Speaker 1: We embark on a new journey today. How are you doing, Thomas,
Speaker 1: I'm very well. Thanks for hosting me. This one is
Speaker 1: going to be This one's interesting to me because I
Speaker 1: was alive for part of this, and I was sentient.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember a lot of this. So we
Speaker 1: had teased about talking about the Cold War, but you
Speaker 1: said that you had a We're going to start at
Speaker 1: the end and then go back to the beginning. So
Speaker 1: what do you got?
Speaker 2: Well, it's a few things here. I want to explain
Speaker 2: my rationale before we deep dive into it. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't want to presume the viewers and the listeners
Speaker 2: have knowledge that they don't. I mean, I'm not saying
Speaker 2: that anybody's not smart or anything, but some of this
Speaker 2: stuff has become someone is terror just because the way
Speaker 2: the news cycle doesn't properly provide context to historical events,
Speaker 2: particularly where there's military variables involved, and you know, political
Speaker 2: narratives be can paramount to characterize these things. But also
Speaker 2: it's as hard to place one self conceptually in an
Speaker 2: epoch that has totally passed. You know, I went through that.
Speaker 2: When when when people like my parents need to talk
Speaker 2: about the fifties and the sixties and things. You know,
Speaker 2: I mean, all all people go through that. But you
Speaker 2: know the reason why I indicated, you know, I want
Speaker 2: to I'm treating this as kind of the end was
Speaker 2: the beginning. Everything that is happening today in political terms
Speaker 2: and in foreign policy terms, in terms of the in
Speaker 2: terms of the guiding ideology of Washington. And I say
Speaker 2: ideology not ideology, is plural because I really do believe
Speaker 2: that there's a true consensus there. There there's no opposition
Speaker 2: party in Washington at all. I mean, arguably since nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty three there hasn't been real opposition, but in discrete
Speaker 2: policy terms, there was. Now that that no longer exists.
Speaker 2: There's an absolute quorum. There's one ideology. There's one strategic vision.
Speaker 2: There's one there's there's one sense of when intervention and
Speaker 2: force is is is legitimate, and that that is totally
Speaker 2: ideologically driven. It's not it's not driven by rategic variables
Speaker 2: of a realistic, even particularly concrete in nature. You know,
Speaker 2: it's very much based on a very abstract things and
Speaker 2: ideological things. But the only way to understand why that
Speaker 2: is the case, and the only way to understand why
Speaker 2: Ukraine is the designated battleground. And the only way to
Speaker 2: understand why Russia, the Russian Federation as it exists today,
Speaker 2: has been slated for annihilation UH is to understand how
Speaker 2: the Cold War resolved and why it resolved the way
Speaker 2: it did. So to begin, I'm going to go back
Speaker 2: to the last sort of conflict cycle of the Cold
Speaker 2: War very briefly, to speak on Dayton. Dayton was born
Speaker 2: in two things. For those that don't know Dayton was
Speaker 2: it was a It was an It was an explicit
Speaker 2: and series of implicit agreements between the United States and
Speaker 2: so Union warsaw pack to not engage in direct strategic competition.
Speaker 2: Part of this over the act that UH America was
Speaker 2: losing the Cold War militarily, not just in Vietnam, but
Speaker 2: on secondary battlefronts like Angola. The the Indo Pakistan War
Speaker 2: was very much an attempt to UH, owing to the UH,
Speaker 2: to the then NACI sent of Soviets split that the
Speaker 2: Soviet turnist and hedging China with with India, you know,
Speaker 2: being a huge populous country. Pakistan was kind of the
Speaker 2: American response to that, you know, creating trying to cultivate
Speaker 2: Pakistan as a proxy. But these things are not going well,
Speaker 2: and obviously direct intervention. There's this weird period between the
Speaker 2: end of the military draft and you know, the the
Speaker 2: the kind of full development of the all volunteer force
Speaker 2: and the full development implementations becoming known of the revolution
Speaker 2: and military affairs, you know, the entailerything from command to
Speaker 2: control technology to global positioning intelogy you know, to uh too,
Speaker 2: smart munitions becoming the norm rather than the exception. Okay,
Speaker 2: there's a strange kind of period between those two things
Speaker 2: where the US Army was operating on a shoe string budget.
Speaker 2: I mean the whole not just the army, the whole military.
Speaker 2: There was no political will in Washington for the overseas
Speaker 2: communism in the Third World in Europe to become very stagnant.
Speaker 2: But in the Third World it had this great animating power,
Speaker 2: and there were the Soviets were blessed with a great
Speaker 2: deal of proxies who were already in being, you know,
Speaker 2: uh in cadri with a full cadre structure, and you know,
Speaker 2: men under arms that could facilitate military outcomes that very
Speaker 2: much benefited the Soviets. All they really needed was a
Speaker 2: constant to play of weapons, and the Soviets could kind
Speaker 2: of take a hands off approach. So from about nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy three onward, you know, this this kind of this
Speaker 2: kind of strategic paradigm ragned. However, during that period, the
Speaker 2: technology that that underpins strategic nuclear weapons dramatically improved, you know,
Speaker 2: owing to the over to the early revolution in computing technology,
Speaker 2: to going to increase improved circular error probable from you know,
Speaker 2: things like the space program, you know, and just owing
Speaker 2: the owing the real satellite technology. We'll get into that
Speaker 2: a minute. What I mean, you know what it we
Speaker 2: take for granted that satellite imaging, you know, gives you
Speaker 2: a real time picture of the battle space, but that
Speaker 2: was not the case until the late nineteen seventies, probably
Speaker 2: until nineteen eighty. Okay, so uh, this endured until nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy nine. In nineteen seventy nine, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Uh,
Speaker 2: and that really alarmed people because, for reasons we ate
Speaker 2: into in a moment beyond the obvious, it was misunderstood
Speaker 2: why that happened. I know, mister Trump said it was
Speaker 2: to fight Islamic terrorism. That doesn't make any sense. Other
Speaker 2: people claim that, well, it was the president doctrine you
Speaker 2: know that being that the Soviet Union declared that it
Speaker 2: would intervene on behalf of the socialist community of nation
Speaker 2: is to preserve socialism. Okay, that was the rationale, the pretext.
Speaker 2: What it really was was that outside of Moscow, the
Speaker 2: primary command and control hub for Soviet strategic nuclear forces
Speaker 2: was in Kazakhstan or was it, Yeah, it was in Kazakhstan, Okay,
Speaker 2: And that's why not accidentally that for Star City is
Speaker 2: you know where the Soviet Union and later of the
Speaker 2: Russian Federalation you'll, launched their space vehicles from. So if
Speaker 2: Afghanistan could be flipped or could have been flipped and
Speaker 2: transformed into a Western client state with basing rights there, uh,
Speaker 2: the Soviets have been looking at a situation where there
Speaker 2: there's strategic nuclear command and control would be decavitated, you know,
Speaker 2: at least a substantial portion of it, and that was
Speaker 2: not acceptable now and drop of even the bredgion that
Speaker 2: was at the hell Andy drop off was really kind
Speaker 2: of the that the shadow executive of the Soviet Union.
Speaker 2: You know, the Soviet political structure was very not just
Speaker 2: because the party in the state were were interstitially combined
Speaker 2: with one another, but because who was the true executive,
Speaker 2: you know, varied, you know, generally it was a man
Speaker 2: will a communitions have all offices, you know, like the UH.
Speaker 2: He'd often would be a man who held both the
Speaker 2: premiership and the General Secretary of the Communist Party. Other
Speaker 2: times it was it was it was far more UH
Speaker 2: Opigue and UH and drop off reigned formally as UH
Speaker 2: as as as you know, the the General Secretary from
Speaker 2: eighty two to eighty four, but I'd argue that probably
Speaker 2: fromout nineteen sixty nine he was a true shadow executive
Speaker 2: of the Soviet Union, and he was a very brilliant guy.
Speaker 2: And the world as its structured today and the fate
Speaker 2: of the Soviet Union and decisions made therein for better
Speaker 2: and ill o very much dimster and drop of, But
Speaker 2: it was his decision doing vade Afghanistan, and he was
Speaker 2: looking many steps ahead in terms of, you know, the
Speaker 2: implications for the strategic nuclear balance and UH, the ability
Speaker 2: of the Soviet Union to survive the Ball from the
Speaker 2: Blue nuclear assault, which was a real concern for reasons
Speaker 2: we'll get into. And it's some it's difficult to emphasize
Speaker 2: how dangerous it was. They have two superpowers fully mobilized
Speaker 2: with massive nuclear arsenals on hair trigger alert at all
Speaker 2: time when the technological curve was really moving towards removing
Speaker 2: human decision makers from the equation. You know, the only
Speaker 2: to with the narrowing temporal window of decision making in
Speaker 2: the event of nuclear war, this is really becoming out
Speaker 2: of it was really kind of becoming removed from human hands.
Speaker 2: You know, technology is it's own momentum and societies at
Speaker 2: scale where you're talking about literally hundreds of millions of
Speaker 2: people and you know, thousands on thousands on thousands of
Speaker 2: aggregate decisions, you know, can vote control or trajectory of
Speaker 2: that massive state. You know, these these things can't just
Speaker 2: easily be moved one or the other and the perial
Speaker 2: breaks cancas be put on an apparatus of that scope,
Speaker 2: scale and complexity, you know, Like I mean, this is
Speaker 2: this is fundamental to understanding the do you.
Speaker 1: Think they go ahead, let me ask, do you think
Speaker 1: that they did that because of you know, Daniel Olisburg
Speaker 1: put out the Doomsday Machine, which really shined a light
Speaker 1: on what he saw in the nuclear policy. What was
Speaker 1: the way in the late fifties, early sixties, how the
Speaker 1: how nukes were being overseen. Do you think that that
Speaker 1: because of the way that could have turned into a disaster,
Speaker 1: they possibly thought that, well, if we turned this over
Speaker 1: into more of a even starting to talk about AI
Speaker 1: and things like that, it would be better than having
Speaker 1: humans handle.
Speaker 2: This definitely, and the progenitor, like the proverbial father of AI,
Speaker 2: is new strategic nuclear war planning. The idea was this, okay,
Speaker 2: and I'm jumping a little bit ahead because he asked,
Speaker 2: I want to kind of deal with this now. By
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties, you know where true parody existed when
Speaker 2: the superpowers in terms of strategic nuclear forces and being
Speaker 2: as well as capabilities, a bolt on the blue strike
Speaker 2: if launched by hypersonic cruise missiles from Europe against the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union, they would have as little as five minutes
Speaker 2: to render a decision on retaliation. The United States would
Speaker 2: have longer, but we're talking about eight to fifteen minutes
Speaker 2: in the case of the United States. I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: bore people with the details. Ifought that would have played out,
Speaker 2: it would have involved things like an SLBM assault launched
Speaker 2: at the depressed trajectory, the spoof early warning systems detonating
Speaker 2: a groundburst detonation. Thus an e MP would knock out
Speaker 2: remaining early warning. But the point is, like, imagine the
Speaker 2: situation where, okay, you know, if IF IF IF policy
Speaker 2: is to you know, even the policy it's to launch
Speaker 2: on warning, not launch on confirmation of assault. It's like, okay,
Speaker 2: it's two in the morning, you know, American time, or
Speaker 2: in Moscow. You wake up the way of the United States,
Speaker 2: or you wake up the General Secretary. You know, you say,
Speaker 2: mister President, you know, we we just received what confirmation
Speaker 2: like incoming assault. He's got eight minutes to decide, like
Speaker 2: how he's gonna retaliate, if he's gonna retaliate, what their
Speaker 2: retali he's gonna entail. What force is gonna be availed
Speaker 2: to it, whether it's gonna be countervol counterforcement, not counter value,
Speaker 2: whether it's gonna be you know, full spectrum attack. That
Speaker 2: it's we're at the point where this too totally academics,
Speaker 2: that's not possible. Okay. So the idea was you've got
Speaker 2: to be able to discern absolute indicators before you know,
Speaker 2: not not just before launch detection, but before even was
Speaker 2: considered early morning detection. If you could code those indicators
Speaker 2: into variables that could be rendered as inputs. Then your
Speaker 2: AI could tell you when you're facing imminent assault. But
Speaker 2: the problem with that is, like when do you decide,
Speaker 2: when do you decide to launch? Is that when there's
Speaker 2: an over a fifty percent probability of him in an attack,
Speaker 2: When when it's eighty percent, when it's anything over ten percent,
Speaker 2: you know, when it's five percent. You know, these deeper
Speaker 2: parodies make this incredibly difficult. But regardless, there was a
Speaker 2: secondary issue too. And I'm gonna get into this now
Speaker 2: because this is a perfect kind of way to kind
Speaker 2: of slide into it. As Dayton ended Carter, who gets
Speaker 2: a batter wrap and that don't get me wrong, Carter
Speaker 2: was not a good president, but he was not a
Speaker 2: terrible man. He was actually a very moral man and
Speaker 2: he did some good things. One of the good things
Speaker 2: he did was in nineteen seventy nine Carter Carter tacked
Speaker 2: William Odum. It was a general, very brilliant guy. Odum
Speaker 2: was rare because he kind of had the logistical brilliance
Speaker 2: of Omar Bradley, but he was also a real warrior,
Speaker 2: you know, he was like a soldier's general. He understood combat.
Speaker 2: He really understood nuclear weapons. Okay, I think it's kind
Speaker 2: of a counterpart in the total counterpart would be somebody
Speaker 2: like Blackjack Pershing. But William Odom went through the presidential
Speaker 2: decision making a handbook and literally something that existed for
Speaker 2: nuclear war, and it was incredibly opig It was incredibly obtuse,
Speaker 2: It was not up to speed in terms of the
Speaker 2: technology of the day, and it didn't give the president
Speaker 2: any real ability to to It didn't give any liberty
Speaker 2: of action respective war plan. Now part of that is
Speaker 2: because it was a drafted in literally ninety sixty five,
Speaker 2: So basically what it entailed it and in the core
Speaker 2: of this of this presidential handbook was the was the PSYOP,
Speaker 2: not the psychological operation, the SIOP, the single Integrated Operational Plan,
Speaker 2: because this day there's an SIOP, but it is totally
Speaker 2: different and it's changed many times. But as of nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy nine, it was this arcane document that was no
Speaker 2: longer relevant, and it basically gave the president a handful
Speaker 2: of menu options. It was literally listed as response menu.
Speaker 2: It was counter value and counter force assault against the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union. All warsaw pack states were strategic nuclear forces
Speaker 2: are based and the same for the People's Republic in China.
Speaker 2: There's another menu option that was the same thing for
Speaker 2: China and the USSR and war's unpacked. There's another menu
Speaker 2: option that was the reverse. There's another one that was
Speaker 2: just strictly counterfeit, strictly counterforce, no counter value. A lot
Speaker 2: of this came from the fact they were talking about
Speaker 2: a moment ago about satellites. Okay, until about nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: or like nineteen seventy nineteen eighty, US satellites that would
Speaker 2: that would provide data on the basing location of enemy forces.
Speaker 2: There were always several weeks out of date because these
Speaker 2: satellite to take their pictures, the little film would be
Speaker 2: deposited a canister that cancer would fall to earth and
Speaker 2: be recovered from the ocean. It would be retrieved, developed
Speaker 2: and analyzed. So somebody were talking about months out of
Speaker 2: date information. And one of the things that Soviets did,
Speaker 2: which was kind of cunning in its simplicity, rather than
Speaker 2: a veiling their land based ICBMs and to the super
Speaker 2: hardened structures, they put them on trucks and mobile launch vehicles.
Speaker 2: Like everybody's seeing the footage, I mean, at least if
Speaker 2: you're a kid like when I was, you know, there'd
Speaker 2: be these ominous as hell. Uh uh, they'd be this
Speaker 2: ominous A little footage from the Moscow military parades, these
Speaker 2: SS nineteen, these huge ICBMs on these trucks, you know
Speaker 2: literally okay, they were they moving them around every single day,
Speaker 2: you know. Uh. And that the spoof uh, the spoof
Speaker 2: enemy targeting. And there's like the totally crazy stuff like
Speaker 2: by the by the mid eighties NSA satellites and d
Speaker 2: I satellites, they were photographing the soil and the Soviet
Speaker 2: Union and East Germany. Uh to detect tracks from these
Speaker 2: vehicles because based on their depth, you could tell if
Speaker 2: the payload with some you know, with something of the
Speaker 2: wave in SS nineteen or not. Like it's totally insane,
Speaker 2: like not insane as and stupid or bad like, but
Speaker 2: like totally insane, like the amount of work and and
Speaker 2: like man hours that went into this, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: people can't even can see with somebody today. But so
Speaker 2: what Carter and Odom decided was there was another thing
Speaker 2: too that was disturbing what the SIOP and the entire
Speaker 2: the entire response plan. It was that by the time,
Speaker 2: by the state of technology of nineteen seventy nine, it
Speaker 2: was just accepted that in the event of a bolt
Speaker 2: from the Blue assault or an unforeseen escalation of conventional
Speaker 2: war wherein you know, the enemy, the enemy just you know,
Speaker 2: goes on in you know, escalates the counter value nuclear assault,
Speaker 2: it was just accepted that the president would be dead
Speaker 2: and all civilian decision makers would be dead. So the
Speaker 2: only people who would be able to manage the response
Speaker 2: would be strategic air Command based as they were in
Speaker 2: a super hard in places like Sheyan Mountain as well
Speaker 2: as in the looking Glass aircraft that was the airborne
Speaker 2: command post. That's really disturbing. It's also damn when constitutional
Speaker 2: you can't craft a war plan and be with an
Speaker 2: article be parameters. That's says, well, the president's gonna die,
Speaker 2: so you know general powers or general to may or
Speaker 2: general so and so he's not that de facto president,
Speaker 2: you know, he's he's he's lord high executioner, and that
Speaker 2: he's totally in control of the strategic nuclear forces. But
Speaker 2: also he's just like the reigning like government official who's
Speaker 2: going to survive, so it all comes down to him.
Speaker 2: That's a very dangerous situation. Among other things, and also
Speaker 2: like I said, patently, and Gon's a divisional. Carter said,
Speaker 2: that's not acceptable. So what Carter did was he ordered
Speaker 2: Owe him to draft a a comprehensive response plan. Basically,
Speaker 2: bring the SIOP up to speed, account for deeper parodies,
Speaker 2: account for up to the moment intelligence that could be
Speaker 2: gleaned from you know, the then contemporary satellite systems that
Speaker 2: would allow for h you know, instantaneous retargeting as needed
Speaker 2: and things like this. Carter demanded that there be that
Speaker 2: part of this plan include designated civilian national command authorities.
Speaker 2: You know, basically the president and his cabinet would all
Speaker 2: be issued these ID cards that all had a code, okay,
Speaker 2: and the code would constantly change. But these men and
Speaker 2: a handful of women are in the cabinet, the executive cabinet,
Speaker 2: they have to every day, they'd have to report on
Speaker 2: their whereabouts and if they left the ad Distion of Columbia,
Speaker 2: they have to report like every hour as to where
Speaker 2: they were. So they and there was a series of
Speaker 2: military bases and hardness structures that they would be designated
Speaker 2: to travel to wherever they were an event of war.
Speaker 2: So basically, long story short, a system was put into place.
Speaker 2: This was not completed until about ninety eighty forty five,
Speaker 2: but the system was in place where in there was
Speaker 2: no way that every civilian mansional command authority would be killed. Okay,
Speaker 2: there would always be someone who could manage the war
Speaker 2: on behalf of the executive and the civilian leadership. Okay,
Speaker 2: there's other things too, But what this basically what this
Speaker 2: all came down, you're taken together. This meant that, owing
Speaker 2: to the technology of the time and then the evolving
Speaker 2: state of warfare, command and control, uh, smart munitions, everything else,
Speaker 2: it became America was planning to in event of nuclear war,
Speaker 2: to fight and win a nuclear war. This caused I'll
Speaker 2: get the consternation from people who didn't really understand deeper parodies,
Speaker 2: even some people who should have. You know, people had
Speaker 2: this ongoing kind of delusion that d MAD was one
Speaker 2: part kind of talking point, one part kind of in
Speaker 2: joke of within the nuclear fraternity in the earliest days.
Speaker 2: Mutually assured destruction is not literally mean the end of everything.
Speaker 2: Assured destruction is a victory metric and strategic nuclear warfare.
Speaker 2: It's the point at which an enemy society can no
Speaker 2: longer reconstitute the wage war it's basically the point the
Speaker 2: attrition point at which you kill an enemy society, which
Speaker 2: is a horrific metric because in the case of the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union or America as a nineteen seventy is that
Speaker 2: entailed about seventy or eighty million people. Okay, But this
Speaker 2: idea that the only reason nuclear weapons exists is to
Speaker 2: make sure they're never used like that, that's an absurdity.
Speaker 2: And it's also it just wasn't by the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2: The nineteen seventies, you had you had multiple independently targeted
Speaker 2: re entry vehicles, you had decoys, you have ways to
Speaker 2: spoof early warning radar, you had hypersonic missile platforms that
Speaker 2: that uh that that that wouldn't you know that that
Speaker 2: didn't that didn't even travel on ballistic trajectory. Like it
Speaker 2: was totally obsolescent. And uh, as William Otem said, he said,
Speaker 2: look uh he said at the time, and he read it,
Speaker 2: he read it. Reiterated later to one of his biographers,
Speaker 2: He's like, I had an obligation that if America was
Speaker 2: attaged with nuclear weapons, I had an obligation, you know,
Speaker 2: in contro with the president, to fight and win a
Speaker 2: nuclear war. And he's absolutely right with the other kind
Speaker 2: of perverse feature of mad and that kind of whole
Speaker 2: ethos it's like I'm obligated to commit suicide and so
Speaker 2: it was like, you know, eighty million other people because oh,
Speaker 2: we failed in our effort to maintain peace to the
Speaker 2: balance of terror. Like it's there's something crazy about it,
Speaker 2: but that's uh, that's basically what ushered in the final
Speaker 2: phase of the Cold War. Now I want to fast
Speaker 2: forward a bit to, uh, what exactly happened when, uh,
Speaker 2: it became clear that not just cracks in the edifice
Speaker 2: of the Soviet Empire emerging, but that there was a
Speaker 2: genuine structural crisis underway. And part of our this developed, oh,
Speaker 2: is the personalities quite literally of George Herbert Walker Bush
Speaker 2: and Mikhail Gorbachew. Now, mister Bush, I've got to drop
Speaker 2: some biographical biographical background on Bush if it was to
Speaker 2: make any sense. I'm not trying to bore anybody. Bush
Speaker 2: was a very dynamic guy, frankly, and he's not a
Speaker 2: well loved individual, and that's fine. I'm not saying people
Speaker 2: should like Bush it and like morally or think that,
Speaker 2: you know, he was like a good man or something,
Speaker 2: but he had an incredibly in depth understanding of the
Speaker 2: nuances of the strategic balance under the Cold War. But
Speaker 2: he was head of the CIA in nineteen seventy four
Speaker 2: when something very controversial happened see the US. As I
Speaker 2: made the point before and the Rady in context, the
Speaker 2: CIA really lost its cachet in the sixties and subsequently
Speaker 2: with the Gates hearings. And it wasn't just that people
Speaker 2: were morally outraged by things like the Phoenix program, which
Speaker 2: they put squarely on the shoulders of CIA. And when
Speaker 2: really kind of responsibility if you want to look at
Speaker 2: that way, if you do this as a great evil
Speaker 2: kind of arrested equally with Army intelligence and mcavee, SAG
Speaker 2: the Pentagon itself. But you know, one of the reasons
Speaker 2: this is misplaced and people that like CIA is kind
Speaker 2: of the the seat of of of deep state power,
Speaker 2: it's really not. And it was really really low by
Speaker 2: a lot of very hawkish Cold warriors. So something happened
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy four. There's something of this day that
Speaker 2: is that is corralled by UH the intelligence services called
Speaker 2: the National Intelligence Estimate. It's it's become kind of meaningless
Speaker 2: now because intelligence and the whole all intelligence game is
Speaker 2: totally different today. And we could do an episode on
Speaker 2: that if if anybody's interested, but I'm not gonna deep
Speaker 2: dive into that because that's just too much kind of
Speaker 2: collateral stuff. But the UH, it was the belief of
Speaker 2: UH everybody from you know, kind of hawkish senators and congressmen,
Speaker 2: you know, to Pentagon types, two guys in army intelligence,
Speaker 2: you know, to UH, to UH, to round Reagan himself,
Speaker 2: who you know, as early as as as the mid seventies,
Speaker 2: you know, had his eyes on a White House bid.
Speaker 2: You know, the believes that the CIA was not feeding
Speaker 2: they were not feeding good data to UH, to those
Speaker 2: to whom they were accountable, civilian or military. The claim
Speaker 2: was that they were consistently underestimating Soviet capabilities as well
Speaker 2: as just kind of internal dynamics from that so within
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union, relating to the leadership cast, as well
Speaker 2: as relating to probable decisions that the Soviets would make
Speaker 2: and when confronted with with with with crises, with crises
Speaker 2: both of man and without their sphere of influence. So
Speaker 2: it was proposed that what was called Team B be
Speaker 2: corralled as a competitive analysis exercise. Now, what was the
Speaker 2: mandate of quote unque Team b Uh? There it was
Speaker 2: commissioned to aggregate and analyze data from diverse sources basically
Speaker 2: any available intelligence sources that were then relied upon, Okay,
Speaker 2: to judge the accuracy, comprehensive nance the predictive value of
Speaker 2: the national intelligence estimate of the preceding several years. Okay, Now,
Speaker 2: the folks at Team be it was sixteen experts total,
Speaker 2: and I'll get into who those men were in just
Speaker 2: a minute. They were divided into three teams, okay, or yeah,
Speaker 2: teams or classes if you will. One of them was
Speaker 2: to study specifically low altitude Soviet air defense capabilities, which
Speaker 2: again I don't want to bore anybody, but this relates
Speaker 2: to things uh you know, UH stealth technology didn't exist yet,
Speaker 2: but it was understood that this was in the wings
Speaker 2: and even were it not, platforms like the like what
Speaker 2: became the B one bomber. H. You know. The idea
Speaker 2: was that you can fly below conventional radar strikes super
Speaker 2: harden targets with uh with very very heavy uh nuclear weapons.
Speaker 2: Uh you know, this most effective way to knock knock
Speaker 2: out uh these counterforce targets. So even even though it
Speaker 2: seems like overly specific and esoteric, I mean, that's that's
Speaker 2: why this was such and such a priority. Okay, the
Speaker 2: study of low effect that those and capabilities of low
Speaker 2: altitudes pesically low altitude Soviet there def it's capabilities in
Speaker 2: places like Moscow, in places like Kazakhstan. Okay. Another team
Speaker 2: was a study the accuracy of land based Soviet and
Speaker 2: more so packed ICBMs. Okay, the circular error probable. Traditionally,
Speaker 2: the Soviets larded their their launch vehicles and warheads that
Speaker 2: had absolutely massive throw weight. So even if they lost
Speaker 2: a substantial amount of them, you know, it's ah to
Speaker 2: ABM technology. Those that hit would would would be absolutely devastating.
Speaker 2: That's kind of how they resolve the you know the issue.
Speaker 2: I mean America at every different Amora's ethos kind of
Speaker 2: the opposite. Remember's idea was eventually, you know, to create
Speaker 2: basically smart munitions uh on strategic play in in in
Speaker 2: the strategic arsenal and pepper the target area with with
Speaker 2: sub megaton warheads, which which is far far more devastating
Speaker 2: than one massive uh UH device. For reasons I don't
Speaker 2: fully understand. I'm sure physics guys could like shift some
Speaker 2: light on. And finally, and most importantly, the third, you
Speaker 2: know team, within Team B, there were always to study
Speaker 2: Soviets strategic priorities and how this interface with policy orientation. Basically,
Speaker 2: what's the Soviets the Soviet what's the Soviet doctrin on
Speaker 2: nuclear war? Like when would they truly escalate? And beyond
Speaker 2: that in more and more kind of global figuratively little
Speaker 2: terms like what is their grand strategy? Like how does
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union aim to increase its power in this
Speaker 2: kind of uncertain epoch that we're entering now. Who was
Speaker 2: on this team and you're gona understand, You're going to
Speaker 2: understand why I made a big deal about Bush and
Speaker 2: Uh and Uh like Bush the man in personality, This
Speaker 2: team was headed by Richard Pipes Uh. It included Uh,
Speaker 2: Daniel Graham, William Van Cleeve, uh foy D Kohler, Seymour Weiss,
Speaker 2: Paul Wolfowitz, and Paul Knits, who'd been the creator of
Speaker 2: the Committee and the Present Danger in nineteen fifty, which
Speaker 2: over over time at various iterations, all of which basically
Speaker 2: it's it's it's not really relevant now, but that was
Speaker 2: always kind of the uh that that was always that
Speaker 2: was that was GONDA, the that was the Plitable Action
Speaker 2: Committee of Cold War hawks. Okay. Now, if you notice
Speaker 2: from that list that has ticked off these like the
Speaker 2: Fathers and neo Conservatism, not philosophically but in policy terms,
Speaker 2: that is not an accident, okay. And these guys basically
Speaker 2: were saying, well, Busch's CIA is totally competence and they
Speaker 2: do not know what they're doing. Okay. And uh. Thus,
Speaker 2: when Bush was brought on board as Reagan's VP, Reagan
Speaker 2: was surrounded with neo conservatives as advisors. And I would
Speaker 2: go as far as to argue people like Oliver North,
Speaker 2: people like Poindexter, people like l. Hag who didn't last
Speaker 2: long in Middle these guys were ultra hawkish, but they
Speaker 2: were not Innoka. And so however, Neocon's very much had
Speaker 2: Reagan's ear, and Reagan himself is something of a Neocon. Okay,
Speaker 2: he was in He was a Roosevelt new dealer who
Speaker 2: you know, had a kind of Sall and the Road
Speaker 2: in Damascus moment in the UH in the post war years. Okay, Uh,
Speaker 2: I mean that's a whole another issue. But so Bush
Speaker 2: was basically the company man who who was Reagan's press
Speaker 2: admission of the White House, and Bush and Reagan did
Speaker 2: not like each other. And when Bush found himself elected president,
Speaker 2: he was surrounded by men, uh who had gone on
Speaker 2: to very story and powerful roles in a policy planning
Speaker 2: corners and the national security apparatus, who were very, very
Speaker 2: hostile to his worldview and who did not view him
Speaker 2: as particularly competent. Okay, Bush tried to insulate himself with
Speaker 2: with with his own loyalists, and I think he did
Speaker 2: that in large measure. You know, people like Baker, people
Speaker 2: like Scowcroft. He's kind of a complicated figure in terms
Speaker 2: of his values. He had Neo Connage tendencies. But first
Speaker 2: and foremance he was loyal to Bush. And uh when
Speaker 2: Bush took office, you know, uh February nineteen eighty nine. Again,
Speaker 2: not only was this kind of TV faction that would
Speaker 2: much later he become kind of known to the public
Speaker 2: as you know, the Neocon Cabal, some aspect of it
Speaker 2: at least. Uh. Not only were they insinuated very much
Speaker 2: into the into the national security apparatus, but you know,
Speaker 2: certain expectations have been raised by Reagan. You know, Reagan
Speaker 2: and Gorbachev. Uh had this tremendous report and that was legit,
Speaker 2: That was that was real. That wasn't. Bush found the
Speaker 2: speed of things very alarming. A few months before Bush
Speaker 2: took uh before inauguration day, Bush actually tad Henry Kissinger,
Speaker 2: and he asked him to contact Gorbachev's and intermediary. Kissinger
Speaker 2: secretly traveled to Moscow and he met with Gorbachev and
Speaker 2: Kissinger explained as ordered that there would not be a
Speaker 2: steamless transition of administrations from Reagan to Bush. And Groza
Speaker 2: was kind of put out by this as well as
Speaker 2: taken aback, you know, and Garbachhaw said, well, why what
Speaker 2: Kisnder articulated was exactly what Bush instructed him to. He said, Look,
Speaker 2: there's a danger here of a structural and political nature.
Speaker 2: You know, a reckless US president could totally derail the
Speaker 2: transition away from communism. You know, there could be a
Speaker 2: coup of hardliners, which there was, and we'll get into that,
Speaker 2: but that was not until what it appeared. Uh, there
Speaker 2: could be uh there gonna be open civil war between
Speaker 2: the nationalities, and that did happen in some theaters. Uh,
Speaker 2: there could be a complete Weimar style collapse, which also
Speaker 2: did happen to some degree. What Kissinger relayed in essence
Speaker 2: was Bush had told him, you know, an American president
Speaker 2: could be much to derail the transition away from communam,
Speaker 2: but could do little to grease the skids, UH to
Speaker 2: the facility of the projects more rapidly. Now to understand
Speaker 2: what Bush's vision was, it was a lot like Nixon's.
Speaker 2: After Nixon left office, Now, as you probably remember about
Speaker 2: my age, he Nixon kind of got a second lease
Speaker 2: on life by the mid late mid to late nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2: He wrote some very good books on the strategic situation.
Speaker 2: He wrote a lot about the Cold War, which frankly
Speaker 2: was Nixon's like raison detrop and you know, and even
Speaker 2: he was even tapped by CNN during the Gulf War
Speaker 2: like not infrequently show it before he died. But Nixon
Speaker 2: and Bush, their idea was this. Their idea was that
Speaker 2: we can preserve the Soviet Union as some kind of
Speaker 2: benign structure, at least for the time being. You know,
Speaker 2: what what has to be paramount is total nuclear disarmament
Speaker 2: and UH and then gradual demobilization of conventional forces until
Speaker 2: such that they're drawn down to basically nothing more than
Speaker 2: the kind of Weimar style, you know, constabulary force to
Speaker 2: manage internal life or ethnic conflict or things like this.
Speaker 2: In Bush's case, it was very much a kind of
Speaker 2: it was very much kind of the vision of Roosevelt
Speaker 2: that you know, the United States and the Soviet Union
Speaker 2: would kind of govern the planet literally with you know,
Speaker 2: Moscow as a junior partner, but that you know, this
Speaker 2: massively federated structure that took up literally one sixth of
Speaker 2: the earth should remain intact because the alternative is just
Speaker 2: too unpredictable and uh, it seems unrealistic to us, I
Speaker 2: mean regard regardless of the merit of such things on
Speaker 2: their own terms or such concepts with how you've token
Speaker 2: the art. There's a singular fixation among policy planners after
Speaker 2: Nuremberg of at all costs is preventing armed conflict. And
Speaker 2: if you look at government as some kind of progressive
Speaker 2: instrumentality in in live looking as as either a necessary
Speaker 2: evil or as a means by which you know, the
Speaker 2: posterity and historical mission of a people is preserved, you
Speaker 2: kind of view this as the zenith of government. So
Speaker 2: the Bush Faction, if you want to call it, that
Speaker 2: contra the neo kon or pronoun faction. This was their vision. Okay.
Speaker 2: In contrast, the guys who had staff Team B and
Speaker 2: who would now become these gott uber hawks in sinuated
Speaker 2: into various roles. They viewed the Soviet Union as quite
Speaker 2: literally evil. They like, that was not i probole, That's
Speaker 2: the way they looked at it. Some of this was
Speaker 2: some of this was ethno sectarium going to the background
Speaker 2: of a lot of these men. Some of it was
Speaker 2: was not. It was just you know, guys who are
Speaker 2: not of that particular background, but who who just viewed
Speaker 2: it as evil incarnate. So their idea was it had
Speaker 2: to be destroyed. Now, you know, if we destroy the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union by open warfare, so be it. If that's
Speaker 2: what you know, God or or or a fortuna or
Speaker 2: whatever ordains. Or if we destroy it, you know, by
Speaker 2: by dismantling it through you know, a detonation strategy of
Speaker 2: you know, stirring up the nationalities against against against Mother
Speaker 2: Russia and against each other. You know, uh, if if
Speaker 2: we if we destroy it by you know, imposing a
Speaker 2: kind of looting operation on it that that strips of
Speaker 2: its natural wealth, strips it of its natural resources and
Speaker 2: national wealth and control of such commodities they're in. You know,
Speaker 2: we can just run your act prostrate and impotent. That
Speaker 2: was the competing viewpoint. And this is not iperbole. These
Speaker 2: these people spoke very openly. This Dick Cheney uh went
Speaker 2: on a record as saying quite literally quote fuck them.
Speaker 2: They lost when confronted with, you know, the kind of
Speaker 2: Bush Baker vision which seems incredibly reckless from metals to
Speaker 2: your politics. But this, uh, this said the uh, this
Speaker 2: is the effect of really kind of really kind of
Speaker 2: driving a wedge between Bush and GORBACHEWF. And this this was, uh,
Speaker 2: this is exacerbated because one of uh when when one
Speaker 2: of Bush's first acts as president, he visited Poland. You know,
Speaker 2: in Poland was kind of ground zero of anti Soviet
Speaker 2: not just the anti Soviet sentiment, but of organized resistance,
Speaker 2: you know, like Valenca and the solidarity movement. Bush did
Speaker 2: not like Valenza. It's I think part of that was
Speaker 2: kind of inherent snobbery because Valentza was very much a proletarian.
Speaker 2: I think bushvidiam is a rail rouser. What Bush did
Speaker 2: was he met with General Geraldzelski. And again, if I'm
Speaker 2: butchering these names. I apologize every bed with that. I
Speaker 2: don't like any any Slavic guys or girls of listening,
Speaker 2: like don't hesitate to correct me in the comments or whatever.
Speaker 2: But I'm not good with these pronunciations. But gerald Zelski
Speaker 2: was an interesting guy. Uh. He was the only military
Speaker 2: man who was a chief of state of a warsaw
Speaker 2: pet state, which is interesting to me at least because
Speaker 2: tone deaf is. The Soviets were like as bad as
Speaker 2: their optics were. Uh, they realized in some basic way
Speaker 2: that they couldn't just install you know these like military
Speaker 2: uh strong men in the several satellite states. But Poland,
Speaker 2: this is I mean, Poland was under martial law from
Speaker 2: from nineteen eighty eighty one onward. But Geraldzelski was a
Speaker 2: tragic guy. You know. He he looked ominous because it
Speaker 2: was in uniform and he'd wear these really dark sunglasses.
Speaker 2: Jeraldzelski's eyes were ruined by snow blindness. He was a
Speaker 2: he was a Polish and he was he was he
Speaker 2: was a Polish national of noble birth when the Soviets
Speaker 2: invaded eastern Poland in nineteen thirty nine, owing to his
Speaker 2: parentage and and pedigree. He was sent to a gulag
Speaker 2: and uh spent years at hard labor and uh the
Speaker 2: glare off the snow ruined his eyes. But he you know,
Speaker 2: was telling too that he was that the Soviets had
Speaker 2: to rely on him. You know that there really really
Speaker 2: there there were no there were no dedicated Polish Communists,
Speaker 2: you know, it was it was more of a the
Speaker 2: the pole Communists. Poland was more of a contribance even
Speaker 2: than the D d R or any or anything else
Speaker 2: within the Warsaw deck structure, which is interesting. But Bush
Speaker 2: and Geraldzelsky had a certain rapport, and Bush went as
Speaker 2: far as to convinced gerald Zelski to stand for president
Speaker 2: when uh, when Poland UH had their first multi party election.
Speaker 2: And Bush was criticized roundly and uniformly for that. But
Speaker 2: his notion was, uh that you know, Gerlzelski, once uh,
Speaker 2: the once the once Moscow's boot is no longer on
Speaker 2: the neck of the Polish nation figuratively and literally. A
Speaker 2: man like Gerlzelski can really rise to the occasion. And
Speaker 2: I understand that even if that's not realistic in context.
Speaker 2: But this was Bush's notion, Okay, and it was his defense.
Speaker 2: What he said later in his own words, were he
Speaker 2: wasn't gonna go to he wasn't going to visit the
Speaker 2: Eastern Block and go on thumping his chest and trying
Speaker 2: to stick it to the Soviets that their system was crumbling.
Speaker 2: And he also would loud really large over US policy,
Speaker 2: you know, in nineteen fifty three, in nineteen fifty six,
Speaker 2: in ninety sixty eight, the Soviets these were and square
Speaker 2: level UH interventions or and crackdowns on the people, first
Speaker 2: in East Germany, then in Hungary, then Czechoslovakia. There was
Speaker 2: an understanding among among in not just Bush, but among
Speaker 2: you know, people on kind of both sides of the
Speaker 2: divide in terms of how to proceed with the situation
Speaker 2: developing in the East, that if we push this too
Speaker 2: hard or get too greedy in terms of demanding results
Speaker 2: and demanding too much too soon, and we we may
Speaker 2: we may see you know, some kind of we may
Speaker 2: see some kind of stalin his backlash and and UH
Speaker 2: a full scale invasion of Poland then and and it
Speaker 2: would be a massacre. So I'm not I'm not sitting
Speaker 2: here saying again that people should like it was forty
Speaker 2: one or should like share that view, but I'm just
Speaker 2: trying to give a balanced perspective. And it was his
Speaker 2: view was not born of some kind of Simpleton's delusion,
Speaker 2: even if it was not realistic. But what, uh, what
Speaker 2: ultimately did happen was, uh, it was very interesting and
Speaker 2: really conspiratorial, kind of figuratively and literally. And again we're
Speaker 2: kind of gonna come back to the CIA and it's incompetence.
Speaker 2: And I know people think I overstate this, but consider
Speaker 2: this William Crowe. He was another general who was gonna
Speaker 2: he would have been considered something like a minister without
Speaker 2: portfolio served a European government. But he was close to
Speaker 2: Bush forty one and Baker and spoke Croft and that
Speaker 2: whole coterie. He said, the CIA literally in mid nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine, he said there was still there were still
Speaker 2: showing dispatches that spoke about the USSR as if it
Speaker 2: was twenty years earlier. They were claiming that Gorbachev was
Speaker 2: simply a biting the bresident doctrine. But you know, he
Speaker 2: was reluctant to deploy force because he was trying to
Speaker 2: lull the West into a false sense of security. It's
Speaker 2: like they were in in In Crow's words, he said,
Speaker 2: it says if the CIA didn't never see the news.
Speaker 2: He said it was as if like they'd take just
Speaker 2: kind of official dispatches from East Berlin or Moscow kind
Speaker 2: of knock a percentage off, and the credibility you then
Speaker 2: released that is basically you know fat you know, oh
Speaker 2: the East Berlin says that you know, the that the
Speaker 2: regime of Strowger than ever that must be true, or
Speaker 2: you know, the like like Grochev's the General secretary and
Speaker 2: he says there's gonna be no, you know, they're not
Speaker 2: gonna they're not gonna drop the planet economy and the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union will remain. So that's that's the fact. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm not using that probably that this this
Speaker 2: was literally what they were saying. And I mean that
Speaker 2: anybody again thinks the CIA is like the seat of
Speaker 2: of shadow of government or the intelligence community has got
Speaker 2: to consider that Defense intelligence really, I mean not forget
Speaker 2: the tangent, but but defense intelligence, the d i A.
Speaker 2: They really they really got of became the guts of
Speaker 2: US intelligence in a basic way. Okay them the n
Speaker 2: s A and you know, uh a lot of quasi
Speaker 2: private uh entities that you know, our contract and things
Speaker 2: like that. But the as everybody knows, uh, the great
Speaker 2: foil to gorbich Off is Yelston. But Yelton's the sentence.
Speaker 2: Yelton was not this kind of great democratizer. I mean
Speaker 2: he he's viewed that way because uh, you know he
Speaker 2: uh he was kind of the king of the referendum.
Speaker 2: But you know it's not people have this idea, I
Speaker 2: think because it's byzantine literally, but also like memories are short,
Speaker 2: I mean, including my own. I'm not saying I'm like
Speaker 2: above this or something. People seem to remember this as
Speaker 2: you know, there was a you know, the Soviet Union
Speaker 2: finally held elections, Yelton beat Gorbachev, and then there was
Speaker 2: some kind of referendum to dismantle the Soviet Union. Like
Speaker 2: that's not what happened when Yelson seized the power. It's
Speaker 2: what Gorbachev was, you know, kidnapped by the koup lotters.
Speaker 2: Yelton presieded to raise to the Russian White House declare
Speaker 2: himself for all practical purposes President of the Russian Federation.
Speaker 2: Upon ascending to that role, and I mean there was
Speaker 2: a referendum insinuating him into that role, he declared the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union to be abolished. So the office is Gorbachev
Speaker 2: held's a General Secretary of the Communist Party ceased to
Speaker 2: hold any meaning because the entity that Gorbachev held that
Speaker 2: office in was was abolished by Dick Todd, which is
Speaker 2: very strange. Now, who are Yeltsin's backers. There's a combination
Speaker 2: of kind of radical reformers, you know, these uh, these
Speaker 2: kind of uh this kind of wild West capitalist types
Speaker 2: who kind of saw the looming anarchy as a as
Speaker 2: as opportunities for great proper potential. But it was also
Speaker 2: a lot of stalin As hardliners who uh hated gorbachew
Speaker 2: Now why did they back Yelson? I mean the kind
Speaker 2: of conventional wisdom as well. They just wanted power in
Speaker 2: the new regime. I don't know if it's that simple, man.
Speaker 2: I think some of them thought that Yelson would rook Garbicheff. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they have to settle for a rumpt state of just
Speaker 2: you know, Russia basically. But I think they thought that
Speaker 2: Yelton was just gonna return things to the status quo
Speaker 2: after that. But then he didn't, And why didn't he
Speaker 2: do that? I think he was basically bought off by
Speaker 2: you know Team B the Oconn faction, like fearatively and
Speaker 2: literally bought off. I can't prove that with receipts, but
Speaker 2: I I've thought about this a lot, I've studied a lot,
Speaker 2: and I've read a lot of direct testimony in the
Speaker 2: in the epoch, I I think that's what happened. Now. Also,
Speaker 2: you know, Putin became Yelton's successor, and Putin had a
Speaker 2: variety of roles, like some some more prestigious than others,
Speaker 2: and at certain junctures he was sidelined. I mean that
Speaker 2: never in In in some disgraceful way. But the fact
Speaker 2: that Putin himself and Putin is not some hardliner, but
Speaker 2: he has a product in the old system. Okay, if
Speaker 2: yelt didn't really was this kind of oren't liberal. I'm
Speaker 2: using it in these terms, in the terms of the
Speaker 2: regime employs them. I don't mean that he that's what
Speaker 2: he actually is. But if he also has got this
Speaker 2: arch capitalist or former you know, neoliberal ideologue, like he
Speaker 2: would not have had men like Provement in his orbit.
Speaker 2: He would not have he would have had him take
Speaker 2: he would not have made him taken up a shot
Speaker 2: or something but these guys would have been pensioned off
Speaker 2: and and and sent far away from from Moscow furgively
Speaker 2: and literally. But again I'm not I don't speak Russian
Speaker 2: or read it, and I'm not some kind of expert
Speaker 2: on the Russian people, their culture or the Soviet Union.
Speaker 2: But I am convinced that that's what that's what happened. It. Uh,
Speaker 2: there's also something that people got to consider, the other
Speaker 2: kind of factor or constellation of factors that rooked and
Speaker 2: pushed his vision. And uh, I don't want to go
Speaker 2: off track, because this is its own topic that's very dense,
Speaker 2: but you know, the casting of Sloping on the Lilow
Speaker 2: as this mass murdering nationalist extremists. He was the State
Speaker 2: Department's guy, and he was the guy who was viewed
Speaker 2: as the moderate they could work with by Washington, and
Speaker 2: Boyce very much wanted to keep you with Slavia together.
Speaker 2: What happened was Helmut Cole, who I think was about
Speaker 2: as as nationalists as any is any chance that the
Speaker 2: Buddhist Republic could be or can be. When two Jamon's
Speaker 2: Croatian it cleared independence, Cole recognized them immediately, and then
Speaker 2: the die was cast. There was gonna be war in
Speaker 2: the Balkans, and that was key to forming contemporary identities.
Speaker 2: That's why, in a very proximate way, and I'm sen directly,
Speaker 2: the Slavic Orthodox identity became paramount again. That's why Bosniaks
Speaker 2: became very Maslem. Again. There's a whole lot of a
Speaker 2: national soldialist inclined German guys who like Ingo Hasselbach was.
Speaker 2: He was not an attractive guy, but he was a
Speaker 2: skin ahead and he was he was very involved in
Speaker 2: in in the in the right wing and in the DDR.
Speaker 2: You know, he and his people recruited a bunch of
Speaker 2: Germans to go fight for Croatia. And this was very real.
Speaker 2: There's not some This was not some Ukraine kind of
Speaker 2: situation of guys, you know, kind of pretending to be
Speaker 2: things they're not and and strange kind of propagandasm really
Speaker 2: makes sense like this, this really was, uh a kind
Speaker 2: of a kind of return to to to Europe's identitarian
Speaker 2: status quo. Now in the wake of this, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: obviously the view that run out was not that won out,
Speaker 2: was not the Bush forty one view. And you know,
Speaker 2: the what was also in my opinion kind of Nixon view.
Speaker 2: Although he had Bush part of the ways and key issues,
Speaker 2: what went out was the Neo con view. Literally, and
Speaker 2: what you're seeing Ukraine is the culmination of this kind
Speaker 2: of thirty year effort of the detonation strategy of radicalizing
Speaker 2: the nationalities. Like that's what it is. It also has
Speaker 2: to do with preventing Europe from a from a you know,
Speaker 2: becoming at all autonomous, because a Russian German concord is
Speaker 2: is really what is the path that's superpowered them? Okay,
Speaker 2: but and I mean no, I mean ron there's many
Speaker 2: many guys in Washington who don't care about Ukraine or Russia,
Speaker 2: and that's their notion. However, the faction we're talking about,
Speaker 2: they very very much have an ancestral hatred of Russia
Speaker 2: and they very very much abide this idea that you know,
Speaker 2: the structures rotten, it should be destroyed. If we can
Speaker 2: utilize Ukraine as a kind of torpedo, so be it.
Speaker 2: You know, if we can any way we can, any
Speaker 2: way we can, we can facilitate the real detonation on
Speaker 2: on the frontier. We want to do it. Uh, it's
Speaker 2: really that simple. But that's I know, it seems like
Speaker 2: I jumped around a lot, but these are the key
Speaker 2: developments to understanding what happened. And like I said, next time,
Speaker 2: we'll we'll start out with the Berlin Airlift. I think
Speaker 2: that's a good starting point because, as I guess there,
Speaker 2: that have to be the start of the Cold War, Okay,
Speaker 2: and from there we'll go in like linear terms. But
Speaker 2: I thought that this was important. I hope I didn't
Speaker 2: bore anybody or put anybody off by doing it that way.
Speaker 2: But that's, uh, that's I think we're all stop for now.
Speaker 1: Well, let me let me ask you a question. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll keep going, You'll keep going a little bit. What
Speaker 1: would happened if Ducacus would have got elected in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight.
Speaker 2: That's a really interesting question. And it's interesting you raise
Speaker 2: that because the other day on Twitter I was talking
Speaker 2: to some of the fellas about the fact that there
Speaker 2: was an actual policy divide, like a real cleft, you know,
Speaker 2: between uh national security hawks and and people who thought
Speaker 2: that time could be preserved. Do Cougress was definitely from
Speaker 2: the ladder tendency, and then it was held against him.
Speaker 2: You know, there's that famous people People think Caucuss is
Speaker 2: kind of Howard Dean stream scream moment is when he
Speaker 2: was writing in that tank, like looking like an idiot
Speaker 2: with like a homon like the wrong way, you're trying to.
Speaker 1: Look like snooky.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I actually exerience kind of a badass though,
Speaker 2: like Stewie fights Threat Barren, like uh, Couress took like
Speaker 2: a fucking jig off. But yeah, but he looked and
Speaker 2: if even if Tocagass had been more of kind of
Speaker 2: a like a like a manly like photogen a guy,
Speaker 2: it was so it was so contribed. It's him trying
Speaker 2: to look like you have tough on defense, gonna be
Speaker 2: in this tank, you know, you know, yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: the hell with even but it's uh, but the Caucus's cabinet.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think Caucuss was uh. I think docungss
Speaker 2: was was a tackling dummy who was he was a
Speaker 2: four inclusion that that people wanted another Reagan term and
Speaker 2: they weren't gonna get that obviously. And Bush was the
Speaker 2: closest thing. And even though Bush was very very at
Speaker 2: odds with the Reagan and people associated them, I mean
Speaker 2: just I mean, you know how voters are, especially in
Speaker 2: those days. Yeah, of course, yeah, any any even a
Speaker 2: guy like Mondale kind of an old kind of an
Speaker 2: old line, more running the mill democratic than Kaye's kind
Speaker 2: of a weird nominee. You know. He was like like,
Speaker 2: I'm not being pressed, but he was. He was like
Speaker 2: this ethnic politician, franky. Yeah, even a more traditional U
Speaker 2: kind of Democrat, he would have had real problems, especially
Speaker 2: if at a hospital Congress. But it's also the U,
Speaker 2: I do believe. And Bush made this point too. I mean,
Speaker 2: despite everything I just said about Bush's Bush very very
Speaker 2: very much believed in negotiating the end of the Soviet
Speaker 2: negotiating with the Soviet unions that ended from position of
Speaker 2: very very profound strength, okay, And I think that was essential.
Speaker 2: I think it overla like a conciliatory executive who'd approached
Speaker 2: the Soviet who'd approached kind of the failing Soviet Union
Speaker 2: as hey, what we want to re establish Theayton That
Speaker 2: could have been a game changer. Maybe one thing to
Speaker 2: temb Coterie was right about. If they were right about anything.
Speaker 2: I think wolf Fords himself, I think, is the source
Speaker 2: of this and I agree with it, and I don't
Speaker 2: I say a wolf Witz at all. He said that
Speaker 2: Soviet Union by nineteen seventy four to seventy five, I
Speaker 2: was said of the Third World, nobody had any respect
Speaker 2: from Marxist Leninism people in the Soviet Union. Their quality
Speaker 2: of life was better than the Third World, but not
Speaker 2: by hell of a lot. Nobody believed that, you know,
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union was leading the world and the sciences
Speaker 2: or something. All the Soviet Union had was arguably the
Speaker 2: world's mightiest military arguab with the mightiest army that ever existed.
Speaker 2: If the only thing, the only thing making you a
Speaker 2: superpower is your military and the fact you've got eight
Speaker 2: thousand uh nuclear weapons, that changes things. That means power
Speaker 2: projection becomes becomes overvalued. It means the entire discourse within
Speaker 2: the state apparatus kind of orbits around hard power. And
Speaker 2: that's very what happened North Korea today. Yeah, it's superpower scale.
Speaker 2: I mean that's and I the so this idea that
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union was bent on world domination in a
Speaker 2: very in a in a very concrete and brutal way.
Speaker 2: I believe that the United State has been on world domination. Two.
Speaker 2: But the United States had a way of subverting on
Speaker 2: societies other than you know, we're going to level you
Speaker 2: and decimate you and genocide you. I mean, America would
Speaker 2: do that too if they had to, but that wasn't
Speaker 2: just like the option of first recourse. And I have
Speaker 2: no doubt. And Gorbio his memoirs made this point, if this,
Speaker 2: if every about every decade, okay, ninety fifty, in ninety
Speaker 2: sixty two, nine seventy three, and eighty three, the world
Speaker 2: came closer, very very close to nuclear war, and each
Speaker 2: time arguably it was like even closer like the Cold War,
Speaker 2: and definitely continued. I mean, let's take continue to like
Speaker 2: the late nineties just even and so like by nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety five ninety six, you know, nuclear weapons are basically
Speaker 2: all now in space, you know, and it's okay, like
Speaker 2: that was like a three minute warning time, you know,
Speaker 2: basically like the Soviets like blank, It's like, okay, we
Speaker 2: got to destroy them. I mean, like, what would happen
Speaker 2: then in a crisis, you know, or like it eventually
Speaker 2: it would have happened. That would mean the world would
Speaker 2: have ended. But there would have been probably forty million
Speaker 2: people dead or like one hundred million people dead, and
Speaker 2: that would have changed everything. Man, that would have changed
Speaker 2: life on earth forever, like not in like horror movie terms,
Speaker 2: but the terminator. But if like a hundred million people
Speaker 2: died in nuclear war, like the world would never be
Speaker 2: the same, you know. And it's in ways we can't
Speaker 2: even imagine, you know, I mean think about that. It so,
Speaker 2: I mean one of the things that so one of
Speaker 2: the reasons the Soviet Union, even guys I think believe
Speaker 2: I know this, even guys who believe in the system,
Speaker 2: they knew they had to find a way out of
Speaker 2: the Cold War, Like they knew it. Because again, this
Speaker 2: technology cannot be controlled. And people think it's and I'm
Speaker 2: not just saying people are dumb or something. They just
Speaker 2: don't have a comparative basis. People think that something like
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union of nineteen eighty five, it's not like
Speaker 2: you know, the office you work at, even of a
Speaker 2: big company of like fifty thousand people, Like, it's not
Speaker 2: something like any one man or one hundred men or
Speaker 2: a thousand men can just control you know. It's like,
Speaker 2: once once the apparatus gets in motion towards kind of
Speaker 2: a nuclear war vector, that's just what it's going to happen,
Speaker 2: you know. And I mean that that was what was happening,
Speaker 2: you know, and this was not some paradoig fantasy or something,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, so that's one of the reasons.
Speaker 2: I guess I'm kind of I've got kind of a
Speaker 2: I've got kind of a like like guys in the
Speaker 2: right set, you've got like a soft view of Bush,
Speaker 2: for one. I mean maybe I do. I don't know,
Speaker 2: but I mean whatever, I don't care what people think
Speaker 2: about my takes on on on chief executives of history.
Speaker 2: But there was like what it is described didn't happen, okay,
Speaker 2: and some of that we owe to people like Bush. Okay.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, the Cold Wars would have happened in the
Speaker 2: first place. You know, World War can not have happened,
Speaker 2: but but it did happen. So that's where we were at.
Speaker 2: You gotta judge things in their epoch. So that's I realize.
Speaker 2: That's the name complete answer, the best the best I
Speaker 2: can do. That's a great question, thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He I just remember them selling, oh he's from Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: and they tried to connect him to be like the
Speaker 1: next Kennedy or something like that. It was just.
Speaker 2: I mean Bush, you know, God loved Bush. But other
Speaker 2: than and Bush was actually a great commander in chief
Speaker 2: and the way he managed the Gulf War with with
Speaker 2: like like like a like a Prussian officer the highest
Speaker 2: caliber would okay. But other than that, I mean Bush
Speaker 2: was not a man and the people. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: why he got smoked in the three way race with
Speaker 2: Clinton and Parole. But I mean the fact that Bush
Speaker 2: was able to sweep the country against ducaucas It's like, look, man,
Speaker 2: it's like you're getting. If you're getting smoked by Bush,
Speaker 2: you know, it's like you've got you're not a viable candidate.
Speaker 2: See docs was a weird like a guy like greetor
Speaker 2: Scott Greer. He'd be a good guy to take that
Speaker 2: up with because like he, I mean, he knows like
Speaker 2: electoral politics like the back of his hands, Like I
Speaker 2: really don't. I mean I know the outcome, but it's
Speaker 2: I don't have like deep takes on that stuff generally,
Speaker 2: But do Coucress was a weird He was a weird
Speaker 2: nominee man. He definitely was. He definitely was.
Speaker 1: I think that is gonna be a great first episode.
Speaker 1: Give your plugs and we'll end it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, then you pete. Uh. The main place people should
Speaker 2: hit me up as h on my substick. It's real,
Speaker 2: real Thomas seven seven seven at substack dot com dot
Speaker 2: substack dot com. Sorry, you can find me on t
Speaker 2: gram Telegram at t dot emmy slash v number seven
Speaker 2: h seven seven seven. I bet on Twitter once again
Speaker 2: because Elon seems to not be laying the hammer down
Speaker 2: on people. You know, for the record, man, like I've
Speaker 2: never actually violated Twitter in terms of service. I'm not
Speaker 2: just saying like I never have, you know, but I've
Speaker 2: been banned like half a dozen times. But you can
Speaker 2: find me there at Triskellian Jahad. The first t is
Speaker 2: number seven, but I'll post it's posted up in my
Speaker 2: substack and stuff and just go there. And I mean,
Speaker 2: for all I know, in like two days won't be
Speaker 2: there anymore. So it's and I am launching the day
Speaker 2: and YouTube channel. Please don't think I'm being a total flake.
Speaker 2: I've just had a lot on my plate in terms
Speaker 2: of content and like other stuff. But I it is
Speaker 2: moving forward. I got an announcement. I think people will
Speaker 2: be happy about him. I'm debating the jfk assassination in
Speaker 2: a few days with a guy that I got a
Speaker 2: lot of respect for and he's actually a college professor
Speaker 2: of the right kind. He's like a right wing history
Speaker 2: but he does agree with me profound me so that
Speaker 2: people will dig that. I'm going to do it on
Speaker 2: a live stream, so well, I'll hit people to that.
Speaker 2: And that's what I got. And thank you very much, Pete.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate your hosting me. I really, I really
Speaker 2: appreciate people watching and comment and stuff. I really mean that,
Speaker 2: I'm not just being poor.
Speaker 1: Well, I can't wait for until we go back to
Speaker 1: the beginning because that's where the intrigue of that is.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, it's really yeah. Yeah, no, I'm very
Speaker 2: excite man, and I'm very very I'm very stoked that
Speaker 2: you you had had this notion for us to do
Speaker 2: this series. So thank you very much again.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you, take care of Thomas. Welcome everyone
Speaker 1: back to the Pete Kenyonas Show. Got Thomas seven seven
Speaker 1: seven here, and we're going to get into some stuff
Speaker 1: not only about the Cold War, maybe we'll talk to
Speaker 1: some current events. How are you doing, Thomas?
Speaker 2: Very well, Thanks for hosting me again. Yeah, I was thinking,
Speaker 2: I mean your point before we went why you were
Speaker 2: talking about the election results, and I agree with you.
Speaker 2: I think that warrant mentioned, not just because the kind
Speaker 2: of thing is important, but what's happening in Russia and
Speaker 2: in Central Europe at present. I believe it's I believe
Speaker 2: the current conflict cycle is resolving somewhat peaceably, if not ideally,
Speaker 2: from you know, my own perspective, but I mean, it's
Speaker 2: going to remain relevant for the foreseeable future. And this
Speaker 2: is approximately caused by the Cold War. And if we're
Speaker 2: talking about anything of a foreign policy nature or anything
Speaker 2: relating to the strategic situation as it stands in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two, where we're talking about phenomenon events and even
Speaker 2: personages like the primary players are our people who who's
Speaker 2: who can only be understood in the context of the
Speaker 2: Cold War. And also some of the fellas on t
Speaker 2: GRAM we're asking some questions about the topic, and we
Speaker 2: can get into some of those two. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff that they were asking, some of
Speaker 2: which is kind of like ahead of where we're at
Speaker 2: on the timeline, some of which relates more to the
Speaker 2: revision of stuff we were dealing with with a second
Speaker 2: World War, but a long last moving forward, we'll cover
Speaker 2: all of those, But I just briefly I'm not some
Speaker 2: poll watcher like our friend Scott Career, DJ Scutty g
Speaker 2: uh Internet cereal thriller and uh Beltway kill a but uh,
Speaker 2: but I'm not making fun of him. He's a good
Speaker 2: dude and he's been nice enough to host me on
Speaker 2: IT show a few times. And I don't know why
Speaker 2: anybody would do that if they're a reputable person, because
Speaker 2: I like that seems like I.
Speaker 1: Really appreciate that.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, I say, it's like it seems like
Speaker 2: it would cause you a lot of grief and like
Speaker 2: not a lot of benefit. I mean, you're you're a
Speaker 2: guy who's you're not like a fringe guy, but you're
Speaker 2: a guy who's not afraid to like deal with like
Speaker 2: radical things, not radical things like oh that's awesome and radical,
Speaker 2: like you know, people have like radical tendencies. I don't
Speaker 2: think I have those tendencies, But I ideal with stuff
Speaker 2: that is a magnet for censorious uh type of uh enforcers.
Speaker 2: That's all I meant. But he's got you know, he's
Speaker 2: got a real uh. He guys like him and like
Speaker 2: and like our guy Paul Fahrenheit. I always tap them
Speaker 2: for kind of their thoughts on on you know, on
Speaker 2: on during election the season because they're really like clued
Speaker 2: in to that and I am not. However, uh national elections, Uh,
Speaker 2: I tend to I tend to pick presidential contest pretty
Speaker 2: well in primary season. But regardless, I didn't think there's
Speaker 2: any big surprises, man. And I know this morning I
Speaker 2: got on Twitter like that that uh that uh that
Speaker 2: sling blade guy in Pennsylvania. Uh like Bubba Feder person
Speaker 2: or whate the fuck his name is or Feder federal woman,
Speaker 2: federal person. I don't know what he. Uh, I mean
Speaker 2: they're that and like the he because you know, the
Speaker 2: diabolical doctor Oz going down in flames made a lot
Speaker 2: of people upset. But the Republicans, they they won huge
Speaker 2: in Florida, like statewide and uh jd Vance came after
Speaker 2: to Ohio. I mean, grant, I'm not at loop, but
Speaker 2: I like look at those things as like a win, man.
Speaker 2: I mean, I like, unless I'm missing something like that's
Speaker 2: that's a win. And they obviously got twenty twenty. They
Speaker 2: got the white I was twenty twenty four unless they
Speaker 2: joined the kind of witch hunt against their guy, mister Trump.
Speaker 1: Desantist turned ten ten districts, in Miami that are normally
Speaker 1: blue red.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's insane. I mean the state of Florida is
Speaker 2: now like a safe red state, and that's crazy. I mean,
Speaker 2: not like objectively, but I mean considering the last twenty years,
Speaker 2: the way things have gone. I mean that I don't
Speaker 2: see how there's not a win. I mean, were they
Speaker 2: expecting like some nationwide sweep. I don't. I mean, I
Speaker 2: I don't know. They seem I think they should be happy.
Speaker 2: But all I saw, I mean, granted, like social media
Speaker 2: is its own thing and sometimes forget how weird it is,
Speaker 2: and presidents. I haven't been on it for a minute,
Speaker 2: but like this morning, like I got all these like
Speaker 2: got all these Twitter alerts, these like Republican type guys
Speaker 2: who were not not Scott Greer. He's a very he's
Speaker 2: a very not only a sensible guy, but he doesn't
Speaker 2: go in for that kind of stuff. You had to
Speaker 2: read Balance for you. But a whole bunch of these
Speaker 2: kind of Internet you know, GOP cheer leaders. They were
Speaker 2: acting like they were acting like there's some crushing defeat
Speaker 2: or something. And so then like I started like looking
Speaker 2: at their returns, I'm like, what the fuck are they
Speaker 2: upset about man like im contemporary metrics. That seems like
Speaker 2: a win. But again, what do I know. I'm I'm
Speaker 2: a guy who writes about stuff from long ago and
Speaker 2: speculates about the future. Maybe I don't really like plugged
Speaker 2: into the present day, but I don't know man like that.
Speaker 2: And yeah, the sand this is a phenom I'm not
Speaker 2: going to be impressed with the saying is I mean
Speaker 2: as a political operator, like he's dope, he's very good
Speaker 2: at what he does. And yeah, it's very impressive the
Speaker 2: way he's been able to flip uh you know, some
Speaker 2: key some key jurisdic jurisdictions at the local level. But uh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I I don't. I don't know what they're I don't
Speaker 2: know why they're crying in their fucking corn flakes. But
Speaker 2: again I'm not I'm not some pole watcher or some
Speaker 2: freaking builtway expert. Quite the contrary. You know down in
Speaker 2: Texas when you were where people fire up about Trump
Speaker 2: and stuff or they just kind of like whatever, Oh they.
Speaker 1: Just wanted to be Beto. Yeah they want yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they I mean there are a lot of people, you know,
Speaker 1: you go around Austin and you see some bedo signs.
Speaker 1: Once you get outside of Austin, once you're in the cities,
Speaker 1: you'll see some when you get out of there, out
Speaker 1: of the cities there, you'll see some every once in
Speaker 1: a while, but it's mostly you know, I think most
Speaker 1: of the people from Texas really don't like Abbott, but
Speaker 1: they really can't stand Beto.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Texas is a weird Texas kind of a I'm
Speaker 2: not saying bad things about Texas. I like Texas and
Speaker 2: I like Texas people, but their political culture is kind
Speaker 2: of strange, you know, Like there's a like Rick Perry,
Speaker 2: Franky's a weird guy. I mean, I know he's not.
Speaker 3: I know he's not.
Speaker 2: You know the I know he's not. He doesn't have
Speaker 2: the cash that he did, you know, uh some years back.
Speaker 2: I like nationally, I never I never bought the height
Speaker 2: that he was going to be impactful on the national stage.
Speaker 2: But he was a weird guy even for like even
Speaker 2: as you know, even as a state ball like I
Speaker 2: I mean, Frankly, w is the sentence he was kind
Speaker 2: of weird. I mean, I don't think I don't I
Speaker 2: don't think it's weird that I mean, w Frankly had
Speaker 2: his shipped together a lot more when he was when
Speaker 2: he was younger. But I thought it was weird that,
Speaker 2: I mean, to Texas really liked him. You don't forget
Speaker 2: that W was actually he had a he had a
Speaker 2: very strong rapport of this constituency in Texas. And then
Speaker 2: in his first term as president, like this idea that
Speaker 2: you know, everybody always hated W and he was just
Speaker 2: this failed politician. That's not true at all. I mean,
Speaker 2: nobody has to. I don't like the guy, and I
Speaker 2: nobody nobody should. But he's you know, he he he
Speaker 2: did not. You can't simply buy your way uh to
Speaker 2: uh to competitiveness, no, even especially if anything that might
Speaker 2: work against you. When I say like textas okay, guy
Speaker 2: like Bush, So I mean, I yeah, it's but I
Speaker 2: thought it was weird that of all, I thought it
Speaker 2: was weird. He struck me as like the kind of
Speaker 2: twenty first century version of a Rockefeller Republican. And I'm like,
Speaker 2: why why is Texas like this guy's home base? But
Speaker 2: I mean, what do wh I know? And he was
Speaker 2: big on he was big on gun rice, and he
Speaker 2: was big pro death and the enemy back. And then
Speaker 2: he's like those were issues that were kind of still
Speaker 2: up for grabs. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: Back in back in six somebody had put a video together.
Speaker 1: It was a split screen video and it was it
Speaker 1: was W in the gubernatorial debate in like ninety two,
Speaker 1: and then it was W in the presidential debate in
Speaker 1: two thousand and four. Right, yeah, Oh, in ninety two,
Speaker 1: he's just I mean, no notes, no, no, I mean,
Speaker 1: there was no teleprompter. He had everything in his head
Speaker 1: and he was right. And then in two thousand and
Speaker 1: four it was, you know.
Speaker 2: The guy. I think Bush had some I think two things.
Speaker 2: I think, first of all, I'm the last guy I
Speaker 2: can like put shane on anybody with substance to use problem.
Speaker 2: So not like saying that, oh Bush, you know they
Speaker 2: drove a year, they'd drunk. But I think he probably relapsed. Frankly,
Speaker 2: I mean he was acting like somebody who did okay,
Speaker 2: because yeah, I mean the guy it's not like he man.
Speaker 2: I think also get some health problems that we're not
Speaker 2: let on on do because yeah, it wasn't just I
Speaker 2: mean I remember some of his apologists just being like, oh,
Speaker 2: he you know, it's just like nerves. He's not used
Speaker 2: to the office. It's like in Texas is a huge
Speaker 2: state man, and like he's not. He was not some
Speaker 2: freshman congressman. He was a fucking governor. You know, you
Speaker 2: can't tell me he's like scared of the camera or something.
Speaker 2: It's you know, he was not. He was. He was
Speaker 2: compromised in some way, you know, whether it was health related,
Speaker 2: ing the illness or substance abuse or whatever. And again,
Speaker 2: like I said, I'm not like putting shade on it.
Speaker 2: I'm the last person to do that. But but yeah,
Speaker 2: he was like two different people. It was really weird.
Speaker 2: I'll see how that foot you're talking about. But we can,
Speaker 2: we can dive into the Cold Wars. That's something I
Speaker 2: know a hell of a lot more. I know a
Speaker 2: hell of a lot more about than I do. Uh,
Speaker 2: the goings on in the swamp I kind of wanted
Speaker 2: to get into. You know, there's this big debate like
Speaker 2: to this day, and frankly, it's actually some decent scholarship
Speaker 2: coming out about the Cold War, not as much revision
Speaker 2: as stuff as I would like. And that's kind of
Speaker 2: one of the things I believe I'm like here on
Speaker 2: earth to do. I mean, I'm not I'm not being melodramatic,
Speaker 2: Like I really believe that, because like there's not there's
Speaker 2: a million guys who are World War Two revisionists, and
Speaker 2: that's dope. That's that's important, Okay, But frankly, there's there's
Speaker 2: almost nobody dealing with the Cold War and in a
Speaker 2: critical capacity. So I think we're doing important stuff here
Speaker 2: in that regard. I mean we always are, but in
Speaker 2: any event, there's a scholarly debate going on. It's like
Speaker 2: when the Cold War ensued. I mean you can't. It's
Speaker 2: tricky because obviously, when you're talking about a discrete armed conflict,
Speaker 2: even when it's complicated as as the Second World War,
Speaker 2: you know, you can kind of identify points at which
Speaker 2: the status of relations fundamentally changed. You know, September third,
Speaker 2: ninety thirty nine, you know, the Western Allies declared war
Speaker 2: on the German Right, Okay, that starts starting point, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: there was hostilities emerging and active before then, but there's
Speaker 2: not there's not any such point in the Cold War.
Speaker 2: And the kind of tonal shift, not just in optics
Speaker 2: and narrative, but in policy, uh, from between the Truman
Speaker 2: administration that Roosevelt administration was dramatic. I know, people on
Speaker 2: our side don't like Truman. I mean, I I've got
Speaker 2: i Truman was not an evil man. He was not uh,
Speaker 2: he was not a gangster like Roosevelt. He didn't have
Speaker 2: the hubris of Roosevelt. I've got mixed feelings about Truman.
Speaker 2: I don't think Truman should have been president. Okay, But
Speaker 2: if we're talking about his moral character, and if we're
Speaker 2: talking about what constituted his policy orientations with the Soviet Union,
Speaker 2: he was in a very very difficult position and most
Speaker 2: of the variables that were framing the decisions he had
Speaker 2: to make it had nothing to do with his own sympathies.
Speaker 2: You know, he quite literally inherited this bizarre situation whereby
Speaker 2: Germany was occupied by the four powers of the United States, UK,
Speaker 2: and then France got a seat at the table. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's a total other issue in the in the Soviet Union,
Speaker 2: there was there was no not only was there no
Speaker 2: permanent status of of of you know, well now there's
Speaker 2: no prodent peace treaty in the running. Nobody was even
Speaker 2: talking about it, and it wasn't even clear like what
Speaker 2: that would constitute. And really the only thing that it
Speaker 2: set the tenor of relations at Yalta or at Tehran.
Speaker 2: Everybody thinks Yelta's kind of word like everything, you know,
Speaker 2: everything kind of was set in perverbial stone. It was not.
Speaker 2: It was Tehran in forty three. That's when Roosevelt seeded
Speaker 2: Berlin to Stalin, which seems crazy unless you understand the
Speaker 2: new Dealer ideology, which we we delved into in earnest
Speaker 2: in our whole World War two series. But beyond that,
Speaker 2: what's facinating to me is even men who you would
Speaker 2: think would have known better, like Eisenhower. Okay, Eisenhower, whatever
Speaker 2: else can be said about him, the guy was something
Speaker 2: of a savant in terms of logistical, an engine hearing,
Speaker 2: military matters, and he was a protege of pershing blackjack
Speaker 2: person who's an under understated figure in the very histories
Speaker 2: he hasn't made. Eisenower said, uh. Eisenwer said uh to
Speaker 2: one of his adjutants, And this is related by Omar Bradley,
Speaker 2: you know. Uh. When there was discussion as to, you know,
Speaker 2: the issue of allowing the Soviets to take Berlin, Eisenwer
Speaker 2: said something effective with my god, like who would want it?
Speaker 2: You know they're gonna lose, you know, one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: men taking it, and Bradley's he was stupefied by that.
Speaker 2: He's like, well, what do you mean, you know, like
Speaker 2: how you know I can say that, you know? Uh
Speaker 2: and uh. And Eisenhower retorted with something like, well, as
Speaker 2: a military objective, it's meaningless, you know what, what significance
Speaker 2: does it hold? You know what? Bradley said, Well, you know,
Speaker 2: in a few years, that's gonna be quite clear, you know.
Speaker 2: And Malotov Uh, you know, the Soviet foreign minister, Old
Speaker 2: Bolshevik that he was, like a lot of those guys,
Speaker 2: he actually had a pretty strong sense of geopolitics, and
Speaker 2: he said, you know, what happens in Berlin decides the
Speaker 2: fate of Germany. What happens in Germany decides to fade
Speaker 2: of Europe. So if you look at a map of
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't pull it up now, but those
Speaker 2: who are inclined to do so. If you look at
Speaker 2: if you look at a map of divided Berlin, it's
Speaker 2: strange because the Soviet sectors kind of bulges East Berlin
Speaker 2: extended uh to Mitte, which was kind of the historical
Speaker 2: core of the Berlin city center. That was like the
Speaker 2: municipal like Hobb traditionally of Berlin. You know, that's where
Speaker 2: city Hall was, you know, that's where Parliament was, That's
Speaker 2: all these other traditional structures and administrations, the machinery and
Speaker 2: the machinery of garment were. So it was obvious why
Speaker 2: Stalin was making these demands. Okay, I mean it wasn't
Speaker 2: and it wasn't just for prestige or something. Rose elenal
Speaker 2: problem with that. But Roosevelt also what he the only
Speaker 2: the only kind of signaling he'd given to uh Stalin
Speaker 2: was that Tehran. And then before he died, apparently according
Speaker 2: to people at Cordell Hull, he said, Roosevelt stated to
Speaker 2: Stalin as well as to you know, his cabinet in
Speaker 2: the Apartment of State and uh In Department of War,
Speaker 2: that oh, well, you know, American forces, I can't see
Speaker 2: them staying in Europe beyond two years? Why would they?
Speaker 2: You know which I don't think you can chalk up
Speaker 2: to naivete because Roosevelt was uh Roosevelt is not naive,
Speaker 2: whatever else we can say about him. And you know,
Speaker 2: like we discussed in the you know earlier, we discussed
Speaker 2: a couple of times even before we began a dedicated
Speaker 2: series on the Cold War. You know, the New Dealer
Speaker 2: vision was, uh, you know, a con a permanent concord
Speaker 2: between the United States and the Soviet Union with the
Speaker 2: United Nations. That's kind of a world legislature, you know,
Speaker 2: the Security Council being uh, I mean, ultimately this is
Speaker 2: what what what what what developed? But this is what
Speaker 2: they had in mind, you know, early on, even the
Speaker 2: Security councilor it's equivalent being you know, kind of like
Speaker 2: the upper House, the General Assembly being the lower house,
Speaker 2: you know, in America, having having a monopoly on atomic weapons,
Speaker 2: you know, therefore, you know, being able to reign in
Speaker 2: the Soviets when they were when there was policy disputes
Speaker 2: out of governing the world. But even that, aside the UH,
Speaker 2: there's no possible outcome where uh, where in neutral Germany
Speaker 2: or a demilitarized Germany is tolerated. Okay, you know the
Speaker 2: UH true Truman took Truman took the oth of office
Speaker 2: with a hostile Congress, the UH. Even though even the
Speaker 2: Republicans gutted as they were, the America First Movement had
Speaker 2: been cast into disrepute, and some of these people had
Speaker 2: actually been prosecuted and hounded and terrorized. Sounds kind of familiar.
Speaker 2: But Robert Taff still made who remained like a strong
Speaker 2: voice on Capitol Hill as kind of the you know,
Speaker 2: the opposition, and even people who are interventionists, you know,
Speaker 2: even like hawk as Republicans who who who are not isolationists,
Speaker 2: you know, they were they were demanding essentially that you know,
Speaker 2: Germany not be allowed to just fall into the Soviet
Speaker 2: sphere of influence outright, So looking ahead, unless Roosevelt's plan
Speaker 2: quite literally was a simply just seed Europe to the communists,
Speaker 2: you can't really come to either conclusion, okay, and it's
Speaker 2: not me just being like the famatory makes a minio
Speaker 2: logical point, like what other conclusion can you come do?
Speaker 2: You know? In one of the UH despite what despite
Speaker 2: that kind of public face like pretty much everything and
Speaker 2: well I'm gonna get into Berlin airlift in a minute,
Speaker 2: and and what that signifies. But pretty much all the
Speaker 2: negotiations with Stalin from UH from nineteen forty five onward
Speaker 2: were or in basically bad faith about we're talking about
Speaker 2: the stands in Germany because again, I mean, nobody was gonna,
Speaker 2: no nobody in America, regardless of political strike, was going
Speaker 2: to allow in neutral Germany, Okay, because that meant that
Speaker 2: there's absolutely no point in fighting the Second World War,
Speaker 2: and the Second Worlder should not have been fought. But
Speaker 2: whether the strategic logic of the war planners in America,
Speaker 2: at all costs journey must be prevented from capturing the East,
Speaker 2: whether that's by a concord, a peaceable concord relatively between
Speaker 2: Germany and the Soviet Union, whether it's by conquest, you know,
Speaker 2: with Hitler at the helm. I mean today as we see,
Speaker 2: I mean, what what that? This is what underlies the
Speaker 2: Ukraine War? Is it not the fact that the fact
Speaker 2: that the interdependence facilitated by from Merkle and mister Putin
Speaker 2: was not something that America is going to tolerate, because
Speaker 2: that's the only way that Europe casts off the shackles
Speaker 2: of America in the UK and becomes a super Okay,
Speaker 2: So even no matter where anybody fell in the political spectrum,
Speaker 2: you know, they were not just going to allow demilitarized Germany,
Speaker 2: but wherein you know, just by accident geography and proximity,
Speaker 2: they were going to be incorporated into the Soviet sphere
Speaker 2: of influence in some basic way. So there's that. I
Speaker 2: mean probably there's there's there's more there than then we
Speaker 2: have time to cover right now. But I I think
Speaker 2: that that it's not a mystery, but it is enigmatic
Speaker 2: as to what exactly Roosevelt's intentions were, and especially when
Speaker 2: considers too that I mean Roosevelt and knowing certain terms,
Speaker 2: knew that he was not going to liver along. Okay,
Speaker 2: So I what how how exactly saw the world developing
Speaker 2: after he was gone? Is? UH? Is is an open
Speaker 2: ended question. And again, I mean, Roosevelt was a lot
Speaker 2: of things, but he was not Joe Biden. He was
Speaker 2: not Senile Okay, any it was really wasn't until the
Speaker 2: final months of his life, was really compromise, and he
Speaker 2: wasn't really you know, running running the country or the
Speaker 2: war and an executive capacity anyway. But it uh, But
Speaker 2: back to back to UH, back to UH. The topic
Speaker 2: at hand, what to give an idea of how kind
Speaker 2: of slap dash for lack of a better word, the
Speaker 2: led administration that divided Germany was there was AH, what
Speaker 2: was emplement was called the Common Common to Tourah and UH.
Speaker 2: It was representatives of the United States, the Soviet Union,
Speaker 2: the UK, and France meeting in UH, this kind of
Speaker 2: mini UH executive council, and they were supposed to come
Speaker 2: to they were supposed to going to terms on how
Speaker 2: Berlin was to be administered, you know, in Berlin being
Speaker 2: you know, to Maladov's point, you know, Berlin being quite literally,
Speaker 2: you know, the kind of heart and lungs of Germany
Speaker 2: and Germany being you know, the the axial pivot of Europe.
Speaker 2: The idea was, well, what's the sayings of Berlin has resolved,
Speaker 2: you know, the UH, the state, the stands of Germany
Speaker 2: proper will be resolved, and then you know that this
Speaker 2: this will just be a you know, UH, a done deal,
Speaker 2: which seems incredible. Anybody could entertain that possibility is anything realistic?
Speaker 2: As time as time passed to be unclear that not
Speaker 2: only did the Soviets have absolutely no intention of of
Speaker 2: allowing a Western military presence in Berlin, but the Soviet
Speaker 2: delegates UH. The Soviet delegate neither him nor any of
Speaker 2: his UH nor any of his UH adjutants spoke English.
Speaker 2: The American delegation nobody spoke Russian. You know, a couple
Speaker 2: of people were like trying to communicate like pigeon French
Speaker 2: kind of like across the aisle. Like this whole thing,
Speaker 2: this whole thing was was a ridiculous charade, you know,
Speaker 2: like the most petty issues that be debated for weeks
Speaker 2: sometimes months. The uh, the Russians were demanding. UH, they
Speaker 2: issued something and the sorry and the Sonian language is
Speaker 2: not unintentional. They produced a document called the Fourteen Points,
Speaker 2: which which basically demanded that in the Eastern sector of
Speaker 2: Berlin there could be like no no quote profiteering at
Speaker 2: the expensive workers and things like this, you know, like
Speaker 2: it was. Uh, it's basically like a radical socialist manifesto
Speaker 2: saying that you know, the the the only, the only,
Speaker 2: the only legitimate capitol producer in in this arbitrarily designated
Speaker 2: eastern sector in Germany, you know, was Moscow and nobody
Speaker 2: else the UH And finally this carried on for a good,
Speaker 2: uh close to two years, and UH finally UH a
Speaker 2: clerical staff, some kind of skeleton crew remained at UH
Speaker 2: at UH at the at these at these meetings, representing
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union. But on by August first, nineteen forty eight,
Speaker 2: some UH, some representatives U un ceremonious we removed the
Speaker 2: Soviet flag, took all their files, clean up their offices,
Speaker 2: and the Soviets has never returned. You know, they were
Speaker 2: they they they essentially like it was basically like a
Speaker 2: solid boycott that killed the enterprise because it had it
Speaker 2: had no no, no even second reason, that forced a
Speaker 2: law without all for resident of all four occupation states present,
Speaker 2: what's more significant to show you kind of the the
Speaker 2: dysfunctional state of East Germany. I've noticed that a lot
Speaker 2: of people, I mean people, obviously, I'm talking about court historians. Okay,
Speaker 2: they're obsessed with the personages of the Third Reich uh
Speaker 2: generally because they want to cast on those cutitive like possible,
Speaker 2: but even more sensible, even more sensible people, you know,
Speaker 2: they fixate very much. And the individuals who constituted sort
Speaker 2: of the control group of the party and of and
Speaker 2: of the of the state. You don't find that a
Speaker 2: lot with East Germany, Okay, Now, not in any sort
Speaker 2: of the imagination suggesting that these men were nearly as
Speaker 2: dynamic as those who constituted the the NSDAP or that
Speaker 2: the DDR was you know, some some kind of you know,
Speaker 2: independent power into itself, that they wielded any great authority
Speaker 2: or power of projection capability. However, it was in fact
Speaker 2: part of the German state. Okay, even if you don't
Speaker 2: even if even if that is now people didn't recognize
Speaker 2: its legitimacy as as a sovereign regime. It you know,
Speaker 2: twenty million Germans lived there. Berlin was within its borders
Speaker 2: and it was, uh, it was quite literally at the
Speaker 2: front lines of of of the geostrategic divide for forty years. Now.
Speaker 2: Who who came to run the d DR? Well, the
Speaker 2: Soviets tapped h Walter Ubert. Walter Ubercht was even an
Speaker 2: exiled member of the KPD. You know, he'd been uh,
Speaker 2: even an active revolutionary in the Weimar years, you know,
Speaker 2: into the UH into the years of the the Third Reich,
Speaker 2: and like a lot of communists, you know, he he
Speaker 2: realized that he was gonna be prosecuted and imprisoned if not,
Speaker 2: if not shot, and he fled to the Soviet Union.
Speaker 2: Ulbrich was deployed to Berlin before the cessation of hostilities.
Speaker 2: He arrived in April thirtieth what was called the Ulberton Group.
Speaker 2: There are various various functionaries, uh, prisoners, anti fascist prisoners
Speaker 2: of war, you know, various guys like Ulbert himself, who
Speaker 2: whould fought for the Reds in Spain and then UH
Speaker 2: and then and then found amnesty and in in the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union after the ascendancy of the n sd A P.
Speaker 2: But these guys uh and and all and and all
Speaker 2: and there there was what was called the Akerman group
Speaker 2: who was deployed to Sacks and the Eve, the Sabatka group,
Speaker 2: two to UH to Mechlenberg, you know, all named after
Speaker 2: their their cadre leader, you know. And Anton Akerman of
Speaker 2: the sonianed Akerman group, he was part of the he
Speaker 2: the functionary of the communist youth movement in Germany in
Speaker 2: the twenties, you know. Then he joined the KPD. H
Speaker 2: he was sentenced to death in absentia, you know, and
Speaker 2: after nineteen thirty three. Like these guys are basically the
Speaker 2: whole post war coterie of Germany. They were the old
Speaker 2: like KPD control group. So that meant that, you know,
Speaker 2: not only they've they've been they've been gone for ten
Speaker 2: sometimes twenty years. They hadn't been they hadn't been a home,
Speaker 2: you know, so they were it's not like they had
Speaker 2: UH cadres and being on the ground, I mean even
Speaker 2: among the Communis who stayed behind. You know, people were like,
Speaker 2: who the hell are these guys? You know, they had
Speaker 2: no they had no real mandate from people. Okay, I
Speaker 2: mean arguably, you know, when you're under occupation by the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union, it can't be said that any kind of
Speaker 2: genuine expression of popular will is possible. But this was
Speaker 2: especially contrived. And famously when Lubrick derived, you know, everybody
Speaker 2: knew who he was, you know, because he he was uh,
Speaker 2: you know, he he arrived in in you know, in
Speaker 2: uh in what had been East Prussia initially you have
Speaker 2: to have been you know, like liberated by the Soviets,
Speaker 2: and uh there were Germans who were some of communist
Speaker 2: sympathetic who said, oh, you have no idea like what
Speaker 2: they're doing to us, meaning the Red Army. You know,
Speaker 2: this this this rape and this and this, this pillage
Speaker 2: and this destruction, you know, And Ubert said, uh, you
Speaker 2: know that that's fascist propaganda. I don't believe that. You know,
Speaker 2: if you utter that again, I'll have you shot. You know,
Speaker 2: people were like, who the hell is this guy? You
Speaker 2: know what I mean, like he they uh so even
Speaker 2: what I'm getting at is that even even he consider
Speaker 2: that people were not enthusiastic about you know, the KPD
Speaker 2: or its legacy party coming to coming to dominate the
Speaker 2: state apparatus ubric teddy unique like lack of of credibility.
Speaker 2: You know, they might as well have just deployed you know,
Speaker 2: some some some Russian apparatchick from uh from Moscow or
Speaker 2: from or from at Vostok, you know, like what what
Speaker 2: what was even the point? But I believe, in my opinion, uh,
Speaker 2: it was basically for the benefit of the outside world.
Speaker 2: Like they were saying like, hey, look, you know we're
Speaker 2: we're not We're not afraid of Germans having, you know,
Speaker 2: sovereignty over the run affairs like mister Ubrich is you know,
Speaker 2: he's a German national, you know, so z Ackerman or
Speaker 2: I believe that's what it was all about. And uh,
Speaker 2: I mean the stories never would have trusted a genuine
Speaker 2: uh yeah, I mean even a genuine like radical socialist
Speaker 2: movement that was truly indigenous to Germany like that the
Speaker 2: war had changed all that. But I people are often
Speaker 2: they often say like, you know, how can they how
Speaker 2: could the uh how cold the Soviets think that the
Speaker 2: people just spotted the s c D. You know, it's like, well,
Speaker 2: I I don't, I don't. I don't think that was
Speaker 2: the point. I think the point was, you know, they
Speaker 2: it was, it was it was a kind of it
Speaker 2: was a kind of alibi when the eviction was raised
Speaker 2: that you know this, this was nothing but a hostile
Speaker 2: occupation and all but name. But in any event, and
Speaker 2: then when I say the se D the in the
Speaker 2: in the in the in the Soviet occupation sector, there
Speaker 2: was U. The KPD, UH declared uh E merged with
Speaker 2: the Social Democrats and became the Party of Socialist Unity. Okay,
Speaker 2: the real party of the d d R was not
Speaker 2: the KPD, it was the s D. Okay, just for
Speaker 2: reference sake. But as this UH, as this was developing,
Speaker 2: there was UH in in the west, there was there
Speaker 2: was not a clear kind of policy trajectory. Now enter
Speaker 2: entered George Kennon. Kennon was the He was the de
Speaker 2: facto ambassador to the Soviet Union. He was actually the
Speaker 2: charge of the affairs. Okay, but I mean, for all
Speaker 2: pradical purposes, he was the ambassador. You know what Kennon's uh.
Speaker 2: What Kennon's not known for is UH is is the
Speaker 2: long the long memo Okay, there was so so named
Speaker 2: because it was the longest State Department dispatcher ever said
Speaker 2: by telegram. It was all over five thousand words, the
Speaker 2: Long Telegram, not the Long Memo. I find this to
Speaker 2: be the most mischaracterized document or statement of the Cold War,
Speaker 2: save maybe for Cruisehip's quote secret speech. Okay, the term
Speaker 2: containment was, yes, it was coined by this telegram, but
Speaker 2: uh Kenan was not calling for some kind of hawkish
Speaker 2: military resistance to the Soviet Union. Like Kenyon was profoundly
Speaker 2: an a communist, he was horrified by the Soviet Union,
Speaker 2: but he was not a military man, and he was
Speaker 2: not proposing any kind of military doctrine what he When
Speaker 2: the Long Telegram was expanded to an essay length, it
Speaker 2: appeared in Foreign Affairs, which at one time was a
Speaker 2: great periodical. I've not looked at it in years. I
Speaker 2: assume it's kind of woke and silly like everything else,
Speaker 2: or it's full of crazy people want to like attack
Speaker 2: everybody on this planet for no reason. But at one
Speaker 2: time it was it was. It was not just a
Speaker 2: lot of prestige behind it, but it had real cachet
Speaker 2: because it was very serious. But the actual title of
Speaker 2: the long Telegram expanded to proper pay per form with
Speaker 2: sources of Soviet conduct, And that's exactly what it was about.
Speaker 2: Ken It was a rare kind of occidental man. And
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to be offensive or say bad things
Speaker 2: are Russian people, but they're very different. Okay, They're very
Speaker 2: different than the West. Even the best of times, even
Speaker 2: when they had a more normal government, it was difficult
Speaker 2: to decipher their intentions. And there was not just linguistic barriers.
Speaker 2: There's there's cultural barriers that relate to symbolic psychology and
Speaker 2: historical experience and all kinds of other things. But Kennon's
Speaker 2: enterprise was, I've got to try to make the Department
Speaker 2: of Stay in the Department of War, and more importantly,
Speaker 2: mister Truman understand the world to the Soviets eyes. Now,
Speaker 2: kenn said that, uh, there's not gonna there's never there's
Speaker 2: no one. You're not gonna be able to come to
Speaker 2: come to terms with the Soviet Union, Okay, he said,
Speaker 2: you so get that out of your head right away.
Speaker 2: In policy terms, he said, the Soviets are never going
Speaker 2: to give you what you what what you want. They're
Speaker 2: not gonna either They're they're not gonna abide Roosevelt's vision
Speaker 2: of you know, ruling the world with Uncle Sam as
Speaker 2: a junior partner. They're they're not gonna accept the United
Speaker 2: States has a benign influence in Europe. You know, they're
Speaker 2: not They're not gonna view, uh, any of America's move
Speaker 2: outside the out of side of its immediate sphere of
Speaker 2: influences is legitimate, and that owes to a few things.
Speaker 2: It was the It was that it was the Russian
Speaker 2: traditional Russian fixation on security, and in very basic terms,
Speaker 2: the Russians need defense in depth, and Russia is a
Speaker 2: state that is in a nation that is constantly attacked
Speaker 2: by its enemies. So there's that. Now you add to
Speaker 2: that the overlay of Marcist Leninist city ology, which at
Speaker 2: that time it's still very much was still very much
Speaker 2: interstitially bound up with kind of the Russian political mind.
Speaker 2: They've viewed the United States is not much different than
Speaker 2: the Third Reich, and they've give the third right because
Speaker 2: that is still doesn'ts of evil and the view the
Speaker 2: United States and the UK as capitalist states and crisis
Speaker 2: who at all costs are gonna pursue an adversarial pass
Speaker 2: with the Soviet Union, because the only way capitalist states
Speaker 2: can keep from cannibalizing one another is to find an
Speaker 2: enemy from without. Okay, now this is boiler plate Leninism,
Speaker 2: but the Soviets that actually believe that, and kend Of
Speaker 2: made the point that, you know, unlike in the United States,
Speaker 2: unlike in the UK, you know, where political discourse is
Speaker 2: kind of this, it is almost kind of this. It's
Speaker 2: almost kind of like play acting in the Soviet. Soviet
Speaker 2: leaders like when they say things, they actually mean exactly
Speaker 2: what they say, even if it sounds crazy. The Soviet
Speaker 2: Union is not an able transparent but the official statements
Speaker 2: coming from the Kremlin are actually exactly what the and
Speaker 2: you can extrapolate that to today when the Russian government
Speaker 2: is is a formal statement that's actually exactly what they mean. Now,
Speaker 2: don't get me wrong. The Kremlin then is now is
Speaker 2: literally byzantine. Russian political culture is totally opig is massively conspiratorial. Uh,
Speaker 2: it's all screwed up. But you don't have like weird actors,
Speaker 2: you know, just kind of saying things in Russian political
Speaker 2: life like you do in the West. It's totally different.
Speaker 2: And obviously American political culture then was not nearly as
Speaker 2: degenerate as now, but there was some of that. And
Speaker 2: this was a very important point. And so Kennon's point
Speaker 2: was what he meant by containment is this, he said,
Speaker 2: the way the world's gonna be ordered, the way this
Speaker 2: entire planet, the fate of this entire planet, quite literally
Speaker 2: in political and structural terms, political structural terms and sociological ones,
Speaker 2: it's going to be decided by who can win over
Speaker 2: the developing world and the Third World and the Soviet
Speaker 2: you mean, Kennon pointed out, has a lot of cachet
Speaker 2: there because the third world is full of people who
Speaker 2: are already kind of radicalized. They've not had a good
Speaker 2: experience with the white Western world. Part of that is
Speaker 2: the scapegoating. Part of that is, you know, just kind
Speaker 2: of the tragedy of when traditional societies, especially primitive ones,
Speaker 2: and again I'm not saying that cunitively, that's just an
Speaker 2: accurate assessment, you know, collide with modernity, you know, and
Speaker 2: the UH and UH and the double edged sort of technology,
Speaker 2: you know, and you know, the quote unquote what weav
Speaker 2: was progress, but what they view as you know, very
Speaker 2: very traumatic UH processes and beyond that, the uh just
Speaker 2: within you know we we we even in the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 2: you know, uh, people in America had come to look
Speaker 2: at Bolshevism and and Marxist Leninism outside of you know,
Speaker 2: academic corners and things like the Man in the Street
Speaker 2: used as something that did not really deliver and if
Speaker 2: uned as basically alien and those of the interviewers basically alien,
Speaker 2: uned as something that you know, was was was not
Speaker 2: was not it's not animated him towards you know, some
Speaker 2: kind of impassionate defense of the ideology. Okay, but in
Speaker 2: the Third World that was not the case at all.
Speaker 2: I mean really until the eighties, Marcus Lennon hasn't had
Speaker 2: great cache in the Third World. And if you want
Speaker 2: to understand the Cold War and White endored for so
Speaker 2: long that is why, okay, I mean long after there
Speaker 2: was any kind of risk of you know, France, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, people in France going to the polls and
Speaker 2: voting in some Stalinist party. So long after you know,
Speaker 2: Gus Fall and his friends said any any chance of
Speaker 2: turning you know, the teamsers unied into a some kind
Speaker 2: of Communist client, you know. Uh, in in places like Angola,
Speaker 2: you know, places like Nicaragua, in places uh, in places
Speaker 2: you know, like Indonesia, there was there was still cachet
Speaker 2: who communism. Okay, So Kenn said, UH, there's got to
Speaker 2: be a broad spectrum uh attack on communism, particularly uh,
Speaker 2: you know, in terms of UH, in terms of suaging
Speaker 2: anxieties about uh the development model of the West. You know,
Speaker 2: that means not disturbing and upsetting uh indigenous cultures where
Speaker 2: it's not essential to do so in order to uh,
Speaker 2: in order to create a political culture that you know
Speaker 2: is suitable for American goals. You know that means that
Speaker 2: you know, not over reliance on on the military aspect
Speaker 2: of competition, but you know, demonstrating uh, demonstrating uh American
Speaker 2: systemic superiority that we can see you away, you know, scientifically, culturally, technologically,
Speaker 2: you know, uh, in the arts, like all all of
Speaker 2: these things. Unfortunately, the people are selective in especially in
Speaker 2: policy terms, and what they what they take from UH
Speaker 2: these kinds of broad based position statements of of inspired
Speaker 2: people like Kenon. So the way people read uh the
Speaker 2: Kenon uh the Long Telegram and the Canon memo is oh,
Speaker 2: we've we've we've got to challenge the Soviet Union militarily
Speaker 2: at all costs. Uh, basically like in every theater where
Speaker 2: where they assert themselves and that uh and then that
Speaker 2: and thus Kennon and that this was this was the
Speaker 2: bane of his existence for his whole life. And he
Speaker 2: made that clear, uh decade after decade that he was
Speaker 2: called the quote father of containment. But at the event,
Speaker 2: regardless of the fact that Kennon did not appreciate being
Speaker 2: forced to go to the court of public opinion to
Speaker 2: co sign, you know, what became containment as policy with
Speaker 2: what was fleshed out in his in his position paper. Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, Truman had a problem because Truman was facing
Speaker 2: an increasingly aggressive Soviet Union that was quite clearly doing
Speaker 2: everything that could to lock uh the West out of
Speaker 2: Berlin and ultimately locked the West out of Germany at all.
Speaker 2: And as we said, he had a hostile Congress. Already
Speaker 2: people had become very, very soured on the idea of
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union, not just as an ally but as
Speaker 2: a benign influence in the world. And furthermore, you know,
Speaker 2: one of the things we were speaking of Tehran, uh,
Speaker 2: the Tehran's Summit, not not fleshing out what the status
Speaker 2: of Berlin and the status that German Germany would be
Speaker 2: moving forward. It didn't indicate anything as to how, what
Speaker 2: what what would become of the world where you know,
Speaker 2: the UK is simply you know, UH just simply declared
Speaker 2: these people in the dominions to have like, you know,
Speaker 2: to to have like rights of British citizenship now, you know,
Speaker 2: and like these these these territories in Africa you know
Speaker 2: that were being that were they were being seated to
Speaker 2: indigenous rule and divested from you know, from the from
Speaker 2: the French and from the Belgians. You know, like what
Speaker 2: like what how do we manage these places? You know,
Speaker 2: like what moving forward? Like you know, who's going to
Speaker 2: take the lead here? You know, is is it going
Speaker 2: to be you know, is it gonna be under some
Speaker 2: kind of like u N jurisdiction? Is it going to
Speaker 2: be under the jurisdiction of the former colonial authority? You know,
Speaker 2: this was not clear and this caused huge problems and
Speaker 2: it led to UH. It led to UH and what
Speaker 2: I considered to being one of the first UH active
Speaker 2: crisis of the Cold War. One of the many horrible
Speaker 2: things UH we can say about Churchill and they are
Speaker 2: many you know that trying to resort diperbole as it
Speaker 2: became clear posti alta in Churchill's mind that the United
Speaker 2: States was not gonna do anything to preserve the British Empire,
Speaker 2: like why why it goes to show you the man's
Speaker 2: fundamental lack of understanding under the character of Roosevelt, but
Speaker 2: of you know, the emerging kind of geopolitical culture of
Speaker 2: uh of the epoch. Turchile hascided that something had to
Speaker 2: be done to guard the UK's fledging interest in the Mediterranean.
Speaker 2: So he approached Stalin and Molotov without Roosevelt's knowledge, and
Speaker 2: he drafted this is an absurd document what was called
Speaker 2: the Percentages Agreement, quite literally, where he wrote out what
Speaker 2: percentage of influence the Soviet Union be allowed and the
Speaker 2: UK would be allowed, and he territories the Mediterranean like
Speaker 2: literally writing, well, the you know, the US is organ
Speaker 2: ten percent influence in Greece and London hast of ninety percent,
Speaker 2: Like how any rational person I think that's the way
Speaker 2: fear of influence works, And what the hell is ninety
Speaker 2: percent influence in our political terms? The whole thing is absurd,
Speaker 2: it's it's crazy it's literally crazy. But Greece was the
Speaker 2: first state post war really when the Germans withdrew from
Speaker 2: Greece and forty four a communist insurgency jumped off. And
Speaker 2: it was very complicated like who the players wore and
Speaker 2: everything like that, but it was the UK deployed to
Speaker 2: prevent a communists takeover. People sympathetic to the communists. They
Speaker 2: you referred to it as the second White Terror in Greece.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of mercenary action there. It was. It
Speaker 2: was actually a very it was a bloody conflict, okay,
Speaker 2: but the uh but the point is that, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: this is also what later led you know, a decade
Speaker 2: subsequent to the Suez Crisis or and that led Eisenhower
Speaker 2: to kind of you know declaring uh a status of
Speaker 2: uh of of relations for the Middle East, you know,
Speaker 2: and shutting uh, shutting the French, the French and the
Speaker 2: UK out of it permanently. And in those days too,
Speaker 2: Eisenow was the last president. It wasn't all the old
Speaker 2: and as this issue. But at any event, you know,
Speaker 2: there was not uh what what whatever Truman thought about containment,
Speaker 2: you know, however hawkish or conciliatory, he felt about the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union. If he wanted to continue as president, he's
Speaker 2: gonna have to take some gonna firm line, at least
Speaker 2: what appeared to be such. He's gonna have to articulate
Speaker 2: some kind of policy and make clear, you know what,
Speaker 2: what the conflict diets were, that if the Soviets traversed them,
Speaker 2: there would inevitably be war. And uh, a lot of that.
Speaker 2: It was the experience of Korea and how NATO was formed.
Speaker 2: And the next episode is gonna be the Native episode,
Speaker 2: and it's hugely important, especially today. But I don't want
Speaker 2: to jump into that now, but to continue the uh,
Speaker 2: the the real kind of key incident, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: or like a series of events, what started the Cold Wars.
Speaker 2: The Berlin Blockade. Okay, and as as people probably imagine,
Speaker 2: even people who you know don't reel out of the
Speaker 2: Cold War, you know, West Berlin was one hundred and
Speaker 2: ten miles into the Soviet occupation sector. Okay, it was.
Speaker 2: It was. The entirety of Berlin was in with the game,
Speaker 2: the DDR and the western half. The only way you
Speaker 2: could access it civilian or military vehicles was by dedicated
Speaker 2: access routes. There's roads for the duration of the Cold
Speaker 2: War that were literally dedicated access routes for like US
Speaker 2: military and civilian uh and West European traffic, you know,
Speaker 2: to pass through the d d R, you know, to
Speaker 2: reach West Berlin and then to return the dedicated access
Speaker 2: road and that was the only traffic permitted there. And
Speaker 2: that was the case early on. I mean they they
Speaker 2: these routes were later you know, on a formalized like
Speaker 2: structurally as a matter of law, but uh, it was uh,
Speaker 2: the the Soviets weren't weren't simply allowing uh you know
Speaker 2: open uh aggress and egress of Americans and British and
Speaker 2: French civilian or military in and out of West Berlin.
Speaker 2: But they weren't. They they did not outright blackaded it before.
Speaker 2: But what was kind of the straw that broke the
Speaker 2: camel's back was uh the uh as the United States
Speaker 2: uh as uh as like as a true economic policy
Speaker 2: kind of took shape, I mean just not a necessity.
Speaker 2: I mean, this just proceeded, you know, a formal political
Speaker 2: uh outlook, let alone policy on West Berlin. But uh,
Speaker 2: I mean the economy had to rebuild because people, i mean,
Speaker 2: their infrastructure was destroyed. You know people, people weren't being
Speaker 2: fed what and it became, uh, it became imperative. First
Speaker 2: and foremost introduced a viable currency, so the uh, the
Speaker 2: United States introduced the Deutsche mark, which is interesting because
Speaker 2: it's interesting, I mean, like a lot of people think
Speaker 2: of the deutsch mark because I mean the deutsch park
Speaker 2: was I mean the strongest currency in Europe and which
Speaker 2: I saw him. I'm taking them engagement the other day.
Speaker 2: You know, the Germans didn't sign the Matric Treaty because
Speaker 2: they wanted to get off the deutsch Mark. It was
Speaker 2: owing to political pressures and other things. But people have
Speaker 2: an idea of it. It's just kind of us like
Speaker 2: it's kindrad Aden now where you know, and and like
Speaker 2: the and like the Buddhist Republic, like Deutsche Bank or whatever.
Speaker 2: Just uh just saying like, okay, this is a successor
Speaker 2: to the rice market. That is not what happened. It
Speaker 2: was he was occupation and authorities who introduced it then
Speaker 2: and very much UH sold the Nasson West Berlin government
Speaker 2: on it. But uh, the Soviets went nuts uh when
Speaker 2: this happened, and uh they banned uh they banned uh
Speaker 2: there the Deutsche mark from uh the from the the
Speaker 2: Eastern zone of occupation. And yes they were literally arresting
Speaker 2: people for for for for using it. So in the
Speaker 2: Eastern in the Eastern occupations or Berlin, people resorted using
Speaker 2: cigarettes as a defective currency. Like no, lie, I think
Speaker 2: I mean that quite literally shows you, like what a
Speaker 2: prison society this was from from jump, I guess. I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't even have a particularly putitive view of the
Speaker 2: d d R, and I mean that that should be
Speaker 2: clear to anybody. But the uh, the introduction of the
Speaker 2: new currency, uh when when you know, before with we
Speaker 2: would all in the in the course of all the
Speaker 2: failed four powers uh administrative bodies. You know, the one
Speaker 2: thing that the Soviets that opposed unconditionally was uh, you know,
Speaker 2: the introduction of of a private enterprise in the East
Speaker 2: occupation zone. Okay, because there's no way they could to
Speaker 2: controlled that, I mean obviously, and it couldn't have Eventually
Speaker 2: if the Soviets had played their cards right, I'm talking
Speaker 2: like years later, if not decades, I think they could
Speaker 2: have made East Berlin kind of like they could have
Speaker 2: viewed it treated, they could have treated kind of like
Speaker 2: you know that the Chicoms treat Hong Kong. But I
Speaker 2: mean that was many years off, like they this could
Speaker 2: not that was not in the in the cards in
Speaker 2: ninety forty eight, especially not by you know, the shock
Speaker 2: therapy is the introduction of of of this new currency
Speaker 2: back by uh, you know, back by American dollars. Okay
Speaker 2: that there's no way, but the uh it was, uh,
Speaker 2: things changed. The deutschbeer was introduced on June seventeenth nine
Speaker 2: or June eighteenth, June eighteenth, ninety forty eight. The next
Speaker 2: day Soviet guards suddenly cracked down, you know, suddenly suddenly
Speaker 2: people uh the relatively kind of free ingress into into
Speaker 2: East Berlin. You know, people are being stopped and searched.
Speaker 2: People are being turned back. You know, UH trains are
Speaker 2: being halted, any freight shipments, any old water transport. They
Speaker 2: had to secure special permission from the Soviet authorities, not
Speaker 2: from the East Berlin authorities, from the Soviets themselves. The
Speaker 2: uh and UH got in the final uh got got
Speaker 2: to the point of no return. Three day subsequent, on
Speaker 2: the twenty first, the Soviets halted a US military supply
Speaker 2: terrain to Berlin and sent it back. So essentially, as
Speaker 2: always refused resupply of the United States Army forces in
Speaker 2: Europe and even the idea in Berlin because Berlin, again,
Speaker 2: Berlin was one hundred and ten miles into the interior
Speaker 2: of the d DR. There's only at that time there's
Speaker 2: only about three thousand US combat troops on the ground,
Speaker 2: about two thousand British. The Soviets had a comprable size
Speaker 2: force in East Berlin, but the Soviets had three hundred
Speaker 2: thousand forces and being throughout you know, Eastern Germany proper, so,
Speaker 2: I mean, if they came to war, there's those those
Speaker 2: guys in US Berlin were dead, you know, they they
Speaker 2: would have been slaughtered. I mean, so that this was
Speaker 2: an ominous thing, you know. And uh, that same day,
Speaker 2: the twenty second in June, the Soy's announced that they
Speaker 2: were introducing the East German Mark in their own zone
Speaker 2: of occupation. It was to be the only only legitimate,
Speaker 2: only legitimate currency. And uh, later on, which is really
Speaker 2: really weird. In East Berlin, Uh, I'm talking like into
Speaker 2: the eighties, there were specialty shops, there were there were
Speaker 2: like duty free shops where non East German citizens were visiting,
Speaker 2: they could they could buy stuff with foreign currency. Like
Speaker 2: cigarettes or liquor or like or like other things like food,
Speaker 2: like like like specialty food items. But but they were
Speaker 2: like designated foreign currency shops. I mean kind of like
Speaker 2: the the hoops that these Marxist Lennon states jumped through.
Speaker 2: They got to maintain the fiction that their currencies were
Speaker 2: actually worth something is really really weird, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. It's it's called like you know the old
Speaker 2: movie Brazil, Uh say, attire movie. I think, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: like yeah, it reminds me of that in some basic way.
Speaker 2: But it was a June twenty fourth. Uh, the Soviets
Speaker 2: severed land and in water connections between the non Soviet
Speaker 2: zones in Berlin, so all all ground rail or water
Speaker 2: traffic was cut off. Like nobody, nobody got in or
Speaker 2: out of West Berlin. Okay, the uh the uh. They
Speaker 2: couldn't cut off obviously like electricity and water, because that
Speaker 2: would have been an own goal, because I mean Berlin
Speaker 2: was quite literally just divided down the center with this
Speaker 2: kind of artificial like what like on a battle map,
Speaker 2: be considered like a salient, but it you know, there wasn't.
Speaker 2: It was not. People sometimes had this idea that there
Speaker 2: was something like rhyme or reason to how Berlin was divided,
Speaker 2: like there was not. So I mean it's not that
Speaker 2: you couldn't cut off utilities to half of Berlin but
Speaker 2: not the other half, but just the same West Berlin
Speaker 2: at the time, UH, at the time it was blockaded,
Speaker 2: and that's just over like a month's where like it
Speaker 2: was between like thirty five and forty five like days
Speaker 2: with the food, something like fifty days where the coal.
Speaker 2: It was like a very critical situation. And the entire
Speaker 2: the entire United States Army just total forces and being
Speaker 2: by ninty forty eight have been reduced about half a
Speaker 2: million men. The UH total force in the Western sector
Speaker 2: were about eight thousand, nine hundred Americans, about seventy six
Speaker 2: hundred British, about six thousand French. UH there was only
Speaker 2: thirty one thousand combat forces and all of West Germany.
Speaker 2: So I mean, if it came to war like a
Speaker 2: both Soviet attack, total Soviet military forces in the Soviet
Speaker 2: sector were one point five million. Now, the United States
Speaker 2: at that point that night still a monopoly and the
Speaker 2: atomic bomb, but I mean, what do you if if
Speaker 2: if if communist force is trewe to Berlin, what are
Speaker 2: you gonna do you know, you're gonna, you gonna you
Speaker 2: didn't you had launch an atomic assault in Berlin and
Speaker 2: waste drooling people and all the Berliners. I mean this, this,
Speaker 2: this was this was very very and frankly it was
Speaker 2: a uh it was a gamble of the sort that
Speaker 2: Stalin did not usually take. But interestingly it was Lucius Clay.
Speaker 2: Uh he was a commander of a the U. S.
Speaker 2: Occupation zone, you know, he said it was he said
Speaker 2: Curtis LeMay. Interestingly, le May wanted to do a he
Speaker 2: wanted to he wanted to mobilize atomic capable of B
Speaker 2: twenty nines an assault the Soviet sector but you know,
Speaker 2: like like nukeam you know, and uh and and mobilized
Speaker 2: with infantry they were available in West Berlin, uh or
Speaker 2: in West Germany, you know, and then to forcee delivery
Speaker 2: West Berlin with them after after this, after a massive
Speaker 2: atomic assault on Soviet forces with with B twenty nines.
Speaker 2: But uh that uh that that that suggestion was not invited, obviously,
Speaker 2: But I I it was not some kind of mad man.
Speaker 2: I'm a I'm I'm quite fond of May in history,
Speaker 2: and I think he's kind of unduly characterized as this
Speaker 2: kind of like Jack d Ripper type, you know, like
Speaker 2: in in Strange Love but UH loses Clay. Uh. It
Speaker 2: was uh in concert with uh a lot a lot
Speaker 2: of a lot of civilian types who you know, we're
Speaker 2: still we're still kind of uh, we're still kind of
Speaker 2: situated into into government and quasi military roles owing to
Speaker 2: the war only being three years past. US Army Corps
Speaker 2: engineers UH, US Army Air Forces. The Berlin airlift, UH
Speaker 2: was really uh, it was really kind of an amazing
Speaker 2: It was really kind of an amazing not just the
Speaker 2: not just policy coup, but sort of strategic rooking of Stalin.
Speaker 2: But it it it it Uh. It demonstrated the feasibility
Speaker 2: of uh of airpower in uh and not just in
Speaker 2: military capacities. I mean, which was obvious, but it it's
Speaker 2: some ways weird. It sounded maybe more coporable with the
Speaker 2: idea of you know, huge amounts of air traffic in
Speaker 2: and out of a major city, you know, and there
Speaker 2: there's there's a there's literally ideas before like oh there's
Speaker 2: gonna be like pollution and noise and things like it.
Speaker 2: You know, these like thousands and thousand, thousands of sorties
Speaker 2: in and out of Berlin. Uh. That that kind of
Speaker 2: changed things. Uh. And that's I mean, honestly, that's like
Speaker 2: a lot of time. How people become habituated to do technologies.
Speaker 2: It's not any kind of uh, it's not it's not
Speaker 2: any kind of small thing. I mean, there was guys
Speaker 2: like LeMay himself and these guys, ticularly guys who fought
Speaker 2: with the Army Air Forces in the Pacific. You know,
Speaker 2: they developed these uh they you know, they they developed
Speaker 2: these uh, these these assault routes from the Mariannas Islands
Speaker 2: and things, and uh, you know, there was the ex
Speaker 2: pres experience of the airlift uh over the quote hump
Speaker 2: of the Himalayas, you know, from India to China. But
Speaker 2: it was military guys who kind of understood the potential
Speaker 2: of air power it broad spectrum application, you know, military
Speaker 2: and civilian and commercial use. Like the man in the
Speaker 2: street really didn't. Then the Berlin Airlift. Uh, the Berlin
Speaker 2: Airlift changed it. Uh it uh it uh. But le
Speaker 2: May was he uh In terms of staffing decisions, he did,
Speaker 2: and he did. He did end up appointing a lot
Speaker 2: most of the key figures in executive roles who uh
Speaker 2: who May the airlift happened General Joseph Smith not to
Speaker 2: be confused, but like the father of Mormonism, he was
Speaker 2: he'd been uh but Smith had been like there's a
Speaker 2: huge amount of guys who served and served under le
Speaker 2: May during the war who went on like prestige rolls
Speaker 2: and including Robert McNamara or uh yeah McNamara. H Smith
Speaker 2: had been uh la made chief of staff uh when
Speaker 2: LaMDA B twenty nine command like in India and then
Speaker 2: in the Mary honest, Uh you know loss Clay wasn't
Speaker 2: under Lay's command. But I mean they you know, they
Speaker 2: made acquaintance during the war. But the uh, it demonstrated,
Speaker 2: it demonstrated what was possible. And it also uh it
Speaker 2: was such a collaborative effort between I mean it had
Speaker 2: to be even in the United States in the UK,
Speaker 2: I mean, for better or worse, you know, like and
Speaker 2: I'm not tragged in the UK. You know, the UK
Speaker 2: remained airstrip one in a real way obviously because of
Speaker 2: this and owing you know, like we like we talked
Speaker 2: about is an FDR is kind of inconsistent and frankly,
Speaker 2: Eve Pierant signaling about the status of U UK US
Speaker 2: relations uh post uh bellam. It wasn't clear like what
Speaker 2: role the UK would add here or whether or not
Speaker 2: the United States would raise a finger to defend you know,
Speaker 2: key strategic interest, not not just the interests of the empire,
Speaker 2: which regulating an interest in the United States and in
Speaker 2: preserving for any reason, but I mean the adults. So
Speaker 2: I mean it was it solidified the quote I hate
Speaker 2: the term special relationship. And there's all kinds of like
Speaker 2: things that are are far far less than admirable that
Speaker 2: that entails. But apparently, like uh collaborative strategic terms, it
Speaker 2: solidified you know, the US UK UH concord, particularly as
Speaker 2: regards UH operational coordination with UH with their forces, and
Speaker 2: that's no small thing. And before the revolution in military
Speaker 2: affairs and decades before contemporary commanding control, that was incredibly difficult. Uh.
Speaker 2: They really can't be overstated. I mean, something like Berlin
Speaker 2: AirLand would be the hell of a hell of an
Speaker 2: operation today. But I mean you're talking about like you're
Speaker 2: talking about like radios, the cutting edge of like commanding
Speaker 2: control technology and nine forty eight, like think about this,
Speaker 2: it's like stuff. So that's like it's son's less what
Speaker 2: like the Rockie talkies he played with his kid in
Speaker 2: like the early eighties, you know that. UH. But the
Speaker 2: the UH that was UH, that was the UH that
Speaker 2: was the that that was the opposite of the Cold
Speaker 2: War in UH in in real terms. And I don't
Speaker 2: I don't think anybody would. I don't think anyone would
Speaker 2: dispute would dispute that. And there were shenanigans too, like
Speaker 2: the there was one single municipal election for all of
Speaker 2: Berlin in UH in ninety forty six, and the the UH,
Speaker 2: the Socialist Unity Party didn't pull pathetically yourself and they
Speaker 2: only polled like you know, and that that's what put
Speaker 2: the Christian Democrats on the map, not just in West Berlin,
Speaker 2: but it's like the Bundesst Republic like Conservative party, but
Speaker 2: the Soviets basically they're basically they were like, you know, okay,
Speaker 2: the hell with it, Like we're not we're not gonna
Speaker 2: pursue a political solution, you know, with because obviously they
Speaker 2: weren't gonna they weren't gonna get you know, because my
Speaker 2: Berlin had been like the that had been like the
Speaker 2: Communist art Land, you know, like in the our years,
Speaker 2: I and people people post the question like not not
Speaker 2: as curious like readers, but like historians who like are
Speaker 2: deeply understand you know, uh rush of the era. They're like,
Speaker 2: why did the Russians do this? And uh, it was
Speaker 2: just to get the lay of the land. I'm telling you.
Speaker 2: I mean that that's it makes total sense from Stalin's perspective.
Speaker 2: Stalin was Stalin was what if Stalin's was a guy
Speaker 2: even the personality type today because there him like a
Speaker 2: dada junkie like Stalin was obsessed with informational awareness, you know,
Speaker 2: like he really was. And it's I guarantee. You just said, like, well,
Speaker 2: let's I mean, let's see, let's let's hold an actual election,
Speaker 2: like a legit election, and let's see what was more
Speaker 2: We got on the ground, Okay, about twenty twenty five percent,
Speaker 2: that's fair. We can build coveredies around there. But this
Speaker 2: is never gonna happen again, you know. But that's I
Speaker 2: think we're coming about an hour. I think we'll stop
Speaker 2: there and uh well, uh well, deep dive into I
Speaker 2: realized this might have been the most exciting episode, but
Speaker 2: it was important because otherwise we're we're dealing with a
Speaker 2: huge phenomenon, and that being the cold war where no
Speaker 2: actual kind of starting starting point or tab list has
Speaker 2: been identified. But well, we're gonna get into the Korean War,
Speaker 2: the formation of NATO, and it's the Truman doctrine next episode.
Speaker 1: That sounds great plugs.
Speaker 2: Well then yeah, we're I'm very happy to report that.
Speaker 2: I mean you might see it. I've got I've got
Speaker 2: this cool uh like backdrop. I'm in the Apocalypse. I
Speaker 2: fought my production values. Uh and also like I got,
Speaker 2: I got a video editor to join like our production team,
Speaker 2: and he's great. Uh So the YouTube channel is finally
Speaker 2: gonna launch. Uh. I I'm back on Twitter now because
Speaker 2: Elon is apparently giving people like me a amnesty. Uh.
Speaker 2: You can find me at Triskellian Jahad. The first T
Speaker 2: is a number seven. You can find me on substack
Speaker 2: uh at real Thomas seven seven seven. And I mean
Speaker 2: you can find me, like I said when I in
Speaker 2: in about it in a few days when I when
Speaker 2: the unit vannel doesn' launch, I'll upload a lot of
Speaker 2: this stuff there and it's uh Thomas TV in front
Speaker 2: of these Thomas seven seven seven. I know that's corny
Speaker 2: is supposed to be. It's a riff on Dave TV.
Speaker 2: If you're old like me, you remember, well there's Dave TV.
Speaker 2: I got Thomas TV. So yeah, but thank you, Pete.
Speaker 2: I really really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: No problem, we'll pick it up again next week. Thanks Thomas.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to The Pea Show,
Speaker 1: Part three with Thomas seven seven seven.
Speaker 2: How are you doing, Thomas, I'm very well. Thanks for
Speaker 2: hosting me. There's a few things I wanted to talk
Speaker 2: about today, and I want people to not be shy
Speaker 2: if I'm being too scater shot, I'm not focused enough.
Speaker 2: The Cold War is such a massive topic and it
Speaker 2: touches and concerns all kinds of theory matters, you know,
Speaker 2: which is kind of like my wheelhouse, but it also
Speaker 2: you know, in terms of practical affairs and very quantifiable things,
Speaker 2: you know. It it really kind of it created the
Speaker 2: contemporary strategic landscape, you know, and it endured for it
Speaker 2: endured for a century. So there's so much there. You've
Speaker 2: kind of got to pick and choose what you emphasize.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to go and lineit your order, because you know,
Speaker 2: that's and whatever you're whatever you're trying to whatever, whatever
Speaker 2: your emphasis is in in in revisionism, you know, you
Speaker 2: need to be as rigorous as you would in any
Speaker 2: other historical study. I mean that doesn't mean just you know, relating,
Speaker 2: relaying facts and documenting events for its own sake. But
Speaker 2: I don't just want to be taking off a list
Speaker 2: of you know, what I consider key events or something. However,
Speaker 2: if if I'm if I'm getting ahead of myself, or
Speaker 2: if there doesn't to be a kind of tie that
Speaker 2: binds to make the narrative listenable or intelligible, please tell
Speaker 2: me in the comments, and not going to get upset.
Speaker 2: What was on my mind a lot lately, especially because
Speaker 2: in the morning a couple of days a week, uh,
Speaker 2: my dad gives me a ride downtown for stuff I
Speaker 2: gotta do. And you know, I listened to eight ninety
Speaker 2: AM Talk Radio, which isn't it's not garbage like NPR,
Speaker 2: but it's garbage of a different sort. And they have
Speaker 2: all these polemical takes from you know, these like retired
Speaker 2: you know, captains and majors, you know, like kind of
Speaker 2: like third rate want to be war college types, you know,
Speaker 2: as well as you know, some of these kind of
Speaker 2: DeSantis type Republicans or kind of like the token conservatives
Speaker 2: on on the panel on these morning talk radio programs.
Speaker 2: You know, there's there's it's it's interesting the way these
Speaker 2: guys talk about Russia. Okay, because Russia kind of like
Speaker 2: dar al Islam. You're still allowed to say basically prejudice
Speaker 2: things about it, you know, because it's not you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's not part of that kind of protect it's
Speaker 2: not conceptually you know, incorporated into you know, the the
Speaker 2: victimology narrative. Okay. But also there's even as even if
Speaker 2: they erastinated as people are in America, you know, especially
Speaker 2: in terms of these you know, the kinds of people
Speaker 2: who populate media, what remains the original media at least,
Speaker 2: you know, even academic types who who couldn't tell you
Speaker 2: anything about their own heritage and are not very racially
Speaker 2: conscious at all. There remains this kind of atavistic fear
Speaker 2: of Russia. And that's not just some that's not that's
Speaker 2: not just some kind of hackneyed poetical take that people
Speaker 2: like Lavrov you know, drop uh on the on the
Speaker 2: floor of the you on General Assembly in order to
Speaker 2: make a point or to scandalize people. That really is true,
Speaker 2: and to understand the Cold War, you've got to understand
Speaker 2: You've got to really understand why that came about. I've
Speaker 2: been reading lately. There's this book by Michael Proudon and
Speaker 2: it was released interview, different titles, The Value I've got,
Speaker 2: it's under the titled The Mongol Empire. There's another one.
Speaker 2: There's another addition, identical book, you know, called called Storm
Speaker 2: out of Asia. But what it's all about is it's
Speaker 2: all about when the Europeans made first contact with the Mongols,
Speaker 2: you know, in the thirteenth century a d okay. Now
Speaker 2: why was this so significant? Well, you know, the Europeans
Speaker 2: since ten ninety five and intermediately been at war with U,
Speaker 2: with the Saracens, you know, at Salahadeen and his descendants.
Speaker 2: You know that this was a crusading ero, okay. And
Speaker 2: what was fascining about that is that it was the
Speaker 2: only time until I me, unless you count you know,
Speaker 2: the Napoleonic Wars, which were kind of more convenience than
Speaker 2: than than than you know, than a unity of faith obviously,
Speaker 2: you know, it's really the only time we had it,
Speaker 2: you know, truly European armies, you know, going off to
Speaker 2: the war against the common civilizational enemy. However, some of
Speaker 2: that kind of concord had been had been reached with
Speaker 2: the Mauslims. Okay, I mean sometimes, you know, sometimes there's
Speaker 2: relative peace that reigned, you know in UH, in the
Speaker 2: Kingdom of Jerusalem. You know, after that Battle of hot
Speaker 2: Team and UH the Moslim conquest, things deteriorated, but you know,
Speaker 2: there's just kind of like an ongoing thing. But in
Speaker 2: the twelve you know, in the twelve twenty, something of
Speaker 2: these rumors came about that there was this huge marauding army.
Speaker 2: It was just slaughtering everything in its path, and a
Speaker 2: lot of people in monasteries and monks, they're like, well,
Speaker 2: you know this, this, this is the scourge of God
Speaker 2: and he's punishing you know, the infidel Moslims, but he's
Speaker 2: also punishing these pagan tribes to populate the step, you know,
Speaker 2: because all these barbarian people are literally being driven west
Speaker 2: to the European frontier and saying, you know, there's these
Speaker 2: men on horses, there's long torsos, and they kill everybody.
Speaker 2: You know, when they like those left alive, you know,
Speaker 2: they take the women as slaves and they you know,
Speaker 2: they force the men into you know, into into Duty
Speaker 2: of Janis series. Basically you know, and they and they
Speaker 2: drive them, you know, out front, and you know they
Speaker 2: take they take the first blow when we when they
Speaker 2: encounter their enemies, and their enemies are everybody but them.
Speaker 2: And some people thought this was just nonsense, say, these
Speaker 2: are primitive Pagans, they're you know, they they don't know
Speaker 2: that hell are talking about. They probably smet the Saracens,
Speaker 2: you know. Other people said there were Jews who said, like, well,
Speaker 2: you know King David his combit, you know, and he's
Speaker 2: coming to punish you for the way you've treated the Jews,
Speaker 2: you know, and he's coming to punish Jews too, who've
Speaker 2: like forgotten God. Well, obviously with none of those things
Speaker 2: was the Mongols, okay, and the association of the East
Speaker 2: with this barbarian element that never really left okay, And
Speaker 2: I mean it never really left in the European cultural
Speaker 2: mind and conceptual horizon. But it also never really left
Speaker 2: literally okay, Like I'm not I'm not saying Russians are
Speaker 2: a bunch of Mongols or barbarians. But there was this
Speaker 2: this massive, uh, this massive monolithic force emerge it from
Speaker 2: the step that was just destroying everything in his path,
Speaker 2: assimilating everything that was left alive or left standing like
Speaker 2: literally into its into its structure. You know. That's that's
Speaker 2: really what the Soviet Union was. Okay. And at the
Speaker 2: at the at the at the s s uh Yunker schools,
Speaker 2: the uh, the Proudings book was actually given officers, okay,
Speaker 2: and that that significant. Himler didn't assign Himler and Paul Houser.
Speaker 2: They didn't have people reading the International jew They didn't
Speaker 2: have people reading Clouds of Wits. I mean, people didn't
Speaker 2: read Clouds with was Py the curriculum. But you know,
Speaker 2: the book you got my graduate graduation was this book
Speaker 2: by proud him Both because it's you know, it's always
Speaker 2: it's saying, you know this, this is your enemy. You know,
Speaker 2: this is what you know. You're you're in You're you're
Speaker 2: a knight of the new uh Blood Order of of
Speaker 2: of Europe, you know, in the s s and this
Speaker 2: is what we're fighting against, you know, because where the
Speaker 2: where the we're the watch on the Rhine. Okay. But
Speaker 2: also after you know, three hundred years of of the
Speaker 2: Westphalian paradigm, it you know, uh, the reality of true
Speaker 2: total war was was in and again okay, and uh
Speaker 2: that they cannot be emphasized enough, and even it sounds corny,
Speaker 2: but you can glean things from you know, uh, you can,
Speaker 2: you can you can discern symbolic psychological things even in
Speaker 2: kind of trashy media. You know, and I watch I
Speaker 2: didn't watched it in years. You know, I like a
Speaker 2: lot when I was a little kid. You know, Red Dawn,
Speaker 2: you know, with Patrick Swayze and see Thomas Howell. You know,
Speaker 2: the that's actually kind of an interesting movie, like as
Speaker 2: a period piece mostly, but you don't like the black
Speaker 2: history teacher when when the when when when the town
Speaker 2: first gets assaulted by like the Soviets and the Sandinistas
Speaker 2: and the Cubanos. He's teaching a class about gang is Khan, okay,
Speaker 2: And that's like not an accident, there's really like on
Speaker 2: the nose, okay. But so when you consider that, you
Speaker 2: consider that, you know, Europe is literally this kind of
Speaker 2: indefensible peninsula that you know it that that's the way
Speaker 2: you got to understand. That's way you gotta understand the
Speaker 2: Second World War. That's way you've got to understand essentially
Speaker 2: the entire the entire nuh, the entire European uh military
Speaker 2: orientation and uh, the you know, and the and uh
Speaker 2: and the the this this you know, the the striving
Speaker 2: eastward of UH of Teutonic peoples. And in the Cold War,
Speaker 2: this was very much kind of transposed to America. Okay,
Speaker 2: there was there was very much a racial component here. Okay,
Speaker 2: even though there were strange things going on in America.
Speaker 2: You know, there was the the fact that the Soviet
Speaker 2: Union became, you know, a superpower and without annihilated oh
Speaker 2: do uh oh to the United States align with it,
Speaker 2: to to crush uh imperium Europa with you know, under
Speaker 2: the under the German Reich. But you know, nevertheless, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, these uh, the these things re emerge again
Speaker 2: and again. It's it's almost like a it's almost like
Speaker 2: a natural structural form that like snatched back in a place,
Speaker 2: even when people try to corrupt it or mold it
Speaker 2: into different configurations. But I uh, what I want to
Speaker 2: talk about today is the war in Korea, and this
Speaker 2: bear is directly what we're talking about. And the Cold
Speaker 2: War actually was fought in terms of hot war. I
Speaker 2: mean all kinds of ledgered Maine, and there was there
Speaker 2: was true violence in Europe of but it was all
Speaker 2: I mean, it was never there was. There was never
Speaker 2: a general war fought in Europe during the Cold War.
Speaker 2: There was. The Cold War was literally grew hot in Asia. Okay,
Speaker 2: the Cold War where there was lead in the air
Speaker 2: between you know, mass conventional forces. They have been in Asia,
Speaker 2: and it's not accidental, and uh that's not uh, it
Speaker 2: wasn't just a matter of you know, well, you know
Speaker 2: this is a place where this is a place, these
Speaker 2: are this is a theater where you know, the Soviets,
Speaker 2: the Americans respect that we can push and not resk,
Speaker 2: triggering you know, the the apocalyptic conflict diad that's gonna
Speaker 2: lead to general nuclear war. And interestingly or fascinatingly, in
Speaker 2: the final phase of the Cold War, which will get
Speaker 2: into later, the real catalysts behind Reagan's five hunder I
Speaker 2: mean it's actually James Webbs, but I mean the the
Speaker 2: Reagan Administration's six hundred ship Navy was that they wanted.
Speaker 2: They wanted nuclear battle platforms and and and and supporting
Speaker 2: the fleet elements. You know, it was essentially like forest forest.
Speaker 2: The Soviet Union War was uppack to fight a two
Speaker 2: front nuclear war, if you can think of nuclear wars
Speaker 2: having a front, a rather two theater nuclear War and this, uh,
Speaker 2: this caused a serious problem from Frank drop of Uh
Speaker 2: a special I mean bresident of it began really under Carter,
Speaker 2: but that that's one of the things that really really
Speaker 2: kind of rooked the Soviet ambitions. Uh. It wasn't just
Speaker 2: the revolution of military affairs and and like the technological
Speaker 2: edge being lost, but getting into the Korean War. And
Speaker 2: again I hope those in't two like scatter Shot. We
Speaker 2: got into the Berlin Airlift last episode, you know, and
Speaker 2: in the Cold War, you know, the Cold War, the
Speaker 2: Cold War it formally kicked off by then, okay, and
Speaker 2: then in nineteen forty nine, the story has developed their
Speaker 2: own atomic capability. You know. We can get into the
Speaker 2: Rosenbergs maybe next episode if you want. I I didn't
Speaker 2: know if you wanted to cover the act. It's kind
Speaker 2: of controversy to you and people's strong feelings about it.
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 2: No, we need to cover that, Okay, we'll do that
Speaker 2: next next episode. We're gonna deal with the early espionage issues.
Speaker 2: We're gonna deal with like the Cambridge Five and the
Speaker 2: Rosenbergs and Alger Hisss and Roy Khane who prosecuted the Rosenbergs.
Speaker 2: But I want to stay to the Korean War in
Speaker 2: the Orient with this episode. So here we are in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty Secretaria State Dean Atchison, who he's there's there's
Speaker 2: been a lot of revisionist takes on him that are
Speaker 2: pretty unflattering. But Adisin was kind of a peculiar. I
Speaker 2: think it was kind of anna feat uh aristocrat type
Speaker 2: of the sore of the worst source. But I mean
Speaker 2: that's just my opinion. There's definitely even worse chief diplomats,
Speaker 2: but uh Absison's great blunder. I think it's inarguable. In
Speaker 2: January thirteen, nineteen fifty, you know, mind you this was
Speaker 2: as we talked about, uh, we talked about, you know,
Speaker 2: the desire to draw down conventional forces and rely upon
Speaker 2: that you know, the the the atomic bomb, you know,
Speaker 2: to resolve basically military exigencies, you know, in the threat
Speaker 2: of massive escalation. That this was creating problems as you know,
Speaker 2: the Cold War uh be you know, began to heat
Speaker 2: up in earnest quite literally, but there had not yet
Speaker 2: been an open challenge to uh to Truman. Okay, there
Speaker 2: had not yet been uh, I mean, other than the
Speaker 2: Berlin Blockade, which was I I mean that that was
Speaker 2: that was not a conventional provocation, you know, owing to
Speaker 2: the bizarre occupation regime and the fact that you know,
Speaker 2: Germany was permanently in limbo as a matter of law,
Speaker 2: you know, because there it was, it was quite literally
Speaker 2: under occupation authority, and there was no there was there
Speaker 2: was no end in sight and no pathway to a
Speaker 2: permanent peace treaty emergent. But the the UH, you know,
Speaker 2: the first true kind of challenge UH to UH to
Speaker 2: UH to American burgeening American and Germany was the Korean War.
Speaker 2: And I think of the Korean War and why it
Speaker 2: happened UH as somewhat analogous to why UH the First
Speaker 2: Gulf War happened. It had to do with incorrect signaling
Speaker 2: by UH, by by US diplomats. Like when I say incorrect,
Speaker 2: there really is a correct way to not disclose UH intentions. Well,
Speaker 2: at the same time, the turn reckless acts by you know,
Speaker 2: by national enemies, and that's deplomats must have instincts to
Speaker 2: know when to resort to such measures and must have
Speaker 2: a basic understanding of how to code their language such
Speaker 2: that you know, the signals can be clearly read while
Speaker 2: still you know, keeping keeping potential, keeping intentions, actual potential,
Speaker 2: you know, relatively hidden as need be a sustained credibility.
Speaker 2: But Danaison certainly did not do that. What Deanagison did
Speaker 2: on January thirteenth, nineteen fifty, he addressed he should have
Speaker 2: speech to the National Press Club, and what he said
Speaker 2: was this, When he was asked about, you know, what
Speaker 2: the policy was towards the communists in Asia, he said, Look,
Speaker 2: he literally said, there's a defensive perimeter in Asia. He said,
Speaker 2: the extens from Japan, do the Reikus Islands down to
Speaker 2: the Philippines in the south. So quite literally, if you
Speaker 2: look at a map that consumes kind of a line
Speaker 2: through the Pacific, Okay, within which I mean obviously you know,
Speaker 2: he like you, has sea lanes and things, but basically
Speaker 2: it's it's it's like a it's quite literally like a
Speaker 2: containment barrier, uh, you know, uh, bulwark against the against
Speaker 2: the against the Asian land mass. Okay. Now, Stalin was
Speaker 2: paying attention to this, as was Mao, And the way
Speaker 2: they read that was that, well, you know, despite the
Speaker 2: fact that Korea was under similar occupation in Germany, you know,
Speaker 2: you had you had a you know, you had you
Speaker 2: had a Soviet occupied UH. North you had a briefly
Speaker 2: American and Allied occupied in the south, and then north
Speaker 2: you had this UH kind of cargo cult Stalinist regime.
Speaker 2: And in the South you basically had a military dictator ship,
Speaker 2: but the military that was running it was not particularly capable. However,
Speaker 2: there was not forces in being on the ground in
Speaker 2: the South. UH, they had THEYD left Okay, and UH
Speaker 2: the UH. The the understanding was that America is not
Speaker 2: gonna defend Korea. Okay. Now why Stalin and Mao comed
Speaker 2: in Korea is UH is what's significant because Korea was
Speaker 2: not UH in Germany. And the reason why Korea today
Speaker 2: remains dysfunctional is because it UH. It borders UH both
Speaker 2: China and Russia, and so the striking distance of letty
Speaker 2: vas stock it's a stones throw away from Japan. Like
Speaker 2: quite literally, nobody wants to United Korea, but the Koreans,
Speaker 2: you know, America doesn't. The Russians and Chinese will not tolerated.
Speaker 2: Japan would not tolerated. This both supersedes and transcends UH
Speaker 2: Cold War rivalries now obsolescent, but also UH but but
Speaker 2: also as far less of a of a of a
Speaker 2: potential conflict. Diad that that that could result in true
Speaker 2: catastrophic escalation. It became that way because I'm a carthon.
Speaker 2: We'll get to that in a minute. Okay, Now what
Speaker 2: happened months later was on June twenty fifth, UH, the
Speaker 2: North North Prey launched and massive assault of of the South.
Speaker 2: It was a Sunday. President Truman. UH was at home
Speaker 2: in Missouri, away from Washington. Dean Atchison was in Maryland
Speaker 2: at his gentleman's farm. Henry Nis, who people the name
Speaker 2: people were recognized from our earlier episodes did so, was
Speaker 2: the Secretary of Defense. He was not a fishing trip
Speaker 2: in New Brunswick, but nitsad. Decades later, he was the
Speaker 2: principal architect of the Team Be exercise. He was a
Speaker 2: huge early neo conservative, okay, massive extreme Cold War hawk.
Speaker 2: He was the author of National Security Council Paper sixty eight,
Speaker 2: which was drafted in April of nineteen fifty, and that
Speaker 2: was one of the most important policy blueprints or policy
Speaker 2: statements of the Cold War. It provided it provided the
Speaker 2: roadmap for the permanent militarization of America of both conventional
Speaker 2: forces and in strategic nuclear forces. From you know from
Speaker 2: the time it was written the ninety nineteen fifty until
Speaker 2: you know, the Soviet Union collapsed, you know, forty years later.
Speaker 2: So he was a hugely significant guy, Okay, and uh,
Speaker 2: his first, uh, his first kind of challenge political nature
Speaker 2: was uh, was was butting heads with with you know,
Speaker 2: mister George Kennan. And we we discussed earlier. I mean
Speaker 2: Kennon obviously from what we discussed about him, and you know,
Speaker 2: from what we've talked about or is this kind of
Speaker 2: basic traits and character and it's kind of it's kind
Speaker 2: of decency in his basic sense of caution. I mean,
Speaker 2: he believed very much in strong defense, but you know,
Speaker 2: the cautious application of force and the service they're in.
Speaker 2: Kenn was one of the few men whatever people can say.
Speaker 2: I mean, we'll get into why this isn't a minute.
Speaker 2: But Kenan was really savaged in the era, in the
Speaker 2: epoch by his opponents, including people like Mitza, you know,
Speaker 2: for being you know, soft on communism and conciliatory towards
Speaker 2: the Soviets. But kenn Uh, he had been adamant for
Speaker 2: once prior to to the June twenty fifth that there
Speaker 2: were definite indicators of communist military activity in Asia and
Speaker 2: that they were going to assault somewhere. It was not
Speaker 2: clear where the theater would be for such activity and
Speaker 2: what the point of concentration would be and what would
Speaker 2: be prioritized they're in but MacArthur staven Tokyo just did not.
Speaker 2: They just disregard him entirely. They're like, this guy's in
Speaker 2: the egg ahead, he's never been in uniform. He isn't
Speaker 2: what the fuck he's talking about, and he can't even
Speaker 2: you know, provide us conceptual model of like where this
Speaker 2: is gonna jump off, you know, and what what we're
Speaker 2: gonna forces, it's gonna entail, you know, and what and
Speaker 2: what what what feeder is gonna be the primary area
Speaker 2: of operation. So they totally disregarded it. Okay, but this
Speaker 2: uh to give you an idea of kind of how
Speaker 2: fubar the National security Estalishman was neither Truman, nor uh
Speaker 2: Nis nor Atchison. It wasn't until they returned to Washington
Speaker 2: from their respective you know, vacations that uh they found
Speaker 2: out that Career was going to ressault because they saw
Speaker 2: the newspaper lines. Okay, there was no structure in place
Speaker 2: of of you know, notifying national command authorities of a
Speaker 2: wartime emergency and branded. I mean, this was that this
Speaker 2: was the dawn of the atomic age. But it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: I mean a you know, America, for better or worse,
Speaker 2: had had had just come off of a total mobilization
Speaker 2: and then you know, a mansion two front war. It
Speaker 2: was unprecedented in scope, scale and intensity, so impossible to
Speaker 2: rationalize as it is. That's the way things were when
Speaker 2: Kenon uh arright that night. Kennon Ken at this point
Speaker 2: was something of a minister without portfolio. Okay, Uh, he was.
Speaker 2: He'd been dismissed, as you know, the kind of quasi
Speaker 2: regent of the Department of State in Moscow. He'd ended
Speaker 2: his tenure as a special consultant to the National Security Advisor.
Speaker 2: But he, I mean, Ken was always in the executive orbit, okay,
Speaker 2: because he was a brilliant guy and he uh, he
Speaker 2: was the he was the foremost expert in the Soviet
Speaker 2: Union and the Rush and Russian culture. Okay. The evening,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, evening at June twenty fifth, Kennon double time
Speaker 2: to the Department of State and he said, look, he said,
Speaker 2: the critical strategic matter here is that formosa Taiwan has
Speaker 2: to be defended. He's like, if this is a general push,
Speaker 2: and it may well be, you know, he said, Uh,
Speaker 2: the secondary of Soul is the soult in South Korea,
Speaker 2: the primary cult is gonna be on Formosa, and ultimately, uh,
Speaker 2: there's gonna be a massive assault in Japan. Okay. If
Speaker 2: if the Soviets are going all in in Asia and uh,
Speaker 2: the Chinese, their Chinese proxies are going all in where
Speaker 2: we're gonna we're gonna be We're gonna fight a world
Speaker 2: war Japan, okay, which is very interesting. And uh, Taiwan
Speaker 2: is interesting because Taiwan is actually zero strategic significant today.
Speaker 2: And it shows you like the raw delusion of these
Speaker 2: of these of these bizarre fucking idiots, like like missus Pelosi,
Speaker 2: mister Biden, that they pretend that it's nineteen fifty and
Speaker 2: that this matters, or that they actually have you know,
Speaker 2: not only is there no steak in Taiwan, but this
Speaker 2: idea that if I mean, if an American carry group
Speaker 2: showed up declared the Taiwanese until the twenty two that
Speaker 2: we're gonna defend you, like, they'd be totally befuddled. And
Speaker 2: then they laugh in their face. You know, I mean
Speaker 2: it's uh, it's incredible. But in nineteen fifty UH had
Speaker 2: Taiwan fallen and had that ben you know, the like
Speaker 2: Moscow and Stalin's ambition. Ken was absolutely right the and UH,
Speaker 2: as we will see as we get deeper into this series,
Speaker 2: the Soviets put remarkable pressure on Japan, and then the
Speaker 2: Soviets roy is seeking out a weak spot as kind
Speaker 2: of their counterweight to UH to UH to the situation
Speaker 2: in Berlin especially and and the inner German border generally.
Speaker 2: And that's when underlay cruise shifts on the serves amparently
Speaker 2: reckless deployment a strategic nuclear forces at Cuba, which blew
Speaker 2: up in his face. But UH, the UH finding a
Speaker 2: finding a if the Soviets had been able to find
Speaker 2: a soft spot as it were in uh the Asian
Speaker 2: UH defense paradigm or structure rather wherein they could squeeze
Speaker 2: Japan with a combination of you know, a hard power
Speaker 2: threat and and soft power UH UH insteadivization, UH America
Speaker 2: would have had a real problem in that regard. So
Speaker 2: Ken was not just you know, dropping wild doomsday scenarios,
Speaker 2: and what he was saying was very possible as it
Speaker 2: was I Uh, I think I think Stalin was. Uh.
Speaker 2: I think Stalin was testing Mau's loyalty and uh the
Speaker 2: side still get split as complicated. There's profound cultural variables
Speaker 2: there as well as political ones, as well as simple
Speaker 2: uh well as well as things as simple as you
Speaker 2: know the uh like like dang who was you know,
Speaker 2: who's the shadow executive? I mean basically, after after mild
Speaker 2: and after the Gang of Four got he was finding
Speaker 2: this somewhat greedy and and so were and so was
Speaker 2: his inner coterie and and and men like him and
Speaker 2: men like them can be blocked. But also the reason
Speaker 2: why uh it was it wasn't just owing to the
Speaker 2: kind of nascent uh nascent uh nature of of the
Speaker 2: of the of the Cold War paradigm during the last
Speaker 2: years of Stalin's life. That that that that Pey king
Speaker 2: was in basically unconditional alliance with Moscow is because they
Speaker 2: were they were well to Stalin. I mean, Stalin was
Speaker 2: a remarkable person. I maintained he was probably the most
Speaker 2: powerful man who ever lived. Okay, hands down, But the
Speaker 2: as Kenyon came to realize, uh, China very much was
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union's proxy, and he treated it very much
Speaker 2: like a client state, I mean a very important client state.
Speaker 2: One was potentially great UH power, political potential and uh
Speaker 2: military mobilizing potential. But nevertheless they very much treated them like, uh,
Speaker 2: like a somewhat inferior race. Okay, not to be crass
Speaker 2: about it. That is the reality of the situation. Kenda maintained,
Speaker 2: you know, UH in that same vein like here, first
Speaker 2: of all, like how how how is Truman able to
Speaker 2: corral this this, this whole UH coalition effort. And again
Speaker 2: the parallel with with the goal for stands out here,
Speaker 2: although the way in which the coalition was uh was
Speaker 2: corral is quite different. The USSR was boycotting the United
Speaker 2: Nations at this point. Okay. Now, as as people probably know,
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union had a permanent seat in the UN
Speaker 2: Security Council. The UN Security Council access the defect will
Speaker 2: higher House of the UN. If you're gonna look at
Speaker 2: the UN as like a unit camera legislature of Nations, uh,
Speaker 2: any permanent member of the Security Council was at veto
Speaker 2: on any resolution. Okay, the Soviet Union, a boy was
Speaker 2: boycotting this the UN. So they simply were their seat
Speaker 2: was vacant. And why were they boycotting the UN. They're
Speaker 2: a boycotting the UN because their proxy China had not
Speaker 2: the UN and not permitted them to be set seated. Okay,
Speaker 2: there was there's this absurd situation where the Americans were
Speaker 2: demanding that chank I Scheck's government done from osa he
Speaker 2: recognizes the true government of China. I I mean, I mean,
Speaker 2: when you're sitting in pet king and you've got dominion
Speaker 2: over nine nine hundred million people, you know, declaring like
Speaker 2: you know, the guys on that you know, little island
Speaker 2: over there, the real government, there's something that there's something
Speaker 2: satirical about that. But this is why the Soviets were
Speaker 2: boycotting the U. N That's when Truman, uh, through Antison,
Speaker 2: you know, said look, you know this is this isn't
Speaker 2: this is thet gregious violation of international law. You know, uh,
Speaker 2: the the communists are are you know, in the front
Speaker 2: that decency and you know, the the you know, the
Speaker 2: the more is the civilized commnitiyan nations of assaulted Korea.
Speaker 2: This this marvelous nass and democracy. You know, we we
Speaker 2: we've got to rush to his defense. So that's what happened. Okay, Truman. Uh,
Speaker 2: Truman wasn't any gonna, wasn't any kind of pure Wilsonian,
Speaker 2: but he was like a liberal internationalist. So this this
Speaker 2: kind of stuff really got him excited. He really he
Speaker 2: really dug that sh and frankly, uh, politically it was uh,
Speaker 2: it was a savvy move, Okay, I mean granted it's
Speaker 2: Truman didn't do anything to facilitated and it was the
Speaker 2: Soviets who were, you know, playing typical kind of comedy
Speaker 2: games that uh, you know of a political theatrical nature
Speaker 2: that facilitated it. But that's what happened. Now back to Kennon.
Speaker 2: Kennon is observing all of this, and he's growing very
Speaker 2: concerned because Kennon knows MacArthur pretty well and MacArthur was
Speaker 2: just a weird guy. Uh. He lived with his parents
Speaker 2: pretty much his whole life until he was pretty old.
Speaker 2: He uh, he was immature, not in the way that
Speaker 2: Churchill was like, he wasn't he wasn't like this kind
Speaker 2: of buffoonish piggy drunk who was playing with army men
Speaker 2: at age you know, twenty five. But he, like MacArthur,
Speaker 2: had this kind of His father was a Medal of
Speaker 2: Honor recipient who fought for the Union Army in the
Speaker 2: ward due in the States. MacArthur himself, uh, he was
Speaker 2: awarded the Medal of Honor in this in this anti
Speaker 2: bandit action in the Pancho Villa era. But it was
Speaker 2: strange and like it, it seemed very much like MacArthur
Speaker 2: kind of coveted this medal of honor and he created
Speaker 2: circumstances we're in. He could, he could, he could grab one,
Speaker 2: but got a spinning facts in such a way that
Speaker 2: would appeal to the you know, to the uh, to
Speaker 2: those you know, commissioning such an award. He was not
Speaker 2: a very attractive guy. And aside from that, there's a
Speaker 2: reason why he was uh. He was sent to the
Speaker 2: Pacific Theater. The Pacific Theater was an it was a
Speaker 2: navy show. Okay. Now the runts there, those guys suffered
Speaker 2: like nobody else, Okay, and they fought harder than anybody else.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that at all, but the Army in
Speaker 2: in the Pacific War, they really were not center stage.
Speaker 2: And that's like, uh something if you're one of the
Speaker 2: reasons I like the film The Thin Red Line because
Speaker 2: it's one of the few reasons it's about the army
Speaker 2: in uh in the Pacific War, you know, not the
Speaker 2: Marine Corps. And you get a sense of these guys
Speaker 2: being literally in the middle of nowhere, and desertion in
Speaker 2: the Pacific was almost zero because there's nowhere to desert too.
Speaker 2: You know, you were in this green hell uh a
Speaker 2: lot of time they weren't getting the gear they needed.
Speaker 2: You know, things have become totally savage by this point.
Speaker 2: But you know all that aside, I mean that that
Speaker 2: that that there's enough there to constitute an episode and
Speaker 2: the so own right, But the key takeaway is that
Speaker 2: there's a reason why MacArthur was not given some theater
Speaker 2: white command. You there's a reason why he wasn't given
Speaker 2: an armored corps in Europe. Okay, there's the reason why
Speaker 2: he was sent in the Pacific, where he was basically
Speaker 2: under the thumb a guy's like Nimic's okay, because he
Speaker 2: was a cowboy, he was a glory hound, and by
Speaker 2: this point he was basically he was basically running Japan
Speaker 2: like like like some kind of swaggering Cardillo, you know,
Speaker 2: or some kind of like great white hunter or something.
Speaker 2: And what, uh, what Kennon's view was is I don't
Speaker 2: know what the hell this guy is gonna do. You
Speaker 2: know Kennon's view as well. You know, MacArthur is in
Speaker 2: his element with this, uh you know, if if, if,
Speaker 2: if he sticks the mission and orientation of liberating Republic
Speaker 2: of Korea. But in MacArthur decides he wants to collect
Speaker 2: more medals and marcive led Evostok he's gonna start World
Speaker 2: War three, you know. Now, I know there's like the
Speaker 2: stupid cliche uh of a fucking idiots who were always
Speaker 2: like talking about like, you know, talking about like general officers, like, oh,
Speaker 2: there's some crazy generals gonna do something like not at
Speaker 2: that times. That's a fucking retarded take. Butcars MacArthur's MacArthur
Speaker 2: did crazy shit, and he didn't he didn't really respect
Speaker 2: the chain of command, and kenn uh what Kenyon did was, Uh, Kenon,
Speaker 2: he began very publicly saying, look, and this is fascinating
Speaker 2: because in presage is obviously what ultimately resolved the Cold
Speaker 2: War and what mister Nixon and Kissinger did. Kennon said, look,
Speaker 2: he's like, we need to give MacArthur a free hand
Speaker 2: in operational terms, so long as the mission remains limited
Speaker 2: to the reliberation of of of their public career, not
Speaker 2: the Congress in the North. He's like, concovenantly simultaneously, he's like,
Speaker 2: we need to offer Beijing inducements to not cooperate with USSR.
Speaker 2: You know. He's like, we should even offer them a
Speaker 2: permanent seat on the UN Security Council if they're willing
Speaker 2: to formally break with Moscow. Uh, And we should tell
Speaker 2: him that, you know, a further dom is we will
Speaker 2: recognize them unconditionally as a sole representative of the Chinese governments. Now,
Speaker 2: John Foster Dulles wouldn't berserk when when Kennon said this,
Speaker 2: and people are saying that Kennon was there, they were
Speaker 2: they were saying he'd been like gotten to by the
Speaker 2: Soviets because like awful slanderous things. He was literally just
Speaker 2: shouted down and this really really hurt him. Okay, Uh,
Speaker 2: As the Korean War started to go very poorly, and uh,
Speaker 2: despite what they I don't I have no idea what
Speaker 2: the age kids in school about this, But the Korean
Speaker 2: War was incredibly unpopular. It was incredibly brutal, it was
Speaker 2: incredibly bloody, you know, it was uh, and not not
Speaker 2: in like Vietnam, in all kinds of ways. Okay, I
Speaker 2: don't want to go through a laundry list of grotesque
Speaker 2: things that happened. And and the awful thing is the
Speaker 2: guy who had to go there suffered through. But there
Speaker 2: was a lot of commonality, Okay, not just owing to
Speaker 2: the owing to the fact that we're talking about, you know,
Speaker 2: Asian battlefeaters. But this, uh, this really, uh this this
Speaker 2: really Kenyon. Kenyon really got kind of sandbagged until uh
Speaker 2: until the Eyesenhower era. Well we'll get into that too
Speaker 2: as we progress. Also, we're gonna come back to Cannon
Speaker 2: again and again now just because I've got a huge
Speaker 2: escheme for Kennon. But he's a key player in the
Speaker 2: Cold War. And like I said it, uh I, I
Speaker 2: give Nixon all credit for the facility in the Sino
Speaker 2: Soviets split, because he's the man who actually facilitated it
Speaker 2: in an executive role. Conceptually, this was this was George
Speaker 2: Kennon's kind of augury and instinct for for uh, for
Speaker 2: hard power politics. But as the war dragged on, Truman
Speaker 2: did increase naval patrols and and just overall naval present
Speaker 2: the Pacific and especially in the Taie went straight and
Speaker 2: hugely signed, huge significance Truman Beige basically bankrolling the French
Speaker 2: War and into shining against the viet min Okay, and uh,
Speaker 2: you know, America's involvement in into China goes back to
Speaker 2: the late forties in some capacity. And uh, this idea,
Speaker 2: this kind of Oliver Stone Howard, is an idea that like,
Speaker 2: you know, Vietnam was a lie man and look at
Speaker 2: a bunch of fish as generals and capitalists just decided
Speaker 2: to fight a war there. Like that's not true at all,
Speaker 2: and it's not okay, and you've got to look at
Speaker 2: you gotta look at Korea, You've got to look at Vietnam.
Speaker 2: You've gotta look at this entire paradigm I talked about
Speaker 2: that ultimately kind of resolved in uh, this sort of
Speaker 2: massive escalation or yeah, massive escalation of forces and being
Speaker 2: in the Pacific, you know, in the Reagan area. You
Speaker 2: gotta look at this. It's all part of like a
Speaker 2: common paradigm. Okay, you can't look at these things in isolation. Now.
Speaker 2: What Kennon did do during this time is he started
Speaker 2: writing a lot in policy journals. Okay, and he kind
Speaker 2: of back in those days, you still had public intellectuals
Speaker 2: that we talked about, and Kennon first and foremost among
Speaker 2: among socially, among social science types and political theorist types.
Speaker 2: I mean, he was he was the king, Okay. So
Speaker 2: Kenny started kind of making his case to the American
Speaker 2: people and to kind of like you know, uh and
Speaker 2: kind of like the learned you know, uh like top
Speaker 2: layer of h the civilian world and Kennya's plan for uh.
Speaker 2: I mean, we we think of history in the rearview
Speaker 2: mirrorcause that's inevitable. Everybody comes to Monday morning quarterback when
Speaker 2: they're like looking backwards. Kenna was pretty convinced, along with
Speaker 2: everybody else, that there was probably gonna be there's probably
Speaker 2: gonna be a world war within several years, and at
Speaker 2: some point there was gonna be a catastrophic nuclear war.
Speaker 2: That was inevitable in his view. And I understand why
Speaker 2: you thought that. And Frankly had had growichav and Reagan
Speaker 2: not found a way to end end that, uh, that
Speaker 2: paradigm uh there there would abstutely would have been at
Speaker 2: some point, you know, being in nineteen ninety three, two
Speaker 2: thousand and three, two thousand and thirty three, it would
Speaker 2: have happened eventually, but I'm sorry you calling it so
Speaker 2: I've been another weather. But uh, the Kenon view was this, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is this was Kennon's kind of grand design for
Speaker 2: how to not to de escalate, but like get out
Speaker 2: of the Cold War without without seeding ground to the
Speaker 2: point that America is totally compromised. Okay, he said, there's
Speaker 2: got to be looking a comprehensive settlement with the Soviets
Speaker 2: that would terminate astillities in Korea because because if if,
Speaker 2: if hostilities went on in definitely He's like, eventually, you know,
Speaker 2: the Chinese by then, where you know, we're fighting a
Speaker 2: general war on the peninsula against the U went that
Speaker 2: American let you went forces. You know, He's like, eventually
Speaker 2: they're either gonna get the upper hand or we're gonna escalate,
Speaker 2: or we're gonna find ourselves in a general war with
Speaker 2: the Soviet in the Chinese. So we've got to find
Speaker 2: some kind of way of pull a plug on this
Speaker 2: and go back to pre war you know, presumably go
Speaker 2: back to pre war lines of demarcation. In the thirtieth parallel,
Speaker 2: he was like, we got to admit that People's Republic
Speaker 2: China the United Nations in some capacity. Okay, even if
Speaker 2: we're not gonna give him a permanent seat on the
Speaker 2: Security Council, we can't pretend this government is not legitimate.
Speaker 2: There's a billion people who live under this government. You know,
Speaker 2: they're they're they're they're the third most powerful state on
Speaker 2: this planet. This is ridiculous. He's like kind of coma,
Speaker 2: and we need to we need to allow a PLEBIS
Speaker 2: site and Derman Taiwan's future and Kenya's like, don't worry,
Speaker 2: the Taiwanese are gonna overwhelmingly vote for independence. But he's like,
Speaker 2: we've got to do it. And uh, we've got to
Speaker 2: allow third party monitors, you know, so that it's they
Speaker 2: can just be said that, you know, these Taiwanese are
Speaker 2: are under the heel of some called Billow, who in
Speaker 2: turn is taking orders from the White Man or whatever. Okay.
Speaker 2: And finally, and finally, this is a this is most
Speaker 2: significant and this is fast. Kenn said, to prevent massive
Speaker 2: escalation in in the Pacific theater, and uh, to Aviy
Speaker 2: was probably you know, gonna this paradigm that is probably
Speaker 2: gonna result in a nuclear war. He's like, we need
Speaker 2: to bring about a neutral and de militarized Japan. Uh No,
Speaker 2: no U S Force is there, you know, No, uh no,
Speaker 2: not not not even a token kind of Japanese army.
Speaker 2: You know. He's like, Japan, Japan needs to become just
Speaker 2: the neutrals on okay, And uh that's the only way
Speaker 2: moving forward. Uh, We're gonna keep it off the table,
Speaker 2: as you know, the it's kind of like the prize
Speaker 2: objective in the Pacific. And also this is long forgotten
Speaker 2: to history, other than there's a you occasionally come across
Speaker 2: copy uh, mostly like grand students come across headlines from
Speaker 2: the seventies and stuff. When the Japanese Red Army faction
Speaker 2: was killing p people because they dropped a lot of bodies.
Speaker 2: But communism had real momentum in Japan, it was entirely
Speaker 2: possible that Japan would go red. Okay, that's a whole
Speaker 2: nother story. But just for contact, it seems weird that
Speaker 2: Kennan is like emphasizing that, look like we gotta we've
Speaker 2: got to basically like take Japan out of the Cold
Speaker 2: War entirely. That's why. Okay, And in turn, he said, finally,
Speaker 2: he said that we're entering into a catastro. What's gonna
Speaker 2: He's like, we're in arms race with the Soviet Union.
Speaker 2: He's like, which we can probably win just because we
Speaker 2: we can essentially like in definitely outspend them on weapons.
Speaker 2: But he's like, at some point the Soviets are probably
Speaker 2: going to go all in and assault us, you know,
Speaker 2: with everything they have, rather than just lose. Okay, So
Speaker 2: he's like, we need to reduce some veryan capabilities to
Speaker 2: a mixed like a mixed combined arms force that's capable
Speaker 2: of dealing you know, a concentrated and devastating blow on
Speaker 2: a limited front, but basically anywhere on this planet. And
Speaker 2: that was very pressing in too, okay because that that
Speaker 2: kind of thing. He became dominant by the end of
Speaker 2: the Cold War definitely and even beyond, although the strategic
Speaker 2: landscape is totally changed, and arguably arguably the reason why
Speaker 2: that that uh that notion has gained legs is for
Speaker 2: totally different reasons. But I mean there's all kinds of
Speaker 2: factor of the plane of that, you know, like political,
Speaker 2: technological in others. But Kenon uh, Kennon had I guess
Speaker 2: I'm getting is this Kennon hit or he wasn't something
Speaker 2: on augur and light or anything. But he put Kennon
Speaker 2: ahead of his peers, particularly in the issue not of
Speaker 2: the of Korea but also Asia generally get an understanding
Speaker 2: of h understanding of cause as in politics, because causality
Speaker 2: and politics it I mean cause causality and human affairs
Speaker 2: obviously isn't like causality in physics or something. I mean,
Speaker 2: everybody can see that, But in politics is a peculiar
Speaker 2: domain of human endeavor, and there's a weird kind of
Speaker 2: causation in politics. Part of this owes to what men
Speaker 2: and command rules have to do to maintain credibility. Part
Speaker 2: of it has to do with the way humans perceive
Speaker 2: threat at scale. Part of it has to do with
Speaker 2: just how decisions are made in uh in in in
Speaker 2: technology driven societies where uh you know where uh that
Speaker 2: that that that that wields such great power over the
Speaker 2: forces that animate them that you know, uh oftentimes, once
Speaker 2: once the decision one one, once the decision making process
Speaker 2: set in motion, it really cannot be stopped. Kind of
Speaker 2: had instincts for all this stuff, and he kind of
Speaker 2: understood the implications that thistrategic matters as they were happening,
Speaker 2: and That's what really makes a political theorist, particularly like
Speaker 2: an IR theorist, is you can look at you can
Speaker 2: you can look at affairs as they unfold, and you
Speaker 2: can basically disturb the trajectory of of of of the
Speaker 2: of war and peace parents. I can't think I better
Speaker 2: way to put it, But that's kind of.
Speaker 1: Have we lost that now or is it just we're
Speaker 1: so far gone with leadership, our leadership being I mean,
Speaker 1: why can't we see something like this when it comes
Speaker 1: to NATO. Is it because we're the aggressors? Is because
Speaker 1: we're in the wrong?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: I mean what you're describing, I mean these people, the
Speaker 1: people you're describing that would be considered enemies of the
Speaker 1: enemies of the regime.
Speaker 2: What it's It's complicated, but a point it made the
Speaker 2: people again and again. You know, during the Cold War,
Speaker 2: guys who had the best, in the brightest, they were
Speaker 2: basically corralled in the government. I mean, if you were
Speaker 2: a nuclear physicist, you went to work in Los Alamos.
Speaker 2: If you're some brilliant game theorist, you know you you
Speaker 2: got you got sent to Harvard and then you gotta
Speaker 2: send us some pending on funded think tank to figure
Speaker 2: out how to wage nuclear war. You know, if you're
Speaker 2: like a brilliant economist, you know, you'd, uh, you'd you'd
Speaker 2: meet with the president and you'd say like, okay, like
Speaker 2: what's the best way? You know, the Marshall Plan was
Speaker 2: great for politics, but it didn't do a whole lot
Speaker 2: for you know, capital and return on investment and for
Speaker 2: technological development. You know, how can we how can we
Speaker 2: how do we build up Korea? How can we build
Speaker 2: up you know, Taiwan? You know, how can we build
Speaker 2: up you know these uh, these kind of key proxy
Speaker 2: regimes to fight the Soviet Union, you know, like nowadays,
Speaker 2: like the only people who go to government are real losers.
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's like it's like weirdos, freaks, like
Speaker 2: like literally like half assed actors, you know, like weird
Speaker 2: people who have like nothing going for him, but they
Speaker 2: have some desperate need to like be famous or something.
Speaker 2: Like any guy, any guys, anything going for him is
Speaker 2: gonna have nothing to do with governments, you know, Like
Speaker 2: why what you I mean that's part of it.
Speaker 1: Are these people like I have a friend, his son
Speaker 1: is a genius engineering trying to raytheon or offered him
Speaker 1: an insane amount of money, and he's like, I just can't,
Speaker 1: I can't work for these people. Is that what's happening now?
Speaker 1: Because because basically we have a corporate run government that
Speaker 1: the best and the brightest are just going straight into
Speaker 1: the corporations.
Speaker 2: And then the guy, I mean, look at it look okay,
Speaker 2: like like like fifty years ago or even forty years ago,
Speaker 2: like in the early eighties, I got like Elon Musk,
Speaker 2: he'd be like working in governments, you would have been
Speaker 2: like making you would have been going on TV debating
Speaker 2: Carl Sagan to like, no, this is why we need
Speaker 2: SDI you know, No, this is why we need to
Speaker 2: roll back communism, Like no, this is while you know,
Speaker 2: we need to scrap the A b M Treaty and
Speaker 2: develop weapons platforms that you know truly hasplaited first right potential,
Speaker 2: Like that's what you'd be doing, Like now, who the
Speaker 2: hell is gonna go? Who the hell's gonna go debate
Speaker 2: with AOC about whether like kids should learn about anal
Speaker 2: sex or not in seventh grade like that, Like, who
Speaker 2: the hell is gonna do that? Like any normal person
Speaker 2: that's totally beneath them, and they wouldn't like selling themselves
Speaker 2: that way. But also it's like government is for losers,
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's for people like the bidens. You know,
Speaker 2: it's it's for it's for people like AOC, it's for uh,
Speaker 2: it's for or it's for guys or or or it's
Speaker 2: for kind of like uh, or's for kind of like
Speaker 2: you know, guys like the scantists who have some kind
Speaker 2: of like like stride or nurses just need to like
Speaker 2: you know, see their face on TV or something like.
Speaker 2: You know, people have something going for them, like aren't
Speaker 2: going to anything have anything to do with it. And
Speaker 2: I mean, but it's also part of the problem. I mean,
Speaker 2: like we talked about before, and I'm sure people think
Speaker 2: that I'm flowing a dead horse here, that maybe I
Speaker 2: overstate my case, but even aside of the fact that
Speaker 2: we've got like a hostile regime that's wholly destructive and
Speaker 2: like an enemy of the people and stuff, even in
Speaker 2: like let's say you have like a normal regime of
Speaker 2: like of like normal people, like the government has structured
Speaker 2: it's only structured to really fight the Cold War and
Speaker 2: not much else. I mean, it's like why does it
Speaker 2: even exist? You know, there's there's like there's something of
Speaker 2: a there's there's more than there's more than a modicum
Speaker 2: of fraud to it too, you know it, and people
Speaker 2: see through that, like at a highly intelligent guy aside
Speaker 2: of the fact that there's nothing government is doing that
Speaker 2: got positively interested in. Now he's not, he's not gonna
Speaker 2: go he's not gonna go pretend that like, you know,
Speaker 2: he's he's he's he's actually accompisting something by working in
Speaker 2: some idiotic bureaucracy. You like, you know when you I mean,
Speaker 2: if people want to Jerry Portnell, I mean, I'm a
Speaker 2: big science fiction guy, so I love Jerry Parnell, but
Speaker 2: you know he, uh the Committee on the Present Danger,
Speaker 2: he really kind of took over that, uh that role.
Speaker 2: I mean that the Committee on the Present Danger went
Speaker 2: back to the fifties, but in the eighties he truly
Speaker 2: made it into like a a into like a military
Speaker 2: science like political action committee. Okay. And Pornell was the
Speaker 2: guy who put like S ANDDI on the map. Okay.
Speaker 2: That's why the Cold War, I mean, dynamic people were
Speaker 2: in government because of the Cold War. Okay, That's that
Speaker 2: is why they were there, like they weren't. There is
Speaker 2: government as awesome armor because they really want to. They
Speaker 2: all want to figure out, you know, how to draft
Speaker 2: a school curriculum for like poor kids, because they weren't
Speaker 2: like past laws like make gay people feel better about themselves.
Speaker 2: I mean like they they were there to fight the
Speaker 2: Cold War and that's it. And uh, the Cold War
Speaker 2: was something that comes like a paradigmic that happened once
Speaker 2: in a thousand years if that, And people realize that
Speaker 2: on some deep level, even when it was horrifying, and
Speaker 2: even when people would have done anything to get out
Speaker 2: of it, you know, when like and at junctures, you know,
Speaker 2: like like Cuba of sixty three or sixty two, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, uh, the seventy three war and like able Archer,
Speaker 2: even even even as horrifying as that stuff was, like
Speaker 2: people realize like you know, these were these were apocal
Speaker 2: or shatering events than I'm participating in. That's why.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you go back to like you know,
Speaker 1: they would send Carl Sagan out to make an argument
Speaker 1: for them. Now, who is their scientist now, Neil deGrasse, Tyson,
Speaker 1: Bill Nye. Guys who can get Guys who can get
Speaker 1: owned on Twitter by like yeah by people kids anonymous
Speaker 1: anonymous accounts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like like anonymous, and they're they're like high school
Speaker 2: kids too. Yeah, it's like saying like there's plenty of
Speaker 2: short high school kids. But the point is, yeah, these
Speaker 2: guys are gonna get ebarrassed by just like like sixteen
Speaker 2: year old John.
Speaker 1: There's just no one. It seems like there is no
Speaker 1: one who's impressive anymore. And if they are impressive, you like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like to a certain extent, Elon Musk
Speaker 1: I think is an impressive guy, but he's also you're
Speaker 1: also like, what the hell does this guy believe? You know,
Speaker 1: it's like he you don't know what his ideology is,
Speaker 1: if he has one at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't only think he does. I mean generally
Speaker 2: business moguls don't. I mean, I defend Musk a lot
Speaker 2: because I mean he's a high speed blow dray guy.
Speaker 2: He's the one who's keeping real space tech alive, and
Speaker 2: he's doing incredible thing. I mean, it's the fact, like
Speaker 2: the stuff he's done for telecom is incredible, Okay, and uh,
Speaker 2: you know he's he's the things he's he's introduced are
Speaker 2: are game changers, you know, I mean not just in
Speaker 2: telecom like across the board. I mean he has an
Speaker 2: eccentric weirdo but uh, I mean all all these guys are.
Speaker 2: But I mean I'm glad he's around and he you know,
Speaker 2: I's he's a great man and and like not in
Speaker 2: the sense of I love him and think he's awesome,
Speaker 2: but and by any objective metric. But that's you know, government,
Speaker 2: You know, government is going to attract users when it doesn't.
Speaker 2: I mean they were this is I don't wanna go
Speaker 2: too of our field and I'll wrap, but I want
Speaker 2: to up in the hour. But but I mean, uh
Speaker 2: I government is gonna cease to exist as as as
Speaker 2: we know it today in the next two hundred years.
Speaker 2: Like I'm not saying like the state will wither, you know,
Speaker 2: like some utopian anarchists or some you know kind of
Speaker 2: like low key uh like Trotsky or something, But you're not.
Speaker 2: It's just not gonna have you know, a center of
Speaker 2: now people stuff like you know the twentieth century. Uh.
Speaker 2: Features that that that created this regime are gonna be
Speaker 2: so remote as to be like not even intelligent anymore. So,
Speaker 2: Like a lot of what government does as it's make work,
Speaker 2: uh business the day to day is just not gonna
Speaker 2: exist and you work, and plus it's be like a
Speaker 2: natural devolution, you know, like you're gonna like localism is
Speaker 2: gonna become just like more and more thing it already is.
Speaker 2: But so I think the problem is gonna take care
Speaker 2: of take care of itself in some basic way. But
Speaker 2: that's uh, that's there's something I I can't thought. I
Speaker 2: thought there was something I wanted to bring up an conclusion. Again,
Speaker 2: I swear I'm not going to senile.
Speaker 1: But well I I derailed you. It's just that, you know,
Speaker 1: when you think, yeah, when you think back on the
Speaker 1: Cold War, there were so many you know, it is
Speaker 1: as psychotic as it was at many points. There were
Speaker 1: so many impressive people out there, and give it, you know,
Speaker 1: talking coming up with technology. I mean it, we just don't.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying we need another Cold War. I'm just
Speaker 1: saying it's just when you look at what we have
Speaker 1: today compared to uh, the people that we were looking
Speaker 1: at then, it's just like what the hell happened? Man?
Speaker 1: It's like idio, you know, it's like idiocrasy. It like
Speaker 1: snuck up on us. Yeah, in a decade.
Speaker 2: No, it's only nuts. I mean, like I said, I
Speaker 2: I found it jarring. Like you know, the Clinton administration
Speaker 2: was jarring because I mean Clinton was such a fucking slob.
Speaker 2: But these people like, ah, there's something really wrong on them.
Speaker 2: And it was like it wasn't even gradual. It was
Speaker 2: like okay, I mean whether you like Bush forty one
Speaker 2: or not, I mean he was he was a high speed,
Speaker 2: low drag guy, you know, in that whole. And James
Speaker 2: Baker was when I was a kid, like a team
Speaker 2: like James Baker was like like a here. I really
Speaker 2: looked up to them, you know. But these you know,
Speaker 2: I go from that kind of very heavy, severe in
Speaker 2: both good and bad ways regime you know, to Bill
Speaker 2: Clinton and it's kind of like Merry band a circus
Speaker 2: freaks like it. It was bizarre, man, Like it was jarring.
Speaker 2: But I mean that's why, like I said, I can't
Speaker 2: it was a joke on Like these boomers were like
Speaker 2: who like flying to like, you know, rages about Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: You know, these like the same assholes were like telling
Speaker 2: us thirty years ago like you gonna get with the times, man,
Speaker 2: you like, Bill Clinton is the future, Like we don't
Speaker 2: want your white male stuff anymore. But you know, it's
Speaker 2: like you can't like turn around and say, like you're
Speaker 2: outraged at some reality TV show stars as the president.
Speaker 2: It's like you guys made this shit happen, you know,
Speaker 2: like you're the ones who said that. Like we're a
Speaker 2: bunch of squares and fishes and idiots who you know
Speaker 2: want like weight meal stuff to rule, man, and you know,
Speaker 2: we gotta get with the times. So it's like, you know, yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 1: It's really and it's really only a matter of time
Speaker 1: before people start begging for that to come back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I've got my own. I mean I'm
Speaker 2: very optimistic, man. I mean I don't worry about anything
Speaker 2: now because I've been so awesome. I'mre like futterless, but
Speaker 2: I you know, I'm like a Calvinist and stuff, and
Speaker 2: like I you know, like stuff doesn't really bother me.
Speaker 2: And but also like you know, I I see I
Speaker 2: see causes for optimism all over the place, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean there's a lot of like horrible things too,
Speaker 2: but I mean there's always horrible things. You know. The
Speaker 2: world is a falling place, man, like that that's that's why,
Speaker 2: you know, That's that that's you know, we're all born
Speaker 2: in sin But at any event, Uh yeah, well let's
Speaker 2: let's uh, let's wrap up now because I don't want to.
Speaker 2: I don't want to go into another big uh like
Speaker 2: subtopic because it's coming up on the hour. But like
Speaker 2: I said before we went live, man and i'm ah
Speaker 2: the Felt was invited me to go with them to
Speaker 2: the American Renaissance Conference this weekend. So that's where I
Speaker 2: am going. I'm going to Nashville. So if you're there,
Speaker 2: you will see me. If you seek me out. Please
Speaker 2: don't try to assassinate me or something like, but you'll
Speaker 2: cotch me at these things that they're they come as friends.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, unfortunately, I don't think this is gonna come
Speaker 1: out before the weekends.
Speaker 2: No fair enough, Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, but uh no,
Speaker 2: I in any event, uh plus yeah, I mean, I'm on,
Speaker 2: I'm on I'm I'm I'm on Twitter still because I
Speaker 2: mean apparently, uh, I'm speaking of mister musk uh that
Speaker 2: that the uh the woke uh censorship regime is done
Speaker 2: and you can find me there you seeking he shall
Speaker 2: find I'm on sub stick at real Thomas seven seven
Speaker 2: seven that substack dot com as my podcast is at
Speaker 2: the the sequel to Steel Storm is dropping in January.
Speaker 2: I promise. I'm sorry for the delay. It was not
Speaker 2: my fault, nor was it my dear publisher's fault, the
Speaker 2: Period Press. We've had censorship problems on our own and
Speaker 2: deep platforming problems. But it will be here in January.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry you cannot be here for the holidays, but uh,
Speaker 2: that is uh, that is where I'm at.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Yeah, until the next time. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekenana Show,
Speaker 1: part four of the Cold War Cold War series with
Speaker 1: Thomas seven seven seven. How are you doing Thomas, and
Speaker 1: very well?
Speaker 2: Thanks again. What I wanted to get into today we
Speaker 2: finished off last week we talked her, Yeah, more like
Speaker 2: a week and a half ago perhaps, but you know,
Speaker 2: talking about the Berlin a Berlin airlift and the Korean War,
Speaker 2: and I kind of finished up talking about the Korean War,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to talk about the Buddhist Republic and
Speaker 2: it's putical culture and how it developed the way it
Speaker 2: did and into that the listeners will unders say what
Speaker 2: I mean about why that's significant, But you know, the
Speaker 2: Korean War, it uh, you know, like what we discussed
Speaker 2: in the last episode about I was essential. Let end
Speaker 2: you know, uh, containment is policy, you know, not just
Speaker 2: as some sort of theory abstracted from from concrete military
Speaker 2: decision making. You know, you've really got to understand the
Speaker 2: Korean War as kind of the first iteration of that,
Speaker 2: you know, and as well as you know what became
Speaker 2: to great lectory, you know, policy towards the Communists for
Speaker 2: the next the next forty years. And it's also too
Speaker 2: that's when America trulyuated into the viet conflict. You know,
Speaker 2: Like I made the point before, there's all kinds of
Speaker 2: lives about the Vietnam War and just missed just kind
Speaker 2: of misperceptions, some deliberate, some deliberately confabulated, you know, for
Speaker 2: polemical leological reasons, supportive brought ignorance the idea that Vietnam,
Speaker 2: which is kind of the opportunity the you know, owing
Speaker 2: the the designs of you know, uh profiteers and financiers
Speaker 2: and things, this nonsense and the it and arguably you know,
Speaker 2: the Far East was there. It was far more dangerous
Speaker 2: during the Middle and late Cold War than than the
Speaker 2: European theater. I mean, obviously come to Europe that would
Speaker 2: have been because basically a single conflict diad and had
Speaker 2: it been triggered or trit the potential for catastrophic escalation
Speaker 2: was was was ever present. But did you but there
Speaker 2: was many many like diads potentially and how and where
Speaker 2: uh uh, you know, actual warfare would ensue. That was
Speaker 2: very difficult to predict. And you know, once hostilities didn't sue,
Speaker 2: it was it was equally difficult to predict, you know,
Speaker 2: what the potential of escalation was. You know, it's also
Speaker 2: to the there there's there's more of a fluidity the
Speaker 2: sphere of influence and things like this. But that's you know,
Speaker 2: that's why Korea is important and it's also it uh,
Speaker 2: it's it's essential to I think he were you kind
Speaker 2: of the outcome of the Korean conflict, you know, in
Speaker 2: terms of it's very pretty much Truman came under you know,
Speaker 2: Truman left office really kind of in disgrace. It's not
Speaker 2: I mean, he was he was an whenever he was
Speaker 2: about Truman, and he was honest. He didn't have character issues,
Speaker 2: he wasn't corrupt, but he was in the toilet on.
Speaker 2: The Korean War was incredibly unpopular and you know, the
Speaker 2: the very public rift between Truman and Carthur, which led
Speaker 2: him Carter's dismissal. The Pike generally sympathized with MacArthur, not
Speaker 2: just because you know, he was kind of this heroic
Speaker 2: personas that had been very deliberately hated by you know,
Speaker 2: by media, but also the view of the view of
Speaker 2: Truman was that Truman's of gyms, you know, as stated
Speaker 2: where to quote, restore peace and security on the Korean peninsula.
Speaker 2: You know, there was you know, basically the re establish
Speaker 2: the stay as quote lu of victory. And in Truman's words,
Speaker 2: you know, we're waging the Christrean war, you know, not
Speaker 2: just for for the sake of you know, deterring aggression
Speaker 2: and and uh and they're prevailing and and you know,
Speaker 2: and guarding the prevailing peace, but to quote protect our forces,
Speaker 2: you know, and that's one of the officers in the
Speaker 2: ground refer to that as an absurd tautology. You know,
Speaker 2: your forces are there to protect your forces. I mean,
Speaker 2: that doesn't that that's not why you go to war.
Speaker 2: And you know we're talking about you know, not just
Speaker 2: men's lives, uh, you know, and and and and expecting
Speaker 2: them to sacrifice their lives in the national interest. You know,
Speaker 2: you you really have an obligation to the country, not
Speaker 2: just to those men and and their families and relations,
Speaker 2: but you know to the country at large, you know,
Speaker 2: to to wage war to.
Speaker 1: Win, you know, not not not to well an insult,
Speaker 1: isn't it also an insult to the men on the ground. Oh,
Speaker 1: we got to drop more forces in there because you
Speaker 1: guys can't handle It's like the whole Afghanistan thing. We
Speaker 1: have these Afghanic troops that we've that we've trained, and
Speaker 1: you know, they have platoons, but they can't do it
Speaker 1: on their own, So we got to get someone in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point that it has the
Speaker 2: effect of really kind of sapping moralele and and and
Speaker 2: and kind of discouraging in any enthusiasm you know, for
Speaker 2: the for the war effort, and it so I mean
Speaker 2: I for for good for good reason. You know, Truman
Speaker 2: was kind of savaged over his prosecution of the war.
Speaker 2: But also suddenly you know, kind of court historians was
Speaker 2: on the right and the left, they kind of they
Speaker 2: kind of view this as as this real low point
Speaker 2: for a you America and the Cold War, Uh, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of a a precursor to what ensued during the
Speaker 2: detent era after you know, Segon fell and things. But
Speaker 2: I have a different take on that. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: part of the reason we're doing this is is owing
Speaker 2: the you know, the earth of with in his perspectives
Speaker 2: and dealing with the Cold War. But in kiss interests diplomacy,
Speaker 2: he's about the only kind of I mean, I said
Speaker 2: Kissinger a lot because I you know, like before, for
Speaker 2: whatever reason, people kind of on both sides the logical divide,
Speaker 2: they they love kind of burning uh Kissinger at proverbial effigy,
Speaker 2: but he in power political analyses, he's really second to none, Okay,
Speaker 2: And he he made the point. Uh I got a
Speaker 2: little bit further than he did, but or he does.
Speaker 2: But he made the point that you know, uh, the
Speaker 2: Stalin uh and and the Soviet Union ended up in
Speaker 2: pretty in a pretty precarious position only to the Korean War,
Speaker 2: the uh, the the you know, the there's a basic
Speaker 2: ambiguity as to where American sphere of influence stuff in
Speaker 2: Soviet interests began in the region. American did not the
Speaker 2: forces and being even outside of Japan, really but even
Speaker 2: that is our uh, you know, to prosecute a major
Speaker 2: war in the Far East or they or they you know,
Speaker 2: those forces weren't present before the outset of hostilities in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty you know, the UH in the aftermath of Korea,
Speaker 2: you know, the the Department of Defense, it it asked
Speaker 2: for the defense budget to be tripled, and it got
Speaker 2: its way, and it truly integrated military alliance developed in
Speaker 2: Europe under American Supreme Command. I mean that's built NATO
Speaker 2: was the Korean War. Before that, there was you know,
Speaker 2: talk of a European defense community. There was real hostility
Speaker 2: to the you know to UH the UH the idea
Speaker 2: of an in of of American for being in any
Speaker 2: any in any real you know, numbers remaining in Europe.
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying it's a good thing that that
Speaker 2: that this is what happened, But in terms of UH
Speaker 2: you know, relative power UH and and between the United
Speaker 2: States and and the Soviet Union and what became the
Speaker 2: warsaw packed, this really just really changed things uh uh
Speaker 2: and and skewed the strategic landscape against the interests of
Speaker 2: the communists. I believe the UH it it it gave
Speaker 2: the United States a certain credibility in terms of multilateral action,
Speaker 2: or at least the appearance of it. You know it
Speaker 2: uh it bade basically Congress UH gave a blank check
Speaker 2: to UH Eisenhower subsequently, you know, to beef up these
Speaker 2: client regimes you know in Africa and the Ear East
Speaker 2: and in the Orient, you know, and and throw huge
Speaker 2: amounts of hardware at them. And you know, this was
Speaker 2: this was the catalyst really for the you know, for
Speaker 2: for American special warfare. I know, like Kennedy gets all
Speaker 2: the credit for that, you know, and that's why you
Speaker 2: know this this the spec War centers you know, literally
Speaker 2: named for him. But you know this was really like
Speaker 2: like spec war and special operations really became a thing,
Speaker 2: you know, UH during the Eisenhower era, you know. And
Speaker 2: then this oh to UH the experience of Korea and
Speaker 2: things like that, and Stalin Stalin had been UH Stalin related.
Speaker 2: I don't want the Korean War to happen. I mean,
Speaker 2: he had, he didn't have any problem with it. He
Speaker 2: greenlit it when uh when Mao U was able to
Speaker 2: convince him. But Mao and and Kim Olt Sung were
Speaker 2: able to convince him that you know, victory would be
Speaker 2: rapid and initially, I mean it did appear that that
Speaker 2: would be the case. You know, the the U Republic
Speaker 2: of Korean forces got pushed back to Pusan and the
Speaker 2: perimeter was this tiny little corner literally the Republic of
Speaker 2: Korea until uh, I mean, those guys fought fought hard.
Speaker 2: I'm not putting shade on on the South Koreans, but
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, they they were, they were they
Speaker 2: were totally routed. It wasn't. Uh, it wasn't until you know,
Speaker 2: the the Incheon landings, you know, cut the country in
Speaker 2: half basically, and uh, you know, the UN forces essentially
Speaker 2: fought this kind of desperate rear reaction and uh and
Speaker 2: pushed the communists all the way back like literally to
Speaker 2: the Yellow River. And I mean obviously that you know,
Speaker 2: that's what triggered intervention by the Red Chinese. But but
Speaker 2: but playing you know, this was not despite someone like
Speaker 2: the Cold the Cold War Hawks alleged this is not
Speaker 2: Stalin like you know, sitting in Moscow, you know, trying
Speaker 2: to you know, go to America into this Asian war,
Speaker 2: you know, whereby then you know, uh, the pots whatever
Speaker 2: have an opportunity on Berlin or something like that was
Speaker 2: and then but it just you know, didn't go as planned, Like,
Speaker 2: it's not what happened at all. But you know, the uh,
Speaker 2: what Stalin was really doing, in my opinion is uh
Speaker 2: Stalin realized that the Soviet Union needed China. Okay, the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union needed China as much as the United States
Speaker 2: needed Western Europe. Because what became the Warsaw Pact, this
Speaker 2: was this was not some sort of you know, equivalent
Speaker 2: to Western Europe or it's some sort of equivalent to
Speaker 2: the you know, the capital base uh and and resources
Speaker 2: human material that you know, America and the UK had
Speaker 2: in NATO. Really all the Warsaw Pact was, with the
Speaker 2: exception of East Journey was U was the defense court
Speaker 2: on you know, it was literally space where in you know,
Speaker 2: the right army could deploy in depth to protect itself
Speaker 2: or the stage you know what they characterized to preemptive
Speaker 2: as against NATO, so occupying occupying Poland with hostility, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, and you know, creating like a climber theme
Speaker 2: in Bulgaria like this, these things are these not profiting
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union and these things were huge dreams, okay,
Speaker 2: But what the Soviets had was the Soviets had China
Speaker 2: and even though China was you know, very very underdeveloped
Speaker 2: at that time in power political terms, you know, pure
Speaker 2: military terms, there's incredible power potential and frankly a communist
Speaker 2: block that's literally from uh, you know, from Berlin uh
Speaker 2: uh to uh to Handoi contiguously. I mean that that's
Speaker 2: a good that that's about that's about a fifth of
Speaker 2: this planet. Okay, just the just the raw kind of
Speaker 2: geostrategic momentum of that is incredible. So this uh, this uh,
Speaker 2: that was a lot of what underlay kind of this
Speaker 2: this the apparently it's on the service kind of odd
Speaker 2: posture that Stalin had towards towards the Chinese and and
Speaker 2: the Chinese War against the Americans. But it also it
Speaker 2: did lay the foundation for the sign of Soviets split
Speaker 2: because the Soviets were not generous and there's and their
Speaker 2: material support at China, and they very much made it
Speaker 2: clear that you know, they dude China as their client
Speaker 2: regime and uh, they would not Stalin would not commit
Speaker 2: to a a proportionate response if if America deployed you know,
Speaker 2: atomic weapons, uh you know what they were as as
Speaker 2: atomic bombs, you know, against against the knees and don't
Speaker 2: get me wrong. I mean mal himself, Uh well, I
Speaker 2: think was something of a crazy person and somewhat primitive.
Speaker 2: Frankly of mind, I I do believe he was basically
Speaker 2: playing spoken and and he said knowing certain terms that
Speaker 2: that you know, the you know, the reason why you know,
Speaker 2: Pete King would not give its loyalty to to Cruse
Speaker 2: Chef is because Crusier was not the man that Snalin
Speaker 2: Wasn't you know, Stalin was a remarkable figure. I mean,
Speaker 2: whatever else we can spout him. And but by my
Speaker 2: point being that you know, the man was with Stalin
Speaker 2: at the helm, the kind of relationship I just described,
Speaker 2: you know, characterized by the Chinese being very much subordinate
Speaker 2: to Moscow. Grudgingly, the Chinese would have accepted that under Stalin.
Speaker 2: They would not accept that under you know, some under
Speaker 2: some under some apparatic like like cruise chief or under
Speaker 2: you know, some kind of uh you know, and under
Speaker 2: some kind of uh you know, octapaneery and dictator like
Speaker 2: prison of But that's what I said, the scope of
Speaker 2: what I wanted to cover here what it did and
Speaker 2: what what it did do on the communist side, uh
Speaker 2: and in kind of like the victory column as it were.
Speaker 2: I mean, China did fight the United States to a standstill,
Speaker 2: and I mean that was no small thing, Okay, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: the Chinese had certain advantages on the ground, but America
Speaker 2: then had tremendous military might. You know, it's a huge
Speaker 2: disterity and t G the Chinese absorb these casualties. But
Speaker 2: I mean that you know that uh, that that emboldened,
Speaker 2: that embolden, the hoaching, that emboldened Paul Pott, you know,
Speaker 2: that emboldened uh you know, uh that bolden one hundred insurgencies,
Speaker 2: you know on every continent that uh, you know, the
Speaker 2: United States is not invincible, you know, and that uh,
Speaker 2: I think that I think I can't really be overstated.
Speaker 2: And you know when people people I had a kind
Speaker 2: of substantiate my claim that you know, the Soviet Union
Speaker 2: really you know, kind of developed uh not so subtle
Speaker 2: credibility prop album and in uh in in in the
Speaker 2: way of the Korean War, you know, it was it
Speaker 2: was a year before Stalin died. It was March tenth,
Speaker 2: ay to you know, some died basically right by after
Speaker 2: cessation of hostilities, uh In uh in Korea, and uh
Speaker 2: it was we talked about the Stalin memo or the
Speaker 2: Stalin note last time, you know what was called the
Speaker 2: heat nooked and and some of the some European media.
Speaker 2: So later on, you know, when kind of the comments
Speaker 2: this more publicized. But you know, Stalin's notion was uh,
Speaker 2: a demilitarized Germany, you know, know, as a neutral zone.
Speaker 2: You know, Germany being retained a kind of nominal military
Speaker 2: force under a under its own authority. But you know,
Speaker 2: all all all troops you know, gone from German soil
Speaker 2: and a you know, and and then and this jury
Speaker 2: neutrality enforced on Germany. How that would be enforced? I
Speaker 2: was never really clear because nego she didn't reach that point.
Speaker 2: I would assume, you know, uh, some kind of un
Speaker 2: manny would have would have been you know that it was.
Speaker 2: It was managed, but be as it may, there's a
Speaker 2: reason why you don't. I mean, yeah, obviously the Soviet Union,
Speaker 2: they're big, they're they're big. Problem was uh, you know,
Speaker 2: the strategic and some of the fact that you know,
Speaker 2: NATO was at their doorstep what became NATO, and then
Speaker 2: you know it was at their doorstep. I realized NATO
Speaker 2: was was uh incorporated forty nine but it was about
Speaker 2: ten years, in my opinion, before it became a truly
Speaker 2: you know, like it integrated comy force other than just
Speaker 2: uh you know kind of a you kind of kind
Speaker 2: of a kind of mandated for you know, operate within
Speaker 2: the borders of these at least nominally sovereign states. But uh,
Speaker 2: you know the reason, you know, you know, the reason
Speaker 2: why Stalin made the effort when he did, you know,
Speaker 2: if the Soviets were in this great kind of position
Speaker 2: to strength and you know, in uh in power political terms,
Speaker 2: you know, the Korean War was you know, really going
Speaker 2: their way and really kind of uh you know, breaking
Speaker 2: the face not just a Truman, but of uh of
Speaker 2: the entire an entire kind of Cold War apparatus. I
Speaker 2: mean that that would not that that's not what he
Speaker 2: would have been doing, but the uh, it's also to
Speaker 2: the fact that I mean it was dooming to fail
Speaker 2: because I mean this was submitted a mere eight months
Speaker 2: before the present election, you know, and I realize, you know,
Speaker 2: I realized Eisenhower wasn't any arch warhawk, but he was
Speaker 2: he was a military man, and he was he he
Speaker 2: was viewed, uh you know kind of as uh, the
Speaker 2: Soviets were afraid of him, number one. And that's that's all.
Speaker 2: That's an interesting topic and to itself, but point being,
Speaker 2: for better or worse, regardless of what everybody feels about
Speaker 2: Eisenhower in history, you know, like he was, he was
Speaker 2: viewed as the man to wage the Cold War, Okay,
Speaker 2: and that that's really what kind of catapulticed him new office.
Speaker 2: But even even taking Eisenower of the equation, obviously obviously
Speaker 2: eight months out from uh from from a from a
Speaker 2: presidential contest, nobody's gonna, you know, nobody's gonna be willing
Speaker 2: to undertake uh, you know, some kind of shift in
Speaker 2: uh in in status or relations with the Soviet Union,
Speaker 2: you know, in in ninety fifty two of all of
Speaker 2: all years. But what I want to kind of segue
Speaker 2: into is the person at conray at add an Hour,
Speaker 2: Like before I said a recording, I said, I wanted
Speaker 2: to get into the culture that boomed this republic and
Speaker 2: how they came about and why it came about. Understand
Speaker 2: that you gotta understand ad Hour, you know, and now
Speaker 2: was the first uh, he was the first post war chancellor.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you if you if you if you
Speaker 2: consider Western Germany, Ben you know, like the real Germany
Speaker 2: or whatever and uh, you know, the success or state
Speaker 2: of uh of of of of the German Reich. You know,
Speaker 2: he was he was the first post war chancellor. And
Speaker 2: if if you reject that, which I I don't think
Speaker 2: people do with some might I don't, I don't get
Speaker 2: to the current German state and particularly legitimate that. But
Speaker 2: in terms of you know, linear political uh legacy, I
Speaker 2: think I don't think it's controversy will do And if
Speaker 2: I had now as the you know, as the first
Speaker 2: uh real post uh war executive, but he uh, and
Speaker 2: it was an interesting guy. And it's kind of fancy
Speaker 2: to me that he was the man did for the role,
Speaker 2: but it makes perfect sense. And it goes to show
Speaker 2: you how America at one time I had a real
Speaker 2: political plans of a man who really really understood kind
Speaker 2: of the nuances of power of politics and you know,
Speaker 2: the kind of deeper implications of of of what of
Speaker 2: what of what chiefs of state represent both the the
Speaker 2: people whom they rule all so to uh, you know,
Speaker 2: allies and foes alike. And and there was a perfect
Speaker 2: example of that. And now we're uh. He was born
Speaker 2: in the seventy six, so He took office when he
Speaker 2: was seventy three. He stepped down when he was eighty seven.
Speaker 2: I believe that makes him the oldest Yean head of
Speaker 2: state in the modern era. The ten and I think
Speaker 2: was eighty four eighty five. I mean, and there was
Speaker 2: a remarkable guy. And he and now I was born
Speaker 2: in the Catholic Rhyanland, Okay, and he was born uh
Speaker 2: literally you know what the kind of zene of the
Speaker 2: Bismarck's Coulter kof and for those that don't know, you
Speaker 2: know Bismarck the kind of arch Prussian Protestant. He did
Speaker 2: not trust Catholics. He purged Kolics from the kind of
Speaker 2: civil apparatus which had by that point was quite robust.
Speaker 2: You know, Prussia was really kind of a modern state.
Speaker 2: You know, they had they they had the kind of
Speaker 2: the you know, real pension system if the I mean
Speaker 2: it's anybody who can make like a kind of welfare
Speaker 2: state apparatus work against the Germans, and they did. That
Speaker 2: can't be argued. I'm not a particularly I'm not some
Speaker 2: big government uh you know, Keynesian type or anything at all,
Speaker 2: but even you know, I stipulate that pressure ran with
Speaker 2: uh with true uh, you know, kind of military efficiency
Speaker 2: and all the best uh, you know, in all almost
Speaker 2: a lot of ways. But one of the things Bismarck
Speaker 2: did was, uh he very very much purged Catholics from
Speaker 2: uh positions of authority. And it was it wasn't brutal
Speaker 2: in the sense of, you know, Catholics weren't rounded up
Speaker 2: and shot or something and weren't availed U you know
Speaker 2: that the physical violence, but they really were locked out
Speaker 2: of out of political and cuffair as well practical purposes.
Speaker 2: And and this this made it this, this had made
Speaker 2: a huge impact on the end. Okay, not only because
Speaker 2: he was a Catholic, but you know, his his family
Speaker 2: was was very politically engaged, you know, and now himself
Speaker 2: obviously this is you know, was his career path. He
Speaker 2: he considered this, you know, very very unjust and because
Speaker 2: he actually was devout, you know, and now it was
Speaker 2: not his Catholicism is not superficial, and it wasn't just
Speaker 2: it wasn't just you know, kind of a like a
Speaker 2: perfunctory uh identitarian signifier. You know, he was very very Catholic,
Speaker 2: and uh he found his way uh to the uh
Speaker 2: to the center party, you know, way which was the
Speaker 2: Catholic Party, you know, really of a of thet boch
Speaker 2: it was uh nineteen oh five, nineteen oh six. Uh
Speaker 2: and now he was like the city council Cologne a
Speaker 2: few years later became the vice mayor of Cologne. You know,
Speaker 2: he he was considered's not of a political prom okay
Speaker 2: and he uh he was again too. He wore his
Speaker 2: Catholicism on his sleeve. But he was respected pretty much
Speaker 2: by everybody, I mean even by the even even kind
Speaker 2: of the most you know, kind of by kind of
Speaker 2: the most dedicated Persian like culture warriors. You know, everybody,
Speaker 2: everybody respected him. You know, he was he was a
Speaker 2: man of of my integrity, Okay he uh. He was
Speaker 2: adamantly opposed at political extremism, but not in not not
Speaker 2: in kind of the way that you know, Carl Schmidt disdained,
Speaker 2: you know, the he was not the kind of the
Speaker 2: parliamentarian who believes in endless discussion and supervisial compromises. And
Speaker 2: now it really did believe that, you know, the cunning
Speaker 2: of reason and history and you know, the kind of
Speaker 2: the mind of God is what is what guides politics
Speaker 2: and and and men are kind of limited participants and
Speaker 2: in affairs of state it uh you know he uh
Speaker 2: he was dedicated to rooting out disorder and official and
Speaker 2: see irrationality. He was very much a moralist. You know,
Speaker 2: he had no talent for corruption, but he uh you
Speaker 2: know he had uh he he had no time for
Speaker 2: for ideologies of of of the right as well as
Speaker 2: the left, you know it. Uh I think uh, I
Speaker 2: think of him as somewhat like uh. I think he
Speaker 2: had something kind of with people like Dolphus in Austria. Okay,
Speaker 2: frankly he was a centrist, yeah, yeah, but an authoritarian
Speaker 2: when called for. But also again too, I mean very
Speaker 2: not not at all secularists, you know, very very much
Speaker 2: you know, Catholic, and his his orientation and and then
Speaker 2: uh in his evaluation of of them of what you know,
Speaker 2: the metric is for good government. But uh, I mean
Speaker 2: his political culture is very different than the one they
Speaker 2: had now emerged from. And the uh the kind of
Speaker 2: the kind of the kind of quasi clericalism of somebody
Speaker 2: like Dolphus, you know, like and I wasn't running around
Speaker 2: you know, like like instilling priests and in the city
Speaker 2: apparatus or something like that. Okay, but he but he
Speaker 2: was he was not at all kind of the secularist
Speaker 2: parliamentary and like I said that that people sort of
Speaker 2: associate with with with you know, compromisers, the of the
Speaker 2: of the kaiser Reich and the and the m Era,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean the uh, the kind of the
Speaker 2: kind of toxic parliamentarism that that Schmidt lamented. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: obviously reached a zenith and Weimar for obvious reasons. But
Speaker 2: this kind of thing is you know, like it really
Speaker 2: it really did. And that's that's important to bear in
Speaker 2: my mind. But no, so it became he became nationally
Speaker 2: known during the Great War. Uh he uh he involved himself,
Speaker 2: uh you know as as uh as as a merit colone.
Speaker 2: He involved themself very much and managing never threw remedy,
Speaker 2: you know, food shortages born of the embargo. Uh it
Speaker 2: was an eally like uh like sausage derived from soy.
Speaker 2: You think this these kinds of alternative uh food technologies
Speaker 2: and power was responsible for getting of found you know,
Speaker 2: which which was revolutionary in those days. You know. He
Speaker 2: uh he worked handled with the army and uh availing
Speaker 2: colone is uh as as a base of supply and
Speaker 2: and as a hub, you know, to reconstitute forces and
Speaker 2: things like this. You know, he uh he really really
Speaker 2: rose to the occasion, you know, and became something of
Speaker 2: a hero of figure in the minds of people, not
Speaker 2: just in Cologne, but uh, you know, he became quite
Speaker 2: well about the Reich. Uh however, uh he uh he
Speaker 2: uh he was somebody who became something an intermediate, something
Speaker 2: of an intermediary uh between uh, between elements and in Berlin,
Speaker 2: which is interesting. And when it became clear that uh,
Speaker 2: when it became clear that uh, the the French intended
Speaker 2: to occupy the Prussian Ryeland, he had the Monciulolian notion
Speaker 2: of dissolving, uh, dissolving the Ryeland and into a new
Speaker 2: autonomous state kind of like a demilitarized zone that uh
Speaker 2: would uh you know, with the stipulation that the French
Speaker 2: would would not occupy it and uh the foreign element
Speaker 2: would uh set foot on its soil. You know. It's
Speaker 2: because it being this kind of like you know, nomenal
Speaker 2: atime zone. And uh, both the Prussian uh governments and
Speaker 2: yeah and uh and the Byment regime were totally against
Speaker 2: I think planned to bring up Russia with the Via regime.
Speaker 2: This was in nineteen nineteen. Yeah, I mean, I mean
Speaker 2: before I mean, we have to advocate the what remained
Speaker 2: of the right government was totally opposed to it, but
Speaker 2: it was an The point is that was very that
Speaker 2: was very forward looking in it's thinking and very much
Speaker 2: uh and very subtle kind of and it's and it's cunning,
Speaker 2: and that kind of became characteristic of our Uh. He
Speaker 2: also too, uh when it was the treaty ever Sai,
Speaker 2: which was presented formerly in June nineteen nineteen and now
Speaker 2: we're new as anybody did, it was in the know
Speaker 2: that some sort of punitive regime was gonna be coming
Speaker 2: down the pipeline. And uh, I think his idea was that, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, the less kind of like the more like evolved,
Speaker 2: uh the Reich was like the harder it would be,
Speaker 2: uh you know, to kind of bleed it dry. It's
Speaker 2: uh you can kind of definitely, uh, you can kind
Speaker 2: of definitely tie up reparations regime if you know, you
Speaker 2: have this kind of if you have a kind of
Speaker 2: bold the sovereignty, you know, in all kinds of ways.
Speaker 2: So it's uh, he he had Germany's best interest in
Speaker 2: mind in these things. He was doing what was interesting,
Speaker 2: is he. Uh he, he very much collided with with
Speaker 2: good staff Stressman and uh you know, I've I've made
Speaker 2: the point before. I think in in our in one
Speaker 2: of our previous series that Stressman was a compelling guy
Speaker 2: and I think he's not. I think he's never really
Speaker 2: given to think of MS is kind of account to
Speaker 2: Ramsey McDonald. I think it's kind of an unsung figure
Speaker 2: in British politics. And never looked at stress him as
Speaker 2: being too Prussian. He looked at him as uh, you know,
Speaker 2: not uh not not not just no a viable for
Speaker 2: the chancellorship because Ed now did in fact covid uh
Speaker 2: the office. But uh he uh you know, he viewed
Speaker 2: his vision as fundamentally at odds with what was you know,
Speaker 2: possible and feasible, and uh that's really kind of sabotage,
Speaker 2: sabotage and naws designs. The idea was, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: for the a coalition of the Christian Krants and the
Speaker 2: and the and the Center Party, you know, uh to
Speaker 2: uh to constant the ruling quors and and at our
Speaker 2: true to form, he'd he'd he managed developed good offices
Speaker 2: with the Social Democrats as well. He refused to negotiate
Speaker 2: with the Communists, but he'd managed to decople a lot
Speaker 2: of key figures of the Social Democrats from the KPD,
Speaker 2: and this caused a lot of consternation obviously on the left,
Speaker 2: which was you know, kind of a brilliant play by
Speaker 2: add an Hour, but it also it ingratiated you know,
Speaker 2: certain people to him that, you know, moving forward would
Speaker 2: have facilitated, uh, you know, a real you know, a
Speaker 2: coalition that actually had legs and trans of its ability
Speaker 2: to to pass legislation and and and and take you know,
Speaker 2: executive take unilateral action when required, and and and had
Speaker 2: something of a mandate across the aisle, which was remarkable
Speaker 2: for nineteen twenty six. But uh, his kind of is
Speaker 2: his personal collisions with uh, with Stressmen ended all of that.
Speaker 2: I mean that that could be a whole episode into itself.
Speaker 2: But what's what's segnific again is when uh, you know,
Speaker 2: the National Socialists uh breakthrough in in nin or breakthroughs
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty and thirty two. And now it wasn't
Speaker 2: just Marri Cologne, but he was president of the Prussian
Speaker 2: State Council, you know, and uh, obviously, uh, the National Socialists,
Speaker 2: one of their key and stituency, not because they had
Speaker 2: you know, said strong soup around when in elite circles
Speaker 2: they certainly, but also just I mean, you know, appreciating
Speaker 2: the political uh you know, the like the political core
Speaker 2: of the German Reich. And now said on the Prussian
Speaker 2: State Council meant that he was either going to have
Speaker 2: to some kind of something, come to some kind of
Speaker 2: concord or the National Socialists or step aside. And uh,
Speaker 2: interestingly it uh went on the night of the Long
Speaker 2: Knives and now was I actually arrested and uh not
Speaker 2: allegedly for his own protection. And he wasn't harmed anyway,
Speaker 2: and he was released after the after the uh you know,
Speaker 2: after the after the dirty work of the bloody business
Speaker 2: of we're out the revolutionaries was done. But he wrote
Speaker 2: a ten page letter to Gering you know who. But
Speaker 2: then uh was Galli or Prussia and as well as
Speaker 2: the chief of the Prussian police, you know. And he
Speaker 2: made the point at Geary and he said that, you know,
Speaker 2: when when the National Socialist Party was banned, I allowed
Speaker 2: your people to you know, fly your national flags and
Speaker 2: Prussian buildings I build of uh you know, our public facilities,
Speaker 2: you know, to the National Socialists, so you to hold
Speaker 2: your meeting, you know, because I wasn't I was, I
Speaker 2: wasn't gonna. I wasn't going to exclude German people and
Speaker 2: you know veteran fighting minute that which most of you
Speaker 2: were from the political discussion, you know. And this is
Speaker 2: how you thank me is by placing me under arrest.
Speaker 2: And apparently this really kind of hit Daring hard and
Speaker 2: according to Spear as well as others, and I don't
Speaker 2: there to be a valid uh the testimony particularly valid
Speaker 2: on most matters, but on some things because he didn't
Speaker 2: no reason to lie about it, I do, and I'm
Speaker 2: according to Spear, Hitler made the point that Hour was
Speaker 2: a good man and regardless of our differences within him,
Speaker 2: our main National Socialists, you know, we we leave him alone,
Speaker 2: you know. And that's basically what happened. I mean, he
Speaker 2: was and now refused to He didn't he not only
Speaker 2: he refused to join the party, but he he he
Speaker 2: you know, he basically refused after the rest, he refused
Speaker 2: to kind of cooperate in any meaningful way. Okay, so
Speaker 2: he was unceremoniously removed from all you know, his his
Speaker 2: remaining offices, like appointed offices, you know, and uh, you
Speaker 2: know told uh, you know, you're free to go by
Speaker 2: your business, but you know, in nice life, you've got
Speaker 2: nothing coming. And and I actually spent uh some time
Speaker 2: living in a monastery, you know. And in later years
Speaker 2: he said that this is what he kind of had,
Speaker 2: you know, he came to certain certain like epiphanies about
Speaker 2: you know, uh, the German nation and and and what
Speaker 2: configuration of state was was going to allow it to survive,
Speaker 2: the German that survives the people and whatnot, which I
Speaker 2: think is basically true, you know. And now was not
Speaker 2: some he wasn't some intellectual or some student of history.
Speaker 2: He wasn't he wasn't a guy like the Gaul or
Speaker 2: like Adolf Hitler. You know, he is this kind of
Speaker 2: guy pole star like we talked about, was his Catholic
Speaker 2: faith and uh, you know kind of like a kind
Speaker 2: of a pragmatic sense of of how to of of
Speaker 2: how to constue to government. You know, that the Germans
Speaker 2: could live with as a people, you know, but that
Speaker 2: you know, if not ideal, would would allow their you know,
Speaker 2: survival and perennial terms. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's what the function of a government
Speaker 2: is is guaranty of the posterity of a people. What
Speaker 2: the and now we're being the man that the Allied
Speaker 2: occupation authorities essentially chose to lead Germany is fascinating And
Speaker 2: again it shows you how you know, again, at one time, however,
Speaker 2: is guided the regime may have been in uh, you know,
Speaker 2: just in pure in terms of pure competence, like America
Speaker 2: at one time it had very very strong Department of State,
Speaker 2: very very tight intelligence apparatus that allowed it to identify
Speaker 2: you know who who you know who should be insinuated
Speaker 2: into these roles. And I think within the bound ration
Speaker 2: of what America and in the UK and France wanted
Speaker 2: to accomplish in Germany like now we're the only end
Speaker 2: I think could have done that. It kind of finally
Speaker 2: what I now had going for him in their eyes,
Speaker 2: he was he was. He was constitutionally anti Russian and
Speaker 2: anti Soviet. What he did say when one of a
Speaker 2: few topics he would pientificate elaborately on in theoretical and
Speaker 2: historical terms was the relationship of Germany to the East
Speaker 2: and UH specifically, you know, relationship of UH of the
Speaker 2: German state UH to Russia, and uh, you know, he's said,
Speaker 2: he talked about the kind of you know what in
Speaker 2: his view was the love hate affair of Berlin with
Speaker 2: with with Russia and the Russians, and you know, the
Speaker 2: kind of kind of machiavilion u wit that you know,
Speaker 2: kind of ultimately brings Germany into concord with the Russians
Speaker 2: and other times than odds, depending on you know, the
Speaker 2: depending on the characteristics of the extent strategic landscape as
Speaker 2: well as the internal political situation. And uh and now
Speaker 2: we're said, you know that that that that ends. Now,
Speaker 2: you know, the Russians are, if not our enemies there,
Speaker 2: they're certainly our adversaries. You know, we we we're gonna
Speaker 2: stand with the West and with Europe and with the
Speaker 2: Atlantics concord at all costs. He refused to recognize the
Speaker 2: d d R at all. He said, it's not a
Speaker 2: legitimate state, you know, he he denied, uh, he denied
Speaker 2: them any diplomatic representation. And I mean that probably is
Speaker 2: what more than any other single variable, uh is what
Speaker 2: uh is what kind of made I now were acceptable
Speaker 2: to the occupation of authorities, but it was it was
Speaker 2: everything taken together, I mean there was the Soviet Union
Speaker 2: were at Diamond, you know, ambitious guys who you know
Speaker 2: hadn't been national socialists, but who hated the Russian I mean,
Speaker 2: it's it's not like Nower had like a rare resume
Speaker 2: in that regard, but this kind of that he had
Speaker 2: a rare credit and an unusual sort of integrity. I
Speaker 2: think that, coupled with this sort of unfinitional cold warrior
Speaker 2: stance made him, uh, you know, kind of like the
Speaker 2: natural choice. But again, I mean it's in the fact
Speaker 2: that the fact that the men in charge could demonate
Speaker 2: that he was a natural choice, uh, is a testament
Speaker 2: to the fact that, again, at one time America had
Speaker 2: a highly competent foreign policy establishment. What what what what's
Speaker 2: in place now was literally can sleely illiterate? I just
Speaker 2: I realize gonna make that point again and again people
Speaker 2: are probably tired of it, but it's something that can't
Speaker 2: be overstated. But interestingly, two, you know our he uh
Speaker 2: he said that people need to say, you know, very
Speaker 2: monck assessed veterans desert to be respected and they're patriots
Speaker 2: and and he he said that you know, we're not
Speaker 2: gonna put like shame on these men. But interestingly, the
Speaker 2: reason why Auto Reamer and Hans Rudel, who both were
Speaker 2: uh Reamer, was he still has the Socialist Rights Party,
Speaker 2: you know, which was which in my name, was the
Speaker 2: legacy party of the nsd P in real terms. And
Speaker 2: they they were pro Sovietiet. They were nagatively anti Merican
Speaker 2: and pro Soviet. And he, uh, he was, he was
Speaker 2: very he very derisively referred to ad Now as quote
Speaker 2: Rabbi ad Nour and uh, there's a lot there's been
Speaker 2: a German right, the national Socialist right, who absolutely despise
Speaker 2: ad Hour. But they that uh and I I I
Speaker 2: understand cletely, like I get it, but it's not it's
Speaker 2: not as simple as add now. We're as being like
Speaker 2: I said, Nato Lackey or something or some or some
Speaker 2: social democrat to uh, you know who saw an opportunity
Speaker 2: and you spent the war years you know, uh, you
Speaker 2: know his toy, the launder. You had to you know,
Speaker 2: avoiding the front. Well so like avoiding the eye or
Speaker 2: the authority. And suddenly you know he uh you know,
Speaker 2: he started you know waving uh waving waving the natal
Speaker 2: band or as soon as as as soon as uh
Speaker 2: the Soviets were uh we're in Berlin. You know, he
Speaker 2: had genuine entirety. Okay, Uh, I'm not gonna like I
Speaker 2: obviously mouth went slides with guys like but in his
Speaker 2: in his I mean, but uh, that's that's uh that
Speaker 2: that it's I I wanted to decate based this entire episode,
Speaker 2: and now we're into the senden See because that's I
Speaker 2: realized something of a dry topic, but it's essential to
Speaker 2: to understand and it could have very much gone a
Speaker 2: different way. And I think the point about reading war
Speaker 2: kind of building NATO because like and again I really
Speaker 2: NATO was constant in nineteen forty nine, but there wasn't
Speaker 2: really much to it then, Okay, and there's still still
Speaker 2: hasn't even been decided. If you know, Germany was going
Speaker 2: to be allowed to permitted the you know, re arm
Speaker 2: at all in any capacity, and then what kind of
Speaker 2: became the prevailing uh sensibility. Uh. You know, people make
Speaker 2: the point a lot that the you know, the the
Speaker 2: uh the uh western of an army UH had uh
Speaker 2: such boring uniforms. That was by design because the original
Speaker 2: a concept thing floated was a European the community wherein
Speaker 2: uh there'd be a comedy command structure. You know, no
Speaker 2: one state you know would have would would be dominant
Speaker 2: and you know in an executive officer roles or in
Speaker 2: command authorities and UH the you know, the the UN
Speaker 2: a forum for the post the multinational force. It was
Speaker 2: supposed to be devoid of anything that could be affiliated
Speaker 2: with you know, national chawmanism or or something that could
Speaker 2: be like identified with any particular UH country or or
Speaker 2: cultural UH tendency. So you're left with UH. So the
Speaker 2: the like then is now it's like these guys look
Speaker 2: like bus drivers or something. It was opposed to, like
Speaker 2: the Easterman Army even though which are like dope, but
Speaker 2: it's you know, it's uh it. I think the key take.
Speaker 2: But also, like I said, was that the UH and
Speaker 2: we'll get into UH later on in this series two
Speaker 2: the like ultimately and and in the final phase of
Speaker 2: the Cold War, the key UH, the key strategic battle
Speaker 2: strategic battlespace was was the the Pacific, you know, and
Speaker 2: that that's one of the things that underlay UH the
Speaker 2: Department of the Navy under Jim Webb, you know, UH
Speaker 2: and UH Reagan's idea for a ship navy, you know,
Speaker 2: the idea was, you know, to deploy battle platforms, uh
Speaker 2: like survival battle platforms, eff to wave what amount to
Speaker 2: do a two front nuclear war? We can think of
Speaker 2: nuclear war as having fronts at all. But that's uh,
Speaker 2: that's yeah. I mean the fact that the people like uh,
Speaker 2: people like Kennon uh who talk about, you know, the
Speaker 2: inherent danger of of the Far East and and they
Speaker 2: kind of and and you know, again the fleet of
Speaker 2: of possible conflict adds, I mean they're proven right. I
Speaker 2: mean during the Cold War, like Asia was pretty much
Speaker 2: always at war, and I mean America fought two major
Speaker 2: wars there and probably have it as on others that
Speaker 2: you know, we're kind of something short of you know,
Speaker 2: open conflict, but but but very much not conditions at peace.
Speaker 2: And I mean the there was a I mean that
Speaker 2: that wasn't happening in Europe. I mean, yeah, I realize
Speaker 2: again as I stated that, uh, there's really only one
Speaker 2: conflict diet and possible in Europe, and it was a
Speaker 2: catastrophic one. But that had the Korean War not happened,
Speaker 2: or had it resolved some other way, uh, the entire
Speaker 2: course of subsequents would have been different. And it and
Speaker 2: it had MacArthur got his way some kind of uh,
Speaker 2: it's not going to open it at war with uh
Speaker 2: with And the problem is, I mean, I stipulate that
Speaker 2: what was referred like we thought the tautology of well,
Speaker 2: you know, we we we've got to defend Korea because
Speaker 2: our forces are there, and we're going to fight to
Speaker 2: defend our forces. I mean, that's nonsense. But if the
Speaker 2: alternative is, you know, we we've got to push for
Speaker 2: a total victory in Korea. But doing that means fighting
Speaker 2: in China, and fighting China means you know, landing the
Speaker 2: China goshiks nationalists there, and and and and waging war
Speaker 2: to the end until you know, until the comments regime falls. Well,
Speaker 2: if you do that, then you're at war with the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union, you know, and then when and I mean,
Speaker 2: there's this this is not the Cold War. Was it
Speaker 2: was important, not to not just important, but I mean
Speaker 2: and it was a next it was a question, it
Speaker 2: was a next essential reality that uh, the conflict paradigms
Speaker 2: couldn't just be considered in binary terms. And I mean
Speaker 2: that even even up through the eighties, there was something too.
Speaker 2: Uh I'm not talking about like the fools like Uh,
Speaker 2: the kind of you know, the kind of the kind
Speaker 2: of peace movement just calling for like you know, Libel
Speaker 2: to sun. I mean, but some of the people you
Speaker 2: know who really kind of like opposed the the the
Speaker 2: reig and UH and tm B notion. It's it was,
Speaker 2: you know, they're the Cold War announcing you can just
Speaker 2: turn off. And it wasn't just a question of you know,
Speaker 2: persuing a quite like a conciliatory posture or an aggressive posture.
Speaker 2: You know, especially by the era of deep parodies, the
Speaker 2: every every embolicy decision had had very serious consequences that
Speaker 2: themselves and other consequences, not all of which can be foreseen.
Speaker 2: You know, it's an incredibly dangerous time. But excuse me,
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm getting over a flare up. So I
Speaker 2: realized that sound crummy. I'm sorry, but uh, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: wrap Uh I think that I think I'm gonna wrap
Speaker 2: up this, uh this episode. And like I said, I
Speaker 2: realized this was a bit dry. It's kind of it
Speaker 2: was it's essential to lay foundation for some of the
Speaker 2: you know, for some of the some events we're gonna
Speaker 2: talk about, and we're gonna get into the Cuban missile crisis,
Speaker 2: in Vietnam and the next episode. And I think that
Speaker 2: everybody finds that sort of stuff exciting. I mean, at
Speaker 2: least I do.
Speaker 1: But uh, you had also you had also met talking
Speaker 1: about McCarthy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's let's we'll take that up next episode too,
Speaker 2: because yeah, obviously we're getting in a well, yeah, we're
Speaker 2: gonna we'll get into eyes and uh into Kennedy era. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we about McCarthy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, sounds great. Give your plugs and we'll
Speaker 1: get out of here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, Thank you, Pete. You can find me
Speaker 2: on substick uh real Thomas seven seven seven dot substick
Speaker 2: dot com. That's where you can access to the podcast.
Speaker 2: We drove a podcast every other week, you know, on
Speaker 2: the same kind of stuff, you know, revisionism and and
Speaker 2: and mostly political theory kind of topics. But you know,
Speaker 2: I take up current events too, particularly Warren P's kind
Speaker 2: of stuff when it's timely to do. So. You can
Speaker 2: find me on Twitter at triskilli and jahad. Uh the
Speaker 2: T is a number seven, but if you search for
Speaker 2: Thomas seven seven seven, you should find me. That's mostly
Speaker 2: where I active these days. I'm going to transition to
Speaker 2: YouTube and you know, perhaps uh one or two other
Speaker 2: video platforms on the first of January and make that
Speaker 2: kind of the the primary place where I post up content.
Speaker 2: But for now, that's that's where I can be found.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the pe Cononez Show,
Speaker 1: continuing talking about the Cold War. I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people are going to be really interested in this one.
Speaker 1: Thomas seven seven seven doing Thomas very well.
Speaker 2: Thanks, Yeah, I hope so. And I wanted to get
Speaker 2: some housekeeping stuff because I haven't addressed people directly for
Speaker 2: a minute. I mean, not like I've got this huge
Speaker 2: audience or something, but I do have some pay subscribers
Speaker 2: who are adult because they make a lot of what
Speaker 2: I do possible. That not much has gotten done the
Speaker 2: last couple of weeks. That was second stuff, and I
Speaker 2: think some of you notice. But obviously I'm I'm getting
Speaker 2: back to dropping fresh stuff now. I mean literally right
Speaker 2: now what we're doing here. But I'm gonna drop a
Speaker 2: fresh pod this week and kind of get back on
Speaker 2: top of stuff. So thank you for being patient. I
Speaker 2: don't like believe people. I mean, I realize everybody's cool
Speaker 2: about such things, but I mean people do pay to
Speaker 2: like read my stuff, so I don't really like to
Speaker 2: leave them hanging like that. But yeah, today, I wanted
Speaker 2: to get into the Q and missile crisis today because
Speaker 2: it's something it's key, not just understanding how the later
Speaker 2: Cold War developed. I think of the later Cold War
Speaker 2: as Bresnev onward. Okay, and Bresnev became General Secretary in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four, okay. But the early Cold War you
Speaker 2: can think of as you know, Stalin's tenure through mister
Speaker 2: Krushcheff's regime and not not not not as temporally can
Speaker 2: we think of that as the early Cold War. But
Speaker 2: that was before parody set in, you know, strategic parody.
Speaker 2: And people bandy a lot about nuclear weapons today, which
Speaker 2: is another example, in my opinion, of how kind of
Speaker 2: disengage the public policy UH discourses from the realities of things.
Speaker 2: Nulear weapons are a practical purpose is obsolete, not not
Speaker 2: because the technology is obsolete per se, but because they
Speaker 2: don't really have utility in UH in it tactical or
Speaker 2: a strategic sense outstead of a very peculiar paradigm. And
Speaker 2: unfortunately or fortunately, depending on where you fall on the issue,
Speaker 2: that that that paradigm emerged splendidly in in the twentieth century,
Speaker 2: and uh what uh, what's what What's become sort of
Speaker 2: dogma in terms of in terms of strategic analysis and
Speaker 2: game theory derived from the precedent of the Cuman missile price.
Speaker 2: It's more than any other singular event. This was somewhat
Speaker 2: uh compromised reliance on the model that I just you know,
Speaker 2: from relying upon the data derived from the Cuban missile
Speaker 2: crisis and the models created therein in terms of strategic
Speaker 2: forecasting and and nuclear war planning and deterrens and things
Speaker 2: like that. H some of that was itself writered ops
Speaker 2: a lescdent by the emergence at deeper parodies after ninety
Speaker 2: seventy three seventy four. But the basic terms remain, and
Speaker 2: the basic the basic conceptual model indoors. And I'm gonna
Speaker 2: get into why it is in a minute, but first
Speaker 2: we gotta understand understand the Cuban crisis. You can understand
Speaker 2: the character mister Krushcheff, cruise schief became for a poetical purposes,
Speaker 2: you know, chief Executive of the Soviet Union in nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty eight. You know, I mean, there was always kind
Speaker 2: of a strange or not always, but in most cases
Speaker 2: there's an unusual sort of consolidation of offices that kind
Speaker 2: of asituted the executive seat of power in the Soviet Union.
Speaker 2: Sometimes that was a trifecta of sourts. Sometimes it came
Speaker 2: down to the rule of one man. But it's it's superseded. Uh,
Speaker 2: it's superseded in any single office, okay. And after the
Speaker 2: death of Stalin in ninety fifty three, there there was
Speaker 2: a lot of there's a lot of palace intrigues, as
Speaker 2: it were. Okay, as well, we could probably imagine between
Speaker 2: Stalin loyalists, you know, between and reformers as well as uh,
Speaker 2: you know, between men who represented uh uh sympathies uh
Speaker 2: common to the same faction, but you know, who had
Speaker 2: personal designs on power. And Cruise Chef was emerging a
Speaker 2: triumphant for a variety of reasons, uh, not the least
Speaker 2: of which ironically, in the view of the West at
Speaker 2: the time, I believe, and even in hindsight and even
Speaker 2: among some revisionists, Cruiseiff really was something of a reformer,
Speaker 2: you know, he was he was kind of a proto
Speaker 2: Gorbachev in a lot of ways. People who cited this
Speaker 2: because his posture was so aggressive and foreign policy as
Speaker 2: regards efforts directify the strategic and balance. And we'll get
Speaker 2: into what I mean by that in a moment. But Krustie,
Speaker 2: if he is, he wanted to normalize the Soviet Union. Okay.
Speaker 2: Now this presented a problem for few of the reasons
Speaker 2: and the one and it was imperative for him to
Speaker 2: normalize and thought relations with the West because otherwise nothing
Speaker 2: was gonna get done. Okay. There there was going to
Speaker 2: be some kind of interdependence between the East Block and
Speaker 2: the West, Okay, regardless of what anybody's powerpelitical ambisions were. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's that was just the reality of of of of
Speaker 2: nascent globalism. And make no mistake, globalism began uh in
Speaker 2: the ashes of the Second War. Okay, The fact there
Speaker 2: wasn't realized until you know, the night of November nineth,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine and subsequent is is incidental. This was uh,
Speaker 2: This was this was the enterprise comment of both Moscow
Speaker 2: in Washington and and what form that it would all
Speaker 2: the system would ultimately take once consolidated, was really what
Speaker 2: underlay the political side of the Cold War. So Cruise
Speaker 2: I've had to present a face of u of normalcy
Speaker 2: or the outside world in some basic sense. However, as
Speaker 2: we talked about, particularly in the last episode, when we
Speaker 2: got into you know, the uh the the battleground of
Speaker 2: the Third world and the need quite literally to you know,
Speaker 2: to to disway the non like world into one's own
Speaker 2: camp as a path of victory in the Cold War,
Speaker 2: the uh the the only way to really animate these
Speaker 2: these post colonial states and in these in these developing countries, uh,
Speaker 2: to to take up the cause of Marxist Leninism was
Speaker 2: to sell them in a basically radical program. Okay, That's
Speaker 2: what was resonant with the people on the ground. That's
Speaker 2: what uh, the cadres had been marinated in that kind
Speaker 2: of you know, during World War two and after. Frankly,
Speaker 2: that's what orthodox Marcust Leninism is. You know, it calls
Speaker 2: for the It calls for the development of a truly
Speaker 2: revolutionary sensibility where uh, you know, power flows from the
Speaker 2: barrel of a gun quite literally. Okay, in tactical terms,
Speaker 2: somebody like Mao was was far more of an orthodox
Speaker 2: and Marguist Leninist than you know, the the the Eastern
Speaker 2: Bloc cadres that uh that succeeded style. And Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: notwithstanding the fact that I don't believe Mao what any
Speaker 2: great understanding of Marxism. I don't think he understood it
Speaker 2: at all, particularly, but on the tactical sides of political
Speaker 2: revolutionary as somebody like Mao or probably more probably more
Speaker 2: precisely Ho Chi Men was exactly what Lenin envisioned when
Speaker 2: he when he when he when he contemplated you know,
Speaker 2: world world socialist revolution. Okay, So there was this weird
Speaker 2: dichotomy wherein the Soviets had to present a reformist face
Speaker 2: to their chief advers series in the West, but you know,
Speaker 2: they had to maintain a kind of a year of
Speaker 2: uh of orthodox radicalism, you know, to their constituents, if
Speaker 2: we can think of them, that where their cadres, you know,
Speaker 2: in the Third World. And this was a very delicate
Speaker 2: menuet and uh it. Frankie led the foundation of the
Speaker 2: sign of Soviet Split, which we'll get into in coming episodes,
Speaker 2: but that's a bit outside the scope for now. But
Speaker 2: when Cruisie did take the helm of the Soviet Union
Speaker 2: and the Soviet Union had some pretty substantial momentum technologically,
Speaker 2: they were arguably winning the space race. You know, Sputnik
Speaker 2: was uh was the first uh what was the first
Speaker 2: man made object in orbit? The first man made object
Speaker 2: in space was a V two rocket, so you can
Speaker 2: thank the German Reich for that. But you know, Sputnik
Speaker 2: was a This was a big deal, Okay, Like a
Speaker 2: lot of people, uh, the people in the in the
Speaker 2: nascent Pentagon at the time said well, this is just
Speaker 2: a stunt. You know, it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't
Speaker 2: prove anything. It didn't matter if anything or not. And
Speaker 2: it didn't matter if you know, there's a direct military application,
Speaker 2: you know, the parking a satellite in orbital space for
Speaker 2: a few minutes. The point is that they were the
Speaker 2: first to accomplish it, and this developed a kind of
Speaker 2: momentum it zone in terms of perception. Okay, but the
Speaker 2: Soviets had a real political problem that became a national
Speaker 2: security problem that was ongoing even despite those victories in
Speaker 2: this era. We talked about the Berlin Airlift last episode,
Speaker 2: and you know how that really kind of was the
Speaker 2: key initiatory or instigating event of the Cold War. I
Speaker 2: think if we can identify any singular occurrence between ninety fifty,
Speaker 2: well over one point five million people emigrated from the
Speaker 2: Soviet occupied zone to West Germany, and most of these
Speaker 2: people were young. They were prime working age, a dispportiond
Speaker 2: an amount of engineers, men with military experience, people educated
Speaker 2: in the sciences, uh, women of child during age. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean this, this is a real problem. Okay. A
Speaker 2: subtext uh to uh to to the issue of uh
Speaker 2: emmigration across the inner German border a level was never
Speaker 2: explicitly stated by their camp was uh one of the
Speaker 2: reason Germany is coveted. It's it's it's not. It's not
Speaker 2: just because of of of geostrategic accident and kind of
Speaker 2: where you know Germany is located on the map. Okay.
Speaker 2: It had to do with it had to do with
Speaker 2: the human material. Okay, you can control the German population
Speaker 2: that literally, the human resources they're in that that you
Speaker 2: wield tremendous power in terms of your ability to mobilize
Speaker 2: them for warfare. I mean, that's just a fact, Okay.
Speaker 2: I mean if people want to say that it's not true,
Speaker 2: or that the eugenics thinking, Okay, fine, you can label
Speaker 2: whatever you want. It's a fact. And everybody accepted it. Okay,
Speaker 2: there's a there's a reason why. There's a reason why
Speaker 2: the d d R was was the jewel and the
Speaker 2: crown of Warsaw pat Okay, And it wasn't. It wasn't
Speaker 2: just because it was the westernmost point at which at
Speaker 2: which the Soviets UH sphere of influence stretched. As this
Speaker 2: went on, another another layer was insinuated into the into
Speaker 2: the issue of into the issue of divided Germany as
Speaker 2: the UH, as the four power UH regime fell apart,
Speaker 2: and it became clear that, you know, demilitarization was not
Speaker 2: in the cards. The Soviets came to realize that West
Speaker 2: Germany as a basing hub for for American nuclear weapons
Speaker 2: was was going to become the reality. And this had
Speaker 2: already been accomplished in terms of low yeld tactical nuclear forces.
Speaker 2: It had escalated beyond that, in part because UH the
Speaker 2: strategic balance was still unstable. And we'll get into what
Speaker 2: I mean by that in a moment, But the Soviets
Speaker 2: were very very aware of this. So the problem was twofold,
Speaker 2: you know. The problem was the fact that they were
Speaker 2: literally hemorrhaging people by the sieve that was Berlin, because
Speaker 2: the inner German border had been shot since ninety fifty three,
Speaker 2: but Berlin, being one hundred and ten miles within East Germany,
Speaker 2: represented a kind of It represented a kind of metaphorical valve,
Speaker 2: as it were, wherein people could pass rather freely between
Speaker 2: you know, the Eastern occupations owned in the West and
Speaker 2: once in West Berlin. The West Berlin authorities under a
Speaker 2: under the dominion of you know, of the United States,
Speaker 2: the UK and France, they considered all German citizens to
Speaker 2: just be citizens in Germany. They did not recognize East
Speaker 2: Germany as a sovereign state. So East German people, these
Speaker 2: German passports made it to West Berlin like they were
Speaker 2: good to go. They they you know, they be granted
Speaker 2: full rights of UH, the many bales and the Bonus Republic.
Speaker 2: So there's the practical problem of of UH, of the
Speaker 2: Soviets losing the human material they needed to wage the
Speaker 2: cold work quite literally, there's the political problem of UH
Speaker 2: of credibility, you know, UH in that you know, if
Speaker 2: if you claim to represent the real Germany and the
Speaker 2: U you know, the will of the working class and
Speaker 2: the government situated in East Berlin, yet you're hemorrhaging people.
Speaker 2: It UH it's a terrible look, frankly, and uh, the
Speaker 2: entire uh, the the the entire communist enterprise again relied
Speaker 2: upon the perception, especially in the Third World, you know,
Speaker 2: to represent a competitive system that was an equitable alternative
Speaker 2: to that in the West. And finally, as I just indicated, uh,
Speaker 2: the permanent division and mobilization of Germany essentially allowed America
Speaker 2: and the NASA and NATAL alliance to potentially maintain a permanent,
Speaker 2: splendid first strike capability, you know, if they chose to
Speaker 2: deploy strategic nuclear forces. At that time, there were no
Speaker 2: hypersonic cruise platforms available, so we'll get into that later obviously,
Speaker 2: but the solution of this was somewhat fascinating. There's a
Speaker 2: terrible human cost, so I'm not being flippant. But on
Speaker 2: August thirteenth, nineteen sixty one, at midnight, the East German
Speaker 2: Border Police, the National Volks Army and elements of the
Speaker 2: group of Soviet forced in Germany, it began to construction
Speaker 2: on the Berlin Wall, Okay, and it wasn't clear at
Speaker 2: first what they were doing. Ubrich had actually suggested this
Speaker 2: based on analysis from National Voks Army engineers. The Soviets
Speaker 2: did not think it was possible, and the Pentagon, interestingly
Speaker 2: near me cort of engineer said it's probably impossible. But
Speaker 2: to emphasize the point I just made about, you know,
Speaker 2: the mentioned material if you will, of Germany, well, the
Speaker 2: Germans found a way to quite literally wall in West Berlin,
Speaker 2: which again I'm not making light of a terrible situation,
Speaker 2: but the Berlin Wall remains an architectural marvel that really
Speaker 2: I don't think, I don't I don't think anybody could
Speaker 2: pull off other than the Germans. And I think we
Speaker 2: can stand by this statement in confidence so that the
Speaker 2: effect of lessening tensions, you know, there wouldn't be another
Speaker 2: Berlin air lift type situation, you know, absent a state
Speaker 2: of general war, it was unthinkable that Berlin v blockaded again. However,
Speaker 2: that didn't obviously accomplished anything in terms of the remedying,
Speaker 2: you know, the problem of of a basing availability in
Speaker 2: West Berlin, and I mean the obviously it was key
Speaker 2: keep in mind is that okay, I mean, the Soviets
Speaker 2: could base their own nuclear forces in the d d R,
Speaker 2: and they could threaten Europe with uh, you know, with
Speaker 2: with with the threat of a cat is driving nuclear assault,
Speaker 2: but that that that wouldn't matter. Like when it came down,
Speaker 2: it was the ability to deter a threat in the
Speaker 2: United States, and obviously the Soviets had no capability to
Speaker 2: do that, which is why UH Cuba became so coveted. Now,
Speaker 2: before we get into the actual development of the crisis,
Speaker 2: let's get into what prevailing conceptual models were for UH
Speaker 2: for strategic planning and in the nuclear age. Okay, the
Speaker 2: two primary models were presented by Hans Morgenthau, who I
Speaker 2: think I referenced in the last episode. You know, morgan
Speaker 2: Tho is a traditional realist. Meerscheimer's a neorealist. You know,
Speaker 2: as I indicated, he he deals with and dealt primarily
Speaker 2: in structures and institutional u features and how they affect
Speaker 2: outcomes as regards us as you know, as regards to
Speaker 2: terrence and war fighting. You know, Morgan thal would he
Speaker 2: basically presented an anthropological model buttressed by what he called
Speaker 2: rational discipline and action. Like what did he mean by that?
Speaker 2: He was saying. What he was basically saying is that,
Speaker 2: you know, the bounded rationality to states at war or
Speaker 2: political actors generally not they don't even have to be
Speaker 2: states so the States obviously are the primary, the primary
Speaker 2: actors in power political affairs. You know, at least from
Speaker 2: sixteen forty eight to the present. That's changing, but it's
Speaker 2: still endures, you know, regardless of how prerational or even
Speaker 2: arguably irrational the origins of war are. Like what it's underway.
Speaker 2: You know, war is guided by this bounded rationality. Okay,
Speaker 2: the waging of it. It begs the question as to
Speaker 2: how you know, as to how as the on this
Speaker 2: has been demonstrated in the historical record, like an Accolade
Speaker 2: Morgan that would say, well, over time, you know, there's there,
Speaker 2: there's a remarkable continuity. Okay, if you're talking about great
Speaker 2: powers at war, where they're talking about the British, the
Speaker 2: United States, you know, Russian foreign policy, you know, even
Speaker 2: the lesser regional powers like the Austranguria Empire, you know,
Speaker 2: in the most failian era, at least over time, this
Speaker 2: bears out. Okay, the the competing model, I mean maybe
Speaker 2: not so much competing and absolute terms, but the uh,
Speaker 2: the kind of game theory model you know that relies
Speaker 2: more on codable variables if you were if you will,
Speaker 2: you know, uh, based upon you know the availability of
Speaker 2: war fighting technologies was kind of was presented by Thomas Shelling.
Speaker 2: Shelling was primarily an economist, but he was a game theorist,
Speaker 2: and he was a public intellectual of the sort that really,
Speaker 2: uh really thrived during the Cold War, and I it
Speaker 2: doesn't really exist anymore, at least not in public life.
Speaker 2: Shilling's old point was that deterrence is accomplished, you know, not,
Speaker 2: you know not not not by the propensities of the
Speaker 2: individual men who are they who are the human decision makers,
Speaker 2: you know, nor a by that relative balance of forces
Speaker 2: on each side. But the stability they're in, and the
Speaker 2: stability they're in comes down to available technologies, and uh,
Speaker 2: in the nuclear age that it comes down to the
Speaker 2: ability of uh each side to basically threaten the other,
Speaker 2: whether a telecatory strike when attacked that you know, makes
Speaker 2: a bolt from the blue assault cost prohibitive, you know,
Speaker 2: unacceptable damage will be endured. In other words, Okay, showing
Speaker 2: seminal texts was the strategy of conflict, Okay, throughout the
Speaker 2: Cold War, this kind of a in foreign policy and
Speaker 2: so either more either directly or obliquely into literally until
Speaker 2: nineteen until the night of November ninet nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 2: showing is a controversial figure about his influence can't be
Speaker 2: cannot be denied now based on both base based on
Speaker 2: either of those models or both of them considered together.
Speaker 2: Nineteen sixty two, really ninety sixties ninety sixty three was
Speaker 2: so dangerous because they're an equilibrium and not yet set in.
Speaker 2: There's a lack of there's a lack of informational awareness
Speaker 2: on both sides as the absolute state of forces and
Speaker 2: being and capabilities. Even uh, even if uh, even even
Speaker 2: if that awareness had been even if those blinders could
Speaker 2: be as it were, it could be overcome. I mean,
Speaker 2: even if there was a situation a total uh information awareness.
Speaker 2: There's the availability of delivery mechanisms and uh, whether you
Speaker 2: know they're their operational status would have caused a situation
Speaker 2: where it could have served either side's interests to strike
Speaker 2: first without waiting for you know, an intelligence reveal, you know,
Speaker 2: as the absolute status of forces on the opposing side.
Speaker 2: What one what one can think of two men blindfolded, uh,
Speaker 2: and neither's aware of the armament of the other, and
Speaker 2: whether they're trying to draw a bead, you know, the
Speaker 2: threatened the other to deter future hostile acts, but neither's
Speaker 2: cable of seeing you know, his opponent, you know, and
Speaker 2: that's really what in part created, you know, the the
Speaker 2: danger of the Cuba situation. Now, how it first came about,
Speaker 2: like why Cuba again, and more to do with the
Speaker 2: accident of geography. As early as you'rely nineteen sixty two,
Speaker 2: Raouel Castro, who UH was Fiddil's brother and was uh
Speaker 2: in in some ways the shadow foreign policy executive of
Speaker 2: Cuba throughout the Cold War, so we're not even two.
Speaker 2: He visited Moscow, and it's believed that this is when
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union began the large scale shipments of the
Speaker 2: tech of technical and military aid to Cuba, you know,
Speaker 2: including UH the men who were qualified to uh, you know,
Speaker 2: to operate you know, strategic nuclear platforms. UH. August nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty two is probably when UH is probably when the
Speaker 2: actual plant missile platforms arrived in in in Q. They
Speaker 2: were not yet operational, but this is when, you know,
Speaker 2: this is when that disassembled components first arrived on the island. September. Interestingly,
Speaker 2: the UH, the Kennedy administration declared that if Q became
Speaker 2: a base for Soviet nuclear weapons, UH it would it
Speaker 2: would be viewed as an active war. So this is
Speaker 2: on everybody's mind before the crisis, before, but before the
Speaker 2: crisis ensued, and before the reveal of UH, of the
Speaker 2: actual basing of weapons on the island. This gives you
Speaker 2: an idea of UH the dangerous game cruise if was playing. Frankly, okay, now,
Speaker 2: it was Sunday, October fourteenth, that's when the famous or
Speaker 2: infamous YouTube were Constance Flight took the photographs that you
Speaker 2: know ultimately led to their reveal. It was a subsequent
Speaker 2: Monday the fifteenth that conclusively, at the National Photographic Interpretation Center,
Speaker 2: the YouTube film was analyzed and medium range ballistic missiles
Speaker 2: were identified in your san crystal Ball without a doubt. Now,
Speaker 2: thus ensued the most dangerous phase of the crisis. Today,
Speaker 2: October the sixteenth, Kennedy and his UH and his principal
Speaker 2: foreign policy Cabinet were briefed on the situation and discussions
Speaker 2: began immediately on how to respond. Now, obviously there's two
Speaker 2: principal courses. I mean, there's three, you'll get into that
Speaker 2: in a minute. But in terms of action, the two
Speaker 2: principal courses were, you know, a massive, a massive air assault,
Speaker 2: possibly including nuclear forces, and a subsequent invasion of the island,
Speaker 2: you know, the the destruction of the weapons platforms, the
Speaker 2: overthrow of you know, the defeat and utter annihilation of
Speaker 2: the Cuban army, the overthrow of the Castro regime, and
Speaker 2: the occupation of Havana, which undoubtedly would you know, lead
Speaker 2: to the deaths of you know, one hundred of thousands
Speaker 2: of people, including you know, any Soviet soldiers on the
Speaker 2: ground or alternatively sort of a naval quarantine blockade, and
Speaker 2: the threat of future military action. Now interestingly, macnimer was
Speaker 2: the man who had the third position, if you want
Speaker 2: to look at it that way. Mcnamerr Said, don't do anything.
Speaker 2: This doesn't matter. Why doesn't it matter, because you know,
Speaker 2: these intermediate range platforms are going to be obsolete in
Speaker 2: six months, and which was true, you know, and America
Speaker 2: was about to replace their own Jupiter missiles with the
Speaker 2: polar System, you know, which was a submarine launch ballistic
Speaker 2: missile platform. And even whether they're not the case, mac
Speaker 2: namara said, uh, you know, despite despite propaganda of the
Speaker 2: contrary and despite Cruise of it's own statements, you know,
Speaker 2: the Soviet unions, the Soviet Union probably adds between thirty
Speaker 2: and eighty viable warheads. Okay, we get into a we
Speaker 2: get into a nuclear with the Soviet Union, we can
Speaker 2: annihilate them. I mean, yeah, you know, twenty million Americans
Speaker 2: may die, but that's a war the Soviets can't win.
Speaker 2: Do nothing. But that wasn't really the issue. If it was,
Speaker 2: the issue was twofold. I mean, this the Minroe doctrine, obviously,
Speaker 2: and that always UH is controlling on questions of the
Speaker 2: power political affairs. Just on principle, you can't allow UH
Speaker 2: a rival actor to deploy within the Western hemisphere. I mean,
Speaker 2: if you do so, it's you you you're essentially making
Speaker 2: hash with your own line in the sand, as it were.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter that, you know the I mean, I
Speaker 2: mean even if even if the weapons deployed are already obsolescent,
Speaker 2: it you know, it doesn't matter. And secondly, UH, you know,
Speaker 2: as a matter of a political will, if America won't UH, I,
Speaker 2: America won't fight ninety miles off its own coast to
Speaker 2: prevent the deployment of UH strategic nuclear forces. The credibility
Speaker 2: gap develops as to whether America is gonna fight and
Speaker 2: sacrifice one hundred thousand men to defend West Berlin. You know,
Speaker 2: I mean, God love macnamara, but there's you know, there,
Speaker 2: there's a calculus beyond the beyond the merely uh strategic
Speaker 2: that matters in these things, and particularly in the Cold War,
Speaker 2: which was as much political as it was, you know,
Speaker 2: a military contest, and you know about you know, who
Speaker 2: can accomplish what within you know, the proverbial balance of terror.
Speaker 2: On October seventeenth, before uh A, uh, before a formal
Speaker 2: policy decision was reached, Kennedy ordered a what we consider
Speaker 2: to be rapid reaction forces to be moved to bases
Speaker 2: in the southeastern US. Further, YouTube flights and the photos
Speaker 2: derived therein indicate additional sites and in total of sixteen
Speaker 2: to thirty two missiles. So, in other words, even taking
Speaker 2: with McNamara said a face value, which I believe, which
Speaker 2: Kennedy did, and which I believe we can and you know,
Speaker 2: and upon reflection, obsolescent or not, if those missiles are operational,
Speaker 2: that's the potential for for an utterly devastating counter value
Speaker 2: strike was definitely there, you know, I mean, this was
Speaker 2: not an illusory threat, however anyone feels about it, and
Speaker 2: the character of cashtro is UH is relevant too. You know,
Speaker 2: Cashro whatever gonna be said about him was it was
Speaker 2: was a true revolutionary in the purest sense. And he'd
Speaker 2: repeatedly stated that, and this is revealed later and UH
Speaker 2: communications between himself and UH and the Soviet Foreign Ministry
Speaker 2: and proused of office itself that UH, in the United
Speaker 2: States assaulted Cuba, the Soviet Union should go all in
Speaker 2: and you know, just treated as an act of war
Speaker 2: against the Communist block and and and and and the
Speaker 2: launch of our missiles with an operational decades later, UH,
Speaker 2: at the height of the conflict in Nicaragua, Casher was
Speaker 2: convinced that the United States was going to directly intervene,
Speaker 2: which might trigger a theater white conflagration, and he reiterated
Speaker 2: that the Soviet Union, in the war's uppack, you know,
Speaker 2: should consider UH, you know, a waging prempted nuclear war
Speaker 2: against against NATO. I mean, he really believed this, you know,
Speaker 2: this wasn't you know, it's easy dismiss that it's so
Speaker 2: much bluster. In the case of many men like Cash,
Speaker 2: it absolutely meant that, you know, I mean, I I
Speaker 2: have no doubt about that. So consider that there's a
Speaker 2: question as to whether or not, you know, what what
Speaker 2: the Soviet response would have been if there was a
Speaker 2: massive invasion in Cuba. I mean, there's there's it's more
Speaker 2: than a remal possibility that you know, there would have
Speaker 2: there they would have responded by launching whatever munitions that
Speaker 2: were currently operational. Okay. And again even if that, you know,
Speaker 2: even if that, even if that was a war, the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union could not win that that that would have
Speaker 2: that would that would have meant I need to thirty
Speaker 2: million dead Americans, you know. Within hours, uh Thursday, October eighteenth,
Speaker 2: Kennedy was visited by the Soviet Foreign Minister Gramico, who
Speaker 2: asserted that the soviety to Cuba was purely defensive. Kennedy
Speaker 2: had not yet revealed that he knew of the existence
Speaker 2: of the missiles. He reiterated his public warning of the
Speaker 2: previous September you know that deployment to Cuba strategic nuclear
Speaker 2: forces would constitute an active war. Basically was signaling and
Speaker 2: to give Gramco an out, I believe, okay it And
Speaker 2: this also raised the question as to why why why
Speaker 2: why didn't why didn't cruise to try to de escalate
Speaker 2: when it should have been clear that Kennedy was signaling
Speaker 2: through a kind of you know, would pass for secret
Speaker 2: diplomacy in the post and number of era. Why why
Speaker 2: didn't why what why didn't Why didn't Cruise your trying
Speaker 2: to de escalate the situation. I've got my own ideas
Speaker 2: on that, But what's an arguable is why, uh, why
Speaker 2: Cruise it deployed these weapons in the first place, when
Speaker 2: as we just acknowledged, you know, and as as mac
Speaker 2: and at the time observed, you know, that this actually
Speaker 2: didn't rectify the strategic balance imbalance on its own terms,
Speaker 2: and it had the potential for catastrophic escalations. So why
Speaker 2: why did he do that? I believe that this was
Speaker 2: supposed to be as trump card as regards Berlin. I
Speaker 2: believe that Kruse Scheff UH was going to demand on
Speaker 2: the open floor of the United Nations that UH NATO
Speaker 2: abandoned West Berlin and UH and UH and and UH.
Speaker 2: And when Stevenson or whoever you know, haughtily would just say,
Speaker 2: you know, it's laughable. Of course we're not going to
Speaker 2: do that. At that moment, Cruise Shift would reveal, well,
Speaker 2: you know, we've got operational weapons platforms in Cuba ninety
Speaker 2: miles off your coast. You know, if you want them
Speaker 2: to be removed, you know you'll you'll, you'll see Berlin
Speaker 2: unconditionally our sphere of influence, which seems like the craziest
Speaker 2: hell idea. But Cruise Shift was a gambler, you know,
Speaker 2: for all of his for all of his tendencies UH
Speaker 2: towards reform and a constill literatory posture and absolute terms
Speaker 2: his uh, he viewed none of this as being truly
Speaker 2: possible in power political terms, unless the Soviet Union could negotiate,
Speaker 2: you know, from a position of uh. If not absolute,
Speaker 2: you know, then a relative strength. That's what underlay all
Speaker 2: of this. It was always a political uh ploy more
Speaker 2: than a uh strategic uh move, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 2: And that that's key, not just understanding the Soviet Union
Speaker 2: in it's epoch, but I think the kind of Russian
Speaker 2: national character. Like I don't speak Russian, I've never visited there.
Speaker 2: I'm certainly not an expert on Russian people, their culture
Speaker 2: or their affairs, but I do know something about power politics,
Speaker 2: and uh, I think, uh I I I think that's
Speaker 2: I think, I think I think this is key. Okay,
Speaker 2: Putin himself is something of an unusual executive uh, even
Speaker 2: for Russia, but generally in structural terms, what the Kremlin
Speaker 2: does reflects this same kind of tendency in common. I
Speaker 2: don't I think that's constant. It doesn't change. H. Yeah, up,
Speaker 2: go ahead, we're gonna say something. Okay. October twentieth, UH
Speaker 2: Kennedy UH finally decides on the quarantine plants are drawn up,
Speaker 2: UH to blockade the island of Cuba, notified the American people,
Speaker 2: and UH prepared for war if uh, you know, the
Speaker 2: SOT Union opts to sue for war to break the
Speaker 2: blockade the UH. During this time, Curtis la May maintained
Speaker 2: evociferiously objected. And you know, I I've I made the
Speaker 2: point again and again about you know it may being
Speaker 2: really kind of a towering figure in uh, you know
Speaker 2: in in uh, you know, really really throughout the Cold War,
Speaker 2: but especially he just to force the man's personality and
Speaker 2: I mean think about Kennedy. You basically it was waiting
Speaker 2: up feel bad to kind of win the respect to
Speaker 2: the military establishment. I mean, he was a veteran and
Speaker 2: a war hero, but he was given something of a
Speaker 2: punk rich kid on the beltweigh by many and back
Speaker 2: in those days, I mean you had a lot more
Speaker 2: serious people who you know, kind of carved out niches
Speaker 2: for themselves, and the National security apparatus, you know, what
Speaker 2: we do was the deep state. Today, you know, you
Speaker 2: got Curtis LeMay, Uh, you know, demanding uh, you know,
Speaker 2: demanding Kennedy give an assault order, you know, backed up
Speaker 2: really by you know, the entire Pentagon apparatus. And in
Speaker 2: those days, you know, Strategic Air Command was king. You know,
Speaker 2: it very much eclipsed the Army in terms of its
Speaker 2: you know, uh cloud and policy and in policy authority,
Speaker 2: you know, things like this. You know, I mean whatever,
Speaker 2: I'm not some great fan of Kennedy at all. I
Speaker 2: think anybody kind of instinctively discern who's h at all
Speaker 2: familiar with my content? But uh, you know the guy
Speaker 2: did Kennedy did have balls, and he needed that have backbone. Okay,
Speaker 2: that can't be denied. What really what we're really solidified
Speaker 2: Kennedy's position, though he consulted with uh, General Walter Sweeney
Speaker 2: of a tact the Layer Command, who you know, uh
Speaker 2: and and you know, going back to the Second World War,
Speaker 2: you know, the fighter Mafia and Strategic Air Command liked
Speaker 2: at this kind of ongoing rivalry. I there's there's military
Speaker 2: guys who claim, well, yeah, there's you know, obviously, you know,
Speaker 2: Kennedy tapped Sweeney because he wanted to foil to a A.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's true. I think it was because
Speaker 2: Sweeney was the man who such that experts existed in
Speaker 2: those days on you know, how to knock out on
Speaker 2: how to knock out strategic new clear platforms. You know,
Speaker 2: Sweeney was it. And Sweeney said that, you know, even
Speaker 2: if even with the best possible mission outcome, he cannot
Speaker 2: guarantee one hundred percent destruction of of the missiles. Okay,
Speaker 2: So again you know, this raise the question as to well,
Speaker 2: I mean, the moment, there's a possibility that's not you know,
Speaker 2: and it's it's greater than a slim possibility that the
Speaker 2: moment Cuba came under result, if these platforms were in
Speaker 2: fact operational, the launch order would be given, you know,
Speaker 2: and who even knew the situation on the ground. I mean,
Speaker 2: one would have hope that the Soviet Army technicians responsible
Speaker 2: for the deployment what have ultimate authority, But I mean,
Speaker 2: who's to say, you know, that can't be guaranteed and
Speaker 2: in a a proverbial fog of warst situation. Expressly, delegate
Speaker 2: authority doesn't always carry the day anyway. Monday, October twenty second,
Speaker 2: Kennedy consulted the former presidents Hoover, Truman, and Eisenhower. Briefed
Speaker 2: them on the situation, you know, asked for their support
Speaker 2: if in fact the country uh you know was uh
Speaker 2: what what was going to go to war. He received
Speaker 2: his He received, you know, absolute blessing from all three men.
Speaker 2: He formally established Kennedy did the Executive Committee of the
Speaker 2: National Security Council Young insisting of mc namara, McGeorge, Bundy,
Speaker 2: Curtis Lamey, Bobby Kennedy, who probably should not have been
Speaker 2: in on the conversations. He was the President's brother and
Speaker 2: there's a conflict of interest there, but you know he
Speaker 2: was for better or worse. But that's uh, you know,
Speaker 2: the the smoke filled room, uh with all the personalities
Speaker 2: mentioned they I just mentioned present. You know, you see
Speaker 2: this like dramatized on like History Channel stuff like that's
Speaker 2: that's what they're depicting, the depicting the Executive Committee of
Speaker 2: the National Security Council. Okay, ultimate A. Kennedy Kennedy wrote
Speaker 2: directly to Khrushchev, which seems like a breach of protocol. Uh.
Speaker 2: But the Cold War was strange in this regard. You know,
Speaker 2: it's it's really in my opinion, said the President too.
Speaker 2: You know, there's like people that people talk later in
Speaker 2: the Cold War, by the by the Carter era, it
Speaker 2: was the quote you know, like bat phone or the
Speaker 2: red phone in the White House that was the hotline
Speaker 2: of the Kremlin and vice versa. You know. Uh, this
Speaker 2: idea of of of of heads of state directly kindacting
Speaker 2: one another across uh, across across the enemy divide and
Speaker 2: a potential crisis like it seems improper and the traditional
Speaker 2: kind of laws and customs of war. But the Cold
Speaker 2: War and in some ways was you know, a breach
Speaker 2: of precedent. But in then regardless of of that, that
Speaker 2: the merit of that, or the efficacy of that, or
Speaker 2: the effectiveness of of a neutralizing potential crises. Uh, it
Speaker 2: was probably the correct move for Kennedy to directly right
Speaker 2: to cruise if by telegram, and he did him. Uh,
Speaker 2: he did this prior to addressing the you know, the
Speaker 2: American people by television, which was frankly like you know,
Speaker 2: a sign of respect and say allowing cruise to safe face,
Speaker 2: you know. And uh, the key uh, the key phraseology
Speaker 2: of the telegram was quote, I have not assumed that
Speaker 2: you or any other sane man would, in this nuclear
Speaker 2: age liberally plunge the world into war. What he was
Speaker 2: saying again was basically, you know, deployment to Cuba as
Speaker 2: an act of war. And I'm giving you an out here,
Speaker 2: okay when I'm well within my rights as President United
Speaker 2: States simply to you know, assault the island, neutralize the threat,
Speaker 2: and ask questions later. And uh, regardless of whether is
Speaker 2: correct for Kennedy directly addressed crews with the man himself
Speaker 2: and not go the diplomatic channels. Uh that that that
Speaker 2: was the correct statement, I believe. So again, we gotta
Speaker 2: we've got to give credit recruited to do it to
Speaker 2: mister Kennedy, however else anybody feels about him. Seven pm
Speaker 2: that evening October twenty second, That's when Kennedy speaks on
Speaker 2: television revealing the existence of the Soviet missiles in Cuba,
Speaker 2: announcing the establishment of the quarantine and declaring that you know,
Speaker 2: and until the missiles are removed unconditionally and and and
Speaker 2: completely you know, the the the the quarantine will not
Speaker 2: be lifted, and failure to do so, you know, we'll
Speaker 2: constantly with an active war Secretary of Stateton Dean and
Speaker 2: rusk Uh formally notified the Soviet ambassador, which again, uh,
Speaker 2: that's not just part of good office, is it indicated
Speaker 2: the severity of Kennedy's statement, that's essentially what you do
Speaker 2: when incident, you know, preceding a formal declaration of war. Okay,
Speaker 2: So that's another thing to consider as well. Also, like
Speaker 2: we talked a lot about, even though I don't really
Speaker 2: accept the mere Sermi model about institutions determining you know,
Speaker 2: the course of power, political events and crisis outcomes, there
Speaker 2: is a momentum to the apparatus of government, particularly as
Speaker 2: regards war and peace, and once kind of the mechanism
Speaker 2: of war mobilization is in place, it's very, very difficult
Speaker 2: to put the brakes on it. Okay. The fact that
Speaker 2: Kennedy was entirely serious about going to war, waging nuclear
Speaker 2: war over Cuba, that itself created conditions of escalation. I'm
Speaker 2: not saying that's the wrong thing to do at all.
Speaker 2: Quite the contrary, is the right thing to do. But
Speaker 2: this added to the danger. At every step decisions that
Speaker 2: are made that lead to UH real world outcomes in
Speaker 2: the national security apparatus in a state of readiness and deployment,
Speaker 2: it creates an elevated UH. It creates an elevated danger. Okay,
Speaker 2: there's there's a sociological question there, there's a comics question
Speaker 2: of you know, managed relationship to technology. I A lot
Speaker 2: of that stuff is like far beyond my abilities, okay
Speaker 2: to analyze. But what I just stated is indisputably true. Susay,
Speaker 2: October twenty third. The following day, Assistant Secretary of State
Speaker 2: Martin he Uh start a resolution from the Organization of
Speaker 2: American States and the oas UH. I mean, these days
Speaker 2: we think of it as you know, primarily like a
Speaker 2: trade block and things like that. During the Cold War,
Speaker 2: obviously it had it had it had profound UH geostrategic significance,
Speaker 2: you know, because any if you're gonna wage war in
Speaker 2: Latin America, which was a very real possibility throughout the
Speaker 2: duration of the Cold War, a quorum of support from
Speaker 2: friendly regimes they were in was absolutely essential for obvious reasons.
Speaker 2: The the Soviets proceeded UH two UH to deploy submarines
Speaker 2: UH to the Caribbean Sea, which were facing off immediately
Speaker 2: opposite the the the US Navy blockade vessels, which again
Speaker 2: to the UH and indicated UH a Soviet willingness to
Speaker 2: fight and to keep uh, you know, to fight at
Speaker 2: least defensively if Cuba was assaulted, you know, I mean, Uh,
Speaker 2: it became clear immediately that the Soviets were intending to
Speaker 2: fight for Cuba, like to what degree they're going to
Speaker 2: do that, whether the missiles were operational or not. You know,
Speaker 2: the the Soviet Navy was going to fight, and that
Speaker 2: added another uh, that ended another wrinkle, as it were,
Speaker 2: because even if, even if, even if the Bliss, even
Speaker 2: if the nuclear capable platforms were not operational, a conventional
Speaker 2: war in Cuba with the Soviet Union, obviously there was
Speaker 2: gonna be some sort of response in Berlin, Okay, I mean,
Speaker 2: and then it's you know, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're
Speaker 2: dealing with the potential conflict diad that were result in
Speaker 2: the Third World War at some point, you know, down
Speaker 2: down down range of of of hostilities. Wednesday, October twenty
Speaker 2: fourth Cruiser responded to the Kennedy UH, to the Kennedy
Speaker 2: telegram stating that, uh, the Soviet Union does not respond
Speaker 2: to ultimatums under threat, you know, uh, stating quote, if
Speaker 2: we react we as these demands, it would mean guiding
Speaker 2: oneself and one's relationship with other countries, not by reason.
Speaker 2: By submitting to arbitrariness, you are no longer appealing to reason,
Speaker 2: but wish to intimidate US. Thursday October twenty fifth was
Speaker 2: when the crisis could be said to have broke in
Speaker 2: some ways. Soviet freighters that have been bound for Cuba
Speaker 2: turned back to Bucharest UN Secretary General. The UN Secretary
Speaker 2: General called for a quote cooling off period during which
Speaker 2: the embargo would be temporarily lifted and you know, only
Speaker 2: non military product would be permitted to pass through. This
Speaker 2: is rejected outright by the Kennedy administration and grounds they
Speaker 2: would leave the missiles in place the removal which was
Speaker 2: an express condition but a negotiation. Priday, October twenty sixth,
Speaker 2: with the date of the infamous cashiw letter urging cruise
Speaker 2: shift to initiate a first strike against the United States
Speaker 2: an event of invading of Cuba. Whether Cruth did responded
Speaker 2: or not, or whether Ramigo responded whether the ambassador to
Speaker 2: Cuba had any sort of formal response in the Kremlin,
Speaker 2: It's not clear. But again there's an inference that can
Speaker 2: be drawn here. I believe not only the Cubans not
Speaker 2: have the authority to launch the missiles, I don't believe
Speaker 2: they were capable of it. There's an entire protocol to
Speaker 2: launching a nuclear missile. It's not just a question of
Speaker 2: pushing a button or having the right code, you know it, uh,
Speaker 2: like in the movies. So the odds of ah of
Speaker 2: just a general like counter value AsSalt nuclear result if
Speaker 2: Cube had been invaded, I think it's somewhat remote. I
Speaker 2: don't think I'm reading too much into this statement by Castro.
Speaker 2: I mean, why this was a private communication at cruise
Speaker 2: if like, well, why would cash will be you know,
Speaker 2: flexing in that kind of private capacity, Like it doesn't
Speaker 2: It doesn't make sense otherwise, you know, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, like it yeah, yeah, yeah, but it the
Speaker 2: uh finally and finally, UH resolution ultimately came when the
Speaker 2: cruise schiff wrote a long, rambling letter a second letter,
Speaker 2: a few drafts of which, when the Soviet archives were open,
Speaker 2: were found and leading a lot of people to believe
Speaker 2: the cruiser was drunk when he wrote or dictated it,
Speaker 2: which is probably true. It's not just you know, some
Speaker 2: kind of punitive revisionist account like cruise Iff really was
Speaker 2: drunk and in the execution of his official duties a lot,
Speaker 2: you know it, uh, which oh was in part ohs
Speaker 2: you know, to his his apparent instability. This is the
Speaker 2: source of the of the quote, you know, demand that
Speaker 2: America pledged to not invade Cuba, Like what in power politics?
Speaker 2: What is some open ended pledge and not invade another
Speaker 2: country amount? I mean that that doesn't amount to anything,
Speaker 2: even as a face saving measure. It doesn't really make
Speaker 2: any sense. This is immediately followed up by a second
Speaker 2: letter from Moscow, which probably came from gram Ego or
Speaker 2: from somebody in the Politburo Standing Committee or it's equivalent.
Speaker 2: This second letter demanded actual conditions be met, primarily the
Speaker 2: removal of Jupiter missiles from Turkey. Now Turkey and Italy
Speaker 2: were these Jupiter missiles were intermediate range ballistic missiles that
Speaker 2: have been deployed in I think nineteen fifty seven, fifty seven,
Speaker 2: fifty eight around there, maybe as late as fifty nine,
Speaker 2: but I'd have to double check that. I'm sure somebody
Speaker 2: in the comments will wrake me over the colls if
Speaker 2: I'm misstating the date they were deployed in Italy and
Speaker 2: deployed in Turkey. As I said, by this, at this
Speaker 2: point they were not strategic nuclear forces based in West Germany.
Speaker 2: But the Soviets made much of this at the UN
Speaker 2: in their own propaganda and formal objections to Department of State.
Speaker 2: But these Jupiter missiles were on the cust of being obsolete,
Speaker 2: you know, like we talked about earlier, the Polaris submarine
Speaker 2: system was due to be launched within months, and it
Speaker 2: was ultimately fielded in sixty three sixty four. And so
Speaker 2: I mean this is basically meaningless. I mean, okay, as
Speaker 2: a safe face, as a face saving gesture, maybe it
Speaker 2: carried some weight, but I I think the I think
Speaker 2: the Soviets were were still very much lagging and in
Speaker 2: terms of the technological gap as regards strategic nuclear delivery systems,
Speaker 2: that changed dramatically in the seventies for reasons we'll get
Speaker 2: into in subsequent episodes. But this was the source of
Speaker 2: this was the source of the concession. If you want
Speaker 2: to look at it like that to UH remove to
Speaker 2: remove the missiles from Turkey, and that UH that night,
Speaker 2: UH Robert Kennedy met secretly with the Soviet ambassador and
Speaker 2: they reached a basic understanding that the Soviet Union would
Speaker 2: draw their their strategic nuclear platforms from Cuba under United
Speaker 2: Nations supervision. In addition to UH an American pledge, you know,
Speaker 2: this pledge not to invade you, and a secret understanding,
Speaker 2: as it was referred to two, you know, to remove
Speaker 2: the Jupiter MISSIALI from Turkey. And this too, I believe,
Speaker 2: substantiates what I just said about the Soviets not really
Speaker 2: realizing that the Jupiter platform was going to be absolutely
Speaker 2: because like if it was just a face saving measure,
Speaker 2: why wouldn't they make it public? Like they thought these
Speaker 2: platforms were viable and they thought they were getting something,
Speaker 2: you know it because the fact that it was UH,
Speaker 2: the fact that it was not an above board concession
Speaker 2: that the defeats the entire purpose of any of any
Speaker 2: political theater that you know, might have might might have
Speaker 2: been utilized by way of it of such a gesture. Now,
Speaker 2: the problem with UH that the problem was this, and
Speaker 2: in the view of people like LeMay but also in
Speaker 2: the in the minds of people like Shelling and Trank,
Speaker 2: even people like Herman Khan, there's a sense that eventually
Speaker 2: conflict with the Soviet Union was inevitable, okay, and owing
Speaker 2: the precedent of the twentieth century, that seemed reasonable. That
Speaker 2: wasn't just a warmonger's kind of fantasy, you know, it
Speaker 2: wasn't just you know, something that you know, cynical career
Speaker 2: is in the national security establishment, like to say, or
Speaker 2: bandy about, because it rationalized, you know, the kind of
Speaker 2: cloud they had. I mean, yeah, there was some of that.
Speaker 2: But if you were if you were, if you were
Speaker 2: a middle aged man in nineteen sixty two, who who
Speaker 2: whose entire career had been as a you know, in
Speaker 2: public service, directly insinuated in the national security establishment, like
Speaker 2: your entire your your entire professional life had been characterized
Speaker 2: by by by by negotiating crises of a of of
Speaker 2: of of basic national security and and and and conditions
Speaker 2: of of general warfare or price short of but approaching
Speaker 2: general warfare. You know this this just seemed to be
Speaker 2: the reality the twentieth century strategic landscape. So that being said,
Speaker 2: if eventually, you know, conflict is inevitable. You've got an obligation,
Speaker 2: you know, to defend the United States at all costs.
Speaker 2: And if that means preemptively, you know, waging a nuclear
Speaker 2: war against the Soviet Union and we're so upacked, you know,
Speaker 2: to absolutely defeat them before strategic nuclear parody is accomplished,
Speaker 2: then that is, in fact, you know, not just the
Speaker 2: moral thing to do, but that is what you're obligated
Speaker 2: to do incident to you know, your office and the
Speaker 2: duties incumbent they're in. And that was really kind of
Speaker 2: the This underlay a lot of what was going on
Speaker 2: in you know, the proverbial war room, Okay, around Kennedy.
Speaker 2: It wasn't just you know, it wasn't you know, like
Speaker 2: the way people like Oliver Stone characterize it, like these
Speaker 2: kind of crazy cold warhawk warmongers, and you know, these
Speaker 2: kinds of men of like better natured you know, saying no,
Speaker 2: we're not going to go to war, Like it's not
Speaker 2: that's entirely the wrong way to conceptualize it. I mean, yeah, again,
Speaker 2: I don't have any illusions about a lot of these
Speaker 2: people at all. Like there were there were personalities, you know,
Speaker 2: insinuated in and rolls the highest authority in the Cold
Speaker 2: War who definitely were like that, you know, who definitely
Speaker 2: did not have the national interests in mind, or they
Speaker 2: thought they did, but you know, they were clouded by
Speaker 2: you know, matters of a of a pride or or whatever.
Speaker 2: I mean. I think I think Thomas Power as being
Speaker 2: one of those types. Frankly, but this is uh, but
Speaker 2: that's what's essential to keep in mind, particularly because like
Speaker 2: I said, even people, even people are somewhat you know,
Speaker 2: sympathetic to you know politics, the right or you know,
Speaker 2: revisionist perspectives. You know, they continue to cast people like, uh,
Speaker 2: they can cast people like as what I just said,
Speaker 2: these kinds of strange love or Janette Ripper type characters.
Speaker 2: But uh, it uh, forgiving of this was kind of dry.
Speaker 2: It was essential to kind of explain like how that
Speaker 2: entire paradigm developed of the Cuba crisis, and it's uh,
Speaker 2: the shadow of it loomed large. I don't just mean
Speaker 2: like in metaphorical terms, but uh, in terms of how
Speaker 2: policy was conducted as regards to Terrence and and uh
Speaker 2: and the strategic balance and the Cold War, and this
Speaker 2: really endured until nineteen eighty three and nineteen eighty three
Speaker 2: was so dangerous, you know, I mean that's the Able
Speaker 2: Archer era. That's the way it kind of Cold War
Speaker 2: storians think of it. But but preceded Able Archer. And
Speaker 2: one of the things that you know, created the conditions
Speaker 2: that that that that led to the war scare was
Speaker 2: uh that threatened to play event of the person two
Speaker 2: platform in West Germany, you know, which really was a
Speaker 2: game changer, and you know, the the end of day
Speaker 2: Todd really kind of shattered the assumptions that underlay uh,
Speaker 2: you know, deterrence uh from the Cuban missile crisis onward.
Speaker 2: That's a complicated issue, but we'll get into uh, we'll
Speaker 2: get into uh Johnson, Vietnam and Nixon next episode. Nixon
Speaker 2: is gonna take more than one episode, but I will
Speaker 2: at least like get into uh Nixon's first term next time,
Speaker 2: UH incident, our discussion of uh of Johnson and Vietnam
Speaker 2: and all right, I mean we'll see, depending on how
Speaker 2: long your own to go, but yeah, we'll we'll we'll
Speaker 2: get into some of that stuff. Uh yeah, yeah, And again,
Speaker 2: forgive me if that was a if this was a
Speaker 2: dry episode, it was essential to kind of lay foundation
Speaker 2: for what comes subsequent No.
Speaker 1: I think this is a a topic of interest for
Speaker 1: a lot of people. I can't let you go without
Speaker 1: mentioning having you mentioned the Bay of Pigs.
Speaker 2: Yeah it, Uh, I think what the Bay of Pigs
Speaker 2: owes to more than anything. I mean, the traditional kind
Speaker 2: of discourse on it, you know, is it's like, do
Speaker 2: we blame like, you know, the CIA and Department of State,
Speaker 2: or do we blame the president of the National Security Establishment.
Speaker 2: It's not that simple. There's a lot of there's a
Speaker 2: long history. Uh. I was reading about Angola a lot
Speaker 2: some years back, and you know, one of the reasons
Speaker 2: why those poor guys, uh who ended up a servant
Speaker 2: under callon a guy got got massacred, I mean by
Speaker 2: the Cubans and by the by the Angolan out forces.
Speaker 2: Like holding Roberto. He basically sold British intelligence and CIA
Speaker 2: a bill of goods, you know about the reality of
Speaker 2: like forces and being on the ground and what they
Speaker 2: were capable of. The anti Castro Cuban Bobby Similarly, they
Speaker 2: either shipped together a lot more than somebody like mister Roberto,
Speaker 2: but they had a lot more money, and they had
Speaker 2: a lot more flash, and they had a lot more
Speaker 2: kind of cloud than they did actual capabilities. Okay, I
Speaker 2: think there's a lot of people even in the intelligence community,
Speaker 2: and I've got nothing nice to say generally about, you know,
Speaker 2: the CIA of the era. But I think they had
Speaker 2: I I think, I think they had good intentions within
Speaker 2: the irrationality of what they were trying to accomplish. And uh,
Speaker 2: I think, uh I, I yeah, it was nive. Maybe
Speaker 2: maybe it was naive to think that they could accomplish
Speaker 2: what they set out too with what I'm onted to
Speaker 2: a skeleton crew of of cowboy type mercenaries and UH
Speaker 2: and self styled uh uh you know, and self styled
Speaker 2: uh counter revolutionaries. But they also they underestimated the strength
Speaker 2: of UH of of Castro and the gameness of a
Speaker 2: of the Cuban army. And this was entirely clear into
Speaker 2: later Like speaking of Angola, you know, the Cubans deployed
Speaker 2: fifty thousand deep to Angola. They fought the South African
Speaker 2: Defense Forces. It was with the Crack army, you know,
Speaker 2: and they they met him head on, you know, the Cubans. Uh,
Speaker 2: the Cubans were basically constantly deployed throughout the Cold War,
Speaker 2: you know, like they they really believed in the margins
Speaker 2: Len and his cause did Uh would air cover have
Speaker 2: made a difference? I mean, I it wouldn't have hurt
Speaker 2: any But I mean I don't this idea too. It's like, okay,
Speaker 2: let's say, you know, let's say uh, let's let's let's
Speaker 2: say this. Uh, let's say this kind of like you know,
Speaker 2: mercenary army, you know, had uh had ground assault air
Speaker 2: craft and and air cover all day. You know, Cuba
Speaker 2: cub would have just like Commy's cub wouldn't just like
Speaker 2: fallen apart the minute like these guys marched on on Havana.
Speaker 2: I mean, the Cuban still was. I mean, the Cuba
Speaker 2: they were. They're down for the cause. I mean, in
Speaker 2: this day as much as anybody can be. I mean it, uh,
Speaker 2: I mean I read it like that. I don't think
Speaker 2: it was realistic, the only the only Uh yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't think there's a military solution to the Cuba problem,
Speaker 2: you know, like there, I just don't. I mean that's
Speaker 2: my take on it, like at a glance, And we
Speaker 2: can do a dedicated episode on it if you want.
Speaker 2: There's a lot there, but that's just you know, I
Speaker 2: my point is it's like, I mean, even one of
Speaker 2: the reasons that you know, and like jump to go
Speaker 2: a little bit outside the scope. But you know, let's say,
Speaker 2: let's say the counterfactual developed that you know, we I
Speaker 2: I kind of touched on. You know, let's say that
Speaker 2: you know, let let's take let's say America did assault
Speaker 2: Cuba in nineteen in nineteen sixty two, okay, and then
Speaker 2: the nukes weren't operational, and the Soviets didn't do anything
Speaker 2: and lynn and it didn't escalate. It was just you know,
Speaker 2: the Marines and us Aeerborne Corps or eighteen Airborne Corps
Speaker 2: and you know, uh and uh in the us araforce
Speaker 2: pounding the hell out of Cuba, you know, killing half
Speaker 2: million people. You know, like what what then where you
Speaker 2: I mean affecting some permanent hosta ogervation at Cuba like
Speaker 2: would have been a bloodbath, you know, like think like
Speaker 2: think about that, like that would that would have been
Speaker 2: a complete freaking mess, you know, Like I don't, I
Speaker 2: don't uh, I don't think there was a I don't
Speaker 2: think there was a political there. I don't think it
Speaker 2: was a military solution to it. One of the reasons why,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm one of the few people, even though
Speaker 2: I'm far from any kind of like like Cold War
Speaker 2: hawk in in the study of history as I think,
Speaker 2: you know, but I consistently praise I, you know, us
Speaker 2: efforts uh in uh in, you know, in in the
Speaker 2: Cone of South America and then later you know in
Speaker 2: uh in in Central America and the Panama Canal zone,
Speaker 2: you know, to resist uh warsaw packed ingress because that
Speaker 2: was absolutely essential, because that would have in military terms,
Speaker 2: America was actively losing the Cold War in the final phase, okay.
Speaker 2: And if if Latin America had truly gone red in
Speaker 2: these key locations, that would have that that that would
Speaker 2: that would that would have totally changed things. But notice
Speaker 2: what Nixon and then later Reagan administration didn't do is
Speaker 2: didn't go in heavy you know, they made they went
Speaker 2: into a very small footprint, okay, and they developed very
Speaker 2: effective convolutionary cadres. You know what I'm saying that the
Speaker 2: conferences weren't like nice guys or something, Okay, like the
Speaker 2: Bison was not a nice guy. There was neither general finish,
Speaker 2: but they were effective guys, and they weren't they weren't
Speaker 2: just guys who were in it to you know, get
Speaker 2: paid and advanced their own you know kind of cloud
Speaker 2: and status. I mean, but my point is that, you know,
Speaker 2: the the American uh national security apparatus treated it as
Speaker 2: a political problem. Not is this like military exigency, you know,
Speaker 2: like we're gonna we're gonna going to Nicaragua with fifty
Speaker 2: thousand marines and kill everybody like that. No, that that
Speaker 2: that that doesn't work. So that's my But it's complicated.
Speaker 2: Then I'm not a military guy. But again I I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't think what I'm suggesting can be h disputed
Speaker 2: in any kind of absolute sense. But yeah, that that's
Speaker 2: that's just that's my take on it. At UH got
Speaker 2: to bed a.
Speaker 1: Glance or in short, rather what one thing you said
Speaker 1: early on about the million and a half basically Soviets
Speaker 1: pouring into West Germany. Yeah, those who hate Germany and
Speaker 1: want to destroy her have never stopped that attack, have
Speaker 1: they of just pouring foreigners into there? Too?
Speaker 2: No? I don't. I And that's what's key is that
Speaker 2: the and that was I mean, that was the Hokey's
Speaker 2: whole point about the Cold War, Okay, Yaqui's whole point
Speaker 2: was that, Look, yeah, East Germany is is a horrible regime.
Speaker 2: In some ways, it's you know, uh, you know, in
Speaker 2: some ways it's it's it's literally dystopian. But it's not
Speaker 2: going to be here forever. And it's not it's not
Speaker 2: destroying you know, the cultural and and and like racial
Speaker 2: foundation of the country. You know, like you can weather
Speaker 2: that storm, like you can't whether the storm of you know,
Speaker 2: the US NATO socially engineering Germany out of existence. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's what we're seeing to the you know, and that's
Speaker 2: what I constantly, like I constantly brush up against people,
Speaker 2: you know, not just online, but I mean that this
Speaker 2: happens to me in person when I'm in at venues
Speaker 2: where you know, the issue is being discussed. Like I
Speaker 2: think I'm like defending Stalinism or something like I'm not okay,
Speaker 2: but that's not the point, you know, Like I don't
Speaker 2: see how this can be disputed anymore. Okay. It's like
Speaker 2: you think, uh, you think you know, I mean, it's like,
Speaker 2: how how can anybody, how can anybody dispute that? You know,
Speaker 2: I mean it well, I mean it's just like the
Speaker 2: this this state, I mean that that that's that's the
Speaker 2: you know, Yaqui was a was a genius because he
Speaker 2: was you know he was he was writing about this
Speaker 2: and night and you know in nineteen fifty eight, fifty
Speaker 2: nine or whatever, like even before you know, he wasn't.
Speaker 2: He wasn't some guy like me, like you know, looking
Speaker 2: at history in the interview mirror, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: but look at I mean, look at look look at
Speaker 2: the former East Block. Okay, yeah, those states have terrible
Speaker 2: problems today, but they don't have the problems of some
Speaker 2: you know, some some crazy of some crazy Zionists or
Speaker 2: uh you know, elite or or or these are these
Speaker 2: kinds of DeVos types, you know, declaring that you know,
Speaker 2: they would you know they you know, when we need
Speaker 2: to import as many you know, thritable populations as possible
Speaker 2: because you know, this this this country is you know
Speaker 2: too orthodox or too Catholic, or you know, or too
Speaker 2: white or too German. I mean that that's that that's
Speaker 2: a that's an existential problem that can't be overcome. Okay,
Speaker 2: Like if you've got fucked up government in Romania or Croatia,
Speaker 2: it's like, well, yeah, okay, governments that part of the
Speaker 2: world where is fucked up. It's different than having, you know,
Speaker 2: a social engineering regime with endless resources that's trying to
Speaker 2: annihilate you as as a culture and as a people.
Speaker 2: You know, like one you can handle, the other you can't.
Speaker 2: I mean, but I mean, I guess that's a topic
Speaker 2: for another UH episode or series entirely. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: that's that's the issue with the Cold War. Nobody's I mean,
Speaker 2: maybe maybe there's some people claim that, you know, the
Speaker 2: the the East Bloc regimes were good regimes. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm sure you can find some Marxist fossil at some
Speaker 2: college saying that. I'm certainly not saying that. But that's
Speaker 2: not the point. You know, you got to look at
Speaker 2: these outcomes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's nuance there when you yeah, yeah, yeah, the least, Yeah,
Speaker 3: when you read, when you read Jacky, especially when you
Speaker 3: read The Enemy of Europe, You're you're experiencing a nuance.
Speaker 2: No, exactly. And it's also, let's two bear in mind,
Speaker 2: like the Cold War by design wasn't supposed to happen.
Speaker 2: I mean, whether it's like okay, even if you're this
Speaker 2: art kind of like anti communist and everything, it's like, well, okay,
Speaker 2: you know that the the Cold War happened basically because
Speaker 2: the concord fell apart between Washington and Moscow. You know,
Speaker 2: the idea was, you know, everybody in Washington who you
Speaker 2: had any meaningful authority, was perfectly okay with you know,
Speaker 2: essentially half half the planet being uh, you know, being
Speaker 2: under the being under the heel of Stalinism. So it's
Speaker 2: it's either here or there, you know, like whether somebody
Speaker 2: like me and in the historical records defending or condemning
Speaker 2: that system. I mean, you know, it's like the fix
Speaker 2: was in like by America. Like it's these regimes didn't
Speaker 2: emerge out of nowhere and were not for America, the
Speaker 2: uh you know, communism would have u would have uh
Speaker 2: what would have been annihilated from this planet and in
Speaker 2: nineteen forty one. But the but yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: That's a great way to end it. Uh, give your plugs,
Speaker 1: we get out of here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, man at uh I you can find
Speaker 2: the podcast and some of my long form on the substack.
Speaker 2: It's uh real Thomas seven seven seven dot substack dot com.
Speaker 2: And once again, forgive my uh absence from producing fresh
Speaker 2: stuff the last couple of weeks. Uh, but I'm I'm
Speaker 2: back in the saddle. I promise, Uh, we'll be back
Speaker 2: to the regular kind of bi weekly schedule. You can
Speaker 2: find me on Twitter at Triskellian Jahad. The T is
Speaker 2: the number seven. It's one word otherwise. We're gonna launch
Speaker 2: the YouTube channel, uh January first. I know that that's
Speaker 2: been one and coming. I decided to push it back
Speaker 2: to January a few weeks back because I want to
Speaker 2: do it right and I've got a great production team
Speaker 2: helping me, which is what I needed because I'm kind
Speaker 2: of a tech retard and at long last Imperium Press
Speaker 2: and I found a printer for steel Storm two, so
Speaker 2: that is going to drop in January, and that's what
Speaker 2: I got.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Thank you, Thomas. Till the next time. I can't
Speaker 1: wait