Speaker 1: All right, general, I think we're gonna jump right in
and uh when you're ready.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think we're ready my hair, Okay.
Speaker 3: Right, I go to the same barber you do. So
brothers and sisters, you know you are really not that.
Speaker 2: Far from the farm workers.
Speaker 4: There are a lot of people who think we can
relax because population growth is projected to level off. What
you got to remember is it's projected to level off
adding more people than we're alive when the entire planet
when I was born.
Speaker 1: It's the Ricochet Podcast with Steve Hayward in California, Charles C. W.
Cook in Florida, and today our very special guest is
h R.
Speaker 3: McMaster. Let's have ourselves a podcast.
Speaker 2: They wanted to put Chuck Norrise on not Rushmore, but
the granite wasn't tough enough Coors beer. I thought, you know,
this is pretty funny.
Speaker 1: Welcome everybody to the Ricochet Podcast, number seven and eighty one.
It's Steve Hayward sitting in the host chair for James
Lex today, joined by Charles Cook in Jacksonville, Florida, and
I'm coming to you from Malibu, California. So, boy, have
we got the two coastal paradises covered.
Speaker 5: And the rest of the country. I'm afraid I just
don't feel sorry for you going through winter, going through
snow and slush and rain and gray skies.
Speaker 1: Right right, So I am going to begin the show
today with noting the passings of this week, which include
the late great Paul Irlik.
Speaker 3: Say more about him in a moment. All the successors
in I Ronnie.
Speaker 1: Leadership seem to be dying very quickly, and news out
here Friday morning that Chuck Norris has passed away, which
is going to present a challenge to the mimosphere. I
don't know if you follow all the Chuck Norris memes, Charlie,
but they're pretty funny.
Speaker 5: I don't know if you agree with this, but the
only person that I have ever been told that I
look like is Chuck Norris.
Speaker 3: Oh, I get that, don't so much now.
Speaker 5: Maybe ten years ago I did more. But I was
in France last year on the streets of Avignon. It
was actually in the Palais des papatt Avegnon when the
Pope died, which is a very strange experience. But I
was walking past a restaurant and this guy came flying
out of the front door of this restaurant and said,
you look like Chuck Norris. So I mean, I do.
I do follow those memes because I have a personal
stake in it.
Speaker 1: Now, oh I can totally see that, and you know,
you might, I don't know, want to get a little
karate robe sometime and post for some pictures.
Speaker 2: Except he was very short.
Speaker 5: I was shocking to learn this because I'm six three,
but apparently he was about five eight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, five eight, five nine.
Speaker 1: And one of the memes is Chuck Norris, who's five nine,
stood next to some basketball basketball player who's six foot eight,
and Chuck Norris was tallerant. And there's already one out
today that you know, oh shoot, I've already lost what
it was. But something about you know, death lost his
appointment with Chuck Norris or something like this, and he's
going to be rest directed faster than Jesus was something
like that.
Speaker 3: It gets out of hand, but those things take wing, right.
Speaker 1: But then I can't help mentioning the passing of Paul Erlick,
which got a lot of notice, including from you all
at National Review and everywhere else, and I wrote a
couple of different things. I actually debated that miserable person
a couple of times, including the first time on this
half hour PBS television show hosted by some a young
sandy haired guy named Peter Robinson.
Speaker 2: That was it.
Speaker 1: Peter Robinson had me on with Erlick, and you could
actually find it on YouTube. Production values twenty years ago
are pretty grainy compared to what we're used to today.
But I was pleased that I got Erlick to concede
that actually there have been some improvements, and not only
the population outlook in the world, but the environmental outlook.
Because one of the craziest things he said, hard to
rank them, was by the year nineteen eighty, we're gonna
all have to be wearing gas masks because air pollution
will have gotten so bad. And I just went through
the numbers, because you know, I'm Clean Air Act nut
about how much air pollution has improved, including in the
worst places like Los Angeles where I grew up, and
he had to admit, yes, there's been some good news,
but we're still all doomed.
Speaker 3: And anyway, what I'm like that, but good grief.
Speaker 5: You know, not to abstract this out to the breaking point, Steve,
but this really is the core debate. I think in
our politics, in our world, do you believe that human
beings are the problem, that they destroyed some Rusoian states
of nature, that they are a virus, that they are
using the earth in dastardly ways, Or do you believe
that people are good, That sure we have original sin
or whatever your religion determines, but that human nature can
be overcome, not permanently but on an individual basis, And
that the earth is here and that we should be
stewards of it, but we should use it for ourselves.
I mean, I think that's the dividing line. And Paul
Earle was notable purely because he was so far in
the other direction that he wanted people dead, or at
least he wanted them not to be born, and he
didn't want them to thrive. I mean, all of the
quotes I've read since he died have been about population.
But he also said things like, you know, giving human
beings cheap and abundant energy would be like giving an
idiot child a machine gun. That's just a misanthropic thing
to say. Cheap abundant energy is at the root of
all societal and cultural thriving. That's what you need. You
need that and food, and actually we're really good at
producing both as long as the politics of the world
don't get in the way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I you know.
Speaker 1: I'm teaching energy policy this semester, as it happens, and
one of the first things I do on the very
first day of class is say human beings could easily
be called homo igniferens. There's actually evidence and evolutionary biology
that our brain size began to expand. And certainly it's
true that human development takes off when we mastered fire,
the most primitive energy technology of all, right, and all
the correlations in human health, longevity, and well being correlate,
and the dustal revolution that correlates with mastering energy.
Speaker 3: And so to say that cheap and abundant energy.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I think he would include clean energy,
how ready to define clean?
Speaker 3: Leave that for another day.
Speaker 1: He'd be against that, totally misunderstanding that above all, if
we don't have energy, we don't have much of anything. Yeah,
there's a bunch of those like that. That one's the
one I was going to pick on. I will give
him one credit for on. He often said, I am
in favor of coercion, he used the C word, including
you know directly. You know, he talked about putting contraceptive
chemicals in the water supply, finding people if they had
more than one child, things of that kind. And by
the way, the population control movement that actually predates him
by several decades did involve or impost some of the
worst human rights abuses around the country in places like
Indian China. And so that's right, which he liked. That's true.
Speaker 5: FCC should determine that every depiction of a large family
was negative, right right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's that.
Speaker 1: And then I guess the other way of talking about
who gets celebrated in the world. So, you know, we'll
talk about Caesar Shabas a bit later. But so Erlik
remained a huge celebrity. You know, sixty Minutes had him
back on again just a few years ago, long after
his population projections and predictions had been busted.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, the person who really deserved to.
Speaker 1: Be celebrated, I know you and your readers know this
is Norman Borlog, who did win the Nobel Peace Prize
for his really central role in the Green Revolution that
prevented starvation from being our future. But nonetheless, Erlk was
still getting the un Environment Prize. He got one of
those MacArthur Genius Prizes, which is actually always a badge
that you're an imbecile most of the time.
Speaker 3: But still it's amazing how you can be.
Speaker 1: Celebrated no matter how far wrong you are, as long
as you have the ideology right.
Speaker 5: Privature. You see that.
Speaker 1: Times well that brah, yes, I can't resistance. We have
you with your native accent with us. One of his
predictions was he actually said, if I were a betting man,
I'll bet that the nation of England will not exist
by the year two thousand and in a certain way.
Speaker 3: You know where I'm going with this. In a certain
way he might be correct.
Speaker 1: Just premature or because of the birth rate of a
certain subpopulation in England these days.
Speaker 2: I think he thought it out of water, right, that
was it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 5: I mean, as Christopher Hutchins used to say, yeah, it
really does. Have to be wandering aimlessly around a park
selling pencils from a cup. He's a crazy person. Could
you just imagine in any other circumstance somebody whose core
goal in life was to stop people being born being
treated the way that he was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well, I'll just mention maybe it's another symptom
of what you've brought up. The second time I debated
him was not recorded, but it was at the New
School in Manhattan, which is a pretty liberal place, and
I was on a panel and it was James Hansen,
the big climate change alarmist. Michael Oppenheimer from Princeton, who's
also a big climate change fact told him back then,
and then and Irlik and then me. So it was
three on one, and that's what academia calls a balanced panel.
But actually I had fun because I got to whichever
direction I fired, and I hit.
Speaker 3: Something that deserves hitting.
Speaker 1: So anyway, well, all right, we have a very special
guest today to talk to us about the Iran war,
and I think we should turn to him right now,
and now we welcome to the podcast. General hr McMaster,
one of our favorite guests here on the Ricochet Podcast,
author of several fine books, most recently At War with Ourselves,
My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House, and
of course a veteran of some pretty serious Middle Eastern combat.
So General McMaster, I'll bet you can't guess why we
wanted to talk to you today. And obviously the subject
on everyone's mind. So I'm gonna make a proposition in
the way of an opening question, in a manner speaking,
and let you respond to it and see if I'm
completely off base. It's, you know, a thought of war
a lay person. I have no combat experience, no great
expertise and knowing what's going on. But it did strike
me the other day that I think I know why
we're winning this war.
Speaker 3: And the reason I think that is because the media
is so sour on it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think back to something you'll well know,
the tet Offense of nineteen sixty eight, a sweeping triumph
of American forces on the battlefield, and the media said
it was a catastrophic defeat and we suffered a political defeat.
Kind of seems to me the way the media is
playing it that way. Now, media is different these days.
But what do you think. I think we're winning. But
that's just this, you know, superficial impression I have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll tell Steve, we are winning, and we're winning
because you know, you have to consider what the world
would be like. You know, what our security would be
like if we didn't do this, first of all, and
you know that it's really clear to me that the
intelligence that drove this decision was the fact that around
was building up its arsenal of these rones and of
these ballistic mythss in a way to threaten our security
interests in the region, to hold the world's economy hostage,
and then to continue to strike Israel because their long
term goal, right is to destroy Israel and kill all
the Jews, right and and to and to to hold
you know, the rab States at risk as well to
have hegemonic influence really in the Middle East.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: And they're part of this access of aggressors, you know,
China and Russia as well. So we're winning because I
think we're making tremendous progress towards the objective, which has
been sure that Iran can no longer project power beyond
its borders. And I think the President was clear about this,
the Chairman of Joint Chiefs was clear about this. And
the campaign has been extraordinarily successful in destroying these missiles
and drones. Over time. They still have the ability to
fire about twenty ballistic missiles and forty or fifties or
so drones a day, but that number is going down
down ninety percent. The Iranian Navy is on the bottom
of the Persia Gulf and their ability to interdict shipping
through their and really importantly, I think, and this has
not gotten a whole lot of coverage. Their industrial base,
their ability to rebuild these capabilities is destroyed, and you
have the continued loss of their.
Speaker 4: Shit and.
Speaker 2: The destructive power oriented against the repressive arms of the regime,
the repressive arms of the besiege and the RGC who
just murdered you know, thirty to forty thousands of their
own people in a forty hour period in January. So
I think it's been extraordinarily successful so far. It doesn't
mean it's going to be easy going forward, that the
strangerformers are going to be open immediately, but there is
a campaign plan being executed very effectively.
Speaker 1: Right So, now you're an old tank man mostly and
so you might have a slightly biased opinion about this.
But given that our goal is I'm calling it regime
displacement rather than regime change, since we're not supposed to
use that phrase anymore. But can this be accomplished by
air power alone or are we going to need some
component of ground troops in some way at some point?
Speaker 2: You know, Steve. It just remains to be seen. I
don't know. I mean, I think this is kind of
an unprecedented situation in connection with complete air dominance, you know,
the ability to fly with impunity, to control all of
the airspace, combined with pretty exquisite intelligence in terms of
being able to identify specific leaders within the regime. I mean,
it was really I think, you know, this this strike,
you know, most recently against Laura Johnny, you know, the
head of the security apparatus who was meeting with about
three hundred members of the besiege. These are these mass murderers,
the people who have the most blood on their hands
from the most recent attacks against their own people and
now the continued efforts. You know, now this guy Collie
Boff you know, maybe Sentry, I don't think, I mean,
who wants that job. I think he's his time is
quite limited. Will that be sufficient? Will that be sufficient
till we get that the repressed arms of the regime
sufficiently so so that then the people can can take
control of their country. I don't know the answer to
that question. Uh it will Can you do? Can you
accomplish from the air the objective of reopening the straits
of fourmus Era and the sea uh as as well
as denying the runing is the ability to fight continue
to fire these long range missiles and drones. I think
that's unclear. The historical record indicates, uh that it's insufficient
to do it from the air. But I think this
is this is an this is an unprecedented situation. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So then you said a moment ago that our immediate objective,
uh military objective is to degrade their capacity to threaten
their neighbors and their nuclear program and so forth.
Speaker 3: And then and then, so, I I.
Speaker 1: Guess regime displacements I'm calling it is sort of secondary.
I mean, the Venezuela model is will leave the people
that are in place if they're going to be themselves
and deal with us in good faith.
Speaker 3: So I mean, how will we know that we've reached
that stage?
Speaker 1: What things should we be looking for, what things should
be to be demanding of the Iranians?
Speaker 3: And then it'll turn it over.
Speaker 2: To Charley Well Steve. In twenty seventeen, when we were
developing options for the president for an around strategy, we
made it an assumption. We thought it was a valid assumption.
I think subsequent events have borne it out, and the
President agreed with it that we will not be able
to secure our interest in the Middle East, protect our
citizens there, protect our partners and allies Israel and the
Gulf States, until there was a fundamental change in the
nature of the Iranian government such that it ceases its
permanent hostility to the United States. You know, they call
the great Satan Israel, who they call the cancerous boil
and their Arab neighbors, and I think that remains the
case today' Steve. I think if this regime stays in power,
you know, with those who adhere to the ideology of
the revolution, who you know, these are the people who
chant to America that's issue and really meet it, then
I don't think you can have an end of the war.
I think this regime is already done. I think that
this regime is a dead man walking because I don't think,
you know, Prime mister Netanyahu or President Trump is going
to leave a regime in power that is still is
permanently hostile and a regime that can still project power
outside of its borders into the Straits of Hormus, for example,
in a way that allows them to hold their neighbors
hostage and hold the global economy hostage. So I have.
Speaker 5: Freddie Blunt question, which is, why does every media report
and it seems half the political class, certainly on the left,
well so to some extent on the right, costs this
as if it has been an historic disaster.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what the historic disaster has been. Well,
but first of all, I think because they don't considered
the historical record, they don't consider the content, the context,
and they don't consider what the cost would have been
to not do this, Charlie. And and so the historical
record would tell us that this isn't the start of
a war. This is actually the continuation of a forty
seven year long war that the Iranians initiated. And this
is the best chance we've had in those forty seven
years to maybe end the war that began in nineteen
seventy nine with the taking of US hostages, that continued
into the nineteen eighties, with you know, with the murder
of two hundred and forty one Marines in Lebanon, as
well as the bombing of our embassy there and the
murder of French commandos on that same day. People forget
the initiation of a worldwide terrorist campaign that involved the
taking of US hostages, the assassination of Americans, a Sicagua
and Argentina, blowing up a Padamanian airliner. I mean, the
list goes on Cobar Towers bombing nineteen ninety seven in
Saudi Arabia done by the Iranians, kills nineteen servicemen and women.
How about the six hundred Americans who died in Iraq
because they were attacked by Rani and properties equipped with
Iranian made projectiles of devastating So I just think it's
a misunderstanding of the nature of the regime and neglect
of the historical record.
Speaker 5: And the second question is I think the military operation
has been really impressive, and as I've said many times,
I hope the rest of the world, especially China, is watching.
But we obviously do have some problems now in the
Straits of Four Moves are closed, oil prices are up.
That's a political problem as well as geopolitical problem. How
serious is that? Is it something that we can resolve
on our own and if so, how long will that
take and how much can it cost?
Speaker 2: Our military does a combined exercise with about thirty other
countries every year based on a scenario of Iran closing
the Straight of horm Moves. So so we know what
to do but that But from the very beginning, the
emphasis in this campaign was going going to we were
going to prioritize the destruction of their long range missile
capability and their drone capability and then and then turn
to opening the straight with really a concerted effort to
take out the weapon systems that can UH, that can
that can that can influence the straight, you know, with
Admiral Cooper, the commander of Syncom Command, a central commander
said is that we have to get the threat down
to imaginable military risk of of moving through moving through
the straits. Once that's done, you will see a relocate,
a reallocation of assets to to dominate the terrain UH
from which Iran can influence the Strait of hor Moves.
And then the physically escort UH with with ships and
capabilities that can really First of all, there'll be a
mind sweeping operation that's going to take a little while
UH and that's a very deliberate effort. You want to
get that right the first time, you know, because you
don't want anybody run into a mine and then you're
delay further. Then the next the next thing that you
do is you begin to escort these escort operations, and
you'll start to see flow through the straight increasing, not
all back to normal, but little but little by little,
increasing day to day. I believe that's going to happen
in about fourteen days, maybe even a couple of days
sooner than that. And then you're going to have really
a shift in the focus of many of our ships
to an air defense bubble around the ships that are
moving through UH. And you're going to have apatche attack helicopters,
A ten close air support aircraft and and and the
platforms you've seen being used already in large numbers, like
the FA teens, S sixteens and so forth, really providing
cover for for that escort operation. But that's that is
a different phase of the campaign was anticipated, and I
think there will be a shift toward that in the
in the next week or so.
Speaker 1: So general, I want to ask you about President Trump
for a moment. You have been very measured in your
criticisms and support for him over the last several years,
both in your book and your comments ever since you
left the administration.
Speaker 4: In their.
Speaker 3: I get it, no, I look we all know how well.
Speaker 2: He misunderstands me. Man, you know, okay, yeah, right, Well
here's what I think.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: I'm not following things as closely as you are, I'm sure,
but my impression is I have been impressed that he
seems very serene, very calm and uh. Look, I mean,
we know Trump's going to say day to day crazy
things like why didn't why didn't Japan tell us about
Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 3: I'm not just I mean that's Trumpet is sort of comic.
Speaker 1: But offensive best or worst, depending on But the point
is is that when it comes to these war questions,
I have been kind of impressed at his steadiness and calm.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And so I'm wondering what you make of his leadership
so far.
Speaker 2: Hey, here's what I think. You know. I think that
the act aggressors, this is Russia and China who brought
into the fold Iran and Venezuela and North Korea. They
felt like they were winning, right, I mean they said
that they were winning, right. And remember right before the
massive invasion of Ukraine in February of twenty twenty two
at the Beijing Olympics, they say this is the new
era of international relations. The United States, You're done, You're finished.
Because they had seen I think the disasters withdrawal from Afghanistan,
the deadly would drawn on the Biden administration. They viewed,
I think America as feckless, you know, in this period
of time, and were emboldened. And I believe that led
not only to the invasion of Ukraine. I think it
led to October seven of twenty twenty three and the
lighting of the fire around Israel. I think it led
to Maduro saying, hey, the Americans aren't going to do anything.
In fact, they're alleviating sanctions on me, like we were
on the irradiance, like we were undesignated, the whois is
a terrorist organization for example, not enforcing sanctions. So I
told ahmind the coffers of these a lot of revolution
at guards Court, they're filling up, increasing his stipends to Hesbola,
he's supporting the proxy army in Syria. Thinks you're going
his way, and he's like, hey, time to cross this
off my to do list, you know, destroy Israel, kill
all the Jews. Right, they were the protagonists, they had
the initiative under the bidministration. Then Trump comes in, what happens.
You know, Maduro's gone, He's in a freak He's in
a New York prison. Right. Uh, now you have we're
acting against the Iranians. Hey, I think, you know, I
think what President Trump has done is restored to terrence
and and regain the initiatives such that we are the
protagonists now against this hostile axis of aggressors, you know.
And Man, I wish he could do, you know, do
it with a bit more finesse, Steve, you know, I mean,
I wish he could. I wish you could stop insulting
our allies, you know, because big surprise. If you insult
people for several months and then you say, hey, how
about some support, they might be a little bit reluctant
at first. You know who knew. So I wish you
would just get out of his way. And the one
thing I would say is, gosh, we've got such a
big opportunity if there is a change in the nature
of this regime in Iran. Russia and China are the
huge losers. Look at the world from their perspective. You
had your man Maduro gone, Cuban Army regime in Cuba
almost gone. Noriega is so nervous. He's he's preemptively releasing
all the political prisoners in Nicaragua. I mean the Pink wave,
you know, to the progressive anti American left in the
Western hemisphere. It's all swinging back. You've got Seinbelm, you know,
helping with border security, going after the narcotis kingpins. You
have now China and Russia, who had Iran in the
region and used Iran as the way to convince the
Golf States. Hey, you got a hedge with me, right,
Americans aren't going to do anything. Yes, Iran, I have
economic power over Iran. This is China talking to the
Gulf States. You need me, and they thought Russia said
the same thing, need me, because you know I'm involved
in this year, in civil war. I can help you know,
I can help, you know, in a post civil war Seria. Well,
now guess what Russia's out of Syria, you know, and
when if there's a change in the nature of this regime,
the US will be seen as the only the only
relible security partner in the region, will have the keys
to China's gas station, and they will have no influence
left in the Middle East. I mean, honestly, you know,
there are people there as some people who make the
argument he we shouldn't be doing any of this stuff
in the Middle East because the real threats China. Well,
guess what, this is an arena of competition that is
very consequential for the China competition, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, something that I've observed a long time ago
is that you know, Trump famously said.
Speaker 3: No stupid wars. He never said not no wars at all.
Speaker 1: Right, And so you know, people read into what they want,
and a lot of people on the right, as you know,
are been unhappy about this for reasons you mentioned. Let
me ask them a particular thing that I think should
be in your wheelhouse. There's been a lot of concern
that we may be running short of weapons, interceptors and
other things. And along with that there's the equally important
question of you might say, asymmetries. They fire a forty
thousand dollars drone and we're shooting it down with what
a ten million dollars missile or something like that.
Speaker 2: So two point thirteen okay, but only four point five
million if it's a patriot though, see.
Speaker 3: I mean, okay, well, there's still the I mean, but
you get the point. There's still an asymmetry there.
Speaker 1: And even though we're you know, ridiculously rich country, or
at least think I think we can borrow forever.
Speaker 3: We'll leave that aside for another day. I wonder, first of.
Speaker 1: All, if you think it's a legitimate worry that we
might be running dangerously short of weaponry. And then second
the asymmetry question. I assume we're going to learn a
lot about out of all this. I expect we already
are from the Ukraine theater. And so what's your projection
for how this is going to change our doctrine and
indeed design and procurement going forward.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the missile drone strike complex is coming
to you, you know, Europe, even the United States, everybody, right,
I mean, so this is something that we must learn
from with the sense of urgency. In terms of your
question about our magazine depth, do we have enough? We
have enough certainly for this campaign and the golf, although
we have to increase our manufacturing capacity is what President
Trump has been really good good at emphasizing. You know,
so has Secretary worked Hexith and is extremely competent. Deputy
Steve Feinberg, who is helping us ramp up our defense
production capacity. So just to give you an example, we
bought six hundred and fifty FAD missiles. We expended one
quarter of those during the Twelve Day War last year. Okay,
but then what the Department of War contracted was a
four x increase in procurement. Patriot missiles were in pretty
good shape with you know, Ukraine uses them as well.
The Saudis have bought a lot of them. I won't
say how many, but they've got plenty. The Amorties have them,
and we have them. But we've vastly increased our buy
of patriots as well. And this is why we you know,
the Congress should pass is two hundred this two hundred
billion dollars supplemental to get our military hold because there
was a bow wave of deferred procurement and a bow
wave of what you're getting to in terms of drone
defense overall of deferred modernization. You also have the Arrow
system by the Israelis joint developed with US, which is
very capable. But what you also have are a whole
bunch of like lower end defense capabilities, air defense capabilities
that can be that can be quite effective for point defense.
This is called like an a RAM system, a c
RAMS system and so forth, and and so you know,
we're going to get better at this. You mentioned the
Ukrainian capabilities. One of the Ukrainian capabilities are these small
quad crop copter drones that I detect the drone coming
in and then vector at that drone and destroy a
drone with the drone. There are Ukrainian teams on the
ground right now helping Gulf states put together this defense capability.
And I think Steve were about nine months away from
some very significant, low cost counter drone capabilities. Some of
those are involving these kind of count the counter drone drones,
but also directed energy capabilities laser beams you know, uh,
you know, I always wanted to say, like Doctor Evil,
fire the freaking laser. You know, well, to be able
to we'll be able to say that now. So so
so the you know, those are coming online. And on munitions,
you also have to look at the offensive munitions. We
expended a lot of our standoff munitions. Uh. These are
these are air launched uh and sea launched cruise missiles essentially,
and so we've got to buy those and build those
back up. But hey, we're not using them anymore. You
know what we're using because we have air supremacy, is
we're using jay dams, which is like a precision guided
bomb that you drop out and networ flying bombers you
know over over Iran and know some concern about one
of our carriers how to fire in the laundry. It's
going to get refit. But two of those bombers b
onet to be two bombers is the equivalent of a
naval air wing on a carrier, you know, in terms
of what they can do in terms of targeting. So
now with these jade ems systems, which we have a
whole heck of a lot of By the way, I
think we're we're in good shape. Now, it doesn't mean
we're a good shape in our industrial base, does it.
We have to still vastly increase our throughput. We have
to pay attention to the supply chains, many of which
are are fragile based on China's effort to gain exclusive
uh exclusive grip on critical minerals and components. So there's
a lot of work to be done. But hey, I
think one of the things I'm most optimistic about is
how the Department of War is still want to call
it Department Defense, you know, because anyway, but the Department,
the Department of War is really engaged in meaningful reforms
in contracting, procurement, and importantly the incentives to free up
private capital because you know, our defense companies they're not
charitable organizations. You know, they've got just to shareholders. So
what they need is they need they need a secured demand, right,
strong demand signals multi year contracting so that they can
invest in the workforce and make the capital investments necessary
to get as healthy again.
Speaker 1: You remark about the lasers. My joke about that has
been a ha. Marjorie Taylor Green was right, after all, about.
Speaker 2: The Jewish space lasers. I mean, that was what a
my friends, what about friends? When she made that comment,
he said, he said, you know, he said, you and
I should open up a Jewish laser bagel shop, and
so we can do that because you know, I'm Jewish
and not my grandmother's recipe, and you're you're a general
and you can get lasers for free.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So one of the reasons I like talking to you
so much and you so much is that I mentioned,
you know, your old tank man and my teacher of
strategic studies in graduate school a long time ago. Now
had been a tank driver for Patent's Third Army in
the sweep across France. You can imagine how he taught
the subject in the classroom. It was not theories, it
was not abstractions. His first day of class was always,
if there's going to be a war, the first question
is who's going to win, And that's a question about
capacities and leadership. And so that's my setup for our
exit question, which is to shift gears over to the
big theater we keep worrying about, which is potential theater,
which is China. I agree with you that China has
to be right now saying and in fact I saw
some new script this morning that our new intelligence assessment
of China is no, actually they're not really planning to
invade Taiwan in twenty twenty seven, as some people have
been saying for the last several years. But what's your
sort of assessment of the balance of power between us?
I mean, you know, they're the broad numbers of what
they're making sound alarming. I'm not sure about their capacities
to use them effectively, But then it comes down to
the willpower.
Speaker 3: So give us your very short compressed summary of where
you think we stand on the China question.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, Steve, I think we are behind in
some areas that are really critical. First of all is capacity, right,
just the size of our armed forces, and then also depth,
you know, the depth in our armed forces and in
our defense industrial bases. I mentioned China has engaged in
a massive build up, right, They've included I mean, they've
increased their defense spending like forty six forty eightfold since
the turn of the century. And you know, quantity does
have equality all its own, you know. And what they
also have done is try to take apart what they
see as our exquisite capabilities and our differential advantages in
technology with some asymmetric answers to that long range you know,
ballistic missiles, anti ship missiles, which they were by the way,
right before this campaign they were about to provide to
iran tiered and layered air defense. But countersat don't like
capabilities offensive cyber these bold attacks, Steve, that we've seen
in all of our critical infrastructure that's trying to prepare
to take us down, to take down our banking system,
to take down our transportation system, to take down our
power grid. Gee, I wonder why they're doing that well,
because they're preparing for war against us, you know. And
and so what we need to do is address a
bow wave of deferred modernization because we have answers to
a lot of the capabilities that are developing, but we
haven't fielded them yet, and we need greater quantity. And
the reason for that is over the years, we have
traded off the size of our armed forces for more
and more exquisite and expect for fewer and fewer i
should say exquisite capabilities. That what what if those capabilities
fail catastrophically because of countermeasures? Right, you need depth in
these capabilities, and as you've already alluded to, you need
some cheaper solutions. So maybe it's less exquisite solutions because
you know, scale matters our ability to conduct simultaneous operations,
maybe across multiple theaters. Because the competition with China, it
really is a global competition, you know. So so I
think there's a lot of work to be done to
really convince China that they can't accomplish their objectives with
the use of force, because you know what, that's what
prevents wars, and it's a hell of a lot cheaper
to prevent a war than to have to fight one,
and so there's work to be done. But I do
think it's beneficial that we just had this demonstration and
that President Trump really he's restored to terrence, I think
deterrece that was lost under the Biden administration and maybe
in the Obama years as well, and so, you know,
I think that it's positive. But they're going to study
the hell out of this. The Chinese already are, you know,
and they will develop countermais the other indicator, though the
twenty twenty seven is probably not the year, is the
Taiwanese election. They're going to be watching the Taiwanese election
in twenty twenty eight. And if it's if it's the UH,
you know, if it's the KMT that comes to the party,
it tends to be more sympathetic to the PRC, maybe
a little back off a little bit and try to
get annexation by invitation, by buying off the leaks, by
subversion and so other enticements, and it set us. If
it's the DPPU comes in again, I think it's game
on and you're gonna see this escalation UH toward toward
a coercive in a course of campaign uh again against Taiwan.
The best remedy for that is make good on the
backlogged arm sales to Taiwan. You know, make Taiwan like
a hedgehog. You know that that that you know that
that uh that can't be ingested you know by by
by the PRC.
Speaker 5: How long has Trump got in this war before he
starts to feel pressure? He has been all over the
place in his explanations. At the start, he was very open.
He called any journalist who would talk to him, but
he gave three or four different answers, and then he said,
you know, it's almost over, and they said, maybe it's
just beginning. So it's quite hot to now exactly where
we are. How long do you think he's got realistically,
because the military questions and the political questions don't line
up neatly.
Speaker 2: And Charles I like to ask you that question. You're
probably much better at this than I am, you know,
both you and Steve. I'm terrible like domestic politics and
political pressure internally, I mean, I you know what you
see with President Trump is, you know, he is still
kind of a marketing guy. You know, he's still kind
of a salesman and and real estate developer, you know,
and so you know, a lot of what he says
it's performative, but he wants to shape reality, you know,
by he thinks, if we repeats it enough, you know
it's gonna happen, you know. So so so part of
it is maybe aspirational, you know, language that is going
to be really short or you know, we said we're
all we've completely won almost or something. I mean, I mean,
so you know, so you get these raises and you're like,
what is he talking about? But a lot of it
is really him trying to lay out the positive vision.
He tries to allay concerns. I think the best way
to do that, by the way, is the way he
did it in that seven minute true Social video where
he said, hey, this isn't going to be easy. You know,
we're probably going to suffer losses, you know. I mean,
that was actually pretty good. I wish he'd lose the
baseball hat and do it from the oval office man,
when he's talking about more but anyway, I mean minor points, right,
but I think you know that was the right tone.
What you see I think in Trump too is somebody
convinced him that his own staff was the deep state.
And there are probably like twenty five people in the
NSC staff whose job it is to coordinate and integrate
across the departments in the agencies. Get him best analysis,
get him best advice. Put together the communications plan, make
sure everybody's got the communications plan. Put together the congressional
engagement plan. Put together the Allied engagement plan, run it,
execute it right, Integrate all elements Nashville power. I mean
nobody's doing that. I mean people are doing that in
the departments in the eightencies. Of course they are, but
it's not integrated and consistent, and so I think if
they're the biggest criticism that I would have of the
campaigns so far is the unserious and inconsistent communications effort.
You know, I mean, stop with the memes, man, I mean,
stop with the video games stuff. That's nonsense. Nobody who's
been in actual combat, who I know, nobody talks like that.
You know, nobody says we need two or a billion
dollars to kill bad people. I'm I mean, it's implied.
It just gives us opponents, you know, AMMO unnecessarily. So anyway,
what do you think can I turn the question to
you guys, I mean, how long do you think he has? Uh?
Speaker 3: Well, I watch the price of gasoline.
Speaker 1: I actually think that's going to be because everyone that's
something that people buy every week, and they're gonna get
cranky about that, and the pressure will go up and
and then congressional Republicans will get very nervous because they're
nervous already about the midterms. So we'll see. But I
think you know Trump, as you know, he's a winner. Well,
he said we don't win wars anymore. Right, That's what
makes me think he's going to see this through now.
As you say, he's perfectly capable of declaring anything a
victory anytime he wants to. But I think it needs
to be real this time. I don't think you can
have us a pr thing, Charlie, what do you think?
And then we have to let the general go.
Speaker 5: I think not long, not long, okay. I worry that
this is a virtuous enterprise, but that people are going
to get impatient and the midterms are coming. Yeah, I
hope we can win fast, right.
Speaker 2: I'm worried about it too. The what lesson will stand
this stough just quickly respond is that I think Trumpe
will not accept an outcome where you have like a
bludgeond I Rannie, a regime who's still that still has
the keys to this rates before moves right. So I
think you're right. There can be mounting pressure on him,
but I don't think he will succumb to it. If
if if that means that's that's the condition at the
end of the end of this phase of the forty
seven year long war against against Orions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I think too.
Speaker 1: He's taken a huge risk here, He's really bet his
whole presidency on this, So that's what makes me think
he'll probably see it through.
Speaker 3: And you know, well, as he likes to say, we'll
just have to see what happens.
Speaker 1: And Jeff, we'll just have to see with you and
have you on again sometime. I know you're really really
busy following this in your times in high demand right now,
and we're gratefully.
Speaker 2: It's ben tome for you guys. What a great podcast.
Great to view with you. I always loved the discussion
with you guys. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you Jo, It's very kind of you, and
thanks very much. Good luck we'll talk to you again soon.
Speaker 2: Thanks. Take care well, Charlie.
Speaker 1: We mentioned briefly at the top of the show that
one of the deaths this week was not a literal death,
but was the death of the reputation of Caesar Chavez.
And as someone who grew up in California in the
sixties and seventies and saw boycott grape signs everywhere, saw
Caesar shoves on TV every night in his farm worker
don grees before he changed back into a suit and
scoot off in a limousine for some fancy dinner. This
is long overdue, and I don't know if you ever
followed him or not as a someone more recent arrival
to the American shores, But good grief, this is I
have to say, I'm taking way too much delight in this,
which is very Unchristian of me. But still it's the
Left deserves the agony they're going through right now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is the worst thing that's happened to Caesar
around the eyes of marks And.
Speaker 2: Well, that's very good.
Speaker 3: I hadn't thought of that one.
Speaker 1: Well, there are a couple of things that I have
not seen reported, and it's because well everyone's talking about
his deeds and the fact that they were covered up,
and maybe surprising that the New York Times went after
this so hard for so long about such an icon, right,
it props to.
Speaker 3: Them for doing it.
Speaker 1: But I remember back in the seventies, just to give
an example the listeners of really how what a thug
Caesar Shavez was, is that farm workers actually had some
union representation before he came along and got the United
farm Workers' Union going, and they were, believe it or not,
represented by the Teamsters. And normally, when you think union thugs,
Teamsters are number one on your list, right, And in fact,
the growers in California always preferred to deal with the
Teamsters rather than Shavez. So an employer wants to deal
with the Teamsters, Well, here's why.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: First of all, a lot of union contracts were not
like autoworkers.
Speaker 1: They weren't five year contracts, or if they were, they
had a lot of variable conditions depending on the migrant season.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of the farm labor was migratory.
They spend some time here in California, then they'd go
to Michigan for two months for a different time of
the year, and so forth. But when the teamsters had
a contract with you, they followed the terms of it.
Speaker 3: What Shavez would do is he'd wait.
Speaker 1: Till harvest time, like, you know, literally a week before
workers needed to go in the field and pick the
fruit when it's ripe, and if you didn't pick it,
it would go bad and the farm would lose all
their costs in growing it for that season.
Speaker 3: And he would suddenly, even if he had.
Speaker 1: A contract, would have a whole bunch of new demands,
you know, more money, more this, more that, and threaten
a wildcat strike if the growers didn't give in. Now,
that's just pure thuggery and extortion. And he is, after
all a disciple of what's his name, Saul Olenski, so
we shouldn't be surprised at all this. But lastly I'll say,
is you know, John, you and I were both inmates
at Berkeley's Bolt Hall Law School here a few years
ago when they went through the agony of taking Bolt's
name off of the building because it turned out he'd
said mean things about the Chinese back in eighteen ninety. Well,
there's a Caesar shav As student center on the campus
at Berkeley, and Caesar shaves everything throughout the state. Some
of those names are already being taken off buildings statues
covered already here before the week is out, including on
some California State University campuses. But Berkeley is announced they're
going to go through their long, laborious renaming committee process
with public input and meetings, And oh, I wish I
could be around to watch all this, because it's going
to be pretty hilarious, I think before they end up
deciding to take his name off the building.
Speaker 3: That's my guess. Sorry, that's my speech. I'm like I said,
I'm enjoying this way too much.
Speaker 5: Well, I obviously think he's a communist. I think almost
everyone's a communist. But I have, I suppose mixed feelings
in that I'm a squishly smaller liberal. In the realm
of accusations, I think these are quite convincing. Yes, but
it is a long time and there's a reason that
we have a statute of limitations in the law, and
it's not it's not just because it's difficult in a
llegal context, but it's difficult for anyone to judge allegations
that are made decades after the fact. But I do
think these are fairly persupasive. I mean too mind, Steve,
because on the one hand, I want to praise the times,
and I want to praise progressives for living up to
the values here, which they don't always do. As I say,
those values aren't necessarily mine. I'm probably more skeptical than many.
I didn't like the Met Too movement, but I want
to praise them. On the other hand, I can't help
but notice that the only point at which they ever
do this is when the person is either dead or
not useful to them anymore. It's reminiscent in that respect
of Bill Clinton. I was so annoyed in the twenty
ten early twenty twenties when people would say, well, we
got rid of Bill Clinton. No, you didn't, not when
you needed him. You did't get rid of him. In
ninety seven eight, you did the opposite. You called everyone
who commented on what he did appear, and now you
got rid of him. But that's because you don't need
him any more, because you don't need his wife anymore,
because you've decided that his politics were reactionary.
Speaker 2: And I don't think.
Speaker 5: That the leftist decided to say that Chaves his politics
were reactionary, but he is dead, it is a lot
easier to do well.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: This is the converse of the view that the only
good conservative is a dead conservative.
Speaker 2: Right. You know, William F.
Speaker 1: Buckley is now a National Treasurer hero, but they called
him a fascist fifty years ago. As we know something
that you may not know, but I know because I
knew attorneys were involved in some of the Catholic sex
abuse scandals.
Speaker 3: From twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: California essentially repealed its statute of limitations on.
Speaker 3: Pedophilic offenses.
Speaker 1: Right, so you can now still bring a criminal and
civil action against somebody for something done back when Chavez
did it. And yeah, the time story, what was convincing
to me was not necessarily a testimony of the women.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's always that he.
Speaker 1: Said, she said problem, But you know, there's a lot
of incriminatory documentary evidence that backs up their stories, and
I thought that was probably what tip the scales.
Speaker 3: I think one of the things I did it.
Speaker 1: But finally, something un us have mentioned, but you have
seen some people bring up, is that Chavez in his
heyday was an immigration restrictionist, quite a serious one, and
in fact, he used to use the W word, which is,
you know, the Hispanic word from the end word, right,
And you know I remember all that and that, you know,
people who've studied the matter know this, and that was
all airbrushed out of all of the Caesar Chavez celebrations
of the last twenty years. But I heard people speculating
all this reason this is coming out now is because
the left has become so fully open borders and against
immigration restriction that Chavez's record might get brought up.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: That seems the little too conspiratorial and cute for me,
but it is an interesting angle of things.
Speaker 5: I think absolutely, it is absolutely wild how far the
left has come on immigration in twenty or thirty years.
You go by and you look at Barbara Jordan, you
look at Bill Clinton, you look at Nancy Pelosi, you
look at Chuck Schumer, you look at Caesar Chavez. Yeah,
they were saying at one point, now, maybe their motivations
weren't mine. Bernie Sanders used to be skeptical of immigration
because he's thought it impinged upon the labor union paradise
he wished to build. But yeah, says Chaves, was another
one of those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it is a weird thing, right, Yeah, well,
all right, enough of that until you know next year,
next week's celebrity deaths, I think it's time for us
to get out. Charlie, you have been listening to the
Ricochet podcast. We missed James Lax today. He's in the
thick of selling his house. But I know what he
would want you to do. He'd want to remind you.
This podcast is brought to you by ricochet dot com
and it's other supporters, and I'm remiss if I don't
remind you to take a minute to leave a five
star review on Apple Podcasts or whatever other podcast platform
you use.
Speaker 3: Your reviews really.
Speaker 1: Do help us get new listeners, and that's just a
nice boost for all of us when you do so.
For now and for Charlie, we will see you in
the comments at Ricochet. Five point dot dot dot for
something four point dot dot dot All right, by, Charlie,
see you next week.
Speaker 3: We'll get James back.
Speaker 2: Next time Ricochet. Join the conversation.