Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show. I Know I need to shave.
Speaker 2: My name is Matt.
Speaker 3: Now you look like a gorgeous adonis of a man.
Speaker 4: They call me Ben. We're joined with our super producer
Speaker 4: Max the freight train Williams because our compatriot, the Tennessee
Speaker 4: Pal is on an adventure and will be returning soon.
Speaker 4: Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes
Speaker 4: this the stuff they don't want you to know. And look,
Speaker 4: a lot of stuff is happening, folks. The Russian invasion
Speaker 4: of Ukraine continues. It's been going on for years.
Speaker 3: That whole thing I thought we'd moved on. No, I'm joking.
Speaker 3: I'm obviously joking. Just doesn't seem like it's front page
Speaker 3: news as much anymore with all the other invasions taking place.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's a good point, because a lot of
Speaker 4: Western media has slowly begun looking the other way, or
Speaker 4: as you said, finding new stories, at least in the
Speaker 4: United States. But amid all this chaos, we are returning
Speaker 4: to a continual fascination of hours. It's one that dates
Speaker 4: back to before the harrowing days of the earlier Cold War.
Speaker 4: You see, in recent years, folks, Russia has made great
Speaker 4: hay about the existence of new unparalleled toys, weapons of
Speaker 4: mass destruction, weapons of war. So we clocked this a
Speaker 4: few years back, and we're still asking is there any
Speaker 4: sand to this? Does Russia really have? As Daddy V said,
Speaker 4: new super weapons?
Speaker 3: Are we talking like doomsday device material, the stuff of
Speaker 3: bond villains?
Speaker 4: Yeah, like specter level zar bamba stuff.
Speaker 2: Well, it's mostly new missile systems, right, missile systems that
Speaker 2: are designed to get past missile defense systems. Right, That's
Speaker 2: mostly what it is. But there's all kinds of stealthy
Speaker 2: boys in there, and all kinds of other new toys
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about.
Speaker 4: I'm excited about the submarines, for instance. Yeah. It's kind
Speaker 4: of like a picture, at least the way Rush is
Speaker 4: presenting it. Picture it like a fancy box of chocolates
Speaker 4: hashtag no Forst. Gump or Gump if you want. But
Speaker 4: remember the fancy boxes of chocolates where you open them
Speaker 4: up and there'd be a little diagram of what kind
Speaker 4: of chocolate each one.
Speaker 3: Was a legend, the chocolate box legend, the chocolate box end,
Speaker 3: legend of the chocolate box legend. Yeah, I think we're
Speaker 3: get my favorite lore.
Speaker 4: So per Russian statements for several years now, the idea
Speaker 4: is that they have a secret box of very dangerous chocolates,
Speaker 4: most of which, to that earlier point, seem to be
Speaker 4: new iterations on existing technology. Well, you always got to
Speaker 4: wonder if the bear has more badgers in its bag.
Speaker 4: So that's what we're getting into tonight.
Speaker 3: We got a bear with a bag of badgers and
Speaker 3: swinging it around willy and or nilly. This is scary stuff, y'all.
Speaker 3: It takes a village. We'll be right back.
Speaker 4: Here are the facts, you guys. We all know the
Speaker 4: term paper tiger, right. Have you guys heard that one?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like a little origami guy that you fold
Speaker 3: up and you put on your windows sill. It keeps
Speaker 3: you company.
Speaker 4: There we go. It's also slaying, at least in English,
Speaker 4: for a thing that appears to be very threatening but
Speaker 4: maybe doesn't deliver in practice. Bark versus bite situation.
Speaker 5: For sure, like like vaporware, but different and yeah, You
Speaker 5: may have seen this trope played with a lot in
Speaker 5: cinema where there will be a shadow of a giant,
Speaker 5: terrifying looking thing coming towards you, but in fact it's
Speaker 5: just a little toy or something, or it's a small
Speaker 5: little critter, but it looks huge because of the placement
Speaker 5: of the light in the shadow. Right, very similar concept
Speaker 5: that can be played with here. The countries, countries all
Speaker 5: the time, do all of them do this?
Speaker 3: Just can get every There can be bad way, there
Speaker 3: can only bad be? How does it go?
Speaker 4: Sorry?
Speaker 3: Please continue?
Speaker 4: There can only bad be.
Speaker 3: No, it's the thing Trump said, He said, there can
Speaker 3: there it can only good happen. It can only ye ye,
Speaker 3: well sorry, no, no, no, We'll keep it. It can
Speaker 3: only bad be.
Speaker 4: That's the opposite it happen. As a fan of Yoda
Speaker 4: from the Star Wars universe, I agree with that syntax.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2: Though.
Speaker 4: I think we nailed the definition of paper tiger. And
Speaker 4: it is a incredibly important point that every country spends
Speaker 4: a lot of time thinking about its international posture. Right.
Speaker 4: Every country wants to say, we're the ones who could
Speaker 4: do this stuff. But you see, we're so cool that
Speaker 4: we're not doing it. But we do have magic powers,
Speaker 4: we're just not doing it.
Speaker 2: Also, it feels like a bunch of folks gathered around
Speaker 2: a bar and everybody's drinking, and everybody's pretty drunk, and
Speaker 2: there are a couple of guys that will always be like, huh,
Speaker 2: what we want some of this? You don't want some
Speaker 2: of this?
Speaker 4: You would have done this. I got the biggest knife.
Speaker 2: Oh are you just I'm not going to show it
Speaker 2: to you because we're at a bar.
Speaker 4: No, you only saw this here. You only saw my
Speaker 4: regular knife, not my secret knife, my secret knie.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: For a lot of we know this. For a lot
Speaker 4: of modern history, folks, Russia was considered to have one
Speaker 4: of the world's most powerful militaries operating on one of
Speaker 4: the planet's most brutal environments. And I think we all
Speaker 4: remember during the halcyon days of the Soviet Union, there
Speaker 4: was this empire stretching across Eurasia, was increasingly influencing the
Speaker 4: Middle East, North Africa, having a bit of a dalliance
Speaker 4: in Southeast Asia.
Speaker 2: I've seen it in pictures right, it represented, But I
Speaker 2: don't remember a time when I viewed the Soviet Union
Speaker 2: as this massive empire just because I never got I
Speaker 2: guess I didn't have the cognitive ability to even think
Speaker 2: about it as such when I was so young. It
Speaker 2: is weird because I suppose my view of Russia and
Speaker 2: the USSR really hasn't changed that much. I just didn't,
Speaker 2: you know, we didn't get that experience of looking at
Speaker 2: the newspapers when you know USSR does so and so,
Speaker 2: like being blazoned across the top.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So for earlier generations, right, like they're saying, the Cold
Speaker 4: War was more of an ever present thing in the zeitgeist, right,
Speaker 4: like the Cuban missile crisis and so on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And the.
Speaker 4: Soviet Union had this well deserved reputation for doing what
Speaker 4: we call throwing bodies at the problem in conflicts, right,
Speaker 4: a vast number of people in their armed services. But
Speaker 4: we can't forget the Soviet Union. Despite Cold War propaganda
Speaker 4: on both sides, the Soviet Union also heralded a great
Speaker 4: many innovations that changed warfare and therefore the world at large.
Speaker 4: Remember when we talked about the dead Hands system. That's
Speaker 4: sup that supervillain bond level stuff.
Speaker 2: There you go, that's still terrifying. Well, I mean it
Speaker 2: has to be it's obviously right, especially the fact that
Speaker 2: they're not the only country that then developed a similar
Speaker 2: dead hands indrome syndrome. What is that? What is the
Speaker 2: impostor hands alien hand syndrome? Is that the thing?
Speaker 4: I believe that's correct? You like, let your hand fall
Speaker 4: asleep and Jersey, where's that's just the stranger?
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you.
Speaker 4: The the impostor hand or whatever it's called syndrome is
Speaker 4: a psychological condition where people believe that one or more
Speaker 4: of their limbs are not part of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like operating on its own or something like that.
Speaker 2: But sorry, I'd start for that aside, just knowing that
Speaker 2: multiple countries now have a system like the one that
Speaker 2: the USSR developed, which is, if everybody dies in our country,
Speaker 2: the missile systems still function and will still strike you.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, that's correct, and please do check out our
Speaker 4: previous episode on that where we go we go deep
Speaker 4: into what that thing is, how it may or may
Speaker 4: not work, and whether it actually works today, which is
Speaker 4: all the big question for the Russian military. I mean,
Speaker 4: this civilization puts spot Nick into space, they put the
Speaker 4: first known satellite in orbit. They put Uri Gagard into space,
Speaker 4: and brought that poor Poorlika or like like y'a.
Speaker 3: Without making it a spoiler, I'm just gonna say, there's
Speaker 3: a thing that I've been enjoying a piece of media
Speaker 3: where there is a plot point involving a fail safe
Speaker 3: for the fail safe, where if there were mutually assured
Speaker 3: destruction taking place, there is some sort of satellite mounted
Speaker 3: e MP that would essentially shut out or knock out
Speaker 3: all electrical devices on the entire planet, therefore preventing mutually
Speaker 3: assured destruction where that to happen. And I thought that
Speaker 3: was super cools.
Speaker 2: Can we do that?
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. But I'm just saying I'm not gonna say
Speaker 3: what show it was because it is a little bit
Speaker 3: of a plot point. Don't want to be a spoiler,
Speaker 3: but I thought it was a new thought experiment.
Speaker 4: It is tune into season six of Community.
Speaker 3: Exactly the movie, which I think is finally in the words, you.
Speaker 2: Know, if that did work, though, I imagine all of the
Speaker 2: nuclear reactors around the world for power, they would all
Speaker 2: go offline.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's a problem that's adressed in It's a problem
Speaker 3: that's addressed in the show.
Speaker 4: It really really is.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh big time yep.
Speaker 4: And let's not forget things like the humble AK forty seven,
Speaker 4: another Soviet innovation that is one of the planet's most
Speaker 4: well known firearms and pretty affordable at this point due
Speaker 4: to economy of scale.
Speaker 2: The rifle that keeps on giving, huh, Like, so many
Speaker 2: conflicts arout the world have been fueled by that weapon.
Speaker 4: Actually, the AK forty seven has, in limited regions been
Speaker 4: used as a form of currency in the past. That's
Speaker 4: how ubiquitous this firearm has become. Scary stuff everybody. We
Speaker 4: do know that the Soviet Union fell, right, it dissolved,
Speaker 4: but Russia, the Federated States thereof soldiered on and this
Speaker 4: government was diplomatically is diplomatically put imperfect. But the world
Speaker 4: at large, until just a few years ago, considered the
Speaker 4: Russian army to be one of the absolute best on
Speaker 4: the planet, second only to that of the United States.
Speaker 4: So for decades, the rest of the world, especially the West,
Speaker 4: especially NATO countries, all took great pains to avoid doing
Speaker 4: what we call poking the bear too much or too often.
Speaker 3: Right, And you know, the bear is also just as
Speaker 3: perfect analogy for Russia are pretty bear like.
Speaker 2: Just like the restaurant, but like what you mean there
Speaker 2: is to avoid deliberate provocation, right, Or if Russia does
Speaker 2: something that appears to be a little off, Let's say
Speaker 2: NATO might consider Russia doing something that's a little that's
Speaker 2: if the concept here is that NATO wouldn't come down
Speaker 2: and do anything physical, you might have a resolution that says, hey,
Speaker 2: we kind of don't we don't like that Russia did.
Speaker 4: That, guys, But no, Olivia Newton John right, it's not
Speaker 4: let's get physical just yet.
Speaker 3: I mean exactly, it doesn't. I mean, it seems like
Speaker 3: we're seeing so many aggressive tests of what NATO can
Speaker 3: actually do these days, and it doesn't feel like it's
Speaker 3: passing them very well. It feels like we're exposing just
Speaker 3: how kind of again a matter of decorum something like
Speaker 3: NATO actually is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you never know until the rubber hits the road
Speaker 4: or the ICBMs hit the horizon. It's funny because going
Speaker 4: back to that earlier analogy about people hanging out with
Speaker 4: agro folks at a restaurant or a bar, NATO was
Speaker 4: NATO is like a crowd of people also in the
Speaker 4: same establishment, and they're whispering to each other. They're like, oh, no,
Speaker 4: don't mess with secret knife guy. You know, he's trying
Speaker 4: to scoot over and call other seats at the don't
Speaker 4: let him do it.
Speaker 2: Somebody within the group stands up, I call for a
Speaker 2: resolution that secret knife guy be scolded immediately and yeah,
Speaker 2: and then someone leans.
Speaker 4: Back and they're like, secret knife guy, you got you
Speaker 4: got a weird vibe. No, don't come over here, No,
Speaker 4: just it's your ViBe's off.
Speaker 2: Somebody stands up and like quietly just walks over to
Speaker 2: secret knife guy and hands him a seat like a
Speaker 2: little note.
Speaker 3: And immediately knifed.
Speaker 4: You're mad at you? Oh wait? Or are you mad
Speaker 4: at us? Check? Yes or no?
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 2: And this isn't to completely crap on, you know, initiatives
Speaker 2: like the United Nations, like NATO and like these these
Speaker 2: treaty organizations and attempts to work together and be more
Speaker 2: unified right as a planet with governing bodies and that
Speaker 2: kind of thing, because that is kind of the best
Speaker 2: thing we've got going when it comes to cooperation and
Speaker 2: seeing everybody as one species that's going through this whole
Speaker 2: thing together. It's just in action. Maybe they're just not
Speaker 2: as effective as we would hope they would be. Otherwise
Speaker 2: we would right have the green revolution thing where pollution
Speaker 2: is no longer even a concept on the planet. Would
Speaker 2: have happened in the eighties.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. You know, if every, if everything that modern
Speaker 4: civilization put on paper with noble intent ended up one
Speaker 4: hundred percent being put into practice, the world would be
Speaker 4: a much better place. Right. But the thing is, what
Speaker 4: we're saying is like a lot of these agreements, they
Speaker 4: don't have teeth and they don't have the same funding
Speaker 4: that bad faith actors have. That's ultimately, I think our
Speaker 4: point like, they don't have.
Speaker 3: Teeth, but they lacking teeth they more than make up
Speaker 3: for in gums too.
Speaker 4: They've got They've got gummy gummy words. And so let's
Speaker 4: go back to Russia. We see here the ascension of
Speaker 4: a guy named Vladimir Putin, the longtime effective ruler of
Speaker 4: the new Russia. Please check out if you're having a
Speaker 4: depressing time today when this episode publishes and you want
Speaker 4: to have a little bit of a gallows chuckle, please
Speaker 4: please please check out our classic episode on a weird
Speaker 4: flex that Vladimir Putin did when he pushed through a
Speaker 4: law that said any Russian president, whomever they may be,
Speaker 4: is immune from any prosecution forever, no take.
Speaker 2: Back seats as long as this stuff they did while president. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think I think.
Speaker 4: That's an important caveat. Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's the same one that we currently have
Speaker 2: in this country. Any official duties, you're immune, baby.
Speaker 4: Yeah. It's weird because the findings OFIS and the language
Speaker 4: of that Russian law are kind of similar. Far be
Speaker 4: it for me to say people were plagiarizing or drinking
Speaker 4: from the same inspirational well, but the language is kind
Speaker 4: of similar to your point. I mean, I don't we know.
Speaker 4: Putin never thought the Cold War ended, like pretty much
Speaker 4: everybody else on the planet until quite recently, had a
Speaker 4: very high opinion of Russia's military might. And you can
Speaker 4: hie thee to YouTube for instance, or your favorite video
Speaker 4: platform of choice, and you can see multiple instances where
Speaker 4: the Russian government, led by Putin or Medgev, has been
Speaker 4: showcasing missile defense systems, stuff like the SM three hundred
Speaker 4: or big contingents of troops marching through, tanks rolling through
Speaker 4: And these are massive parades, right, Who doesn't love a
Speaker 4: massive parade? There our events, guys, I'm sorry, I'm laughing,
Speaker 4: not to get political, but do you remember when our
Speaker 4: administration tried to have one of those parades.
Speaker 2: Do you guys remember that, Yeah, to celebrate the president
Speaker 2: and his birthday.
Speaker 4: Yeah, nothing new.
Speaker 2: It was like a history of the military on display.
Speaker 2: And there was a part of it that was interesting
Speaker 2: to see the different the evolution, let's say, of the
Speaker 2: weaponry and things like that were cool. Yeah, yeah, but
Speaker 2: we didn't exactly, you know, roll through with the new
Speaker 2: versions of the B two bomber or the stuff that
Speaker 2: DARPA was working on, or the new stealth aircraft, or
Speaker 2: we didn't do any of that, you know, and then
Speaker 2: you see what what happened. It's twenty eighteen, right when
Speaker 2: the big announcement occurs where Weimer putin is like, hey
Speaker 2: we've got these super baby yes, right, yeah, that was
Speaker 2: years ago. And then when we have one of these things,
Speaker 2: it's just it didn't seem that impressive unfortunately. And I
Speaker 2: don't mean, I don't mean to downplay the work of
Speaker 2: any of the you know, military personnel or people who
Speaker 2: are involved in the actual parade part. It's just it
Speaker 2: didn't have that same thing like here's all our here's
Speaker 2: all our ICBMs right that you know China would do maybe.
Speaker 4: Right, we didn't show the whole chocolate box. Going back
Speaker 4: to that earlier in comparison, we said, here's some of
Speaker 4: our good, old fashioned chocolate, and then we really want it.
Speaker 4: And the world was saying, I know, beat me here
Speaker 4: freight training. The world was saying, I know those motherers
Speaker 4: have a gob stopper somewhere. They're just not putting it
Speaker 4: out in the public. I mean, because we all know
Speaker 4: that world powers are not content to stick with old
Speaker 4: conventional goodies. Old conventional warfare. Research in Russia was a
Speaker 4: huge leader in this. That during the days of the
Speaker 4: Soviet Union and now they pioneered these bold, strange experiments
Speaker 4: into unconventional and asymmetric initiatives, things like more exotic weaponry. Notably,
Speaker 4: there's some of the best at propaganda and information compromise.
Speaker 4: This had huge impact in foreign countries, including the United States.
Speaker 4: It resulted in favorable policies for Russia abroad, and in
Speaker 4: some cases it resulted in outright vassal states and regime change.
Speaker 4: I mean, good luck voting in Moldova or Belarus. Honestly,
Speaker 4: be careful, actually, if you're there, if you're listening now,
Speaker 4: be careful.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, really quickly. I'm just thinking about this as
Speaker 2: you were talking. There have been when we think about
Speaker 2: new weapons and militaries trying to stay on the cutting edge, right,
Speaker 2: we often think about it being because they want a
Speaker 2: technological advantage over any opponent and he perceived opponent who's
Speaker 2: at that bar, right, they want the bigger knife or
Speaker 2: the faster realistic missile or whatever. There's this other thing
Speaker 2: that exists for every other country, and that is the
Speaker 2: intertwining of that military sector, the official government sector, but
Speaker 2: then the private sector that's actually manufacturing most of those weapons.
Speaker 2: Even in Russia and anywhere in the country, there are
Speaker 2: private sectors corporations that are involved with all this stuff
Speaker 2: that need those sweet sweet quarterly profits in order to
Speaker 2: stay afloat. And you can't not keep that in your
Speaker 2: mind while you're thinking about this stuff, because it's way
Speaker 2: more complicated than just a country wanting to be the
Speaker 2: most powerful.
Speaker 4: There are a lot of calculations that go into it,
Speaker 4: and some of them the public will never see unless
Speaker 4: things go disastrously wrong for one actor or another. I
Speaker 4: mean again, folks, the Putin administration has never considered the
Speaker 4: Cold War over. In their opinion, stuff still isn't sweet.
Speaker 4: And in recent years Russia has been in practice attempting
Speaker 4: to resurrect the Soviet Empire of old. We're talking about
Speaker 4: coordinated series of campaigns, especially in its former sphere of influence,
Speaker 4: rigging elections, touching politicians, turning nearby nations into puppet states.
Speaker 4: A most notable example of this attempt to resurrect the
Speaker 4: Soviet Empire is the invasion of Ukraine, which began so
Speaker 4: long ago now, February twenty fourth, twenty twenty two. It's
Speaker 4: been going on for years at this point, and it
Speaker 4: doesn't really show any signs of stopping unless I'm missing something.
Speaker 2: No, not at all. We saw the Ukrainian president putting
Speaker 2: out public statements about how worried he is that the
Speaker 2: Iran conflict is going to so overshadow what's occurring in Ukraine,
Speaker 2: that his country is going to lose all support from
Speaker 2: the West, which is you know, all of Europe, the
Speaker 2: United States, that all these folks that have been providing
Speaker 2: aid to Ukraine. It's that thing we talked about the
Speaker 2: top of the show, right, So much stuff going on,
Speaker 2: the public interest kind of just moves away for a while,
Speaker 2: and now it's well, how do we get aid to
Speaker 2: another country, right, or how do we protect a different
Speaker 2: group of people.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of that flooding the zone stuff where
Speaker 3: we can literally hold so many things in our minds
Speaker 3: at one time. And whether it's by design or just
Speaker 3: the nature of events stacking upon events, I think we
Speaker 3: all kind of think it might be partially by design,
Speaker 3: but yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And we know that even leading up to the
Speaker 4: current conflict in Ukraine, there were known economic strains, sanctions,
Speaker 4: a lot of corruption and maintenance issues throughout the Russian infrastructure,
Speaker 4: military and civilian alike. So there was already a great
Speaker 4: deal of festering skepticism about whether Russia was a real
Speaker 4: tiger militarily or a paper tiger. But a lot of
Speaker 4: folks still, despite the skepticism leading up to twenty twenty two,
Speaker 4: they believe that Russia's foray into Ukraine unilateral and rationalized
Speaker 4: by several different announcements. They thought this conflict, this invasion,
Speaker 4: would be swift and decisive, and they said, in less
Speaker 4: the West intervenes, the Russian army is going to roll
Speaker 4: through Ukraine like lightning. The locals are outnumbered, outmatched, out gunned.
Speaker 4: But this was not the case, like Russia's army really
Speaker 4: fumbled the bag. The military had all these has these
Speaker 4: serious issues that impede its performance. Supply chains breakdown, inadequate training,
Speaker 4: bad opsec, outdated equipment. They're running out of munitions. I mean,
Speaker 4: for Pete's sake, they had to conscript some soldiers from
Speaker 4: DPRK just to be cannon fodder. Essentially. I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't think they were as good as we thought
Speaker 4: they were. But maybe that's also a conspiracy, because maybe
Speaker 4: our military industrial complex during the Cold War was embellishing
Speaker 4: or over selling Soviet capabilities in order to get more funding.
Speaker 3: The evil empire of it all, there's certain optics that
Speaker 3: goes into having a relatively well matched rival.
Speaker 2: You know, it's so puzzling to me that there could
Speaker 2: be a conflict like what's happening in Ukraine go on
Speaker 2: for so long, and that a large country like Russia
Speaker 2: would just continue that waging war in that way and
Speaker 2: pumping millions and billions of dollars into it. And we've
Speaker 2: I feel as though all of us have learned lessons
Speaker 2: about what occurred during the Cold War where there are
Speaker 2: all of these different fronts right where there's all kinds
Speaker 2: of conflict that's occurring that's not actually you know about
Speaker 2: what's going on in Afghanistan at the time. It's actually
Speaker 2: these two countries pouring resources in and attempting to be
Speaker 2: victorious in some kind of weird war of attrition kind
Speaker 2: of thing. It feels like that is happening now in Ukraine,
Speaker 2: Like it's got to be happening to some extent in
Speaker 2: the whole conflict with the Ukraine, and it's also now
Speaker 2: happening with the United States in Iran where we're just
Speaker 2: pumping money into it.
Speaker 3: Both of which seemed to have been conflicts that were
Speaker 3: cast as like it will be in and out type situations. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, at least from a public relations standpoint, that
Speaker 3: seems to be what Russia wanted the world to think
Speaker 3: about what was going to happen in Ukraine, that they
Speaker 3: were you know, outmatched and outgunned, and that fully ended
Speaker 3: up not being the case.
Speaker 2: Well, it appears to be the same thing with the
Speaker 2: United States right in Iran, so like yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 2: it's just so puzzling to me if it's not just
Speaker 2: a play to manufacture more missiles and more a munitions
Speaker 2: and more weapons. If it's not that, then I don't
Speaker 2: get it understood.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is definitely not to say that the
Speaker 4: Russian military isn't dangerous. It is still ranked as the
Speaker 4: number two military in the world currently by all the
Speaker 4: boffins and all our fellow war nerds. And the conflict,
Speaker 4: as we said, it's it's definitely a quagmire. A continued
Speaker 4: hashtag no family guy, it continues to rage. We've seen
Speaker 4: a revolution in drone warfare, electronic warfare, energy based war.
Speaker 4: We've also heard a lot of cryptic announcements coming out
Speaker 4: of Russia, some by Daddy V himself, alluding to what
Speaker 4: they call new unprecedented super weapons, things that, according to
Speaker 4: the pr and thes, if deployed these things, these new
Speaker 4: toys could fundamentally alter the course of conflict. But what
Speaker 4: are they exactly? Does Russia really have quote unquote new
Speaker 4: super weapons. We'll tell you after word from our sponsor.
Speaker 4: Here's where it gets crazy. Yeah, kind of depending on
Speaker 4: what we mean by new and what we mean by super.
Speaker 4: At least we tease this a little bit earlier. There
Speaker 4: was a twenty eighteen presidential address to the Federal Assembly
Speaker 4: of Russia, and while speaking there, Putin had what the
Speaker 4: West calls a fiery rant. You know, he was coming
Speaker 4: in hot, he was dropping bars. He publicly announced six
Speaker 4: new weapons systems that were potentially dual use or explicitly
Speaker 4: designed to deliver nuclear payloads. We can get into those
Speaker 4: six again, it's twenty eighteen, just so you know, when
Speaker 4: he was doing this, most of them had not seen
Speaker 4: actual combat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but some of them had been in development for
Speaker 2: a long long time, like the first one we're going
Speaker 2: to talk about here, the avant Garde, the avant Garde
Speaker 2: hypersonic glide missile. This is this is a piece of
Speaker 2: technology that was developed way back in the eighties, or
Speaker 2: at least the hypers The concept of a hypersonic missile
Speaker 2: started back in the eighties. And this one has this
Speaker 2: one's been tested were there have been approximately fourteen flights
Speaker 2: test flights, let's say, of this avant Garde system between
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety and twenty eighteen, which there have been likely
Speaker 2: many more since that time looking at reporting that occurred
Speaker 2: around the time that these were announced by Daddy've lad there,
Speaker 2: but it is it is potentially a very scary, extremely
Speaker 2: fast missile that could potentially get past some of the
Speaker 2: more conventional defenses that exist throughout the planet.
Speaker 4: Right like he could screw up an iron dome, for instance.
Speaker 4: It also it's very tricky to catch stuff this fast
Speaker 4: and this sophisticated in mid air. So shout out to
Speaker 4: anybody who's ever accidentally rolled a NAT twenty on dexterity
Speaker 4: reaction and had something thrown at you and you catch
Speaker 4: it without looking. That's what missile interceptor systems are designed
Speaker 4: to do. And all of these things become especially important
Speaker 4: as the United States withdraws from another what do you
Speaker 4: call it, no, A gummy mouthed treaty, the Anti Ballistic
Speaker 4: Missile Treaty. The US ghosted that one and Russia said, cool,
Speaker 4: I'm down. Let me show you some of my secret knives,
Speaker 4: which to that earlier point have been in development for
Speaker 4: a long time. Most of the six publicly announced quote
Speaker 4: unquote super weapons from twenty eighteen were missiles, and they
Speaker 4: were building on earlier research, So nothing like Shyamalan plot twisting.
Speaker 3: I gotta say, I really dig the name of this
Speaker 3: first one, but I keep reading it as the avant
Speaker 3: garde hypersonic like as some sort of like theater project. No,
Speaker 3: it is, in fact the avant garde hypersonic glide vehicle.
Speaker 3: What's that about? That sounds like a batmobile type situation.
Speaker 4: Right, Like as Matt was saying, this has been this
Speaker 4: one was in development before the nineties, like this is
Speaker 4: a Cold War boy that they figured out how to
Speaker 4: how to make work. But I don't believe. I can't
Speaker 4: remember if that's one of the two that was actively
Speaker 4: deployed in combat yet. I don't think that's one.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: According to Missile Threat, which is a website you can
Speaker 2: visit and check out, they're talking about in December twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: how it was test fired and it traveled six thousand
Speaker 2: kilometers before striking a test target just quickly. As a
Speaker 2: primer here we kind of know this. I needed to
Speaker 2: remind myself what it means. The concept of a ballistic
Speaker 2: missile versus like a surface to air missile or there
Speaker 2: are all kinds of different ones. Air to surface. A
Speaker 2: ballistic missile is designed to go on a very steep
Speaker 2: arc into the air, sometimes reaching almost into space, if
Speaker 2: not into space, and then come down at a very
Speaker 2: steep arc to hit a target somewhere. The concept with
Speaker 2: these like a hypersonic glide missile. That word glide is
Speaker 2: very important because it can get up to extremely high altitudes,
Speaker 2: then glide to where it needs to go. Then as
Speaker 2: it's coming down to its target, it can make maneuvers
Speaker 2: while it's getting there, theoretically evade being struck by let's say,
Speaker 2: a missile defense system.
Speaker 3: Okay, because in the illustration for this it looks almost
Speaker 3: like a stealth bomber. But this is an unmanned thing,
Speaker 3: Like the vehicle is a little misleading here, vehicle.
Speaker 4: In terms of non human passengers. So vehicle for a payload.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 4: It could be it could be outfitted with nuclear capability,
Speaker 4: which a lot of people are worried.
Speaker 3: Understood.
Speaker 4: Oh oh, and while we're talking about nuclear powered stuff,
Speaker 4: let's go to the second super weapon that Putin was pitching,
Speaker 4: the nine seven point thirty. Make sure you get this right,
Speaker 4: buravist Nick nuclear powered cruise missile.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of fun at parties, is our buddy Vlad? Actually,
Speaker 4: I bet he's pretty wild at parties.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, taking that shirt off Steeler, stealing people's watches
Speaker 2: and rings.
Speaker 4: Angela Merkele you don't like dogs. That's funny because I
Speaker 4: have several for us right now in the meeting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there we go of this one. This one theoretically
Speaker 2: is pretty scary because the I was going to say,
Speaker 2: I'd say the propaganda around it, the announcements around it,
Speaker 2: are that it can reach anywhere on Earth. So ballistic
Speaker 2: missiles or one thing, intercontinental ballistic missiles are the ones
Speaker 2: that can go thousands of miles or you know, many
Speaker 2: thousand kilometers something like this. Theoretically, if it existed, you
Speaker 2: could launch it and then it could go almost, if
Speaker 2: not all the way around the world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because a cruise missile is it's staying within Earth's atmosphere.
Speaker 4: But think of it like a small airplane, right, and
Speaker 4: all the passengers on that airplane are munitions of some sort,
Speaker 4: so all the passengers suck. You don't want them to land.
Speaker 4: But because it is sophisticated enough to fly like small aircraft,
Speaker 4: it is more difficult to intercept and it can do
Speaker 4: complex maneuvers. Because okay, so unlike ballistic missiles, a cruise missile,
Speaker 4: if I remember correctly, will use jet engines for sustained
Speaker 4: flight at low altitudes, which also makes it tougher for
Speaker 4: radar to detect them. Pretty nasty stuff. I mean, it's
Speaker 4: definitely no. Three m twenty two zir Con. What a segue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, let's get to that, but really quickly, just
Speaker 2: to send people if they want to learn about this
Speaker 2: and how this specific well keep saying the name one
Speaker 2: more time than the one we were just talking about.
Speaker 2: Oh thenk okay, this one has talked about in November
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five by Al Jazeera. You can look this
Speaker 2: up revolutionary about Russia's nuclear powered missile experts, and you
Speaker 2: can just see how people are talking about or thinking
Speaker 2: about it versus the way Russia would, you know, would
Speaker 2: present it when it's coming out. But I think there's
Speaker 2: probably a reality somewhere between those two, you know, visions
Speaker 2: of reality. There's something in there where it's a crazy
Speaker 2: dangerous thing if you get it right. It's just testing
Speaker 2: it enough times successfully that it would be trustworthy in
Speaker 2: a combat situation.
Speaker 4: Right, and bleeding money the entire time you're doing that,
Speaker 4: R and D if you what a I think a
Speaker 4: pretty fair read on this comes from Parth Satam writing
Speaker 4: for The Aviationist in October twenty twenty five, where he
Speaker 4: puts in some of the same caveats. Russia claims the
Speaker 4: Buddhaivist nuclear powered missile flew fourteen thousand clicks in fifteen hours.
Speaker 4: So Russia is making a lot of big claims. You know,
Speaker 4: they're that guy at the restaurant saying I do have
Speaker 4: a secret knife, and other people are saying, yeah, we
Speaker 4: know about knives. Man, you're not. You're not like King
Speaker 4: of the Knives.
Speaker 3: But how you heard of knife hands?
Speaker 4: Right? You heard it.
Speaker 3: That's got hand discussion from the time of the knife.
Speaker 4: Yeah, nailed it, nailed it. Uh. The third thing here,
Speaker 4: the three M twenty two Zircon SS in thirty three. Uh.
Speaker 4: It is an anti ship hypersonic cruise missile, so working
Speaker 4: like the Bavistnik. Obviously they're taking some of the same
Speaker 4: research and applying it to different things. This bad boy
Speaker 4: is supposed to wallop watercraft. Okay, So they're saying, oh,
Speaker 4: nice job building your carriers, thank you for spending billions
Speaker 4: of dollars on that pop pop.
Speaker 2: Again in theory terrifying because those aircraft carriers are they
Speaker 2: do represent the blue water superiority of the United States, right, yeah.
Speaker 4: And we can't those are not things that we can
Speaker 4: fart out replacements for on like four thirty Friday evening.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: No, we're talking years build.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and you have to it takes so long
Speaker 4: to build these that you also have to have bipartisan
Speaker 4: support from two political parties that clearly don't like each other.
Speaker 2: Oh hey, but didn't they just didn't the government in
Speaker 2: this country just pass something at least to help TSA. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they are trying to.
Speaker 3: Know, well, they didn't pass it, but it's going for
Speaker 3: a vote.
Speaker 4: It's going for a vote. It's also occurring in step
Speaker 4: with the plans for the current president to have his
Speaker 4: signature on all currency going forward. I know, I wish
Speaker 4: I was like, how could I dollars be more legitimate?
Speaker 4: I got to stop forging the president's signature on these.
Speaker 3: Every time, and now signed by a king.
Speaker 4: Oh boy, there we have it. You could have that
Speaker 4: one for free, current president. Uh. The next one is
Speaker 4: the k H four seven M two. We can run
Speaker 4: through these quickly. Kinsol. It is a hypersonic air launched
Speaker 4: ballistic missile. So this comes from planes, right, This is
Speaker 4: this is pretty cool. This is not surface to air.
Speaker 4: They're already in the air. Again, if it works. It works.
Speaker 4: The one, guys, the one I'm most excited about, for
Speaker 4: very nerdy reasons, is the Poseidon unmanned underwater vehicle. So
Speaker 4: it's a submarine drone and I have high hopes for that.
Speaker 4: I shouldn't say it that way, we'll keep it in,
Speaker 4: but I mean the technology is very interesting for sure.
Speaker 3: It's a great name too, the Poseidon Adventure. The unmanned
Speaker 3: underwater vehicle. This is something that is like a a
Speaker 3: submarine drone that is said to be able to like
Speaker 3: manipulate the weather in a way. I mean it creates tsunamis.
Speaker 3: That's not really a manipulat in the weather, but it's
Speaker 3: recreating a feature of weather that's kind of intense.
Speaker 4: Man. Yeah, we I think we talked about this a
Speaker 4: few years ago and the news first broke. But the
Speaker 4: the idea here is that this thing can, as you said, Noel,
Speaker 4: literally create tsunamis. Underwater unmanned vehicles are only going to
Speaker 4: become more important in the near to mid horizon. I
Speaker 4: think we all saw the news as well about how
Speaker 4: China is using subs to create a very comprehensive map
Speaker 4: of the Arctic.
Speaker 3: Remember those German U boats that were such a huge
Speaker 3: part of that war effort. I mean, gosh, history repeating
Speaker 3: like it's a covert. They're small, they're able to really
Speaker 3: get in there, and now they can make tsunamis. So
Speaker 3: what's not to love?
Speaker 4: What's not to love? Ten ted No notes, great hustle
Speaker 4: everybody radioactive tsunamis. Oh yeah, yeah we should mention that part. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I would join forces with the radioactive wasps.
Speaker 3: We'd have a good.
Speaker 4: Time the radioactive feral hogs.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, it's just insane. Two hundred
Speaker 2: kilometers per hour, that's one hundred and twenty miles per hour, zigzagging,
Speaker 2: avoiding detection, creating radioactive tsunami.
Speaker 4: Yeah, nothing weird. If you want to learn more, go
Speaker 4: to Army Recognition dot com, where you'll see an announcement
Speaker 4: from Naval News the headline Russia claims successful launch of
Speaker 4: Poseidon nuclear submarine drone said to create tsunamis. So that
Speaker 4: was a banger in the address he gave in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 4: and he had one more closer.
Speaker 3: But before we get to that, just.
Speaker 2: Pointing out the superiority that is on display here theoretically
Speaker 2: every time is this concept of a scramjet that you
Speaker 2: add to your cruise missile that allows that cruise missile
Speaker 2: to actually move and maneuver. You're adding the gliding capability
Speaker 2: to your ICBM so that it can make maneuvers and
Speaker 2: get away from those brand new f thirty fives or
Speaker 2: whatever you're trying to throw at it. And in this
Speaker 2: case with Poseidon, it can zigzag around as people are
Speaker 2: trying to intercept it. That is I think the scary
Speaker 2: thing because there are a ton of anti ballistic missile
Speaker 2: anti all types of missile technologies that are out there,
Speaker 2: and they range from everything to these micro microwave weapons,
Speaker 2: laser weapons, conventional weapons with other missiles that are designed
Speaker 2: to go up and catch one as it's coming in.
Speaker 2: We're seeing those on display a ton right now with
Speaker 2: what's going on with Iran. It's just if these things
Speaker 2: are real, they are so representative of superiority over other abilities.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, because they're greased pigs. That's the thing, like
Speaker 4: the old country trope of people getting together and trying
Speaker 4: to catch a greased pig. Because these things are nimble
Speaker 4: and agile. If they work the way they're supposed to work,
Speaker 4: then they are out matching current interception capabilities, and the
Speaker 4: Russian government was quite explicit about this. They were saying,
Speaker 4: Uncle Sam can't get us. Like, guys, we know all
Speaker 4: the tennis rackets you have, right, we know all the
Speaker 4: what are those things in lacrosse they used to catch
Speaker 4: the ball shuttlecocks.
Speaker 3: No, that.
Speaker 4: That's the scoop.
Speaker 3: It's called the scoop.
Speaker 4: The scoop. They're like, we thank you.
Speaker 3: I wish maybe that's true descriptive, it's true.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, they say, we've we know Uncle Sam, all
Speaker 4: the scoopy nets you have, and you will not be
Speaker 4: able to scoopy net these bad balls we're gonna throw
Speaker 4: at you. And it this leads to stuff like the
Speaker 4: RS twenty eight. This was Putin's closer, the r S
Speaker 4: twenty eight Sarmat Liquid fueled in I r V equipped
Speaker 4: super heavy ICBM. Now one problem with that name. I
Speaker 4: don't think it's fair to our buddy Sarmat to body
Speaker 4: shame them super heavy. Come on, come on, that's rude.
Speaker 4: Maybe there's a translation thing.
Speaker 2: Well, I've seen the new season of South Park and
Speaker 2: this thing's also known as Satan too, and Satan's a
Speaker 2: beefy boy.
Speaker 4: He's a chalky boy. He's a choky boy. He makes
Speaker 4: an impression.
Speaker 3: He's also a kept woman.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah in South part.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know, and you can apply that to
Speaker 3: Satan a large nose that I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just trying to make a joke just because this
Speaker 2: is Saing is known in the West as the Satan Too,
Speaker 2: which is you know, it's a very metal name.
Speaker 3: It's Satan Too. It's it's like the first Baptist church.
Speaker 3: There can only be one, but yet there are many.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the SS eighteen Satan is an ICBM
Speaker 4: that's been around for a while, and it was aging.
Speaker 4: So this closer super weapon pitch is really just say
Speaker 4: we're replacing the earlier thing.
Speaker 2: Can we talk about why this one is so terrifying though?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 2: This is another one of these intercontinental ballistic missiles, and
Speaker 2: it is designed to kloy sixteen independently targetable nuclear warheads.
Speaker 2: So you shoot one off, then sixteen targets in different
Speaker 2: places can be hit with a nuke.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and those are sixteen is the the upper limit
Speaker 4: of the distinct warheads it can deploy. It can also
Speaker 4: just do ten large warheads, but overall it can carry
Speaker 4: ultimately ten tons of payload. So if they wish ten
Speaker 4: tons of nuclear weaponry, this is a world ending thing,
Speaker 4: or a region ending thing at the very least.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and what region are we worried about?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: This thing can go eleven thousand miles and can easily
Speaker 2: reach Europe in the United States?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so what region, folks? Most of them, most of them,
Speaker 4: most of them North Sentinel Island. Don't poke the bear,
Speaker 4: all right, that's not going to be your first international friend.
Speaker 4: But as we said, only two of these six wishless
Speaker 4: things from twenty eighteen have seen combat. The rest are
Speaker 4: still under or in some phase of development. This sounds
Speaker 4: good or terrifying in a pr speech or a propaganda initiative.
Speaker 4: But here is the billiant ruble question, fellow conspiracy realist.
Speaker 4: Do these things actually work? And what else are they
Speaker 4: building in there? We'll be back afterword from our sponsors.
Speaker 4: We've returned, guys. It's so weird. We think about asymmetry
Speaker 4: quite a bit. Right. Ever since the behavior of colonists
Speaker 4: in the American Revolution, right when they deployed Gettia tactics,
Speaker 4: we have seen great advantage in flipping the script of
Speaker 4: conventional warfare. These things aren't really flipping the script. Yeah,
Speaker 4: they don't appear to have radically altered the calculations involved
Speaker 4: in war, or they definitely haven't done it to the
Speaker 4: level that cheaply made drones have. I think we can
Speaker 4: agree that cyber warfare and drone warfare are two of
Speaker 4: the biggest game changers in modern conflicts today. Right.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, We've been talking about a lot, especially in
Speaker 2: the Ukraine conflict, and then now way on these relatively
Speaker 2: cheap drones that are essentially just missiles that you know,
Speaker 2: can go and explode any anywhere, and it costs like
Speaker 2: fifty five thousand dollars versus you know, a million dollars
Speaker 2: to shoot one down if you're using the defense shield systems.
Speaker 2: But there is stuff that Russia's been developing. Did you
Speaker 2: see this thing that s seventy ocotnik ok h O
Speaker 2: t n I k B. It looks like it looks
Speaker 2: like one of these stealth planes that you know, Lockeyed
Speaker 2: creator or whoever on this side created, But it's a
Speaker 2: stealth drone and it's it's huge, sixty five foot wingspan.
Speaker 2: And there was one that allegedly went into Ukrainian airspace
Speaker 2: and then you know, crashed and was recovered, but then
Speaker 2: Russian forces like shot a missile to attack it to
Speaker 2: make sure the other side didn't get their technology. Uh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but it looks it looks scary like a stealth drone.
Speaker 2: Thing that looks like a stealth bomber.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And some of these, not just that one, but
Speaker 4: like the shah Head and I think the Saga a
Speaker 4: couple other ones there. We suspect that they were built
Speaker 4: at least partially inspired by captured US drone technology or
Speaker 4: UAV technology. It's it's the hot new thing in war
Speaker 4: and unmanned drone they're much to your point, they're much
Speaker 4: easier and cheaper to construct, and they also have the
Speaker 4: added advantage of bleeding out your opponent's resources. Right, so
Speaker 4: even if they catch one of the drones you have launched,
Speaker 4: they have lost millions of dollars. You lost fifty five grand.
Speaker 4: You know, eventually those numbers add up. Got to say, though,
Speaker 4: part of the reason that these super weapons from twenty
Speaker 4: eighteen have yet to create super results is due to
Speaker 4: the fact that Russia has not used these in a
Speaker 4: wartime nuclear capability. It seems that nuclear warfare is still
Speaker 4: a rubicon. It's still a red line that no one,
Speaker 4: not even Russia, has the appetite to cross.
Speaker 3: So far, so far, May the Cold War rage on.
Speaker 4: We're recorded on Friday, March twenty seventh. We don't know
Speaker 4: how that statement will age.
Speaker 2: Stop, Ben, I'm scared. I just don't like saying things
Speaker 2: out loud here.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I'm not not scared. But you know, we persevere,
Speaker 3: keep on, yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, stay calm and carry We know that analysts are
Speaker 4: increasingly afraid that after some unknown threshold of stress, because
Speaker 4: Russia is not doing well domestically, after some unknown stress threshold,
Speaker 4: Russia might simply say screw it and let the bombs fly.
Speaker 4: Their nuclear strategy is an episode all its own. But
Speaker 4: I think one of the big worries is that these
Speaker 4: super weapons don't stop with the six toys we name.
Speaker 4: Twenty eighteen was the better part of ten years ago.
Speaker 4: And it's not like people in Russia put their pencils
Speaker 4: down and sat on their laurels. They are still doing stuff.
Speaker 2: Oh what okay, you guys off topic. Recently on Strange News,
Speaker 2: we talked about an update to the General McCastle and
Speaker 2: missing Missing General Mcastle and story we target.
Speaker 3: It keeps coming up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Multie, sorry, I one note recently with that whole thing.
Speaker 2: But the the thing we talked about is that supposed
Speaker 2: X account that may have been his and talking about
Speaker 2: another general that allegedly took his own life, and the
Speaker 2: allegations there, at least from the X account, were that
Speaker 2: that person took their life because they didn't want to
Speaker 2: allow nuclear weapons into private sector hands and that should
Speaker 2: only be done from you know, Department of Energy to
Speaker 2: military handoff. I don't think we even talked about much, guys,
Speaker 2: but thinking about why would maybe a private company want
Speaker 2: to get their hands on a nuke? Can you can
Speaker 2: you guys think of a reason?
Speaker 3: Think of a bunch?
Speaker 2: Well, I could think of one. Yeah, if a private
Speaker 2: company gets a hold of it and then set one
Speaker 2: off somewhere on the planet that a military officially didn't do,
Speaker 2: you could maybe blame that on any military you wanted to.
Speaker 2: I don't know that that that terrifies me because we're
Speaker 2: talking about this as you know, potential enemies with Russia
Speaker 2: against other you know, countries of the United States against
Speaker 2: other countries. What if it's a third party actor that
Speaker 2: does it on behalf of somebody as a way to
Speaker 2: begin the varrage.
Speaker 3: Well, sure, like in like inn Watchmen.
Speaker 4: A nuclear power, a nuclear powered Haliburton Tonkin. The false
Speaker 4: flag is right, the false flag of it all.
Speaker 3: But also, like I mean, isn't the reason we're so
Speaker 3: against nuclear proliferation is because if you have the nukes,
Speaker 3: then you're sort of on an equal playing field in
Speaker 3: terms of that mutually assured destruction. And as we already
Speaker 3: start to see corporations taking on the role of government,
Speaker 3: is it that far of a walk for a corporation
Speaker 3: to say we've got nukes now to y'all.
Speaker 4: Like Grobolgar are on the way. We're getting very shadow run,
Speaker 4: very cyberpunk, very quickly.
Speaker 3: Oh very fallout none, I said, And the nukes are
Speaker 3: being sold to the highest bidder.
Speaker 4: I mean, oh yeah, broken arrows, rogue nukes. Right, It's
Speaker 4: a fear that is as old as as old as
Speaker 4: back when Oakridge, Tennessee was a secret city. We know
Speaker 4: that Russia. Look, we're in a glasshouse, all right, folks
Speaker 4: are wearing a glass daka. All the world powers are
Speaker 4: conducting research into secretive technology. The US, China, European countries,
Speaker 4: they all do similar things to one degree or another,
Speaker 4: and they're all very careful not to spill the beans
Speaker 4: on their latest homework. So then our question has to
Speaker 4: be coom. I don't know how deep we want to
Speaker 4: get into this. Would Russia have other stuff we don't
Speaker 4: know about aside from the publicly announced breakthroughs. Does the
Speaker 4: have more super weapons up at sleeve?
Speaker 2: Okay, so we're talking about a lot of unmanned aircraft,
Speaker 2: a lot of ballistic missiles that have pretty extensive electronics
Speaker 2: going on signals that you are coming from either satellites
Speaker 2: or ground based radar systems. We're talking about advanced toys
Speaker 2: that use a lot of signals. Another thing that Russia
Speaker 2: has been working on as well as the United States
Speaker 2: are electronic warfare systems. We've looked at some of those
Speaker 2: that use microwaves, some of them that just disrupt all
Speaker 2: of the electronics or the radar signals, so you can
Speaker 2: knock let's say a group of drones out of the sky,
Speaker 2: or potentially a ballistic missile that is being using a
Speaker 2: targeting system, right, you could disable that with some kind
Speaker 2: of electronic warfare. And Russia's been doing that stuff for
Speaker 2: a long time as well as the US and other superpowers.
Speaker 2: But you can look up something called, I think it's
Speaker 2: a Krasuka. There's a Krasuka four, which is this really
Speaker 2: interesting looking wheels based system that you just aim at
Speaker 2: places and disrupt all the electronics. It sounds very similar
Speaker 2: to the things Donald Trump described when we went into Venezuela,
Speaker 2: allegedly not only using this discompopulator thing to disrupt the
Speaker 2: human beings, but disrupt all of the electronics, including the
Speaker 2: electrical grid.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and this goes into things like emp or energy interference. Right,
Speaker 4: Why should we spend billions of dollars making a thing
Speaker 4: when we can just spend you know, a million or
Speaker 4: so building something that can.
Speaker 3: Break your toy?
Speaker 4: Right, It's again, it's a symmetry. There's something beautiful to
Speaker 4: it for students of the greatest art. But this does
Speaker 4: also inevitably result in the loss of human lives, often
Speaker 4: innocent people. So the stakes are very high. I mean,
Speaker 4: don't we don't have to relitigate one of our favorite
Speaker 4: examples of possible superweapons, the directed energy weapons. We talked
Speaker 4: about the stunning expos a led by sixty Minutes that
Speaker 4: makes a pretty persuasive case about Havana syndrome. We should
Speaker 4: probably we should probably talk a little bit about the
Speaker 4: cyber warfare, because missiles aside, right, missile killers aside, and
Speaker 4: nuclear weaponry aside. In the age of ubiquitous information, in
Speaker 4: the age where people are always online, it is impossible
Speaker 4: to overstate the massive influence of Russia's info and cyber
Speaker 4: warfare initiatives. I mean, they've compromised so many things. I
Speaker 4: don't know if you guys saw the news, but about
Speaker 4: I want to say, two or three days ago before
Speaker 4: we recorded, the FBI publicly confirmed that Russian hackers who
Speaker 4: are totally not state supported, have hijacked Signal and WhatsApp accounts.
Speaker 4: Do you guys who use Signal or WhatsApp? I like WhatsApp, Yeah,
Speaker 4: I've got what's app.
Speaker 3: It's great for international travel and communication, and like it
Speaker 3: does a lot of robust features that regular old texting
Speaker 3: doesn't do. It sends much higher resolution images, and you
Speaker 3: can do really cool sorting. Signal Signal I don't know,
Speaker 3: I don't really mess with I don't really have a
Speaker 3: use case for that one.
Speaker 4: They're both supposed to be encrypted, though, is the pickle
Speaker 4: of it? You know, That's why people who might be
Speaker 4: having an organic protest. Love this kind of stuff where
Speaker 4: people who are worried about big government cracking down on them.
Speaker 4: I mean, these guys definitely are state supported in practice,
Speaker 4: but officially kind of like Chinese hackers, they're working on
Speaker 4: their own steam, inspired by patriotism. Camera see cut into
Speaker 4: me here so we can see the eye roll.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I went all the way back and
Speaker 2: around to the front again.
Speaker 4: Oh I'm just patriotic. Well that's why I'm the best
Speaker 4: hacker in this. Oh no, I'm not paid. This is
Speaker 4: just my hobby. This is my Saturday. What guys, that's wonderful.
Speaker 2: Could we jump to the Moon really fast?
Speaker 3: Sure? I don't know. Do we have the technology?
Speaker 2: Matt, It seems like maybe we don't.
Speaker 3: I think it's the Moon jump. Let's just do it, yeah, figuratively.
Speaker 2: It is kind of weird to see this renewed desire
Speaker 2: from the US, China, and Russia to get to the Moon,
Speaker 2: to create a base, to have superiority in space, so
Speaker 2: that you know, whoever you are, you get to control
Speaker 2: who gets to come up and do what.
Speaker 4: It'll just be called.
Speaker 3: Moon Base one.
Speaker 4: I hope they come up with a cooler name. I'd
Speaker 4: like something from Greco Roman or Chinese mythology. But yeah,
Speaker 4: But the thing is, sometimes these entities will spend a
Speaker 4: lot of blood, sweat and treasure, not because they would
Speaker 4: ordinarily want a thing, but because they don't want the
Speaker 4: other people to have it right very highland or rules.
Speaker 4: So you might not be excited about your moon base,
Speaker 4: but then you hear you know, uncle, she is doing it,
Speaker 4: and you're going, ah, I hate that guy. He was
Speaker 4: so mean to me at Chili's earlier. I'm going to
Speaker 4: get a moon base. That's kind of what's happening, because.
Speaker 2: That's there, and that seems way far off, like honestly,
Speaker 2: not even something to necessarily worry about at this moment.
Speaker 2: But the thing that does worry me some of the
Speaker 2: stuff we were looking at several years ago on this
Speaker 2: show about rogue satellites and stuff like X thirty seven
Speaker 2: B that can you know, be in orbit for four
Speaker 2: hundred days and potentially move around and interact with other
Speaker 2: satellites or stuff that I think I do believe it
Speaker 2: was stuff that the United States officially observed, gosh before
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, where there were Russian satellites that grouped
Speaker 2: together they moved and grouped together around other satellites and
Speaker 2: were able to target other things in orbit, which again
Speaker 2: is pretty scary, especially given the ambitions that we've been
Speaker 2: hearing about whether or not it's real or true or
Speaker 2: how close anybody is. But the concept of putting some
Speaker 2: type of nuclear weapon, whether it's just on a satellite
Speaker 2: that's orbiting around, that you could detonate after getting it
Speaker 2: close to another target and then take out a whole
Speaker 2: group of satellites that say the US controls, and then
Speaker 2: you take down all the GPS capabilities. I mean, that
Speaker 2: stuff's kind of scary because it doesn't just affect militaries. Guys.
Speaker 2: Imagine a nuclear explosion in orbit right now that's already
Speaker 2: so congested that we've talked about so many times, and
Speaker 2: just exploding parts all around, like in a huge swath
Speaker 2: in orbit.
Speaker 3: Have we modeled out I'm sure someone has what that
Speaker 3: would look like, like, yeah, okay, I'm curious. It seems
Speaker 3: like it would have a very deleterious effect on the atmosphere,
Speaker 3: and you know, yeah, corresponding layers and such.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, that's a great way to put it, because then
Speaker 4: we're so we study this a lot in academia, and
Speaker 4: I'm sure the boffins in the US or Western military
Speaker 4: study this as well. China certainly does. The issue is
Speaker 4: that that becomes what we call total war. Total war
Speaker 4: is a situation in which all enemy forces are treated
Speaker 4: as combatants. All infrastructure, all resource, all resources, all institutions
Speaker 4: are up for grabs, are all considered viable targets. And
Speaker 4: when you run the I mean, the UN spent a
Speaker 4: lot of time trying to get people to not weaponize space.
Speaker 4: We'll see how that gummy toothed agreement goes. But when
Speaker 4: you do something like this, you're detonated a bomb in traffic,
Speaker 4: which means that all the other things, even if they're
Speaker 4: not directly hit by the explosion, all the other things
Speaker 4: on those orbital paths, if they cannot modify their trajectory
Speaker 4: or you know, if they don't have a little thrusters
Speaker 4: or some kind of mechanism to get themselves away from
Speaker 4: the car accident, then they're going to get screwed up too.
Speaker 4: So there will be an add on effect. It's a
Speaker 4: domino effect in space.
Speaker 2: Very yeah, well, not to mention. In twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: China launched a hypersonic missile from space, right from space,
Speaker 2: and at that time US generals called it very concerning.
Speaker 3: I would agree with that prognosis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, we just I don't know, man,
Speaker 2: the ambitions of these folks which just astonishing.
Speaker 4: Right, Well, while we're talking about space in general, let's
Speaker 4: return to the digital space, because there is something that
Speaker 4: we do have to talk about, which is the concept
Speaker 4: of influencing elections and the concept of influencing officials. Right,
Speaker 4: you don't need a Manchurian candidate if you can just
Speaker 4: get some compromitt I would say, that's another Russian super weapon.
Speaker 4: It's as old as the Soviet Union. But I think
Speaker 4: AI is going to change it. I think machine learning
Speaker 4: and big data are going to trigger a renaissance in
Speaker 4: compromat activities. How would we define compromat. It's a cool word,
Speaker 4: but we all know what it means.
Speaker 3: Blackmail stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, blackmail stuff. We know numerous political things have been
Speaker 4: targeted by Russian compromat operations, and even more people, including
Speaker 4: people in the United States, have been accused of playing
Speaker 4: into Russian hands. I mean, guys, am I am I
Speaker 4: off base? Am I bubbled in saying that it is
Speaker 4: now a relatively common belief that the current US president
Speaker 4: has somehow been compromised by Russia.
Speaker 3: It's definitely a pretty broadly held belief. The question is,
Speaker 3: you know, what percentage and what affiliation those who believe
Speaker 3: that are. I certainly do, and evidence seems to point
Speaker 3: to that day in and day out. But you know,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of really mentally flexible folks that are
Speaker 3: making some arguments against it.
Speaker 2: So you know, the question is, how do you prove it? Well, exactly,
Speaker 2: We've seen allegations against like Tulci, Gabbard and a bunch
Speaker 2: of other folks who appear to have been taking actions
Speaker 2: that would benefit Russia. Let's say we have seen the
Speaker 2: administration doing that, right, But it's like, you know, can
Speaker 2: we actually prove it?
Speaker 4: No? Yeah, And it doesn't help that so many of
Speaker 4: the investigations into these allegations get bogged down and buried.
Speaker 4: It's you know, like the Steel dossier for example. This
Speaker 4: stuff just creates more questions than answers. But what's the
Speaker 4: Russia Russia Russia hoax? Right? Well, it's it's the idea
Speaker 4: that it's the idea of the years before the current
Speaker 4: administration entered its second term, operators in Russia somehow compromised
Speaker 4: high level US political figures. But the pickle of it
Speaker 4: is the badger in the bag is how do we
Speaker 4: prove that? What's our smoking gun?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: And look right now. Even though these compromat cyber war
Speaker 4: technologies are very good and the patterns and tactics are
Speaker 4: quite sophisticated, they're probably not going to come for you
Speaker 4: yet because it's going to take a couple more leaps
Speaker 4: and big data and machine learning and data brokers to
Speaker 4: create a system pallunteer esque where they can gather up
Speaker 4: tons of information about the public and other countries. Once
Speaker 4: that happens, it's easier than ever before for these operators,
Speaker 4: these actors to build an influenced profile of you, you know,
Speaker 4: like an advertising persona what is max freight train? Williams like?
Speaker 4: How can we push freight train to agree with pro
Speaker 4: Russian things? How can we nudge them?
Speaker 3: We're talking about palunteer levels of scaling this kind of
Speaker 3: thing where the typical historical versions of this would be
Speaker 3: exclusively pointed at high level targets. But if you scaled
Speaker 3: it and pointed at a lot of low level or
Speaker 3: mid level or even just everyday average targets. Taken as
Speaker 3: a whole, it would be just as effective and powerful
Speaker 3: and and sing events as messing with the high level ones.
Speaker 4: Just so and well put, now it becomes a question
Speaker 4: of interest, appetite, and resources. So we don't want to
Speaker 4: alarm anybody, and thank you for tuning in on Netflix
Speaker 4: or your podcast platform of choice, but we do want
Speaker 4: you to be aware. You should be careful when you're
Speaker 4: poking the bear right because the eye of souron could
Speaker 4: turn on you now more easily than ever before.
Speaker 2: What are we doing? What's going on?
Speaker 3: That's the question, man, That is the question.
Speaker 4: When my family started a frozen food empire, I said,
Speaker 4: I'm going to be on TV. So, oh, you scamp guys.
Speaker 4: I know we're running long, but if it's okay, I
Speaker 4: think there's something our fellow conspiracy realists need to understand.
Speaker 4: It doesn't get brought up often when we talk about
Speaker 4: super weapons on the Russian side, but super weapons include biowarfare,
Speaker 4: and we're going to bracket Wuhan Right, We're going to
Speaker 4: bracket plandemic conspiracies just for a second, because we do
Speaker 4: have to acknowledge that Russia has been getting some bad
Speaker 4: press recently about two years ago for resurrecting the forty
Speaker 4: eighth Central Scientific Research Institute, which is, by the way,
Speaker 4: one of their spoopiest, dupiest biological warfare labs from the
Speaker 4: days of the Cold War.
Speaker 2: Oh dear, yeah, I wonder if they're going to develop
Speaker 2: COVID twenty six just like the US. Oh, I mean
Speaker 2: NISI I mean uh never.
Speaker 4: Sorry, guys, there's a lot of pollen in the air
Speaker 4: bat populations, population.
Speaker 3: Are you guys?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 2: What's happening?
Speaker 4: Marcus got what? Markets got wet? So by now, it's
Speaker 4: no secret that both the USSR and the US went
Speaker 4: very deep into extremely dangerous bioweapon research. And the thing is,
Speaker 4: of all the bioweaponry programs that we can prove to
Speaker 4: have existed, proved not suspect the ones we know definitely happened,
Speaker 4: there was only one that was able to weaponize a
Speaker 4: pandemic capable virus. It is the Soviet bioweapons program that
Speaker 4: was originally established way back in nineteen twenty eight. And
Speaker 4: I think most of us assume that despite agreements, this
Speaker 4: bioweapon research never really stopped in the US and Russia.
Speaker 4: In China, Russia denies these allegations. And here's the thing,
Speaker 4: and they said, yeah, they were speaking in public statements.
Speaker 4: After the Washington Post exposed this to the West, the
Speaker 4: head of the site said, of course we're building new stuff.
Speaker 4: Of course we're back in production. But guys, what we're
Speaker 4: doing is defensive research. We're trying to figure out how
Speaker 4: to protect the Russian military and the Russian public from
Speaker 4: biological attacks. And indeed, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, one
Speaker 4: of the reasons they gave for it was they said
Speaker 4: there was an imminent attack, a bioweapon attack from Ukraine
Speaker 4: on the way to Russia.
Speaker 2: Doesn't that sound a little familiar to the reasoning behind
Speaker 2: gain of function research in the United States and the
Speaker 2: scientific establishment across the world. We need to protect ourselves,
Speaker 2: so let us make the most virulent version of all
Speaker 2: of the world's worst viruses possible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, to stop buildings in America from burning, we need
Speaker 4: to make a secret place where we build better fires.
Speaker 4: That's the thing, because research how to stop by a warfare,
Speaker 4: if you're good at researching how to stop it, it
Speaker 4: gets really close to researching how to cause it, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It's because you have to know what you're gonna fight
Speaker 2: ten years from now.
Speaker 4: Right, build a better fire to protect us from fires?
Speaker 4: I mean, look, did you have it? Folks? Thank you
Speaker 4: for tuning in. Does Russia have super weapons? Yes, and
Speaker 4: we're going to learn more about these projects as time
Speaker 4: goes on, hopefully in enough time to prevent them from
Speaker 4: creating a disaster in the field. But we also have
Speaker 4: to remember, despite all the speculation, despite all the breathless headlines,
Speaker 4: Russia already has the world's most dangerous known super weapon.
Speaker 4: They have nukes. They have a lot of them. Do
Speaker 4: they work? That's an open question, and for now that's
Speaker 4: the stuff Russia doesn't want you to know.
Speaker 2: Only one really has to work, right.
Speaker 4: That's the thing. It's not the ten that don't, it's
Speaker 4: the one man. Well, folks, we have big Friday energy.
Speaker 4: We can't wait to hear your thoughts. Super weapons? Are
Speaker 4: they real? How do we define them? What kind of
Speaker 4: stuff do you think these world governments are building in secret?
Speaker 4: Let us know. You can find us on the lines.
Speaker 4: You can call us on a phone, You can always
Speaker 4: send us an email.
Speaker 3: That's right, you can find us at the handle Conspiracy
Speaker 3: stuff or conspiracy stuff show on your social media platform
Speaker 3: of choice, depending what else we got.
Speaker 2: We have a phone number. It's one eight three three
Speaker 2: std WYTK. When you call in, tell us who you
Speaker 2: think the head of the Russian compermount system is. You know,
Speaker 2: in the US and Israel we had Epstein. Who is
Speaker 2: the Russian version of that? Hmm? Let us know what
Speaker 2: you think when you call, and give yourself a cool nickname,
Speaker 2: and let us know if we can use your name
Speaker 2: and message on the air. If you want to send
Speaker 2: us an email, you can do that too.
Speaker 4: We are the entities to read each piece of correspondence
Speaker 4: we receive. Be well aware, yet to unafraid. Sometimes the
Speaker 4: void rides back. One of my favorite authors in the
Speaker 4: entirety of canon is Vladimir Nabokov. So please don't think
Speaker 4: we're angry at Russia.
Speaker 3: Overall.
Speaker 4: We'll see out here in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio
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