Speaker 1: Welcome to mid Rats with sal from Commander Salamander an
Speaker 1: Eagle one from Eagle Speak at Seer Shore your home
Speaker 1: for a discussion of national security issues and all things maritime,
Speaker 1: and welcome on board everybody. Thank you very much for
Speaker 1: joining us today for another edition of mid Rats, and
Speaker 1: hey lucky for you for the second week in a row.
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's an exact definition difference between
Speaker 1: a free for all and a melee, but today we
Speaker 1: are going to have a melee. We do not have
Speaker 1: a guest. It's just Mark and myself. We have our
Speaker 1: list of things that we want to chat about today
Speaker 1: in the maritime and National security arena. But as always
Speaker 1: we're interested in what you're thinking as well, So if
Speaker 1: you're with us live, go ahead and roll into the
Speaker 1: chat room and you can just share some observations if
Speaker 1: you'd like, or if there's a topic or subject that
Speaker 1: you would like for us to talk about in the
Speaker 1: course of the next hour, you can put it in there,
Speaker 1: and if we don't already have it on our list,
Speaker 1: we will do our best to incorporate it into the
Speaker 1: conversation as it goes forward. And if this is the
Speaker 1: first time you listen to mid or at you're just
Speaker 1: one of those people that hop in now and then
Speaker 1: when you catch us live. If you don't already, go
Speaker 1: ahead and head over to iTunes, Spotify, spreaker, wherever you
Speaker 1: aggregate your podcast. Look us up. We're there and you
Speaker 1: can go ahead and subscribe to us that way. If
Speaker 1: you can't join us with join us live, then you
Speaker 1: can listen to us when you have an opportunity. So
Speaker 1: with all that out of the way, Hey, Mark, Happy
Speaker 1: Sunday to.
Speaker 2: You, Well, thank you, sal Happy Sunday to you.
Speaker 1: Well, it's funny. I think I'd put in one of
Speaker 1: the little pre show now by picking up the conversation
Speaker 1: where it was last week, because our after show we
Speaker 1: talked for ten or fifteen minutes. That's one thing that
Speaker 1: even during the doldrums of summer, there's there's all there's
Speaker 1: always something going on that we can chat about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me let me throw out something that we
Speaker 2: didn't talk about in our pre show but which we
Speaker 2: ought to mention. Some person has undertaken to challenge the
Speaker 2: the I guess patriotism of a Medal of Honor winner
Speaker 2: because he chose to speak at a democratic national at
Speaker 2: the Democratic National Convention. And he has his reasons why
Speaker 2: he did that. But you know, we've got to stop
Speaker 2: this nonsense of going after people because they you don't
Speaker 2: you know, they do something you don't agree with, and
Speaker 2: that does not make them a bad person, unpatriotic, and
Speaker 2: particularly when you're talking about a guy who was in
Speaker 2: this case was a French citizen who decided to become
Speaker 2: an American and goes to war on behalf of this country, UH,
Speaker 2: saves a bunch of people, UH and get seriously injured,
Speaker 2: UH taking on a guy wearing a suicide vest and
Speaker 2: is awarded the Medal of Honor and and and it's
Speaker 2: well earned. You know that is that is the kind
Speaker 2: of discussion and attack on people that that we don't
Speaker 2: need this country. We we know we can, we can assume,
Speaker 2: we used to be able to assume at a certain
Speaker 2: point that people of good faith could have different views
Speaker 2: on things and we could talk about it. And to
Speaker 2: to just suddenly throughout this smear especially against uh someone
Speaker 2: in that in that who's earned the nation's highest medal
Speaker 2: UH for combat operations. I I I just it's unfathomably
Speaker 2: what what what's the word I'm gonna use tacky, tasteless, unfair,
Speaker 2: and and ridiculous. So I just thought we got to
Speaker 2: kind of throw that out. As you know, let's let's
Speaker 2: keep in mind that that there are people on both sides.
Speaker 2: We have different opinions, and that's what makes the country great.
Speaker 2: We can, we should be able to talk about that
Speaker 2: rather than in declaring that you I don't agree with you,
Speaker 2: therefore your evil and we're going to get you banned
Speaker 2: from from things for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: Amen. I don't I don't care whether you know, as
Speaker 1: long as you're not on active duty. You know, there
Speaker 1: are great patriots and great Americans who are Democrats, who
Speaker 1: are Republicans, who are libertarians, who are independent. I might
Speaker 1: draw the line at the Communist Party USA or the
Speaker 1: Nazi Party, but you can be a Greenie. You can
Speaker 1: have all sorts. That's that is part of living in
Speaker 1: a free republic is that individuals can have agency and opinions,
Speaker 1: and they can vary very differently from you. But I
Speaker 1: think you're you're spawn on there is common ground where
Speaker 1: people who serve this nation. They may disagree with you
Speaker 1: on architecture, they may disagree with you on tax policy.
Speaker 1: Our various social issues, or they just might be from
Speaker 1: a part of the country that one political party or
Speaker 1: another just makes more sense for him. That's okay. We
Speaker 1: should be able to meet in the middle on fifty
Speaker 1: one percent of the items. And at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, we're all Americans. We can have a beer together,
Speaker 1: our kids can marry each other, and we can share
Speaker 1: our trench together. And I know the individually talking about
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say the individual's name. I think
Speaker 1: they thrive off the oxygen of the attention. But you
Speaker 1: have we run into this on a regular basis where
Speaker 1: one side of the political spectrum or the other will
Speaker 1: go after somebody for having impure thoughts from their perspective
Speaker 1: and will detegrate their service to our nation. And I
Speaker 1: don't care whether you served one tour or you or
Speaker 1: thirty five years in the military. You stepped forward and
Speaker 1: did more than whatever the percentage is nowadays in the
Speaker 1: north of ninety five percent. That if people have done
Speaker 1: and when you are actually somebody who has received the
Speaker 1: Medal of Honor, what you always have to back up
Speaker 1: and remember is the amount of people who do receive
Speaker 1: the Medal of Honor posthumously. That is exceptional people finding
Speaker 1: themselves in exceptional circumstances, and their characters revealed what your
Speaker 1: petty domestic political differences are against us are immaterial and
Speaker 1: should not detract from the service that they did. And
Speaker 1: people who do that they deserve to be to be
Speaker 1: publicly keel hauled and held up for what they are
Speaker 1: because they've lost the bubble, if they ever had the
Speaker 1: bubble to begin with. So I'm really glad you brought
Speaker 1: that up. That's a great way to start this because
Speaker 1: we both have friends, acquaintances, followers, people that we email
Speaker 1: and communicate with on the regulators who disagree with us
Speaker 1: on lots of different issues. Uh. And that's okay, and
Speaker 1: that that should be the default option for everybody, especially
Speaker 1: somebody who has come to this nation and has served
Speaker 1: it well and it's come out the other end and
Speaker 1: our nation has decided to recognize their service and support
Speaker 1: of our republic. And Uh, if they want to come
Speaker 1: out and support Betty and Smithfield over fred kaplan for
Speaker 1: a dogcatcher, that's okay. Let them do that, but don't
Speaker 1: don't don't degrade them in their in their service. That's
Speaker 1: can we say that's an American because I think you
Speaker 1: could probably put that in that category.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we see, I mean we've seen it in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways that we both have experiences where, uh,
Speaker 2: something we were doing, something that was said someone has
Speaker 2: disagreed with and in some cases taken us out of
Speaker 2: certain things that we used to be able to participate
Speaker 2: in pretty freely, you know, And that that's the choice.
Speaker 2: If you have a publication or something and you don't
Speaker 2: want our voice on it, that's that, you know, that's
Speaker 2: your You own it. You can you can do what
Speaker 2: you want with it. But that's not my point is that,
Speaker 2: you know, let's let's look at it from a larger picture,
Speaker 2: which is it is a when you when you start
Speaker 2: banning people because they have a different view or it's
Speaker 2: affecting something, you know, it that that's wrong. I'm not
Speaker 2: just ban you from a specific publication, but demanding that
Speaker 2: they be basically a persona non grata for the rest
Speaker 2: of society because they hold a different opinion than yours.
Speaker 2: That that's not the way we're supposed to work. And
Speaker 2: you know, if you've ever looked at at the federalists,
Speaker 2: uh and the anti federalist points of view, there were
Speaker 2: these are the people who founded the country. They had
Speaker 2: serious disagreements about how this country was supposed to be
Speaker 2: organized and and and what the new constitution was going
Speaker 2: to should be like and what should contain, you know,
Speaker 2: and they were they had people who fought together as
Speaker 2: as as brothers in the in the in the in
Speaker 2: the war for Independence, and who had subscribed to the
Speaker 2: Declaration of Independence, and they could agree to disagree and
Speaker 2: and get it worked out politically. And there were a
Speaker 2: lot of things that came from that that that we
Speaker 2: take for granted day, but we forget how how difficult,
Speaker 2: you know, how challenging it is to get even people
Speaker 2: who had that kind of shared experiences to h to
Speaker 2: to do what they did, which was communicate pretty effectively
Speaker 2: about about what they what their opinions were, and why
Speaker 2: uh the you know, the opinions of one side should
Speaker 2: prevail over over the other. And I think that we
Speaker 2: have to go back to that example as how as
Speaker 2: to how we need to approach things and just not start.
Speaker 2: You know, you're as I said, you know, you're evil,
Speaker 2: You're bad. I'm not going to talk to you anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you look at how Jefferson Adams, Hamilton Madison All
Speaker 1: those all those gentlemen, they were at each other tooth
Speaker 1: and claw. I think even Abigail Adams had some uh
Speaker 1: the barbs to throw here and there with her exceptional
Speaker 1: intellect as well. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: they never challenged each other's support of our republic. It
Speaker 1: was just that creative friction that sometimes throws off bigger
Speaker 1: sparks than others about how to achieve what we want
Speaker 1: to achieve without you know, degrading the service one person
Speaker 1: or another did for our republic. And a lot of
Speaker 1: times when people they they they personalize the political and
Speaker 1: and opinion, and they they what was the phrase from
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties, the politics of personal destruction when you
Speaker 1: back away from it. Those people who don't want to
Speaker 1: discuss issues, argue issues, don't want to assume good faith
Speaker 1: in one person an other, and devolve into name calling
Speaker 1: and smearing. They really say more about themselves and they
Speaker 1: do the person they accuse, especially the fact that they
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, they do not have the ability or
Speaker 1: the capacity to argue their position, so as opposed to
Speaker 1: coming to an argument and countering it like that individual
Speaker 1: speaking at the DNC, there were retired military who spoke
Speaker 1: at the RNC, you know, compare their two points of view,
Speaker 1: let them argue. Instead of allowing that open discussion to
Speaker 1: take place. They want to eliminate opposition. They want to
Speaker 1: destroy and diminish anything that's not exactly aligned with them.
Speaker 1: And again that habits as old as human history. But
Speaker 1: in a republic like ours, people who do that should
Speaker 1: be rightfully called out and I really question how those
Speaker 1: can people can come to defend it. The fun thing is,
Speaker 1: and I've had a couple of exchanges with folks over
Speaker 1: the course of the last day on that. It's nice
Speaker 1: to see that people on both sides of the spectrum
Speaker 1: will rise to the occasion and hopefully when the shoes
Speaker 1: on the other foot and somebody who's on the other
Speaker 1: side of the political spectrum gets treated the same, that
Speaker 1: all parties will of good people of good faith and
Speaker 1: well meaning people will rally around them as well. And
Speaker 1: I think they will. We've seen that in the past
Speaker 1: and we will see this again. But like I said that, now,
Speaker 1: that was spot on for you to start off our
Speaker 1: show like that, because you know, silence is approval and
Speaker 1: things like that. It's important to put a marker down.
Speaker 1: And again, if people people disagree with that, that's great
Speaker 1: on great for them, but they're wrong and we should
Speaker 1: put the marker down like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we tried to get political on this show, but
Speaker 2: you know, so we should probably get into some other
Speaker 2: stuff that we've been talking about. And one of the
Speaker 2: things we looked at just just was the recent announcement
Speaker 2: by the Australians is they're gonna acquire and developed the
Speaker 2: Japanese of friggate. You want to talk about that a
Speaker 2: little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought that was just that was great to see.
Speaker 1: I'll go positive and then I'll be mister grumpy pants
Speaker 1: on it. But the Australians, I mean, they're a relatively
Speaker 1: small nation where they have like twenty two million people,
Speaker 1: just a couple million more than the state of Florida
Speaker 1: twenty eight million, a twenty eight million. They they can
Speaker 1: build stuff domestically, but they just they have a habit
Speaker 1: of leveraging off of prior designs a European, our American
Speaker 1: and the Japanese. For a long time, they they were
Speaker 1: not in the export market, but they and they consistently
Speaker 1: spent one percent or less of GDP. But when you're
Speaker 1: the second are are now I think third largest economy
Speaker 1: in the world, even one percent of GDP Gissey the
Speaker 1: ability have a really nice military industrial base. And I
Speaker 1: know you've you spent time in the Pacific. I have
Speaker 1: as well, though as a predominantly a U Sands sailor
Speaker 1: and an East Coast guy, I did did do a
Speaker 1: tour in the Pacific. When you work with the Japanese
Speaker 1: on an individual basis, not only are they exceptional professionals,
Speaker 1: but they build good kit Their submarines are exceptional. Their
Speaker 1: surface chips you can do surgery on them. They're not
Speaker 1: only clean, they're very professional. They have a lot of
Speaker 1: systems that are in common with US obviously as a
Speaker 1: defense partner with US. They're maintenance facilities or are superb.
Speaker 1: And now that everybody's joining the twenty first century, Australia
Speaker 1: was looking at some European options for the next frigate
Speaker 1: and the Mogami, which is already under production and it's
Speaker 1: an expanded Mogami which makes it a little bit larger.
Speaker 1: It's going to it has everything from a five inch
Speaker 1: gun forward. The Australian version, which is the modified Mogami
Speaker 1: that the Japanese are building for themselves now, is going
Speaker 1: to have thirty two mark forty one vlsls that the
Speaker 1: Australians can put all sorts of fun toys in Helo capable,
Speaker 1: real great modern system. I think off the top of
Speaker 1: my head the first two or three will be built
Speaker 1: in Japan, and then they'll have an additional three to
Speaker 1: five that we built in Australia. So I'm real happy
Speaker 1: for the Australians. And it also brings together our two
Speaker 1: I know the Filipinos might throw a yellow card at
Speaker 1: me for this, but when you're talking about royal military
Speaker 1: power and economic power, it's true. Our two big friends
Speaker 1: in the Western Pacific is Japan and Australia. We have
Speaker 1: a mutual defense treaty with Japan. We have one with Australia.
Speaker 1: Australia and Japan don't have one with each other per se,
Speaker 1: though they have an official acquaintance that happened recently, but
Speaker 1: it's not a full blown treaty. However, we're all tied together,
Speaker 1: and if Australia in Japan, the closer they get together
Speaker 1: from a military and diplomatic point of view, everybody benefits.
Speaker 1: In between the Indonesians, the Vietnamese, the Filipinos, the Taiwani.
Speaker 1: Everybody benefits from Australia in Japan getting closer, and them
Speaker 1: getting closer will also tie the US back together. It
Speaker 1: was just all good news. The only bad thing I
Speaker 1: thought about it is again, I'm gonna take out one
Speaker 1: of my hobby horses out of the garage and jump
Speaker 1: on its back. It used to be whether you're talking
Speaker 1: about the Charles Adams Class DDG, the Knox frigate, the
Speaker 1: Oliver Hazard Perry frigate, that the US used to design
Speaker 1: light destroyers and frigates so well that other nations would
Speaker 1: license build them. And we haven't done that since the
Speaker 1: end of the Cold War. So everybody is building European
Speaker 1: designs and now Japanese designs, and I'm sure the Koreans,
Speaker 1: at least in the land component the polls are buying
Speaker 1: pretty much everything the Koreans can build. It Also, while
Speaker 1: I smile on one end because I really am enthusiastic
Speaker 1: about the Japanese the Australian get together, it also is
Speaker 1: just another car hard to put down on the table.
Speaker 1: The fact that our shipbuilding industry and our shipbuilding intelligentsia
Speaker 1: for both commercial industry and a navsey it's it's broken,
Speaker 1: it's fixed, and it's so bad that that nobody wants
Speaker 1: nobody else has anything they want to do with it.
Speaker 1: And so we should also acknowledge the fact that nobody's
Speaker 1: interested in license building anything that we've designed this century,
Speaker 1: should again redouble everybody's efforts to fix the system that
Speaker 1: has produced this because we have Lord knows, we have
Speaker 1: the economy, we have the engineers in theory, we have
Speaker 1: the business acumen to do it, we just don't have
Speaker 1: the ability to. So it's it's going to be a
Speaker 1: nice frigate and it's it's having the Australia having that,
Speaker 1: which hopefully should work out pretty well in the Japanese
Speaker 1: For those that have worked with Japanese industry on the
Speaker 1: commercial side of the house, they deliver what they promised
Speaker 1: much more often than anybody. So I think it's going
Speaker 1: to be a good news story down the road and
Speaker 1: the one that every all the friends of Australia and
Speaker 1: Japan should smile with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's kind of interesting to me that that
Speaker 2: I was watching some of the other day and they
Speaker 2: had there were somebody was interviewing various mechanics. You know, what,
Speaker 2: what car would you what cars would you recommend mine?
Speaker 2: And if they asked twelve mechanics, eleven of them said
Speaker 2: Toyota or Honda. You know, and some of the Toyotas
Speaker 2: and Hondas are built in the US. Great, but you
Speaker 2: know they've got the engineering skills that we've created this
Speaker 2: thing where the Japanese vehicles have become uh what we
Speaker 2: would like to think what once was the Cadillac and
Speaker 2: they and the Lincoln's and other cars in this country.
Speaker 2: But you know that the way it goes, so there's
Speaker 2: a lot to be admired and the way they the
Speaker 2: way they've done that, and it carries over to other industries,
Speaker 2: and it also carries over if they've got the the
Speaker 2: ability to encourage the Australians and and there and the
Speaker 2: maybe even the Philippines to start working on those supply
Speaker 2: chain things. You need to get uh in place so
Speaker 2: you can you can get the the the non actual
Speaker 2: shipyard stuff done. If you want latches for lockers, if
Speaker 2: you want uh uh you know, all those things components
Speaker 2: that go into ships. You need to have the quality.
Speaker 2: And that's where the the the theory that Deming had
Speaker 2: got Japanese off was that if you only if you
Speaker 2: bring quality materials into the system, are you able to
Speaker 2: stick quality produce quality materials at the end of the system.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't think it takes a rocket science
Speaker 2: to figure that out, but but it was. It was
Speaker 2: really important for the for the for the Japanese industry
Speaker 2: to get that, and they that's how you get these
Speaker 2: things where you know, if they if they're bringing in
Speaker 2: good supplies from people that they can rely on to
Speaker 2: be good suppliers. UH, then that makes the whole world
Speaker 2: of difference. And and those are those are jobs that matter,
Speaker 2: they matter in this country and and they that and
Speaker 2: somebody is pointing out I think John in the chat
Speaker 2: room that's why uh Tesla had to go. They have
Speaker 2: a a chain that is uh vertically integrated. And you know,
Speaker 2: you don't have to be vertically integrated if you have
Speaker 2: suppliers who are are toeing the line. And that's that's
Speaker 2: kind of what the the Australians and the and I
Speaker 2: hope that Japanese are going to encourage in some of
Speaker 2: the other countries. And I would go with the Philippines
Speaker 2: in the in the UH in that part of the world.
Speaker 2: UH so they can can you know, they can get
Speaker 2: everybody on board with these projects. And I fail to
Speaker 2: understand where that the UH Philippines aren't looking at the Japanese.
Speaker 2: I know they got some other stuff going on with
Speaker 2: the japan providing some equipment for them, but there are
Speaker 2: a lot of other countries down that should be looking
Speaker 2: at some of these Japanese and South Korean ships, all
Speaker 2: of which are pretty good, pretty good stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one of those things that these things build
Speaker 1: over time. As country X does business with Country Y
Speaker 1: and it works out well, that more people will we'll
Speaker 1: benchmark and replicate that. And you know, not everybody has
Speaker 1: to work with the US and buy from the US.
Speaker 1: But if our friends are buying from our friends, as
Speaker 1: opposed to subsidizing people who aren't our friends, then then
Speaker 1: we all benefit from that. And because it seems like
Speaker 1: a long time ago, but it wasn't the amount of
Speaker 1: damage that's been done to the US and our allies
Speaker 1: when you look at our sovereign control over our industry,
Speaker 1: our supply chains, and our access to raw materials from
Speaker 1: the China doves who had so much power mostly for
Speaker 1: economic reasons because there was a lot of money to
Speaker 1: be made. Is China grew into prominence and that those
Speaker 1: those phone calls kept the serious national security China hawks
Speaker 1: at bay for a long time. But nobody can really
Speaker 1: argue anymore that the CCP is a force for good.
Speaker 1: And one thing we talked about in the show I
Speaker 1: think ties right into that is you were talking that
Speaker 1: the news broke recently about the software problems that we
Speaker 1: have here in the US, where we have whether it's
Speaker 1: Microsoft or other companies who are creating software for not
Speaker 1: just military but our civilian infrastructure. You know, with without
Speaker 1: without power, without water, the whole society can collapse when
Speaker 1: you pull the thread on it. A lot of these
Speaker 1: nominally US companies they have outsourced to PRC nationals and
Speaker 1: PRC companies themselves, all of who have requirements and obligations
Speaker 1: with the Chinese Communist Party, and they are writing code
Speaker 1: and managing software and databases for something that if you
Speaker 1: wind up going to war with that country. In prior generations,
Speaker 1: they would have to put sabotage teams on submarines and
Speaker 1: sneak up the Long Island Sound and off of Saint Augustine, Florida,
Speaker 1: and try to dump people off on a raft to
Speaker 1: go do sabotage. Nowadays, all they have to do is
Speaker 1: get an IP portal and to click yes or no
Speaker 1: on a screen to do incredible amounts of damage. And
Speaker 1: a lot of that comes from that commercial aspect, where hey,
Speaker 1: if we do the following steps and offshore of the
Speaker 1: following items, we can create an additional point zero zero
Speaker 1: two to five cents per share over the course of
Speaker 1: a fiscal year. So let's go ahead and do that,
Speaker 1: irregardless of the larger national strategic risk we would expose
Speaker 1: our nation to and our customer base bought why by
Speaker 1: achieving that per share increase in profit, it's the more
Speaker 1: news that comes out about this, regardless of how scary
Speaker 1: it is. That's great because we're at peace. Hopefully that
Speaker 1: motivates the right people to start making changes. So maybe
Speaker 1: by twenty thirty we have instead of a one point
Speaker 1: zero threat, we have a point one five threat. That
Speaker 1: would be nice.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it wasn't just I mean, it's it's
Speaker 2: China and it's Microsoft, and China's figured out something with Microsoft.
Speaker 2: So here here they hack into the US National Nuclear
Speaker 2: Security Administration. Last month, Microsoft reports it Microsoft and they're
Speaker 2: using sharepoints somehow. There's some Glitchen SharePoint that the Chinese
Speaker 2: are exploiting. So they go in and and and you've
Speaker 2: got to remember that that it wasn't that long ago
Speaker 2: when when Microsoft said that they had decided to stop
Speaker 2: this is a quote, to stop relying on engineers based
Speaker 2: in China and support to support the Pentagon's use of
Speaker 2: cloud services. I mean, I am flabbergasted. When you read
Speaker 2: stuff like that, you go, well, how in the world
Speaker 2: did they get the Microsoft not get the memo that
Speaker 2: we don't want Chinese engineers working on this project to
Speaker 2: begin with. And and you know, we keep learning, and
Speaker 2: we got to go back to Dean Chang who who
Speaker 2: wrote that book years ago, and we talked him about
Speaker 2: cyber Dragon inside China's information warfare and cyber operations, which
Speaker 2: I'm going to put a link to up to her
Speaker 2: in the chat room. But you know, he's been on
Speaker 2: the show a number of times and he's he was
Speaker 2: not well. He was one of the early warners that
Speaker 2: you know, China is very very serious about about this
Speaker 2: intrusion into our into our cyber aspects. We we we've
Speaker 2: talked about it with salmccargliano on the on the cranes
Speaker 2: that were the Chinese were shipping out that that the
Speaker 2: various entities in the US government have warned people about
Speaker 2: these cranes because the information that they are getting gathering
Speaker 2: is is fed right to China, so and the ports
Speaker 2: that they've taken over. So when they scan use a
Speaker 2: barcode scanner to scan a container, they know what's in
Speaker 2: that container and if it's full of US defense supplies
Speaker 2: or Lord goes, what else we could ship that way,
Speaker 2: then uh, they're going to know exactly where those containers are.
Speaker 2: I mean, our protection against this sort of intrusion is
Speaker 2: it seems to be extremely weak, and we need to
Speaker 2: get on top of this because and it's I'm sure
Speaker 2: there are groups that are inside the government that are
Speaker 2: they're trying to figure out how to get on top
Speaker 2: of it because it's gotten so so ubiquitous that that
Speaker 2: you know, it starts. It's like having to find the
Speaker 2: one weed in your yard full of weeds that I'm
Speaker 2: gonna pull that particular weed because it's a lot of it, and.
Speaker 1: I have just.
Speaker 2: I hope we have are producing a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: new software.
Speaker 1: People.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know one of my one of my
Speaker 2: kids used to work in the industry of of doing
Speaker 2: these hacks where they have a hackathon just you know,
Speaker 2: checking out software, and you know that we need more
Speaker 2: of that, we need more red teaming of these some
Speaker 2: of these things we're using because I can't believe Microsoft
Speaker 2: would release I'm stunned they would release a product they
Speaker 2: knew could be hacked. And if they didn't know it
Speaker 2: couldn't be hacked, then they weren't doing their job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's it's very serious and a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't appreciate it. Anybody who has kids in there,
Speaker 1: who's graduated from college in the last fifteen years have
Speaker 1: noticed it. All my kids we're in STEM programs up
Speaker 1: through PhD programs, and when you go to the graduations,
Speaker 1: the amount of Chinese nationals and what you would consider
Speaker 1: very nationally strategic fields is just it's off the charts
Speaker 1: and is despair. Especially the stemfield concentration. Is there for
Speaker 1: a reason, because that's how you grow industry, that's how
Speaker 1: you grow your cyber that's also how that's also how
Speaker 1: you spy and steal. Is you get in our major
Speaker 1: research institutions and you get involved in a lot of projects.
Speaker 1: There's a reason why intellectual property theft from the PRC
Speaker 1: is so huge because not just anybody can leave the
Speaker 1: PRC to go study or work abroad. They have connections
Speaker 1: and requirements back to their government. They have to report.
Speaker 1: This is not Luxembourg that we're dealing with, and the
Speaker 1: disparity is huge. I was looking at these figures that
Speaker 1: as of April of last year, two hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: thousand citizens of the People's Republic of China were in
Speaker 1: college in undergraduate and graduate positions, predominantly in STEM fields.
Speaker 1: The amount of Americans studying in the PRC one thousand.
Speaker 1: So it's and I'll guarantee you that of those thousands,
Speaker 1: the vast majority of the Americans over in the PRC
Speaker 1: are not studying nuclear engineering, advanced statistics, and computer modeling,
Speaker 1: much less less stuff in the biomedical field, in epidemiology
Speaker 1: and things like that. There's a reason for that. And
Speaker 1: you talk to people in the university, they go, yeah,
Speaker 1: but they pay the full ride, Like okay, so what
Speaker 1: is the price tag at your public university you're willing
Speaker 1: to accept to subject your nation to significant threat from
Speaker 1: a hostyle power, which is what it does. And it
Speaker 1: goes back to an argument I've been really glad to
Speaker 1: see has come up a lot in the last few years.
Speaker 1: Is a lot of times we obsess about, for instance,
Speaker 1: since GDP and things like that, you have to quit
Speaker 1: looking at the United States or whatever nation you're a
Speaker 1: citizen of. It's not an economic zone. It's a nation,
Speaker 1: and there are things a nation has to do and
Speaker 1: be concerned with that would be detrimental from an accounting
Speaker 1: point of view, from an economic GDP. So if you
Speaker 1: have to do X for national security reasons to protect
Speaker 1: yourself from existential threats, maybe to impact point three percent
Speaker 1: of your GDP if you don't accept two hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety thousand dollars free ride, and then they're not all
Speaker 1: free ride because some of these people do get scholarships,
Speaker 1: and the sentence just assume that it's true. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: going to affect your university budget by five to ten percent. Okay,
Speaker 1: we've identified the price that you put on your contribution
Speaker 1: to your nation's security. There needs to be more and
Speaker 1: more of a conversation of about the fact that our
Speaker 1: nation is not an economic zone. It's a nation, and
Speaker 1: we have a threat. And you remember the Cold War
Speaker 1: better than I do. We didn't let the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: send over their scientists to study genetic manipulation of infectious
Speaker 1: disease or nuclear engineering are quantum computing, but we do
Speaker 1: that with PRC nationals. And it's a conversation I've been
Speaker 1: glad to hear recently because I'm glad you mentioned Dean,
Speaker 1: because you're right, Dean. Dean's one of those guys that
Speaker 1: probably quiet nights poors him self adrinc and go like
Speaker 1: all great cassandras I told you a decade ago, welcome
Speaker 1: to the party. Yeah, Dean Dean has been on this
Speaker 1: for a while. He's been trying to let us know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need to get him back on again. It's
Speaker 2: and get scared again because every time we talked to
Speaker 2: everybody goes, oh no, but you know we we're talking
Speaker 2: about Australia and that's another thing we need to think
Speaker 2: about it here. I'm glad Australia is getting some frigates.
Speaker 2: I'm glad they're looking at at a lot of equipment
Speaker 2: from other you know better like the Aucus thing and
Speaker 2: the and the possibility of a lot of under sea
Speaker 2: unmanned UH vessels and stuff because they're they and new
Speaker 2: Zealand are closest links to Antarctica, and we're noticing and
Speaker 2: and uh, Elizabeth Buchanan I think we talked about in
Speaker 2: the pre show has done a great job looking at
Speaker 2: what's going on and our Antarctica. I mean they have
Speaker 2: China's put a whole bunch of research stations around that,
Speaker 2: uh continent, I guess it is. And and they're also
Speaker 2: claiming that they are a as we've talked about before
Speaker 2: the show, they are a near Arctic nations. So they're
Speaker 2: working on the on the Arctic region too. And and
Speaker 2: we have we in the NATO countries. The northern NATO
Speaker 2: countries are the are the nearest nations to those. Canadians,
Speaker 2: of course, are the nearest nations to those to that water.
Speaker 2: So you know, we need to talk about we've got
Speaker 2: these We've talked about it here before. We've talked about
Speaker 2: the need for for ice breakers. I'm glad to see
Speaker 2: that the administration is now seriously looking at buying ice
Speaker 2: breakers from the from the fins. That's a good thing,
Speaker 2: and and we need more of that. We also need
Speaker 2: weaponized ice hardened ships to go up there.
Speaker 3: Too.
Speaker 2: We can't we can't rely on the Canadians since they've
Speaker 2: seemed to have just kind of given up on things.
Speaker 2: And but we've got we thankfully we have the Swedes
Speaker 2: and the Norwegians and the Finns who can help us
Speaker 2: out in that Arctic region.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole thing with the PRC and the Arctic
Speaker 1: and the antarchic part of me thinks is part of that.
Speaker 1: They're trying to make up from their century of humiliation,
Speaker 1: as they like to call it. You know, that's when
Speaker 1: you know, in the especially in the nineteenth century, in
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century, that's when all the lack of
Speaker 1: a better phrase, industrially advanced nations who had the surplus
Speaker 1: of people in material to go explore the Arctic and
Speaker 1: the Antarctic. We're mostly European with Americans right behind them.
Speaker 1: North Americans don't forget our Canadian friends, though they're in
Speaker 1: the spot of bother for a while, I think, and
Speaker 1: so they want to play catch up. But they have
Speaker 1: absolutely zero reasons and to be in the Arctic, uh,
Speaker 1: the Antarctic. They want to do quote experimentation and scientific
Speaker 1: things down there. I guess sure why not everybody can,
Speaker 1: but the Arctic they have less than zero reason that
Speaker 1: had anything to do with the Arctic, but they consider
Speaker 1: themselves an Arctic nation, and they will roll back at
Speaker 1: US as like, well, in North America, what are you
Speaker 1: doing in the Pacific. Well, we've we've fought a few
Speaker 1: wars over there. We have allies there, we have ah, we.
Speaker 2: Have territory there. You know, we got the uh, the
Speaker 2: the what is it, the the Marianna's the well, Sipan, Mike, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the whatever it is. You know, we've got allies, we've
Speaker 2: got pull out, We've got we've got Sipan, that whole
Speaker 2: because gosh, we just talked about this too. The Marianna's whatever, it's,
Speaker 2: it's it's a territory. It's the US territory. And we've
Speaker 2: talked about how they're the Chinese are infiltrating that they
Speaker 2: they get people in in Saipan to somehow get the
Speaker 2: Chinese who can get into Saipan without a visa, can can?
Speaker 2: They've they somehow they've been smuggled into Guam and that
Speaker 2: has ramifications because a lot of them are ended up
Speaker 2: on military basis. Yeah, it's you know, they're they're everywhere,
Speaker 2: and they're doing a lot of things that that nobody
Speaker 2: in the world likes. I mean, we've seen their their
Speaker 2: fishing fleets park themselves off the coast of South America
Speaker 2: and and Argentina, I think, and some of the other
Speaker 2: countries have taken a furious action against intrusion into their
Speaker 2: into their fishing waters. And it's, uh, you know, it
Speaker 2: is just a matter of they just keep pushing, They
Speaker 2: keep pushing. They don't you know, it is not it's
Speaker 2: not like there's a a an act of war or
Speaker 2: they have just near you know, near acts of war.
Speaker 2: If they intrude on fishing water, it's, oh, well, we're sorry,
Speaker 2: we made a mistake. Of course, their fleets go radio silent,
Speaker 2: they go dark so that nobody knows they're there. You know.
Speaker 2: It is just they are going out of their way
Speaker 2: to keep pushing and pushing, and to the end, every
Speaker 2: time they claim something or have visited something, it suddenly,
Speaker 2: somehow magically becomes theirs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think part of it is, unfortunately, is
Speaker 1: so much of this movement has happened in the last
Speaker 1: decade decade and a half, and there's still a lot
Speaker 1: of people, especially politicians who they've been in office for
Speaker 1: so long that they haven't been they still think it's
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight in some regards. And you know you
Speaker 1: mentioned lizbe Cannon. She is one of her billets a
Speaker 1: variety of things she does. This is a senior fellow
Speaker 1: over at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in the chat room.
Speaker 1: Also on the on the show page. Later on tonight,
Speaker 1: I'll add a link to it. But there was a
Speaker 1: neat report they had from twenty nineteen. It kind of
Speaker 1: ties back to what we were talking about before with
Speaker 1: universities here in the US. Obviously being Australian, they're very
Speaker 1: interested in commonwealth issues and all these connections that they've
Speaker 1: made in universities in Commonwealth countries. It shows you the
Speaker 1: fact they're not interested in sociology, they're not interested in business,
Speaker 1: they're not interested in accounting, they're not interested in ethnic
Speaker 1: studies or anything like that. The partnerships that these CCP
Speaker 1: related and PLA related universities, and they've done a really
Speaker 1: good job connecting the lines and tell them where this
Speaker 1: all goes to. It all started in twenty thirteen, so
Speaker 1: between twenty thirteen and twenty eighteen they made a lot
Speaker 1: of these connections. I'm not going to go through all
Speaker 1: of them, but I'll just pick a couple of Australian
Speaker 1: and a couple of UK universities to tell you about.
Speaker 1: For instance, in Australia, monosh University, their partnership is in
Speaker 1: started in twenty nineteen and they're researching again, we're building
Speaker 1: webs for three D printing. And also at the University
Speaker 1: of Technology in Sydney they're doing big data, artificial intelligence,
Speaker 1: quantum information and advanced materials and electronics studies. And a
Speaker 1: couple of UK universities let's see here at Imperial College London,
Speaker 1: they're studying aircraft design and materials, aircraft structural integrity. And
Speaker 1: also let's see University of Nottingham. Let's see what they're
Speaker 1: doing there. They are studying thermal coatings for turbine blades
Speaker 1: and impact damage. You know, you can't make this stuff up.
Speaker 1: So it's not just a US problem. It's a Western problem.
Speaker 1: And I'll guarantee you those British and Australian university and
Speaker 1: there's like a dozen things on here you can look at.
Speaker 1: They're saying the same things. Yeah, well they you know
Speaker 1: that they pay the full ride, Yeah they do, and
Speaker 1: why are they doing that? And how many Australians are
Speaker 1: going to major research institutions in China and helping them
Speaker 1: research cyber technology, cryptological issues, material science, rocketry and things
Speaker 1: like that. The answer is zero. I don't even have
Speaker 1: to look it up. We both know it. It's like
Speaker 1: one person's playing a very serious game. The other one
Speaker 1: is doing something, though I'm not sure what they are. Well.
Speaker 2: By the way, it's the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands,
Speaker 2: and I should know that having lived in Guami the
Speaker 2: you know, that's the commonwealth. Worry about it is it is?
Speaker 2: It is like the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It's a
Speaker 2: it's a US territory, it is it basically US law
Speaker 2: applies and you know it is self governing to have
Speaker 2: our own laws too, but the federal law of the
Speaker 2: United States applies to that, to that commonwealth, and you know,
Speaker 2: we just can't let them trapes around. But that's that's
Speaker 2: beside the the other. Yeah, we're not sending anybody to
Speaker 2: China to study. I would love to see somebody go
Speaker 2: in there and study their cyber cyber program. But you know,
Speaker 2: we also don't have rooms full of people, massive rooms
Speaker 2: full of people who are constantly trying to hack into systems,
Speaker 2: you know, the way they do. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 2: it's it's kind of like when we knew that the omb,
Speaker 2: the Officer of Personnel Management o PM, got hacked, and
Speaker 2: everybody who'd ever had any kind of thing to do
Speaker 2: with the federal government, either employment or otherwise. You know,
Speaker 2: you're all of a suden, they've got all your information. Well,
Speaker 2: who was doing that? It wasn't It wasn't the girls
Speaker 2: scouts from Rwanda. It was you know, it's the bad guy,
Speaker 2: so you know, and that and that's the shame of
Speaker 2: it is we you know, they they are at war.
Speaker 2: We don't we don't think it's war. But they're doing
Speaker 2: everything they can to uh to win without fighting, and
Speaker 2: and they're pretty darn good at it. And we were
Speaker 2: talking a little bit earlier about the production of stuff
Speaker 2: from China. I mean, I I am fascinated. I got
Speaker 2: my my one of my grandkids got a a robot,
Speaker 2: you know, a little thing he could assemble and and
Speaker 2: it bounces around and makes annoying noises, but you know,
Speaker 2: it says proudly on the outside of the box, you know,
Speaker 2: designed in California, just like some Apple products designed in California.
Speaker 2: But then you look at the finally it took a while,
Speaker 2: but when I looked at the box down to the bottom,
Speaker 2: it says manufactured in China. You know, that's that's how
Speaker 2: they do it. So so when you go on Amazon
Speaker 2: and when you try and order something, have you ever
Speaker 2: tried to order anything it wasn't made? You know, I
Speaker 2: want to I don't want anything. I want a US
Speaker 2: made product. It's and if you search for US made product, uh,
Speaker 2: you don't get much.
Speaker 1: No. And they've they've subsidized those industries that build real well.
Speaker 1: It's uh, there's a real nice interview it's like eighteen
Speaker 1: months ago with one of the drone operators, not operators,
Speaker 1: one of the drone leaders in the Ukrainian military, and
Speaker 1: they were talking about how the everything they get involving
Speaker 1: drones from the from China, it's built better, it's cheaper,
Speaker 1: and it's more available. It's like they get something from
Speaker 1: the US. It's not as good. It's very expensive and
Speaker 1: it's not as functional. Uh. So it's not that they're
Speaker 1: just slapping cheap stuff together. They do that pretty well.
Speaker 1: But in the things that they have to do quality, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's well done, and I think that's a
Speaker 1: good example, just like the Japanese, just the South Koreans,
Speaker 1: you know, don't don't give me excuses Americans about why
Speaker 1: our industry can't do X, Y or Z. There are
Speaker 1: nations who were pretty much bombed into the Stone Age
Speaker 1: and living memory who now we're getting on the phone
Speaker 1: and asking them, could you please come over here and
Speaker 1: tell us how to properly do something today that we
Speaker 1: used to be the best in the world at forty
Speaker 1: years ago. Much much of our problem is internal in
Speaker 1: that record. But that's that's just a challenge. That's a challenge.
Speaker 1: And now that we're talking about it, not us, but
Speaker 1: the imperial we talk about it. I try to be
Speaker 1: optimistic that you know, the in the National twelve step program,
Speaker 1: the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
Speaker 1: And I think we've done that, and it's to follow
Speaker 1: through and the action on the other end and going
Speaker 1: back to the top the show, hopefully in a bipartisan manner,
Speaker 1: because we are all part of the same nation here.
Speaker 1: UH that there's optimism there. We just need more people
Speaker 1: in Congress to lean into it. And UH with the
Speaker 1: support of the right people and the legislative and the
Speaker 1: executive branch, and there's progress to be made. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: everything in the oh go ahead. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say one more thing. I'm China before
Speaker 2: we leave. We need to talk about something else. But
Speaker 2: but you know they're mad. China's now mad at the
Speaker 2: Philippines again because the Indian Indian Navy has come and
Speaker 2: done some exercises with the Filipinos.
Speaker 1: You know, uh stay mad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know that the Chinese, they they just
Speaker 2: don't get along with anybody.
Speaker 1: And you know, the whole thing about the Filipino uh
Speaker 1: situation that cracks me up is you will you will
Speaker 1: be hard pressed to find a more jingoistic society than
Speaker 1: Han Chinese. And they have always always look down pretty
Speaker 1: much everybody but that aren't Han Chinese, but especially the Filipinos,
Speaker 1: the native Taiwanese, the Vietnamese, they really have unpleasant things
Speaker 1: to say about them. So it really it really rubs
Speaker 1: them the wrong way when they see the Philippines standing
Speaker 1: up for their themselves and their their territory, which is great,
Speaker 1: which is why we should encourage the Filipinos to to
Speaker 1: do that and to back their play as much as possible,
Speaker 1: simply because it frustrates the the Han Chinese so much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's good stuff, but everything on the international scene, it's
Speaker 1: it's not it's not negative. America is doing some things right.
Speaker 1: One thing we talk about in the pretio I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about because I'm really first of all, it's
Speaker 1: it's frustrating to get details of the actual arrangements. But
Speaker 1: some progress is better than no progress. I know that
Speaker 1: upcoming here is there's going to be a meeting with
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin in Alaska and we'll see what happens with that.
Speaker 1: There's some discussion to know. The German Chancellor was like, hey,
Speaker 1: the European Union would like to have somebody there, and
Speaker 1: here's been talked about. Well, Zelensky show up or not?
Speaker 1: Why is the US talking to Russia by the Ukrainian situation? Whatever?
Speaker 1: Better did jaw jaw than war war? So hey, let's
Speaker 1: all get together. Even it doesn't accomplish anything. But when
Speaker 1: you look at the Trump administration has only been here
Speaker 1: for eight months. I know it seems like eight years,
Speaker 1: but let's just go back and look at what's happened recently.
Speaker 1: The most recent one is I was able to find
Speaker 1: out some pretty neat details on since the fall of
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union and those screwed up borders that also
Speaker 1: had a lot to do with the Russian and Ukraine problem.
Speaker 1: But Armenia and ozer Berjehan got together and signed a
Speaker 1: treaty that part of it, it's gonna there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a It's it's kind of like the say, the same
Speaker 1: reason why the air force fire is gonna be f
Speaker 1: F forty seven, but uh, there's gonna be a twenty
Speaker 1: mile corridor. And this has been an Ozer Rjon desire
Speaker 1: since the beginning two because when you look at the
Speaker 1: map of the of the Southern Caucuses Armenia Jean, there's
Speaker 1: an auserie territory that is separated from a major part
Speaker 1: of Rjon. In between it is Armenia Scott. What is
Speaker 1: that vigial term in exclave I think is the correct term.
Speaker 1: But to get there, part of the treaty is there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a twenty mile corridor called the quote Trump
Speaker 1: Route for International Peace Security Cordy Corridor. Okay, fine, whatever,
Speaker 1: It's gonna be managed by an American consortium somehow, I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe they's the New Jersey term Pike Authority
Speaker 1: who does. But it's a ninety nine year lead to
Speaker 1: allow that connection. Maybe that'll decrease some friction there. There's
Speaker 1: a lot more cards to come out these people who
Speaker 1: are always they've hated each other for since the since
Speaker 1: it forever. So we'll see how that goes. But what's
Speaker 1: neat about it is what that does. You already had
Speaker 1: an existing thing that's called the U two things. It's
Speaker 1: called the Middle Corridor Project also the trans Caspian Project
Speaker 1: that connects again commercial whatever China to the Baltic Sea,
Speaker 1: and it had a little bit of an inefficient jaunt
Speaker 1: around Armenia. This will give them their ability for this
Speaker 1: to be a lot more efficient and effective. And what
Speaker 1: it really does because it would come out of from
Speaker 1: ozerber Jean more efficiently, through Georgia and Armenia into Turkey.
Speaker 1: From Turkey, then it goes up through the Black Sea
Speaker 1: through Ukraine, pulling the Baltics, et cetera, and so forth.
Speaker 1: It bypasses Russia, and it bypasses Iran, and it makes
Speaker 1: them both angry and a lot of those former Soviet republics.
Speaker 1: The less they can rely on Russia. The better for
Speaker 1: them and the better for the international community. And anything
Speaker 1: that upsets the Iranians is fine with me. I also
Speaker 1: don't forget that I think it's twenty percent of the
Speaker 1: population of Iran or actually ethnic Asari, which is a
Speaker 1: little interesting detail. So that was a pretty neat detail.
Speaker 1: So that was done last week. So that's an August check.
Speaker 1: You go back a month to July. Cambodia and Thailand,
Speaker 1: multi century rivalry. There, they got to a slapfest and
Speaker 1: the US managed to get at least a cease fire
Speaker 1: till they pick it up again at some point down
Speaker 1: the road. For years, Rwanda and the Democrat Republic of Congo,
Speaker 1: there's been a conflict there, mostly ethnic base that took
Speaker 1: place in June, and then India and Pakistan and they
Speaker 1: got there ongoing conflict clicked off. We helped bring that
Speaker 1: to a close back in May. So you know, let's
Speaker 1: give a nice golf clap to the National Security Chain
Speaker 1: and the State Department team for the new administration. They've
Speaker 1: done a heck of a lot to put down some
Speaker 1: brush wars over their first eight months, which just makes
Speaker 1: me wonder, you know what we're blinking and Sullivan doing
Speaker 1: for the last four years, that all this stuff just
Speaker 1: cascaded with the new administration, new leadership, new approach to
Speaker 1: the world. I don't care whether you're a Republican or
Speaker 1: a Democrat, you should be very glad that those four conflicts,
Speaker 1: at least for the moment, there's no longer rounds being
Speaker 1: exchanged by the two. So if there's some momentum and
Speaker 1: that can translate into an imperfect peace is better than
Speaker 1: an imperfect forever war in Ukraine. Then there's room for
Speaker 1: optimism in the fact that the US, still when it
Speaker 1: wants to, can have a positive impact on the world.
Speaker 2: It's often forgotten how important it is that when a
Speaker 2: US ambassador or represented for the Department of State shows
Speaker 2: up someplace, how meaningful that is to some of these countries,
Speaker 2: just because you know, they may remember our past, sometimes
Speaker 2: better than we remember our past, and they know that
Speaker 2: we can be, and have been in the past, impartial
Speaker 2: our our our portrayor for groups that are mad at
Speaker 2: each other, And you know, that's a good thing to have.
Speaker 2: And it hasn't always worked in the Middle East where
Speaker 2: we'd like to, although I will say it looks like
Speaker 2: the Abraham Accords under the first Trump administration seemed to
Speaker 2: be coming back into play. I've seen some reports from
Speaker 2: Saudis and other people from that area that it's saying,
Speaker 2: you know, they don't care if they're not worried about
Speaker 2: Israel's existence any worthy, They just they just want the
Speaker 2: Palestinians to calm calm down. So it's a it's an
Speaker 2: interesting time and we'll see what happens again. You know,
Speaker 2: the Iranians are being quiet, but the Hoofies are still
Speaker 2: acting up a little bit. And obviously the Gaza thing
Speaker 2: is just a mess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not. It's not all roses and sunshine. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't see any way there can be regardless
Speaker 1: of what direction it goes in, there's going to be
Speaker 1: happy ending in Gaza. And that's just a in tractical
Speaker 1: problem that everybody's going to have to deal with. It's interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, the Abraham of Gords. I think it didn't
Speaker 1: facilitate it. It was a natural byproduct of a modernization
Speaker 1: that has h taken place in the Gold States. There's
Speaker 1: been amazing things that have happened to modernize even Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1: Since I first put my feet on the ground there
Speaker 1: in January of nineteen ninety one. Compared to today, Again
Speaker 1: it's not a Western nation, but it's it's a modernizing nation,
Speaker 1: and there's they are more bought into an international system
Speaker 1: that by its its nature, desires stability and peace because
Speaker 1: that's how you do commerce. There was I think it's cutters.
Speaker 1: Royal family are one of the royal families in UAE.
Speaker 1: I think it's cutter. They've determined actually owns more of
Speaker 1: London than the English crown owns in London. So they
Speaker 1: have a lot of investments all over the globe, more
Speaker 1: international less looking at that, there's smaller concerns and that
Speaker 1: making peace of Israel. You know, why have an ongoing
Speaker 1: war that doesn't benefit commerce, it doesn't benefit education, it
Speaker 1: doesn't benefit healthcare. I know there's been some one by
Speaker 1: product of the Abraham Accords is some of the partnerships
Speaker 1: with some of the hospitals in the Arabian Peninsula because
Speaker 1: the israelis medical professional cadre or some of the bestial planet.
Speaker 1: So it's medical diplomacy is always good when you can
Speaker 1: help people get over cancer and other things like that.
Speaker 1: So that you know it's there's positive news, but there's
Speaker 1: also some things that just there there there, there won't
Speaker 1: be a pretty resolution to it, but time marches forward elsewhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well there's you know, we're seeing almost seeing, uh,
Speaker 2: civilization has come to life in some of these areas.
Speaker 2: I mean that everybody. It seems so many European countries
Speaker 2: are now wrestling with what they've done with the open
Speaker 2: immigration they've had and the effects of allowing certain groups
Speaker 2: of people in and and how are you going to
Speaker 2: deal with that if they're not going to moderate their positions?
Speaker 2: But then they're there, you know, are they Are they
Speaker 2: there as guests? Are they there as have many of
Speaker 2: them become citizens? And if they're citizens, and what do
Speaker 2: you how do you deal with citizens who don't believe
Speaker 2: in any of what the other large percent of your
Speaker 2: population believes are the core values of your country? It
Speaker 2: is it is. I would not like to be in
Speaker 2: Ireland these days as a as the and either either
Speaker 2: as the immigrant or as the Irish, because nobody seems
Speaker 2: to be able to get along a situation there. And
Speaker 2: we're seeing that in in Great Britain now we're seeing that,
Speaker 2: and in Spain and France and Germany, you know, the
Speaker 2: countries that refused to accept some of these in the
Speaker 2: days when they're revegues like Hungary and Poland. You know,
Speaker 2: they got bad mouth for being racist or whatever the
Speaker 2: term would be. But they seem to be riding that.
Speaker 1: Out.
Speaker 2: This situation a little better than some of these countries,
Speaker 2: a little more open bordered.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen it in person, and it's since I
Speaker 1: moved back from from living on the continent for years,
Speaker 1: over fifteen years ago. I mean, I saw it bad
Speaker 1: enough then it's gotten worse now. My daughter got to
Speaker 1: the point we had a conversation a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago because she was studying on the continent and we
Speaker 1: were in Budapest having a nice at the New York
Speaker 1: Cafe of all places in downtown Budapest. We were having oh,
Speaker 1: oh you America pars we were having It's actually a
Speaker 1: pre World World War II facility that they brought back
Speaker 1: once the Communists left. It's very nice. It's very Art deco,
Speaker 1: Art nouveau. It's pretty cool. But we we were talking
Speaker 1: about all the travels she had made and what a
Speaker 1: great time we were having in Budapest and Broadislava, Vienna, Prague,
Speaker 1: and uh, She's like, yeah, I would much rather I
Speaker 1: would advise people coming here are Vienna over Paris, because
Speaker 1: she had just gotten back from Paris a few weeks earlier,
Speaker 1: visiting some friends who were studying there, and it's very sad,
Speaker 1: and I think that's going to be the big friction
Speaker 1: point in Europe. Besides Russia. Europe's got a lot of
Speaker 1: internal concerns they're going to have, and I think with
Speaker 1: the upcoming elections in the next few years in France
Speaker 1: and the UK as well, uh, there there's going to
Speaker 1: be a reckoning because part of the problem is is
Speaker 1: you had a theory that has been proven to be wrong,
Speaker 1: but that theory is still in power and in laws
Speaker 1: in the EU, specifically those nations, even though, by the way,
Speaker 1: even though the UK left the EU, they still are
Speaker 1: subject to, by their own choice, the European Commission on
Speaker 1: Human Rights. As long as you are nodding to ECCHR,
Speaker 1: which is the implementation force of this theory that has
Speaker 1: turned out to be wrong, it's very difficult to fix
Speaker 1: the problem. However, the problem is not economic, it's people.
Speaker 1: And how do you resolve a massive people who don't
Speaker 1: not only don't want to assimilate, but have other plans
Speaker 1: for your future the next five to ten years in Europe,
Speaker 1: that's where their concern is going to be and how
Speaker 1: they internally accept the fact that they have been ruled
Speaker 1: by a theory that has not worked out, and how
Speaker 1: do they correct it. It's going to not be pretty,
Speaker 1: but it'll.
Speaker 2: Be the last time they broke away from the Soviet Union. Yeah,
Speaker 2: another theory that didn't work.
Speaker 1: And the Hungarians and the polls especially, they're they're not blind.
Speaker 1: They can look at Okay, y'all yelled at us, y'all
Speaker 1: threatened us, y'all called us nasty names for years. But
Speaker 1: you can walk and this is true. You can walk
Speaker 1: through our markets during the high holidays. And it's not
Speaker 1: like in the big cities in France where you have
Speaker 1: paratroopers at every street corner with submachine guns and you
Speaker 1: have all these barriers and all these metal detectors and securities.
Speaker 1: It's like Warsaw in Christmas twenty twenty five is going
Speaker 1: to be like the rest of Europe was in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety five. And they're they're going to have to resolve that.
Speaker 1: And I don't see how it's going to be done easily,
Speaker 1: cheaply or pleasantly one way or another. But again, these
Speaker 1: are all countries with democratic systems as long as those
Speaker 1: democratic systems are allowed to function as inefficiently as they do,
Speaker 1: Like Europeans like to say about the US for a
Speaker 1: long time, they'll eventually do the right thing after they've
Speaker 1: tried all other options. But so I try to be
Speaker 1: optimistic in that regard. But I remember riding over on
Speaker 1: my blog fifteen years ago. They needed to start fixing there.
Speaker 1: It's harder to fix in twenty twenty five than it
Speaker 1: would be in twenty ten, twenty fifteen. But after they
Speaker 1: try everything else, will eventually find a way to fix it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need to get somebody on here that is
Speaker 2: really studying these problems because it's going to be an
Speaker 2: interesting time for the national security for US, and it
Speaker 2: certainly is national of national concern to us because our allies,
Speaker 2: NATO allies are caught up in this, in this stuff,
Speaker 2: and it's uh, it could you know, it is Uh,
Speaker 2: it's going to be it's going to be really difficult
Speaker 2: to try and figure out how to anybody to settle
Speaker 2: this stuff without coming to blows. I mean, that's you know,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm not optimistic that it won't come to that
Speaker 2: because I kind of see that. It's it's uh, the people,
Speaker 2: the people who have lived lived there longer, are getting
Speaker 2: a little tired of being told what they have to
Speaker 2: do by people who just arrived. And and when I was,
Speaker 2: when I was in Italy several years ago, they were
Speaker 2: really having trouble with the migrants, uh coming ashore and
Speaker 2: and settling in, but they didn't settle. I mean it
Speaker 2: was they were just this this Uh, they've created this underclass,
Speaker 2: which which you know that that gets ugly real easily.
Speaker 1: It doesn't resolve itself well at all. And hey, I
Speaker 1: just realized we're already past the hour, but we need
Speaker 1: we need again again. Time flies and you're having fun. Well, hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: we appreciate you taking time today for joining us a
Speaker 1: mid rest. Next week, tune in, We're gonna have a guest.
Speaker 1: If it's summertime, what does that mean? It's time for
Speaker 1: the last fifteen years, Dimitri Gorenberg. Uh, doctr one issue
Speaker 1: from the Center for Naval Analysis is coming on. We've
Speaker 1: been having him on once a year, like I said,
Speaker 1: pretty much from the start of the show, and we
Speaker 1: are going to talk about the latest about Russia, not
Speaker 1: exclusively about the Russia Ukrainian War and the Russian military.
Speaker 1: We always kind of touch on lots of different subjects
Speaker 1: or so for those that wanted to have one of
Speaker 1: the best minds out there when it comes to just
Speaker 1: taking a real objective, realistic and calm view of Russia.
Speaker 1: Next week is going to be great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't help us understand better what the Trump
Speaker 2: and Putin are going to be talking.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So Hey, thanks everybody in the chat room. We
Speaker 1: appreciate y'all coming in and until next time. I hope
Speaker 1: everybody has a great Navy day. Cheers.
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