Full Video | Episode 139 | Col. Douglas Macgregor (ret.)

[Music] [Music] Colonel welcome to the show hey thanks for inviting me we're certainly living in interesting times and the world is I guess we both know is at a very critical juncture how much of wear at Colonel is due to maybe a lack of leadership from the West well I don't know it depends on how You define the leadership usually in the United States we define leadership as bullying other countries into doing what we would like them to do and I think that's been largely the case since 1965 people would argue that we engaged in

some of that in the 50s and I think that's partially true but in the ' 50s we were normally acting to prevent communist parties from seizing control in places like Italy or Greece or Iran or other countries sometimes the Intervention made sense and sometime it did not but we were not actively bullying people into a particular strategic Direction at the time we didn't have to because we were effectively the last man standing at the end of the second world war yeah everyone else was exhausted and worn out we represented something like 60 70% of world

gross domestic product uh today it's down to I think 30% MH it was a very different world did and it Was only natural and hopeful frankly that the rest of the world would eventually recover from the destructive experience of the second World War I think that's happened we've never adapted to that and we have chosen to ignore it because we don't like it whatever we can't control and dominate we tend to treat as either an enemy state or a potential adversary that's been going on since we intervened in Vietnam yeah so I think that's one

of The big problems to the United States uh you can be friends with us as long as you don't dispute anything that we do and you do pretty much what we prefer that you do and when you don't you're in trouble we use our Global Financial prowess to punish you we use the Swift system to punish you yeah we enact sections against you so what are you talk about the leadership from the West I don't think there's leadership anywhere else but From us but it's bad whatever leadership we used to get I think pretty much

ended with Harold McMillan in Britain he was the last one who made any sense and stood up and said have you lost your minds why are you going to Vietnam if you think we're going to follow you you've got another thing coming that's when deal was in France and effectively said the same thing and said this NATO plan has no long-term future get out of France we I Could get down the list you know we we had a different set of actors with a different set of values and experience you know one of the things

if you talk about leadership at the national level and I often do I I sometimes say the last president uh who really had a grasp of all the things that are important uh to be a good president was really Eisenhower okay now Eisenhower was not a particularly good General in Fact I think he was a pretty poor General you're right okay did a didn't do very well during the second war but then again we had a very weak bench we didn't have much talent the most talented and intelligent man who had the best grasp strategically

of everything was Douglas MacArthur and FDR did everything he could to minimize him and stuck him out in the uh Western Pacific in the hopes that the world would not hear much from him but Eisenhower was Sort of a debutant he was somebody that looked good he modeled well on the stage he wasn't the only one and Marshall picked him and S him over but Marshall had a lot of trouble with him but the thing that distinguished Eisenhower from many of his peers was that Eisenhower learned from every mistake he made he learned about how

things really operate in the International System he began to understand the people that he was Dealing this so when he became president of the United States he was really ready to to handle the job and you were recall that he ran specifically on a platform that implied he would end the Korean War he never said he would do that but that was the implication and of course uh he said I will go to Korea and I will have an answer and I will do what is in the interest of the American people so he did

and he got over there and he he was Immediately given a briefing by General Mark Clark one of the people that emerged from the second world war as of fourstar and Clark gave him his this briefing in 1952 early 53 actually and said well Mr President what we need now are 890,000 troops so that we can launch a major invasion of China March in through mansuria and around and down into Beijing and we will win the war and Eisen hour listened politely and then he Walked out of the tent with his military assistant he said

Clark has lost his mind the American people have absolutely no interest in major war with China yeah in fact someday we may want to get along with China regardless of what the government is at the moment we don't want a war with the Chinese so military says and Sir what are you going to do he said well I'm going to politely end this the best way I possibly can so immediately said Forget it well of course the opinion polls at that point in the United States about 58 59% were adamantly opposed to the war and

said what the hell are we doing there we have no business being there this is when most Americans paid attention and thought that we belonged in the Western Hemisphere yeah novel idea and Eisenhower tended to agree with that but Eisenhower understood we we inherited a lot of obligations for the second war and we couldn't just pack up And leave everywhere but he came to a resolution of the conflict it wasn't easy we got out and we left very few forces behind and we set up what turned out to be a relatively stable situation on the

on the peninsula and then subsequently when he signed on for NATO he said if NATO still exists 10 years after we found it it's a failure because he said this is not the way forward with the Soviet Union the Soviet Union will inevitably change he of course had Listened to uh George kennet and George Kenan told him no we don't want to go to war with the with the Soviets but we want to wait them out the system itself will implode of course I think he and others thought it would implode a little sooner than

it did but ultimately it did implode on its own all this business about Ronald Reagan beat the Soviets and won the cold Wars alone crap the Soviet system was destined to do anybody who studied it knew that it was just a Question of when so you know we we misinterpret things to flatter ourselves and George Kenan said most of what we do in foreign policy is designed to flatter ourselves and we suffer from an acute case of national narcissism in fact I think it's as bad if not worse than the case that once Afflicted Britain

during during the outbreak of World War I the same sort of mentality you know we've got the men we've got the ships we've got the money too kind of nonsense but Eisenhower understood that he he did understand economics he understood what had to happen and so he cut spending he cut back on the Armed Forces at a point in time when everybody insisted we had to spend more and he used to hold very interesting sort of seminars once a month with the Joint Chiefs and they hated to meet with him because he'd been a a

fourstar general he knew what went on in the Pentagon and they would sit there and they would say you know one Said well sir we need 26 divisions to deal with the Soviets when they attack in Europe and then he said well that's interesting how many ships do you have and how many aircraft you have and how many troops can you ship over there in time to meet the threat if it if it materializes so they said well I don't know so we go back and find out well he returned and said said uh well

we could move 15,000 men he said good that's your requirement shut up and of course he was First to point out that how are you going to get across the Atlantic with the Soviets yeah you know they have these things called submarines everybody had forgotten from 1939 to 1943 how many years is that four years to defeat the the German ubot threat today the threat is infinitely greater and more potent so how are you going to reinforce anything so so he had very you know he was a practical man and he was looking for practical

Solutions he wanted to keep Things not necessarily in a frozen state but stabled and he he strongly supported Austria's bid for neutrality you remember of course Austria broke away from Germany after World War II yeah and finally KY who was Bruno KY who was the uh Chancellor said you know it's time for us to get these Russians out of here how do we get the Russians out they said we become neutral and they put together a very good treaty the treaty was circulated to Eisen hour He looked at it they circulated to Moscow Moscow agreed

Eisenhower agreed you know what Eisenhower said well thank God that's a front we don't have to worry about and he said perhaps we should neutralize more States in Eastern Europe because we Americans can't possibly defend them all GE what a novel way to think uh you know he did not see any danger whatsoever to neutrality in that sense he saw is a positive thing and of course Austrian neutrality has Worked very well and that's one of the reasons that you go to somebody like Orban in Hungary and says you've lost your minds there's no reason

to fight these people I know these people we could have had Ukraine neutralized just as Austria was and Austria has arrived as a result of neutrality they have a higher standard of living now for the first time in their history than Germany the Germans always look down on the austrians as you know they're the Alabamans you know they're the poor Southerners not anymore they live better than the Germans do so he had a different view of that then he looked of course at uh you know you command the Armed Forces you understand the economy you

also have to get yourself elected well that was something he knew nothing about but he was such a successful figure and so well known you know people were writing in as his opponent in many places Santa Claus because everybody Knew that nobody had a chance to defeat Eisenhower y you look at those kinds of of attributes and understanding a sense of what the American people can and can't do and one of the things that he said repeatedly in private to everyone who would listen is we Americans can never do again what we did during World

War II we will never sustain those High casualties that the Germans and the and the Soviets took we will never ever mobilize our whole nation to send all of These forces overseas it's simply impossible so he was trying to break us out of That World War II Paradigm but he was succeeded by by John F Kennedy and Kennedy was a good man but Kennedy along with Richard Nixon later on both of them served in the second world war Kennedy of course was in the Pacific and he looked out across the Pacific and he saw thousands

of ships he saw hundreds of thousands of troops thousands of airplanes he said my God we're the Greatest country in the world there's nothing we can't do and of course Nixon was out there in the Pacific with him he reached the same conclusion and so when they become president they they see this America as being very different from the way Eisenhower saw it Eisenhower remembered sending a letter in early January of 1945 to George Marshall after the Arden's offensive which really shook him to the to the foundations and he said to General Marshall I think

we're going to need another 10 or 15 divisions I you know I'm not confident we can get this done and so forth and Marshall send him back a note saying you're going to damn well in the war with what she got nothing else is coming we're tapped out and at that point we had maybe 90 divisions now you know today somebody can't even understand that I mean the numbers of forces and Equipment everything else is beyond everybody's Com comprehension but Eisen hour understood what had G on then he saw the horrendous casualties you know by

the way we lied about the casualties we said the Germans had sustained 200,000 casualties no the real Figures were finally released within the last few years we sustained 68,000 C or the Germans sustained 68,000 casualties of whom only 11,000 were killed yeah right we lost Over 24,000 and we had almost 200,000 casualties so we just reversed the the numbers and lied you say that to people say oh my goodness how could they possibly do that that's part of the game isn't it show me a general who's not going to lie exactly so anyhow he was

a silver minded individual and and he was always trying to hold things within limits limit the spending limit the commitments limit the Damage the people that followed him had this unfortunate habit of seeing us as the land of infinite abundance and here we sit so what aren't we understanding about the East well I don't think most Americans pay any attention first of all that to anything that happens overseas they only began paying attention to what happens here as they watch their jobs exported overseas y then people began to wake up and say what happened to

the Factories the manufacturing base where have they all gone that used to be a great strength for us and eventually they began to figure out that they were sold out not by the government per se but by corporate Power by the people that controlled the manufacturing base and it was cheaper to do things somewhere else and uh they profited enormously and the government certainly wasn't going to get in their way because of all those wonderful campaign Contributions that poured in so I think that began to sink in in the 90s finally that began by the

way under the great Ronald rean nobody ever points that out but it all began under him along with amnesty for a million Mexicans and others from Latin America who were illegal y so as soon as you as soon as you see amnesty under Reagan that's where you watch the the curve go up through the roof right and of course the argument at the time is this is a One-time Affair this will help Tamp down illegal immigration well the opposite was the case so all I'm trying to say is that everybody looks around and is angry

right now why why do I face inflation you know why is my uh unemployment I got 20 21% rise in the cost of food yep you know why do I have a 7 point 7.1% mortgage on a 30-year house mortgage uh why why are all these things is happening well it started a long time ago Americans didn't pay much attention Now they're paying attention and uh I think it's going to be held to pay in the near term and in the long term probably I I spoke to an Australian funny enough uh in the US

couple weeks ago just from a a business call and I said you live in Florida he said yes I've been here for very short period of time what's it feel like and he said I've spok to my wife and I've spoken to my family he said I've never lived in anything like this before it almost Feels like it's a civil war there now I didn't think it was I thought bit of an extor I said are you serious he said no everyone here is on the edge is is that the case yes very much so

I mean I spent half my time in Florida where I'm a CEO for our country our choice I'm there for about 7 to 10 days then I come home again for seven days and I go back down there I still have a Consulting business uh here in uh Virginia though most of that takes me to places like Kentucky And Indiana and Ohio but because it's involved with coal and rare earth and so forth yep so I travel around and everywhere I go I encounter that and of course sometimes you see people that are just flat

broke and again we've always had lots of people to live from paycheck to paycheck that's not news you know you can't get people to save to the extent that you would like them to but I think it's very bad now and we're we're on the verge of Some major financial crisis I suspect and it's going to be very bad at that point so what are what are what are the Americans going to be voting on I I still haven't quite worked out the platform so maybe from maybe from your perspective if Trump comes back in

or Cala Harris wins what does that look for for Americans and what does it look for three candidates yeah you do you really have three you have RFK Junior in the middle he's not really in the middle He's a standing apart yep both parties along with the media have worked very very hard to suppress him because he's a man who has studied the issues and actually has some answers yeah and he's fluent in the language and can discuss them where matters pertaining to our economy to the scientific industrial base to pharmaceutical Industries to health uh

he has real plans and programs but he doesn't get a chance to say very much right now they're trying to keep Him out of the next debate in September and that of course the people that control the debate and who gets to participate are members of the two parties Republicans and Democrats yes so it's it's not a government run operation so I don't expect that he'll be allowed to go into it who knows and then you look at Donald Trump and Donald Trump stands up as Donald does and he gives great speeches and rallies he

promises everybody everything oh bring down Inflation I'll you know I'll feed you again you'll be great again we'll be wonderful again and I I'll rebuild the Armed Forces w w w w okay how B silence and then you have Harris you know I think some Senators said the only difference between her and this Octavio or kazio Cortez his congressman is that a kazio Cortez has experience as a bartender and as far as we can tell Harris is has no experience at all in Anything uh she's an empty facade she knows nothing that's why she has

no interviews of any kind with anybody that and uh she has enormous uh Wall Street support because she's promising that nothing will change and that's the most popular candidate for the people with money for the billionaire oligarchs for Wall Street and of course she also represents the racial divide in the United States although she doesn't seem to be able to Make up her mind what she is that's neither here nor there so you've got this the the racial issue which is an undercurrent which by the way has always been with us everybody asks as though

this is remarkable it's not the teville who wrote about us in the 1840s the Frenchman talked about it MOX vber the great German sociologist came over here at the turn the century he talked about it this has always been with us it's just it's more acute now I Think largely due to the massive influx of non-europeans illegally into the country that's just exacerbated all the tensions made everything that much worse uh and and so you've got the party what the party of the left or the Democrats really call them now the party of color yeah

and if you look at the electoral map and who votes for them y well you look at the large cities that's it if you look at the counties in the United States 95 94% of all the counties In the United States are red have always been R if you go to the state of Pennsylvania where I was raised y the outcome of Elections over the last 30 40 years have been decided by two big cities Philadelphia and Pittsburgh every one of the state votes Republican except the people in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and all the Voting

is fraudulent me literally fraudulent they just stuff the ballot boxes with phony absentee ballots they pull names and Addresses off roles of people that have been dead for years it's always been a joke you know that Resurrection Day was election day in all the big cities of the United States again this is not a new problem it's just gotten worse and the cheating and the fraudulent nature of it is worse so Americans Collective have no confidence in their institutions they have no confidence in themselves I think so if you go to democ if you go

a democracy there then or have You got corporates running what's a democracy you know democracy what is it we're a republic a democracy is a place where you direct vote everything we have people we elect to represent us in theory and of course we now have taxation without representation in all 50 states that's the big joke nobody represents Us in Washington the place is donor occupied donor occupied billionaire oligarchs along with all the big Corporate structures they own Washington and and you can't even get in to see a senator unless you're willing as an average

citizen y that you could have five minutes with a senator if you pay $10,000 into this pack for his reelection yep but why Colonel why do they want to keep it as it is I think you said a few minutes because everyone in Washington has grown very rich the seven wealthiest counties in the United States surround Washington DC okay I used to live in Lowden County which uh was right surpassed Beverly Hills and all these other places it used to be excessively wealthy and I the home the home that I owned was so ridiculously inflated

I sold it and I moved 65 miles west of Washington well guess who moved in largely foreigners okay it's really quite striking you have the classes of it millionaires uh that come in and they Have people behind them that want to be millionaires and they buy up all this real estate so the Americans are leaving so you move out and you leave and it becomes an extension of India Bangladesh uh whatever is is diversity then the diversity play working in America of diversity is a catastrophe it always has been it homogeneity what makes you powerful

mean that I give these presentations and I sometimes I show a Picture of the Normandy Beach head on a map and show all the British and Canadian and American forces that came ashore I I said this is kind of interesting what what's interesting about it and you know people say well you know that we could bring everybody so far I said okay fine what else eventually gets down to it's 95% European and they all speak English wake up that's what made us powerful that's what Gave us strength and this country for the last 50 years

has been work working tirelessly without understanding it to destroy that yeah well they've almost succeeded Europe is the same it's a p to Europe at the is the same I think it's a little different I think uh and of course now I have not been my last trip over there was in 2015 okay okay and when I was in Germany I got off off the railroad station at the I was sweating At the railroad station and off the train came hundreds of Muslims from North Africa in the Middle East these were these unwanted migrants and

they saw me standing there and it came up and one of them asked me in English where this and this was and I directed them and I got out to this town that I had lived in Bavaria I was I lived there for total of six years on two threeyear tours yes and it was a beautiful little town and suddenly it's become 20 to 30% Turkish and you can imagine the bavarians are not very happy when I lived there there was no crime when I lived there nobody really had to lock their doors you could

walk anywhere you wanted at any time of night children grown ups anything well that's gone it doesn't exist anymore and I think that's the problem it's not that you have an overwhelming majority see in this country when you go into the cities you're looking at a demographic change That is flood uh dimensionally it's like a flood there almost there's almost nobody there anymore who was there now my my mother's family had been in Philadelphia since 1681 yes I will never go back to Philadelphia Philadelphia is a war zone once you get past downtown in historical

monuments it's a catastrophe well what's the demographic change well it's no longer a White City these things have changed now we can all sit around and say well that's very racist I think that's unkind well my own view is you haven't had to live in it as I have you haven't had to live through it as many of us have so you can stuff this where the sun doesn't shine you get my meaning I get it the truth is this is a disaster it's not working and you know when I was a Cadet At West

Point it was a block of instruction that they gave us that I'll never forget and it was a discussion of the campaign in 1866 between Prussia Germany and Austria Hungary and one of the things that was pointed out is that the austr Hungarian Army which was not a bad Army it was reasonably well armed and they had some good officers but the austro Hungarian Army was an Army where only about 30 to 40% of the soldiers could speak German And most of them were officers and that meant that the rest of the army was International

yeah and the joke in Austria always was that after by the end of the day other than the austrians that were still fighting the only people that were with them were the croats everybody else left well if you go to the German side the German Army was 95% German did that make a difference hell yes it made a difference they were infinitely more effective than Their Austrian counterparts there were no Communications problems you know we had a cultural homogeneity people understood was what was expected and that was presented to me as a as a Cadet

at West Point and of course then they went on to what I just said to you about Normandy words we understood that military power rests on a foundation of this human homogeneity where there's cultural understanding and a capability to Cooperate and work together as you diminish the what I would call the majority until it becomes a minority that's lost and of course that's what happened in Austria Hungary and Austria Hungary no longer exists do you what what how do you see the role of the US now going forward in the world depending on which which

leader wins when you say what sort of role I think it's going to be defined by their Our actual Financial condition well also military influence as well yeah but everything depends on on the economy yep a lot of Americans don't get it you know when I go and I talk about military power I said you want to pour and pour and pour more and more money into something thinking you're going to get something out of it the real foundation for military power is our scientific industrial power what has happened to that what what sort of

manufacturing Sector do we have and what is it buildt you know if you don't have assembly lines Y and we don't have very many anymore you don't have the Innovation that you used to have an industry Innovation occurs on the shop floor I mean anybody's been in business knows that it it it also applies in mining it applies in so many professions that's where things really change and then if you've got a good CEO he exploits it and takes advantage of it if he's a bad one He's one of these insecure narcissists then it it

fails he destroys the business well we learned those lessons we understood that the country was built on that proposition that it was economic power Washington said after he left the presidency he told everybody he said give us 20 years of peace and no no power in the world will challenge us because we will be the most economically powerful force in the world well he was right and we had almost no Army he was The man that had led he had the Continental Army all the way through the Revolutionary War and we disbanded everything and we

only Built back in very small pieces the Navy and the Army as we needed because that we understood that was not a productive sector in other words you should maintain only as much military power as you deem necessary for self-defense if you go beyond that you're you're you're sinking cash into Something that has no salvage value there's no real return on that investment and today a lot of technological innovation occurs in the private sector during World War II and early on it was in the military sector for Obin reasons yeah that's less and less the

case so when you say what's the role going to be my first point is what's our financial State yep and I think we're going to go broke I think we're going to default in a big way and By the way we defaulted twice y people don't know that in 30 in 34 and 36 only we didn't call it that we called it restructuring the debt well what's what's your debt now greater than your JDP isn't it well it's uh I think somebody said it's 140% in Rising yeah and what are we uh adding another trillion

dollars every 100 days it's just insane somebody said it's now thus far this year it's consumed 25 to3 % of all tax revenues mean it can't go on but In those days you know we could renegotiate the debt because the people that lend us the money understood that we could pay it back if you look at the last treasury auction there stab it a week ago we could not sell any treasuries that were longer than two years other words people would not buy 10 and 30-year treasuries which is really where you know people used to

buy those because they wanted long ter investment in the United States which They saw as a great bet that's no longer the Kings and once you get China and Saudi Arabia and these other places to dump our debt our treasuries which is what they're doing y it's only a matter of time until this uh House of cars that we built financially collapses so our rule role in the world is going to be constrained by what we can actually afford you know there's a difference between what you want to do and what you Have to do

we can get by with what with half of what we spend on the fence but we want to inter intervene in other people's countries we want to meddle in other people's Affairs we want to be able to threaten and Bully so therefore we spend more money and do we trust you anymore I don't think so I mean that's the other thing particularly in the Middle East I think the the Middle East is a catastrophe for us Saudi Arabia is gone forget it uh they they have no Confidence or faith in us I think you're going

to see the whole region most of Africa much of Asia so Abraham Accord won't come back into life at all no no way in the world yeah yeah so how how would you how would you sum up the the Middle East then I would sum up the thing is uh I think somebody said recently that the Israelis or actually Mr net yahu has achieved something that has not been the case for over a thousand years and that he has unified Persians Turks and Arabs Sunni and Shia all at once who can agree on one thing

Israel is trouble it's been a menace for years now it's an existential threat it needs to go away and that is the view across the Muslim world and of course we fall in right behind Israel we don't want America around because America is responsible for this do do both sides fall in behind Israel both the Democrats and the Republicans now yeah well listen you Can't I don't think you can oppose Israel in any real Sense on the hill and really survive so if you hold a seat in Congress whether it's the House of Representatives of

the Senate you're not somebody unless you're wildly independently wealthy and you have a a voter base that is impregnable in other words you have the STA support of people in your District or State uh you have to bend the knee to Israel or the Israel Lobby will spend money to get rid of you they'll push you out of office because they'll go and support your alternative because they're a single isue Lobby they don't care what else you do they just want to be sure that when when it's time to give Israel money when it's time

to support Israel when it's time to back Israel you will do that uh Thomas Massie he's a republican from Kentucky yep and Thomas Massie gave An interesting interview if you haven't seen it I would go look for it uh to Tucker Carlson and it was interesting because he told something that most people didn't understand in the United States He said every Republican congressman and Senator has an Israeli minder he said what do you mean he has a minder other words there's a representative in his office for APAC the American Israeli political action committee and he's

there to advise you What you should or should not vote for interesting and if you vote for something that Israel the Israel Israel Lobby deems as antithetical to their interests you have a choice you can change your Vote or they'll turn against you on the Democrat side it varies because first of all large numbers of Democrats don't have to be persuaded but you also have a new crop of Democrats that have come in and this is where race seems to figure rather prominently yeah That are very very very anti-jewish so right now I don't think

that's a major problem or threat for the Israel army now maybe as this war breaks out and people start taking losses and this thing drags on and harms everybody economically yep that may change so what how do you see playing out we got Hezbollah hoodis hummus you got the sewers Canal being blocked you got the Red Sea you got new tactics happening you got Iran ready to support What's what's you know you're you're a military person what's what's the strategy I think you'll I think you'll probably see an initial firing of weapons from hisbah Y

and then Iran will probably join in what I don't know is what does that mean in other words and the response how much are they going to employ against Israel and I'm sure that there are debates even now I'm sure they have various plans and I'm quite certain that Some some people are saying look if if we're going to do this let's not hold back because we know that when the Israelis Counterstrike they will not hold back so why should we exercise restraint and see to this point point in time whatever you think about the

Iranians they've exercised considerable restraint because they very honestly don't want a war so you know we'll we'll have to see how this turns out but I think well what Do they want then uh I think they want to be left alone by the Israelis and I think they want the Israelis to leave Muslims alone in the region that means stop killing and expelling people from Gaza that means to deal with hisbah recognize legitimacy of their position on the other side of the border that means recognizing that they're going to be a normal state in the

region you know hisbah exists today Because of the Israeli occupation of Lebanon there was no hiso when the Israelis went in there so I had Israelis sit me down and tell me that when I've been over there several times since 1999 they said yeah we're pretty stupid we created hisbah then of course you realized that Hamas was also a creature of the Israeli government and the mad because they thought it could be developed as a useful counter to other groups particularly the Palestinian Authority they wanted to divide the Palestinians y Mr Netanyahu that to some

extent that was his brain Chum all of these things have backfired on them rather badly so if the answer is we just have to kill more Muslims which appears to be in solution at this stage I don't think that's going to work but didn't they didn't they return Gaza back to toas well yes they returned it nominally To Arabs but they you remember that Gaza was originally under Egyptian Administration yes until after the 73 War yep and uh when it came to discussing who would take it back and who would run it and so forth

uh anoir Sadat told Bean forget it we don't want anything to do with it but there was a tacd agreement that the Egyptians and the Israelis would cooperate to contain the problem and indeed that's what they've done the Egyptians and the Israelis have worked very carefully together to deal with various forms of Islamic jihadists that emerged inside Gaza and cooperate with other people in the sinon in fact that's one of the casualties I think of this particular conflict right now which is so tragic that Egypt and Israel had a good moce of Endy I think

that's dead now and I don't see it being restored in fact I don't think I'll be very surprised if General CCE survives in Egypt and we do not have a coup and see a much more radical anti-israeli anti-western government come to power there I think the same threat is very real in Jordan King Abdullah is another one that now is regarded widely as an Israeli puppet I don't think that's fair I think he and his father both tried to maintain stability and and commerce and so forth but that's the view and I think he will

be gone I think that Muhammad bin Salman Has figured out that uh he's got to get on the right side of this issue or he too might be out of a job I think this is a wave that is sort of washed over uh the Islamic world they're taking the position that Israel does the Israelis take the position you're either with us or against us I think all of the Islamic states have taken a similar position either you're with us or against us and if the Israelis in the americ I don't know the Americans will

but if the Israelis hit Iran if they decide to do so do you see potentially a destabilization of the Iranian government totalitarian um strong um a potential Rise by the people uh do any of the people in Iran have a weapon no but there was an Arab Spring there was there was an Arab Spring some time ago it supported yeah but they have no weapons That's why we have the Second Amendment to the con and the Bill of Rights in the United States they have no way of rebelling against anybody they'll be shot to Pieces

it's right it's that simple I mean look at the people in England that are rebelling effectively they're very unhappy but what can they do about it they don't have any weapons and this is true all over Europe uh this is the problem that we Have with this desire to turn everyone into a sedated consumer who will mindlessly behave the government take all their weapons away and they have no choice that's why we Americans will never do that okay what's your thoughts on at the moment the state of play in Ukraine and Russia and the push

by the ukrainians of late into Russia and I've listened to a lot of your comment push this is not much of a push there's a few thousand and it looks Like this was planned in Great Britain and we have evidence that there are a number of American British advisers involved in this and I think they simply looked at the border with Russia and remember the entire border of Russia is not fortified and defended uh the war is actually contained and this is a very large area in Ukraine Americans have no idea what they're dealing with

I mean you got something size of Texas you're fighting Over we haven't done anything like that for a long time even in the European campaigns we never conducted war on the scale that the Germans and the Soviets did or the Germans and the austrians and Russians did during World War I and as night time the Americans down an understanding of the dimensions yep so what what we did is we ran the satellites on passes across the territory and we saw the areas that were lightly defended I think in this Particular area where they penetrated there

were only policemen initially and so they said this is great we can make a splash then somebody decided Well let's go for the nuclear power plant in K because if we can damage the plant and cause an emergency that will harm Russia and maybe that'll give us a chance and convince people in the west to continue to support us it was a part PR and part strategic as it was aimed at the kers nuclear power Plant they did damage the cooling system at the power plant but that's being repaired and they are being systematically annihilated

as you and I are sitting here yeah and I'll be interested to see the bodies which I'm sure will include some Americans and Brits because we've already lost people there that we never admit to and I'm sure the Russians will be happy to put them on television the bad news here for for the future is that Putin is now Announced and and I I can't blaming for it there will be no negotiations this is over and to me that means that he's going to finish off this regime in KF now how he does it and

when and where I don't know but there's not much to stop him from moving forward but the issue for him the Dilemma for him and for the Russians has always been we don't they don't want to rule ukrainians the areas that he's currently controlling are full of Russians but It's still Sovereign land they're still there it was still Ukraine before he went in there it was given back remember uh well let's put it this way been under russan control many many years ago and everything else by history but it was Sovereign to that point was

Russian from 1776 yeah but it was given back by the USSR no the USSR you had Christof and a drunken bout at his daa who decided to reward his communist buddies who Incidentally the Communist buddies that ran Ukraine they were Russians yeah yeah yep they weren't ukrainians no Ukrainian nationalist will tell you oh we got it back oh that's just nonsense in fact uh we had many ukrainians in the United States Jack Palace a very famous movie star was Ukrainian came from Pennsylvania where I'm from yep and he was awarded some medal from the Ukrainian

USSR for His Brilliant performances and he basically spat in Their faces and said you are not ukrainians I don't know anything about what you are but you're not Ukrainian so at that point I mean that's sort of like shuffling a town or two on the border with Pennsylvania back forc in New York when nobody's paying attention it it's irrelevant what you've got now and this is an old part of the world where borders have changed repeatedly over many years populations have changed Putin understands that the Populations in eastern Ukraine were Russian the majority of the

population on Crimea was not Ukrainian and the non ukrainians were being treated as second and third class citizens they were being punished in courts of law they were a tremendous disadvantage because they were being being subject to Ukrainian isation and the the Russians didn't like it and that was the purpose of the Minsk Accords those were drafted with the Object of holding Ukraine intact but addressing these critical issues to satisfy Russian sensibilities well we now know that the Min Accords were a fraud because Chancellor Markle made that very clear macron is admitted it was just

a buy time to build up a bigger Ukrainian Army y whose goal was to attack Russia hello I would have done exactly what Putin did and I would not give up an inch of territory right now that has a Russian living on it to the ukrainians again so he doesn't want to go further west if he can avoid it he really doesn't because he doesn't want to manage and govern ukrainians he wants them to do that for themselves the problem is how does he get that done as long as the seleski regime is in K

and that's a whole another question so from that perspective you know we started on eisenh how and we talked about NATO so where is where you know is this Been an absolute complete failure by NATO and the Americans and why are the Americans still supporting something which is costing lives and an enormous amount of money and capital uh if you think at the end of the day um we're we're wasting our time and then Putin's outs smart at all of us oh absolutely we're wasting our time and we have no historic or current or past

strategic interest in eastern Ukraine who controls eastern Ukraine is of no consequence to Us whatsoever on a purely strategic level I think this is an entirely fraudulent War perpetrated by people in Washington London and GI and that's a public government that we set up there are lots of people that are behind this but I think as far as NATO goes I think NATO is pretty much Dead Man Walking I think it'll go B it'll go out of existence in January before The Invasion commenced I was interviewed and you can look it up By Demitri SS

as was a Russian who ran the ntion center for National interest and he asked me the same question I said if we embark on this it will be the end of NATO yeah okay but NATO won't end until you see the current governments go away and you're going to see that happen I think you're going to see Schultz gone I think you're going to see mcon go and and uh I think you're going to see changes in Scandinavia the real question is what happens in Britain I don't know That uh I can't predict that one

I just don't know but I know the Germans and the German population is definitively turned against this Ukrainian War thing I don't think they know the whole story because the Press has studiously avoided telling the truth but enough is coming through now they have enough ukrainians on the ground in in Germany that they do understand what's happening so I think Schultz will go away and the Christian social Union in Bavaria which is the Sort of Bavarian wing of the Christian Democratic Union has said either you get on board and we end this war or we're

leaving the the union with you so I think things are really going to change and France has always been a bill winner for change you know what mety used to say if they sneeze in Paris Europe catches a cold well I think Europe's caught the cold do you think um will do the deal if he gets in charge uh you know first of all I don't Know he's got people around him who don't want to do the deal he's appointing people who are warmongers people who are neocons this was his problem during his first term

he didn't pay attention to who they were if you go back and look and he was asked about so and so and so and so what about this man is your National Security adviser he's a well-known neocon waron he said he doesn't matter he said 'why not because I make all the decisions well Donald Trump should have learned by now that he was dead wrong it matters very much who becomes a cabinet officer matter we have 5,000 appointed positions in Washington yeah you got to fill them all and you got to fill them with the

right people if you're filling them with people that don't agree with you that don't support you that that are told to ignore ignore you which is what happened then how much can you Reasonably accomplish so I I don't know what president Trump has learned about this all right now we started on the conversation talking about where the power lies with the US regards to the economy now if we talk about the economy the global economy that's world trade and now we've got the likes of Russia China North Korea and Iran um creating in many regards

a a very strong relationship and you got the US tiing with Europe which is sort of Floundering in certain areas what's what's your look what's your take on the shift and how we've allowed that happen is that good bad in China has flexed its muscle and and they' played a smart very tight game well North Korea has been circling the drain for years economically it's a basket case the Russians uh sort of continued to try and help sustain it as much as they could but within limitations and you'll recall that in 20 I think it

was 2019 uh that President Trump and and I was in touch then with his offices understood that this was a time to make some hard decisions and you had a government in South Korea that very much wanted us to leave by the way I think most Koreans would still like us to leave and I think we will but at the time there was an opportunity to do it under very favorable circumstances and to get something for it and behind the scenes It was very clear that we could get a deal for denuclearization in North Korea

mhm if we tied it over a period of say 5 years to us withdrawals from North Korea now why is that or from South Korea now why is that important well if you withdraw from the peninsula of South Korea there's no requirement for us to be in Japan yeah we have ground troops in Japan who are there to reinforce the defense of South Korea in other words This this leads to the militarization of our relationship with Asia which is desirable we don't want to go to war with anybody in Asia anybody who says that we

should be prepared to is insane it's just abundantly stupid so no we don't want to go to war with anybody there are people in Washington who want to go to war with everybody in sight every other damn day and they have no idea what the hell of war is they've never seen it Never will or they might but uh if they do it's their own fault but the point is that North Korea is a is on the whole really a Russian satellite and given what's happened now I think the Russians have decided that North Korea

is extraordinarily useful because one of the first things that a lot of us warned the administration was you're focused on what's happening in Ukraine but the Russians can escalate horizontally where do the Russians have Good relations they have good relations in Cuba good relations in Venezuela y good relations in Mexico yep so do the Chinese Mexico has always been hostile to us they hosted the Germans then they hosted the Soviets the largest KGB operation outside of Russia was in Mexico y they we have never had good relations with Mexico which is why we had the

Army on the border there from 1846 to 1948 so none of this is new we've just Been negligent and complacent let this metastasize and we don't want to go to war with Mexico we don't need to go to war with Mexico we need to close the border we need to secure the Border we need to establish the rule of law we need to militarize that border to make sure that no one can penetrate it anymore that's different you don't go to war I hear idiots all the time well Mexico we need to go to war

with the cartels we're we're going to have a war With the cartels as soon as we close that border the war is going to be inside our country right that's what people don't understand that's how serious the situation is here at home which is why we're going to leave we're going to leave Europe we're going to leave Asia we're going to back out of everything because first of all we can't afford it and secondly it's not vital to us anymore what's the most vital thing our own country so it's gonna very National Security so very

inward then what very inward then on the world stage yes okay it has to be that way so no longer the policeman of the world no hell no we never wanted to be either that was Eisenhower's point we didn't want to be the policeman all over the world you been doing a lot of been a lot of interference don't go into Vietnam there's been a lot of interference for a long time then what what do you mean yeah well the Americans oh yeah well that's because Americans paid no attention to what was happening in Washington

until it became so offensive and so disgusting that they had to and that was Vietnam okay it took us 10 years to finally disengage from Vietnam yep Americans only started paying attention to it about 1969 1970 yep and you know when I when I went for my physical exam in 1970 yep I went to an Army hospital not far from where I lived in Philadelphia and I was there with dozens of other young men we were all going through these physicals to see whether or not we could qualify to go to the military academy and

we walked through these Wards and the wards were filled with young men our age 19221 18 amputees shot to Pieces lives ru yes so I went through that the other people didn't pay much attention they went on to do whatever they did I came Out I was very shocked by the whole thing my mother made me go back in and look at it she was a Quaker she said go back look at it and then come out after you've been through those Wards and and you're going to answer a question I said I did what

my mother said she raised me I came back out and I said uh yes Mom I saw it she said are do you still want to be a professional Soldier do you still want to go to West Point I said yes Mom and she said you're a Hard case the um the withdrawal out of Afghanistan well the withdraw did did it just did it trigger the events that the Americans just couldn't work out I think Americans got a taste of the widespread incompetence and low level of professionalism that characterize the senior ranks of our armed

forces and I I remember I spoke on television and I was castigated the hell out of it and president Trump called me And he said that's great you're right we would never have done that blah blah blah but but the truth is all those generals were there under him that's right he should have got rid of them but he wouldn't act and I wasn't the only person that said look we got a clean house we got real problems we've had Decades of no real action against anybody that can fight back now you know the British

went through that and they they they suffered through that in World War I and frankly I would argue with the exception of Montgomery and a few others things weren't so hot during the second world war either with them because of this Imperial policing nonsense same thing with the French and if you go back before all those Wars those various armies and their leaders all said wow the Germans had no experience what have they done oh the Germans studied War the real damn thing so did the Soviets we didn't we have it people are watching What's

happening over in uh Ukraine and I the second book I wrote which is transformation Under Fire I talked about the ISR strike maneuver complex where you integrate space-based and terrestrial intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance with strike the Russians have done it yeah you can't stick your head outside of a foxhole in Ukraine without having something try to kill you you know they paralyzed the enemy and that's what you want that's That was something we needed to work on we should have learned that much earlier well now we're looking at it but I don't see a big

rush to do anything because again we live within this this an acronis World War II construct so but but the intelligence that you get and the and the resources that and investment that you spend on intelligence yeah you know you know the the Russians have come back emboldened stronger and you just talked about their Advanced in technology all the all the the trade tariffs on oil has completely and utterly failed the economy seems to be coming back up one of the strongest in the world now so where's your intelligence in the US well the intelligence

there's a two two two problems with intelligence okay number one most of the people that look at these things are not familiar with the population with the country with the culture the language on the ground so Looking through certain of eyes Okay so that that's a problem now you will have some exceptions but not many and so they there was no understanding of Russia has this tremendous back stop of resources how are you going to isolate a country which can frankly live without sheep it can grow its own food produce its own minerals produce its

own Metals you know develop all the technology that it needs it doesn't need you we didn't think in those terms we we we tended to Go back to Iraq we thought we were so brilliant that we sucessfully isolated Iraq that wasn't very hard and then we defeated them that wasn't very hard this was not a major scientific industrial power an advanced country we lost sight of this we we had this view of the Russians as knuckle dragging the enderal they are not anyone who think so is making a very serious mistake so that's number one

the second Pro the proper study of what counts was not done and The second problem is that when the intelligence committee produces a recommendation that doesn't sit well with the political Masters they have a tendency to say no I don't think so go back and do that again and then you get somebody like Bob Gates who became Secretary of Defense who was in the CIA he learned that very quickly and he began to feed the boss what he wanted to hear and see that's how you get ahead in Washington everybody does whatever the Boss wants

and that I remember being told that when I was in the Army your job is to give the boss what the boss wants and I always said sat there and said what if the boss is an idiot and he's dead wrong he's going to get everybody killed yep nobody wanted to hear that no you do what the boss says so I mean one quick little anecdote that may be AB used to you I was in the war plans division of the Army staff in 1995 this was 94 just as I was starting Out I'd been

there two months three months by the colonel came to me in the Strategic plans and I had responsibility for all the what we call the white War plans not the black ones to Speck off and everything mhm and he said here write a paper on the Balkans what do you think we should do uh do we fit in there do we not fit in there should we involve ourselves whatever pros and cons give us a recommendation so I did I sat down put it in two pages gave it back to him he Said this is

good I like this went to the major general the major general took it went to the three star he took it was passed up to the fourstar chief of staff and basic recommendation was you know this is not an area of long-term strategic interest to the United States but historically the Balkans is an area of strategic interest to Russia yep and for all intents purposes there everybody there is a Russian Tenant in other words the Russians manage the land the land there yep and we really want to get along with the Russians and we're doing

very well right now so this we want to avoid friction and I went through this bus and the Russians liberated the whole area from the Muslim Turks and uh you know even the people that don't like the Russians that lived there recognize that okay so I said we should not directly involve ourselves no permanent US military Presence avoid involvement right he Chief of Staff of the army said I agree he took it over the White House how do you think that went down the White House said wrong yeah we're intervening interesting intervene and then I

was at the Dayton Dayton peace talk I was working for General Clark then he was a three star and I was a full Colonel and uh you know I did some map work and drawing boundaries for the various Groups the crots the serbs and the bosniacs and uh he got some instructions from then Secretary of Defense Perry and I thought they were very good instructions and general Perry said or secretary Perry said General CLK first of all we don't want any donic corridors no hanging pieces of real estate with nothing between them and the parent

state in other words don't do that make sure borders are contiguous we don't want any future Catalyst for conflict he Said uh the next thing is no permanent US military presence we don't want 50 100,000 US troops stuck in the Balkans all right we need to have them on hand for deployment against a real enemy somewhere else that we need to do it and then finally he said something he's very good he said you know no agreement is better than a bad agreement brilliant brilliant guidance it all went down the toilet because the Clinton Administration

wanted what it wanted and It got it so my point to you is that you do have competent people in the intelligence Arena and many times they come forward with the right answers yep but it matter doesn't get the lot of day um coming to the end I'm calling we're having this conversation and I'm coming out of Australia and day in day out you know we look up above us and we got China we got South China Sea we got the whole Pacific changing we got uh a lot of money being spent and invested in

Islands for ports for control Etc how do you see the South Pacific and how do you see if would would America come to our Aid and what's Australia's role in the American defense strategy are you expecting a Chinese Invasion I'm not but I but you read you know you read things every day of the week and and you talk it up as you know that's you know part of the political narrative what is what is of critical interest to Us I mean let's let's look at that from a purely military standpoint number one the Chinese

have never stopped a commercial vessel in other words Commerce Moves In and Out Of China through the South China Sea through the malaka Straits into the Indian Ocean and back and between uh the Sea of Japan and the United States no one interferes with that Chinese don't interfere with it that's number one that's important we would like that to Stay and I don't see any evidence that Chinese want to change that because they're very dependent on that as we discussed earlier what happens if the Straits of poro are closed they're in a lot of trouble

absolutely because Russians will give them all the natural gas and oil they can but it's not enough to sustain that country so that's the first thing second thing is these little isets North Vietnam actually has Militarized fortified and controls more little Islands than China does we never hear about that of the countries in the region I would say the most oppressive other than North Korea is Vietnam infinitely more oppressive you know the big joke in that part of the world where there's confusion culture and I'm sure you understand what that means y if you look

at the uh in in their court system if you are Accused of a crime and you go to court the probability of being found guilty in China is 99% in Japan it's 98% in South Korea it's 98% in Taiwan 98% in North Korea of course 100% And in Vietnam 99% okay so GE just tell me what you want to change okay you're out of your mind you're not going to change anything in that part of the world so give up on all this nonsense of democratizing anybody And most of the people in the world are

looking at us and say well if this is evidence for Liberal democracy what we see in America and Europe we don't want it and if you're looking for what they do want and I've spent time in Asia with the Chinese on Taiwan and the Chinese and China want y they all want to live in Singapore and Singapore is a very successful fascist State that's what they want they're interested in making Money Living Well yep and if somebody gets out of line in their culture that person needs to be punished and dealt with so let's understand

the cultural preferences when you look at the South China Sea and the claims that are made there Taiwan shares in all of those claims both Taiwan and the mainland Chinese all make the same claims there's no difference at all no one ever talks about the Taiwanese no one ever talks about the Islands that the Vietnamese control now here's another very important Point how long do you last on any of those isets if you put any military power on them most Admirals in the US Navy would say 10 to 15 minutes because there's no way to

protect yourself yep it's impossible so do they really threaten anybody well if they do they won't threaten very long so the key thing is we should be interested As Americans in what we've always been interested in Which is business and trade yep if that flows freely and unencumbered then we shouldn't be a part of what goes on there and if you leave the people in the region alone long enough they'll sort it out the Vietnamese and the Chinese who hate each other and would go to war tomorrow if they thought it was necessary without hesitation

have established a hotline between Beijing and Hanoi City or hoim Min City right y so they're they Don't want to go to war they're not stupid the Filipinos the president of the Philippines is saying we probably don't need these Americans they're a catalyst for trouble because he's picked up the phone and called G and things have sorted out in the Philippine Sea are these things going to happen again well Vietnamese and Chinese fishermen routinely pull up next to each other and it looks like the Battle of Trafalger correct well that's their problem not Ours so

I think you understand that now finally China is headed into a very deep procession right now their banking system is a catastrophe and every morning president X wakes up and he says the same thing probably I don't know for certain he hasn't confided me but he doesn't say how can I attack America that's crap he says how do I hold 1.4 billion Chinese together so I am not worried about the Chinese and I don't think we need to be In the condition we are in the posture we we are in Asia because I also know

something else I've seen the Japanese Navy I've seen the Japanese armed forces and if you if they had to fight the Chinese at se the Chinese are finished right okay the Japanese are superb they're investing heavily on know that that's for sure where is the American Fleet now compared to the Chinese in trouble we have had to strip out uh Other crews in order to bring the three carrier battle groups that want for this current conflict in the Middle East up to strengths our maintenance is in a is in a shambles because we have effectively

overused everything your air force is still good did some work overused everything in other words we just overused the fleet we've overused everything on repeated deployments to places that were not necessary we never needed them to begin with in these Places you know my son graduated from the Naval Academy and he left his CI GA the Navy like the Navy but couldn't figure out what the hell we were doing cutting squares in the Indian Ocean you know he was over there when the Somali pirates were out running out of control and all the officers on

board ship said let let's let's take care of the Sali Pirates we'd love to do that we're well armed we can do that the captain said no our mission is to deter the Iranians From attacking the Emirates and everybody knew that wasn't going to happen does Australia have a you know one of the things keep in mind about the Navy too yeah they're having problems recruiting because people don't want to live at sea for years at a time it's insane and the other thing is that uh these carriers are not the great weapons they once

were I mean you have an opportunity to lose a carrier in a war or have it severely Damaged that's that's a strategic game Cher uh carriers are now in fact I would argue much of the surface lead is only for use in what I would call permissive environments if they have to fight an enemy that has effective ISR strike that can reach out 150 nautical miles then you have to move the surface Fleet out there to avoid being hit by them if they have deep sea capable submarines you're still at risk right now fortunately that's

less of an Issue but that'll become an issue in the future uh I mean I've watched carrier battle groups race 150 miles away from the coastline of Yugoslavia because they thought diesel Subs were there would threaten them these are instrumentalities of the second world war and you don't have to sink a carrier all you have to do is put a couple of holes in the flight deck yeah the thing doesn't work worth a damn and we also don't have enough surface Ships as we want stay around the carriers because we haven't seen the need for

it one of the Admirals pointed out yesterday yeah we used to have seven or eight surface ships protecting the carrier they were there for air defense but they were also there to stop the Torpedoes in other words they were supposed to take the the damage not the carrier well we don't have seven or eight ships to do that anymore we have three or four so everything has changed But we have not we're living in the past that's a very comfortable place to live by the way if you're in the military because that way nothing changes

and that's what most generals and Admirals want no change do we have a role to play down here in Australia you have a role to play I think your role is one aimed at survival you're a colony living in Asia uh I don't what that future means for you but you know I know you have Your problems with immigration people matter human capital is everything homogeneity holds things together you can always have minorities there words some numbers of people on the on the margin that are different that's fine but when they threaten the majority the

majority culture the majority mentality the majority way of life you've got a problem and it I still think your best bet in the region right now is Japan cooperation with them had I been in your position I would absolutely not have invested in a French or you know piece of equipment I would not have invested in our stuff I would have invested in Japanese material I would not imitate us that's the tendency everywhere that's gotten the British in the Trum yeah right we're the wrong model you know you don't want to police the world we

we've been building things for years for Global dominance I mean I've sat in these briefings you know if we build these aircraft and we build the we will have global Military dominance well what they mean is global Military emony well that's an illusion prohibitively expensive and it gets you into trouble because you're predisposed to stick your nose into places it doesn't belong and if we're in trouble would America come and support us where where where's the the bond there we hear about It but is there is there real consideration now back to your point you're

going you're going inwardly as a country as opposed to outwardly yeah well I think we are inwardly focused but we were inwardly focused before World War II yep and we still came to your Aid and assistance yes the problem is what can we reasonably do for you this is not the second world war anymore in other words Are we going to have a a thousand ships in the Pacific Ocean I don't think so because they're just targets bobbing up and down in the ocean you know those days are over so I you know think in

terms of when you say cooperation what can we do to cooperate well we can share technology we share intelligence uh I don't see much evidence that that will change in the near term okay but you know it's it's the same thing we I've had to tell Europeans if you're waiting for a thousand transports to show up in your harbors and thousands of airplanes to deliver a million soldiers stays are over we couldn't get there anyway and that's the problem crossing the Pacific is not an easy task you know everybody underestimates the impact of persistent surveillance

what do you mean by that the space-based surveillance can see everything everywhere all atona you know we have thousands of Satellites up there now not all of have military utility but we have enough satellites up there that we can cover the areas that we think are of strategic importance to us MH and so do the Russians and so do the Chinese increasingly so do the Japanese even the Israelis have a satellite the British have some so under those circumstances when you have persistent surveillance you can't have a Pearl Harbor you're not going to have an

Arden's offensive the only way you could get those things is if you disrupt the satellites disrupt them or destroy them and there only a few ways to do that and they usually lead to major war so under those circumstances Warfare changes yeah otherwis to break a country is not necessarily by military influence but by economic influence and devaluations of currency US currency I think you've got Some fairly firm views on that have you not we're headed into tough times so and we've got new forms of currency as well you're you're quite an advocate of Bitcoin

yeah I like Bitcoin I think the future in some form is digital currency that is not controlled by the Banks it's going to be a real struggle why why do you why why do you believe that so much uh I just don't think fiat currency is going to have much value anymore Unless unless it's backed directly by either gold or a collection of metals rare medals mean maybe you toss in Platinum I don't know what else and and that's I what's going to happen with bricks and they're going to have a system where their currency

or the currencies that are part of bricks will be backed by gold initially potentially silver and other things too when a transaction occurs yep at the location where these metals are kept that will be Executed and and that backs the fiat currency we I don't think can do that with our currency and so I think some form of digital currency will emerge as a as an alternative and of course there's some countries small admittedly I think what is it Nicaragua or El Salvador have adopted digital currency uh I think we'll see more of that it's

going to take time it's not something that happens overnight I mean people worry About uh you know the the Swift system it takes time to build a system like that yeah so it's not going to happen instantaneously the point is and and this is what Americans don't really get right now they don't understand it is the world is moving away from us they don't want to be dependent on us they don't want to be dependent on our finances on our trade or anything else because we've weaponized those so often y now can we get them

back not right Away and not for a while uh we've got to change our Behavior and the way we do business we're not willing to do that at the moment just look at the Middle East well what is leadership if you're going to Define that you've seen you've seen plenty of it and this is a discussion around leadership if you're going to sum that up how would you give narrative around leadership that that's unfair you know that question it is unfair that's Part of the show somebody said that leadership is making everybody happy to go

to hell and feel good about it uh I I don't know I think there's a difference between leadership and command command is very different from leadership there are people who are very good at leading at lower levels but can't command worth a damn uh the Germans understood that bonapart understood it uh I don't think we ever completely grasped it so we always Tended to follow the uh the Peter principal promote them until they reach their level of incompetence as opposed to having a system that tried to sort Talent by the way the Israeli Defense Force

does a good job of that and that's I always always urge everybody to look at it and of course they borrowed heavily from the Germans yeah uh so so leadership uh you're talking about leadership and command because the people that are at top of national state Structures have to do both and we just haven't had very many people who are exceptionally gifted at it we were lucky in the United States after World War II that we ended up with Eisenhower who learned so much during the war and he had a good head on his shoulders

and he was not interested in aiz himself or expanding American National Power in fact it was just the opposite he wanted to build up power at home but then again we had a series of presidents that fell Into that trap and I think Kennedy was a good leader but he didn't understand command very well until it was too late and command is different he he did not understand the criticality of the man in the White House commanding the armed forces and they went rogue on him and he stopped it we avoided a nuclear exchange thank

thank goodness I think if Jack Kennedy had gone into a second term if he'd have been reelected he would have been a super president but he was not Very well prepared and how do you get that kind of preparation we we don't promote that uh you know you just don't step out of Yale or West Point or somewhere and you're instantly qualified for anything but if you look at other countries they have systems designed to sort of promote competent people and I would tell you that Putin and XI yeah whether you like them or not

are both highly intelligent and very effective much more so than any of us the other Thing is that we Americans have never really had a strategy people talk about the Cold War yep but we were so big we were left alone for so long and were so wealthy we didn't need a strategy you the strategy was we control everything between the Atlantic and the Pacific you still think you're absent of strategy now are you still absent of strategy now oh yes we Have No strategy what we have is a wish list we want the world

to be liberal and Dem Ratic you know this is just fible it's nonsense that's what we have for a strategy yeah and then we create enemies when they don't exist you know why are we saying China is a potential existential threat well they're very wealthy okay China for most of its 5,000 years has been the wealthiest country in the world didn't threaten much of anybody and the only time they did threaten somebody was when they were under the Mongolian rule of Mongolian dynasties who naturally wanted to expand y Chinese are not in that business it's

not them it's not the way they think so they have an their strategy is very inwardly focused since they see themselves at the center of the world Russia's strategy was to control as much terrain far from Moscow as possible to ensure an Invader would have a tough time reaching the Russian Center and that was his our's goal yep you know keep all these people away because if we Doubt they'll come here and take us is over we don't have a strategy right now but we should have a strategy for hemispheric defense that means we have

to look to our own continent and our own borders and our own Waters and we haven't paid much attention to them for too long so who's going to seize the leadership Douglas in the Middle East then well I think you have Rising powers in the Middle East you know I certainly think that Iran simply by virtue of its Size you know the Iranian land mass is almost a size of Western Europe and its population if you go back and look at Samuel Huntington in his book uh not Clash of civilizations as much although it's in

there also uh political development and changing societies he pointed to Iran as by far the most advanced and sophisticated of the Islamic states with the best educated population and predicted that you know if we could avoid going to war with them And killing them that they could play a very posi a role I I happen to agree with Huntington I think that's true too uh I think turkey for reasons of its population and culture is a power yeah they have had a series of people since Ataturk who have chosen not to exercise it they're on

the brink of changing in that regard I think when erdoan is gone you're going to see a very different turkey much more assertive and aggressive particularly in its own Area and uh you know we don't pay much attention to Latin America and I think the Latin American people are lucky the less we pay attention to them the better off they'll be um I have a son who lives in Argentina he's down in Buenos Aras and he says people down here have no interest at all in what we're doing and think we're crazy they have they

have a very different culture very different way of looking at the world they're not interested in invading Anybody I mean it's you know Latin America may not be perfect but it has certain virtues and that has has made the outbreaks of destructive Wars almost impossible that's a good thing so you know when you say what's our role I think it should be exactly what Washington said he and Hamilton argued mously with Jefferson Jefferson wanted us to join the French Revolution just imagine that and of course Washington Hamilton Thought he was certifiable they liked him but

that was the craziest idea imaginable when Washington said if we were to do that we'd have the Austrian Prussian Russian British armies on the North American continent doing everything they can to extinguish us so he said our mission in the world is to be the world's engine of prosperity yeah okay and if we are successful people will want to imitate us because they will see that we are Successful and doing well but we don't want to be involved in other people's Wars that's destructive we've learned that from that's ultimately why we broke away Douglas I

got to ask you the last question as part of our show if you were to look back at that young man many years ago leaving High School in philad Philadelphia what advice would you give him now well anybody who's starting out I would say the same thing that that I Told myself at the time and I guess this is to paraphrase Winston Churchill he's not one of my favorite people by the way but he seems to be someone who's always had something to say about everything and occasionally gets it right that is when he's sober

and uh he said don't like what you do do what you like other words try to merge whatever task you undertake whatever job you have with your passion and if you do that you will be happy and you will be very Successful and my passion was always the military the profession of arms and I my I always used to say I'm the for most fortunate man in the world because what I'm doing is my hobby I like it other people were never that way they were always there to do something to get somewhere I never

did that and I think you're much happier then so that's the only advice I have on that Douglas thank you very much for making the time today it's been a great great conversation Great thank you and God bless everybody down on thanks very much on that you me listen listening to No limitations [Music]