Speaker 1: Everybody, Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm
here with Jonathan Hackett, Mick mulroy might be joined by
Andy Milburn.
Speaker 2: Fingers crossed per usual, a lot.
Speaker 1: Happening, dizzying as ever we left off yet last week,
Vance and Kushner and Wikoff were gonna meet in Switzerland
with the Iranian delegation to supposedly hammer out what comes
next during the sixty day ceasefire. Obviously that's not exactly happening.
Over the last week, there's been the Iranians hit a
couple of commercial ships with some drones. We knocked down
a drone out of the sky, and then we and
then we hit areas in southern Iran. Iran then shot
might I might begin the timeline wrong, but like Iran
shot drones and ballistic missiles like Kuwait and Bahrain. So
it very much doesn't seem like there's a ceasefire anymore.
Israel and Lebanon made a deal. I don't know if
hesbaal A is a exactly game for this deal doesn't
sound like it. So there's a lot to be, a
lot to be said. I mean, where are you guys
track and what are you guys looking at a hacket,
you can go first.
Speaker 3: Well, it seems that the strikes back and forth between
Iran and the United States are different than they were
obviously during the war, which was you know, kind of
an unrestrained military operation at that time, and now it's
more tit for tat, which is actually very similar to
what it looked like back in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty
around the custom Solo money strike. If people remember that
time period, there's a lot of escalation in November and
December leading up to that back and forth, increasing each time,
and we kind of see something very similar right now,
which is a little bit more choreographed in my opinion,
or at least telegraphed. These are not intended to cause
wide scale damage or destruction to either side. Instead, they're
a messaging opportunity for each side to demonstrate to the
other that there is resolve. And this is a key
component of deterrence, you know. Deterrence requires that the other
side believes that the threat is credible and the threat
needs to be public believe to know the threat exists,
and so we kind of see that playing out right now.
That's why these strikes are so small precise, specific on
very narrow targets, and not continuing after each one occurs.
So I think that's how the best way to probably
read that is a military extension or an operational extension
of the discussions going on in Switzerland to demonstrate both
sides to each other that they're serious in both directions,
serious about negotiating, but also serious about what happens if
negotiations fall apart, and they have to both feel that
they can keep up the reality that that's true on
both sides.
Speaker 1: Make you there, Yeah, go ahead, go ahead, yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: So I'll start with some positive So obviously there was
a signing of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon.
I'd agree that Hesba is the problem here, but it
on the positive front, it does specify the need to
disarm Hezbola and get Hezbola above the Tawny River, which
is required by UN resolution anyway, And I think it
does recognize that the key factor in this is also
already in proxy. Right, So although Iran is demanding the
stabilization of the Middle East, Iran is also the biggest
destabilizing factor in the Middle East. It's kind of like,
you know, starting the fire and then demanding it be
put out, and then somehow taking credit for at least
the parts of the fire that put out. But on
the positive side, I think that was a good thing,
and that's off the Secretary of Rubio for getting it
to where it is. The other positive I would say
is there does seem to be an attempt now led
by Sadcom to create an alternative path through the Strait
of Hormuse. It's obviously closer to go on that said,
so that they can mitigate against this unwillingness by Iron
to give up control of the strait, which they clearly
are not clearly and have no intention. However, I'm told
by people who I am both served in the US
Navy and are familiar with transitting there and in a
commercial capacity that it would only be available to use
for outflow. Don't know why that's the case. If there's
somebody that knows. I had to jump off the call
with them, so I didn't get the details of why
that's the case. But he said that that path out
is could get the five hundred plus ships that are stuck,
but it can't be used I think in mass for inflow.
If that's the case, it'd be interesting to hear exactly
why maybe I'll give my friend a lot to this
I get. But anyway, so that's somewhat positive. Negative is
it looks like to me that Aron has no interest
in even doing any part of the MoU except for
take money. So I don't know how much we've given
away already, but my advocacy would be stop, don't give
them any more money, don't allow them make any more money,
don't give them any more on frozen access, and stop
talking about three hundred billion, which seems I don't even
know why that was ever the case. They need to
preserve that capacity, that carot if you will, for an ironclad, verifiable,
more restrictive JCPOA period, because if we give all this upfront,
it's just basic negotiations, right, they're going to have little
to no incentive to enter another agreement. And everything they're
saying says they're not going to enter an agreement that's
more restrictive than the JCPOA they're saying, I mean, Poseskan
came out said we are never going to give.
Speaker 2: Up in Richmond.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm not going to give up in Richmond. You're
not going to get a more restrictive JCPOI, because it
was already pretty restricted, you know, in there. So I
would say stop any money going to them, potentially get
ready because we still have the assets in place to blockade.
Because they have not done anything anything that they were
supposed to do under this agreement, which was very little
open the straight same statuses for the war, they have
not done. So I think we're in solid footing to say, well, well,
then you're not getting into the benefits and until we
get through this nuclear discussions and we find out whether
you're legitimately genuinely negotiating or you're just stalling to the
end of this administration, which I think many people think
they're doing. You're not getting any financial incentive. In fact,
we're going to reimpose sanctions. We're going to put more sanctions,
and then I'm in with this, and i'd be true
to hear both your comments on this. There is a
lot more discussions when I am talking, particularly on foreign media,
of other countries being willing to join a coalition to
open force open the strait. I don't know if they
necessarily in the European countries specifically, I don't know if
they necessarily mean use ground forces, but willing to contribute
mind clearing, you know capabilities. Many countries like Germany for example,
have that capability. There's two standing groups in NATO for example,
but there's more of a willingness to go. Okay, didn't
agree with the war, wasn't asked about the war. But
the Strait is international and it affects my people as
much as it affects the Americans. I have to do something.
I'm speaking as if I was a leader of one
of these countries. So I think there is I think
there's a growing potential that other countries could become involved
because of the Strait. We'll have to see what that means.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Japan is actually a key you know,
non European partner in this because they have mind clearing capabilities,
and they also have operational experience not only in the
Straight Area but in the Red Sea, so from south
to north, all along the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula.
Their ships have sailed recently on counter piracy missions in
an integrated capacity with the not only the UK Maritime Organization,
but also the Combined Maritime Task Force, which is dozens
and dozens of countries working together. So I think Japan
would definitely be a key part of that, especially because
Japan is suffering from this conflict just like everyone else obviously,
but in particular because of the energy squeeze on Japan,
on their economy, So there is an incentive for them
to want to participate, not just you know, morally, but
economically as well. For the Japanese industrial capacity that's an
acute problem for them. But also going back to the
agreement that you're talking about, Mick, there's a fundamental flaw
in this agreement. No matter how brilliant this agreement comes,
even if let's say the ideal situation happens and it
suddenly flops, it flip flops over into this overwhelmingly positive
thing for the United States and overwhelmingly negative for Iran.
It's an executive agreement, not a treaty, and that means,
just like the JCPOA, the next president could come in,
crumple it up and throw it away, and you have
to put yourself in the mind of the other side
of the table. They know that, so they're worried about
you know, even if this deal turns out and they
get the three hundred billion, everything's great for Iran. That
could all go away and get pulled away immediately. So
if you're thinking like that pragmatically, you'd have to be
setting up some kind of background structures to protect yourself
in the case that your negotiating counterpart pulls the rug
out from under you. And that goes exactly to what
Possession's talking about with the enrichment. It would be unwise
for them to stop enrichment even with this agreement, But
it'd be even more unwise knowing that the agreement itself
is on flimsy ground and will likely be changed in
the next presidency. Even if a Republican comes in, it
will still likely be changed because the current agreement is
not popular with some of the Republican party. So it's
possible that.
Speaker 4: No matter who the Secretary of Rubio right exactly doesn't
look yeah, so no matter who comes in is yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: No matter who comes in, it's going to get shaken
up and changed in a negative way, probably to Iran
and so in they're thinking about that. They're saying, what
structures can we set up behind the scenes so that
if and when this does happen, we're ready to survive again,
to continue surviving. They're not stupid. We've seen this. They've
demonstrated forethought, significant forethought over decades. Again we mentioned this
last episode. Some of the guys sitting at that table,
like Aragchi themselves, have sat at the table with Americans
in the last twenty years every single time. So these
are experienced negotiators. They've felt what it feels like when
the US decides to renag on a major agreement. They
won't allow themselves to be left out in the cold ever,
and I don't think they ever have. They've always been
preparing to be betrayed by the by the other side.
I mean, it's in their ideology that you can't trust
the West, you can't trust Israel and all this like
that's built into their ideology. So even if the agreement
was pure, and they still wouldn't believe it. So you
have to expect that they're setting things up in the background,
and we, as pragmatic thinkers in the US government, especially
on the intel side, have to be thinking about what
things are just in case this agreement doesn't happen. And
a lot of those things look like surrogate forces, special
ways of using the economy to continue having access to cash,
the ability to keep the shadow Fleet going because right
now we've removed a lot of the restrictions on their
ability to ship oil, So we're allowing them to make
money off of the oil that we have said was
the terrible thing for them to do, and we're letting
them do that now. Well, they're not going to just
stop using their shadow fleet. They're going to continue using
the shadow Fleet and use regular commercial fleets. It would
not make sense for them to suddenly just pull the
plug on this elaborate system of clandestine shipping and receiving
and financial assets that they've spent blood on and treasure on.
They're not giving that up, and it would be very
naive of us on the side of the negotiating table
to think that that's true. And so there has to
be something on the west side, not just the United States,
but also European partners and as you mentioned, any you know,
international partners like Japan or South Korea coming together to
ensure that even if this agreement gets crumpled up, there
are structures on our side in place. They're going to
help preserve our position there too, because that energy value
is not going away anytime soon, even if we completely
change to electric vehicles. You still require petroleum to make plastics.
A lot of the crude oil that China was using
was not for energy, it was for producing plastics like
things you buy on Amazon. That's what that crew oil
is for. And until we find a solution to replace that,
we're kind of still dependent on that Straight until we
change otherwise.
Speaker 4: So on that point, Jonathan, I think there is a
provision in the MoU I recall where the agreement would
be also validated with the UN Security accounts. So I
think they are concerned about the very issue that you
brought up, which is obviously the case because we tore
it up in twenty eighteen or threw it away the
other thing. And I don't know if this would work,
but if what if the UN passed a resolution specifically
calling for a coalition to open the Straight, and they
countries did contribute to a maritime coalition that simply went
went through the strait, collected all the five hundred plus
ships and left. I mean, would Iran obviously risky. And
I don't know that if this is just simply a hypothetical,
because I don't know that any countries would do it,
but say they wouldn't they're not attacking Iran, They're simply
going through an international waterway to ensure it's open so
they can get their oil that's going to go to
their country. Right, Would Iran attack where they you know,
it's coming down, it's coming down the Red Sea, it's
coming down, it's going into the Gulf of them on,
it's going getting closer to the straight Would Iran attack
a blue flagged international coalition of countries who aren't part
of the war that are simply going into the Persian
Gulf to collect and escort these ships out, and then
they just keep doing it, they keep bringing ships in
and out. Would Arom be willing to then turn its
military efforts against an international collige.
Speaker 3: I think the only way that would be successful is
if Pakistan was a key member of that fleet. And
another point is that the UN has only done I
believe thirteen missions like this, like UNISAM and Somalia, Manusma
and Mali for example, and the Operation unifil On in
northeast Israel, Lebanon, Syria region and und Off another force
as well. I believe there have been only thirteen since
nineteen forty six, So it takes a lot of political
will first of all, to even have it structured and
then for it to function, that's a whole separate issue.
In Mali in particular, which was the most recent one
that I participated in, it was a very challenging, to
say the least, operation to hold these forces together to
do something toward a shared outcome, because they kind of
don't put their individual state interests aside when they go
in there. So i'd i'd be interested to analyze that more.
But as I mentioned, with Pakistan, that's important because right
now Pakistan is really the only actor that has a
navy that can contribute, because Katar doesn't really, Bahrain doesn't
really Bahrain wouldn't pticipate anyway Katar might. But Pakistan needs
to contribute fleet forces and also put the impromatur of
an actual international force rather than a US backed force.
This is very important here, So that would need to occur.
But going again to the fundamental weakness of even this.
If this is a good idea, but look at UNSCR
seventeen oh one, which is the two thousand and six
ceasefire between Hesbola and Israel that was supposed to see
the withdrawal of Hesbola from the south. The Lebanese armed
forces were supposed to come in and replace them. Both
Israel and and Hesbola have violated different components of seventeen
oh one, and right now they're firing at each other.
I mean, this is what twenty years later, and that
UNSCR seventeen oh one is only a page long. It's
not complicated. So even if the UN did come together,
the Security Council did come together, that would be a
good show of unity, which also is something that we
do need these days. Maybe a UN General Assembly plus
Security Council joint resolution something like this would be helpful
to show unity. But in the end, beneath the political
will for it to actually be carried out, and it
seems that that will isn't there yet.
Speaker 1: Your mattress is one of those things you don't think
about until it's too late, until you're waking up with
aches and pains and realizing you've been sleeping on a
problem for years. Today's sponsor, ghost Bed is here to
change that, and with the summer coming, there's one more
thing worth thinking about. Sleeping hot. If you ever woken
up in the middle of the night overheated and uncomfortable,
you know how much of Rexish sleep. Most mattresses trap heat.
Ghost Bed is built specifically to prevent that. It's built different.
Baby go. I've had a ghost Bed mattress now for
probably like ten months. I love it. It's freaking awesome. I
have the cooling thing definitely and keeps it cool compared
to my old mattress.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy I have it, and I'm so happy
that they sponsor this show. Every mattress in the ghostped
lineup comes with cooling technology built right in, not an
upgrade you pay extra for. It's part of how every
mattress is designed, from their entry level comfort all the
way up to the LUs. I have the Lux by
the way, because I'm fancy, which features their most and
the Lux features their most advanced cooling system. And if
you're not sure which one is right for you, head
to go sped dot com slash team and take their
mattress quiz. A few questions and you get a personalized
mattress recommendation, fast free shipping, and one hundred and one
nights to try it out. If it's not the right fit,
you get your money back, simple easypsy baby. Right now,
you can take advantage of a mary pricing and Code
Team gets you an extra ten percent off when you
upgrade your sleep and go spread the makers of the
coolest beds in the world. Go get some I love
Go spread. That's gosped dot com slash team and use
the Code Team team for an extra ten percent off
side wide. Thank you guys for supporting the show, and
thanks ghost Better for supporting the show.
Speaker 2: Love you bye.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I don't think it's a magic bullet, but the
current situation isn't working. So if it's not working, it's
time for other ideas in my opinion. And if that's
even if the resolution itself set a message and then
there was an armada that went down there, I'd just
be interesting to see. Because they're already shooting at commercial ships, right,
so it can't get much worse than that. They're shooting
at unarmed civilians and somebody's gonna get I mean, we're
gonna have a mass cashally event here pretty soon.
Speaker 3: And these civilians are just these are mariners. These are
guys from the Philippines, you know, from to say shells. Yeah,
they're in a tough spot anyway, and they're stuck on
this giant vessel. If any of the listeners have ever
been on one of these huge container ships, it's very lonely.
There's like thirteen people on this giant, giant object at sea.
It's it's terrible. And imagine also living under the threat
that you might get bombed any day just for being
in the water and you have nothing to do with it.
You know, it's got to be tough for them.
Speaker 1: John, let me ask you. We've seen like oil prices
go down, so somewhere around seventy seventy five bucks. Is
that sowing up in like Japan, South Korea, like where
they're really affected, because I remember we were talking about
it there price per oil back when this was really
going hot, was you know, one hundred and sixty bucks
a barrel or something like that. Are they seeing relief
in terms of prices or is that just like the
market being the market and not really you know, showing
like what the reality is and like on the ground.
Speaker 3: Well, you have to remember that oil is a commodity,
so it's sold down futures, not on current value. So
what you're seeing is the future assumptions about the market
that these people purchasing these futures are making so they
think that for example, in sixty days or a year,
and it's actually the one year Brent crude benchmark you
should look at, like what what do people think will
be going on one year from now? And it's slightly higher,
I think than current futures of like normal oil futures
that everyone's looking at, which means people are not pricing
their risk out as much as we might feel like
they are. The other thing is that as summer goes through,
oil prices will decrease just because the blends for summer
crew change and we're kind of coming up on that period.
Another very important economic component to match up to these
futures pricing is we're about to end a quarter fiscal quarter,
we're about to enter the summertime, and we're about to
see some huge earnings on tech get released and there
was just massive sell offs on tech the past month
and a half that look like kind of a downward
trend there. Those things are all going to conspire together
because these things are all backed by energy requirements. So
if risk comes up anywhere, that energy area, the tech,
the chips, the AI area, which is massive component of
the market right now, is going to react in a
way that's higher than should be. In other words, they're
more risk sensitive currently because there are more difficult to
measure factors that are affecting these prices. And I think
there's a lot of hope right now with p They
think that we might be on the way to something.
But remember only in the first week and a half
of a sixty day negotiating window, and as we get
closer to that midpoint and toward the end point, especially
toward August, people will begin to notice more of a
reality in front of them rather than a dream. So
if the negotiations don't appear to be improving, well, I
think you'll see oil futures go back up again, obviously
even before they're over, before the negotiations are over, because
the risk will find the correct balance point within the market.
That's more likely what's going to happen. But unless something
goes on like Mick mentioned with the securing of the
Straits with a maritime organization, I don't think the oil
will be able to recover to pre war levels soon
because the new risk that's in there, even if hostilities
go away completely and sustainably, the new problem is that
Iran is going to exact tolls on vessels. That could
be direct tolls as they've been advertising, or it could
be indirect through kind of off market exchanges between Iranian
activity and other country activity where there's this kind of
in kind requirement that if you want to pass the Straits,
you have to do something for us, but it's not
going to be on the balance sheet. So there might
be some of that going on as well, which has
to get priced into that oil price, you know, So
it's all getting stacked onto that one barrel of oil
costs more because there are more things affecting that barrel
as it passes through. So that's something to think about too.
There are these exogenous or outside factors that are not
energy related and not war related that are going to
be baked into that barrel estimate. You know.
Speaker 4: There's another thing that came up this week that I've
gotten pinged a lot about that isn't talked about as
much as say the Strait itself or you know what's
going on Elebanon is there's a component of the agreement
that says the US is going to pull their military,
our military from the proximity of Iran. Well, my friends
that are in the proximity of Iran include our friends,
I should say the UAE, Guitar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jaddi, Rabi.
Even I suppose that's a big win for Ran, it's
a big loss for those countries. At the same time,
apparently we're asking those countries to pay to reconstruct the
very country that attack them, and then we're going to leave.
So if we go with a letter of the MoU itself,
I don't know what else will be the proximity of
or on. Maybe I'm misreading it, but I think most
people would say these countries are right across the strait, right,
u A's right there, so and then Qatar's right there,
So that's got to be the proximity. Are we really
planning to do that? And if we are, why, because
that question.
Speaker 3: Turkey is a NATO ally and we have Injulick Base,
a US occupied NATO base that's on the like Turkeys
shares a border that it's actually Turkey's border with Iran
is the oldest border that exists in the world. That's
an interesting factoid that order is a NATO Iran border.
Are we are we thinking we're going to withdraw from Turkey?
I don't think so, and why would.
Speaker 4: We withdraw from these places because Iran wants us to
That's why we want to be there, you know. Literally,
if they're that concerned we should go, well, then we're
definitely not doing And let's remember when it comes to
us presence overseas. Yes, it does benefit the country, nothing
wrong with that, but it's for our own purposes. It
gives us the ability to project power around the world.
If we want to be the global uh you know,
power center of the world, we have to have that ability.
Not that we want to run around starting wars, but
we want to have the capacity to surge the places.
So these these are our ben to benefit us. Same
with in Europe. Right, it's not a charity case for Europe,
it's not a charity case for the Middle East. But
it seems that we've given away our ability to stay
the proximity of Iran, and there's nobody talking about except
for the countries that assume that's means them. So this
is gonna be if we get through a lot of
these more difficult things. Say, for example, Aron just gives
up their ability control straight. I don't think they're gonna
do it, but so they do, say peace breaks out
in Lebanon. Great, we still got plenty of big hurdles
to get through, and that's a big one. And so
is the three hundred billion, which I still can't imagine
any country is going to contribute two.
Speaker 1: Doesn't that just add to like the uh, the thinking
that are for some people My kind of myself included
that the MoU is kind of at least some of
the bits of it are kind of bullshit, like we're
now ever gonna fucking back out of like Kuwait or
any of our bases in there around the region ever,
Like that's never gonna happen, so like, and then like
you mentioned that three hundred billion dollar reconstruction fund, these
things sound like pie in the sky like nonsense. Frankly,
you know what I mean to be I mean, from
the layman at least watching this, I mean, you guys
are practitioners, you guys are experts. Like you tell me,
these things seem like tasks that are literally impossible. Are like,
are just our deal breakers from either side really, because
like you said, Iran is not going to give up
the straight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, think about it. When a country wins
a war, they don't negotiate the terms they dictate. Right,
when a country wins the war, they don't pay to
reconstruct the other country unless they have removed their adversary.
So you could say, oh, the Marshall Plan, Yeah, that's
because we took out Nazi Germany. Right, we weren't paying
Nazis to stay in place to reconstruct the country. You
see what I mean? Like, so this is not how
and I don't think the US has to do this.
My point is not to say we lost. It's like,
we don't have an obligation to do any of this stuff.
We don't have an obligation to reconstruct their country with
the regime still in place. That's simply going to make
sure the regime stays in place forever. Don't know why
we would do that.
Speaker 3: I think also it's a reflection of this very public
negotiation going on, where normally these kind of maximalist positions
would be the things that define the edges of what's
going to be discussed, that would happen privately in a
secret setting, could be in Switzerland like it was in
twenty fifteen, and before twenty fifteen. Leading up to that,
you know, there were days and days when John Kerrey
and Zari, the Foreign Minister of to Run at the time,
took walks together privately and discussed the terms, without notes,
without secretaries, without recording it. It was all private and
it was carefully quietly done so that they could just
speak together as representatives of their countries to their interests
without anyone noticing that, because I'm sure there were some
crazy terms in that discussion as well, but those crazy
terms kind of fall away into the background, and they're
the backdrop of what we're going to get to later.
And if you've studied, you like best alternative to a
negotiated outcome and zone of primary agreement and all these
concepts of negotiation. There's a big piece that one side
comes in with, another piece the other side comes in with,
and they don't all align together. It's not a then diagram. Instead,
there's this place in between where they're supposed to meet
at that shouldn't be public because once it's public, now
you're involving many other individuals, any other entities, who also
share opinions and beliefs, and then exert pressure on the negotiators,
which pulls away the power the negotiators are supposed to
have to clandestinely or secretly discuss the terms outside of
the public view. It's important for transparency. It's important that
we all understand like how this agreement gets reached, But
in the moment that that's happening, it's actually better to
have it quiet. Just like COVID operations. You don't need
to tell everyone what every COVID operation is. There are
transparency mechanisms built in to help make sure there is oversight,
but it shouldn't be just completely in the open all
the time, because that that takes away the power of
doing it that way. Just like negotiations between states.
Speaker 1: Also question for you guys, what happens to those negotiations
when people show up on Sunday in Switzerland just to
continue them and like get to the next step, and
the big boss of one country tweets out or true
socials out that he's gonna he's gonna wipe everybody out,
or you know, some.
Speaker 2: Extremely threat three.
Speaker 1: Of course, you know this is a hypoth it's a thought.
This is a thought exercise. It didn't actually happen last week.
What what do you think happens in that like whole
like the Iranians thinking, I mean, I know I've read
that the Iranians have like psychologists to try and understand
like how Trump thinks and how he operates and stuff
like that, which if you can find it as psychologists
that can figure that out, you know they should be
you know.
Speaker 2: You know, give them some kind of prize.
Speaker 1: But yeah, what happens to the dynamics of the negotiation when.
Speaker 2: Something like that happens.
Speaker 3: I think very little happens because we are seeing the
English language things that are said that Trump says, for example,
in Iranian media they do the exact same thing, They
say very similar things. And for example, after cost some
Solomoney was assassinated, there was a lot of this like
we will punch America in the nose that they would
say in Farsi, and like they were going to bloody
America and like a lot of these statements, and it
wasn't like low level people saying that it was the president,
it was the foreign minister, it was the IRGC commander.
And they're still doing it now and you'll see this
in Farsi. They're talking as if they've defeated the US,
they've torn the US down. If you look at the
imagery in Tehran where they had these regime sponsored graffiti artists.
If you see it like it looks like aircraft carriers destroyed,
just one that has like a rope tied around an
aircraft carrier, like pulling it in half. So they have
their own rhetoric in FARSI going on, but all we're
seeing is the English side. That doesn't mean we should
match their rhetoric. In fact, I don't think that's probably helpful.
But I'm just saying that it might in context. It
may not be as extreme as we measure, but it's
also not helpful.
Speaker 4: And I and I mean, it's not helpful. I agree
with Jonathan. I do think there's so much of it
now that it's kind of just become background noise. And
I say that because you know, when you say stuff
like I'm going to wipe out your civilization, that's that's
pretty you know, hyperbolic, But when you say that every Tuesday,
it becomes like right, So even when I'm on, you know,
I use this as examples because I tend to get
more feedback, so I'm usually on when I do the
foreign thing with Iranians. When they start saying, oh, President
Trump said that, even the host interrupts and says, look,
if we're going to talk about everything, President Trump says,
that's all we're going to talk about, like we're not.
We're not we're not even going to go into like
that was an appropriate stuff because it's it's it's just
going to happen again and again and again and again,
and therefore it's not even we never address these substance
of it from their perspective, right, you see what I mean,
Like the host doesn't even wan't talk about anymore because
then that's all we do on their program is talk
about that. So I think even the Iranians, they'll use
it to their benefit, right, but they take it too serious.
Well maybe, I mean, we did start our decapitation strikes
between Friday and Monday. We're supposed to be on Monday.
So but I think, you know, when it comes to
the rhetoric, even if it's unhelpful, and I'm sure the
Secretary of State would say it is if you could,
but I just don't think it's having that big of
an impact.
Speaker 2: I just don't think.
Speaker 4: We're gonna, you know, if you don't do this, we're gonna,
you know, start the war over and we're gonna blow
your country and do Bolivia. I just I just think
they just just right over it.
Speaker 1: Isn't that doesn't that kind of say something else about
like how fundamentally broken this reality is that we're living
in because like back in the day, not even back day,
like literally you know, last term or during Obama or Bush,
if a president made a statement like that or any
kind of statement that the president makes, carries used to
carry a ton of weight. And now it's just like,
oh yeah, that's like our crazy granddad, that's like out
of his mind. But it happens to be the leader
of the free world, the guy making the actually making
the decisions.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: Like, the fact is this shit went down because bbcme
for a PowerPoint and then five guys in the situation
room figured, let's bomb Ran. Let's and not just bomb Ran,
let's take out the top forty of the entire hierarchy. Hierarchy.
It's just see where everything lands afterwards, when the smoke settles,
you know, and here we are.
Speaker 2: So I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 4: There's the actual decision, and then there's a rhetoric. As
far as a rhetoric, I mean, if you're if somebody
was asking me, I go with Teddy Roosevelt right walks
offtly and carry a big stick. But obviously that's not
the current thought process of the administration and they're not
asking me, so it is what it is. But the
decision process I think would be greatly helped to your
point D by expanding it back to what it always
has been, which is a process. A National Security Council
is a process that has input from several different levels expertise, diplomacy, military, intelligence, economic.
I think we'd be helped by that rather than just
people who feel like they have to agree and are
very limited.
Speaker 3: It seems that the process is not working. I mean
we see that because this kind of whipsaw behavior with
foreign policy, where it seems like there's one thought that's executed,
it didn't work out well, they didn't like it, so
they stopped. They'll try something new, and there's a lot
of this kind of testing of policy in real time. Normally,
that testing of policy would happen in discussions in the NSC,
where someone bring that up and they'd wargame it, they'd
talk through it, and they'd find out like, oh, there's
a weakness here in that execution pathway. We need to
rethink how we're going to get there, and it wouldn't
happen in the real world normally, but it seems that
that is actually happening now where they're testing out policy
decisions by making them by doing them, which is obviously backwards.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just to give a short example of what Jonathan's
talking about. Okay, we decide to go to war, what's
likely to happen. The Strait's going to take close. The
intelligence community is going to say, yes, that's likely to happen,
So you have to go with that assumption. Okay, so
the strait is closed. What do we have to do
to open the straight If they won't open it, well,
we're gonna have to use ground forces. Are we willing
to do that? Yes?
Speaker 2: Or no?
Speaker 4: Now, okay, so then we're going to do a blockade.
What effect will the blockade have on the regime? How
long will it take to have the actual effect that
we want? Are we willing to wait that long? Will
we take the economic pressure? And if the answer is no,
right it. I know that's not you know, super sophisticated,
but ultimately that's what is discussed in the National Security Council.
Are we willing to take that pain? No? Well, then
we think the whole thing or you know, it's it's
that kind of scenario, the constituency plans, whether we're willing
to do it, what is that the enemy's most likely
course of action, most dangerous course of action. It's basic
military planning, to be honest. But they do it at
a at an inner agency level in the NSC, and
everybody weighs in because there's expertise for the like the
Energy Department, the Treasury Department. They have a lot of
input into things that you don't necessarily think of as
a military person. But then you're like, oh, and then
other things we can do to amp up pressure that
could have been an alternative to stress those kind of things.
And it's not like it's over, you know, as we
talk about every week, I want the US to come
out ahead, So it's not over. We still have a
chance to get a better nuclear agreement, which is good
for the world, but we're gonna have to probably do
We're going to have to do something different because it
doesn't seem to beheading in that direction. They seem to
be saying I'm not gonna bunch on anything. There's not
even real discussions about recovering the HU, which you know,
the Vice President said was in the MoU.
Speaker 3: Yeah. More likely we're gonna have to have an Adams
for Peace type, you know, Eisenhower outcome where they're allowed
to continue using what they have under very strict supervision
and guardrails and different agreements with various countries. China in
particular is very interested in small modular reactors SMRs that
they've been building in the Middle East and North Africa
and things, and I think that probably to get true
international buy in, you're going to need China or Russia
Rosatome for example, to come in with the US and
actually agree to monitor and work with the Iranian program.
That's probably the most realistic. It might not be ideal
or what we want, but to actually get it back
again under scrutiny, that's probably what's going to have to happen.
Speaker 4: Perfect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So a lot's gonna be happening. We're gonna keep
an eye on it, and obviously this is probably gonna
be the leadoff discussion again next week if I had
a bet. All right, moving on to Ukraine and Russia.
We've seen over the last you know, several weeks, Russia's
air defense is either severely depleted or they're moving them
around because they don't know where Ukraine's gonna hit next.
You've seen a lot of hits in Moscow, UH, super
far and super deep.
Speaker 2: UH.
Speaker 1: Crimea is getting pounded as well, So there's a lot
going on there. Over the last week as well. Our
last few days, the Russian delegation or you know, Putin
was in a closed door meeting with Lukashenko talking about
what I don't know. I mean, Lukashenko is being the
president of Belarus or the dictator Belarus. I don't know
if they're asking, they're trying to push him to join
the fight, get some Belarusian soldiers in on it. I
don't know, but it obviously seems like I don't know
if the tide's turning in Ukraine. But Russia does not
seem like this unstoppable force. They really haven't for four years.
But you know, to see Moscow get peppered like they did,
it's pretty incredible, frankly, and it's something we haven't seen before.
So you know, where you guys at on this? What
do you guys should like tracking?
Speaker 4: So to start with, and we shared this in our
group chat, the average life expectancy now for a Russian
recruit is three weeks from when they walk through they
stand on their version of the yellow footprints. You've been
to Paras Island, you know what I'm talking. They're dead.
It's literally minutes once they get into combat, right, So
the meat grinder is running out of meat. The meat
grinder is running out of meat. I think you're muted there, buddy,
I can't hear you.
Speaker 3: Can you hear them, jentlemen, I can't hear thee I
see his mouth moving.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll you're a little choppy mixed, so I have
my mic muted. Just repeat what you were saying from
when they first get in the average life span of
a new soldier in Russia.
Speaker 4: Yes, so there was a study, I think a well
sourced one that for when a soldier is taken from
his village in Russia and enters into training, he has
three weeks and he'll be dead three weeks. That's the average.
They have minutes. It's like twenty seven minutes is the
average soldier's life expectancy once they engage in combat. So
the meat grinders and running out of me even if
you don't care, which putin obviously doesn't care about the
next generation of Russian males. They're still going to run out,
They're just not going to be and that this is
at the same time when the capacity, not only the
actual capabilities of these really sophisticated drones are increasing, but
they're their quantity is also increasing substantially, like they're producing
more drones every day than they did the day before.
So think about it just running out at soldiers. But
at the same time, Ukraine is and you already mentioned it,
they're getting they're striking further into Russia, which is where
all of their significant logistical facilities are on purpose, right
because they didn't think they could be hit. There's a
state of emergency in Crimea for the same reasons, and
that's going to get more and more challenging, and quite frankly,
if they could take Karsk Bridge out for weeks at
a time, not just days, and potentially block the ground
corridor that the Russians have, that's going to seriously challenge
Russian's ability to stay in Crimea. So talk about a
shift right now that's going on. We're talking about Iran
all the time, and maybe it's a good thing because
it's just happening anyway. Ukraine is shifting the tide. I
don't want to overstate it and say, like, you know,
they're going to throw them out tomorrow. Probably not, but
the tide is shifting. So there's one of two things
can happen. It can keep shifting and then potentially, hopefully
Putin's deposed and cooler heads there step in or Putin
does a crazy ibant and goes, I don't know what
he can do, but he could seriously escalate start, you know,
using tactical nukes. I don't know. Hopefully that's not the case.
The West needs to be very specific now. We are
going to support Ukraine even more. And by the way,
the US is doing basically nothing. We're basically just a
lowing to buy some of our stuff. That's nothing, essentially,
but we could double down on it. We could increase
our support. Obviously there's support for that in Congress across
the Aisle. Double down and say Putin, the only way
out of this is immediate cease fire negotiations period. If not,
we're just going to increase our support and we're going
to increase the economic conquests to you. That's what we
should be doing. Now. If not, I think Putin's going
to probably go with the extreme option because he doesn't
he doesn't see another way out of it. I don't
know what that extreme option is, but it could drag
in other countries into war. That's why you're seeing countries
like Moldova's I think they're talking about joining. Help me out, John,
there's the country they're talking about. It's right, it's for
some reason, I can't remember the name of the country,
but it's the other countries in NATO, all right, So
that there's other things that are happening right now that
are prepping for this. It's either going to turn to
something that's what we want to see, like a negotiated
into this settlement, probably more in line with what General
Kellogg was proposing a long time ago, if you remember
a long time being a couple of years ago, or
or Putin's going to do a crazy eye than and
literally do something extreme and that could push this into
expanded war into the NATO country we don't want.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in particular Poland, if you've seen recently, there's a
little spat between Zelensky and Tusk, the Polish president, and
I'm curious if there's some Russian influence operation in there
to amplify that and make it worse, because I think
what Russia wants most is for less European countries to
support Ukraine. They already got their success with the US
supporting Ukraine less and I'm curious if that is kind
of a pocket that they're trying to exploit now because
they are running out of new options and so perhaps
they're trying to do more of dividing support so that
there's less for Ukraine to have. The problem is that
Ukraine now has the largest ground force in Europe. It's
a seasoned combat force, it has the ability to act autonomously.
There are needs for support, for sure, but the Ukraine
today is not the Ukraine four years ago, and so
it's kind of too late, i think, for Russia to
try to exert those influence operations, especially on Poland, is Stonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
which is kind of that area that they are targeting
because it's the near enemy for them, and those countries
are concerned about what Russia will do next. And even
a few months ago, before the tables had started turning,
those three countries, Latvia, Lithuania and Sotnia were very concerned
about being next, and I think Russia wanted them to
be next. But since things are changing, Putin has to
think about how can I still exploit that northern pocket,
probably through influence operations against Poland. And as you know
Polish history, Poland has routinely been invaded by the East
and West over time. It's very difficult for Poland to
retain its territorial integrity, mostly due to its terrain structure,
and so that's very hard for Poland, and Poland's acutely
aware of that, and so Russia's kind of probably pushing
that button a little bit domestically in Poland to create
some tension between those erstwhile allies between Ukraine and Poland,
one being a EU member and one not being a
EU member. So I think that's a place Putin's trying
to acutely influence. The problem is there's a lot to
focus on. As you mentioned, make crimea become a problem
that was originally an asset and it's now becoming a
weight that's pulling down attention southeast out of the combat
area that Putin wanted to have, and that's going to
be an interesting development. And as you mentioned, with the bridge,
that's infrastructure. That's a fixed target. So if you're creative,
you can find new ways to go after it. Even
if it becomes hardened or defended, well, there will be
ways to destroy it because it's a fixed target. So
that's going to be a challenge for them and a
very expensive challenge for them to defend, and it will
be a low cost relative low cost thing to attack
and destroy.
Speaker 4: Romania, that's the country I couldn't well, Dave Dovia, and
I think there's support from both sides, so from the
Muldavian opitation and the Romanian to join.
Speaker 3: Mouldiva is that Transnistria is one of those frozen conflict
zones that Russia invaded and occupied and still occupy as illegal.
And it's the same concern that Georgia has. If you
drive down to Belisi, there's all kinds that there's actually
a NATO office into Blisi because Georgia wants to join NATO,
and both Georgia and Moldava have this this Russian pocket
inside their territory that's occupied by Russian forces to this date.
Speaker 4: Because pocket, if they join, you think anything.
Speaker 3: So the problem is they cannot join until that's released. Right.
So the thing is that you have to have complete
territorial integrity to join NATO. Now this was a question
because Cyprus joined even though it's split in half by Turkey,
but that was kind of put to the side, crazy John. Yeah,
Otherwise that has been followed. That rule has been followed.
So countries have to have their territorial integrity, which is
a reason that that Russia wanted to keep Crimea OCCU
even if they lost all of Ukraine. They wanted to
keep Crimea because that would exclude Ukraine from joining NATO
and joining the EU if Russian forces occupied Crimea. So
similar with Moldiva, Multavah would have to shake that Russian
occupation or surrender that territory to Russia, which is not
going to happen. So there's there's those two options. Otherwise
they can't join.
Speaker 2: What do you guys?
Speaker 1: And the other thing we didn't mention that's been all
over like the internet and stuff is showing like all
the fuel shortages in Russia, you know, people fighting on
fuel lines and stuff like that, and like like, you know,
wasn't it John McCain who said, like they're a gas
station with nuclear weapons or whatever, like you know, Yeah,
so it's pretty incredible to see. They're also talks of palsy.
They're gonna have some closed door talks Monday, starting tomorrow
about stopping the export of diesel from Russia out I
guess to save it and ration it, which is fucking
incredible and insane to see. So you're seeing the Ukrainian
you know, they've been they've been targeting oil infrastructure for
months now, and uh, you're really seen it kind of
pay off, and I cannot believe. It's like people are
probably walking around like it's a fucking funeral in the
Kremlin or wherever Putin's bunker is, you know, like who's
gonna tell him the bad news and all, you know,
things to that nature. So you know, I would lock
my windows if I'm like a high up fucking Russian
official or something like that, because who knows if you're
gonna get tossed out of a window or not in
the next you know, coming months.
Speaker 2: It's it's a pretty wild scene. What's going on.
Speaker 4: That would be an indicator we start seeing a lot
of uh, senior people get killed, it's either the coup
was attempted or yeah, it probably means that to be
frank because he tried to get ahead of it by
taking him out. I mean, ultimately they can do it
right if you got the right people they could putin.
You know, he has the levers, but if the lever's
not working for him anymore, they could turn it against it,
and it's in their own country's interest and quite frankly,
it would be an absolute gift to this generation. That's
being Anihlid.
Speaker 1: Yeah in Ukraine too, right, anything else you guys want
to touch on before we move on about Ukraine and Russia?
Did I miss anything? I mean that's pretty much general
what I was saying.
Speaker 3: But okay, well, General Donahue got forced out of Europe,
most likely because of disagreements on either NATO policy or
Ukraine policy my opinion.
Speaker 2: That's why you think. Yeah, yeah, a.
Speaker 4: Big, big loss for the US military, well known, super respected,
and the special operations community, including inside the agencies. I mean,
the guy did everything. He was a true commander, swider commander,
the unit commander of the army component of Jaysak. He
you know, eighty second Airborne commanding General. I mean, the
guy was just see a great American selfless service and
the idea that he was just he was going to
be the next Army Chief of Staff, I think, and
I know people who would know, and they told me
he was going to be the next Army chief set
so big loss, big loss. I don't know how that
works now. I think he there's an issue of keeping
his four star because when he retires, this guy needs
to be able to and I know this is seems
forever but and he'll probably move on with his life.
I hope he comes back, and I don't know if
that's possible. But obviously the current acting or not acting,
the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was
retired before it he became the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, So maybe CD can do the same thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and for everybody else, like you know, who doesn't
know the insight in a working the Pentagon, who exactly
General Donahue is uh the famous picture of him walking
onto the either was c. Seventeen or whatever getting leaving Afghanistan,
So he was technically the last boots on the ground
from our twenty year adventure in Afghanistan. Yeah, it's pretty
incredible on a guy like that get gets pushed out
and frankly like John, if you if you're thinking that's
because of you know, strategy in Ukraine, I don't understand.
I don't see where the downside is of helping Ukraine. Okay,
if you don't want to give him one hundred billion
dollars a year, fine, but like more than what we're
doing right now, I'd understand where the friction is from.
I mean, I do understand obviously we all know why,
but I'm saying like it just doesn't make sense.
Speaker 4: At one point, since you brought it up, and rightfully,
I'd like to say for those that are blaming General Donahue,
I'm like the exod of Afghanistan. One, the military doesn't
make policy. Two, he was sent there after the decision
was made and it was actually he was already going down.
He made the best that he could of the situation
he was in period. So blaming him.
Speaker 5: For it is just, in my opinion, nonsense. Not that
many people are. Yeah, that is an issue. In my opinion,
it's not. He was simply ordered and he did the best.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if anyone's confused as to what I'm talking about
in terms of it's because this administration for some reason
or other cowtows to the Putin regime and does everything
it can to make it as easy as possible for
Putin to get what he wants or play Catum at
the very minimum, play Catom, and it's a fucking disgrace.
Let's be honest. Just I just want to make sure
there's nobody confused about how I feel. Yeah, all right, boys, Uh,
if there's anything else, this is great. We'll do the plugs.
Look at John's beautiful background too. You can grab his
two books, Theory of a Regular War and I ran
Shadow Weapons. So the reason why he did that is
for me to be able to plug it and remember
the titles of the books, which I appreciate.
Speaker 2: John, Thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Make the white Fish Security Summing happening in February of
twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 2: Check that out. That link is in the description.
Speaker 1: Uh mix got a great podcast called The Pub and
the Porch Applied Stoicism. All those links are in the description.
If you want to find these guys on LinkedIn or
Twitter or wherever else everything's there and help support the show,
go to Patreon dot com slash the teamhouse. Please you
get ad free episodes and early episodes like you'll get
this episode earlier than the than the regular people. So
we appreciate and we appreciate the continue support. Thank you guys, guys,
Happy Sunday, go get them punish the enemy. That's why
me and my friends say in our group chat in
the morning.
Speaker 6: Later, Hey guys, I want to take a moment to
tell you about the Teamhouse Podcast newsletter. If you go
and subscribe, it's totally free, and what it will do
is aggregate all of our data, all of our content
that we put out, the things that are on the
Teamhouse on our geopolitics podcast, Eyes On, things that I
write journalistically with Sean Naylor on the high Side, anything
else that we have going on books, we recommend upcoming
guests that we have coming on the show, and also
you know, filtering in some fun stuff in there as well.
If you go and check it out, we send it
out just once a week. We don't want to spam
you guys. It's just a kind of roll up of
all of our content on a weekly basis. You can
find our newsletter at Teamhouse podcast dot kit dot com,
slash join again. The way website for that is Teamhouse
Podcast dot kit dot com slash join.
Speaker 3: So We hope to see you there. The link will
be down The description