# The Houthis Have Entered the Chat - Week 5 (Iran War) | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

An episode of [The Team House](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492797340), 30 Mar 2026, 1 h 10 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/70978228/houthis_iran_audio.mp3

A fast-moving breakdown of the expanding war with Iran, including U.S. and Israeli strikes, the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, and what a possible ground operation could look like. The discussion covers whether tactical military success is translating into strategic gains, the risks of escalation, and the political and military decision-making driving the conflict. Support the show on Patreon:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Subscribe to our new newsletter!!!! https://teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join Whitefish Security Summit ⬇️ https://whitefishsecuritysummit.com/ Find Jon Hackett here:⬇️ Jon's books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0C5L659N5?ccs_id=e11a2062-f8d3-498e-bfd7-7d2f3869caf6 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackett Twitter: https://x.com/jonathanhackett Check out Mick's new podcast here:⬇️ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/at/podcast/pub-and-porch-applied-stoicism/id1836955475 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1k3QPmkAMwnGJxMLDwUSSd?si=n6piIu8XRcag1Z0K43A3bQ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCd0Hq6QFk8CoTu5j-VU0Ong Find Mick Mulroy here: Fogbow ⬇️ https://fogbow.com/ Lobo Institute ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/ Twitter ⬇️ https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCA LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/ Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.social Mick’s publications ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/publications/publications-of-michael-mick-patrick-mulroy/ Find Marc P here: https://x.com/Mpolymer Find Andy Milburn here: Twitter ⬇️ https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8 LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023 Substack ⬇️ https://amilburn.substack.com/ Andy’s book ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.social Find Jason Lyons here: LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?u Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" 00:00 — Start 01:30 — Drone strikes hit Saudi bases and the Houthis escalate 02:07 — Have the U.S. and Israel already met their military objectives? 04:32 — Is there any real off-ramp or ceasefire path with Iran? 05:48 — Why Iran won’t trust negotiations 08:14 — Ground troops signal: MU movement and what it could mean 10:07 — Are CENTCOM and U.S. leadership reacting instead of planning? 14:36 — Why this war was always likely to escalate beyond airstrikes 18:00 — Civilian leadership vs military advice: who owns the strategy? 27:18 — Karg Island and the risks of a prolonged ground operation 32:00 — Why taking Karg Island may not solve the real problem 39:14 — Veteran backlash and why support for this war is weak 43:48 — Did early strikes kill the wrong Iranian leaders? 45:06 — “You can’t plan a war on a napkin” 50:00 — Event contracts, prediction markets, and war forecasting 54:45 — U.S. vs Israeli strategy: regime pressure vs regime change Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics.
[0:03] Speaker 1: I'm here with Jonathan Hackett, Mick Molroy, myself, Mark p
[0:08] Speaker 1: should be joining, so it should be two Marines versus
[0:10] Speaker 1: two Greeks. I like those odds. A lot happening. I mean,
[0:15] Speaker 1: you guys have been monitoring the situation as much as
[0:18] Speaker 1: we have. I mean we are to begin one of
[0:21] Speaker 1: the muses close right right about to get into the AO.
[0:25] Speaker 1: We'll see where they end up. I don't know where
[0:27] Speaker 1: they're gonna, you know, position themselves and stuff. I'd love
[0:30] Speaker 1: to get into that. A lot happening. The who thy's
[0:33] Speaker 1: I've entered the chat. Like Jonathan had mentioned last couple
[0:36] Speaker 1: of weeks, you know, if you guys really want to
[0:39] Speaker 1: know what's gonna happen before you see what's gonna happen
[0:41] Speaker 1: on Twitter, you just watch and listen to the Eyes
[0:43] Speaker 1: on Geopolitics podcast because we know what's gonna happen before
[0:46] Speaker 1: everybody else does. That's what I've been noticing the last
[0:49] Speaker 1: month or so. It's like we say something and then
[0:50] Speaker 1: a week later, people are breaking it like it's some
[0:53] Speaker 1: new like it's brand it's breaking news.
[0:56] Speaker 2: Sorry, ranked over.
[1:00] Speaker 1: What else are based in Sadi Arabia got hit with
[1:03] Speaker 1: drones pretty badly. I would say ten plus people, ten
[1:07] Speaker 1: plus servicemen injured, I think a couple. Seriously, we lost
[1:13] Speaker 1: like four KSEY one thirty fives or five on casey
[1:16] Speaker 1: one thirty five's and S three E three santry Sorry,
[1:22] Speaker 1: so not insignificant loss of equipment either, Like that's pretty bad.
[1:26] Speaker 1: I'd love to also get into that, where like what
[1:28] Speaker 1: the fuck are we doing in terms of like knocking
[1:31] Speaker 1: these drones out of the air, you know what I mean?
[1:33] Speaker 1: Like or not even putting our shit into like harden
[1:35] Speaker 1: bunkers or hiding them camo nets.
[1:37] Speaker 2: I don't know.
[1:38] Speaker 1: I'm not a strategic guy, but I'm sure there are
[1:40] Speaker 1: people there that know what they're doing. Another thing I'd
[1:44] Speaker 1: love to also get into is the fact that over
[1:46] Speaker 1: the last four years of war with between Russia and Ukraine,
[1:50] Speaker 1: seeing the development of drone warfare, how we are not
[1:54] Speaker 1: prepared for what's been going on is ridiculous as a
[1:59] Speaker 1: layman look looking at this, So, yeah, a ton going on.
[2:03] Speaker 1: You guys, start where you want to start, make you
[2:05] Speaker 1: take it, take it away.
[2:08] Speaker 3: Well, there is a ton going on, and there's a
[2:11] Speaker 3: ton about to happen. Where to start, So I think
[2:17] Speaker 3: right across roads. Essentially we've met a lot of our
[2:22] Speaker 3: military objectives. We talked about this a lot on the show,
[2:27] Speaker 3: and I think we've actually taken and we being a
[2:30] Speaker 3: combined US Israeli, we've taken some strikes to degrade the
[2:34] Speaker 3: nuclear program further right, so the heavy water plant, the
[2:39] Speaker 3: I don't know what you call it, but it converts
[2:41] Speaker 3: humanium or into yellow cake plant. So we are making headways.
[2:48] Speaker 3: We're also, of course depleting their ballistic missile storage facility,
[2:53] Speaker 3: lawn sites and manufacturing sites their military. Yes, all that
[2:56] Speaker 3: has been done. I do think the US should have
[2:59] Speaker 3: been more clear about what our objectives were. And of course,
[3:04] Speaker 3: minus the idea that we can change the regime, it's
[3:08] Speaker 3: not going to happen. So that we could essentially claim
[3:13] Speaker 3: declare un lateral cease fire. And I think if we
[3:16] Speaker 3: would have done that, and I guess we still could,
[3:20] Speaker 3: it would have given us the ability to negotiate, because
[3:25] Speaker 3: I don't think Iron's going to negotiate under fire, and
[3:29] Speaker 3: it would give us the ability to talk to allies
[3:31] Speaker 3: in a way that's different than.
[3:34] Speaker 2: I know.
[3:34] Speaker 3: We didn't talk to you about the war that we're
[3:36] Speaker 3: going to start by choice, but now that we started it,
[3:39] Speaker 3: we want you to participate. So I think we would
[3:41] Speaker 3: add a better discussion, or we would have a better
[3:43] Speaker 3: discussion with them if we stopped bombing or rock and
[3:48] Speaker 3: then said, look, the strait is still closed. We think
[3:52] Speaker 3: it's a collective issue. We like your assistance and opening
[3:56] Speaker 3: it diplomatically and militarily if necessary. But the way we
[4:01] Speaker 3: are now, it seems like to everybody that we have
[4:05] Speaker 3: no intent of a ceasefire. We actually have an intent
[4:08] Speaker 3: to escalate substantially. You don't send, you know, the immediate
[4:13] Speaker 3: response force of the eighty second airport if you're really
[4:17] Speaker 3: planning to have a ceasefire and stop the air campaign.
[4:21] Speaker 3: No other two views, but we can get into those
[4:23] Speaker 3: in details. So I would advocate for us to announce
[4:28] Speaker 3: that we have met our objectives if we have, and
[4:32] Speaker 3: look for an off ramp diplomatically. It's going to be
[4:34] Speaker 3: a challenge with the Iranians. They obviously have no love
[4:38] Speaker 3: loss for the regime. I think they would be far
[4:41] Speaker 3: better off if they all just went away. But ultimately
[4:45] Speaker 3: they're not going to trust negotiations because we were in
[4:47] Speaker 3: the middle of negotiations last time, when we won't launched
[4:50] Speaker 3: the war in the first place. So we're going to
[4:52] Speaker 3: have to get in a place where they trust what
[4:55] Speaker 3: we say. And then you know what the Iranians have
[5:00] Speaker 3: that has really given them. I think a big advantage,
[5:04] Speaker 3: especially in the economic aspect of this conflict, is obviously
[5:07] Speaker 3: the straight So do we want to try to force
[5:11] Speaker 3: that open ourselves? Do we want to get a coalition
[5:13] Speaker 3: that could also help negotiate an opening to the Strait,
[5:18] Speaker 3: And obviously we need to come in with some benefits
[5:23] Speaker 3: the regime, if you will, for opening it. But anyway,
[5:28] Speaker 3: there's a lot to discuss. But we've got two more
[5:30] Speaker 3: guys that can I think, really provide more detailed insight.
[5:33] Speaker 3: But that's where I think we should be looking right now,
[5:36] Speaker 3: is how to find an off ramp and an off
[5:40] Speaker 3: ramp that could lead to building a larger coalition when
[5:43] Speaker 3: it in regards to the Strait itself.
[5:48] Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think with the negotiations piece, if you're
[5:52] Speaker 4: the regime, you've been thrice wronged in these negotiations where
[5:56] Speaker 4: you've been hoodwinked essentially, you know, twice with Ran negotiations
[6:00] Speaker 4: and then once with the Venezuela stuff where it looked
[6:03] Speaker 4: like the US was doing one thing in the diplomatic track,
[6:06] Speaker 4: in fact, there were other plans going on behind the scenes,
[6:09] Speaker 4: using those negotiations as a ruse to achieve a different
[6:13] Speaker 4: objective or a different outcome. And it's possible that that's
[6:16] Speaker 4: happening right now. It looks like the pieces are moving
[6:18] Speaker 4: on the board in that direction, and if you're an
[6:20] Speaker 4: Iranian negotiator, you're going to be very cautious about what
[6:23] Speaker 4: the US promises, what the US is willing to give.
[6:26] Speaker 4: And I think that's actually kind of being reflected in
[6:28] Speaker 4: what we see in the public space about what's going
[6:30] Speaker 4: on in the negotiations. You see Iran asking for a
[6:32] Speaker 4: lot of things that are pretty extreme, trying to force
[6:35] Speaker 4: the US to come to that best negotiated alternative, because
[6:39] Speaker 4: neither of the sides of the table right now have
[6:41] Speaker 4: terms that are possible, So what they're going to have
[6:44] Speaker 4: to do is kind of come towards the center. And
[6:45] Speaker 4: I think what the Irani negotiators are doing is kind
[6:48] Speaker 4: of testing to see how much good faith is there
[6:51] Speaker 4: in this process, and the way they're doing that is
[6:53] Speaker 4: by using extreme positions to see where is the US
[6:56] Speaker 4: willing to concede in the short period of time, and
[6:58] Speaker 4: I think they're going to probably start measuring those concessions
[7:01] Speaker 4: to see how realistic are these concessions and should we
[7:04] Speaker 4: trust them or not. And I don't think that they're
[7:06] Speaker 4: going to stop fighting while they're negotiating. They're going to
[7:08] Speaker 4: continue fighting, just like we are continuing to fight. I
[7:11] Speaker 4: saw that yesterday, the last twenty four hours were the
[7:14] Speaker 4: most intense period of strikes since the war began. We've
[7:17] Speaker 4: done eleven thousand strikes since February twenty eighth, and six
[7:21] Speaker 4: percent of those strikes alone were yesterday, and pretty intense
[7:24] Speaker 4: across the country, not only against military targets but also
[7:28] Speaker 4: against the defense industrial base. There's a steel plant in
[7:31] Speaker 4: Iran that was completely shut down. About ten thousand people
[7:33] Speaker 4: working that steel plant. They're not able to work now
[7:35] Speaker 4: because it's been attacked. So the US is clearly working
[7:39] Speaker 4: through the target deck while they're negotiating with the regime,
[7:42] Speaker 4: and the regime is going to have to consider how
[7:44] Speaker 4: much are we willing to trust the United States as
[7:46] Speaker 4: we negotiate, because not only are our military targets being threatened,
[7:50] Speaker 4: but our civilian infrastructure is being put at risk because
[7:52] Speaker 4: there's a lot of dual use civilian infrastructure that produces
[7:55] Speaker 4: steel for factories and trucks, but also does ICBM construction
[8:00] Speaker 4: perhaps in the future if they could do that. So
[8:02] Speaker 4: they're trying to think through what's that, what's the risk
[8:04] Speaker 4: and trade off of US trusting the United States in
[8:06] Speaker 4: this moment? And if the US does renegg, how much
[8:09] Speaker 4: have we lost while waiting to move forward?
[8:11] Speaker 5: He once Sorr, I was I was late. Do you
[8:14] Speaker 5: gave me a hard time? I missed my four minute window,
[8:17] Speaker 5: which anyway a little espionage lingo there, but I you know,
[8:23] Speaker 5: where are we right now? I guess that was the
[8:25] Speaker 5: you know, one of the questions. I don't think that
[8:28] Speaker 5: there's been a decision made in terms of ground force.
[8:31] Speaker 5: We always talk about signal versus noise. The signals certainly
[8:33] Speaker 5: is you know, the arrival of the mew uh and
[8:37] Speaker 5: and all the other kind of moves. Certainly said COOM
[8:40] Speaker 5: is planning for some type of ground operation. There's no doubt.
[8:44] Speaker 5: I'm not sure President Trump has made the decision on that,
[8:48] Speaker 5: but that's certainly, you know, if you if you take
[8:50] Speaker 5: a look at the signals and and you know, and
[8:52] Speaker 5: the and the kind of the diplomatic back and forth.
[8:54] Speaker 5: I don't know if there's any kind of seriousness to that.
[8:56] Speaker 5: I mean, there is a question on whether the Iranians
[8:59] Speaker 5: are willing to actually have a meeting or not. But
[9:01] Speaker 5: I think, Jonathan, you're right, there's no trust at all.
[9:05] Speaker 5: I mean, the last every time we negotiate with the Iranians,
[9:07] Speaker 5: we end up attacking them afterwards, and so I mean
[9:11] Speaker 5: they just you know, this is not you know, advanced
[9:14] Speaker 5: PhD level research that you're doing. This is like kindergarten math. Okay,
[9:18] Speaker 5: every time we sit down with you, you attack us, you know,
[9:22] Speaker 5: and when you say there's progress, literally the next day
[9:24] Speaker 5: there's aircraft in the air, and so I'm not sure
[9:26] Speaker 5: there's any any trust there. I think the the what
[9:30] Speaker 5: A couple of things were kind of interesting to me.
[9:32] Speaker 5: One is all the reports that Trump is getting bored,
[9:34] Speaker 5: and I think that's probably true because this is hard now.
[9:37] Speaker 5: The idea that this was not going to be hard again,
[9:40] Speaker 5: that's a separate discussion I definitely want to have today because,
[9:42] Speaker 5: as I kind of alluded to last time, I think
[9:44] Speaker 5: we're we are you know, piling all the blame on
[9:47] Speaker 5: where we are on Trump and the civilian leadership in
[9:50] Speaker 5: the White House and maybe even Hegxeth. But I think
[9:52] Speaker 5: we have to take a look at Sencom as well.
[9:54] Speaker 5: And I know that might make people who listen to
[9:56] Speaker 5: this uncomfortable, but whether it's Dan Kine the chairman or
[10:00] Speaker 5: or Admiral Cooper, I mean, things that are happening now
[10:02] Speaker 5: are so incredibly predictable, and yet we seem to be
[10:06] Speaker 5: reactive on everything. We've war gamed. Ron Nick, you did
[10:10] Speaker 5: this for a living, uh uh and and Jonathan you
[10:13] Speaker 5: practiced it for a living, like you know, but we
[10:15] Speaker 5: seem to be reactive on everything. So there's there's a
[10:18] Speaker 5: part of it in which I think that and this
[10:19] Speaker 5: is you know, and I love what you said Mick
[10:21] Speaker 5: last last week when he said, you know, you're on
[10:22] Speaker 5: team America. I'm when I sent out a tweet today
[10:25] Speaker 5: on that. I love that you we always are. But
[10:28] Speaker 5: I think the military leadership can be blamed a little
[10:30] Speaker 5: bit here too. You know, this is not just uh
[10:34] Speaker 5: kind of incompetence at the at the secretary level and
[10:37] Speaker 5: d O D or in the net or whatever national
[10:39] Speaker 5: security apparatus even exists. And so you know, and don't
[10:44] Speaker 5: forget John Ratcliffe, the CEI director, actually said and then
[10:47] Speaker 5: open hearing he talks to Trunk several times a day.
[10:50] Speaker 5: So is you know, so where is the intelligence community?
[10:53] Speaker 5: Where is sentcome on? Where we are kind of now
[10:55] Speaker 5: in this mess in terms of you know, one thing
[10:59] Speaker 5: that I that I found interesting, it seems to me,
[11:02] Speaker 5: you know, in terms of the straight of Horn moves,
[11:04] Speaker 5: there also is this kind of undercurrent of trying to
[11:07] Speaker 5: dump this on our NATO partners who want no part
[11:09] Speaker 5: of it, but are going to be forced to, perhaps
[11:11] Speaker 5: and particularly the UK. And I think, I mean, you know,
[11:14] Speaker 5: we we kind of start this war. You know, you
[11:16] Speaker 5: guys alluded to it. We start this war, and now
[11:18] Speaker 5: we're saying, hey, we need some help, even though even
[11:20] Speaker 5: though Trump then a second later says I don't give
[11:23] Speaker 5: a shit about NATO and you guys are horrible and
[11:25] Speaker 5: you all suck, But behind the scenes we're asking them,
[11:27] Speaker 5: you know, are we gonna walk away and leave this
[11:29] Speaker 5: big pile of shit? The straight of hor moves to
[11:31] Speaker 5: some kind of NATO you know, you know, UK led mission.
[11:34] Speaker 2: I don't know.
[11:36] Speaker 5: And so you know that that to me is a
[11:39] Speaker 5: is certainly interesting. And I think the last piece on
[11:41] Speaker 5: this is you know again, what I said last week
[11:44] Speaker 5: was this, you know that we have this this romance
[11:46] Speaker 5: of the military math. I mean, I don't give a
[11:47] Speaker 5: shit how many fucking targets we've hit. Ten thousand means
[11:50] Speaker 5: nothing to me. Fifteen thousand means nothing to me. Because
[11:54] Speaker 5: they just launched ballistic missiles and took out an a
[11:56] Speaker 5: wax in Saudi Arabia. They're pounding these israel NonStop, and
[12:00] Speaker 5: so I mean it's important we continue on. But we're
[12:03] Speaker 5: romance by all of these you know, the the data
[12:06] Speaker 5: on the strikes and all these briefings, and we think
[12:08] Speaker 5: it means something, and it maybe it does. If you're
[12:11] Speaker 5: talking about a committed war effort in the United States
[12:14] Speaker 5: over time, you know, can we beat Iran? Of course
[12:16] Speaker 5: we can, but if we have such limited time span
[12:20] Speaker 5: attention span. You know, literally three or four days ago,
[12:23] Speaker 5: there was there was people were talking about the you know,
[12:25] Speaker 5: the ballistic missile inventory of the Iranians. We're almost uh uh,
[12:29] Speaker 5: we're almost finished. Yet then an intel report leak that no,
[12:32] Speaker 5: actually they have a third of it left. And then
[12:34] Speaker 5: they start hitting our air base in Saudi Arabia and
[12:36] Speaker 5: the Israelis and so you know this is and this
[12:39] Speaker 5: is not to say I mean, you know, if you
[12:41] Speaker 5: were going to launch a war in Iran, you have
[12:43] Speaker 5: to build all these in. It's going to be hard,
[12:45] Speaker 5: it's going to take months, there's gonna be significant US casualties,
[12:48] Speaker 5: and you do that, you walk in knowing that. But
[12:52] Speaker 5: I think we want, you know, we want this to
[12:53] Speaker 5: be a call of duty game. And you know, I'm
[12:56] Speaker 5: definitely getting into, you know, the military analysis sphere, which
[12:58] Speaker 5: is I'm not an expert on, but on the intel
[13:01] Speaker 5: side of things. I mean, just everything that I see
[13:02] Speaker 5: that's happening just seems to be so predictable. I mean,
[13:05] Speaker 5: my goodness, both you guys spend so much of your career,
[13:08] Speaker 5: you know, war gaming this game. You know all the plans,
[13:10] Speaker 5: and well, how are we surprised at some and by
[13:13] Speaker 5: the way, the last piece sorry now I'm gonna go
[13:15] Speaker 5: on my rant. How are we How do we not
[13:17] Speaker 5: have hardened any kind of hardened shelter shelters at our
[13:21] Speaker 5: bases in the Middle East? Our aircraft are wide open.
[13:24] Speaker 5: Do we not learn from everything that happened to Ukraine?
[13:27] Speaker 5: What was Sentcom doing is they were traveling around the
[13:29] Speaker 5: Middle East thinking about a future war with Iran ship's
[13:32] Speaker 5: wide open and it's getting hit. Did we not see
[13:35] Speaker 5: what what drones and and and you know, and blistic
[13:38] Speaker 5: missiles could do in Ukraine? And that is something that
[13:41] Speaker 5: I wanted to raise with both of you guys in particular,
[13:43] Speaker 5: because it seems to me and that was there was
[13:46] Speaker 5: a little bit of that in social media today. Some
[13:48] Speaker 5: some military commentators were saying, oh, you know, wait, wait
[13:50] Speaker 5: a second, why is this happening here? Why is everything
[13:52] Speaker 5: out in the open? That's my two cents.
[13:56] Speaker 1: Well said, because I said a lot of that too
[13:58] Speaker 1: in my opening, right, all right, yeah, go ahead.
[14:03] Speaker 5: Greek mind melt.
[14:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, we're just angry. We're just default angry.
[14:07] Speaker 5: I'm in a good mood today. I'm not an angry
[14:09] Speaker 5: Greek today on something yesterday in our in our little chat.
[14:15] Speaker 5: Sorry about that, just about the state of the US
[14:17] Speaker 5: intelligence community.
[14:18] Speaker 3: Sorry, Rick, that's fine.
[14:23] Speaker 5: Any comments on what I just said. Sorry, I've raised
[14:26] Speaker 5: a couple of points for you all. I was very
[14:27] Speaker 5: interested in your takes, I mean actually.
[14:30] Speaker 3: Talked about it a bit. Go ahead, Jonathan.
[14:33] Speaker 4: I was just gonna mention about nine months ago, me
[14:36] Speaker 4: and uh D were the two of us on a
[14:38] Speaker 4: little video here and the title was we are gearing
[14:41] Speaker 4: up for war with they were on And there was
[14:43] Speaker 4: a comment in the comment section of that video, and
[14:46] Speaker 4: someone said, are we seriously considering comparing Iraq and nation
[14:49] Speaker 4: building to targeted strikes on nuclear sites? Because in that
[14:52] Speaker 4: video nine months ago, I said, what we're doing here
[14:55] Speaker 4: are these are pieces moving toward an eventual attack on
[14:58] Speaker 4: Iran and the there's a lot of pushback from the
[15:01] Speaker 4: public at that time, including in the comments to that video,
[15:03] Speaker 4: saying like, there's no way we're going to do that.
[15:04] Speaker 4: We're just talking about targeting nuclear strikes and you know,
[15:07] Speaker 4: hitting Isfahan and Fodau and all this. And I said,
[15:09] Speaker 4: that's not what this is is, that's not how it's
[15:11] Speaker 4: going to end. Especial if you look at how pieces
[15:13] Speaker 4: are moving even back last summer, even before June, before
[15:16] Speaker 4: the June strikes, you know, and when you're talking about predictability,
[15:19] Speaker 4: like you just mentioned Mark, like the signal is there.
[15:23] Speaker 4: You know, if you just look at this in a
[15:24] Speaker 4: rational way, you can kind of see, Okay, there are
[15:27] Speaker 4: these players in this game. These players have these capabilities,
[15:30] Speaker 4: they're doing these things right now when they put these
[15:32] Speaker 4: capabilities in play, typically this is what happens next. It's
[15:36] Speaker 4: not a fantasy or some kind of crazy thing to
[15:37] Speaker 4: say that. If you take carg Island for example, this
[15:40] Speaker 4: is not the end of the game. There are further
[15:43] Speaker 4: moves that will occur. It must occur whether one player
[15:45] Speaker 4: wants it or the other player wants it. There will
[15:47] Speaker 4: be these outcomes most likely, like there is a predictable
[15:51] Speaker 4: series of events that occur after one event happens. And
[15:54] Speaker 4: I think a lot of times observers look at this
[15:56] Speaker 4: and they say, well, because I don't think that that's possible,
[15:59] Speaker 4: I can't think beyond on what happens next because I
[16:01] Speaker 4: don't think that's possible. And it's that's not how you
[16:03] Speaker 4: look at this. You have to critically analyze, well, what
[16:05] Speaker 4: if it did happen, what's next? Okay, and what if
[16:08] Speaker 4: that happens? What about those three things that happened after that?
[16:10] Speaker 4: And that's how you have to rationally approach this. I'm
[16:12] Speaker 4: only mentioning that for some of the viewers who might
[16:14] Speaker 4: you know, think well, we don't want ground troops, so
[16:16] Speaker 4: we can't think beyond the ground troops option. But you
[16:19] Speaker 4: have to, and I think that's what might be missing
[16:21] Speaker 4: also in the White House, is there might be some
[16:23] Speaker 4: of this lack of you know, create a future predictability
[16:27] Speaker 4: on what could happen, even if you don't want it
[16:29] Speaker 4: to happen, what if that does happen. And I think
[16:32] Speaker 4: that's a very important thing.
[16:33] Speaker 3: So in my experience, and I don't think this change
[16:36] Speaker 3: is per administration. Whether it's the Joint chiefs of Staff
[16:41] Speaker 3: or the you know, the combatant commanders and their staff
[16:45] Speaker 3: like Sendcom, they're always planning for this. It's not like,
[16:50] Speaker 3: I mean, they're the same people generally, whether you're in
[16:54] Speaker 3: the Trump administration, by administration or wherever it comes next.
[16:58] Speaker 3: My concern, and I I'm going off of media reports,
[17:02] Speaker 3: but we've all seen them, is there's a disconnect. And
[17:05] Speaker 3: because the National Security Council is where the policy coordination happens,
[17:13] Speaker 3: and it is the interface between you know, where the
[17:16] Speaker 3: rubber hits the road, which in this case is the
[17:18] Speaker 3: US military and policy makers, and if it's not functioning
[17:23] Speaker 3: the way it usually does, and that's what the reporting is. Essentially,
[17:26] Speaker 3: nothing's going on there. And the idea that you have
[17:29] Speaker 3: the Secretary of State, who's also the National Security Advisor,
[17:32] Speaker 3: goes to that and there's also another report this was
[17:36] Speaker 3: all planned out by five people, which I don't think
[17:40] Speaker 3: has happened in the history of.
[17:41] Speaker 2: The United States.
[17:43] Speaker 3: Right, even if you go back to World War Two,
[17:46] Speaker 3: when the whole government was essentially in the Executive Office
[17:49] Speaker 3: building where the NSC is now, they still had a
[17:53] Speaker 3: coordination business. They ran a world war from there. Now
[17:58] Speaker 3: we've seem to go in the other direction. And what
[18:00] Speaker 3: I'm concerned about, and it's not just that I'm sticking
[18:04] Speaker 3: out for people that I know that areform military, is
[18:07] Speaker 3: I know they're the same people, and I know they're
[18:10] Speaker 3: as smart or smarter than I am or any of
[18:12] Speaker 3: us are, and they're thinking about all this stuff. They
[18:16] Speaker 3: didn't just decide not to think about it. So I
[18:20] Speaker 3: think what the issue is is they don't know which
[18:23] Speaker 3: direction we're going. So it's hard to plan the pitfalls
[18:28] Speaker 3: on the way if you're following my analogy, if you
[18:31] Speaker 3: don't know we're going that way, right, and then we
[18:36] Speaker 3: turn around go that way. So I think my concern
[18:40] Speaker 3: is that they're they need to restart that it existed
[18:43] Speaker 3: in every administration and actually listen to folks and then
[18:50] Speaker 3: package the decisions that we have to make as they
[18:52] Speaker 3: go up that everything's already thought out. So if you
[18:56] Speaker 3: go this way, this is what you have to be
[18:57] Speaker 3: concerned about. This is contingency planning, et cetera, et cetera.
[19:01] Speaker 3: Here's a pros, here's the cons and the military intelligence
[19:04] Speaker 3: community does that. And you know both both of those
[19:07] Speaker 3: groups don't do policy. They inform policy, but I don't
[19:12] Speaker 3: know that they're they're playing that traditional role. That's that
[19:15] Speaker 3: I guess is in a nutshell. That last sentence is
[19:18] Speaker 3: what I'm trying to.
[19:19] Speaker 5: Say, I think, But I mean, but Dan Kine and
[19:21] Speaker 5: John Ratcliffe and to some extent Adma Cooper are in
[19:24] Speaker 5: the room, you know, so so chairman, and Juan Chiefs
[19:27] Speaker 5: is the principal advisor to the President on military affairs.
[19:31] Speaker 2: He is in the room.
[19:32] Speaker 3: Yes, and so he was the only uniform military person.
[19:36] Speaker 5: But so so I think we're absolving him of some
[19:38] Speaker 5: of this, of some of what is going on now
[19:41] Speaker 5: as we see the dysfunction. That was my only point.
[19:44] Speaker 3: You know, I don't know that we know what he's saying.
[19:47] Speaker 3: So if he goes into the room and says, I
[19:49] Speaker 3: think it's a terrible idea to interject ground troops, which
[19:52] Speaker 3: there are reporting that he did say that, and they go,
[19:55] Speaker 3: thanks General. Now let's talk about injecting out troops. What
[20:00] Speaker 3: is he supposed to do.
[20:02] Speaker 5: Well, Jim, But Jim maddis a Secretary of Defense, a
[20:04] Speaker 5: little bit different role, but in the in the Trump
[20:06] Speaker 5: on different role. But Maddie was very very openly pushing
[20:14] Speaker 5: back on Trump's crazy ideas. That's that's my only thing.
[20:17] Speaker 5: I mean, you know, I think you know, according to.
[20:19] Speaker 3: The reforts, the general did push back, threatening to resign.
[20:23] Speaker 3: I mean, look, if everybody did that, the entire chain
[20:25] Speaker 3: of command of the military would fall apart. It's not
[20:29] Speaker 3: a thing in my world. It's not a thing. You
[20:32] Speaker 3: You don't go in there thinking that you are. You
[20:34] Speaker 3: can so influence policy that you just quit when you
[20:37] Speaker 3: don't like it. If it's a lawful order, you follow
[20:41] Speaker 3: the order, or the entire chain of command of the
[20:44] Speaker 3: military falls apart.
[20:46] Speaker 2: But don't.
[20:47] Speaker 5: Don't you think resigning though, actually that that would argue
[20:49] Speaker 5: against that, That would just mean you bring someone else in.
[20:52] Speaker 2: It would be more.
[20:52] Speaker 3: Exactly just all you're doing is compounding the problem and
[20:55] Speaker 3: handing it over your deputy.
[20:57] Speaker 5: But I think if he resigns, it's just hands the law.
[21:01] Speaker 3: I mean, you have the ability to say your advice,
[21:04] Speaker 3: But what do you mean by resisting. No, I'm saying
[21:07] Speaker 3: that you follow lawful orders. There's no such thing as resisting, right.
[21:10] Speaker 5: That's that's where it would be really bad. It would
[21:13] Speaker 5: be more honorable saying that I can't go ahead and
[21:15] Speaker 5: do this. You know, if you, if you, that's a.
[21:17] Speaker 3: Lawful order, and you're in you're you swore to follow
[21:21] Speaker 3: the constitution. It's constitutionally a lawful order. I don't see
[21:26] Speaker 3: the purpose of resigning, nor do I think it's heroic.
[21:30] Speaker 3: It's actually a dereliction of a duty.
[21:34] Speaker 4: And if all that resign are the ones that are
[21:37] Speaker 4: left behind are the ones that all agree with that
[21:39] Speaker 4: exact issue. So you haven't fixed the problem, You've only
[21:41] Speaker 4: grown the issue.
[21:43] Speaker 3: It's then if it comes all about you, it comes
[21:46] Speaker 3: all about you. You've just totally screwed over your deputy
[21:49] Speaker 3: and all the way down to.
[21:50] Speaker 2: The chane of command.
[21:51] Speaker 3: But that would argue that you've made You can go
[21:53] Speaker 3: on TV and talk about how you resigned.
[21:56] Speaker 5: But that but then then then the the in the
[21:58] Speaker 5: Vietnam War, when terrible decisions were made and people did
[22:01] Speaker 5: not do so, then you perpetuate a war that just
[22:04] Speaker 5: is going to go on forever. I mean, at some
[22:05] Speaker 5: point is there a place as a public servant when
[22:08] Speaker 5: you say I can't do this.
[22:09] Speaker 3: If you disagree with the war, you can, you can
[22:12] Speaker 3: retire and go on the speaking circuit. But if you're
[22:16] Speaker 3: if you're the one responsible for carrying out a lawful order,
[22:20] Speaker 3: then yeah, I think quitting is a dereliction a dude.
[22:25] Speaker 3: We just see it differently. I don't know. I mean,
[22:27] Speaker 3: maybe it's a marine view, but most Marines would say, hey,
[22:31] Speaker 3: I took the job, I'm in command, I got a
[22:34] Speaker 3: lawful order. The only thing I'm doing by quitting is
[22:37] Speaker 3: screwing over everybody below me and making it all about me.
[22:43] Speaker 3: We're all replaceable.
[22:44] Speaker 4: I think two in the military, like in the institutional
[22:46] Speaker 4: perspective of carrying out lawful orders, even if you disagree
[22:50] Speaker 4: with the policy. In the military, you know you're a
[22:52] Speaker 4: policy executor. It's very pure. You're not a policy maker,
[22:55] Speaker 4: and you're not there to influence policy. You're there to
[22:57] Speaker 4: advise on it at the most, and in many cases
[22:59] Speaker 4: you're not even there to do that, depending on where
[23:02] Speaker 4: you are in the in the institution, and I think
[23:04] Speaker 4: that's different than a lot of other places in government
[23:06] Speaker 4: where there is more room like some given the joints
[23:09] Speaker 4: basically to actually say like I disagree with that, or
[23:11] Speaker 4: here's like State Department, for example, has a dissent channel.
[23:15] Speaker 4: The military doesn't have anything like that, you know that,
[23:17] Speaker 4: like the Kenon Telegram, the long telegram that he wrote
[23:20] Speaker 4: about the Cold War and Russia and all that, there's
[23:23] Speaker 4: no mechanism like that in the military. And in fact,
[23:25] Speaker 4: the military is designed to resist that type of mechanism because,
[23:28] Speaker 4: like as you said, Mick, the moment people begin questioning
[23:31] Speaker 4: policy at the execution level, the system starts to fall apart.
[23:35] Speaker 4: Like the reason that it's effective is because that thing's
[23:37] Speaker 4: not there that could be for better or worse. You know,
[23:39] Speaker 4: there's philosophical debate about should it be that way, and
[23:41] Speaker 4: maybe it should or shouldn't. But if you want the
[23:43] Speaker 4: system to function, well, you can't. You can't change that
[23:47] Speaker 4: aspect of it. I think in the way that it's
[23:49] Speaker 4: designed right now. In the military, at.
[23:50] Speaker 2: Least I would.
[23:52] Speaker 3: Secretary Manus was a civilian though, when you're making that example, yeah,
[23:56] Speaker 3: he's a civilian that was responsible for defense policy. So
[24:00] Speaker 3: that's just because he was a former general. That put
[24:03] Speaker 3: he's in a different space, that's right. The chairman of
[24:05] Speaker 3: the Joint Chief of Staff. Yeah, he's the most senior
[24:09] Speaker 3: uniform member. But he's a uniform member. His job is
[24:12] Speaker 3: not it's to advise the best military advice. It isn't
[24:16] Speaker 3: to promote a policy objective, nor necessarily to obstruct it.
[24:24] Speaker 3: And you are obstructing it if you disagree with it,
[24:26] Speaker 3: and you then quit.
[24:28] Speaker 4: And part of it, too, is how do you present
[24:29] Speaker 4: those options as the advisor, because there is some persuasion
[24:33] Speaker 4: there where you're giving these you know, three choices, like hey,
[24:35] Speaker 4: there's carg Island, there's these other stuff. If you do
[24:38] Speaker 4: a really good job of problem framing to the decision maker,
[24:41] Speaker 4: you might persuade them to pick your option, you know.
[24:44] Speaker 4: And I think Colin Powell did that in nineteen ninety
[24:46] Speaker 4: one when he advocated the Powell doctrine, and there was
[24:48] Speaker 4: the Weinberger doctrine which is very similar to that, showing
[24:50] Speaker 4: for these limited strikes with limited objectives a very quick
[24:53] Speaker 4: use of a specific amount of resources. There were other
[24:57] Speaker 4: policymakers that were influencing Bush at the time to choose
[25:00] Speaker 4: different outcomes, and Powell did a good job of presenting
[25:03] Speaker 4: his case in a way that the President chose to
[25:05] Speaker 4: go with. And I think that's really where that policy
[25:08] Speaker 4: can be influenced, is how do you frame this problem
[25:11] Speaker 4: in a way that's really the best option to the
[25:14] Speaker 4: person looking at many options from state, from NSC, from
[25:17] Speaker 4: other from other inputs.
[25:19] Speaker 5: I still think that the two positions we're talking about,
[25:22] Speaker 5: the chairman and then the Samcom chief, do have a
[25:24] Speaker 5: political role in a policy making role. I guess that's
[25:26] Speaker 5: where we differ a little bit on this. They're so
[25:29] Speaker 5: senior they you know they are. They are not only
[25:32] Speaker 5: senior military officers, are also diplomats, uh, And so I
[25:35] Speaker 5: think they do actually influence policy and help drive policy
[25:38] Speaker 5: as well. And so I hear what you guys are saying,
[25:41] Speaker 5: and there's honor in what you're saying. But I do
[25:43] Speaker 5: think that at those levels, at the Canaan Cooper level,
[25:45] Speaker 5: they have more. They certainly do have talk about policy,
[25:48] Speaker 5: because there's been a long kind of you know, there
[25:50] Speaker 5: has there's certainly been Again this is just from what
[25:53] Speaker 5: I remember hearing, uh, you know, for example, on the
[25:56] Speaker 5: j C po A and Mick you, I mean you
[25:58] Speaker 5: saw it. You were a civilian in in d D,
[26:00] Speaker 5: but d D was actually in favor of that.
[26:04] Speaker 2: At that time.
[26:05] Speaker 5: Now, maybe that was the d D civilian side that
[26:07] Speaker 5: was in favor, but I also would imagine that there
[26:10] Speaker 5: was input from the senior uniform certainly from Sencom as
[26:14] Speaker 5: well on that. But well, I think I just think
[26:19] Speaker 5: this is an interesting debate, and particularly if we end
[26:22] Speaker 5: up going into kind of the morass of a never
[26:24] Speaker 5: ending war. I don't know if it's going to get
[26:26] Speaker 5: to that place or not. But you know, what was
[26:30] Speaker 5: the dissent on this, and you guys made a good
[26:32] Speaker 5: point that there is there's actually there's no dissent channels
[26:34] Speaker 5: even available right now because the national security process doesn't
[26:37] Speaker 5: even work. I mean, ordinarily there'd be a fight in
[26:41] Speaker 5: the NSC, so a National Security Council meeting would be
[26:45] Speaker 5: you know, you have cabinet, either the chiefs their deputy
[26:47] Speaker 5: cabinet or if it goes down to lower levels, everyone's
[26:49] Speaker 5: kind of fighting stuff out. But as you noted, that
[26:51] Speaker 5: doesn't even occur, and so who knows how they're making
[26:54] Speaker 5: this kind of policy right here?
[26:58] Speaker 2: Hey, what's up, guys? This is UH?
[27:00] Speaker 1: Do us a favorite and check out our Patreon page
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[27:32] Speaker 1: So we appreciate it, and we appreciate you guys listening.
[27:36] Speaker 1: Thanks a bunch. All right, let's talk about what happens.
[27:44] Speaker 1: You know, if the Mute gets there, the other new
[27:46] Speaker 1: gets say they take carg Island and then we launch
[27:49] Speaker 1: an operation to snatch uranium from nuclear sites. We talked
[27:56] Speaker 1: about it before the nuclear sites. You will take weeks. Obviously,
[28:00] Speaker 1: the Marines got to go to carg Island and hold
[28:01] Speaker 1: carg Island right until they negotiate, until we squeeze them
[28:04] Speaker 1: enough where they are like, yeah, let's we'll make a deal.
[28:07] Speaker 1: So you're talking weeks probably, like are these soldiers and
[28:11] Speaker 1: marines supposed to just take incoming fire until that ends,
[28:15] Speaker 1: or until they dig out all the uranium and get
[28:18] Speaker 1: out of there, because it's not a two hour of Venezuelan,
[28:21] Speaker 1: you know, capture mission rights. It's weeks and weeks at
[28:26] Speaker 1: a time. So I mean, what does that look like
[28:28] Speaker 1: for the guys on the ground during those weeks if
[28:31] Speaker 1: it were to happen.
[28:33] Speaker 3: I think we're going to have to take this straight first.
[28:36] Speaker 3: I don't know exactly, but I mean, if I was
[28:38] Speaker 3: looking at this militarily, I wouldn't want to launch all
[28:41] Speaker 3: these marines to take carg Island, like four hundred miles
[28:44] Speaker 3: up the Person Gulf and still have the Straight itself locked,
[28:48] Speaker 3: because there's a good chance that we take carg Island
[28:51] Speaker 3: and like you just said, our marines and potentially paratroopers
[28:55] Speaker 3: are attacked NonStop and the Uranians go, We're still not
[28:57] Speaker 3: opening astray. That's really the point. I mean, if we
[29:00] Speaker 3: wanted to actually take their ability to use the islan
[29:03] Speaker 3: a way, we could just bombit. So I'm concerned we
[29:06] Speaker 3: get there take casualties, which is likely. I mean, there's
[29:10] Speaker 3: a CNM report that they've been preparing for this for
[29:12] Speaker 3: some time and then we keep taking casualties and it
[29:16] Speaker 3: doesn't strategically advantage us. So then I would say, well,
[29:20] Speaker 3: why not just focus on the actual straight itself? Huge decision,
[29:24] Speaker 3: big political decision, and I don't have the information available
[29:30] Speaker 3: to know the whether we can militarily unblock the straight
[29:34] Speaker 3: because there's two parts to it. We've talked about it before.
[29:37] Speaker 3: There's where the military says it's good to go, you
[29:40] Speaker 3: can you can go through, and then there's a commercial
[29:43] Speaker 3: vessels going I don't think so right. So it's not
[29:46] Speaker 3: just it's not just us declaring it. It's also the
[29:50] Speaker 3: commercial vessels, the tankers and their insurers saying yeah, we
[29:54] Speaker 3: believe you right, And it's going to be really quick
[29:57] Speaker 3: to see mine the straight, so it could be matter hours.
[30:01] Speaker 3: As these slow motion troops arrive, they just start dropping
[30:06] Speaker 3: all their naval minds, so that that's one aspect of this.
[30:10] Speaker 3: I again would say we would be better off if
[30:13] Speaker 3: we hat to seize fire even if Iron doesn't, and
[30:18] Speaker 3: then start talking to our allies. I know this is backwards,
[30:20] Speaker 3: but you can't undo the past about how are we
[30:23] Speaker 3: going to open the streets because there's countries all around
[30:26] Speaker 3: the world that are hurting because of this, and then
[30:29] Speaker 3: the other potential ground force operation is the recovery of
[30:35] Speaker 3: the highly enriched uranium. I think that might I don't know.
[30:38] Speaker 3: I'd like to hear from Jonathan two, but I think
[30:40] Speaker 3: that might be like the most complicated special operations mission
[30:44] Speaker 3: in history. If that goes down, I mean, this could
[30:47] Speaker 3: last weeks and we could be, you know, completely enveloped
[30:52] Speaker 3: by tens of thousands of Iranians willing to lose their
[30:59] Speaker 3: life to get to the troops that are carrying this out.
[31:05] Speaker 3: So it's very far inland, and it's well beyond like
[31:09] Speaker 3: you mentioned already, the this then Azuela apprehension operation. This
[31:14] Speaker 3: could take every movement, equipment, and also the complications are
[31:19] Speaker 3: events that will be a huge decision. I certainly understand
[31:23] Speaker 3: why we would want to it's one of our primary
[31:26] Speaker 3: objectives so they don't get a nuclear bomb. I would
[31:30] Speaker 3: imagine they are, but I would really be pushing for
[31:32] Speaker 3: them to come up with an alternative to putting the
[31:36] Speaker 3: entire force at risk, which I think is clearly a possibility.
[31:42] Speaker 3: I think they can do it, but again, just because
[31:44] Speaker 3: they can do it, just like the marine stake in
[31:46] Speaker 3: the islands, we really should look at whether they.
[31:49] Speaker 2: Should do it.
[31:52] Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think taking carg Island is important to
[31:54] Speaker 4: separate from the nuclear mission because these aren't really related militarily.
[31:58] Speaker 2: Exactly.
[31:58] Speaker 4: Taking Cargoe Island it's kind of like patching a pinhole
[32:01] Speaker 4: leak on a vessel that has a large hole on
[32:04] Speaker 4: the other side of the vessel, And it's like, what,
[32:06] Speaker 4: why would you just take this island? Exactly Like you said,
[32:08] Speaker 4: you have to stop the actual flow of the thing
[32:11] Speaker 4: you're trying to effect rather than just taking a piece
[32:14] Speaker 4: of physical terrain. And even on the carg Island aspect, yes,
[32:18] Speaker 4: you keep hearing this quotation that ninety percent of their
[32:20] Speaker 4: oils can pass through there, et cetera. Well, where's the
[32:22] Speaker 4: oil coming from? You know, you want to go upstream
[32:25] Speaker 4: in the oil process. It's coming from Abadon, which is
[32:28] Speaker 4: right across the border of Iraq and Kuwait, which is
[32:31] Speaker 4: physically accessible by ground forces from launched from Iraq and Kuwait.
[32:34] Speaker 4: You don't need to take carg Island to stop the
[32:36] Speaker 4: production of Abadon. You know, there's a whole different, you know,
[32:38] Speaker 4: entanglement here going on where you're looking at, what are
[32:41] Speaker 4: you trying to actually do militarily on carg Island, and
[32:43] Speaker 4: if it's to stop the flow of oil, you don't
[32:45] Speaker 4: need to even touch carg Island. You can put the
[32:48] Speaker 4: Abadon at risk elsewhere. Look, it just happened with a
[32:50] Speaker 4: steel plant with ten thousand employees. A few air strikes
[32:53] Speaker 4: in twenty four hours stop the steel manufacturing from that plant.
[32:56] Speaker 4: Same thing at Abadon. And Abadon has been there for
[32:58] Speaker 4: a very long time. You know, the Brits put it
[33:00] Speaker 4: there when it was the Anglo American or the Anglo
[33:03] Speaker 4: Iranian oil company, the AIOC. It's been there for over
[33:06] Speaker 4: one hundred years. We are very familiar with Abadan and
[33:09] Speaker 4: there are ways to prevent that from happening. We did
[33:11] Speaker 4: that in eastern Syria with the Mission Support sites with Kunnaco,
[33:15] Speaker 4: Phillips and other oil companies to stop the flow of
[33:17] Speaker 4: oil out of Syria for ISIS and for the Syrian government.
[33:20] Speaker 4: I mean, we've done this before recently with special operations forces.
[33:23] Speaker 4: Obviously in a less risky situation than we have right now.
[33:26] Speaker 4: And there are other islands in the Gulf that have
[33:29] Speaker 4: to be secured before Cougar Island is actually safe from
[33:32] Speaker 4: other latoral threats. You know, you've got Kesham Island, which
[33:36] Speaker 4: is the entire length of Kesham Islands. Huge, it's the
[33:39] Speaker 4: length of Okanao. And if you remember back to our
[33:42] Speaker 4: World War two strategic lessons, one of the reasons we
[33:45] Speaker 4: use nuclear bombs in Japan was because after the Battle
[33:48] Speaker 4: of Okanao, after the amount of losses we had there,
[33:50] Speaker 4: and we thought about how how many losses will we
[33:52] Speaker 4: have in the mainland. We will not sustain those losses.
[33:55] Speaker 4: We have to use a nuclear weapon. That was the
[33:57] Speaker 4: calculus back then. And this island is the same size
[34:00] Speaker 4: as Okay now, right, and the people are almost I mean,
[34:03] Speaker 4: you could probably equate the level of military fanaticism with
[34:06] Speaker 4: the IRGC and the Japanese army back then, where they
[34:10] Speaker 4: were willing to die to the last man. In Guadalcanal,
[34:13] Speaker 4: you know, I had a family member that has a sword,
[34:15] Speaker 4: a katana from one of the last survivors of the
[34:18] Speaker 4: enemy force that the Marines killed all of them because
[34:21] Speaker 4: they wouldn't stop fighting. And you'll see exactly the same
[34:23] Speaker 4: thing here in Iran and right now. Actually yesterday there
[34:26] Speaker 4: was a countrywide SMS, you know, text message sent out
[34:29] Speaker 4: to every cell phone in the country that said join
[34:32] Speaker 4: the John Fada, which is volunteer sacrificing life brigades, which
[34:38] Speaker 4: are martyr brigades to fight with knives and whatever weapons
[34:42] Speaker 4: you have available in case the US forces invade. So
[34:44] Speaker 4: they sent this to almost ninety million people. Of course
[34:45] Speaker 4: many people don't agree with that or accept that, but
[34:48] Speaker 4: they are blasting this message out and saying we're going
[34:51] Speaker 4: to fight to the last man. They're not saying that
[34:53] Speaker 4: to the US. They're saying that to their own people
[34:55] Speaker 4: right in Farsi. This is think about like the internal
[34:57] Speaker 4: messaging going on right now when they're looking at what
[34:59] Speaker 4: is the US going to do next? Are they taking Kesham?
[35:02] Speaker 4: Are they taking card Are they going to take our
[35:04] Speaker 4: nuclear material? Which is an existential threat to the regime
[35:06] Speaker 4: because it's the last negotiating piece they have had for
[35:09] Speaker 4: many years. So we need to think about what is
[35:11] Speaker 4: what is the adversary thinking about and how how far
[35:13] Speaker 4: are they willing to go? Because if we look at
[35:15] Speaker 4: it like, okay, we're going to take these islands, well,
[35:17] Speaker 4: what's the response going to be? How existential of a
[35:19] Speaker 4: threat is that to the regime? And it's a high threat,
[35:22] Speaker 4: which means we need to be prepared to resist that threat.
[35:24] Speaker 4: Beyond a conventional military response.
[35:28] Speaker 5: You guys think that there and again both of you
[35:30] Speaker 5: haven't been involved in this kind of the planning at
[35:32] Speaker 5: the SMECOM level for such operations. Are there casualty estimates
[35:36] Speaker 5: that go into this, you know, between carg Island, between
[35:39] Speaker 5: you know, going in and trying to secure the EGU,
[35:42] Speaker 5: would there be internal estimates on okay, how you know
[35:44] Speaker 5: we can because I think that's always going to be
[35:46] Speaker 5: the notion of we can do this. I mean, we
[35:48] Speaker 5: can beat the Iranians. It could be extremely bloody and
[35:51] Speaker 5: take a long time. But are there actual estimates that
[35:54] Speaker 5: go into these things? And then would they in a
[35:57] Speaker 5: normal situation get presented to the policymaker.
[36:00] Speaker 4: Yes, and actually there'll be estimates not only on casualties
[36:03] Speaker 4: like wounded in action, but types of casualties, types of
[36:06] Speaker 4: blood needed. How far will that blood be from the
[36:08] Speaker 4: actual front line, from the forward line of troops, What
[36:10] Speaker 4: type of hospitals, what role of hospital level we need
[36:13] Speaker 4: to actually have in the theater, how many types of
[36:17] Speaker 4: you know, blackhawks we need to go and fly in
[36:19] Speaker 4: and out? What level of risk are those helicopters willing
[36:21] Speaker 4: to accept when they actually take casualties in and out.
[36:23] Speaker 4: Is it going to be ground metavac primary or air
[36:25] Speaker 4: metavac primary. All this will be planned in there in
[36:28] Speaker 4: addition to detainee handling, which is very closely attached to
[36:32] Speaker 4: casualty handling, because a lot of the same rear area
[36:35] Speaker 4: of handling that has to happen for casualties is similar
[36:38] Speaker 4: to what happens with detainees as far as you know
[36:40] Speaker 4: the infrastructure needed in the rear area to actually support
[36:44] Speaker 4: moving from the forward area back to the rear and
[36:46] Speaker 4: then replacing, replacing with new waves of troops if needed.
[36:51] Speaker 3: Yeah, so everything Jonathan just said from the point of
[36:54] Speaker 3: view of military planning. And then yes, Mark to your
[36:57] Speaker 3: question on policymakers usually ask to and it's already ready
[37:03] Speaker 3: like what's the risk of force? What kind of casualties
[37:05] Speaker 3: we think we're going to take? Because I mean, one,
[37:09] Speaker 3: I mean, humans should care about other humans, right, But
[37:12] Speaker 3: the other thing is it's political. I mean if they go, oh, yeah,
[37:15] Speaker 3: we expect to take forty percent casualties and we take
[37:17] Speaker 3: Carog Island, I mean that's a they realize. Oh, I
[37:21] Speaker 3: mean the American people don't even support the war, and
[37:23] Speaker 3: we're going to tell them we took forty percent casualties
[37:25] Speaker 3: on an island that I can't haven't even articulated why
[37:28] Speaker 3: we should take I mean, you want to talk about
[37:32] Speaker 3: the bottom falling out of support for this whole conflict. Yeah,
[37:36] Speaker 3: I mean that's an important point. I'm sure the military
[37:38] Speaker 3: is going to be like, yeah, this is what we expect.
[37:40] Speaker 3: And oftentimes they because they have to plan for the
[37:43] Speaker 3: high end, right, because if you plan for the low end,
[37:47] Speaker 3: then you're not really planning. So they're going to present
[37:49] Speaker 3: probably a high end. So these policy makers, you know,
[37:52] Speaker 3: I don't know how the process is working, but whoever
[37:56] Speaker 3: is this is going to be presented to, it's going
[37:57] Speaker 3: to have a good idea of what they're deciding to do.
[38:00] Speaker 3: I'm wondering what consequences.
[38:02] Speaker 5: If those kind of estimates would again would leak, just
[38:06] Speaker 5: because it would be so political, and you know, and
[38:09] Speaker 5: in some ways everything is political now. And I guess
[38:12] Speaker 5: the question for you all then make you allude to
[38:15] Speaker 5: to are the American people prepared for this? Because to
[38:18] Speaker 5: meet our war objectives purely in the military sense, not
[38:20] Speaker 5: the diplomatic sense. If you know, pigs fly tomorrow and
[38:24] Speaker 5: that the Iranians agree to give up their entire new program.
[38:26] Speaker 5: This is a great victory. But assuming that there is
[38:30] Speaker 5: in removing the actual nuclear threat in the h each
[38:33] Speaker 5: HGU is is a military objective that President Trump says, Yeah,
[38:37] Speaker 5: we have to do this. Do you think the American
[38:39] Speaker 5: people are prepared for those type of casualties?
[38:43] Speaker 2: I don't.
[38:44] Speaker 3: I mean, we've seen the just their their their support
[38:50] Speaker 3: for the war. The air campaign right has been underwater.
[38:55] Speaker 3: And I think the longer it goes on, and the
[38:57] Speaker 3: more we're talking about insertion ground troops and both sides
[39:01] Speaker 3: and both sides of the aisle, ultimately well and we
[39:05] Speaker 3: could I could. I think we could all agree that
[39:06] Speaker 3: Congress has kind of been absent from a lot of
[39:08] Speaker 3: the things that they're supposed to be doing. But eventually
[39:10] Speaker 3: they're going to wake up and go because it's going
[39:13] Speaker 3: to start affecting them, especially the people that are looking
[39:16] Speaker 3: at the midterms coming up, right, and they're going because
[39:19] Speaker 3: not only is this causing a lot of economic strain
[39:23] Speaker 3: that we chose to do, but if you start adding
[39:27] Speaker 3: you know, casualties, a lots of casualties coming back, what
[39:32] Speaker 3: they can do is they can cut off the funding.
[39:35] Speaker 5: Right, let me ask you a question on that this.
[39:38] Speaker 5: This was actually the first thing I had in mind
[39:40] Speaker 5: when I was preparing for the for the show today
[39:42] Speaker 5: was you know, there is this you know echosystem of
[39:47] Speaker 5: kind of the military vet bro podcast world and you
[39:50] Speaker 5: know Team House and this kind of lives a little
[39:52] Speaker 5: bit in it.
[39:53] Speaker 2: But what's that I said, watch it?
[39:56] Speaker 5: No, no, but it's not kidding because it really dedicated audience.
[39:59] Speaker 5: But and it's not because I think in what we're
[40:02] Speaker 5: doing here is having a debate and you can, we can,
[40:04] Speaker 5: we can disagree. But you know, I was just on
[40:06] Speaker 5: Andy Stump show. If you if you watch Sean Ryan,
[40:09] Speaker 5: I mean there are visceral reactions to this in this campaign,
[40:14] Speaker 5: there is, I mean, and it's not positive.
[40:16] Speaker 2: Uh uh.
[40:17] Speaker 5: And so do you think, you know, in the in
[40:19] Speaker 5: the age of social media and throw it. I don't
[40:21] Speaker 5: know what Joe Rogan is thinking these days, but these
[40:23] Speaker 5: are this is the social media world, the podcast world,
[40:26] Speaker 5: which actually really has a pretty significant following, not just
[40:30] Speaker 5: in the right, in the MAGA movement, but in the
[40:31] Speaker 5: veteran community. And then again, think about are this show,
[40:35] Speaker 5: Sean Ryan, Andy Stump and others. But there's a lot
[40:37] Speaker 5: of opposition to this. You know what do you what
[40:40] Speaker 5: is your sense from your kind of uh, your your
[40:44] Speaker 5: tribe as you talk to two people, and I know
[40:47] Speaker 5: both you guys have friends who are from the left
[40:49] Speaker 5: and the right, and so it's there's no kind of
[40:50] Speaker 5: one uniform. But you know, what are they thinking on
[40:53] Speaker 5: on Iran? Because actually I do think it matters. Look,
[40:55] Speaker 5: you know, veterans, people who've been in combat, you know,
[40:58] Speaker 5: do command a lot of respect in the United States.
[41:02] Speaker 5: And when you have a lot of people saying, hold
[41:03] Speaker 5: on a second, because ordinarily you think there's a rally
[41:06] Speaker 5: around the flag kind of concept here, and everyone's going
[41:10] Speaker 5: to think of the men and women, you know, you know,
[41:14] Speaker 5: on the ground, everyone's going to support them. But again,
[41:17] Speaker 5: the overall war effort, I just don't I see kind
[41:19] Speaker 5: of that this military vetro ecosystem is not being particularly supportive.
[41:24] Speaker 5: Am I reading that right?
[41:25] Speaker 4: Or no? A lot of the guys I grew up with,
[41:27] Speaker 4: you know, they were there during the invasion and then
[41:29] Speaker 4: shortly after that, and they remember the transition from fighting
[41:33] Speaker 4: Iraqi forces in two thousand and three four fish to
[41:36] Speaker 4: the introduction of Kutz force into that fight. When the
[41:39] Speaker 4: explosively forgmed penetrators started appearing everywhere and how that changed casualties,
[41:45] Speaker 4: and it was those penetrators are not designed. They do
[41:48] Speaker 4: kill people, but the primary purpose is to injure and
[41:51] Speaker 4: maim people because they wanted to send a visceral message
[41:55] Speaker 4: to this democracy fighting a war domestically back home to
[41:59] Speaker 4: damage public sentiment back home in the United States. And
[42:01] Speaker 4: that did very effectively when you see people coming home
[42:04] Speaker 4: with no legs and no arms, and you know, all
[42:07] Speaker 4: kinds of horrific injuries. Not only that, at the same time,
[42:10] Speaker 4: a lot of people, especially in the right, that want
[42:12] Speaker 4: to reduce government spending and complain about how much money
[42:15] Speaker 4: the VA is spending, Well, you're about to have a
[42:17] Speaker 4: whole new group of VA people that need VA benefits
[42:22] Speaker 4: for the rest of their lives from injuries in this war,
[42:25] Speaker 4: injuries designed specifically to cause that high cost domestically inside
[42:29] Speaker 4: the United States. These they are not going to be
[42:30] Speaker 4: injuries that Iran is carefully targeting and killing Americans. It's
[42:34] Speaker 4: going to be how much can we injure in name
[42:36] Speaker 4: Americans in this war to dramatically affect domestic politics back home.
[42:41] Speaker 4: And I think that's what a lot of my colleagues,
[42:42] Speaker 4: more friends in that world are seeing and thinking about
[42:45] Speaker 4: is we know what comes next because we were there
[42:48] Speaker 4: or in those early years. I have a friend from
[42:50] Speaker 4: Delta Force I was just talking to recently, and he's
[42:53] Speaker 4: very conservative, and even in the conversation we were having,
[42:56] Speaker 4: you could hear him kind of debating with himself about like,
[42:58] Speaker 4: I don't like the regime, I don't like the people there.
[43:02] Speaker 4: At the same time, you know, like I remember my
[43:03] Speaker 4: friends that had been injured and killed, but I can't
[43:06] Speaker 4: I'm having a hard time to agree with what's going on,
[43:08] Speaker 4: what's coming next, because I knew what happened back then.
[43:10] Speaker 4: I'm looking at a lot of there's a lot of
[43:11] Speaker 4: correlation between back then and now.
[43:15] Speaker 1: What do you think?
[43:16] Speaker 2: Yeah?
[43:17] Speaker 3: And uh Claire hot Andy's podcast about ten minutes down
[43:21] Speaker 3: the road by the way, right right. It's a big state,
[43:23] Speaker 3: but the concentration of veterans near where I am is
[43:28] Speaker 3: is pretty pretty dense.
[43:30] Speaker 2: Put it down.
[43:31] Speaker 5: When I went out of his podcast, I checked with
[43:33] Speaker 5: the he said I could do it. He wasn't upset
[43:34] Speaker 5: with me.
[43:35] Speaker 2: So no, not at all like that.
[43:37] Speaker 5: It was actually I mean, if we had a great chat,
[43:38] Speaker 5: it was good.
[43:39] Speaker 2: And it's good.
[43:40] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's good.
[43:41] Speaker 2: It's good. Podcast.
[43:43] Speaker 3: Man, it's a lot like what Jonathan just said. So
[43:47] Speaker 3: I think I think there's no love loss obviously for
[43:50] Speaker 3: the regime, for all the reason we already said. This
[43:52] Speaker 3: goes back to the eighties, right when I killed all
[43:54] Speaker 3: the Marines and they tortured our chief of station and
[43:59] Speaker 3: basically skinning them live, and then all the issues with
[44:02] Speaker 3: the Rock and I mean me personally, I would like
[44:07] Speaker 3: to do a lot of what we do against the
[44:09] Speaker 3: regime in the back rooms. To put it simply, and
[44:15] Speaker 3: you know, I should say this is a stoic, but
[44:16] Speaker 3: I'm all for revenge. Well, if somebody kills my friend,
[44:21] Speaker 3: I will never forget it and I will track them down.
[44:24] Speaker 3: And I hope my son tracks them down if I
[44:26] Speaker 3: wasn't able to get to them, right, So I'll just
[44:29] Speaker 3: admit that up front. But I think the hesitation is
[44:33] Speaker 3: the same Vets, and obviously I don't speak for them.
[44:36] Speaker 3: I'm just kind of explaining what I think the sentiment is.
[44:40] Speaker 3: They also look for the out for the next generation
[44:42] Speaker 3: of Vets. Right they look at their war and said,
[44:45] Speaker 3: you know, we just kept going and going and going
[44:47] Speaker 3: because policymakers couldn't make a decision, and they didn't want
[44:49] Speaker 3: to like declare it over for whatever political reasons. So
[44:53] Speaker 3: they just kept going. We kept spending more money, kept
[44:55] Speaker 3: losing more people, and there was no purpose you know,
[44:58] Speaker 3: think about you know by the time we were or nor
[45:02] Speaker 3: did they actually try to do anything to preserve what
[45:04] Speaker 3: we fought for. Right at the end, it was just like,
[45:06] Speaker 3: ask grew it, let's just get out, all right. It's like, really,
[45:09] Speaker 3: because we only have five thousand people, there were pretty
[45:11] Speaker 3: much off the front lines. We're not losing anybody, but
[45:13] Speaker 3: we're still maintaining with But they didn't, you know, so
[45:15] Speaker 3: I think a lot at the end people were like,
[45:18] Speaker 3: well what was that all about? You know, we all
[45:20] Speaker 3: look at our social media feeds and non stop remember
[45:24] Speaker 3: this person, Remember this person, Remember this person, and you
[45:28] Speaker 3: have to you have to stop and remember that person. Yeah,
[45:32] Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know. I'm speaking for myself. I
[45:35] Speaker 3: feel guilty when I don't go, I'm going to repost
[45:37] Speaker 3: this person because he's not going to get forgotten, right,
[45:41] Speaker 3: And I don't think they want to see that again.
[45:44] Speaker 3: And now they're in the sum, they're in a place
[45:46] Speaker 3: that they could do something about it because they're out
[45:47] Speaker 3: of the military where they can say something right before,
[45:51] Speaker 3: you know, we already had this discussion. Your job is
[45:53] Speaker 3: to follow orders, but now you're a civilian.
[45:56] Speaker 5: And just way to be inherently suspicious of US government.
[46:04] Speaker 5: It's actually and I think that's a good thing. I mean, again,
[46:06] Speaker 5: we live in a democracy. We have to have this debate.
[46:08] Speaker 5: It's actually really good. There's no kind of monolithic you know,
[46:12] Speaker 5: national security or veteran community arguing one way or another
[46:15] Speaker 5: on this issue. And that's a good thing.
[46:18] Speaker 2: You know.
[46:18] Speaker 5: One of the things that I that I don't know
[46:19] Speaker 5: if you guys struggle with. I literally it's not changed
[46:22] Speaker 5: my mind. But there are days I wake up and
[46:24] Speaker 5: think about my entire career and and you know, all
[46:27] Speaker 5: of us worked against the Iranians in some place, in
[46:29] Speaker 5: some fashion at some point. And then I think, of
[46:32] Speaker 5: course if Iraq and Afghanistan places where I was not
[46:34] Speaker 5: in the military, but I went to both places. You
[46:36] Speaker 5: guys know that the friends who were killed there, and
[46:39] Speaker 5: so then you do start thinking, Okay.
[46:41] Speaker 2: You know what was all that for?
[46:43] Speaker 5: So I'm all over the place in this thing. And
[46:44] Speaker 5: you could probably tell because I get accused all the time.
[46:47] Speaker 5: They said, well, you know you last week you refer
[46:49] Speaker 5: this whole thing and this week you're against it, and
[46:50] Speaker 5: I was like, because I really struggle with that. I
[46:53] Speaker 5: think a lot of the things you guys were just
[46:54] Speaker 5: talking about is that, Look, the Iranians are a bad actor,
[46:58] Speaker 5: no doubt. And you know, whether it's the embassy bombing,
[47:02] Speaker 5: the Marie Barracks bombing, our station chief getting getting killed,
[47:05] Speaker 5: Coobar Towers. I mean, we can go on and on,
[47:07] Speaker 5: e fps on and on and on. You know, the
[47:10] Speaker 5: rent is due. And by the way, the same people
[47:13] Speaker 5: who were I mean the running regime, the nature of
[47:15] Speaker 5: it and the age of some of these leaders, some
[47:17] Speaker 5: have been killed. We're involved in all those things. This
[47:20] Speaker 5: is not just revenge in theory. I mean, the capitation
[47:23] Speaker 5: strikes killed a lot of people who were responsible for
[47:25] Speaker 5: those events. But then again, there's a side of me
[47:28] Speaker 5: that says, you know, what are we doing? So I'm
[47:31] Speaker 5: all over the place on this. I don't know if
[47:32] Speaker 5: you guys have ever kind of wake up and kind
[47:34] Speaker 5: of scratch your head and say, I'm not even sure
[47:35] Speaker 5: what I'm arguing today.
[47:38] Speaker 3: Agree with the overall objectives, it's the issue, it's how
[47:41] Speaker 3: we do it that. Yes, that's got the issues like
[47:44] Speaker 3: if we would have gone in and taken the strikes
[47:47] Speaker 3: on the nuclear facilities, taken even the decapitation strike, produce
[47:54] Speaker 3: their strategic capabilities, and then said, Okay, we're good now.
[47:59] Speaker 3: And I understand we there were only one side of
[48:01] Speaker 3: the equation. Neur'm gonna say, well, we're not good, but
[48:04] Speaker 3: it's now our choice to escalate this by inserting ground forces.
[48:09] Speaker 3: And I don't necessarily see the advantage of the United States.
[48:14] Speaker 3: I don't see that it being a real strategic purpose.
[48:17] Speaker 3: I think if we stop and go to our allies,
[48:21] Speaker 3: this isn't going to happen. But I do think we'd
[48:24] Speaker 3: be better off starting with the MIA COPA. One NATO
[48:27] Speaker 3: doesn't suck. NATO has come to our defense. Two NATO
[48:32] Speaker 3: is a defensive organization. They don't have a requirement to
[48:36] Speaker 3: come into a war of choice. Sorry about that. And
[48:40] Speaker 3: then three, it's in everybody interest to open the straight
[48:43] Speaker 3: so help us to diplomatically, help us militarily. And by
[48:47] Speaker 3: the way, and I've talked to some senior naval officers
[48:50] Speaker 3: who say they have a very capable naval force that
[48:53] Speaker 3: can help with actually mind sweetening, like, very capable. We
[48:57] Speaker 3: need them, right, And it's going to be a different
[49:02] Speaker 3: I think operation when when we have a coalition of countries,
[49:07] Speaker 3: most of which other the United States and nutral can say, look,
[49:09] Speaker 3: I had nothing to do with that, But you're going
[49:11] Speaker 3: to open this damn straight because you don't get to
[49:13] Speaker 3: control the world's economy. Right, It's a different discussion coming
[49:16] Speaker 3: from France or Japan or you know, fill in the black.
[49:22] Speaker 3: So I do think there's a way, and you mentioned
[49:25] Speaker 3: this early up. I mean Team America like, I want
[49:28] Speaker 3: to win. I want to win strategically, and my criticism
[49:32] Speaker 3: is more geared toward not losing strategically. I don't I don't.
[49:36] Speaker 3: I don't do the politics part. So that is where
[49:40] Speaker 3: I think the US should focus and hopefully, you know,
[49:45] Speaker 3: cooler heads prevail and we start having a process. It
[49:47] Speaker 3: thinks us out.
[49:50] Speaker 4: Yeah. At law school, we talk about ex ante and
[49:52] Speaker 4: ex post positions on issues, which means like how do
[49:55] Speaker 4: you look at it before it happens versus how do
[49:57] Speaker 4: you look at it after it happens. So, you know,
[50:00] Speaker 4: in the veteran community, especially like you're talking about market, like,
[50:02] Speaker 4: there are opinions about should we go to war and
[50:04] Speaker 4: that was largely negative, like we should not go to war. Well,
[50:07] Speaker 4: now we have gone to war, So now how do
[50:09] Speaker 4: we look at it now? Like you can't go and
[50:11] Speaker 4: turn back time and say, well, I wish we had
[50:13] Speaker 4: never gone to war, and I'm so upset about that.
[50:15] Speaker 4: It's like, Okay, I get that, And now we need
[50:17] Speaker 4: to talk about what do we do now and next?
[50:19] Speaker 4: Because it's already in place. The wheels are moving, So
[50:22] Speaker 4: next what happens? And that's where maybe we mistakenly planned
[50:25] Speaker 4: the war in a certain way that wasn't great. Well,
[50:28] Speaker 4: now we need to work toward solving this problem, regardless
[50:31] Speaker 4: of who created the problem. How do we solve the
[50:34] Speaker 4: problem now? And I think that's a helpful way to
[50:36] Speaker 4: think through, you know, especially in the veteran community, how
[50:39] Speaker 4: do we look at this? Yes, we can pine about
[50:41] Speaker 4: the past, but we have to also think about the future.
[50:43] Speaker 4: And if you keep looking in the rearview mirror, you're
[50:45] Speaker 4: going to miss the windshield and you're going to crash
[50:47] Speaker 4: because you're only looking at the past. And it's helpful
[50:49] Speaker 4: to be informed with the past, but there is a
[50:52] Speaker 4: future ahead in the future is much longer than the
[50:54] Speaker 4: length of the past.
[50:54] Speaker 2: All right, So what do we need to look out
[50:56] Speaker 2: for in the next coming few weeks anything.
[51:01] Speaker 1: I mean clearly what the Hoothies are going to do
[51:03] Speaker 1: if they really do put a stranglehold on their on
[51:08] Speaker 1: the Red Sea. Also, they did shoot a couple of
[51:13] Speaker 1: missiles at Israel that got intercepted and stuff like that,
[51:16] Speaker 1: and they made some press conference like you know, it
[51:19] Speaker 1: was ridiculous, but you know, they're in the game now, right,
[51:21] Speaker 1: And I have heard that Ourranians were kind of giving them,
[51:25] Speaker 1: kind of pressuring them to get into this. Now, where
[51:30] Speaker 1: do you guys see this going in the next.
[51:31] Speaker 4: Few weeks with the hoo Thies. I see them this
[51:34] Speaker 4: is like a probing action. Although they've declared that they've entered,
[51:36] Speaker 4: I think what they're actually doing is seeing what would
[51:39] Speaker 4: the response be like if we did enter. So I
[51:41] Speaker 4: think they haven't actually decided yet to go full force
[51:44] Speaker 4: against the region. I think they probably launched those to see,
[51:47] Speaker 4: first of all, what's the military response to that, And
[51:49] Speaker 4: it was that Israel successfully intercepted almost everything that went
[51:52] Speaker 4: over and it wasn't a lot. And second, what's the
[51:54] Speaker 4: political and regional response you know, in the social media
[51:58] Speaker 4: and media world to us? And I think that's what
[52:01] Speaker 4: they're kind of testing for and looking at what like
[52:03] Speaker 4: a litmus test. And the other thing to look out
[52:06] Speaker 4: for is what about the Hashtashabi or popular mobilization forces
[52:09] Speaker 4: in Iraq. There was a video I think two days
[52:12] Speaker 4: ago that came out of this quote unquote convoy of
[52:15] Speaker 4: pulp mobilization forces moving into Iran. But if you watch
[52:19] Speaker 4: the video, it's thirty nine high lux trucks with cardboard
[52:23] Speaker 4: boxes in the beds and no weapons, which is a
[52:26] Speaker 4: very interesting difference compared to how the Hashtashabi videos look
[52:29] Speaker 4: against isis when you see these guys with headbands and
[52:32] Speaker 4: automatic weapons, they've got dish goes mounted in the high lux,
[52:35] Speaker 4: you know, they look like they're going a war back
[52:37] Speaker 4: in twenty sixteen versus what do they look like right now.
[52:40] Speaker 4: It looks like Iran needs medical supplies, ammunition, beans, bullets,
[52:44] Speaker 4: and band aids, which they're probably running low on, and
[52:46] Speaker 4: it looks like that's what the PMF is supplying. And
[52:48] Speaker 4: that's important to look out for too, is how much
[52:51] Speaker 4: more can the regime use its sustainment capability. We're not
[52:54] Speaker 4: just talking about missiles and drones, We're also talking about
[52:58] Speaker 4: medical aid. We're also talking about batteries, equipment, curiel, rear support,
[53:05] Speaker 4: mechanical things that they're either using, they're getting degraded, they're
[53:09] Speaker 4: getting destroyed, they're inaccessible. So the next seven to fourteen
[53:12] Speaker 4: days we're going to be looking at what are the
[53:14] Speaker 4: logistics capabilities of Iran versus what are the military capabilities
[53:17] Speaker 4: of ir On because right now we're so focused, like
[53:19] Speaker 4: you said, Mark, on the military math, but behind that
[53:22] Speaker 4: military math, there's a huge, huge component of logistics and
[53:25] Speaker 4: sustainment that we need to be analyzing carefully because that's
[53:28] Speaker 4: where you can actually weaken the regimes by attacking those things.
[53:31] Speaker 4: And I think that Popular Mobilization Forces video is a
[53:33] Speaker 4: great indicator that they are in fact suffering logistically and
[53:37] Speaker 4: in the sustainment space. And the Houthis are again, as
[53:41] Speaker 4: we've mentioned on their own program, they're going to determine
[53:44] Speaker 4: their own their own way, do we enter this full
[53:47] Speaker 4: force or not. And I think in the next two
[53:49] Speaker 4: to three days probably they're going to see how is
[53:50] Speaker 4: Israel responding to their strikes, because remember back after October seventh,
[53:54] Speaker 4: the Houthis did enter the Chat and Israel went and
[53:56] Speaker 4: struck a bunch of targets for a sustained period of
[53:59] Speaker 4: time against the Houthis and that was not good for
[54:01] Speaker 4: the Houthis, and I think they're they're thinking about that,
[54:03] Speaker 4: like how much are we willing to sacrifice right now
[54:06] Speaker 4: for this war that we actually don't want to be
[54:08] Speaker 4: a part of because it's going to threaten our home turf,
[54:11] Speaker 4: which is the thing that's important to them. So I
[54:13] Speaker 4: think looking at the hoo Thi's measuring this in the future,
[54:15] Speaker 4: in the next two weeks, and then looking at what's
[54:17] Speaker 4: what's the Iraqi response going to be from the Shia
[54:19] Speaker 4: militia groups in Iraq inside of Iran.
[54:24] Speaker 5: I think one thing on that, Jonathan, you know, the
[54:26] Speaker 5: problem that these rallies have, of course is they're fight
[54:28] Speaker 5: already fighting in two fronts and we hadn't touched on it,
[54:32] Speaker 5: but the the you know, the war is kind of
[54:35] Speaker 5: full on in Lebanon now. These rails are hitting targets
[54:37] Speaker 5: in southern Lebanon. There's certainly there's talks of a ground invasion.
[54:40] Speaker 5: They're going to go all the way up to the
[54:41] Speaker 5: Latani River. Along with the operational tempo being at its
[54:45] Speaker 5: highest against Iran, so throwing the Houthis in and I'm
[54:48] Speaker 5: sure this is part of the Houthi calculation as well,
[54:50] Speaker 5: So sure they don't want to get thumped again. But
[54:53] Speaker 5: you know, are these rallies you know, going to start
[54:56] Speaker 5: having issues with you know, how much can they do?
[55:00] Speaker 5: And same thing with the United States and look there,
[55:02] Speaker 5: you know we have I would imagine we have a
[55:03] Speaker 5: limited capacity with our with the US Navy already deployed
[55:06] Speaker 5: there to then deal with and essentially another front opening.
[55:10] Speaker 2: So that and but I.
[55:12] Speaker 5: Go back to what I said originally, how is this that?
[55:15] Speaker 5: I mean, you would hope that we have taken this
[55:17] Speaker 5: into account in our planning. The idea of the Hoho
[55:20] Speaker 5: Thi's coming entering the Fray has got to be in
[55:22] Speaker 5: the top four or five things that would would occur.
[55:26] Speaker 5: So I hope we went there. The other thing I'm
[55:28] Speaker 5: looking for is just and you know, you know it's
[55:30] Speaker 5: a I don't have a lot of faith in it.
[55:31] Speaker 5: But there's the diplomatic track. You know, various foreign ministries,
[55:35] Speaker 5: foreign ministers are kind of coalescing in Islama in Pakistan
[55:39] Speaker 5: now to try to talk about any kind of potential
[55:42] Speaker 5: off ramp uh. You know, I think this is Pakistan
[55:45] Speaker 5: and Turkey leading the charge on this. And you know,
[55:49] Speaker 5: it's clear that the US is interested. I mean, I
[55:51] Speaker 5: think you know, Trump is interested in an off ramp,
[55:53] Speaker 5: whatever that may be. Even though the conditions you know,
[55:55] Speaker 5: between the two sides are so we're so great. I
[55:59] Speaker 5: think the bigger actually know is what are the ir
[56:01] Speaker 5: audience thinking? Because that the conventional wisdom now is that
[56:04] Speaker 5: the actually the Iranians think they're winning, and so you know,
[56:07] Speaker 5: do they really you know, is this is this is
[56:09] Speaker 5: something that they want to see uh uh come to
[56:12] Speaker 5: an end. Now, clearly they don't want to get bombed anymore,
[56:14] Speaker 5: but they're also not going to give up their nuclear program,
[56:17] Speaker 5: and so it'll be interesting to see the diplomatic track
[56:19] Speaker 5: and uh and then we'll go down the road of
[56:22] Speaker 5: yet another kind of deadline. When does Trump lose patience?
[56:25] Speaker 5: What do Jared Kushner and Steve Woodkoff are you know,
[56:29] Speaker 5: envoys to the entire planet on every issue?
[56:32] Speaker 2: You know, what do they.
[56:33] Speaker 1: Report also, like when the market opens and stuff like that,
[56:36] Speaker 1: to make announcements billions of dollars.
[56:39] Speaker 5: When the tank last week, and Trump really cares about that,
[56:42] Speaker 5: and so there's you know, so that's that's so the
[56:44] Speaker 5: market too is interesting. I mean, you know, it's funny.
[56:46] Speaker 5: I go back and there's a good friend of mine
[56:48] Speaker 5: who is convinced that Trump acts based on the market.
[56:50] Speaker 2: I never believed him, and now actually do absolutely does.
[56:53] Speaker 1: If Trump could, he would wage this war on the
[56:57] Speaker 1: weekends when the market's closed.
[56:58] Speaker 4: Ye.
[56:58] Speaker 1: Yeah, so a funny, funny podcast, like what stage of
[57:02] Speaker 1: capitalism is that, Like when you're just fighting wars on
[57:06] Speaker 1: on on the weekends because the market's fucking closed.
[57:09] Speaker 5: Well, I mean we don't have I mean, our capitalist
[57:10] Speaker 5: system is now, it's not even that it's an oligarchy.
[57:13] Speaker 5: Oligarchy here. I mean, you know, there's so much government
[57:16] Speaker 5: interference in everything that that this administration or this administration
[57:19] Speaker 5: is interfering in the markets all over the place. But yeah,
[57:22] Speaker 5: so it's another kind of big week ahead. It'll be
[57:25] Speaker 5: interesting and so uh never a dull moment, that is
[57:29] Speaker 5: for sure. And and you know, the MEW is there.
[57:32] Speaker 5: I mean, you know, we were waiting for them to arrive,
[57:34] Speaker 5: and the the at least the first contingent has arrived,
[57:37] Speaker 5: and so I would imagine there's in terms of the
[57:41] Speaker 5: planning cycle and whatever Sencom is planning, they will be
[57:45] Speaker 5: reporting to the president. You know, the degree in which
[57:47] Speaker 5: they're ready to act or not, and we're probably closer
[57:49] Speaker 5: to that that time period.
[57:53] Speaker 4: Yeah, and also the pressure from as you mentioned, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt,
[57:56] Speaker 4: to Saudi Arabia. I was reading that Egypt's natural gas
[57:59] Speaker 4: price is true in the last week. Yeah, a lot
[58:01] Speaker 4: of people there that's their primary method of cooking. You're
[58:05] Speaker 4: talking about tens of millions of people that can't afford
[58:07] Speaker 4: to cook their own food right now. Huge amount of
[58:09] Speaker 4: pressure domestically on the Egyptian government to help fix this,
[58:13] Speaker 4: which is why you know, people might ask like, why
[58:15] Speaker 4: is Egypt so concerned? Egypt has a Suez Canal and
[58:17] Speaker 4: the whole Mediterranean for stuff. They don't have the natural
[58:19] Speaker 4: gas they need, and so that over the next seven
[58:21] Speaker 4: to ten days is going to be a huge amount
[58:23] Speaker 4: of pressure exerted not just from Egypt, but also Saudi Arabia, Katar, Bahrain.
[58:27] Speaker 4: You know, these countries heavily depend on the movement for
[58:30] Speaker 4: their own domestic people of desalinated water, natural gas, and
[58:34] Speaker 4: other things that are not oil that they need in
[58:37] Speaker 4: their countries. That's going to then translate onto pressure to
[58:39] Speaker 4: the United States.
[58:42] Speaker 1: I did see that Katar basically stop. They're all there
[58:45] Speaker 1: LNG flow, and it's like twenty percent of the world
[58:48] Speaker 1: supply essentially, and not.
[58:50] Speaker 4: Only for the world supply, but Southeast Asia almost almost
[58:53] Speaker 4: all of their energy comes solely from Qatar. That's China,
[58:57] Speaker 4: that's Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, huge amount of dependence on just
[59:01] Speaker 4: Katari l G.
[59:05] Speaker 1: Yeah, one quick things, what's up with us not being
[59:08] Speaker 1: able to fucking protect our assets in the Saudi Arabian base. Well,
[59:12] Speaker 1: you know that goes back to my criticism of Yeah,
[59:15] Speaker 1: military leadership, have we not learned? Not agree with me on,
[59:18] Speaker 1: but I still stand that. I still I'm not as
[59:21] Speaker 1: I don't think that, you know, criticizing Kine or Admiral
[59:24] Speaker 1: Cooper is off limits at all. And I mean, listen
[59:27] Speaker 1: on the build up towards the Iran war, I mean
[59:30] Speaker 1: the Joint Chief's Office, somebody was leaking about like us
[59:33] Speaker 1: not having enough munitions and stuff like that. Like somebody
[59:36] Speaker 1: was leaking, right that was strategic in nature to kind
[59:39] Speaker 1: of get the press up against to fight up and
[59:41] Speaker 1: bump up against the Iranian attacks and stuff like that.
[59:44] Speaker 1: It was a kane, I don't know, but like somebody was.
[59:47] Speaker 5: But this, this is this is more of lessons learned.
[59:49] Speaker 5: I mean, if you just stared at the Ukraine conflict,
[59:51] Speaker 5: Russia Ukraine, the idea of us not having any kind
[59:55] Speaker 5: of you know, hardened shelters in the Middle East. Ao,
[59:57] Speaker 5: just I just don't understand that. But Jonathan, what are
[59:59] Speaker 5: your comment on that? I mean, you know, again with
[1:00:02] Speaker 5: all the wargame and the Iranians have the sets and
[1:00:05] Speaker 5: they have ballistic missiles, yet our aircraft is in the open,
[1:00:08] Speaker 5: and I guess we lost one a wax one of
[1:00:10] Speaker 5: sixteen that we have, which seems rather significant. So accountability
[1:00:15] Speaker 5: on that, Like who in the military thought it was
[1:00:17] Speaker 5: a good idea to leave everything out in the open
[1:00:18] Speaker 5: or is it just inevitable.
[1:00:20] Speaker 4: We've been learning this lesson since World War Two. I
[1:00:22] Speaker 4: mean that was a huge thing in Europe, was how
[1:00:24] Speaker 4: do you disperse aircraft and still be able to use
[1:00:26] Speaker 4: them operationally despite their dispersion or their disguise. And we
[1:00:31] Speaker 4: saw this successfully in Ukraine where there was a lot
[1:00:33] Speaker 4: of deception operations going on, you know, painting things on
[1:00:36] Speaker 4: the airfield to make it look like an aircraft but
[1:00:38] Speaker 4: it's not an aircraft, and a lot of creativity and
[1:00:41] Speaker 4: how to confuse the enemy in terms of attacking your
[1:00:44] Speaker 4: on the ground assets that are typically in the air.
[1:00:46] Speaker 4: And I think the US is good at military deception
[1:00:50] Speaker 4: in some ways and in other ways we kind of
[1:00:52] Speaker 4: resist using mill deck, and I think this is a
[1:00:55] Speaker 4: place where mill deck is probably very valuable that we
[1:00:57] Speaker 4: haven't been applying it. There's there's some inefficiency, I'll put
[1:01:00] Speaker 4: it that diplomatically, there's some inefficiency in how we're applying
[1:01:03] Speaker 4: military deception with our ground based air assets right now
[1:01:07] Speaker 4: in the Gulf. And I think that we've had kind
[1:01:09] Speaker 4: of this feeling of the last twenty five years that
[1:01:11] Speaker 4: our adversaries do not have night vision, they don't have
[1:01:14] Speaker 4: air capability. Like there's a lot of these things that
[1:01:16] Speaker 4: we've just trained and trained and then operated against for
[1:01:19] Speaker 4: twenty five years that have now become part of our
[1:01:20] Speaker 4: military culture in the acute term where we think, like
[1:01:24] Speaker 4: we just don't think about that that our adversaries can
[1:01:27] Speaker 4: actually attack the things that have been kind of off
[1:01:29] Speaker 4: limits for twenty five years, which are our ability to
[1:01:32] Speaker 4: attack at night and our ability to attack from the air.
[1:01:35] Speaker 4: That's not the same right now, you know, And I
[1:01:37] Speaker 4: think we're learning that we're assembling the aircraft in flight
[1:01:40] Speaker 4: as it were, right now where we're realizing, like the
[1:01:43] Speaker 4: enemy actually can attack us in our own base. Now,
[1:01:46] Speaker 4: we were so used to that not being true for
[1:01:48] Speaker 4: a long time.
[1:01:48] Speaker 5: How can you especially but Russia Ukraine was a lab
[1:01:51] Speaker 5: experiment for the US military, and we seem to and
[1:01:54] Speaker 5: people were coming back saying, all these lessons learned, we
[1:01:56] Speaker 5: seem to have just failed this massively. That's the thing
[1:01:59] Speaker 5: I don't understand.
[1:02:00] Speaker 4: Well, there's always been the question of how do you
[1:02:02] Speaker 4: integrate lessons learn to the actual forces that need those lessons,
[1:02:06] Speaker 4: Because we have like the Institute for Lessons Learned and
[1:02:08] Speaker 4: all these you know, really great pieces of institutional framework
[1:02:11] Speaker 4: to help gather all that. In the special operations community,
[1:02:14] Speaker 4: we have sodars, which are these reports that every team
[1:02:16] Speaker 4: writes when they come back from a deployment, you know,
[1:02:18] Speaker 4: talking about their partner, how efficient they were, how proficient
[1:02:21] Speaker 4: they were, how that, how's their marksmanship, how much are
[1:02:23] Speaker 4: they paying it, you know, all this stuff. But if
[1:02:25] Speaker 4: you don't read the sodar or you don't read the
[1:02:27] Speaker 4: lesson learned, that operational unit doesn't get it. And I'm
[1:02:30] Speaker 4: only mentioning it as like a preface to institutionally, we
[1:02:34] Speaker 4: are bad at learning lessons. I mean, we can just
[1:02:36] Speaker 4: look at that from you know, from Vietnam to Afghanistan
[1:02:39] Speaker 4: bad at learning lessons right, or Iraq to Afghanistan, Afghanistan, whatever,
[1:02:44] Speaker 4: we're just bad at it. Then the units themselves don't
[1:02:47] Speaker 4: even have the ability to access that, and there's not
[1:02:50] Speaker 4: a way to trickle it down to change what we
[1:02:53] Speaker 4: do because the way our doctrine is designed, it's so
[1:02:55] Speaker 4: tradition based. Like if you look at the Navy, for example,
[1:02:57] Speaker 4: which is playing a huge part in this war right now,
[1:03:00] Speaker 4: the Navy, they have officer country on the ship. We're
[1:03:02] Speaker 4: enlisted are not allowed to enter, you know. So if
[1:03:05] Speaker 4: you had an enlisted guy with a good idea, he's
[1:03:07] Speaker 4: not even allowed to be in the room of the
[1:03:08] Speaker 4: people that are making plan. I mean that's if that's
[1:03:10] Speaker 4: how your military is designed, you're going to be hamstrung
[1:03:13] Speaker 4: from the beginning, which is I think leading up to
[1:03:16] Speaker 4: your question about the why are these aircraft being struck
[1:03:18] Speaker 4: on the ground, because innovation is not built into our military.
[1:03:21] Speaker 4: It's the opposite. It's the military industrial complex that tells
[1:03:25] Speaker 4: the military what to build, or they tell Congress what
[1:03:27] Speaker 4: to pay for, which then tells us what to build.
[1:03:30] Speaker 4: It's not guys in the ground, some lance corporal who's like,
[1:03:32] Speaker 4: you know what, the way we're getting attacked, that's crazy.
[1:03:34] Speaker 4: I have an idea to stop that. That's not how
[1:03:36] Speaker 4: this works. Instead, it is Lockheed Martin saying I can
[1:03:39] Speaker 4: build you a really expensive anti aircraft weapon that can
[1:03:41] Speaker 4: only work in this environment. It's very sensitive to moisture,
[1:03:44] Speaker 4: and it will definitely fail if it's fired during the day.
[1:03:47] Speaker 4: You know, here it's five hundred million dollars, and you
[1:03:49] Speaker 4: know that's that's designed. Yeah, exactly.
[1:03:52] Speaker 5: But I guess I guess for the non military folks
[1:03:55] Speaker 5: like D and I, I'm like, like, I mean, you
[1:03:57] Speaker 5: look at this, You're like, this is just absurd. I mean,
[1:04:00] Speaker 5: it's just kind of common sense. What's I mean, that's
[1:04:03] Speaker 5: that's I mean, I think and the American people are
[1:04:05] Speaker 5: now going to be asked to pay another two hundred
[1:04:06] Speaker 5: billion dollars for you know, for I don't know this.
[1:04:10] Speaker 5: To me, this there should be some accountability on this,
[1:04:12] Speaker 5: but it seems like that never that never happens.
[1:04:15] Speaker 4: Well, yeah, with the with the E three for example,
[1:04:17] Speaker 4: you know you said there's sixteen of them. I mean this,
[1:04:19] Speaker 4: this is a cold war platform that we've just kept
[1:04:21] Speaker 4: on the books for a very long time. It's a
[1:04:22] Speaker 4: tridded down quite a bit in the last twenty years.
[1:04:25] Speaker 4: There's the new E seven Wedgetail which is supposed to
[1:04:27] Speaker 4: replace it, im if you've seen pictures of it. But
[1:04:28] Speaker 4: it's a gigantic, like massive aircraft, way bigger than the
[1:04:32] Speaker 4: A wax and it's seven hundred million dollars per year.
[1:04:35] Speaker 2: I'm just going to say that price seven hundred mili.
[1:04:38] Speaker 4: That's not counting maintenance and lifetime you know, price tag,
[1:04:42] Speaker 4: which is a separate calculation, which is in the billions. Obviously. Well,
[1:04:45] Speaker 4: if this thing's even bigger and slower and more expensive,
[1:04:49] Speaker 4: we didn't solve any of the problem that we just
[1:04:51] Speaker 4: saw with the E three getting struck on an airfield.
[1:04:53] Speaker 4: We just made it more expensive and damaging to ourselves
[1:04:55] Speaker 4: if it gets hit, you know. So like if we
[1:04:57] Speaker 4: were like solving the wrong problem from the beginning.
[1:05:02] Speaker 1: Damn it, man, I mean I never feel good after
[1:05:04] Speaker 1: these episodes.
[1:05:05] Speaker 2: It's so annoying good. Uh.
[1:05:07] Speaker 1: You know what's funny because we've had we had a
[1:05:09] Speaker 1: defense tech ceo we spoke to where he makes counter
[1:05:14] Speaker 1: drone systems, and you know, just by using lasers super inexpensive.
[1:05:22] Speaker 1: I don't understand why there isn't like a place in
[1:05:24] Speaker 1: the d D that's like quick procurement, like where we
[1:05:27] Speaker 1: need something fixed right away. Let's get it fixed right away.
[1:05:32] Speaker 4: We got enough Innovation unit, which is supposed.
[1:05:35] Speaker 2: To be what do they do? Are they on vacation?
[1:05:37] Speaker 4: So first of all, it's staffed by reservists. It's not
[1:05:40] Speaker 4: an active duty post, and there's no there's no pipeline
[1:05:43] Speaker 4: for like, if you're the lance coconut on the ground
[1:05:46] Speaker 4: with a shoulder fired weapon and you're like, I have
[1:05:48] Speaker 4: an idea to take out this drone, there isn't a
[1:05:51] Speaker 4: way for him to talk to the Defense Innovation Unit.
[1:05:53] Speaker 4: I'm sure that Defense Innovation Unit will say, yes, there is,
[1:05:55] Speaker 4: there's a portal, blah blah blah. Let's go talk to
[1:05:58] Speaker 4: Joe Schmoe on the ground actually ask him do you
[1:06:00] Speaker 4: know that that thing exists? He doesn't mean he doesn't
[1:06:03] Speaker 4: even have a computer, right, So, I mean there's a
[1:06:06] Speaker 4: lot of the stuff at the top where they think like, oh,
[1:06:08] Speaker 4: we have all these systems are very expensive and exquisite.
[1:06:10] Speaker 4: Then the actual person hitting the button on the ground
[1:06:12] Speaker 4: doesn't even know those things exist.
[1:06:14] Speaker 1: Yeah, because you know, frankly, like, as a dummy like me,
[1:06:18] Speaker 1: a four million dollar Patriot missile taken out shaheeds that
[1:06:23] Speaker 1: costs fifty grand at most doesn't really sound like a
[1:06:27] Speaker 1: good doesn't really sound like a good ROI on that
[1:06:30] Speaker 1: at all, you know. And the fact that, like what
[1:06:34] Speaker 1: Mark said, we haven't learned from what happened what's happened
[1:06:37] Speaker 1: in Ukraine is frankly unacceptable as just a citizen. It's
[1:06:43] Speaker 1: a joke. We're supposed to be the best military in
[1:06:45] Speaker 1: the world, Like are we though? Because even our aircraft
[1:06:48] Speaker 1: carriers are fucking we backed the fuck up. We're not
[1:06:51] Speaker 1: in the Persian golfer in them and Gulf of Oman
[1:06:53] Speaker 1: and we're backed up. We're not really that close, right,
[1:06:57] Speaker 1: So what are the And it's Iran, it's not China
[1:07:00] Speaker 1: with our hypersonics and all this scary stuff.
[1:07:03] Speaker 2: It's a ran. What are we doing? Is it? Like?
[1:07:06] Speaker 1: It doesn't seem that peachy and uh and amazing to
[1:07:09] Speaker 1: be frank my rant's over. You guys have anything else
[1:07:12] Speaker 1: to say?
[1:07:13] Speaker 2: That's it? All right?
[1:07:14] Speaker 1: I want everyone to do us a favor. I want
[1:07:16] Speaker 1: you guys to check out John's books. Links are in
[1:07:18] Speaker 1: the description if he has show them the books John
[1:07:21] Speaker 1: right there ran Shadow Weapons and the Theory of a
[1:07:23] Speaker 1: Regular War Great books.
[1:07:25] Speaker 2: Mark p. Links are in the description for his Twitter
[1:07:27] Speaker 2: and all that stuff. Mick.
[1:07:29] Speaker 1: Of course, the Whitefish Security Summit is happening this week
[1:07:33] Speaker 1: coming up, so check that out. That link is in
[1:07:35] Speaker 1: the description as well. We're gonna have a couple of
[1:07:36] Speaker 1: interviews from there. Do so that's exciting And what else
[1:07:42] Speaker 1: are you.
[1:07:44] Speaker 4: No?
[1:07:46] Speaker 1: But we have a cool We have a My Crystal
[1:07:47] Speaker 1: interview we're doing for Teamhouse nice and we have an
[1:07:51] Speaker 1: interview with Eric Ulrich and Scott I don't remember his
[1:07:55] Speaker 1: last name about the future of warfare. They're gonna be there,
[1:07:58] Speaker 1: so it's gonna be exciting.
[1:08:00] Speaker 2: Check that out.
[1:08:00] Speaker 1: The link is in the description of course. Patreon dot
[1:08:02] Speaker 1: com slash the Teamhouse help sport to show you get
[1:08:04] Speaker 1: eyes on and Teamhouse ad free and early, and you
[1:08:08] Speaker 1: help sport to show and keep the lights on. Guys,
[1:08:11] Speaker 1: a pleasure as always.
[1:08:12] Speaker 5: Take care.
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[1:08:37] Speaker 6: I write journalistically with Sean Naylor on the high Side,
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