Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekenena Show.
Speaker 1: John field House has returned. How are you doing? John?
Speaker 1: All right, man, let's talk about this. This is a
Speaker 1: controversial subject. I don't think anyone that we know wants
Speaker 1: to go to war with Iran. God, I hope not
Speaker 1: not at least people that we truly respect. But something
Speaker 1: that I've been saying for over a year, and you know,
Speaker 1: having lee Enfield on, it was over a year ago,
Speaker 1: right after October seventh when they started talking about war
Speaker 1: with Iran. You know, we basically came to the conclusion
Speaker 1: then and I haven't changed my mind at all, is
Speaker 1: that you can't the United States can't win a war
Speaker 1: with Iran, even if they're fighting alongside Israel, which Israel
Speaker 1: never does. I think that war with Iran is pretty
Speaker 1: much impossible and would just be an endless quagmire. So
Speaker 1: I asked you to come on to talk about it.
Speaker 1: And people have heard yn here before. Your suggestion on
Speaker 1: the coupdetas the look back book went over very well
Speaker 1: and helping me and give adding context to that. People
Speaker 1: have come to know you. But can you give as
Speaker 1: much of your background as you can on you know,
Speaker 1: as far as military goes, and why your opinion, why
Speaker 1: you might have an opinion on this that people can
Speaker 1: listen to.
Speaker 2: Sure start off, John Fieldhouse And before anybody asked, I
Speaker 2: am not. I have never participated any D O D
Speaker 2: pentagon level planning on a hypothetical invasion of Iran, and
Speaker 2: had I done so, it would be a crime for
Speaker 2: me to discuss classified information because frequently comes up anytime
Speaker 2: we discuss these things that will bring up, well, you're
Speaker 2: not a strategic planner who's focused on this, and my
Speaker 2: buddy is, and he says it's great. Is understand that
Speaker 2: a strategic planner, unless something is specifically declassified, something like
Speaker 2: this is going to be classified, which makes it a
Speaker 2: crime to share it. So the only people who are
Speaker 2: going to share it are people directly affiliated with the game,
Speaker 2: and therefore are going to show things that support whatever
Speaker 2: the regime talking point of the moment is. So yet,
Speaker 2: to be very clear, I have never in any way
Speaker 2: participated in strategic level planning for a hypothetical invasion of Iran.
Speaker 2: That said, I am a former military officer, primarily logistics,
Speaker 2: but I've also done some combat arms and some other things.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to get into too much detail about those.
Speaker 2: We talked about some of my academic background before, which
Speaker 2: doesn't directly relate to this because most of my stuff's
Speaker 2: in organizational theory. But again, I was a military officer.
Speaker 2: I have done mid level professional military education. I've been
Speaker 2: an instructor at professional mild level excuse me, mid level
Speaker 2: professional military education where for much of the two thousands
Speaker 2: we used a hypothetical invasion of Iran as the war
Speaker 2: game scenario. And consequently, I am not away claiming to
Speaker 2: be an expert on this, but this is something that me,
Speaker 2: as well as you know, maybe a quarter of the
Speaker 2: active duty Army officer cohort of the timeframe I was in,
Speaker 2: have also done. Is we've done a lot of time
Speaker 2: looking at what an invasion of Iran would involved, which
Speaker 2: makes us, I think, very aware of the costs and
Speaker 2: consequences of trying to play around with something like this.
Speaker 1: So I guess one of the things that I'll bring
Speaker 1: up is I talked about when Lee Enfield was on
Speaker 1: the show over a year ago, and he was we
Speaker 1: talked about an Army War College paper that had just
Speaker 1: come out that basically said that the fight that Ukraine
Speaker 1: had been undergoing at that time free year and a half.
Speaker 1: The United States wasn't even equipped manpower wise to undertake
Speaker 1: I think Lee said that the I think the paper
Speaker 1: said that in order to do it properly using the
Speaker 1: men who are active right now, you'd probably have to
Speaker 1: institute a draft within three to four months, because that's
Speaker 1: the kind of attrition that you would suffer. So, looking
Speaker 1: back on that and knowing there hasn't really been a
Speaker 1: run on a military enlistment in the last year, what
Speaker 1: kind of manpower do you think you would need for
Speaker 1: an Iranian ground invasion at this point?
Speaker 3: That's a good question. What was it?
Speaker 2: Shinseki said, an invasion of Iraq done properly, we probably
Speaker 2: would have required or was it several hundred thousand men,
Speaker 2: significantly more than what we actually used, and the airport
Speaker 2: didn't have enough manpower to pacify the population afterwards. I
Speaker 2: think Iran would require significantly more, not just manpower, but
Speaker 2: also the weapons and equipment, and unfortunately, some of those
Speaker 2: things take even longer to produce than man power, though
Speaker 2: obviously the man inside is much more important than the weapon.
Speaker 2: That's a good question. Maybe three quarters of a million,
Speaker 2: It's hard to say. I don't even necessarily know an
Speaker 2: answer to that, or would be able to give an
Speaker 2: answer to that, because I don't think it's feasible to
Speaker 2: in any way think that America today or anytime in
Speaker 2: the near future would be able to get that amount
Speaker 2: of man power, largely because I can't imagine anything being
Speaker 2: possible in which conscription could be successfully implemented for essentially
Speaker 2: a war of choice in the Middle East. In a
Speaker 2: best case scenario where you turn on hypothetically the civil
Speaker 2: or the selective service system tomorrow, essentially do what happened,
Speaker 2: you know, the day after Pearl Harbor in the United States.
Speaker 2: It takes I would say, a minimum of six months
Speaker 2: to actually take those people, properly train them, integrate them
Speaker 2: into units where they would be able to do their jobs.
Speaker 2: And that's a best case scenario. And we don't have
Speaker 2: a best case scenario. For instance, we have a selective
Speaker 2: service system that nobody since the Carter administration has really
Speaker 2: thought needed to work. Therefore they haven't really maintained it.
Speaker 2: Not to mention, we have training facilities that it would
Speaker 2: be very difficult to expand those every night things like that,
Speaker 2: to the point it would probably take more like two
Speaker 2: years to even have an army capable of doing this,
Speaker 2: and in a world with global information technology which can
Speaker 2: be used as a targeting tool, you know, that's two
Speaker 2: years where the enemy has a chance to disrupt you
Speaker 2: every or every day along the way. So it's my
Speaker 2: long winded answer is how big. I don't think it's
Speaker 2: even possible, given the amount of time it would take
Speaker 2: to pull that off, to think that that could happen
Speaker 2: in this world.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's uh, we talked about American forces. What
Speaker 1: do you know about Iranian forces? The Yeah, it's they
Speaker 1: have a standing army. Obviously they have yeah, gott, I'll
Speaker 1: let you go.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So in fact, if I had thought about that, I
Speaker 2: would have gotten numbers beforehand. So they do have a
Speaker 2: standing army. They also have the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps,
Speaker 2: which involved has their own separate army, their own separate navy,
Speaker 2: their own separate air force. They even have a Marine
Speaker 2: Corps for their separate navy. They also have some law
Speaker 2: enforcement capacity. They had the Besiege, which is a militia
Speaker 2: force somewhat like a national guard that's separate from whatever
Speaker 2: reserve forces may exist in the regular army, and they
Speaker 2: also have the Kods Force goods is Arabic for Jerusalem,
Speaker 2: which you know, which is their Special Forces Force, which
Speaker 2: are the guys who had worked with Iraqi forces during
Speaker 2: the fight against ISIS in Iraq. They're also the guys
Speaker 2: who are working with as Law, who've worked with the
Speaker 2: Syrian military, who have heavily worked as trainers for insurgents,
Speaker 2: as well as regular Arab forces. So yeah, you have
Speaker 2: the regular force, then you have the IERGC, which is
Speaker 2: more than just you know, a one, you know, piece
Speaker 2: of the pie. It's like several things belong to the
Speaker 2: larger IERGC as well as internally, they have security forces
Speaker 2: law enforcement Jender Maris that could be used as you know,
Speaker 2: a security force against invasion as well.
Speaker 1: So here are just some numbers that AI is scraping
Speaker 1: from Wikipedia and Air and Space and Space Forces Magazine.
Speaker 1: Ground Force dree hundred and fifty thousand, Active Air Force,
Speaker 1: thirty seven thousand, Active Navy eighteen thousand, Air Defense fifteen thousand,
Speaker 1: Revolutionary Guard Corps one hundred and twenty thousand elite with
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty thousand in reserve, and the reserve
Speaker 1: are fully trained. So we're looking at about it this
Speaker 1: would tell me nine hundred and sixty thousand military personnel
Speaker 1: ready to go.
Speaker 3: And that's what they have today.
Speaker 2: Hypothetically, if you're taking two years to build up combat power, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, every day along the way they get to
Speaker 2: do the same thing.
Speaker 1: So good And part of why IM go ahead, no
Speaker 1: no please.
Speaker 2: Part why I mentioned the amount of the amount of
Speaker 2: time that we're prepared to actually train and organize forces
Speaker 2: for an invasion is understand that American heavy armor, so
Speaker 2: mechanized forces, the kind of heavy brigade combat team equipment abrams.
Speaker 2: You know, they're supporting artillery, Bradley's and whatnot, that kind
Speaker 2: of equipment, it takes a long time to actually get
Speaker 2: them into a theater that isn't fully developed. So interesting,
Speaker 2: complete toll, you know, random facto it is the ABRAMS
Speaker 2: is there one of the largest main battle tanks in
Speaker 2: the world. It's not the largest, probably anymore, but it
Speaker 2: was something that was built to be bigger, heavier than
Speaker 2: most previous tanks of any army in any size. And
Speaker 2: that's partly because for those who don't know a lot
Speaker 2: of the vehicle dimensions, the width, especially the axle with
Speaker 2: on most vehicles comes from the fact that historic roads
Speaker 2: in Europe had that with which actually goes back to
Speaker 2: the Roman Empire. Right that literally the design on wheeled
Speaker 2: vehicles today, you know, the dimensions are heavily influenced because
Speaker 2: that's what the Roman army built. Anyways, Abrams were bigger
Speaker 2: so that it was done without those constraints which made
Speaker 2: them harder to move around. Back in the Cold War,
Speaker 2: war plan was, hypothetically, if we were fighting in the
Speaker 2: Folder Gap, we were fighting, you know, across the inner
Speaker 2: German border. Forces were going to be located there, and
Speaker 2: there was no issue with strategic lift. You had your
Speaker 2: weapons systems in place. It was moving those into a
Speaker 2: combat zone and getting the fight there.
Speaker 3: It's a very.
Speaker 2: Different thing when you have to move them into a
Speaker 2: theater where you don't have those weapons. We know that
Speaker 2: ninety one, the First Golf War, it took a significant
Speaker 2: amount of time. A lot of it was just a
Speaker 2: matter of selifting that heavy equipment to get into the area.
Speaker 2: That's also why it took almost two years to invade
Speaker 2: Iraq in two thousand and is. It takes a significant
Speaker 2: amount of time to get those equipment sets into a
Speaker 2: theater that has not developed and for those.
Speaker 3: Who don't know.
Speaker 2: If we deploy combat team, a heavy brigade combat team
Speaker 2: today or in the recent past, we don't you know,
Speaker 2: have them load up all their equipment and send them
Speaker 2: to combat. We actually preposition weapons systems in that area.
Speaker 2: A lot of this is off shore in you know,
Speaker 2: prepossession vessels, or they're in long term storage facilities. We
Speaker 2: fly the people in, they fall in on that equipment,
Speaker 2: they organize, and they go out and prepare to fight. Now,
Speaker 2: the problem with that approach is if the equipment sets
Speaker 2: aren't there already, as I keep repeating, is it takes
Speaker 2: a long time to get them into that theater, which
Speaker 2: is a big part of the problem with a hypothetical
Speaker 2: war with Iran. Where are we gonna put them? Because
Speaker 2: again that you know, heavily influences which direction we were
Speaker 2: going to invade country from. Not to mention, it really
Speaker 2: gives away to the enemy which way you're coming. I know,
Speaker 2: I'm rambling.
Speaker 1: No, No, that's fine. So obviously, so let's say ground
Speaker 1: invasion is off of the off the table. I think
Speaker 1: most people got.
Speaker 2: No, it's more than it's off the table. It's the
Speaker 2: fact that it's it would be so long to set
Speaker 2: up so expensive to set up. And again, you make
Speaker 2: yourself a target the longer you take right. It's like
Speaker 2: cocking a fist in a fist fight. The other guy
Speaker 2: knows you're going to hit him now, right, which is
Speaker 2: part of the way train fighters train things like the jab.
Speaker 2: So when the guy's cocking his fist for his big
Speaker 2: billy bad ass punch, you jab him and then you
Speaker 2: cross him and he goes down, you know. And it's
Speaker 2: in some ways it's the same concept. Is it takes
Speaker 2: a long time to get those forces there. Every step
Speaker 2: along the way is an opportunity for a competent enemy
Speaker 2: to get them there. And again, which direction are you
Speaker 2: going to come in from? In you know, where you
Speaker 2: preposition your equipment decides that and you take away a
Speaker 2: lot of your flexibility that way, the enemy is going
Speaker 2: to have a real good idea which direction you're coming from,
Speaker 2: just by where you're prepositioning your equipment.
Speaker 1: Well, and I think you make a really good point there,
Speaker 1: and it's a point where we were trying to make
Speaker 1: last year. As far as you know where staging areas
Speaker 1: you're not going to do in Afghanistan, Turkey is not
Speaker 1: going to allow you to do it Iraq, what you
Speaker 1: would have to reinvade Iraq. Saudi Arabia is not going
Speaker 1: to allow you to do it, especially not especially not
Speaker 1: at this point with everything that's been going on since
Speaker 1: October seventh. I mean, there was none of the stands
Speaker 1: are going to allow you to do it. Above you can't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Saudi Arabia involves the whole issue of an amphibious landing,
Speaker 2: which we can talk about, but I would say save
Speaker 2: that for later because that's a whole bunch of other
Speaker 2: issues along with it. But yeah, those areas you're not
Speaker 2: going to come from Iraq if for no other reason
Speaker 2: we effectively put the Shai government in charge there, and
Speaker 2: every day that we're prepositioning stuff in Iraq is a
Speaker 2: chance for them to keep shooting at us. And if
Speaker 2: it has to become a situation which we have to
Speaker 2: forcibly attack and subdue Iraq in order to go into Iran,
Speaker 2: that's why, well, congratulations, now you were at war with
Speaker 2: Iraq and you haven't even gotten to Iran yet.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things that a lot
Speaker 1: of people who've never actually looked at a map of
Speaker 1: Iran don't realize how perfectly situated Tehran. Tehran is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Tehran's in the northern part of the country, which
Speaker 2: is weird for something that's a know, a major maritime
Speaker 2: power to have their capital nowhere near the ocean. It's
Speaker 2: on the opposite end of the country. So it's it's
Speaker 2: to say it's perfect, well, it's it's in a place
Speaker 2: that nearly makes it impossible to it seize that capital
Speaker 2: from the sea. For those who don't know, for most
Speaker 2: of the two thousands, the wargame scenario of invading Iran,
Speaker 2: and to be clear, this is a declassified scenario so
Speaker 2: I can talk about it involved taking again the mechanized
Speaker 2: forces heavy forces, using two ports in Georgia in order
Speaker 2: to get them into the continent, moving those forces over
Speaker 2: into northern Azerbaijan, which in this scenario we saw was
Speaker 2: at least passively supportive of US forces, then inviting south
Speaker 2: into the southern part of Isozerbaijan, which we thought would
Speaker 2: be where fighting was, and then invading into the northern
Speaker 2: part of Iran. And the biggest issue with that scenario
Speaker 2: the reason well, first off, the fact that they used
Speaker 2: this a non classified, unclassified training scenario, which again the
Speaker 2: Azerbaijanis were enemies in the scenario, and we had Azerbaijani's students,
Speaker 2: real world sitting in there, which again that tells you
Speaker 2: everything about the level of just competence we have in
Speaker 2: strategic planning in the US military. But the fact that
Speaker 2: this was a declassified scenario tells me that nobody thought
Speaker 2: they were going to use this, or at least it
Speaker 2: was implausible to think they were going to use this.
Speaker 2: But that scenario involved, again those two ports that you
Speaker 2: needed in Georgia in order to get stuff in there.
Speaker 2: Those are the same two ports that Russia took away
Speaker 2: and was it two thousand and nine when they had
Speaker 2: that hasty attack or hasty operation by Russia on Georgia.
Speaker 2: So again, if you don't have the ports, you're not
Speaker 2: getting anything in there.
Speaker 1: Is was that part of the fomenting revolutions in Georgia
Speaker 1: during the two thousands to try to possibly do something
Speaker 1: up for the future, I'd.
Speaker 2: Well, I think more than likely. I mean that was
Speaker 2: never officially said. During the period, there was a lot
Speaker 2: of military cooperation between the United States and Georgia, mostly
Speaker 2: for training. We had actual assets at those two ports.
Speaker 2: I know that because I had students who were actually
Speaker 2: at those ports doing terminal operations. When the Russians rolled
Speaker 2: into town, which is one of the weirdest things, they
Speaker 2: actually said. They were really nice and polite, the Russian
Speaker 2: commander and said, you guys got to stay on post
Speaker 2: tell us when your supply convoys come in, so we
Speaker 2: can make sure they come through. But you got to
Speaker 2: stay there, and we're okay, is what they told the Americans.
Speaker 1: Is there any possibility of staging in Pakistan?
Speaker 2: That's another thing, right, so could we I can't see
Speaker 2: Pakistan cooperating.
Speaker 3: Part of the problem is.
Speaker 2: Since September eleventh, the US has played a diplomatic game
Speaker 2: of Pakistan against India. And for those who don't know,
Speaker 2: the British Empire, when they partitioned the former India, the
Speaker 2: Muslim parts became India or became Pakistan, the rest became India,
Speaker 2: and then Pakistan eventually had a split up where Bangladesh
Speaker 2: became in its independent country. So since September eleventh, we've
Speaker 2: had a diplomatic game balancing act of playing India against
Speaker 2: Pakistan because those countries engage in armed conflict against each other,
Speaker 2: have fought each other despite the fact they're essentially cousins.
Speaker 2: They fought themselves each other several times, and anytime the
Speaker 2: US cooperates more closely with one country, it alienates the other. Now,
Speaker 2: all the time that we spent working in Afghanistan forced
Speaker 2: us to cooperate with Pakistan because heavy equipment had to
Speaker 2: come in through ports in Pakistan and then be shipped
Speaker 2: north into Afghanistan. The last few years, the Biden's administration
Speaker 2: has tried to heal the relationship with India, which arguably
Speaker 2: is a good thing. You know, the world's first or
Speaker 2: second most populoust country. There's no reason for US to
Speaker 2: have a pissing contest with them. But unfortunately that goes
Speaker 2: back it damages that relationship with Pakistan again. Could we
Speaker 2: stage there? Maybe I don't see us doing that. It's
Speaker 2: also an interesting bit of geography with the coastal parts
Speaker 2: of Iran are fairly coastal, but within you know, dozens
Speaker 2: of miles, you start having the mountains, you know, rough
Speaker 2: mountains pop up and you have to cross those mountains
Speaker 2: and you may not have any major targets or population
Speaker 2: centers until one hundred miles inland. So it's sort of
Speaker 2: like the problems with the amphibious landing. If you invade
Speaker 2: through Pakistan, you end up in a part of the
Speaker 2: country where you still have to get through the other
Speaker 2: side of the mountains, and it doesn't necessarily help you
Speaker 2: a great deal to come from that direction. So number one,
Speaker 2: I can't imagine that. Number two, even then, it puts
Speaker 2: you in a situation you wouldn't want to be well.
Speaker 1: And then you have the whole eastern side of the country,
Speaker 1: all the way down to the uh to the mid
Speaker 1: central of the country with just a gigantic mountain range.
Speaker 1: So you'd have to deal with the same issue from
Speaker 1: Iraq from Turkey. Even if even if Israel's friend Ourzarbaijean
Speaker 1: was willing to help, you're still dealing with mountains. The
Speaker 1: only way you're going to avoid mountains is to go
Speaker 1: in from Afghanistan. And then you're I mean, what's that
Speaker 1: three thousand miles.
Speaker 3: Which is mountains? Which is.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, now, I'm sorry, I kind of go which
Speaker 2: number one, pack or Afghanistan is mountains? You know, So
Speaker 2: it's like you're saying you're avoiding them mountains. Yeah, that's relative,
Speaker 2: and it's still really bad. And even then the Taliban
Speaker 2: is probably not going to give us, you know, support
Speaker 2: for invading Iran.
Speaker 1: All right, So I mean, taking into consideration two years
Speaker 1: prep time and everything, let's just rule everyone out. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Azerbaijean is friends with Israel, what would there be I
Speaker 1: mean that would be probably outside of Turkmenistan, the closest
Speaker 1: uh the closest route to Tehran, and that doesn't seem
Speaker 1: likely either.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again that's part of the problem is hypothetically
Speaker 2: you could use Azerbaijean, and again the war game scenario
Speaker 2: uses Azerbaijean, so strategic planners were convinced that you could
Speaker 2: do that. So I think that's possibly completely plausible, and
Speaker 2: it puts you near Tehran, you know, decapitating the administration.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 2: In order to get stuff into Azerbaijean heavy equipment, you'd
Speaker 2: still have to go through using the ports of Georgia,
Speaker 2: which I don't think Rush is going to allow us
Speaker 2: to do because again they demonstrate their ability to seize
Speaker 2: those in the course of an afternoon. So if you
Speaker 2: don't have those ports, it doesn't necessarily matter that you
Speaker 2: go through Azerbaijan because you still don't have equipment.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I think the next uh, I guess
Speaker 1: the next thing that you would go towards is very
Speaker 1: long range air campaign. So what was the war gaming
Speaker 1: on that?
Speaker 2: Looking like, yeah, that I've had to do a lot
Speaker 2: of research outside as an Army officer. We don't necessarily
Speaker 2: care about air war as long as our side wins beforehand,
Speaker 2: and if we don't win, we're not going there.
Speaker 1: Decoupled the Army Air Corps.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's a reason the Marine Corps ensured that
Speaker 2: they retain their own aviation and they originally created the
Speaker 2: US Air Force.
Speaker 3: The plan was also to give all the naval aviation
Speaker 3: assets to them as.
Speaker 2: Well, and the Navy fought back on that, and even
Speaker 2: before the Navy won their fight, the Marine Corps made
Speaker 2: it very clear they were going to keep their own
Speaker 2: aviation and.
Speaker 3: They did so.
Speaker 2: Yet a lot of countries that have successful large countries
Speaker 2: that have successful independent air forces, like the former Soviet Union,
Speaker 2: actually had multiple services where you'd have a strategic bombing
Speaker 2: air force, you'd have a strategic airlift air force, you
Speaker 2: had a separate airlift air force just for the paratroopers,
Speaker 2: and then you had, you know, an air force that
Speaker 2: did close support for the army that would work with
Speaker 2: them directly, and the problem is by turning the Air
Speaker 2: Force into the headquarters for everything, we've created the problem
Speaker 2: where they don't necessarily do closer air support with a
Speaker 2: whole lot of effectiveness. As a ground soldier, I have
Speaker 2: my hatred of the Air Force reason but they're not
Speaker 2: like Marine corp Aviation that does cast very effectively. And
Speaker 2: they're still mad that we have helicopters, and you know,
Speaker 2: they're really angry that we made them keep the the
Speaker 2: AT and war Dog, which they didn't like.
Speaker 1: So I thought that that's one of the most badass
Speaker 1: looking machines I've ever seen been up close to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, John Boyd was one of the guys who his
Speaker 2: office was responsible for developing what became that, and it
Speaker 2: was a purpose built close air support aircraft and it's
Speaker 2: a great thing piece of equipment. And part of the
Speaker 2: problem is nobody in Air Force Acquisitions really supported a
Speaker 2: second generation version of that, so they've basically tried to
Speaker 2: make it obsolete and retire it. And I don't even
Speaker 2: know what the status of it is today. I think
Speaker 2: it's been retired, but you know, it's sort of like
Speaker 2: they you know, they put their ball home and didn't
Speaker 2: want to play with anybody else, and they're really angry
Speaker 2: that we made them continue to operate those those planes.
Speaker 1: All right, So how what would what would aerial etside,
Speaker 1: what what would aerial warfare on Iran look like?
Speaker 2: That's a good question and this is probably the biggest
Speaker 2: X factor that we don't know about. And uh, part
Speaker 2: of the thing is anytime you have big revolutions in
Speaker 2: military equipment and military affairs, is you go through a
Speaker 2: period of uncertainty about what you think your equipment can do,
Speaker 2: what your new weapons and tags can do, and then
Speaker 2: you actually see them in combat, and then you know,
Speaker 2: everything changes in light of reality. Late nineteenth century, you know,
Speaker 2: machine guns, early machine guns like the Maxim gun and
Speaker 2: the Gatling gun were developed. The British actually had huge,
Speaker 2: made heavy use of machine guns throughout the late nineteenth
Speaker 2: early twentieth century, but they mostly used it against tribesmen
Speaker 2: in Africa, so Arabs and black tribesmen, and a lot
Speaker 2: of times they were using them against people who were
Speaker 2: largely using fairly convention mounted or you know, close order
Speaker 2: tactics and machine guns against people marching close order is
Speaker 2: just a slaughter and it worked probably as much as
Speaker 2: anything just to discourage uprisings, but at the same time,
Speaker 2: nobody really had an idea of what those were going
Speaker 2: to do. In the Western Front when two armies using
Speaker 2: those weapons met each other, and again early nineteen fourteen
Speaker 2: the Western Front, we had engagements with incredibly high number
Speaker 2: of casualties. Then troops dug in. Then there was a
Speaker 2: race to the sea in which you had the huge
Speaker 2: trench lines going from it was the English Channel all
Speaker 2: the way down to Switzerland, and you know, long periods
Speaker 2: of trying to break the stalemate of the trenches. And
Speaker 2: I think it's very plausibly with changes in aviation and
Speaker 2: drones in particular, that seeing something like that in Ukraine,
Speaker 2: we've had a lot of incidents, incidences where we know
Speaker 2: that American armor and you know, mechanized tanks and UH
Speaker 2: infantry fighting vehicles are nowhere near as good as we
Speaker 2: thought they were. As soon as you take away air supremacy,
Speaker 2: if you take away air cover, you know, tanks and
Speaker 2: Bradley's and things like that suddenly become very easy to
Speaker 2: destroy or at least disable. And you know, it's also
Speaker 2: become very hard to maintain air supremacy because of you know,
Speaker 2: man man portable shoulder fire anti aircraft systems, things like
Speaker 2: the American Stinger. So we're in a situation where it's
Speaker 2: really hard to maintain air supremacy. You can create a
Speaker 2: situation where basically everything that flies dies and suddenly that
Speaker 2: forces how the ground war changes. So that's part of
Speaker 2: the the you know, again, this is all X factor,
Speaker 2: and I'm saying that there are changes here that we
Speaker 2: don't entirely know yet, and I encourage caution because of that.
Speaker 2: So the Iranian Air Force, you know, they started off,
Speaker 2: or at least the Islamic Republics started off with you
Speaker 2: know stuff the shawst Air Force had. They had F fourteen's,
Speaker 2: they had some other American fighters. They didn't have the
Speaker 2: first generation of avionics, targeting stuff. A lot of cases,
Speaker 2: they never updated their stuff, and they're using third party repairs,
Speaker 2: so they don't necessarily have very good you know, targeting
Speaker 2: and communications and radar stuff for those weapons systems, which
Speaker 2: a lot of their planes are fairly out of date
Speaker 2: by now, so it may not matter, but we do
Speaker 2: know that they have some amount of anti aircraft stuff,
Speaker 2: and the fact that the American pissing contests with both
Speaker 2: Russia and China has forced the Bricks to share a
Speaker 2: great amount of military technology. We don't know how much,
Speaker 2: but there is a level of military cooperation there which
Speaker 2: again is unknown, which leaves a lot of room for
Speaker 2: potential threat. So what anti aircraft systems have the Russians
Speaker 2: provided with them? More importantly, what anti aircraft systems would
Speaker 2: the Russians provide for them? And the answer is we
Speaker 2: don't know, and all of them could be bad, which
Speaker 2: means that there's a very high possibility that they could
Speaker 2: kill aircraft that we have that we've never really forecasted losing.
Speaker 2: Because again, one of the common themes of the US
Speaker 2: military is, yes, we're incredibly powerful, we don't necessarily have
Speaker 2: the ability to absorb casualties. The ability to have min
Speaker 2: weapons and equipment destroyed, are captured or disabled, and to
Speaker 2: continue to fight as you reorganize around your casualties is
Speaker 2: a fairly hard thing to do. And you know the
Speaker 2: fact that we don't really have to practice doing that,
Speaker 2: we may have difficulties working around that. So hypothetically, it's
Speaker 2: not just what we lose in aircraft, it's our ability
Speaker 2: to continue to function as cohesive units after that. The
Speaker 2: other thing is drones. How effective are their drones, how
Speaker 2: effective with the drones that Rush or China would provide
Speaker 2: them with be and again drones hypothetically use drones to
Speaker 2: fight fighter aircraft. It's important to understand you don't need
Speaker 2: them to be great dog fighters. You don't even necessarily
Speaker 2: need them to be great with missile technology. If you
Speaker 2: can with some degree of accuracy fly those things into
Speaker 2: your planes using drones is then just you know, run
Speaker 2: them into aircraft. You could probably knock down a fair
Speaker 2: amount of fighters, and especially the reality is if you're
Speaker 2: a drone controller and drone pilot, you're not going to
Speaker 2: die when you ram that other enemy aircraft, so you
Speaker 2: don't necessarily care. So there's a high degree of possibility
Speaker 2: that Iran could inflict casualties on a long range aviation
Speaker 2: attack and that those things could really mess up in
Speaker 2: attacking force.
Speaker 1: So the things that I had heard recently I can't remember.
Speaker 1: I think might have been from Larry Johnson that they
Speaker 1: definitely had Russian S three hundred systems. The I think
Speaker 1: what is their version of the C one thirty is
Speaker 1: at the A N twelve cub Is that what he said?
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's something like that.
Speaker 1: A couple of them landed fully loaded three or four
Speaker 1: months ago in Tehran, which probably he thinks had the
Speaker 1: S four hundred, and then there's actually talk that there's
Speaker 1: actually an S five hundred and S five fifty now
Speaker 1: and properly when you take into consideration the mountainous terrain
Speaker 1: and everything properly placed. I mean it really it goes
Speaker 1: to show why when Israel launched their assault recently, they
Speaker 1: really didn't do much damage. I think there was one
Speaker 1: civilian died for military personnel, and the damage is being
Speaker 1: reported has really been minimal. And I've actually seen footage
Speaker 1: of a lot of their a lot of what they launched.
Speaker 1: They're just being taken down and taken right out of
Speaker 1: the sky.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Number one again back to the military cooperation with the
Speaker 2: Bricks country. I'm one hundred percent certain it's happening, But
Speaker 2: what do we know about those Like you said, there's
Speaker 2: a couple of landings where as far as we can tell,
Speaker 2: anti aircraft systems we're landing. I'm largely skeptical of anything
Speaker 2: that comes out in American media about what the Russian
Speaker 2: military is doing, just because everything the American media has
Speaker 2: been so inaccurate. I'm sure, I'm one hundred percent certain
Speaker 2: that Iran wants Russia to provide those assets. I think
Speaker 2: it's more likely than not that Russia has provided those assets,
Speaker 2: But which assets, I don't know. It could be a lot,
Speaker 2: especially if they have next generation shoulder fire weapons systems.
Speaker 2: So yeah, my big caution there would be they probably
Speaker 2: have a lot more than we think they have, especially
Speaker 2: if they're small enough and they can be dismantled. You
Speaker 2: could potentially put them on you know, civilian airliners. You
Speaker 2: can even put them on regular passenger planes and break
Speaker 2: down the components to ship them in cargo. So things
Speaker 2: like that are completely possible. Where they would have a
Speaker 2: lot more stuff than we think, not to mention the
Speaker 2: potential to move stuff in there directly from Russia. And again,
Speaker 2: like you said, the mountains are good for covering concealment,
Speaker 2: especially if you don't control anything around those mountains. This
Speaker 2: isn't like Afghanistan were for twenty years. Yeah, we didn't
Speaker 2: necessarily control the key mountains, but we had some points,
Speaker 2: and we had some forces in the area, and we
Speaker 2: had some idea of the geography. Iran would be completely
Speaker 2: different that circumstance, I wouldn't know. So yeah, it's everything
Speaker 2: you said, but to a degree much higher than we
Speaker 2: would anticipate, meaning you're right, and it's probably a lot
Speaker 2: worse than you think.
Speaker 1: And then not to mention the fact that their missile technology,
Speaker 1: which we don't really know a lot about, but we've
Speaker 1: seen the Huthis launch missiles at Israel that have been
Speaker 1: reported to turn ninety degrees in mid air.
Speaker 3: So we.
Speaker 1: What exactly do we know about Iranian technology and what
Speaker 1: they can do to fight back?
Speaker 3: That's a good question.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen anything declassified on that, excuse me, So
Speaker 2: I've seen very little or nothing declassified on that. So
Speaker 2: what do we know? We definitely know they can do
Speaker 2: long range target thing with some degree of precision. The
Speaker 2: fact that you know they drop stuff that was it
Speaker 2: the the Iraqi airfield that that we had an American
Speaker 2: personnel that time.
Speaker 1: I think right after Sole Money.
Speaker 2: I was on that base, So I feel bad that
Speaker 2: I don't remember on the top of my head, because
Speaker 2: I was stationed at that base at one point. So
Speaker 2: all indications are if they did they missed on purpose
Speaker 2: where they were demonstrating their ability to target, and they
Speaker 2: didn't miss, and they intentionally shot a warning shot demonstrating
Speaker 2: that they could shoot things, or they just.
Speaker 1: Like the most recent saving face for the for the attack.
Speaker 3: I think it's exactly what they did.
Speaker 2: They were demonstrating to all sides that they could do
Speaker 2: this and that they would do this if they had to,
Speaker 2: but that they didn't want to escalate further. That's my understanding,
Speaker 2: my interpretation. So it's more than just saving face. They're
Speaker 2: demonstrating to America that they could do this, but they're
Speaker 2: choosing not to, which is a you know, a very
Speaker 2: different level of restraint that Americans are used to. The
Speaker 2: thought is that those massive attacks by Iran against Israel,
Speaker 2: those large missile attacks, that they were probably used as
Speaker 2: a reconnaissance and force.
Speaker 3: Number one.
Speaker 2: There seems to be a fairly high dug rate on
Speaker 2: the Iranian missiles, which suggests that they were using old
Speaker 2: stocks a munitions stuff that they had to get rid
Speaker 2: of anyway that they were firing, and they were targeting
Speaker 2: them in such a way that they could observe Israeli
Speaker 2: missile defense in order to get their tactics down, in
Speaker 2: order to find the launch points, in order to build
Speaker 2: data for future attacks which I think is highly likely.
Speaker 2: It's also the kind of complexity that Iranians are known for,
Speaker 2: so they have that kind of targeting capacity, and they
Speaker 2: probably have it to a much greater degree of precision
Speaker 2: than anything in the US military. Long range precision missile
Speaker 2: artillery is not something the US military is very good at.
Speaker 1: So let's let's talk a little bit about that. So
Speaker 1: a lot of people look at Iran as like this
Speaker 1: backwards country, these backwards people, their women still have to
Speaker 1: wear head coverings and things like that, and they just
Speaker 1: basically assume that they don't have they don't have any
Speaker 1: scientists there. Anything that they would be using, they would
Speaker 1: be it were being supplied from somewhere else, like Russia
Speaker 1: and everything like that. So what do you know about
Speaker 1: their their capabilities as far as their.
Speaker 2: The culture and technology was. Yeah, well, the country historically
Speaker 2: was called Persia. Then the last Shaw's father, so the
Speaker 2: second last Shaw, when he took charge, renamed it as Iran.
Speaker 2: Haran literally means the land of the Arians, and like
Speaker 2: a lot of well, it wasn't a colonial society, but
Speaker 2: a lot of societies going through decolonization. There's the whole
Speaker 2: fight about whether or not the culture should represent the
Speaker 2: dominant ethnic group or multiple ethnic groups, and by naming Iran,
Speaker 2: it was essentially saying it's not just for Persians, it's
Speaker 2: for all the other minority people who who are there
Speaker 2: as well. Just as in aside, ethnic Persians only make
Speaker 2: up about sixty percent of the Iranian population. You've got
Speaker 2: some Arabs, We've got Kurds, You've got a Luki's, You've
Speaker 2: got lots of people of very different, various relations apparently,
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's a diverse country. There was a
Speaker 2: great deal of a great amount of modernization that occurred
Speaker 2: under the Polavi dynasty. Education was brought in, you know, famously,
Speaker 2: we've all seen, you know, the photos from the fifties
Speaker 2: and sixties of women in many skirts in Iran. Iran
Speaker 2: or Persians especial, but also Kurds and some of the
Speaker 2: other ethnic groups are a little unusual in the fact
Speaker 2: that they're simultaneously they have a reputation for being both
Speaker 2: very religious in the practice of shiaid Islam, will you know,
Speaker 2: being very worldly, and how they lived their life, which
Speaker 2: it's really hard to compare them to something maybe like
Speaker 2: old school Italian Americans, who are you know, very Catholic,
Speaker 2: but that's never stopped and stood in the way of
Speaker 2: them being able to deal with reality in places the
Speaker 2: priests may not like. You know, I don't mean that
Speaker 2: as an assault. The Catholics are Italians, so they had
Speaker 2: a fairly modern education system that was trying to modernize
Speaker 2: the culture. They had modern universities that which were established
Speaker 2: with Western support, mostly British, some American. A lot of
Speaker 2: them do a lot of English languae education because again
Speaker 2: STEM training is only done in so many languages in
Speaker 2: the world, and English is one of them. So lots
Speaker 2: of you know, what we'd call third world countries, the
Speaker 2: actually educated people speak fluent English because that's what they
Speaker 2: need to do in order to do a STEM education
Speaker 2: to go become an engineer or whatnot. There was after
Speaker 2: the Iranian Revolution, there was a you know, there was
Speaker 2: a big purging in the beginning where many of the
Speaker 2: Shaws loyalist loyalists were removed, but that didn't necessarily damage
Speaker 2: the educated or yeah, it didn't necessarily remove the educated
Speaker 2: factor in society because the revolution, the Iranian Revolution wasn't
Speaker 2: even really an Islamist revolution in the beginning, so much
Speaker 2: as there was an anti Shaw Revolution amongst people who
Speaker 2: were Shites, and you know, became a site revolution because
Speaker 2: Comania was the only guy who could unite the factions,
Speaker 2: so a lot of their educated people weren't taken out.
Speaker 2: Like I said, students were a huge part of the revolution.
Speaker 2: So you have lots of you know, lots of people
Speaker 2: with higher education, some guys with PhDs and whatnot, but
Speaker 2: a lot of people stem education. So my point here
Speaker 2: is these are not monkeys living in caves. These are
Speaker 2: people that a large strateg or society is very educated.
Speaker 2: A large part of contemporary ron is urban, either urban
Speaker 2: or they live in you know, a greater metropolis metropolitan area,
Speaker 2: meaning they live in essentially what would be suburbs or
Speaker 2: even rural areas there you know, within a half day
Speaker 2: drive of a major city. So these are not you know,
Speaker 2: bumpkins in the middle of nowhere. Even in the places
Speaker 2: where they may be in the middle of nowhere, they
Speaker 2: have a fair amount.
Speaker 3: Of ability to travel.
Speaker 2: The fact that the country has oil means they have
Speaker 2: a fair amount of electricity and power of different sources,
Speaker 2: which means you can have computers. Anecdotally, I could know
Speaker 2: when I I was purchasing things as a purchasing agent
Speaker 2: for the Iraqi Army. We imported a lot of our
Speaker 2: goods from Iran, so I can tell you for a fact,
Speaker 2: computers are easy to.
Speaker 3: Come by in Iran.
Speaker 2: Even though we had embargoes against Iran, we bought stuff
Speaker 2: from Iran. The fact that they're working closer with Russia
Speaker 2: means that there's lots of things they can get down
Speaker 2: they couldn't get in the past. So it's this idea
Speaker 2: that they're living in the caves like the Taliban were
Speaker 2: in two thousand and one is not in any way
Speaker 2: accurate about Iran.
Speaker 1: What about their manufacturing of weapons specifically? You know what
Speaker 1: Wock talks about where if you're if you have to
Speaker 1: import your own weapons, if you have to if you
Speaker 1: have to rely upon someone else, you're basically you become
Speaker 1: a slave to them. Do you know what their manufacturing
Speaker 1: level is?
Speaker 2: That's a good question, and I only know a little bit,
Speaker 2: and I should have prepared better for that. I know
Speaker 2: they can manufacture small arms. I know that akas have
Speaker 2: been made there before. I know munitions have been manufactured
Speaker 2: in various degrees there. I assume that's a fairly easy
Speaker 2: part of their industry. Since if you don't necessarily have currency,
Speaker 2: don't have hard currency that you know, manufacturing munitions is
Speaker 2: a really quick way to make money towards a more
Speaker 2: expensive country or more economically developed countries around you. I
Speaker 2: don't know about their ability to produce like aviation assets,
Speaker 2: or hire and armor equipment, or missile systems and whatnot,
Speaker 2: so that I m also not necessarily I wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 2: be worried about that if I were them, just because
Speaker 2: an alliance with Russia means you can get those things.
Speaker 2: You also potentially have the ability to trade things for
Speaker 2: them that they are going to find valuable. So that
Speaker 2: answers your question.
Speaker 1: Well, So, taking into considerate consideration the spirit of my question,
Speaker 1: if they are relying on Russia for so much, how
Speaker 1: how much of a swayed does Russia hold on them?
Speaker 1: In your opinion, that's.
Speaker 3: A good question.
Speaker 2: I think Russia could exercise a great deal of sway
Speaker 2: over them if they wanted to, I know, well, especially
Speaker 2: if they're providing anti aircraft system So the short answer
Speaker 2: is probably a lot. Russia has not directly forced a
Speaker 2: whole lot of things other than trying to see greater
Speaker 2: alliances with those countries against the United States and setting
Speaker 2: up you know, mutual trade systems, you know, such as
Speaker 2: you know, getting outside the American banking credit system. My
Speaker 2: guess is they probably have a lot of sway over them,
Speaker 2: since you know, Russia was completely locked out of Western
Speaker 2: markets and they've worked with other countries to create alternative systems,
Speaker 2: and Iran has been locked out for it was a
Speaker 2: decade plus now, so they have every reason to cooperate.
Speaker 2: So I imagine there's probably a lot more influence than
Speaker 2: we've seen so far. It's also a situation where Putin,
Speaker 2: for all of his talk of him as being an
Speaker 2: overbearing dictator, and I don't necessarily have any love loss
Speaker 2: for him, but he's he has demonstrated the ability to
Speaker 2: be to exercise sort of a soft touch with people
Speaker 2: that he's influencing, meaning that he'll more request and cooperate
Speaker 2: for things than trying to force compliance on things, which
Speaker 2: ironically is sort of the American way of doing diplomacy,
Speaker 2: despite the fact.
Speaker 3: We say otherwise.
Speaker 2: So I think Russia could probably exercise a great deal
Speaker 2: of influence and probably has more influence than we've seen
Speaker 2: so far.
Speaker 1: When you say that, it's pretty easy to understand that
Speaker 1: if Ukraine wasn't so captured and under NATO and other influences,
Speaker 1: how he would have a soft touch with them, How
Speaker 1: he would he'd have no problem with diplomacy. And it
Speaker 1: looks like, you know, in two thousand and nine diploma,
Speaker 1: diplomacy has gone really well with them until obviously the coup.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and my position on the Ukraine War is I
Speaker 2: don't take either side there. I know lots of guys
Speaker 2: on our or in our sphere like to take Russia
Speaker 2: aside by default. I don't do that. And I actually
Speaker 2: have an immense amount of admiration for Ukrainians. I do
Speaker 2: think that by cooperating with the West, they're doing things
Speaker 2: that are detrimental to them in the long run. I
Speaker 2: think the war in Ukraine is an unfortunate consequence of
Speaker 2: American overbearing behavior, which is forced the dichotomy between Russia
Speaker 2: and Ukraine and which people which killed a lot of
Speaker 2: people we claimed to care about. So, Yeah, the Slavic
Speaker 2: parts of the former Soviet Union and before that the
Speaker 2: Russian Empire have an interesting history. It's like history historically,
Speaker 2: the the ethnic Russian people of the Rowski people, as
Speaker 2: opposed to just the people who were citizens of Russia. Traditionally,
Speaker 2: they referred to themselves as greater Russians, with the idea
Speaker 2: that the Ukrainians and bel Russians were you know, you know,
Speaker 2: other varieties of Russian cousins. So, yeah, there's a huge
Speaker 2: amount of connection there, which you know, the fall of
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union in post World War two or yeah,
Speaker 2: post Cold War geopolitics is you know, created a cleavage
Speaker 2: between those related peoples that the probably wouldn't have existed otherwise.
Speaker 2: And again, I do not deny the existence of the
Speaker 2: Ukrainian people like some do, but I also think the
Speaker 2: fact that America's claim to support Ukrainians has killed a
Speaker 2: lot of Ukrainians.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, it seems that Israel, you know what,
Speaker 1: Iran has been there. They're one month away from having
Speaker 1: a nuke for what thirty thirty five years now, and
Speaker 1: they want.
Speaker 2: To Scott Warton has said they've been like six months
Speaker 2: away for twelve years now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so all of this belikosity towards them, it relies
Speaker 1: upon the United States getting involved. And then you're saying
Speaker 1: that this would be it would take two years to
Speaker 1: even get this prepared for an invasion, and then the invasion.
Speaker 3: So it's.
Speaker 1: Conservatively, So what is does Israel really in your opinion,
Speaker 1: does Israel really think that this is going to happen,
Speaker 1: that they can they can do this, or is there
Speaker 1: something else going going on here?
Speaker 3: I'm timped to think there's something.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of this has to do with
Speaker 2: men Yahoo essentially flailing in order to stay in power.
Speaker 2: I think he's behaving like a cornered animal. Because when
Speaker 2: this war ends, even in the besket the excuse me,
Speaker 2: the fighting in Israel ends, more than likely net Nyah,
Speaker 2: who's going to be indicted and they're probably going to
Speaker 2: put him in prison this time, and because of his age,
Speaker 2: he'll probably die in prison. And I think even if
Speaker 2: it ends on very good terms, that's extremely likely to happen.
Speaker 2: So again, I think Nennyah who's behaving like a cornered animal,
Speaker 2: and a lot of it's driven by his behavior. I
Speaker 2: doubt that anybody in the IDF thinks that a land war,
Speaker 2: a land invasion, conquest of Iran is possible at all.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe in two thousand and two, before we
Speaker 2: invaded Iraq, we thought that that could happen, and we
Speaker 2: were just move US forces into Iran. But reality proved otherwise. Obviously,
Speaker 2: Israel wouldn't go send its own forces. They have a
Speaker 2: hard time getting their the reservists to go and fight
Speaker 2: in the West Bank and the gods the Strip, They're
Speaker 2: definitely not going to go fight in Iran. I don't
Speaker 2: think the United States will ever have the ability to
Speaker 2: wage that kind of offensive war ever. Again, I don't
Speaker 2: see people sending their sons away, especially in a world
Speaker 2: where people only have one child. So it's not just
Speaker 2: the population growth issue. It's the fact that you know,
Speaker 2: most parents today only have one or two children, and
Speaker 2: you're not trying to, you know, kill your child, your
Speaker 2: only son, and your neighbor's only son in order to
Speaker 2: you know, piss shit away. For people who aren't willing
Speaker 2: to fight for themselves and have to create conflict with
Speaker 2: everybody in their world, what do.
Speaker 3: They really want?
Speaker 2: I think a lot of this is about buying time,
Speaker 2: and I think that I think that people under existential threat,
Speaker 2: which you know then yahoo and the potential of going
Speaker 2: to prison, I don't think they behave rationally, and I
Speaker 2: think that explains a lot.
Speaker 1: So with Trump now picking his cabinet, and he's definitely
Speaker 1: the few picks that you know, we were even talking
Speaker 1: about before we started recording. Aren't good because just just
Speaker 1: because it seems like they're they're all friendly to Israel,
Speaker 1: the three or four so far right now as of recording. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but this still doesn't really what people When you hear
Speaker 1: people complaining about this, you hear them complaining about it
Speaker 1: because we don't want to go to war with their Ran.
Speaker 1: So what I'm trying. What I'm trying to do, but
Speaker 1: I have this conversation with you, is showing people that
Speaker 1: that's not that's not the issue. That's completely off the table.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows it. And you know, other than somebody starting
Speaker 1: to launch nukes, we need to shift our still pay
Speaker 1: attention to what's going on with this insane alliance we
Speaker 1: have with this little shitty state in the Middle East.
Speaker 1: But this isn't going to be about it Ran.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I would say a bit more than anything,
Speaker 2: it's important that the politicians who represent us. And again,
Speaker 2: democracy is bullshit and we know it doesn't really work.
Speaker 2: But the fact that Trump just got in power on
Speaker 2: the you know, because of popular support, is at least
Speaker 2: open to understanding what his base cares about, and we
Speaker 2: have to make it understand that Trump understand that you
Speaker 2: can't do this, the war with Iran can't happen. And
Speaker 2: a lot again I prepped with Bill Buper from Chasing
Speaker 2: Ghosts podcasts for a lot of this, and one of
Speaker 2: the conversations we had this morning was the American military
Speaker 2: right now is essentially divided between two world views. A
Speaker 2: lot of what the Obama and Biden era did was
Speaker 2: essentially put woke officers, you know, everybody's favorite pet subjugated
Speaker 2: groups into the military and higher levels as a sort
Speaker 2: of purge of the officer cord, the general officer cord
Speaker 2: of the army to make it less right wing. And unfortunately,
Speaker 2: so much of the counter reaction against that in the
Speaker 2: military and America's supporters just think, no, we're America and
Speaker 2: we can go fight the world. So the response to woke,
Speaker 2: unfortunately a lot of times, is saying, let's go and invade,
Speaker 2: you know, let's start World War three. And part of
Speaker 2: what I'm trying to fight is, you know, people released
Speaker 2: culturally on our side, trying to get them to understand
Speaker 2: that war with Iran will be existentially devastating to America.
Speaker 2: You know, from Apple Atrial, Greater Appalachia from the south.
Speaker 2: You know, people like me die in these wars. I
Speaker 2: don't want people like me to die, so especially so
Speaker 2: certain classes and cultures of people who hate us can
Speaker 2: go in a rural world rule the ashes of the
Speaker 2: world after we've you know, blend and died for them.
Speaker 2: I also want to make sure that people on our side,
Speaker 2: everybody on our side, understands that war isn't free, right.
Speaker 2: People die, And everybody said, yeah, of course not. It's like, no,
Speaker 2: America hasn't fought a real world against a real enemy
Speaker 2: in a very long time. And I remind people, even
Speaker 2: during World War Two, you know, something like eighty percent
Speaker 2: of the wehrmachs cow'shuildings were inflicted by the Soviet army.
Speaker 2: You know, the reality is the United States provided a
Speaker 2: lot of logistics and then open it up the second
Speaker 2: front to play Kate Stalin in the course of a
Speaker 2: world war that we meet the world safe for Stalinism.
Speaker 2: So world War two we were kind of like we're
Speaker 2: sort of like the kick return team of World War two, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, of the Allies we fought, but we were
Speaker 2: not quite the front line starting lineup, and.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like the Pacific theater.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like the Pacific theater. And I'm not degrading
Speaker 2: anybody's contribution and their sacrifice. And the dead are equally dead,
Speaker 2: no matter where they fought and against who they fought.
Speaker 2: But understand that World War two, the Western Front, European Front,
Speaker 2: we did not fight the war that we seem to
Speaker 2: think we fought. And unfortunately, war with Iran could mean
Speaker 2: that it could be against an army that is entrenched,
Speaker 2: which has a fair amount of support. And despite the
Speaker 2: fact that people say that they hate the Islamist regime
Speaker 2: in Iran, invading their country will change that immediately. You know,
Speaker 2: when gang banners come into your neighborhood suddenly your next
Speaker 2: door neighbor, you may not like to cooperate within the
Speaker 2: fight the intruders, and we could create that situation. And
Speaker 2: my biggest fear is Iran is some dipshit trying to
Speaker 2: do things invading because they don't know any better, which
Speaker 2: is a real fear I had with Kamala getting in there.
Speaker 2: And as soon as our forces get bogged down, we're
Speaker 2: bogged down in sort of like an Eastern Front scenario
Speaker 2: in World War Two, where we're slugging it out for
Speaker 2: an extended period, except now we're doing that in the
Speaker 2: war in the world where there are nuclear weapons on
Speaker 2: the table. So again, when I'm rambling here to everybody saying, look,
Speaker 2: war with Iran without any better, Sorry for my profanity,
Speaker 2: but it's fucking stupid and people like me and you
Speaker 2: are going to die, and they're going to die for
Speaker 2: the people we hate. So let's not do that. And
Speaker 2: that's what I'm trying to say to everybody. And I
Speaker 2: apologize for my profanity.
Speaker 1: No, not a problem at all. No, let's end. You're
Speaker 1: right there, man, I really appreciate it. Thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you for some expertise to this, and let's do it
Speaker 1: again real soon.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 1: Thanks man,