Ceasefire with Iran...What's That? | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS
We break down the renewed fighting with Iran, the Strait of Hormuz crisis, and whether the U.S. has any realistic military or diplomatic path forward. We also get into NATO, Ukraine’s air defense needs, the defense industrial base, and why America keeps spending more while producing less.
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00:00 – Remembering Senator Lindsey Graham
04:44 – Iran Escalates Attacks Across the Middle East
07:19 – Is U.S. Deterrence Against Iran Failing?
09:04 – Can Military Force Reopen the Strait of Hormuz?
12:30 – Iran’s Leadership Divide and Nuclear Ambitions
14:10 – What Military Options Does the U.S. Have?
16:19 – The Danger of Targeting Iran’s Leadership
19:09 – Iranian Threats Against President Trump
21:02 – Air Force One, Security Threats, and Intelligence
22:27 – What Happens With Iran After the Midterms?
24:25 – Intelligence Leadership and the New DNI Confirmation Hearing
25:17 – Will America’s Allies Help Against Iran?
31:03 – Building an International Coalition to Pressure Iran
34:06 – How a Maritime Coalition Could Isolate Iran
37:43 – Bears, Bison, Moose, and Surviving Montana
41:35 – Could Ukraine Produce Its Own Patriot Missiles?
42:53 – Why Time May Be Running Out for Putin
45:22 – Is America Running Out of Missiles?
46:28 – The Pentagon’s $1 Trillion Defense Spending Problem
47:52 – Why the U.S. Defense Industry Is So Slow to Innovate
50:47 – Can Congress Pass the Massive Defense Budget?
52:23 – The Pentagon’s “Budget Dust” Problem
53:01 – Final Thoughts and Closing
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics.
I'm here with Jonathan Hacket, Mick Molroy, Mark poly Moroopolis,
and myself. A lot, a lot has happened in the
last week since we left you last. We just found
out this morning Lindsay Graham, Senator from South Carolina, passed
away suddenly in his house, recently returned from a Ukraine trip.
You know, very sad to see any anyone die. Really, yeah,
I don't, you know, rest in peace, Lindsay. A lot
happening to if you got you want to, just want
to say a little bit about Lindsay first and then
we'll get into the Iran stuff.
Speaker 2: Marko.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, you know, one of the things that
that I mean is very complicated legacy.
Speaker 4: I think, first of.
Speaker 3: All, in a time like this, you know everyone and
you go on social media, everyone has a propensity to
say kind of shitty stuff.
Speaker 4: So it's not the time for that.
Speaker 3: Because clearly he you know, he had he has had
an evolution from a kind of foreign policy giant to
someone to a kind of a sycophant for Trump. But
I think that that ultimately, you know, his you know,
his heart was always with the notion that the US
is stronger when we have a robust, aggressive foreign policy,
when we have a strong national defense, strong intelligence services,
where we do champion human rights and democracy. And he,
you know, he, I mean, he passed away after he
came back from Ukraine, and that's something where he differed
with Trump, you know, you know, very strongly on So,
you know, lots of stuff in the in the news
about him, but I think his relevance will be that
he was relevant on foreign policy. And for those of
us in the US government who had a chance to
ever see him during congressional delegations, which he was on constantly,
he generally was on the right side of issues, and
so put aside his you know, the politics of it.
And and I was joking with Mick before in the
green room, there's always this this this story that kind
of is in our circles. And I don't know if
it's right or wrong, and if if it's right, I
probably can't say it. But it's a story that him
and John McCain, his you know, best friend for a
long time, came to one of our bases in the
war zones and they helped launch some mortars at Taliban
positions from Afghanistan into Pakistan. And then I think that
endeared him with a lot of people of art Ilk
and so leave the politics aside of it afterwards. Certainly
someone who's relevant, I would say that's probably a fair
a political thing to say. The relevant in terms of
foreign policy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I briefed them many times. I think he
at his best, you know, I'm just talking foreign policy,
not the personal stuff when he was with John McCain, right,
I agree with what Mark said. He was a champion
for what I would like to see for the United States,
be the leader of the free world. Look out for democracies,
individual liberties around the world, be willing to.
Speaker 2: Fight when you have to. Right.
Speaker 5: Passivity is not a virtue if it is at the
expense of liberty.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: So I think that was, you know, from a legacy perspective,
his biggest contributions, and hopefully that continues in both parties.
Right Republican Party included, have the Reagan kind of ideology,
come back philosophy, I should say. And then another interesting point,
because I'm breathed in a couple times in his office,
but I learned this is that he became the parent
if you will, a guardian of his sister when he
was nineteen as he was orphaned. So he did overcome
some serious challenges in his life, and I think it's
important to point that out. So, but you know, here's
thoughts to him. There were his family, I should say,
and those at his colleagues and his friends.
Speaker 1: John, have you met Senator Graham in your travel.
Speaker 6: I haven't seen him on a codell, But I think
that even if you disagree with his foreign policy, you
have to appreciate that he was informed. And I think
a lot of people in Congress and the Senate today
are not informed on foreign policy the.
Speaker 1: Way that he was.
Speaker 6: So you have to appreciate that he actually cared, He
was dedicated. He got out there and actually went on
those codels and was on the ground, not just in
the embassy because you know, the embassy's always usually the
safest place of the country. He got out of the
embassy and actually went out to go see people around US,
people and interests around as we just talked about with
the Afghan example, he did that all over the world,
and he cared about that. So it wasn't that there
was just these you know, policy positions that were domestic
to him, like a lot of people today are. Instead,
he was thinking long term about US interests globally, and
I think that's a very important thing to not let
go of and to appreciate.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, A big topic that he was very much
into is what's going on with Iran. Now obviously the
ceasefire is not is no longer. Iran hit a couple
of ships in straight we retaliated, and then Iran last
night started shooting ballistic missiles and drones at bought Rain.
Uh caught her. I think UAE and I think Oman
got some flak too. No then no mind get like
something had it in the airway, Which was surprising because
you know, it seems like Oman and o Ran are
kind of sort of in lockstep in terms of how
to like figure out the straight. If I'm missing anything, Jonathan,
you'd let me know, like fill in the blanks, if
there's anything else in the timeline that we're missing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, on that missile debris, that's an important point that
when you fire ballistic missiles there's oftentimes misfires, bad trajectories, miscalculations,
just pieces that come off. And actually in the Gulf
War nineteen ninety one. We saw that when Saddam was
firing scud missiles, some of them landed like way off
target or just went down in the desert in Jordan
and western Iraq and all over the place. So these
are very like very imprecise weapons that are based on
the V two rocket that the Germans invented in World
War Two, and they still use basically the same technology.
They're they're pretty uh low tech as far as you
know weapons today are concerned. So if peace fell in Oman,
that would not be shocking. But the problem is that
means the Iranians have to be careful about how they
do use their ballistic missiles with the knowledge that they
could malfunction as they're firing and I could backfire, like
the use of it if they're trying to strike Bahrain,
for example, and instead it hits inside of Saudi Arabia,
that could mess up what they're trying to do diplomatically.
So they have to measure carefully how much risk are
be willing to take when we fire each of these
ballistic missiles. And that's a challenge because we talked about
previously the decentralized command of control that Iran has over
the IRGC Aerospace Forces. The individual provincial level brigadier generals
in charge of those ballistic missiles can in some ways
fire at will if they think it's the right time,
whereas the central government in Tehran may not be able
to intervene and say, hey, we hold off on those
ballistic missiles today. We're trying to do something here with Oman.
So you might actually get like a dual track problem
where you have the localized IERGC Aerospace Force commander launch
a ballistic missile at a legitimate target in their eyes,
but that the central government in Tehran was like, ah,
we didn't want that to happen right now because we're
trying to do something with Elmand.
Speaker 2: So you might see some of that.
Speaker 6: Cross hairs or crossing of wires as well, which can
be difficult for Iran to juggle.
Speaker 3: That seems to be the excuse I think, Jonathan, that
the administration used. I mean, there's really weird reporting over
the last couple of days when they came back and
they're talking about you know, they claim that the Iranians
apologized for some of the strikes, which I frankly don't believe.
That doesn't seem to me, even in the realm of
even remote possibility the scenario you lay out, just because
of the kind of situation they're in in terms of
issues of command and control. I think that is certainly possible,
but it's I don't think an apology came from Iran.
And of course all of that, that notion is all
thrown out again after what happened over the last you know,
twelve hours or so, and so this idea of kind
of these these you know, are there really rogue elements?
I don't know, but I mean these axios reports that
come out, everyone kind of just rolls their eyes. Now
it's kind of a different alternate reality. I mean, I
think it's what's amazing right now. This entire conflict has
nothing to do with the nuclear program anymore, does not
have to do with regime change, doesn't have to do
with ballistic missiles, doesn't have to do with proxies. It's
only about the Strait of Hormuz. And to me, that
is a complete kind of encapsulation of how we have
failed on the policy level on this because I think
Trump will declare victory if the strait is opened, and
so what do we do this for?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 3: And I don't even know if I mean, there's now
differing interpretations if the strait is open or not. But
what a what a mess? I mean, it's almost to
the point where, you know, as they climb the escalatory ladder,
I mean, you know, you wonder if the Iranians are
overplaying their hands, and that's certainly possible, but my god,
are they not deterred by us at all? I mean,
it's not working. Whatever we're trying to do is not working,
and I don't know if there's a military solution save
something really dramatic. So it's going to be kind of
interesting to see, what, you know, Carmena, Joint chiefs of
Staff is recommending with Sencom's recommending to the president because
I don't know what the solution is here because you know, Milik,
the US strikes, the reprisals are not working right now,
and so how much do you have to actually up
the ante and what does that really actually mean? So
you know, Mike, the thoughts on that, I mean, is
there is there a military solution to this right now?
Speaker 5: So I think the military can play a part, obviously,
But what I'd say is, yes, I agree, if the
strait is open, that does not make it a win.
That just gets us back to norm. If the strait
is closed, that does make it a loss. So we
have to get the straight back open. We can't just say, well,
we don't get that much, you know, energy from this
region's it affects everybody, right, So if there's doesn't matter
where you get your energy, If there's that much less
energy in the world, everybody's paying more. So like like
this is I mean, I'm not an economist, but I
get that right. So it has to it has to
come open and out. I heard I think it was
Brett talking about his Brett McGirk talking about his recent
trip to at least everybody's trying to come up with
alternatives to the straight, And I think that's a great
idea because eventually this is going to go away. The
leverage is going to go away, I think. But I
know we can't count on that. Man, I don't know
how long it'll take, but imagine it's too long to
make an immediate difference. But I think that's the right move.
So then the question is we need to make it.
And I agree with Mark, You're saying, like, now it's
all about straight, but we need to make it stay
about nuclear weapons, right, because the US needs to win.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know, I say this all the time.
We need to win.
Speaker 5: I don't care who's I'm not a partisan in that regard.
I want the US to win. So how are we
going to do it? We're in it, we started it.
We can't change that. They close the straight. We need
to change that. How do we do it?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 5: I think what the Administration or White House is really
planning is to okay, these negotiations from the US point
of view, seems to be a stalling tactic. And to
what you're talking about, Marko and well, I doubt they apologize.
But I think the problem is you've got this maybe
new Supreme leader calling the shots, and I think he
actually is from what I'm being told. And then you
have the IRGC, and then you have the negotiators, which
are like the Erochis and the Golley bops.
Speaker 2: Right, these two don't.
Speaker 5: Respond to the other, Like these guys don't control these guys.
These guys don't control these guys. So they can go
say all these things over here and agree to things,
and then the IRGC says, we're still going to close
the straight, and we're still going to fire at ships
to do so, because that's the only way they can
close the straight right is to take direct action. And
then these guys might be saying, well, I wish they
wouldn't have done that, because we really want I don't know,
assets unfrozen, sell our oil. But ultimately that might be
the problem. We're talking to people who aren't making decisions
and have no real direct control over the people who
can blow the whole.
Speaker 2: Agreement, and that's what they're doing, right.
Speaker 5: I mean, if honestly, if I was looking at this objectively,
I would say, if we're getting to sell our oil
and we're getting to, you know, get our assets on frozen,
just act like the straits open, just do right?
Speaker 2: Why not? You're making money and it's goes straight to
the regime. So I, you know, I just don't get it.
Speaker 5: But ultimately they feel like they have the highest leverage
that they're ever going to have, and they're gonna use it.
They know the regime isn't going to change. They won't
even talk about the nuclear In fact, every comment that
comes out of like possession and all that is we're
never gonna give up in Richmond. So the best we
can do is get back in the JCPOA. If that's true, right,
I'm just saying they're not letting in spectors in which
they are required to do as members of the Non
Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. They're not even doing that. So
I think that one, they're going to try to get
a nuclear weapon, we got to prevent them to do that.
So that's one of the things the military can do.
And then two, if they don't open the strait, I
think we're going to go up the escalatory ladder. It's
not gonna be good. Though, it's not gonna be good,
but I don't know what else you can do because
we are in the situation we're in. Yes, economic pressure
diplomatic pressure should be a hand in hand, but if
you don't cause cost directly to the regime, which might
be cutting off these logistical supply lines like the RILL
and I think Jonathan could certainly touch about how that
could affect them directly, or I.
Speaker 2: Guess everybody could.
Speaker 5: But it's going to have to go up the esciratory ladder.
And I don't think they should stop fighting necessarily to
do the negotiations, because if they do. From the Iranian perspective,
They're like, fine, we'll talk to you guys. So Kingdom come.
As long as there's no consequences, they don't care. That's
the way they were all So I think that's where
it's heading. It's going to be military action amidst negotiation
to try to get to the point where it affects
their position, and they come back to it with a
real MoU because the last one, at least the way
Iranian interpret it, is not in our interest.
Speaker 3: I just don't know what that military act is, Jonathan,
What is that military action? What could we do to
hurt them that would ever compel them to be more responsible.
Speaker 6: Well, something I don't typically advocate for, which is killing
specific individuals at the top of this structure is probably
a helpful way to actually make it happen, even though
I disagree with that strategy myself because of how the
long term impacts of that are. But if you want acute,
short term wins, you need to remove people like Vahiti.
You need to make sure that Mochaba is actually dead,
and go after other decision makers that are holding the
levers of power, including Gollibah, and get rid of them.
Now that's a short term win. Like I said, there's
long term negative impacts globally if we do that, because
we lose control of the situation. Because the devil that
you know is sometimes better than the devil that you don't,
and the one like, for example, Vahiti is a really
bad guy, but we understand him. We know him, at
least those of us who actually do know and understand
this problem. Set get rid of him. And now you've
got like a thirty five year old guy that you
don't even know his name right now. That was like
a low level deputy in the Unit four hundred, which
is there's Special Operations Directorate that nobody knows even on
the CIA side, And now that guy might be in
charge of the IRGC and he's going to probably be
a hothead just from his youth alone, but also forged
in what he sees as this crucible of the world
against Iran. So that's that long term problem. But if
you want a short term win, get the straits open
and have things flowing smoothly for the next few months. Sure,
kill all the top level leadership, which is what we
did from February twenty eighth till now. And there's always
that tension between the short term military victories, you know,
tactical and operational strikes which were very good at WE
and Israel too, versus the long term what happens next
of that, because you cannot use a military instrument to
force political change alone. It has to have diplomatic and
economic buttresses, if not those things being the main effort
with military as a support. So it's a real challenge
that we've kind of dug ourselves into here where we've
basically forced ourselves into a military problem that didn't have
to be in the first place because of how we're
we you know, the US government's focusing so much on
the Straits of Hormuz now, which is chiefly a security concern,
the military security concern that has economic remnants around it,
and it should be inverted where the economy is the
main point. I can't remember which politician it was in
the early nineties, I said, it's the economy, stupid. Maybe
it was Bush Senior, but it's it's true. I mean,
the economy is the.
Speaker 2: Thing driving every Clinton right.
Speaker 6: I can't remember, but I remember that was during that election.
Speaker 2: Clinton. Yeah, there was one of their borrows. Yeah, I
think they should. They're going to go after personalities.
Speaker 5: To your point, Jonathan, we you all heard that there
was a credible threat to President Trump, so just from
the emotional perspective, and then you know, allegedly, uh the
Spring later came out with a statement saying we're going
to go after the US and Israel from every direction,
calling on a like an international movement to target them.
So I think that in Vahidi probably be I on
the list as most type of as well. But I
think that's going to be part of it. But the
other part, just from I mean we've heard this for months,
is going after infrastructure targets. They're gonna make it miserable
to live there. I would I would advocate for going
after you know, ones that are military and ones that
allow the regime to make money, so the railroad if
that's if that's one of the main economic lifelines, I
wouldn't advocate going after which primarily civilian. But I'm not
in the I'm an administration. So there's like three major
I think, uh, energy producing facilities and Iran. I think
they're probably on the list. It's just going to gradually
go up, and maybe that's that's what the Esculptory Ladder
is right, it's a gradual going up so that the
adversary in this case Arenian regime knows if they don't comply,
then they go up another Wrong. You have to put
the pressure on and it's not going to come from
you know, harsh statements or threats on social media. It's
just they're ignoring all that. Now it has to be
you know, walks off and carry a big stick. You
got the stick, You're going to have to use it,
but you have to use it effect in ligne. With diplomacy,
economic I think pressure and having the right information. And
what I mean by information just to use a die
model is you got to start bringing other countries into this,
and you're not going to.
Speaker 2: Do it by insults. Right.
Speaker 5: But the Strait is not the war. The Strait affects
every country in the world. So I don't think we're
getting a lot of people sign up to fight around,
but we could get more countries signed up to economically
isolate them because this is I mean, there's countries, as
you all know in the Far East that are we're
about to run out of fuel, right, So this isn't
about like do you agree with the United States, do
you like the United States. It is just as much
their national security issue as it is honors right now.
So hopefully we can on the information side of the
die model get more countries to start helping us isolate
their reshime, which means not buying all things.
Speaker 3: I'm not on the on the Israeli intel. I mean,
I must admit I was, you know. I look, I've
worked with these rallies. I like them. He has a
heart attack when I say that. But I was a
little skeptical when that came out, and I think of
the repress reports. There's been a number of US officials
who said it was not very it was not necessarily credible,
and it was not very specific. It was just kind
of the general threat of the Iranians talking about doing
what they have been planning on doing anyhow. So I
don't put it past these rallies, especially with the you know,
the tensions with between BB and But we would have.
Speaker 5: Done our own assessment on the right, I mean, the
the if it was functioning. We don't just go And
I like these rallies, I work with them all the
time and big supporter of a lot of things. But like,
we would have done our own assessment. But my question
on that one is like, I don't think President Trump
really wanted to get off the new Air Force one
and get on an old one. So that indicates to
me that there was something that was legitimate to the threat.
Speaker 4: Or finally, the secrets.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, that plane was not mission capable for
receives travel period every Like, it's amazing that they're trying
to subpoena the New York Times reporters.
Speaker 1: You know, they raid one of their houses.
Speaker 3: It's just it's so ludicrous. I mean, I know all
these reporters, they are really good reporters. But I mean,
anybody in the planet could have said that, like.
Speaker 1: This the democracy. When you're raiding the reporters, fucking the
houses and subpoena it's.
Speaker 5: It's it's obvious by switching planes that it wasn't you know, like,
what is it?
Speaker 3: There's no way in aircraft like that with all the
countermeasures that allegedly Air Force one has, you know that
that a plane can be retrofitted in a couple of
months and just and be capable of going to Turkey,
which is a high threat place. Yeah, maybe the Secret Service,
you know, use this as as final leverage because Trump
could say no, Trump can do whatever he wants. You
can take what every plane he wants. I'm sure the
Air Force and the Secret Service were not happy about
this new Cuttery airplane which did fly over my house
the other day.
Speaker 4: It actually is pretty cool. It's nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't have to go to the celebrations. I
had f thirty five and b ones, you know, flying
right over my house. And then I was changing bird food.
That is what happens when you're fifty seven year old.
I had a bird feeder. I was putting in bird
food and I looked up and there's the Covery plane.
But but uh uh, you know, going back to that,
but I think that you guys raised a really interesting
point and time will tell, Like, are we going to
start doing kind of this targeted you know, assassinations again
of senior leadership.
Speaker 2: There's a war that it's a war. It's it's on
right right again.
Speaker 5: Don't just kill the privates, man, don't just kill the
privates get conscripted to the top?
Speaker 4: Is Trump? And is Trump?
Speaker 3: Is Trump going to want I guess the question is
Trump gonna want to climb this ladder too? Because every
time he does this, you risk the US economy right
before the midterms.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I think that's.
Speaker 4: The big thing. I mean Trump.
Speaker 3: You know, theoretically, if mister tough guy, this should be
an easy call. I'm going to go fuck the Iranians
up right now, and we should.
Speaker 5: Here's the question for you, Mark, Yeah, because I talked
a lot about this, as you do on.
Speaker 2: Uh TV and stuff.
Speaker 5: Everybody's talking about like their election, but nobody's talking about
the day after I know, right, So they act like
there's all this pressure on the White House right now
for the election, and probably true, but the day after
the election, it.
Speaker 4: Is what it is.
Speaker 2: It is what it is.
Speaker 5: He's not running again and his party doesn't have another election,
so it's he's he's got the hand is dealt right,
So it's gonna the Iranians because I go on with
Iran rates, they know this, but they never talk about
the day after, Like, okay, you better come up in
the agreement before election day, mister Supreme later because it's
it's gonna switch the day after.
Speaker 3: That would be so interesting to see if they get
more reasonable right before the election. No, anyway, we'll see you.
But that's a great point.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, like all indications are that, like the
Democrats going to take back the House for Sharon, possibly
the Senate. I don't know, if you know after January first,
when the new new Congress comes in, I don't know
exactly how much latitude Trump's going to exactly have with
this where he can put together they're a sizeable force
to go after I ran for real, I don't know
if that's.
Speaker 4: Exactly what's going to stop them?
Speaker 2: What are they going to stop them?
Speaker 3: No war powers, it's veto pro It doesn't even matter
if Congress both votes to restrict funding and what it
won't be veto proof. I mean, there's there's no stopping
this guy.
Speaker 1: So the fact is, what the that question that you
just had, what's going to stop him? Is what's fundamentally
wrong with this country right now? Generally, I'll be honest
with you because not only shouldn't I'm editorializing a lunatic
like Trump have the key to this ship. Nobody should,
even somebody that I.
Speaker 5: Think that Mark was saying, is there's not legislatively even
if they win the House, and I don't think they're
going to win the Senate, but say they win the
House legislatively, they can't whether you support the war, support
espalation or not. What is it they can do to
stop the day?
Speaker 6: Is the only mechanism you.
Speaker 2: Have to get.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when as the NBA, it's.
Speaker 6: Way lack behind anyway, It's like eighteen months behind what
it's supposed to be as far as policy movements concerned.
Speaker 1: That's crazy, guys.
Speaker 4: Hey.
Speaker 3: One thing that that I just just I've just taken
notes before on this thing that we should we should
touch on.
Speaker 4: Are we go ahead?
Speaker 1: Please?
Speaker 3: Is actually an interesting day coming up where you have
Jay Clayton, the new D and I his confirmation hearing.
That kind of was just snuck in last second, but
we did. In our world of intelligence though all of
us here, that is rather significant only in the sense
that the Senate senators will actually be able to question
someone in public. So Clayton's hearing is going to be
on Wednesday, and I think that was just announced on Friday.
I was a little surprised at that because obviously Trump
has put in this acting D and I polty, who
is everyone is, you know, freaking out over? I don't
think anything awful has happened yet, but it could, so
that'll be kind of interesting.
Speaker 4: To see.
Speaker 3: You know, rarely do you get a chance for senators
actually asked really pointed questions. So we'll see how that goes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be interesting.
Speaker 1: Make I wanted to talk about a point you made
about like our allies and stuff like that, and you
kind of mentioned it yourself too, like are our allies
really going to be interested in helping us out in
a war that they weren't interested in starting to begin with?
And also at a NATO summit when they're getting fucking
berated by the President. I don't know exactly how how
amp they would be to help us out, frankly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and so we had the NATO summa too, so
we should talk about that. So, I mean to start with,
NATO is a defensive alliance. Just think I think everybody
knows that there's They don't go to the aid of
a country who starts a war.
Speaker 2: They didn't do it.
Speaker 5: They weren't Vietnam, they weren't in the Falkland Islands, right,
not saying you know, whether you agreed with the war
or not, that's not what the alliance does. The alliance
comes to the defense of somebody in the alliance, and
it's only done it once as we all know for
us AH. So on the positive, I think President Trump
wasn't the only resident that push the countries in NATO
to do more to meet their obligations for their national security.
They had decided just let the United States do it.
We had the biggest military in the world. I mean,
there's plenty of countries in Europe who couldn't even deploy anything.
That's changed, right, So now we're going past the two percent,
and we're everybody's trying to get countries to pledge of
five percents. We're at three point five percent, just for
the record, But our country, our economy is so big
that it's still like dwarfs everybody else when it comes
to military spending. But now these countries are going to
five percent. They are building their military to be functional, integrated.
I think, you know, to a certain extent, President Trump
and the other US presidents advocated, which was all of
them can take credit for that. And then of course
there's the invasion of Iraq I of Ukraine, which probably
is the primary reason. So I would just keep advocating
that we're talking about a NATO who's going to be
more capable than it's probably ever had has been eventually,
so we want the alliance. It's in our interest period
it is. It is probably the most significant military alliance
and history, so I hope we keep that. I know
that there are many on the obviously on the on
the far right or the hawk right I should say
Reagan Wright, uh, and on the on the Democrats to
believe in that, So hopefully that's the case. Is to
your direct question, do I get it? They were apparently
notified asked, But that's why I'm highlighting the straight right.
The straight affects every country in the world. So you
can if if you, as a leader of any country
are getting significantly impacted economically by the straight being closed,
then you as a as a leader, need to go
past your I'm hurt because President Trump didn't asked me
about this in the first place, or I don't like
his policy, or I don't like him personally, and in
real life that this is in your own country's interest.
So what are you going to do to help open
the straight? You can still be critical of us if
that's your thing, but what is it you're going to do,
Because if you're just going to tweet, you're useless, And
if your people are all paying more for every thing
that they're purchasing, which is the case in Europe for sure.
What is it you're doing as a leader of those
countries to alleviate that?
Speaker 2: And if your.
Speaker 5: Answer is well I didn't start the war, well that's
not a leader, that's just a commentary a commentator on
social media.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I think, like the everything, we kind
of abuse, not abused, but we make fun of European
leaders because they don't really say shit to Trump, they
don't stand up to them, they don't do any of
that basically, and frankly, like, I don't know, you know,
most of these European countries, like our NATO allies, who
would be a coalition that we try to you know,
build with, you know, the French, the Italians, the British
people that have navies that can actually probably do something
with this. Is it politically worth it to send their
boys there to die? I don't know. I don't think so,
I don't know if the option, I mean, I agree
with you, but like we want the straight to be open,
and our rants seems to not be interested in playing
ball whatsoever. They're not backing down clearly, So I don't know.
If it's politically advantageous for a democratic country to send
their their you know, uh.
Speaker 5: Send our boys to die. So I'm not advocating for that,
but what.
Speaker 2: Can we do?
Speaker 1: Thirteen servicemen have died since Sorry, but.
Speaker 5: I mean I mean like sending in forces on the ground. Yeah, yeah,
but I'm not just advocating for that. It's like, why
not get what I mean? You can do it the
you in I mean, it's the system's already there. What
are we going to do to further isolate diplomatically, economically,
anything we can the regime. There's more we can do.
Everybody knows it. Everybody knows it. Like if you just
got some iron experts, you know, take Jonathan and the
bunch of guys from me and marks old organization and say,
what can we do to make this harder on the
regime that doesn't involve ground forces. I guarantee you there's
a list, and some of it can be done by
certain countries but not others. You see what I mean.
So what I'm saying is if you like us, you
don't like us, whatever this is about you and your people.
So if you had a constituent stand up and you
were the president of filling the blank country and said,
I get it, you don't like Trump. So what I'm
still paying too much for everything?
Speaker 2: What do you do? You see what I mean?
Speaker 5: Like, you can't just say well, I don't like them,
because that's not what a leader does of a country.
You've got to actually advocate for your people. You can
be critical, but what is it they're doing other than
huddling around talking about how they're going to get you know.
Speaker 1: Also, I don't know if it's just I don't like them.
I think it's also you know, Iraq, we built a
coalition and sold it to the American people. This we
bilaterally acted with Israel without a coalition, and we expect
things to work out, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: But that's they're clearly not.
Speaker 1: And now we're asking for Europe or whoever else allies
wee could be Japan, South Korea. Right, they have interest
obviously in the oil price being high because since they
get a lot of the oil from the Strait to
jump in or help in some way. I mean, I'm
interested in John, Like, what do you think exactly we
could do specifically to like squeeze them more economically or
you know what angles are there.
Speaker 6: Well, One thing I think we're forgetting is that there
is already a Combined Maritime Task Force that operates in
the region, both inside the Persian Gulf and outside of it.
If there are forty seven member nations there, including Japan,
including France, there's also the UK Maritime Organization or UKMTO,
which is actually a lot of the announcements about these
vessels getting struck in, like their locations, is coming from
the UK Maritime Organization. So there is actually a lot
of international presence and capability there that needs to kind
of perhaps orient in a different way or slightly maneuver
in a way that helps to support the increased flowing
of goods through the strait, because it's not just oil,
there are other goods as well, and it puts pressure
on the port, especially in the Suez Canal, because that's
the major outlet for a lot of the stuff that
can't get through the straits. So if for especially the CMF,
the Combined Maritime Task Force, this has counter piracy experience,
has boarding experience, They have done opposed boardings of vessels before,
So this is a very high risk capability that usually
special operations forces have in the US side that this
maritime Task Force has and it was actually task organized
and designed to do exactly that. Board vessels opposed. So
if that means instead of just boarding pirated vessels and
boarding rogue vessels, let's say, how about we board blacked
out ais turned off vessels that belong to the Islamic
Republic of Iron Shipping Lines or IRISIL that are part
of the network of shipping oil. How about we start
boarding and stopping those vessels. How about we start rerouting
those vessels and pushing them over to Oman and then
having some of those states sell that oil on the
market and give that money to fund the Allied effort
against it, you know, so much what we've been discussing
about Russian assets for Ukraine. Instead of just using our money,
let's use the adversaries money to pay for us, you know,
and to help pay for reconstruction in Bahrain and Katar
and emirates in Saudi Arabia. That would be helpful or
to help at least alleviate some of the pressure off
those Gulf nations, especially Bahrain and Qatar, who are stuck
inside the weapons engagement zone, relieve some of the pressure
off with them by bringing in that Maritime Task Force
to ask to act as either an ally or a
buffer to help with the northern threat. I think that's
a good starting point, but it would require some coalition building.
And I've mentioned this before. Pakistan is a key to
that because Pakistan has one leg on our side and
one leg on the other side. They're a great bridge,
but they have their interests in mind. We have to
remember that they're not there.
Speaker 5: In the first Trump administration. So it's called the International
Maritime Security Count struct when we started it still exists
into Jonathan's that's what they could do. They could help
us again diplomatically economically isolate the regime because remember this
was the regime there was killing tens of thousands of
its own people before the war started. Right, they're bad dudes.
So that's what they could do without actually directly becoming
you know, forcing open the straight, which we're not going
to do.
Speaker 2: I don't see it. I don't see we're going to
do that.
Speaker 5: I don't think we're gonna use ground forces to do it,
and certainly we're not going to.
Speaker 2: Get other people to do it do it for us.
So what Jonathan's saying is dual and the great thing
is those assets.
Speaker 1: Who swings like the big stick with that US with
that maritime So.
Speaker 6: The US doesn't leading that because it's based out of Bahrain,
and the headquartering of it in Bahrain was designed to
put it right next to the Fifth Fleet, so that
the US Naval Forces and Central Command are adjacent to
the headquarters of this Maritime task Force, which allows us
very quick movement of US only stuff into that that
maritime framework of multiple partner nations. So that's important. But
like I mentioned, Pakistan is important, Qatar and Oman, those
three countries have to be on board with this. They
have a huge stake in what happens here, whether it
goes for Iran or goes to the United States as
far as who wins quote unquote, because they stand the
most to lose in both situations. So they have to
be totally bought in to participating or at least allowing
their waters to be used, especially visa the Oman, because
their waters are the waters that will be at risk
if this Maritime Task Force has to start boarding vessels
at the mouth of the Straits.
Speaker 1: And the Fifth Lee HQ. I mean you saw the
videos yesterday, look like it was on fire. It's largely
abandoned for the most part, So why don't we start
doing that, like start board.
Speaker 4: Think about it.
Speaker 6: And this MoU that we signed. The MoU we signed
is an executive agreement between the executive branch of the
United States, like one branch of the three branches of
the United States and another sovereign country. This MoU is
not even strong enough to stand up to us domestic politics.
Other nations are going to look at that and they're
going to say it's too high risk. It's too likely
that this thing's going to fall apart. Because even the
United States government can't allow this thing to continue if
Democrats come to power. It has to be some kind
of sustainable agreement, a treaty, let's say, or at least
a congressionally supported agreement that can't be destroyed easily or
taken away easily. So those nations have a lot to
lose if they look at that and they say, this
is written on a piece of toilet paper, and if
a new president comes in, they're going to crumple it
up and throw it away. They need to either a
treaty or something in law from the legislative branch, not
from the executive branch that creates difficulties for the president
to withdraw them, and NATO is a good example. A
few years ago, Congress passed a law that made it
so the president cannot unilaterally withdraw from NATO. There needs
to be a similar law in place to assuage the
concerns of these other countries that, Okay, even if a
different president comes in, there are going to be several
steps and mechanisms along the way and check some balances
to prevent them from pulling this thing out like the
JCPOA and this MoU which, by the way, is not
a piece agreement, it's a memorandum. It's a piece of paper.
So there needs to be this broadening of US government
backing of this agreement for other nations to actually say,
all right, I'm ready to participate.
Speaker 1: Good God, Mark, you've been quiet for too long.
Speaker 3: So I'm trying to find a good, good place to
interject something that I thought was funny that I wanted
to talk about today because I always like talking about
Mick and Bears. There's something on social media there about
a tourist at Yellowstone and the bison, yeah, messing with
and then the bison attacked him then jack this guy
up like ten feet into the air.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you got to take this.
Speaker 5: I mean these are wild spaces man people. That's a
theme park for the theme park, man like, Lacier is
only thirty minutes that way, right, thirty minutes span and
it's we just had a guy get killed and apparently
I meant it to be gruesome. They found his the
can of bear spray in his hand, but his hand
his body. I think it was expended. But and bear
spray does work. But you know, if you're coming out here,
I got friends, That's why I'm in a different room today,
and friends coming from for the Under the Big Sky concert,
which is one mile through those woods, and they're all
going to want to go to Glacier. So if you're
doing that and you listen to this podcast, get bear
spray like it works and the difference between using it
and not using it could be substantial.
Speaker 3: There was a giant moose when my wife and I
were in Alaska that was walking along the side of
the road and we pulled over and got a little
too close and started charging at us. There's a video
I have of my wife running and my wife and
I am running to the car looked like from like
the Blair Witch Project.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they'll kill you too. The moose will kill you. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5: The thing is not that you get a much chance.
If you see any big animal with a baby a calf,
you need to stay away, to the proctor, Oh yeah, stay.
Speaker 3: Away, like going outside and the hike and and stuff
like that. Or I mean, are you you all? I going,
something's going to eat you when you got d d
would get eaten in about two seconds.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the New York boys gone.
Speaker 5: We got a We got a half melodle, a half
German shepherd who somehow came bigger out bigger than both.
She's like one hundred and five pounds female. And uh,
you know, carry pistol and I carry bear spray because
I go I can like all the time. Yeah yeah,
And they say that, you know, obviously carry both, but
bear spray is way more effective. People tried to defend
themselves against a bear with a pistol just in the combat,
rigging nervous and these little bullets.
Speaker 1: Remember I remember you saying that it was like it
was like ninety percent effective for bear spray, but like
forty percent effective for like pistol.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the stick.
Speaker 5: That's the stats shooting a shotgun.
Speaker 2: Right, it shoots a blast. It apparently doesn't work for mountain.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're gonna arm D to the teeth when he's
out in my dad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna need an AR fifteen or something. I'm
gonna need something something stout for Yeah, when I get out.
When I go out, I'm not leaving the fucking main
strag dude, I ain't going fucking hiking getting lost.
Speaker 2: We're gonna like holsters for your bear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my god, I don't need that. I don't
need that.
Speaker 5: And then people getting fights with because everybody has bear
spray and people getting fight they use the bear spray
and they did it like there's a there's like a
crepery downtown.
Speaker 1: They cleared it out right, say this on the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they had like the triage people in the front.
And then it happened at the grocery store.
Speaker 3: Somebody, I said, just arrested someone who this person bear
spray their kid.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Like that's that's go to jail.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, or just use use protect you know, prophylactics
and not have kids. All right, So as far as.
Speaker 4: The conversation right into the gutter. It's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah you did.
Speaker 4: You're quiet? What are you thinking about it? I was
thinking about the.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Mark, he totally derailed this. I wonder were
you in the seventh floor doing stuff like this too
during meetings?
Speaker 4: No, I'm retired.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right. I want to touch on a little bit,
like what do you guys think of During the NATO summit,
when Zelenski was meeting with Trump and they had that
press conference, Trump floated the idea of licensing out Ukraine,
giving Ukraine a license to produce their own patriots. You
think that's bullshit. You think that's just for a sound bite.
You think it's really going to happen.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's but short term it doesn't
do anything because they're desperately in the need of air defense.
But but medium to long term it's great.
Speaker 2: But that's important.
Speaker 4: It's important.
Speaker 3: And this is I mean, look, the way to get
the Trump has to do it like the appeals to
the US defense industry blah blah.
Speaker 4: This is what I mean.
Speaker 3: Frankly, whether you're like Lindsey Graham or not, you know,
this is the kind of stuff that he did trying
to find a solution that would satisfy Trump's kind of weirdness.
Speaker 4: And this is one of those things.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, if you know, somehow, the US defense industry's
gonna kind of, you know, gain from this somehow. You know, sure,
we'll give it to him, and and and the Ukrainians
figured it out. But there's I mean, anyone who kind
of diss is this thing. It's kind of silly. It's
a great thing in the medium to long term, but
short term, I think they're still in desperate need of assistance.
So you know, we we can't just say okay, they're
okay now, because they're not. But I mean, I think
we should when when when the administration does something right,
you know you.
Speaker 4: Can you can actually acknowledge it. Yeah, that's a good move,
would happen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And by the way, Lizia Graham was really funny.
If you ever talked to one on one, he was
really funny. It is important because here's the thing President putin.
The longer this lasts, the worse it gets for him,
the worse it gets for him.
Speaker 2: Right, So he's.
Speaker 5: Every month the Ukrainians produced more drunes, every month, lethal
ones more effective. He's taken out the infrastructure. He's losing
more men. I mean, even Russia is gonna run out
of dudes eventually. And now he's seeing this is coming
to the end of this administration. A traditional Republican comes
in like a Rubio or a Democrat, it's going to
go bad for him. Him being Putin, Right, they're starting
to mask as soon as they start getting their production
of interceptors online, patriots or it's they're going to figure
out how to do it in a way that we
haven't figured out how to do it, because it's it's
needed immediately for them and it means life and death.
So we're going to benefit from them. But it's only
going to get worse for Putin from now on. It
he's losing more men. The Ukrainians are getting more effective,
and there's going to be more support flown. I think
did they commit to seventy billion dollars in support this
year at NATO Summit? I think they did, they didn't, Yeah, yeah,
from the Europeans, and then I think soon we're going
to start and there's there's several provisions in Congress for
the United States to significantly up its contribution because there
is support for Ukraine on both sides of the Island Congress,
and it's just going to build because Ukraine has proven
that they're not going to lose.
Speaker 3: That's where Ratcliffe has been successful, and that you know,
you know, we keep putting intelligence in front of Trump
suggesting that Ukraine is winning and Trump will not back
a loser, and he sees that that, you know, Putin's
getting his butt kicked. I mean, this is very basic
psyche one on one, but this has worked, you know,
this has been It's funny because we all knew this
is what Racliffe was doing. I think we might have
talked about it here. I think the Wall Street Journal
just put something out talking about this. But I think
this has been quite obvious, but it's been effective. And
this it's pretty funny because if you think about all
the nonsense about the deep state, this is the deep state.
This is Radcliffe and the supporters of Ukraine and the
US government finding ways to get Trump to do the
right thing. And so they show him intel that Russia sucks,
the military's crap, they're getting their asses kicked, and Putin's
fucking with you and then so and that's the way
to sway Trump to do the right thing. So good
on them doing that, I guess just.
Speaker 2: Doing their job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have like another question, like, so in terms
of like the immediate and short term, what did because
we're obviously using a lot of Patriot missiles? Is there
a remedy for this? Is it a European variant? Is it?
Do we actually still have enough patriots to give them?
Like what's the play here?
Speaker 2: That's a good question.
Speaker 5: I mean, we are using our precision guiding munitions or
we were for epic fury at the cyclic rate, right,
and the interceptors were getting used by all of our
bases and partner countries. So it's not illegitimate to say
we have to balance between providing Ukraine and you know,
the war we elected to start. So it is a
it's going to be a combination and this is a
good start. But to Mark's point, it's not going to
happen immediately. But this is the defense production is a
huge issue for the United States. It's not overstated. We
don't have the capacity to keep up with a full
on war one we're seeing it right now.
Speaker 1: I mean, Mick that talks to like a larger point
of like what where the fuck is all this money
going that we can't keep our capacity. Our shipbuilding is trash,
absolutely trash, especially compared to the Chinese. But again, like
the Patriots or the Fads or any of you pick
your poison. We can't get the radars made for the
fucking f thirty five too. It's like, how much money
do we have to spend to get it there?
Speaker 5: Yeah, there needs to there needs to be an ovohol.
I mean, that's what the Pentagon should be doing. And
both both of the Armed Services committees like what is
one because it's a real issue. We can see a
real time. Whether you Agreevobar or not, you don't want
to run out of munitions when you're fighting a mediocre military, right,
one of them think about how if it was China,
to know it was China and Rush at the same
time the same that's that's not you know out of
the question. That's literally what most of our national security
strategy had been based on. That we have to fight
two wars at the same time.
Speaker 1: And at trillion bucks a year. It's like and they're
talking about one point five trillion. It's like, how about
we do what we pass an audit and see where
the trillion's going first before we say, yeah, here's another
five hundred billion dollars. God knows where it's going to go. John,
what do you think. I know, you got something in
your head that you're trying to get out.
Speaker 6: Well, I'm thinking about back in the Marine Corps when
they got rid of tanks, snipers, armored certain armored carriers
of troops to reduce what we had, but keep the
budget the same so that they could purchase, like offset
purchase other stuff. And that was a very slow way
of dealing with it. And we just mentioned Ukraine rapidly
kind of innovating because they're at war with Russia versus
the United States. And I think a big part of
that is the US is not at war with anybody
appear they're at war with a mid level regional actor
right now, one that's decently capable in the region, but
now up here. So there's no pressure on the defense
industrial base to rapidly innovate and work efficiently with what
they've got, you know, So that this trillion and a
half dollars, what that is is congressional interests for the
places that they represent, you know, like for example, Huntington, Engles, Industries,
which is the nation's largest aircraft carrier builder in Newport News.
Whoever is representing Newport News has the HII, has their
ear and is saying, we need to build more of
these ships, even if it's not our foreign policy interest
to build more ships. And I think if Andy was
on ear, he would talk about how he feels about
aircraft carriers. But those companies are massive, multi billion dollar
companies with huge interests in Newport News, Virginia and other places,
and they say, no, you need to keep building these ships.
In fact, you need five more of them over the
next ten years, and we're going to make sure that
you get great campaign contributions to XYZ. That's why we
see that dollar value going up, but the efficiency is
not going up commensurately, because it's not pressures externally that
are forcing us to build more ships or less ships.
It's domestic political interests that are pushing each individual representative
and senator to ensure that those dollars go to their constituents,
which is not necessarily in our foreign policy interest, but
it is in their electoral interest. So you have this
kind of divide between what makes sense for this item
versus who's paying for it and who's buying it.
Speaker 5: I gotta I gotta hops got bro form meeting.
Speaker 1: All right, Yeah, let's just start to wrap up. I
guess yeah, I mean John, based on what you just said,
that's not exactly fucking uh confidence inducing. To be honest
with you, Andy, and to give Andy credit about his
hatred of aircraft carriers. He does mention how like the
defense industrial bases like slow to innovate, and the procurement
process is like, you know, completely antiquated in a nightmare.
But it's like we're spending real fucking money here, like
we should get some ROI on this spend, especially like
if we're not getting any other nice things that other
countries get. No problem healthcare being one, and frankly, the
fact that the Pentagon can't pass it's a fucking audit.
Besides the Marine Corps. Shout out to the Marine Corps
is ridiculous. Is is beyond ridiculous that they can't fucking
track where the money is.
Speaker 4: So yeah, militically budget is going to pass Congress.
Speaker 3: That's fucking ridiculous. That's Democrats and Republicans. It's a massive
amount of money. American economy is hurting and but you know,
and so so we're we're definitely gonna pickle here because
if you know that, we definitely need a massive infusion
of stuff and it's going to cost money. All the
inefficiencies you talked about are true. But politically, I don't
think anyone's gonna that that budget can pass. So we're
in we're in some kind of national security headache in this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, politically they can't do the right thing. John, what
were you going to say? So, are you mentioned something I.
Speaker 4: Was gonna say.
Speaker 6: We have a saying in the military about budget dust.
So like you talk about like one hundred million dollars,
You're like, oh wow, that's a lot of money. We
would call that budget dust. In other words, it's like
the residue of the budget left behind and you're like, well,
what do we do with this hundred mil? I mean,
it's just kind of hanging around at our tier of
decision making. Let's just go start this program or that program,
and you see a lot of this budget dust. And
that's why we can't pass an audit because budget dust
isn't budget dust. It's money that's not being spent properly
or allocated properly or like hanging around somewhere in the
system and not being spent the way it was supposed
to under the NDAA. So you just have this money
carried forward, lost, misplaced, hanging around. And everybody in the
military and also the rest of the executive knows. At
the end of the fiscal year, everyone's like, Hey, we've
got a bunch of money sitting around. Let's go to classes,
let's go to training, let's go buy some equipment because
we have just if we don't spend it, we won't
get it next year because and it's just this like
constant slow momentum or inertia of rapidly increasing every year
on year of budget dust collecting rather than thinking carefully
about how it should be spent before we even ask
for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's interesting to me is like, all right, you
have a surplus. You're gonna go do this extra class
or this other thing or whatever. Get your fucking receipts, brother,
get the receipts. Like why is this difficult? Anyway? All right,
I'm leaving this miserable as always, I'm seriously considering stopping
to do this. Uh, it's always miserable. We need good
news or at least like old men getting tossed around
by moose.
Speaker 4: Like the Red Sox are kicking ass.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I want to out.
Speaker 3: Of the playoff spot. They are the best team in baseball.
You know, the the Yankees suck right now, So there's
some great news out there.
Speaker 1: I love when the Red Sox give Mark hope because
inevitably he will be let down. I know that. So
it's Friday, all right, Do us a favor, like and subscribe.
Obviously check out mixed links white Fish Security Summit. That
link is in the description Mark p His links are
down to the description of course. Jonathan Hackett Iran Shadow
Weapons and the Theory of a Regular War, his books those
all those links are in the description. And support to
show patreon dot com slash the Teamhouse. You get ad
free episodes early and you helped support the show. Guys.
A pleasure. It's a pleasure as always. I do come
out of here feeling distressed, but it's always good to
see you guys.
Speaker 4: Take care everyone.
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