government
Speaker 6: backing of this agreement for other nations to actually say,
Speaker 6: all right, I'm ready to participate.
Speaker 1: Good God, Mark, you've been quiet for too long.
Speaker 3: So I'm trying to find a good, good place to
Speaker 3: interject something that I thought was funny that I wanted
Speaker 3: to talk about today because I always like talking about
Speaker 3: Mick and Bears. There's something on social media there about
Speaker 3: a tourist at Yellowstone and the bison, yeah, messing with
Speaker 3: and then the bison attacked him then jack this guy
Speaker 3: up like ten feet into the air.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you got to take this.
Speaker 5: I mean these are wild spaces man people. That's a
Speaker 5: theme park for the theme park, man like, Lacier is
Speaker 5: only thirty minutes that way, right, thirty minutes span and
Speaker 5: it's we just had a guy get killed and apparently
Speaker 5: I meant it to be gruesome. They found his the
Speaker 5: can of bear spray in his hand, but his hand
Speaker 5: his body. I think it was expended. But and bear
Speaker 5: spray does work. But you know, if you're coming out here,
Speaker 5: I got friends, That's why I'm in a different room today,
Speaker 5: and friends coming from for the Under the Big Sky concert,
Speaker 5: which is one mile through those woods, and they're all
Speaker 5: going to want to go to Glacier. So if you're
Speaker 5: doing that and you listen to this podcast, get bear
Speaker 5: spray like it works and the difference between using it
Speaker 5: and not using it could be substantial.
Speaker 3: There was a giant moose when my wife and I
Speaker 3: were in Alaska that was walking along the side of
Speaker 3: the road and we pulled over and got a little
Speaker 3: too close and started charging at us. There's a video
Speaker 3: I have of my wife running and my wife and
Speaker 3: I am running to the car looked like from like
Speaker 3: the Blair Witch Project.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they'll kill you too. The moose will kill you. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5: The thing is not that you get a much chance.
Speaker 5: If you see any big animal with a baby a calf,
Speaker 5: you need to stay away, to the proctor, Oh yeah, stay.
Speaker 3: Away, like going outside and the hike and and stuff
Speaker 3: like that. Or I mean, are you you all? I going,
Speaker 3: something's going to eat you when you got d d
Speaker 3: would get eaten in about two seconds.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the New York boys gone.
Speaker 5: We got a We got a half melodle, a half
Speaker 5: German shepherd who somehow came bigger out bigger than both.
Speaker 5: She's like one hundred and five pounds female. And uh,
Speaker 5: you know, carry pistol and I carry bear spray because
Speaker 5: I go I can like all the time. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 5: And they say that, you know, obviously carry both, but
Speaker 5: bear spray is way more effective. People tried to defend
Speaker 5: themselves against a bear with a pistol just in the combat,
Speaker 5: rigging nervous and these little bullets.
Speaker 1: Remember I remember you saying that it was like it
Speaker 1: was like ninety percent effective for bear spray, but like
Speaker 1: forty percent effective for like pistol.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the stick.
Speaker 5: That's the stats shooting a shotgun.
Speaker 2: Right, it shoots a blast. It apparently doesn't work for mountain.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're gonna arm D to the teeth when he's
Speaker 4: out in my dad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna need an AR fifteen or something. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna need something something stout for Yeah, when I get out.
Speaker 1: When I go out, I'm not leaving the fucking main
Speaker 1: strag dude, I ain't going fucking hiking getting lost.
Speaker 2: We're gonna like holsters for your bear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my god, I don't need that. I don't
Speaker 1: need that.
Speaker 5: And then people getting fights with because everybody has bear
Speaker 5: spray and people getting fight they use the bear spray
Speaker 5: and they did it like there's a there's like a
Speaker 5: crepery downtown.
Speaker 1: They cleared it out right, say this on the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they had like the triage people in the front.
Speaker 5: And then it happened at the grocery store.
Speaker 3: Somebody, I said, just arrested someone who this person bear
Speaker 3: spray their kid.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Like that's that's go to jail.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, or just use use protect you know, prophylactics
Speaker 1: and not have kids. All right, So as far as.
Speaker 4: The conversation right into the gutter. It's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah you did.
Speaker 4: You're quiet? What are you thinking about it? I was
Speaker 4: thinking about the.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Mark, he totally derailed this. I wonder were
Speaker 1: you in the seventh floor doing stuff like this too
Speaker 1: during meetings?
Speaker 4: No, I'm retired.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right. I want to touch on a little bit,
Speaker 1: like what do you guys think of During the NATO summit,
Speaker 1: when Zelenski was meeting with Trump and they had that
Speaker 1: press conference, Trump floated the idea of licensing out Ukraine,
Speaker 1: giving Ukraine a license to produce their own patriots. You
Speaker 1: think that's bullshit. You think that's just for a sound bite.
Speaker 1: You think it's really going to happen.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's but short term it doesn't
Speaker 3: do anything because they're desperately in the need of air defense.
Speaker 3: But but medium to long term it's great.
Speaker 2: But that's important.
Speaker 4: It's important.
Speaker 3: And this is I mean, look, the way to get
Speaker 3: the Trump has to do it like the appeals to
Speaker 3: the US defense industry blah blah.
Speaker 4: This is what I mean.
Speaker 3: Frankly, whether you're like Lindsey Graham or not, you know,
Speaker 3: this is the kind of stuff that he did trying
Speaker 3: to find a solution that would satisfy Trump's kind of weirdness.
Speaker 4: And this is one of those things.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, if you know, somehow, the US defense industry's
Speaker 3: gonna kind of, you know, gain from this somehow. You know, sure,
Speaker 3: we'll give it to him, and and and the Ukrainians
Speaker 3: figured it out. But there's I mean, anyone who kind
Speaker 3: of diss is this thing. It's kind of silly. It's
Speaker 3: a great thing in the medium to long term, but
Speaker 3: short term, I think they're still in desperate need of assistance.
Speaker 3: So you know, we we can't just say okay, they're
Speaker 3: okay now, because they're not. But I mean, I think
Speaker 3: we should when when when the administration does something right,
Speaker 3: you know you.
Speaker 4: Can you can actually acknowledge it. Yeah, that's a good move,
Speaker 4: would happen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And by the way, Lizia Graham was really funny.
Speaker 5: If you ever talked to one on one, he was
Speaker 5: really funny. It is important because here's the thing President putin.
Speaker 5: The longer this lasts, the worse it gets for him,
Speaker 5: the worse it gets for him.
Speaker 2: Right, So he's.
Speaker 5: Every month the Ukrainians produced more drunes, every month, lethal
Speaker 5: ones more effective. He's taken out the infrastructure. He's losing
Speaker 5: more men. I mean, even Russia is gonna run out
Speaker 5: of dudes eventually. And now he's seeing this is coming
Speaker 5: to the end of this administration. A traditional Republican comes
Speaker 5: in like a Rubio or a Democrat, it's going to
Speaker 5: go bad for him. Him being Putin, Right, they're starting
Speaker 5: to mask as soon as they start getting their production
Speaker 5: of interceptors online, patriots or it's they're going to figure
Speaker 5: out how to do it in a way that we
Speaker 5: haven't figured out how to do it, because it's it's
Speaker 5: needed immediately for them and it means life and death.
Speaker 5: So we're going to benefit from them. But it's only
Speaker 5: going to get worse for Putin from now on. It
Speaker 5: he's losing more men. The Ukrainians are getting more effective,
Speaker 5: and there's going to be more support flown. I think
Speaker 5: did they commit to seventy billion dollars in support this
Speaker 5: year at NATO Summit? I think they did, they didn't, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: from the Europeans, and then I think soon we're going
Speaker 5: to start and there's there's several provisions in Congress for
Speaker 5: the United States to significantly up its contribution because there
Speaker 5: is support for Ukraine on both sides of the Island Congress,
Speaker 5: and it's just going to build because Ukraine has proven
Speaker 5: that they're not going to lose.
Speaker 3: That's where Ratcliffe has been successful, and that you know,
Speaker 3: you know, we keep putting intelligence in front of Trump
Speaker 3: suggesting that Ukraine is winning and Trump will not back
Speaker 3: a loser, and he sees that that, you know, Putin's
Speaker 3: getting his butt kicked. I mean, this is very basic
Speaker 3: psyche one on one, but this has worked, you know,
Speaker 3: this has been It's funny because we all knew this
Speaker 3: is what Racliffe was doing. I think we might have
Speaker 3: talked about it here. I think the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 3: just put something out talking about this. But I think
Speaker 3: this has been quite obvious, but it's been effective. And
Speaker 3: this it's pretty funny because if you think about all
Speaker 3: the nonsense about the deep state, this is the deep state.
Speaker 3: This is Radcliffe and the supporters of Ukraine and the
Speaker 3: US government finding ways to get Trump to do the
Speaker 3: right thing. And so they show him intel that Russia sucks,
Speaker 3: the military's crap, they're getting their asses kicked, and Putin's
Speaker 3: fucking with you and then so and that's the way
Speaker 3: to sway Trump to do the right thing. So good
Speaker 3: on them doing that, I guess just.
Speaker 2: Doing their job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have like another question, like, so in terms
Speaker 1: of like the immediate and short term, what did because
Speaker 1: we're obviously using a lot of Patriot missiles? Is there
Speaker 1: a remedy for this? Is it a European variant? Is it?
Speaker 1: Do we actually still have enough patriots to give them?
Speaker 1: Like what's the play here?
Speaker 2: That's a good question.
Speaker 5: I mean, we are using our precision guiding munitions or
Speaker 5: we were for epic fury at the cyclic rate, right,
Speaker 5: and the interceptors were getting used by all of our
Speaker 5: bases and partner countries. So it's not illegitimate to say
Speaker 5: we have to balance between providing Ukraine and you know,
Speaker 5: the war we elected to start. So it is a
Speaker 5: it's going to be a combination and this is a
Speaker 5: good start. But to Mark's point, it's not going to
Speaker 5: happen immediately. But this is the defense production is a
Speaker 5: huge issue for the United States. It's not overstated. We
Speaker 5: don't have the capacity to keep up with a full
Speaker 5: on war one we're seeing it right now.
Speaker 1: I mean, Mick that talks to like a larger point
Speaker 1: of like what where the fuck is all this money
Speaker 1: going that we can't keep our capacity. Our shipbuilding is trash,
Speaker 1: absolutely trash, especially compared to the Chinese. But again, like
Speaker 1: the Patriots or the Fads or any of you pick
Speaker 1: your poison. We can't get the radars made for the
Speaker 1: fucking f thirty five too. It's like, how much money
Speaker 1: do we have to spend to get it there?
Speaker 5: Yeah, there needs to there needs to be an ovohol.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's what the Pentagon should be doing. And
Speaker 5: both both of the Armed Services committees like what is
Speaker 5: one because it's a real issue. We can see a
Speaker 5: real time. Whether you Agreevobar or not, you don't want
Speaker 5: to run out of munitions when you're fighting a mediocre military, right,
Speaker 5: one of them think about how if it was China,
Speaker 5: to know it was China and Rush at the same
Speaker 5: time the same that's that's not you know out of
Speaker 5: the question. That's literally what most of our national security
Speaker 5: strategy had been based on. That we have to fight
Speaker 5: two wars at the same time.
Speaker 1: And at trillion bucks a year. It's like and they're
Speaker 1: talking about one point five trillion. It's like, how about
Speaker 1: we do what we pass an audit and see where
Speaker 1: the trillion's going first before we say, yeah, here's another
Speaker 1: five hundred billion dollars. God knows where it's going to go. John,
Speaker 1: what do you think. I know, you got something in
Speaker 1: your head that you're trying to get out.
Speaker 6: Well, I'm thinking about back in the Marine Corps when
Speaker 6: they got rid of tanks, snipers, armored certain armored carriers
Speaker 6: of troops to reduce what we had, but keep the
Speaker 6: budget the same so that they could purchase, like offset
Speaker 6: purchase other stuff. And that was a very slow way
Speaker 6: of dealing with it. And we just mentioned Ukraine rapidly
Speaker 6: kind of innovating because they're at war with Russia versus
Speaker 6: the United States. And I think a big part of
Speaker 6: that is the US is not at war with anybody
Speaker 6: appear they're at war with a mid level regional actor
Speaker 6: right now, one that's decently capable in the region, but
Speaker 6: now up here. So there's no pressure on the defense
Speaker 6: industrial base to rapidly innovate and work efficiently with what
Speaker 6: they've got, you know, So that this trillion and a
Speaker 6: half dollars, what that is is congressional interests for the
Speaker 6: places that they represent, you know, like for example, Huntington, Engles, Industries,
Speaker 6: which is the nation's largest aircraft carrier builder in Newport News.
Speaker 6: Whoever is representing Newport News has the HII, has their
Speaker 6: ear and is saying, we need to build more of
Speaker 6: these ships, even if it's not our foreign policy interest
Speaker 6: to build more ships. And I think if Andy was
Speaker 6: on ear, he would talk about how he feels about
Speaker 6: aircraft carriers. But those companies are massive, multi billion dollar
Speaker 6: companies with huge interests in Newport News, Virginia and other places,
Speaker 6: and they say, no, you need to keep building these ships.
Speaker 6: In fact, you need five more of them over the
Speaker 6: next ten years, and we're going to make sure that
Speaker 6: you get great campaign contributions to XYZ. That's why we
Speaker 6: see that dollar value going up, but the efficiency is
Speaker 6: not going up commensurately, because it's not pressures externally that
Speaker 6: are forcing us to build more ships or less ships.
Speaker 6: It's domestic political interests that are pushing each individual representative
Speaker 6: and senator to ensure that those dollars go to their constituents,
Speaker 6: which is not necessarily in our foreign policy interest, but
Speaker 6: it is in their electoral interest. So you have this
Speaker 6: kind of divide between what makes sense for this item
Speaker 6: versus who's paying for it and who's buying it.
Speaker 5: I gotta I gotta hops got bro form meeting.
Speaker 1: All right, Yeah, let's just start to wrap up. I
Speaker 1: guess yeah, I mean John, based on what you just said,
Speaker 1: that's not exactly fucking uh confidence inducing. To be honest
Speaker 1: with you, Andy, and to give Andy credit about his
Speaker 1: hatred of aircraft carriers. He does mention how like the
Speaker 1: defense industrial bases like slow to innovate, and the procurement
Speaker 1: process is like, you know, completely antiquated in a nightmare.
Speaker 1: But it's like we're spending real fucking money here, like
Speaker 1: we should get some ROI on this spend, especially like
Speaker 1: if we're not getting any other nice things that other
Speaker 1: countries get. No problem healthcare being one, and frankly, the
Speaker 1: fact that the Pentagon can't pass it's a fucking audit.
Speaker 1: Besides the Marine Corps. Shout out to the Marine Corps
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. Is is beyond ridiculous that they can't fucking
Speaker 1: track where the money is.
Speaker 4: So yeah, militically budget is going to pass Congress.
Speaker 3: That's fucking ridiculous. That's Democrats and Republicans. It's a massive
Speaker 3: amount of money. American economy is hurting and but you know,
Speaker 3: and so so we're we're definitely gonna pickle here because
Speaker 3: if you know that, we definitely need a massive infusion
Speaker 3: of stuff and it's going to cost money. All the
Speaker 3: inefficiencies you talked about are true. But politically, I don't
Speaker 3: think anyone's gonna that that budget can pass. So we're
Speaker 3: in we're in some kind of national security headache in this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, politically they can't do the right thing. John, what
Speaker 1: were you going to say? So, are you mentioned something I.
Speaker 4: Was gonna say.
Speaker 6: We have a saying in the military about budget dust.
Speaker 6: So like you talk about like one hundred million dollars,
Speaker 6: You're like, oh wow, that's a lot of money. We
Speaker 6: would call that budget dust. In other words, it's like
Speaker 6: the residue of the budget left behind and you're like, well,
Speaker 6: what do we do with this hundred mil? I mean,
Speaker 6: it's just kind of hanging around at our tier of
Speaker 6: decision making. Let's just go start this program or that program,
Speaker 6: and you see a lot of this budget dust. And
Speaker 6: that's why we can't pass an audit because budget dust
Speaker 6: isn't budget dust. It's money that's not being spent properly
Speaker 6: or allocated properly or like hanging around somewhere in the
Speaker 6: system and not being spent the way it was supposed
Speaker 6: to under the NDAA. So you just have this money
Speaker 6: carried forward, lost, misplaced, hanging around. And everybody in the
Speaker 6: military and also the rest of the executive knows. At
Speaker 6: the end of the fiscal year, everyone's like, Hey, we've
Speaker 6: got a bunch of money sitting around. Let's go to classes,
Speaker 6: let's go to training, let's go buy some equipment because
Speaker 6: we have just if we don't spend it, we won't
Speaker 6: get it next year because and it's just this like
Speaker 6: constant slow momentum or inertia of rapidly increasing every year
Speaker 6: on year of budget dust collecting rather than thinking carefully
Speaker 6: about how it should be spent before we even ask
Speaker 6: for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's interesting to me is like, all right, you
Speaker 1: have a surplus. You're gonna go do this extra class
Speaker 1: or this other thing or whatever. Get your fucking receipts, brother,
Speaker 1: get the receipts. Like why is this difficult? Anyway? All right,
Speaker 1: I'm leaving this miserable as always, I'm seriously considering stopping
Speaker 1: to do this. Uh, it's always miserable. We need good
Speaker 1: news or at least like old men getting tossed around
Speaker 1: by moose.
Speaker 4: Like the Red Sox are kicking ass.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I want to out.
Speaker 3: Of the playoff spot. They are the best team in baseball.
Speaker 3: You know, the the Yankees suck right now, So there's
Speaker 3: some great news out there.
Speaker 1: I love when the Red Sox give Mark hope because
Speaker 1: inevitably he will be let down. I know that. So
Speaker 1: it's Friday, all right, Do us a favor, like and subscribe.
Speaker 1: Obviously check out mixed links white Fish Security Summit. That
Speaker 1: link is in the description Mark p His links are
Speaker 1: down to the description of course. Jonathan Hackett Iran Shadow
Speaker 1: Weapons and the Theory of a Regular War, his books those
Speaker 1: all those links are in the description. And support to
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Speaker 1: A pleasure. It's a pleasure as always. I do come
Speaker 1: out of here feeling distressed, but it's always good to
Speaker 1: see you guys.
Speaker 4: Take care everyone.
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Speaker 5: Assass