The early stage of World War III
I think we should be very concerned like as for where the war is right now, it's hard to predict which way it's going to go. And I think there in
1:21
lies the danger. We're in this unintended consequences realm where our side, you know, the US side led by
1:28
President Trump. We seem to not know exactly what we want. We oscillate back and forth between we want, you know, total surrender, total capitulation, the
1:36
Iranians have to, you know, give us back the Straits of Hormuz and give up their nuclear program, stop funding their proxies, ballistic missiles, etc. to the
1:44
next day saying like, okay, well, maybe we'll we're open to talks and we want to just get the Straits of Hormuz opened
1:51
up again. We saw some of this in June when there was the MoU that was signed.
1:54
The MoU basically would have allowed the straits of Hormuz to open back up. It was a fairly, you know, decent deal for for the Iranians. But then we showed
2:03
right away that we weren't serious about it because we cut a side deal in Lebanon almost immediately and we started having tankers go through the
2:11
straits of Hormuz out of tolerance from the the MoU. So we immediately kind of re-egged on the diplomacy that we that
2:19
the President Trump himself even said we had to go down this diplomatic path because we are facing potential economic disaster here in America. But then
2:27
just like we saw over the last you know 24-48 hours at any given time we will take strikes again in Iran and they'll strike us back. Now I think some of the
2:36
conventional wisdom sort of the normaly bias in America is that okay every now and again if we need to do some strikes
2:43
to keep the straits of Hormuz open and flowing to the level that they're at right now we'll take some strikes and we just anticipate that the Iranians will
2:52
worst case scenario do what they did last night and shoot some missiles back at our known locations and we're you know fairly proficient at intercepting them. There's two problems with that.
3:03
We're assuming that the Iranians will always do exactly what they've done before. And we basically killed a lot of the moderates inside Iran. The IRGC is
3:11
is running the show right now. The IRGC, I think a lot of them are saying, "Hey, for our deterrence to make sure America doesn't come back here once they've, you
3:19
know, filled their coffers back up again, filled their their stock back up again with high-end missiles. We have to make them retreat from the region, otherwise
3:27
they're going to keep coming back or we can continue to squeeze the straight support moves to harm them economically.
3:32
But I think they know if that if they if they follow that path that's going to put the president in an even bigger bind come midterms and when he if we lose in
3:41
the midterms in that interim period then we could escalate. And the and the Iranians know all this which is why I think it's it's very foolish for us to
3:48
assume that they will continue to incrementally retaliate even though the Iranians have been very good so far about only incre incrementally
3:56
retaliating. uh I think it would be foolish for us to believe that they're going to stay at that at that level. And so the president's kind of facing, you know, two two major decisions if he if
4:05
he wants to, you know, lean on the military, he's he's limited on the status quo because we are running low um by all reports that I've seen. Uh we're
4:14
running low on, you know, our our interceptors. We're running low on a lot of the precision munitions that we're we're using. So the being able to do
4:21
what we're doing right now has a shelf life. Uh so at some point we would probably need to either take ground temporarily to use some of our less
4:29
sophisticated missile systems uh and weapon systems to keep hitting Iran. Um or you know there's the ground option where we do take some ground inside of
4:37
Iran. I don't know to what end we would do that like that. There doesn't seem to be a well- definfined instate for that and I and I don't know what the president's tolerance for casualties
4:45
before the midterms would be. So I don't think that's as likely. Um, but the president wanting to do something like a operation midnight hammer on steroids
4:53
where we use uh a sophisticated weapon system uh sophisticated nuclear capability to penetrate pickaxe mountain to say okay now it's done. Now we've
5:02
taken away any threat of the Iranian nuclear program uh to give him kind of an exit with a with a a um a final
5:09
strong statement. I could see that being a potential. I do also worry though that the Israelis have already publicly said that they won't be constrained by
5:17
anything that the Americans say or do that they'll do what's best for them. I could easily see where we're trying to figure out a military solution. The
5:25
Israelis, you know, come to us and say, "Hey, we're going to do something that you don't have the stomach to do. Go ahead and look the other way." And we have proven incapable of being able to restrain the Israelis up to this point.
5:35
So then the Israelis using some kind of a nuclear weapon, too. I think that's I don't think that that's as likely, but I do think it's more plausible than a lot
5:43
of folks in America uh are are um are assessing uh just because this is existential for the Israelis. The Lakood party right now in the leadup to the the
5:52
election, they're basically saying, "Hey, the other guys aren't strong enough. We're the strongest ones. We will do what is necessary." We've already seen how the Israelis fought,
5:59
you know, in Gaza. They couldn't get away of dropping a nuclear weapon in Gaza because it would affect them because they share a border. Now, if Gaza was an isolated country away from
6:07
the borders of Israel, uh I'm pretty sure they would have used a nuclear weapon. So, I I I don't think we should rule out Israel coming in kind of as a
6:14
wildcard option here.
[. . .]
I think if if the US did decide to to use a a smaller nuclear weapon to p and I think I say pickaxe mountain because I
8:04
think that's the most obvious target. Um the the theory in the US would be we can say that we penetrated pickaxe mountain.
8:10
We accomplished our goal of assuring that Iran will never get a nuclear weapon. The president always says that um he puts that basically in all of his
8:18
rhetoric about Iran. So if he can if he can remove, you know, even from from the in terms of communications, if he can remove any potential for Iran to get a
8:26
nuclear weapon um by caving in pickaxe mountain with a very very big boom caused by a limited nuclear strike, I
8:34
think that would be basically his his endgame. Now, you know, would it work?
8:37
What would that do to the Iranians? I think that's unfortunately almost an afterthought. I think the president would use that again like as Operation
8:45
Midnight Hammer on steroids. I would just caution him to say like Midnight Hammer was successful militarily in accomplishing what he wanted to
8:52
accomplish, but big picture, it didn't end the the issue of us having to go in and conduct military operations in Iran
8:59
because it didn't actually take away the Israelis desire to push us into a war.
9:04
So, I think we would still get pushed back into the war by the same factors even if he did do this. But that would further radicalize the Iranians even
9:12
more. And then I think that would normalize the use of a first strike nuclear capability. And I think in very short order then we would see Putin uh
9:20
use one in inside Ukraine. Uh because basically we we would be sending a message to the world that hey we're the dominant superpower and when this
9:28
country Iran you know they they annoyed us and we conducted some military operations and they didn't immediately capitulate we escalated and we used a
9:36
limited strike nuclear weapon. Uh, I think that would basically greenlight uh there's a green light for it to happen
9:43
inside of uh Ukraine as well. Um, but you know, I I that's the thing is I don't think that we're doing a lot of
9:50
critical thinking on what it would mean if we did use a limited strike nuclear weapon. And if we let the Israelis do it, I'm concerned that the Israelis
9:58
wouldn't hit Pickax Mountain. I'm concerned that they would hit an actual population center. Uh, and then we could say all day long that wasn't us. That was the Israelis. you know, we condemn
10:07
the Israeli action. We could kind of scold them like we do sometimes about, you know, Gaza or about Lebanon. Um, but the rest of the world and the Iranians,
10:14
they would basically say, "Well, that was America. You guys fund Israel. You you've never meaningfully taken away any support from Israel." So, we would
10:22
basically be left with all of the political ramifications and fallout from that. And then I think the same sequence of events would happen. I think Putin would then say like, "Yeah, I okay,
10:31
okay, it was just Israel. Like, I don't I don't believe that. I'm going to go ahead and pursue my interest now that the uh now that the cork is off the bottle, so to speak.
I feel some real
24:09
pain because I know who helped them get there. Us.
24:15
We [the US] weaponized liberal democracy and we weaponized what I would call the incredible width and breadth and depth
24:24
of our intelligence services which are now the predominant part of our government from NSA to CIA to GCHQ to
24:34
SIS you name it they're all the same and their purpose is not anything but
24:42
enimical to our real interest and they're scared to death of China. They are frightened to death of China.
24:49
They're frightened of Russia, too. But China is the real real behemoth that they're frightened of. And it's so funny
24:57
because China really doesn't have the kind of intelligence apparatus that we have or that Britain has or France has or Germany has or that Israel has. They
25:07
don't because they don't think they need one like that. Their intelligence service is essentially designed for
25:14
actionable foresight. That is to say, what's happening out there? Who's the character in its happening that is going
25:23
to influence us adversely? Be neutral or be positive. That's about the only thing they're looking at with regard. They're
25:31
not looking at, you know, how many how much throw weight in nuclear weapons do they have. Yeah, they've got a branch of their military intelligence that looks
25:39
at that sort of thing, but that's not primarily what their national intelligence looks at. We're the only people in the world that shape their national intelligence to look at things
25:48
from the perspective of how do we kill you or sanction you?
[. . .]
I think NATO is gone. It'll linger for a while, but I think it's gone. And this Elbridge cobby idea that we're
26:46
going to establish a readout in the western hemisphere is that's really what he's talking about. A nuclearbacked
26:53
readout re-ub military term, you know, comes from the I guess it comes from the really from
27:01
the very beginning of people building forts and things. But that's what we're talking about. We're talking about having a western hemisphere that we
27:09
dominate completely from Argentina to Canada, which isn't working out very well right now. And we're going to put
27:17
our nuclear shield with that. And it's not going to be just a shield. We're going to contemplate using those
27:24
weapons. Now, that's a big part of K's portfolio.
27:29
Jonathan Pard, for example, big part of his portfolio, too.
27:34
that these people want to dominate what they can and what they can dominate they think is our own hemisphere. The
27:43
real exception to that of course right now is Brazil and one of Marco Rubio's principal tasks right now is to recruit
27:51
those Nazilike leaders in Paraguay and Argentina and elsewhere throughout South America. Get Bolsinaro back into
27:59
leadership in Brazil and get rid of Lula. That's next to managing Venezuela's oil, which he's not doing a very good job of, and taking over Cuba.
28:10
Rubio's other task is to engineer Lula's downfall in South America. Then we will be able to deal with South America in a
28:19
much more comprehensive and favorable way is what we think. This is not going to work out very well either. I
28:28
don't think it's going to work out anything like what Rubio thinks it's going to do. One of the things he's run into right now is I'm told and by a
28:36
competent authority almost every major if not every major in the world has told
28:42
Rubio go pound sand a hundred billion dollars minimum to get Venezuelan oil
28:51
back up to specs. That is to say where it's economical to recover it. It's economical to refine it once it's
28:59
recovered. And it's economical to spread it out across the globe as you could if it were those two things, if those two
29:08
conditions were met. No one wants to touch it. So he can't find a major that will go in and do what Trump wants done with Venezuelan oil, which is
29:17
essentially to get it and use it immediately to relieve the tremendous pressure on the United States right now
29:25
to even fly its jet aircraft to even drive its trucks because within another
29:32
30 to 45 days there'll be no diesel and no jet fuel.
[. . .]
They're clinging to a cadaavver [EU and Nato] in both cases. And new leadership in the countries in Europe is
38:52
going to do one of two things. It's going to recognize that and adjust to it, which includes dealing forthrightly
39:01
and up close and personal with China and Russia. Or they're going to fight it in amongst themselves and we're going to go back to a 1930s Europe.
39:11
That would not be a smart move.
Vladimir Putin is under a lot of pressure to go kinetic, to go beyond the borders, whether covertly or overtly.
22:08
This may be a signal, and I that's how I'm taking it, and I hope that's the White House takes it. This could be the last chance to avoid a kinetic strike
22:18
against the West by Russia. Because I'm just telling you, if the West doesn't stop what it's doing and continues to strike deep into Russia and accelerates
22:26
that, there is a line. There is a limit to how far that Putin can stand up to the internal pressure and he's going to
22:33
have to give into that.
the key
38:45
to a peace agreement now is obviously a change of government in Kiev. Ukraine is
38:52
falling apart. It's trying to recruit women to replace men on the battlefield
38:57
because it's run out of manpower. It is its industry, its infrastructure, its
39:03
energy before the its heating ability before the winter comes are all being destroyed. It can't export anything.
39:11
It's import of military equipment by sea is stopped. You know, it's
39:19
basically landlocked now. And um it's really on the ropes. Know the
39:26
Ukrainians have proven remarkably resilient. So, one can't ride off Ukraine, but it is clear that it has
39:33
never been under this degree of pressure before and the calls for the removal of
39:38
Zelinsky are are mounting.
there is planning going on right now about um about to use nuclear weapons against
11:28
Iran. There's no doubt that PL but it's not new. This planning has been happening forever. The danger isn't,
11:35
you know, with KB's planning isn't Iran because we always had a nuclear annex to this. the dangerous China and
11:42
Ir and Russia right now because United States hasn't modified its stance regarding Taiwan yet. We continue to
11:50
provide you know Taiwan with military capabilities that are at odds with
11:55
the policy objectives of China and this could lead to a military clash and
12:02
the United States has no ability to defend itself or Taiwan in the case of a standup dragout fight with China. we
12:11
would have to use nuclear weapons early on and this is problematic. The same thing with Korea.
12:22
We just canceled a war game, not canceled but we significantly reduced our participation in a war game, but
12:27
that war game had a nuclear component to it. It's just the reality of conflict with a nuclear armed North Korea. But
12:36
you know now when you we speak of North Korea I think that the plan would be
12:43
modified. It would have to be modified to go nuclear from the start.
12:49
Because we have no other conventional capability of sustaining resistance. Russia. If NATO was
12:57
stupid enough to for instance implement the plan that was leaked in German media last week, the Kalingrad option,
13:05
we would have to go nuclear early because we don't have the ability to do any of this with conventional weapons.
13:12
We have zero conventional capacity. Zero conventional capacity in Europe and in
13:17
Asia and against Iran. And yet we haven't modified our posture with all
13:24
three of these so that if there is a conflict
13:30
we would either have to surrender which I don't think the United States is in the business of doing or use nuclear
13:38
weapons tactical nuclear weapons early on which would immediately lead to a general nuclear exchange and termination
13:43
of all life on the planet. So should we we be worried? Yeah, we should be scared to death.
the B6112 nuclear tactical nuke. And I I fear
21:50
that is very much in the menu of options that the joint force US
21:58
Central Command has provided to Donald Trump as a potential option.
22:04
And the reason I believe that is because we have B61 tactical nuclear bombs in in the region
22:15
already. We have over 250 of them throughout European installations and some that have been moved closer
22:24
into the CENTCOM area of responsibility that can be deployed from F-16s,
22:33
the F-35, obviously your traditional bomber aircraft, but we have the means, we have the ways, and we have a
22:42
president that seemingly has the will to potentially do this. And here's how I see that happening.
22:48
That the United States would use that capability to strike Pickax Mountain or to strike a wherever the critical
22:57
nuclear facility is to then to then say, "Look, we did we we did everything
23:06
I said I was going to do.
23:11
They're no longer a threat. Their government is weakened. The IRGC is all but destroyed. They don't have a navy.
23:21
They don't have an air force. Sure, they're going to keep producing drones, but who cares? The war's over and
23:29
it's over on my terms because look, they won't have a nuke. The United States, we're seeing that rhetoric pick
23:37
up again.
Saudi Arabia is very vulnerable and then they also spent a lot of money on these mega projects, the line and and those others and they've all been shut down.
38:27
So they're vulnerable. Kuwait is particularly vulnerable. They've been
38:33
very deeply involved in this war. And Qatar is is vulnerable. Bahin is vulnerable for a host of reasons.
38:42
the regime has been very brutal towards the the population over the years.
38:48
They're all more or less vulnerable. Some more, some I think Kuwait and
38:55
Bahrain they are particularly vulnerable. But if this escalates, it's going to be very
39:02
different. These countries are already in deep trouble, and as I said, they need lots of money. I don't think the Americans are going to give their money
39:09
back to them. If, let's say, the Emirates ask the United States to, or they want to sell their bonds, is
39:16
Trump going to allow them to do that? These countries have huge amounts of money in the United States, but they're going to have to withdraw it
39:25
pretty quickly because they're not making money. They're losing a lot of money. Will the Americans allow that? I mean, the Americans don't want the
39:33
Japanese to sell their bonds because of the situation.
39:38
You know it's going to be very dangerous for these countries in the weeks
39:46
and months ahead if this war continues
NATO initially as a defensive alliance with the idea we needed to
2:15
stand together and defend Western Europe if the Soviet Union should invade.
2:22
And however, when the cold war was over
2:29
the the task should have been creating a security
2:37
structure in Europe that protected all of the countries.
2:42
You know, after the first world war, the Allied powers made a tremendous
2:51
mistake in blaming it on Germany and when really everyone was to blame and
2:59
having harsh reparations and so on. And this
3:07
led directly to the situation that brought us the second world war. At the end of the second world war, the western
3:16
powers did one thing right and that was to insist that France and Germany bury the hatchet and start cooperating.
3:27
And so but at the end of the cold war even though uh the leader of the
3:35
Soviet Union had helped us end it. It was not a policy of the American
3:45
administration to try to break up the Soviet Union. We had hoped that Gorbachoff would actually negotiate a
3:55
voluntary federation among 12 of the Soviet Union republics. The excluding
4:04
the three Baltic countries which we always considered legally independent countries.
4:15
So, but what happened during the 90s is instead of bringing Russia into the new
4:24
security structure, even though the Russian leadership had taken the lead in breaking up the Soviet
4:33
Union, that was not the result of western pressure. Quite the contrary, the Soviet Union break up because of
4:40
internal pressures and under the leadership of the
4:47
elected leader of Russia uh Buris Shelson.
4:52
So, but we began to talk as if the end of the cold war was a victory
5:00
and that Russia was in effect defeated where actually you could say that
5:09
Russia had been one of the factors the leadership of Russia that helped us end the cold war and in fact led the break
5:17
up of the Soviet Union. Instead, we started expanding what had been a
5:24
defensive alliance, and then we turned it into an offensive alliance. And that
5:32
happened when the fighting broke out in the Balkans.
5:38
And at first we tended to use the
5:44
UN to help protect some of the people there during the war in Bosnia.
5:54
That didn't work. But later when the people in Kosovo, the Albanian
6:02
speaking people, began to rebel against Serbia. The US actually sided with
6:11
the rebels and in effect used NATO to make war against Serbia. Now Serbia had
6:19
not attacked or threatened any NATO member. that could only have been
6:25
considered a an offensive use of the thing. And of course, this made a very
6:34
bad impression on Russian because Serbia had not a traditional Russian
6:40
ally and to see the NATO
6:47
actually going to war. They didn't invade it at first but simply bombed
6:53
until until effect they capitulated and then NATO in
7:02
this case with Russian cooperation occupied Kosovo.
7:08
Then just based upon a vote of the Kosovo legislature
7:16
which declared independence that independence was recognized.
7:21
Now when that was done by the NATO powers they violated one of the
7:28
important agreements that we had negotiated that had helped end the cold war. That was the Helsinki final
7:38
agreement and what it had said was there should be no changes
7:46
of borders without the mutual consent.
7:52
Now, for the first time after the end of the cold war, we used NATO in an
7:59
offensive way against a country that had not attacked any member. And then we
8:07
recognized the independence of course of all, without
8:14
any, without a referendum or any anything else.
8:22
I would say now that that set a direct precedent later for what
8:29
President Putin in Russia did when he
8:38
he absorbed Crimea at the result of of a a peaceful
8:46
referendum which is overwhelmingly in favor of it. So we considered that
8:53
illegal whereas we had sponsored, I would say, a less defensible change of borders earlier.
9:05
So one of the things that we forget and now when we look at the situation
9:14
is that when people say the war in Ukraine is the first war in Europe
9:24
after the end of the cold war, that's not true. It wasn't as big, but the war against Serbia was the first war and it
9:33
was initiated by NATO.
strategic
thinking is more than just military thinking. It's the ability to understand the consequences the military actions you're taking further a field.
- Substack.com: Steve Jermy
My prediction is this will only escalate. How it will escalate, I don't know. Okay. But the trump card to use a
44:30
pun for Iran is to start to disrupt global trade. But United States has a
44:38
response and this response is to attack Iran's critical civil infrastructure
44:47
which includes dissalination plants and power plants. And this would be worse than using a nuclear weapon on Iran
44:55
because without power plants, the people in Tran, a city of about 10 million people, they face starvation because a lot of this food is refrigerated.
45:05
This is how the war becomes almost civilization destroying. If Iran were to completely disrupt global trade and if
45:14
the United States were to destroy the power plants of Iran
indications that Saudi Arabia will be cancelling both September and October deliveries of oil. That is a major major
1:39
issue. And if this proves to be true, September is already confirmed we can expect global energy markets to reach 120 a barrel. This is not sustainable.
1:47
But as you've been pointing out, it's not even just the uh the issue of the the price of a barrel of oil, but it's
1:54
also on diesel
[. . .]
you know, three or four rounds of
6:14
repairs and then more explosions, they might end up in a situation where they just can't fix it for, you know, 6 months or a year just because of not
6:22
being able to get the parts. You know, we saw that with Qatar Energy with the so-called gas trains, the gas concentrators there. those gas trains,
6:31
which are not, you know, not choo choo trains, of course, they're giant, they turn gas into liquid and they purify it and so on.
6:39
Some of those parts are only made by one or two companies in the world and the wait time on those parts is well 3 to 5 years currently. That's what Qatar
6:48
Energy announced when they when they declared force majour and they said, you know, we've we've suffered damage to two
6:55
of the 14 trains. So that's a five, you know, up to a fiveyear repair time for gas. Now, probably the Saudis will be
7:02
able to to repair the pipeline more quickly than that because the parts aren't as complicated, but it could easily be a year. And that's still
7:10
devastating, especially for Western Europe.
[. . .]
a lot of oil is produced domestically and consumed domestically both in the United States and Russia and other countries. But in terms of
12:41
traded oil, the destruction of that pipeline is a 10% hit or roughly 10%. So what that means is that countries that really strongly depend on oil imports,
12:50
which includes Japan or South Korea or Taiwan or you know many other countries, they are being hit now in a huge
12:58
way in terms of the lack of this globally traded commodity. Now the supply chain being cut even more and
13:06
that is what's driving up prices for in those countries and in Western Europe it's going to be a really
13:13
catastrophic and cold winter for this very reason. Not only will they suffer the economic impacts of not having enough diesel or enough let's say
13:22
affordable diesel to engage in transportation or agriculture or what have you. But also they don't have gas.
13:28
I mean because the EU passed a law outlawing the purchasing of gas from Russia which kicks in in January which is exactly when they're going to need
13:36
Russian gas. And so with Qatar Energy not exporting hardly any gas at all Western Europe and they shut down their
13:43
own domestic infrastructure because of you know climate alarmism over the years what are they going to do just like you know burn library books for heat? I mean
13:52
what are they going to do in Europe? I don't know but it's going to be rough.
[. . .]
if you look at the destruction of the refineries on the global stage and oil storage facilities
14:41
on the global stage and how the Houthis are taking over the uh the control of the shoreline there right next to the
14:48
Red Sea which gives them oversight you know over the Bob Al-Mandeb straight and now the destruction of the East West pipeline. All of this adds up and it
14:57
adds up to a global energy supply shock that we have never experienced. And remember, you know, our population of
15:04
our world has doubled roughly, I think, since about the early 1970s.
15:10
So, we're at, you know, 8 plus billion people. And those 8 plus billion people depend on infrastructure, energy infrastructure that has been constructed
15:18
over the last several decades largely in the Middle East with Qatar energy and you know gas exports and gasification
15:26
and all all of the byproducts of that, which includes helium of course, but also the sulfur coming out of oil so sulfuric acid which is necessary to
15:35
create phosphate fertilizers. So the downstream effects of this supply shock are going to be catastrophic throughout
15:43
2027.
[. . .]
Food inflation is is going to get much worse.
[. . .]
the global food supply has been calibrated based on these you know hydrocarbon
29:56
produced fertilizers. That's what feeds 50% of the world.
after making all the boasts about taking care of the Houthies in short order and then retreating the US
6:30
Navy retreating from the Red Sea with its tail between its legs and the Houthies triumphant and now they're back with a vengeance and I know these people
6:39
from having trained some of them many years ago I know the difference between the south and the north and the tribes
6:47
therein. I know the difference in the version of Islam practiced in the north and in the south. And I know how corrupt
6:55
the government in Saha was. And of course, as is usual with the United States, we were allied with that corrupt
7:03
government in SA. And that corrupt government is now got its tail between its legs and on the run. And they are on
7:10
the run because these more venerable and more heroic in my mind fighters and certainly more talented apparently at
7:18
tactics and even campaign planning than anything that's up against them including Muhammad bin Salman and the Saudis who are abysmal at these sorts of
7:26
things. and they're winning
[. . .]
Netanyahu has made statements and he's made multiple statements now that the
26:19
Iranians are going to get a big surprise that if they do look at what he's doing in Lebanon and eventually join Hezbollah
26:27
in an attack on Israel that he they are going to get a big surprise. His defense minister Katch has said the same thing.
26:34
Well, he can only mean the doomsday option, the the Samson option, if you will. He can only mean he's using a
26:41
nuclear weapon probably off one of his submarines because the Iranians have exquisite intelligence on everything around him. So, the moment he starts moving anything, they will preempt.
26:52
They'll destroy it. Wow. So, the submarines are what scare me.
there's no question that the Russian uh political elites were
4:46
generally dissatisfied with Putin's waging of the war up until very recently. I think there were lots of
4:55
people in the national security elite inside of Russia who felt that Putin was
5:01
not waging the war vigorously enough. And that he really had to take the gloves off and get this war over with
5:09
once and for all. I mean I think that's been a sentiment inside of the Russian elite for a long period of time. And you
5:18
hear a lot about we have been hearing a lot about that uh in the west in the past but it's quite clear that since
5:25
some point in June uh Putin took the gloves off and that the Russians are definitely playing hard ball with uh the
5:35
Ukrainians. Now, they have escalated the air campaign in serious ways, and there's lots of evidence there. The
5:42
Russians are determined to continue escalating until they bring Ukraine to its knees. And therefore, the
5:50
dissatisfaction with Putin has basically withered away, at least as best I can
5:56
tell, inside the Russian elite. So I don't see any evidence that there's
6:04
going to be an uprising of any sort against Putin.
[. . .]
if Putin were to be removed from office or if Putin were to have a massive heart attack tomorrow and pass
6:44
away, uh the person who would replace him in all likelihood would be a real
6:51
hardliner. someone who is inclined to be even tougher in terms of waging the Ukraine war than Putin has been and even
7:01
is now. So the idea that if Putin goes away and you get a new leader that that leader is going to be more interested in
7:09
accommodating the West, uh I think you're living in a dream world. That is not going to happen.
[. . .]
Whitkoff and Putin effectively worked out a deal uh or at least the
40:31
broad parameters of a deal before Anchorage.
40:35
And the purpose of Anchorage was for Putin and Trump together to come Putin and Trump to come together uh to talk
40:44
about the deal and shake hands and accept the fact that they basically had a deal. Again, the details had to be
40:53
worked out. And according to Lavrov and others, this is what happened at Anchorage. The Russians thought that
41:00
they had made compromises and they had a deal. And Trump's thought the same thing. So, I think it's clear that the
41:10
Russians thought that they were on the same page, generally speaking, as Trump and Whitkoff, and that they were on the verge of settling.
41:20
But as Putin made clear to Trump, and as Trump fully understood, a deal between those two was no good unless you got the Ukrainians and the Europeans on board.
41:32
And Trump assured Putin that he could get the Ukrainians and the Europeans to agree to the deal.
41:41
But as we all know, that didn't happen.
41:45
Trump fumbled the ball. And one result of that, by the way, is I think
41:51
that the Russians have zero faith in American diplomacy. I think they have
41:58
zero faith in Whitkoff, Kushner now and Trump as well. I think the Russians understand this war has to be settled on the
42:06
battlefield.
[. . .]
Poland came in to the alliance uh in 1999 along with Hungary
58:57
and the Czech Republic. That was the first trunch of expansion. And the second tranch of expansion was in 2004.
59:05
And there the most I think consequential expansion involved the Baltic states.
59:13
But the Baltic states were brought into NATO and this of course enraged the Russians. The first trunch enraged the
59:21
Russians but the second trunch in 2004 that brings in the Baltic states uh I think really bothers the Russians
59:28
greatly. But then in 2008 um the decision is made that Ukraine and Georgia will be brought in. And of
59:36
course you get a war in Georgia in August of 2008. And at the same time
59:42
trouble begins brewing in Ukraine. I think you could make the argument,
59:49
Glenn, that NATO got away with bringing Poland in and even got away with the second trunch with the Baltic states,
59:58
Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Slovakia, and so forth and so on came in. But it was Ukraine that was a bridge too far.
1:00:06
And I believe that the evidence is clear that everyone understood from the
1:00:12
beginning that Ukraine in NATO was a really dangerous idea. And you see
1:00:21
it in the documents from the 1990s when NATO expansion was being discussed at a theoretical level before the first
1:00:29
expansion in -99. Everybody understood that Ukraine was a very special case. So I think in an important way we got away
1:00:38
with bringing Poland into the alliance and even bringing the Baltic states and the various other states and the second
1:00:45
entrage into the alliance but uh but bringing Ukraine and Georgia in was a
1:00:53
bridge too far and we got wars in both cases.
I was at the Soviet desk of the State
14:32
Department in the 1980s. My father was the Air Force at the in Moscow at the same time. I can tell you there was
14:40
nothing like this kind of antipathy toward the Soviet Union when it was under communism as we see against Russia today. I mean, there are a lot of people
14:48
who think, oh, this is just cold war hangover. They still think the Russia is communist. Oh, no, no. There was much more respect and much more restraint
14:56
toward the communist Soviet Union than there is toward Russia today. when Russia emerged as a national state and one with an orthodox Christian ethos.
15:04
That's when these people in Washington really started to hate the Russians.
the Europeans have not been prepared for any shortages not been prepared for diesel shortages gasoline shortage
9:44
probably rationing is going to come you know at least partly that is going to come the air fuel position in Europe
9:53
there's a half a million barrels of shortaging coming up in October for the
10:00
last quarter. So it is going to be the hardship is coming and the Europeans have not been prepared. They haven't
10:08
allowed prices to gradually rise which would contain demand. So, it's going to come in at a cliff edge and we're going
10:17
off the cliff edge and suddenly you start seeing in parts of France that truckers are are signing lining up in
10:27
long lines to try and fill up at the local filling station. So, it's all going to come and so the only thing
10:35
they can do is create fear.
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