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Freemann Beyond the Wall dot com, Forward slash Support and
do it there. Thank you. I want to welcome everyone
back to the Pekanona Show. I am pleased to have
a guest here that I thought I had to have
a co host for and I knew that my co host,
mister field House was a someone who was more well
read in in mister Lynn's work than in my own
than I am. So sadly I admit, Uh, mister Williamsslyn,
how are you doing, miss Land?
Speaker 2: I'm doing well? Thank you? Here in cold and snowy Cleveland, Ohio.
Speaker 1: Well it's I'm in cold Central Alabama, but it's I
assume it's not as cold as Cleveland.
Speaker 2: We actually went about freezing today. But the high Monday
and Tuesday is to be five. So if it hits
that in North Alabama, there's a.
Speaker 1: Problem central Alabama too. It's we had we had four
inches of snow last week and people sort of freaked out.
So all right, let's just jump in. John. I haven't
talked to you in a while. How are you doing?
Speaker 3: How you doing? Brother?
Speaker 1: Good? Good? You want to you have any questions to
start off? To talk for mister Lynn.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and just to correct in the beginning, I'm doctor
Admiral field House, but peasants don't have to know.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Anyways, again, that's a joke since most people can't tell
when I'm joking. So one of the things I think
We're going to start off talking about fourth generation warfare,
Doctor Lynn or mister Lynn, because we read your one
of your essays that have been published in one of
the Castalia House anthologies. I'm not sure if it was
the Poor Nell one or the Riding the Red Horse.
My big things that I want to start off with
because lots of people quote you, they just don't necessarily
have read you and don't necessarily get your key points
or missed some of your key points. What would you
say is the main misunderstanding about the concept of fourth
generation warfare that you run into, sir.
Speaker 2: Well, I'd say the main misunderstanding is it's thought of
as essentially a tactical problem, when what it actually is
is a content tests for legitimacy between states, nation states
and entities that are not nation states, which can be
Hamas and Hezbolah or Mexican drug cartels or ethnic groupings
or the list is almost endless. The state, essentially, starting
in the sixteen hundreds, established a monopoly on legitimacy worldwide,
and it's now losing that monopoly, and so fourth generation
warfare is fundamentally a fight for legitimacy between states and
alternatives to States.
Speaker 1: All right, I have a question. So my friend, I've
thought this for a while and my friend, my friend
Thomas believes this as well, is that what we're going
to see in the United States is instead of the
federal government getting someone sweeping in a caesar or something
like that and becoming an article to president and fixing
taking us back to you know, times of the past,
what we're basically going to see is we're going to
see people have default kind of secessions. You're going to
have people who politically agree, people who have share values,
religious values that they're going to find them find each other,
and they're going to break off into their own communities.
And do you see that as a form of fourth
generation warfare in the future.
Speaker 2: Well, it can certainly turn into that, it can certainly
feed that. What you're looking for to determine an effect
which way the contest for legitimacy is going is to
what or to whom do people give their primary loyalty,
the loyalty for which they will willingly fight. And we're
of course already seeing some of that in this country.
You have Americans who would never volunteer for the US military,
but will most certainly fight for their religion, or for
their race or ethnic group, for their ideology, for their cause,
if you will, like environmentalism. So we're already seeing Americans
that have been seeing for some time, Americans transfer their
primary loyalty away from the state to other things. And
that is that's the ground on which fourth generation warfare
is fought. So it's already happening. The question is does
it go so far as the country breaking up? Now?
I think that was the road that we were on,
but the President Trump's reelection gets us off that route,
at least potentially. In my novel Victoria, which is fourth
generation war in the United States, set in the year
twenty to fifty looking back under the pen name Thomas
Hobbs because it's an update of his seventeenth century book Leboon,
what causes the country ultimately to break apart is the
federal government using its massive power to force cultural Marxism
down every American's throat, and at a certain point Americans
just rebel against it. Well, they just did. They rebelled
at the ballot box. And not only did Trump win
the electoral vote, he also won the popular vote, and
even dem are having to concede that the American people
in this election rejected what's commonly called woke or political
correctness or multiculturalism. It's actually the cultural Marxism of the
Frontfret school. So I think if President Trump's second term
is successful, and his first term was on the whole
fairly successful, but he was sabotaged constantly by the people
who were supposed to be working for him, So I
think this term could be a lot more successful. If
it is, then I think we may have gotten off
the path that leads to a breakup of this country internally.
But if his presidency is not successful and the cultural
Marxists are able to come back, then I think we're
back on that path again, and it becomes a civil
war between, if you will, the culture of the coastal
elites and their clients who depend on government largess, against
the heartland and the American middle class. And that's again,
that's the contest that in my novel rips America part.
But I think the good news is we have gotten
off that path with President Trump's reelection.
Speaker 3: Sir, I was going to say one of the points
that especially some of the critics of yours and the
greater military reform movement. Is they miss assert that the
state or that you and company are alleging that the
state is just going to go away. And I don't
think that's what you or Van Kreveld or Void at
all had ever said. So is there any comment on that,
because I know again that's a common misconception that is
directed towards you and company, sir.
Speaker 2: Well, the state is in a fight for its survival.
The intensity of that fight varies enormously from one state
to another, from places like Libya where the state has
largely disappeared or Sa'dan to Nigeria where it's just one
gang among many, through states like the United States where
the state is still holding, but we do see a
growing number of people transferring their primary loyalty to other things.
Two states that obviously are going to survive either very
unitary states like Japan, or states that have found ways
to successfully accommodate their differences, such as Switzerland, which has
four different ethnic groups in it. It has all the
kinds of of tensions that one would think normally lead
to fourth generation war, but it solved the problem through federalism,
which is, by the way, one of the ways we
can help solve our problem. The real government in Switzerland
is the contonal level. The joke is, nobody can tell
you who with the name of the Nobody in Switzerland
can tell you the name of the Swiss of the
Swiss president, and there's no reason why they should know
it because the government is at the knsonal level, and
the people can overturn any government decision by referendum, and
they frequently do so. They actually run the place. But
across most of the spectrum, again, Japan and Switzerland would
be at the far end. Now they're not going to
break up, But across most of the spectrum, the state
is in a fight for its survival. Is it going
to disappear everywhere? Of course not. It's going to win
that fight in many cases, which is a good thing,
as Hobbes reminds us. As Hobbes actually is the first
to warn us. If the state disappears, life becomes nasty,
British and short. You can look at places where the
state has disappeared, like Iraq and Syria and Libya and
so forth, and yes, that's what life is like. Hobbs
nailed it about four hundred years ago. But yes, the
state will survive in many places, and every conservative should
be hoping the state survives. Whether it's a democracy or not,
doesn't matter what the state arose to do, And the
best book on this is Mark vent Krefeld is The
Rise and Decline of the State. What the state arose
to do was bring order, safety of persons and property,
nothing else. It at ust nothing else when when it
was in its rise. It's since taken on additional functions,
which isn't necessarily a good thing. But the state remains
of vital importance because without order, you can't have anything else.
Everything you have, including your life, your family, is life,
your property, everything is at the mercy of whoever comes along,
who is physically stronger and better armed, or more numerous
than you are. And as I said, as Tom said,
that means life is nasty, revision and short. So conservatives
should be focused on maintaining the state and should understand
that the contest in the twenty first century is not
between photocracy and democracy, it's between order and disorder, and
we need to be on the side of the order.
Speaker 3: If I may, sir, is it fair to say that
you think that an effective, survivalable state should either be
something that is relatively small and homogeneous, or some kind
of federalism that combine smaller units that there are themselves
homogeneous and relatively smaller.
Speaker 2: I would put it somewhat differently. I would say for
a state to succeed, it needs to reflect the history
and culture of its people, or cultures of its people.
Sometimes that means the unitary state Japan. Sometimes that means
a federal state like the United States. One of the
things I have promoted for many years as part of
trying to keep the state in the United States alive
and functioning, is returning to our pre Civil War understanding
of federalism. When the Constitution was ratified, no one could
have imagined that the federal government would claim power to
try to make life in the say South Carolina and
Massachusetts the same. If they had possibly imagined such a thing,
they would never have ratified it. The notion would have
been absurd to them, and rightly so, we need to
go back to that original understanding. As a conservative, I'm
a great believer in original intent, that original understanding of federalism,
where the federal government was small and weak, it didn't
it was in charge of foreign policy, national defense, and
not a great deal else. Its revenues were limited, and
most matters were decided at the state level. And life
in different states is different. So if you don't, for example,
like life in California, you do what a great many
Californians are now doing and move to Florida or Texas.
We're a mobile people. With that kind of federalism, with
that kind of decentralization, you greatly reduced the internal friction
of the state and thereby increase its legitimacy, because even
though the outlook on life of someone in Massachusetts and
someone in Alabama may be very different, they can all
support the union because the union protects all of them.
I had performed certain vital functions like sound money and
so forth that they all need without either being able
to impose his views on the other.
Speaker 3: That one of my college undergrad history professors made a
point that still sticks with me that he talked about
that poor to the creation of the income tax American
Central the federal government tax policy was largely a question
of who thought the larger share should be paid by
tariffs and who thought the larger share should be paid
by the Wicks Sky tasks, which I really thought put
in perspective for.
Speaker 2: Me, but I didn't quite hear you there between those
who believed it should be paid by tariffs and those
who thought it should be paid by what.
Speaker 3: The excise tax on liquor.
Speaker 2: Serperfes, Yes exactly, which tended to be a Northern Southern
division in the Civil War. Isn't just about slavery. The
South one of low tariffs, the North one of high tariffs,
both for perfectly valid local economic reasons. So yes, that
was that was very much the debate.
Speaker 1: So we uh what guy John.
Speaker 3: No I was going to say, if you have a question,
go right ahead, Pete.
Speaker 1: Okay, So we covered one of your longer articles on
fourth generation warfare, and we wanted to ask with the
suggestion of a concept of fifth generation warfare that has
been floating around, what your opinion is of it.
Speaker 2: Well, when you hear the term fifth generation warfare, you
can be pretty certain that some company is trying to
sell a widget I'm probably a very expensive one, saying
we need it for fifth generational warfare. The concept is
nonsense because the fourth generation, the contest between states and
non state entities for legitimacy, is going to take at
least a century to play itself.
Speaker 4: Out.
Speaker 2: Wanting to visualize fifth generation warfare at this point is
like trying to visualize the Middle Ages from the Late
Roman Empire. You may be able to visualize that the
empire is going to fall and there's going to be
a period of rising barbarism, the decay of civilization, the
life becoming local, etc. But you can't possibly see how
that resolves itself into what was the most successful attempt
thus far to create a truly Christian society, which was
the Middle Ages. And I have to add almost everything
people believe about the Middle Ages is wrong. It's a
caricature created by the misnamed Enlightenment the eighteenth century, which
heated the Middle Ages because the Middle Ages united faith
and reason, whereas the Enlightenment put them set them as
opponents to one another, and of course was on the
side of pure reason. The Middle Ages were a very
successful society. Incomes were rising, the population was growing rapidly,
which is a sign of surpluses, agricultural surpluses. Cities were prospering,
there was a good bit of technological innovation. And what
brought it down was the plague. Well, we just got
a little foretaste of that with COVID didn't. We And
we've now created a technology in genetic engineering that will
allow people or perhaps artificial intelligence to create plagues that
might spread like the common Cold, but have the death
rate of the back Black plague, when in six weeks
you lose a third and a half, two thirds in
some places, some villages, all of your population. Everything changes.
But to try to visualize the very successful society that
was the Middle Ages from the late Roman Empire was impossible,
and it's similarly impossible for us to see beyond at
this point the contest for legitimacy between the state and
alternative primary loyalties.
Speaker 3: My comment in what I've read on people proposing fifth
generation warfare is, first, I don't think they've ever read
yours and your associates material. They don't seem to understand that.
So they seem to be defining it entirely as how
a central authority would defeat fourth generation warfare tactics. And
again they see it almost entirely as a tactical modality,
and they don't really define as anything other than how
you're going to use technology, because again, very often they're
trying to.
Speaker 2: Say something, they're trying to sell you something precisely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so again I don't think. I don't think they've
read your book, and I don't think they have a
counter argument because they don't even understand your argument to
begin with.
Speaker 2: Sir, Yes, some of this confusion springs from Tom Hamlets.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: I've known Tom for many years. He's very bright, and
he's written some very good stuff. But he gets fourth
generational warfare wrong. He defines it simply as insurgency. Martin
van Krefeld put this best. He said, the fourth generation
is not a change in how war is for it
is a change in who fights and what they fight for,
and that is a much larger change than changes in
how war is for. Tom and I spent a week
together some years ago with the Royal Marines at stone
As Barracks in Plymouth, and Tom was trying to come
to grips with my definition of fourth generation war by saying, oh, well,
that's really fifth generation. No, Tom, it's not, because insurgency
is nothing new. It's not a new generation of war,
and it does not represent the term generation, as I've
explained in the past, is shorthand for a dialectically qualitative
sh Now, anyone who knows is Hegel knows that those
occur only very infrequently. The problem is, I was trying
to use the four initially the three and then the
four generations framework to explain maneuver warfare, and for GW
two Marines. Well, if you mentioned Hegel, they think he
played shortstop for the Yankees in the thirties. You can't
use terms like dialectically qualitative shift. So the term I
came up with is generations, but no insurgency does not
represent a dialectically qualitative shift. The contest for legitimacy between
the state and alternatives to the state, does.
Speaker 1: John, did you want to ask a question about Ukraine,
how Ukraine and Palestine plays in I think that's a
good question. Yeah.
Speaker 3: One of the things that's running around the internet amongst
your critics is they say that, first they would argue
that Ukraine completely disproves fourth generation warfare because it's essentially
fought as a conventional warfare, and some of those same
people would say that Palestine also refutes that. I don't
think they're correct, but I would wonder what your response
would be, sir.
Speaker 2: Well, generational breaks don't occur overnight. If they did, every
state military in the world would be third generation. In fact,
few if any of them are, because they can't break
with the culture of border that comes out of the
first generation. So when we look at Ukraine, we see
as a fight between two states. Absolutely it's not even
third generation. Where the Russians tried third generation war with
their initial plan. But and this is a constant problem
armies face, is they couldn't do tactically what the third
generation operational plan required. They failed at the tactical level.
The result has been second generation war. I'm to the
point where a lot of books like the Western Front
of World War One and not Late World War One
where the Germans have become a third generation force. This
is the Psalm and you pray on Passendale all over again.
On a smaller scale. Of course, so the generational breaks
don't occur. History doesn't work that way. But what we're
seeing is that for both sides, this reversion to state
versus state warfare carried out in a second generation manner
has been catastrophic. Both sides entered this war with a
very serious demographic home that they're now making vastly worse
because of all the young Russians and Ukrainians who are
being killed. This is a disaster for all of Christendom. Remember,
Russia holds Christendom's whole flank, stretching all the way from
the black seed of a lot of US stock. If
that flank collapses inward, that is a catastrophe for what's
left of Christendom at this point, of which Russia is
very much a part. So fortunately, President Trump realizes that
this war, even though we're not in it, thank God
yet about directly needs to be brought to a conclusion
quickly because the demographic effects on both Russia and Ukraine,
both of which are strategically important to the United States,
needs to stop. In the end, what you're going to
have in the Ukraine Russian war is both sides will
have lost because of the casualties among an absolutely critical
mass in their population, critical for reproduction. And that's all
these young men. It's like Paris after World War One.
There were no young men on the streets. They were
all dead.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm sorry to cut you off, sir, you're having point.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 3: I just one of the things thats when I do
when I teach, especially officers, one of the things I
try to emphasize is how bad the attrition the long
term effects of the attrition in the First World War.
With the weirdest example I can think of is in
France there were sports that became extinct because the sector
of society that played them had all been wiped out.
And it's like, how many people have to die forever
for a culture to forget how to play a sport.
Speaker 2: Well, the British Empire died on the Mother Flanders. It
was forty percent of the graduates Oxford graduates of class
of nineteen thirteen were killed. And of course at the
moral level, the most powerful level after World War One,
because when all this blood lending was over, nobody could
tell you what the war had been fought for. That
no one in the West, in the elites, could believe
in themselves anymore because they brought about this utter catastrophe
for no particular reason. And that moral collapsed is ultimately
what brought the Western domination of the rest of the
world to an end. I mean, Churchill said, I did
not become Prime Minister to preside over the dissolution of
the British Empire, but that's exactly what he did, and
he did it because he was a holler for war
in nineteen fourteen. I'm not a fan of Winston Churchill,
and so yes when we see power part of the planet,
Christendom destroying itself in the Civil War, World War One
and World War Two were civil wars within Christendom, and idiotically,
after the fall of communism in Russia, we have recreated
a new Cold War between Eastern Christendom and Western Christian
and most idiotic strategic one of the West has made
since nineteen forty five, all done to keep the money
flowing into the usual troughs in Washington. This needs to
be brought to a quick end. And again, unfortunately President
Trump realizes this. It is exactly like World War One.
It is a demographic catastrophe with very long term, very
negative effects. Now Palestine's a much more interesting situation, and
here you have seen several non state entities pitted against
a state, Israel. And what we've seen play out is
the usual. When this happens, the state wins at the
physical level and defeats itself at the moral level. Physically,
Israel has inflicted enormous damage on the Gaza Strip, forty
six thousand, mostly women and kids killed. They Arabs don't
have a demographic problem. They can absorb those losses relativelyzy
because they have tons of kids. Israel has found no
matter what it does tactically, it cannot achieve its war
aims of destroying Hamas militarily and politically. The chief spokesman
before the IDEF came out publicly a few months ago
and said, I mean, this was extraordinary, and said, we
cannot do anything to attain these objectives. The objectives Netanyahu
said are unattainable. In the case of Hazbolah. Bolah turned
out to me and this was a big surprise for
me to have been completely penetrated by Israel. This was
not true of Hamas obviously, or they wouldn't have been
surprised on October seventh. But Hamas was totally penetrated and
it was defeated to the point where it had to
ask for a cease fire, although it was still very
capable of defending on the ground. The Israeli casual Israel
didn't go far in the Lebanon and it suffered pretty
severe casualties by its standards in doing so.
Speaker 1: I go ahead.
Speaker 3: I was just going to comment that has blawed despite
the fact they've had so many losses at their operation
strategic level of leadership. Their junior level leaders have done
surprisingly well and been surprisingly resilient on the battlefield, which
is the total opposite of what I would have expected
from an Arab army, Sir.
Speaker 2: That's because it's not an air of state army, and
this is a non state Arab entity where the peopeople
fighting have much more are much more devoted to what
they're fighting for. That are Arab state armies, and they
are also these are combat experience troops from the fighting
in Syria. So yes, Israel is not eager to go
deeper into Lebanon. It was a ceasefire that most sides
were wanted at this point. The really interesting development here, however,
is what's happening in Syria where a non state entity,
a Sunni group I forget the initials right now, HTF
or something like that, that started off as a branch
of al Qaida and then repudiated both al Qaeda and ISIS,
with backing from a state Turkey that remembers the Ottoman
Empire all too well, has just taken the important parts
of Syria in a lightning campaign and put an end
to the Assad government. Now this is a disaster for
HESBLA on the strategic level, much more so than anything
they suffered at the hands of the Israelis, because this
puts an end of their supply line from your own.
But something very interesting is happening here and other countries
are grasping at this, while Israel's doing its best, of
course to stop it. A fourth generation entity that has
succeeded instead of creating another caliphate where where the Moslems
themselves were under it suffered tremendously like the way Isis
Is did. They are saying, We're just going to become
a normal political party in a normal state. That is
our objective, with toleration for other religions, with the Islamic
notions of women's role. But they won't be the women
won't have to wear black bags every time they go
out of the house and be with a male relative
or they're raped. And this is something that in the
contest between states and non state entities, every state should
be supporting every way it can. We should be immediately
lifting all of the sanctions on this new Syrian government.
Other states are moving to do this, including both France
and Germany, and including Saudi Arabia. And the Gulf States.
We should be pouring aid into support this because the
guy I can't remember his name, the guy who is
heading this operation, needs to be successful. Needs from the
standpoint of our interests, the interest in maintaining the state system,
to be successful. We need to show not just say that, look,
excuse me, a fourth generation entity that becomes a wants
to become a normal state, and a political party within
that state will support that, whether you're a democracy or not.
Speaker 4: By the way, the Israelis are bombing the new Syrian
government because Natagnahu, who has always put his own career
ahead of the interest of.
Speaker 2: His country, needs wars in order to stay in power,
and that's all he cares about. He's been forced into
this sea spire with Hamas because Donald Trump is coming
in and Donald Trump wants to bring these wars, both
in Ukraine and in the Middle East to an end.
But natagna who therefore wants to make sure the city
situation in Syria does not stabilize and that Syria does
not become an example of a fourth generation entity becoming
a normal state because he needs more wars to be
in power. He wants to turn Israel into a garrison
state that is permanently at war, and that of course
totally destroys Israel at the moral level, as his tactics
in Gaza have totally destroyed Israel at the moral level. Now,
Boyd's point was, in his three levels of war, physical, mental, moral,
the physical is the weakest, the moral is the strongest.
And here's why states normally lose fourth generation wars, because
what they do to win at the tactical physical level
destroys them at the moral and strategic levels. That's exactly
what Israel has done in Gaza. Like all the earlier
crusader states, Israel only survives so long as it receives
massive outside support, and it is just alienated all of
that support tremendously. And Netta Yaku doesn't care because he's
stayed Prime Minister and thereby stayed out of jail. That's
all the matters to him. Who is that for Israel?
Speaker 3: To what degree do you think that's a product of having,
in case of Netanyahu's, somebody who's fairly old by the
standards of a head of government, as opposed to somebody
historically we'd have somebody at least twenty years younger, just
because it just it's like Happa's argument about kings that
they're always concerned with the long term, multi generational effect.
But again, was it He's almost seventy, Nen Yahoo's almost seventy,
so it's not like he's going to care about what
happens twenty thirty years from now.
Speaker 1: Well, and he also doesn't have his son, his son
is homosexual and not having kids. I mean, he really
has no legacy. It almost appears as if what he's
doing now he considers to be his legacy going forward.
Speaker 2: Well as a monarcha's of course, I'm happy to agree
that monarchies have a much longer range view and a
republic nobody has much of a long greatge view because
their time in office is limited and their children are
not likely to succeed them. The situation, however, isn't really
just one of age. It is one of the fundamental
dividing points among people at the moral level. And this
is something Joan Boyd talked about a lot. It is
between people who want to do something and people who
want to be something, and you have both at all ages.
There are plenty of young politicians, both in Tel Aviv
and in Washington who will do anything to become a
big cheese surrounded by by bowing minions, guaranteed millions of
dollars once he leaves office, all of the rest of it.
And at the same time, you have people of all
ages who actually want to do something, and some of
them at least want to do things that would be
helpful rather than harmful. I think we've just elected a
president in the United States who's no spring chicking, who
wants to do something, not simply be something, and who
simply wanted to be something. Now staying out of jail
jail is an additional incentive to that. But all his
life he's been someone who just wants to be something,
and he has sacrificed his country over and over to
that end.
Speaker 5: You have anything more, John, I just wanted to before
we move on from the issue of Syria, and again
you said that we need to go or recommend the
United States go and support the current head.
Speaker 3: Of the ISIS affiliate, former ISIS affiliate that is now
the government. And again I'm not accusing you of supporting
the overthrow of the Syrian state, but is it fair
to say that the state being overthrown, which you probably
wouldn't have supported that. You think we have to go
and support it just because the reality of preventing the
antarchic chaotic collapse of this region, or am I probably
putting too much?
Speaker 2: Okay, No, that's exactly right. In other words, the I
was hall in favor of supporting a sad state until
it collapsed, because the name of the game in the
contest between order and disorder is trying to maintain states.
We've done an excellent job of destroying states Iraq, Libya, Syria,
but we find we can't recreate them. Well, here again,
almost miraculously, you have a fourth generation entity that says
our object is to recreate a normal state and be
a political party in that state. Again, whether it's democracy
or autocracy doesn't matter. And so now if we are
going to act in defense of the state system, that
means we should be backing this group that's trying to
transform itself with everything we've got, and that starts with
telling the Israelis in no uncertain terms stop bombing Syria.
They're trying to destroy all of the equipment of the
old Syrian military, but the new Syrian state is going
to need some of that equipment anyway, because it's got
a fight coming up with Isis. So the problem is
getting anybody in Washington to think in terms of what's
going to be the great conflict of the twenty first century.
The state it's going to be ordered versus disorder, the
state versus stateless disorder. That's the divinic lune. And of course,
if you're a member of the blob, the Washington foreign
policy establishment, you don't dear even hint at that, because
you'll instantly cease to be a member of the blog.
You have to live in this Wilsonian Volkunkukusheim, a cloud
cuckoo land where everything is democracy and jacobinical definitions of
human rights and so forth. This bears no relationship to
reality whatsoever. Fortunately, our new president, who takes office on Monday,
is a realist. So again, I, unusually for a conservative,
I have some hope.
Speaker 1: How does Trump's history of his true sympathy is to
Israel as a state. How do you think that plays
into this? If the state of his reel wants to
continue to be the anachronistic kind of entity that it
is for a for a twenty first century state.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm a supporter of Israel too, I've been Israel,
fascinating country. I have Israeli friends, obviously, Martin ben Krefeld
and his wife. The problem isn't Israel, the problem is
net in Yahoo. And Trump recognizes this. I didn't see
the exact quote, but apparently he went public fairly recently
with a blast netsa Yahoo. And Trump's pretty smart in
these kinds of things, and I think he judges in
Yahoo very well, and he realizes that being pro Israel
at this point means being anti Netanyahu.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 3: Well, if guy John I was going to say, it's
an interesting case there right now, the fact that Trump
being a New York real estate guy who spent his
entire career dealing with the mafia, it's probably better prepared
him for foreign policy than everything that exists to train
somebody to be a foreign policy professional of the last.
Speaker 2: Yeah, certainly better better than being at the Fletcher School
or the Kennedy School or one of these other places
that turn out new members of the blob.
Speaker 1: Ironically, what happens if they get Ntyahu out of there?
He goes to jail, whatever whatever his future is. And
you Ben Gavier is the loudest voice there talking about
basically it almost sounds like he wants to He would
split LACOUD or seek to kick kick the net Yahoo
faction out of LACUD. What if they just keep this,
they get the hostages back, and they just continue to
do what they do they're they're doing at Gaza. I mean,
how does that play into I mean, if you want
Syria right there to be a to become a state,
and to become stable, how does this continued instability to
its south help it all?
Speaker 2: Again? I don't think Trump is going to let that happen,
because the United States can turn off the speckett to
Israel anytime it wants to. Now, it should have done
that as soon as it saw what Israel was going
to do in Gaza, not just for our interest but
for the long term interests of Israel. We should have
prevented Israel from destroying itself at the moral level, which
it's done. But the Biden administration, all they would do
is oh please, oh please. It was the usual pathetic
mewing of the blog. Trump's not that kind of guy.
He will tell Israel not a dime, not a bullet,
not a shell, not a bomb, not a spare part
for an American built aircraft until you do what we
want you to. Now, I think within Israel, the moral
defeat that Israel has suffered in this war extends to
Israeli internal politics as well. That's something people often overlook.
John Boyd's moral level of war plays domestically as well
as on the international seat. So you now have a
morally unsustainable situation in Israeli politics where you have two
parties largely backed well three, including that could largely backed
by the ultra Orthodox, advocating and demanding that Israel again
turn itself into a garrison state involved in permanent war,
while the ultra Orthodox themselves do not serve in the army.
And until I went to Israel, I didn't realize how
bitter the political divisions are within Israel. And they've gotten
a whole lot more bidd since I was there, which
was some years ago.
Speaker 3: I was just gonna say, sir, because I've casually watched
translated Israeli media and even the extremely right wing what
we call extremely right wing, relatively secular, even though they're
religious Orthodox Jewish mainstream conservatives, they're vitriol towards Heretum who
dodged the draft. And even when they created a separate
battalion just Soreadi soldiers could were servants segregated manners, so
they didn't have to deal with issues that violated their religion.
And they still refused that. There's just so much vitriol
within Israeli culture. So despite the fact they need the
Heredi in order to maintain the electoral majority, there is
just so much tension there within greater Israeli society.
Speaker 2: Right that tension can rip his reel part. I think
when Sinewar, who the leader of Hamas in Gaza, who
was killed not long ago, said we have Israel right
where we want it, where we want it, he understood
the way the Israel's approach to Gaza has ripped Israel
apart internally. And again, this is a morally unsustainable situation
where you have a war hawk party, whether it's not NAPO,
somebody else coming from the Could, who stays in power
only with the votes of the ultra Orthodox, who won't
serve in the army. So in effect, secular Israelis are
saying to the ultra Orthodox, you vote for war, but
send my kids to fight it, not your own. That
is not morally sustainable. And this is going to play
out in very interesting ways within Israel. This is why
I say that to be pro Israel at this point,
and I count myself as pro Israel, you have to
be anti the war party, whether that's Natanyafu or if
he's tossed in the clink, someone else who follows the
same policies, probably again coming out of liquid, this is
simply going to rip Israel part. It's already ripping Israel
a part internally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's just going to comment from a
viewer's perspective. It's become such a huge issue that even
the cases where they've had draft process by heretum that
have become near riots. One of the issues that's been
brought up is Magov. The militarized border police are frequently
the guys sent there to break them up as opposed
to regular idea of soldiers, which to an American doesn't
mean anything, but the point's been made out that a
large part of Magov those soldiers are actually ethnic minorities.
So there Israeli Arabs and Jerus and whatnot, So.
Speaker 2: It totally drew.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's become an issue that what's essentially the
Israeli portant legion is now cracking the heads of ultra
Orthodox Jews. So on every level this becomes a greater problem.
That just seems to become a greater problem over.
Speaker 2: Time, sir. Yes, Well, when I was in Israel, which
was again quite some years ago, it was already to
the point where one secular was RAELI said to me,
of the ultra Orthodox, we should put them in the
kind of camp where they only come out to smokestat.
So you can imagine what the level of division is now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in that note too, I would say Israeli political
media is how nasty it is the average American of
any political stripe would't understand that. The was it the
seventy three election when Monoca Megan became Prime Minister. The
lead up election to that, just the slogans thrown around
from both sides read like more anti Submitic than anything
from mine. Comp It's hard for the average American just
to understand how nasty their elections can become.
Speaker 2: Again, I didn't realize this either till I went to Israel.
But yes, in a recent election, one party did have
to withdraw an ad after it was generally recognized as
being anti Semitic. So it does get it reaches a
point where it's almost funny, but it's very serious in Israel.
Speaker 3: The other comment I was going to make, as Pete
had talked about what this could do to the electoral
coalitions number one, which has been an ongoing problem because
Kud proper does not usually have the electoral mandate, so
they need associated parties. But even within Lukud internally, Americans
make the mistake of thinking that this is the party
that was founded day one of the creation Israel, and
it's not. It was the merger of the Liberal Party
essentially market Liberals, Libertarians and Herut, which were the revision
as Zionists and other parties. So it wasn't until was
it eighty three eighty eight that it actually became a
unified party in my lifetime. And it's nothing says it
has to exist forever, which is as Americans, we tend
to assume that a two party system is going to
exist forever, and that's not the case with Israel.
Speaker 2: Well, Israel is not a two party system at all.
It requires coalitions, and that's true of most democracies around
the world. The two party system is an exception. Yeah,
Americas tend not to understand that. It's very interesting that
if I look at the current coming election in February
in Germany, because the polls show the CDUCS as expected
to be in the lead, which is the establishment Conservative
Party which isn't really very conservative. The real Conservative partytivea
fe Deutschland AfD is pulling second. Because it's a multi
party system, it's very unlikely CDUCSU will be able to
have a majority itself. It will have to go into
coalition with someone, but the question is who. Traditionally it
would be the pre Democrat or the pro business par Party,
but they essentially soiled themselves by going into coalition with
the Socialists and the Greens. I'm not sure they're even
going to meet the five percent threshold for the Bundestop
because they essentially and they lost a lot of their
own base by going into that left wing coalition. So
after the election, will the CDUCS you find that the
only viable coalition partner is a FD. Now they're saying
they'll never go into coalition with AfD, but politicians like power,
and when suddenly power is at stake, it's amazing how
a new flexibility can arise on these matters. This is
already happening at the state level in Saxony between CDU
and AfD. They could also go the round of the
Sweden Democrats, where you have a conservative establishment conservative government
in Sweden, but it's a minority government and it depends
on the votes of the Sweden Democrats, the real conservative
party in Sweden, to stay in power. So the Sweden
Democrats technically aren't in the government, but the conservative government
has adopted their policies. Those are Sweden Democrats have fine, again,
you want to be something or do something. These real
conservative parties want to do something, not just be something.
So they've said, fine, as long as you're adopting and
putting into effect the policies we advocate. We don't have
to have seats in the cabinet and in the meantime
you'll have our votes, but you only stay in office
so long as you do have our support.
Speaker 3: That's very interesting, and again, the average American has no
idea how a parliamentary system works, so we don't generally
think of coalition says, you know something they have to
happen in politics.
Speaker 2: One of the I've done a little writing of late
for a German Conservative magazine. One of the things I've
learned is, and this is very encouraging to me, is
that the highest support for monarchy, the return of the
monarchy of Germany, is between voters aged eighteen to thirty.
Young Germans are beginning to realize that they have been
lied to about Germany's history. They've been told that everything
is just leading up to the third Right, Maloney, the
second right, the Kaiserich eighteen seventy one, nineteen eighteen what
Germany was a normal country and a good country. It
had freedom of speech, frequent press, It had regular elections.
The government was responsible to the Kaiser, nor parliament bought
it still had to be able to get its budget
through parliament. So to facto it was responsible to parliament.
And young Germans are beginning to realize, no, we're the
real victims in World War One. The Kaiser did not
want war in nineteen fourteen desperately tried to prevent it.
I have seen the actual last telegram in English and
to Deassar Nicholas the second from Baham the second. Trying
desperately to avoid war, the Kaiser ordered his Foreign office
to telegraph Vienna and say take Belgrade and then stop
and his Foreign office never sent the telegrince. So there's
a rediscovery among Germans that the German past is very admirable,
at least up till nineteen eighteen, and there is growing
interest in recovering this. There's also growing interest in the
various little countries that paide up the Austrian Empire. In
the House of Hobsburg. Two Hobsburg archdukes are currently ambassadors
from Hungary, one to the Vatican, and the Hobsburgs take
the long view. This again, this is how a real
monarchy works. A mere hundred years doesn't necessarily a matter
a great deal to them. They're still there, and virtually
all the people are tough to young people in these countries.
Virtually all the people in these countries realized the golden
age was when they were part of the Austro Hungarian Empire,
and a lot of the young people are saying, can't
we get that back. So some very interesting developments are
taking place that Americans are completely unaware of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was going to say. One of the interesting
aspect of the old especially the Imperial States, is especially
German speaking, is they had a huge amount of federalism,
even if they didn't call that where local authorities had
a huge domain in which they were through whatever means ruled,
and that the so long as they paid fealty to
the higher authorities. Very often the emperors were more than
happy to stay OUTI their way.
Speaker 2: Well, the German Empire was very loosely federal. Left there
were still four separate armies Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony and balten Grigenberg.
They all adopted the Prussian model, but they were I
have one of the spiked helmets, but as Bavarian as
the Presto Bavaria on it, not the Prussian Eagle. Those
countries still kept ambassadors in Berlin to in effect the
government that they were also part of, so it was
a very loose federation. In Austin, arch Duke Bronx Britann
wanted to go from the double monarchy to a triple
monarchy where the Slavs, all the Slavs, North, South Slavs
and South slav would have gotten their own parliament, their
own not independence, but they're an autonomy within the empire.
And the nationalist leaders in places like Bohemia and Moravia
which are now part of of czecho that Slovakia is independent.
All of those were saying, we don't want to get
rid of the Empire. We'd be this little tiny state
that would be dominated by either Russia or Germany, who
was ever stronger at the moment, which is exactly what's happened.
We need the Empire and they just wanted more autonomy
for the Slavs within it. And that's exactly what arch
Duke Bronx Burdenand intended to do when he became Kaiser.
And I have a picture on the wall at home
that a friend of mine took in the esacially Spenzam
in Vienna. If you ever go there the Army Story Museum,
make sure you go because there's a room there where
you see the car in which the architect was assassinated
on the bloodstained uniform, and the caption on the picture
is the day the world ended, because that's what happened.
Speaker 3: The question is German I'm in favor of whatever restores
pulch Deutsch hegemony over the convent.
Speaker 2: Well, again, this wasn't exactly hegemony, certainly within the Austrian Empire.
It was moving, in a fact way from German hageoity
toward a more loosely structured federal empire, and I think
that's exactly what it needed to do to survive. But
that June twenty eighth, nineteen fourteen, in Sarajevo, it was
the end of the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was joking, Sir h Okay.
Speaker 2: Never can tell with some people, but there's no question
that the people in Central Europe, particularly the young people,
know that things were once a lot better, and there's
growing interest in bringing back what made it better, and
that includes the houses of Howan's Honor and Hotspin.
Speaker 3: I think the failure of the EU to live up
to its promises probably had a lot to do with that.
Speaker 2: Sir well nol Ferguson, who the very well known historian,
has written as I have written, that if Germany had
won the First World War, the world would probably have
had a much better twentieth century because what she would
have gotten. And the Kaiser didn't want war, but once
he was forced into it, his war aim was the
creation of a united Europe. Would have been under German
leadership as it is today because Germany's the dominant economy.
He said over and over, and he insisted Germany back
down and crises over and over said that Germany is
faded to dominate Europe economically. The only thing that can
derail at his rule. And he was known derisively in
Germany in some circles as the peace Kaiser because in
crisis after crisis he insisted Germany back down to preserve peace.
You would have had a twentieth century without either Hitler
or Lenin or Stalin ah, and you would have had
a united Europe earlier under German leadership. As as I say,
is it inevitably is going to be under German leadership,
and in fact the leadership of the hand of it
right now is German. So nineteen fourteen was a catastrophe
that continues to enroll.
Speaker 3: I very much agree with that, sir. And again, Pete,
tell me when I'm taking too much control of the conversation.
I didn't longer you had, sir. But I've got one
or two more.
Speaker 2: RELI questions that wrap up at this point.
Speaker 3: Okay, sir, but go ahead real quick. I just wanted
to ask in terms of leader to development, because that's
a big thing that Boyd and the rest of the
military reformers talked about on the topic of training military leaders.
What would you say is the one essential thing that
the current military political management class does and understand and
or if you had to make one recommendation and how
you changed how military leaders were trained, what would it be, sir.
Speaker 2: The most essential church that change is to realize what
the German Army realized after World War One and what
General Hansbonzek embodied in the post war regulations, which is
that the modern battlefield requires a thinking soldier who takes
initiative at every level right down through the most junior
private in the German Army. Of course, the German develop
mission type orders, mission orders tactics before.
Speaker 4: World War One.
Speaker 2: This was in the nineteenth century, but it only extended
down through officers. The World War One battlefield made them
realize that, no, the battlefield's now so decentralized that you
have to have at every level soldiers who understand what
the command or several levels up as trying to achieve
in terms of the result he wants, and they take
initiative to get that result. They take the initiative is
more important than obedience. That is the number one train
change that's needed, and it's a change in institutional culture.
The second generation, first and second generation institutional culture, and
I talk about this in my latest book, The Newman
of War. For handbook is inward focused on rules, processes, procedures.
It wants imposed discipline, not self discipline. It is overall
it wants what the Germans called kadavagaholism kite the zombie
like obedience. The culture of a third generation, fourth generation
military is outward focused on this situation, the result, and
the result of the situation requires and getting that result.
It wants initiative over obedience. It depends on imposed on
self rather than imposed discipline, and decision making is very decentralized.
So this has to start in training, and it has
to start with the most junior soldier or marine. The
best work on this by far has been Don Vandergriff's
and his books on what the terms changed over the years.
Adaptive leader training is I think the best term for it,
and his books lay out very well exactly how to
do it. But until you make this transition in training,
you can have like the Marine Corps third generation doctrine,
but you will in terms of what you do, you
will remain a second generation military, as the Marine Corpt
today still gives.
Speaker 1: All right, John if you don't have anything else. I'm
going to wrap up here and thank mister Lynn for
joining us and ask, oh, of course, do you what
do you have to promote? You just mentioned your latest book,
which is a new maneuver warfare handbook that came out
April of last year or so. Is there anything else
you would like to promote?
Speaker 2: I would just say that the two other places I
write for are the American Conservative Magazine. I write for
the print magazine. They're only six a year, but I
write roughly every week or so for a website called
traditionalrite dot com, and I write on both political and
military topics. So if people are interested in what I'm
thinking on current events and so forth, those are good places.
Speaker 1: To find it. Well, John, I appreciate your input today
and your line of questioning that you brought to it,
and mister Lynn, we appreciate you and hopefully sometime in
the future you can come back on and well because
we have there's endless subjects to talk about.
Speaker 2: There is certainly no shortage of material these days, and
I think the transformations that I'm hoping for from the
Trump administration will nominly give us more material, and it
will give us something we haven't had in a very
long time, which is some developments that are optimistic in
what they pretend.
Speaker 1: Well, I will, I will keep in contact with here,
with your with the contact that got us together, and
maybe you can come on after the first hundred days
and we can talk about what we've seen.
Speaker 2: I will be happy to We will just hope those
hundred days don't end up Waterloo this time.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, sir, appreciate you.