WEBVTT - A Brief History of Molotov Cocktails 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:09.039 Oh, welcome to it could happen here. I'm Robert Evans, 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:13.720 recording from a deeply unsettling airbnb right near the border 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:17.079 of Texas and Mexico. UM. I'm here with my good 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:21.040 friend James Stout. Say hello to the people. Hi everyone, 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:24.680 and we're gonna talk about well, let me let me 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:28.000 introduce briefly. You'll you'll see the episodes soon enough. We're 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:32.120 down here reporting on um a mixture of of of 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:37.199 right wing militancy, government militarization of the border, and the 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.239 attempts by people trapped in the middle to survive and 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:44.559 avoid those authoritarian structures. So today, James and they're going 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:49.400 to talk about molotov cocktails. Um, but first, James, you 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:51.159 want to talk about this airbnb. We're in for a 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:54.960 second because you book this motherfucker deeply. Yeah yeah yeah. 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:58.160 So what happens when you have like less than twenty 0:00:58.160 --> 0:00:59.920 four hours before you arrive and need a place for 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:03.959 more than two people is uh you really get into 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:06.480 the depth of Airbnb And I've found this place, which 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:13.080 how to describe it? Um? Yeah, yeah, unsettling? Yeah yeah, 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:17.240 it it just feels wrong. I can't put my finger 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:19.960 quiet on whe there is a basement which definitely has 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:24.120 like murder vibes, and there's not basements in Texas normally, 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:26.960 and it's it's it's crumbling and unsettling. There's a some 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:30.160 pump that doesn't appear connected to anything. There's puddles of 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:34.160 standing water. Um. I think there's like nine bedrooms in 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:38.600 this house. Yeah, but only one like is upstairs, and 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:40.880 it seems to have like like to be designed to 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:44.959 command an arqui fier around the house. Then there are 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.279 other bedrooms which are like kind of in this stable block. 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:52.080 What else is weird? Like three of the bedrooms are 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:54.480 separate from the main house and in a built in 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:57.160 a way that it looks like a roadside motel. And 0:01:57.200 --> 0:01:59.720 then there's a main house that has like four living 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:03.560 room for We're sitting at a large kitchen table right now, 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.520 which spins around a central access. For some inexplicable reason, 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:12.480 we have the overwhelming feeling that something horribly wrong was 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:15.200 done in this space because it doesn't everything is a 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:18.120 little off. None of the decorations look like people. This 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:20.720 is some sort of trap house, but we cannot identify 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:24.720 the kind. I think you desc it best when you 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:27.120 said it's like one of those this person does not 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:29.519 exist photos but of a home and you can't work 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:32.120 out what's wrong. But it's not human and it's not right. 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:33.640 So we just had to get that out of our 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:36.519 systems because it's been deeply unsettling the last couple of days. 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:41.160 We're here now, James, you wrote an article about Molotov 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.960 cocktails that got you in a bit of a fascinating situation. 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:46.800 I want to just kind of walk me through what 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:49.400 happened there and what the fallout was. Yeah, well, the 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:52.520 one that started it was about how to tear down statues, 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:55.240 and that was for popular mechanics. In In that article, 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:57.680 I interviewed a couple of experts and one of them 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:01.520 explained how to make something called firm um Thermite's like 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:04.200 an exothermic reaction. You mix a couple of things, they 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:06.320 get hot, They get hot enough to melt some metal. 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:09.880 So if you were interested in bringing down a statue 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:12.400 of a bigot, that might be helpful to you. By 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:15.040 the way, it's legal basically all of the US to 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:17.720 possess their might, and pretty simple to make. Not that 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:20.400 you know, you can google it. You can figure that 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:22.400 out yourself. Yeah, I'm not telling you how to make it. 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:26.480 I'm telling you that it exists, exists, and is surprisingly legal. Yes, 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:28.720 and if you need to weld some ship underwater or 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.040 join together some train tracks, it's the right tool for 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:33.040 the job. Yeah, if you happen to be I know 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:35.880 a lot of the Russian Army in Ukraine listens to 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:37.920 this podcast. If you happen to be in the process 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:40.800 of abandoning hundreds of millions of dollars in armor, thermite 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:44.520 can allow you to stop Ukrainian farmers from towing it 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:47.040 back to their homes. Yeah, but don't do that if 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:50.320 you're a Russian soldier. Just just run um go to 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:51.920 the Ukrainians. So I'll let you call your mom. They're 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:55.880 nice and okay. So I write the story for pop 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.240 Mac Right. It's it's just a useful guide to people 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:02.160 who are looking to safely disposed of a racist statue. Right. 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:08.080 And when I write it, I think their readership might 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:11.080 lean pretty conservative, or they felt like that was a 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:17.279 safe space. Anyway, It immediately became like the epicenter of 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:21.240 the culture war for like a week, including triggering one 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:27.080 Benjamin Shapiro, who then sub tweeted me like a coward 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:32.159 and asked when I'll be writing my story about Molotov cocktails, 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:35.919 which I subsequently wrote. So that that gets us to 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:38.920 the Molotov cocktail story. I was in Russia today as well, 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:44.160 now banned media outlet No No No. I wrote it 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:48.640 for a British magazine called Huck. I've described like Hucker 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:52.280 is like like Vice, but less tragic, like after Vice 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:56.760 went bad Huck School. Um, and so yeah, Ben Ben 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:00.560 was upset. Ben orchestrated this kind of right way panic 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.839 around the story. Uh, they canceled pop Mac for a while, 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:08.599 and I wrote a piece about the history and I 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:12.279 guess chemistry of moloto and they're rolling democratization movements. That 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:14.200 was really fascinating to me. So yeah, that's how we 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:17.120 got to the Molotov story. And you want to give 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.479 me kind of some cliffs notes on the history of 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:21.320 the Molotov and it's rolling because what I know about 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:24.719 Molotov cocktails, I assume it's named after Molotov, of the 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:29.240 Molotov ribbon trop packed, right, Lav Molotov? Yeah, um, And 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:31.520 I know I have been near a couple of them 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:33.880 going off. I nearly got lit on fire by one, 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:36.279 and I watched a colleague get let on fire by another. 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:40.880 So I am aware of what they do. Um. But yeah, 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:42.480 why don't you walk us through kind of the close 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.080 notes of the history of molotovs. Yeah, absolutely, so. Um. 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:47.880 A lot of times you'll go on the Internet and 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:49.440 you're reading about history and it will turn out not 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:51.520 to be right, and that that's often the case with 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:56.839 Molotov cocktails. So, yes, they named after Lav Molotov. We 0:05:56.839 --> 0:05:58.800 can get to why they named that way in a second. 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:05.919 But their origin is actually with Franco's nationalist fascist, national fascists, 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:08.120 whatever you want to call them, national Catholic troops in 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.280 the Spanish Civil War. So early on in the Spanish 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:16.200 Civil War nineties seven ish, the Republic had some Soviet 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:20.280 tanks and they were using these against the ABRO. They 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:22.760 were using these against the nationalists, and nationalists were throwing 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:25.480 what they then called petrol bombs at the tanks too. 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:28.960 Great effect is those old tanks had rubber on the 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:31.960 wheels that turned the tracks and those would melt. So 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:34.120 that's when they were first used. And if you're not 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:37.640 familiar with what a Molotov cocktail is, it's an improvised 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:42.080 incendiary device. It's a glass thing filled with a flammable 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.360 thing topped with some kind of cloth with a flame 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:48.400 that the goth is burning. And when you throw it, 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:51.520 obviously the glass thing breaks, the flammable liquid comes out, 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.799 and the flame catches a liquid and you have a fireball. 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:58.680 Uh So, the first time we kind of see them 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:01.240 is used it in Spanish War. We see references to 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.080 them in like British media in the nineteen thirties when 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:07.080 British reporters were going out to watch the Spanish Civil 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:09.520 War and they were like, Wow, what a development, what 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:13.160 a technology, and so they used there. But where they 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:16.880 get their names in Finland, right when the Soviets invade Finland. 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:20.880 Why they got their name is that Molotov claimed that 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:24.240 his planes were not dropping bombs. You'll see like a 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:26.760 history of gas lighting in Russian Foreign Polo Soviet foreign 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:30.160 policy here. Um he claimed they weren't dropping bombs. He 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:34.120 claimed that they were bringing aid to the people of Finland, right, 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:36.720 And Finland was like, this is ridiculous. So they kind 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:40.240 of started calling the bombs Molotov's bread baskets, and pretty 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:44.720 soon everything that was shipped was associated with Molotovs. Bombers 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:49.920 were Molotov's chickens. Blackout curtains were Molotov's curtains, And so 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:54.480 the they switched many of their state alcohol factories to 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:58.400 making Molotov cocktails, and so they started calling these these 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:01.560 pets what work called petrol bombs Molotov cocktails, and that's 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:04.160 how the names duck. It is neat that Russia has 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:07.640 such a long history of causing other nations to retool 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:10.720 their domestic liquor production towards making bombs to throw a 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:15.000 Russian soldiers and like how what we now adas on 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:20.400 from from nineteen se like it's it's not always Russian tanks, 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:25.360 but it's nearly always Russian tanks, right like Spain, and 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:27.760 the Russian tanks are obviously like in Republic in Spain 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:35.000 is much preferable to Franco Finland hungry in nineteen fifty six, right, um, 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:40.000 and today in Ukraine you see people throwing bottles of 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:42.880 petrol with flames on top of Russian tanks. Yeah, they 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:45.520 have a long history, yeah, I mean, and it's it's 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.120 among other things like especially if you don't have easy 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:51.880 access to firearms and and no access to explosives and 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:55.480 stuff like, it's it's not a force equalizer, but it 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:59.880 does allow you to to do certain things in militarily 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.080 that that would be harder to do, um if you 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.400 were like trying to manufacture something a little bit more 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.640 like it's easier than making a grenade, right, Like, yeah, 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:10.520 and it does much more damage than a rock, but 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:13.240 it's not much harder to come by for most people. Right. 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:15.760 And one really interesting thing I read about them was 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.040 by this academic who I really like his work. It's 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:22.080 called Ali Cadiva, and he's Iranian, and he's looked at 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:25.400 like democratization movements all over the world. Right, so, how 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:30.200 do authoritarian regimes collapse? And his research suggested that like 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:34.440 peaceful extreme like extreme like quote unquote peaceful protests tend 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:37.720 not to work, and insurgencies hadn't had that high of 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:40.839 a success rate. But his papers called stick stones and 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:44.400 Molotov cocktails and like, his research suggested, like, if you're 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:47.400 prepared to do violence against property by hitting it with 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:49.760 a stick, throughing stone, throwing a Monotov cocktail, then you 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.280 are more likely to have success in toppling a regime. 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:55.560 So like, because they're accessible to people who don't necessarily 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:58.520 have guns, aren't doing insurgencies. They've had this really interesting 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:02.200 role in arming non state actors or arming liberation movement 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:05.640 throughout history. I mean, that's really interesting because it would 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:08.160 seem to suggest, like a reading of that paper would 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.480 seem to suggest that, yeah, it's not so much like 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:15.680 being willing to carry out like a militant movement, but 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:18.480 being willing to destroy things as one of the primary 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:20.960 signs that like you have a chance of actually overthrowing 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:25.079 an authoritarian regime is like your your ability to prepare 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:28.520 to to do damage, um, like of a financial nature. 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:30.240 Like is that kind of the argument is making. I 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:32.640 think the argument he's making is that, like, and it's 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:34.800 an argument that can't be made enough. Right, the damage 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:36.920 to property is not the same as damage to people, 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:40.480 and violence against property in the name of liberation or 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:43.400 justice is okay and tends to work. And but yeah, 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:45.520 you have to have some skin in the game. You 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:48.079 have to be prepared to fund some ship up if 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:50.439 you if you want to bring down a regime which 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:53.840 is prepared to use violence against you. That's kind of 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:57.960 talking about the use of these tools within liberatory struggles. 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:01.040 But they're not I guess they're liberate Restril isn't I 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:03.040 have the beholder that's talking about the use of these 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:06.520 tools and kind of like street movements that are agitating 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:10.280 for change. But we also have this military history UM, 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:12.040 which I think is much more muddled in terms of 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:14.720 its actual efficacy as a as a weapon, its ability 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:18.199 to deny area, it's ability to destroy UM or damage 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:21.959 like enemy uh like combat ability. Do you do you 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:23.800 have any kind of sense of like how effective Like 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:25.880 we're seeing all these people in Ukraine arming themselves with 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:30.439 cocktails UM, evidence of of of you know, the efficacy 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:33.040 of these in combat is a lot murkier UM, at 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:34.959 least within the present conflict. Do you have a sense 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:38.400 of how historically they useful they tend to be for that? Yeah, 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:40.880 I think depending on the age of the and and 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:43.120 then the type of the vehicle you're attacking. Right, So 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:46.599 like these old Russian tanks, UM, what they would do 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:48.920 a lot was make something which is not quite what 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:50.640 we would see if the monotor of cocktails, I had 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:53.240 a whole blanket that was soaked in petrol, and that 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.360 would get caught up in the track and then it 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:59.360 would destroy that. There was a bit of rubber on 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:01.720 on the wheel interface with the tracks that it would 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.520 melt and that would immobilize the tank and then folks 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:06.880 could to swarm it from all angles. That was kind 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:10.640 of the move there, and then I think they've been 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:14.240 more useful in Ukraine than one might have expected. Because 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:17.760 of the nature of some of the Russian military vehicles. 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:19.840 They tend to carry their fuel on the outside. They 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:23.160 also because of the mud, they'll carry lots of pieces 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:25.080 of wood that they can use to put under their 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:27.120 wheels like you would you know, like sand ladders on 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:30.280 the truck, so those tend to catch fire more easily. 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:32.720 I know the b MPs also have fuel storage on 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:35.360 the back door, which is is pretty optimal for if 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:37.040 you want to walk up behind someone and set something 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:40.000 on fire. So that they've worked pretty well there. In 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:43.200 other places, yeah, they seem to be more of annoyance, 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:45.719 Like I know, I've spoken to people who have been 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:49.560 in the military in the UK and like the big 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:51.800 thing in Northern Ireland right again right, you have a 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:55.000 sort of a liberatory movement there, and so they were 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:57.319 very popular, but they didn't seem to do much of them, 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:01.040 cause people distress, cause people personally jury sometimes but not 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:04.880 particularly too They weren't game changing in terms of like 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:07.719 the monopoly on violence there. But yeah, they seem to 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:09.440 be very very I think they're better when you have 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:11.320 a ton of people throwing them. I think you have 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:13.880 a lot of people setting things on fire, that tends 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:17.439 to be it causes people to stop. And I think 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:22.800 with Russia being lacking in excellent leadership, it seems like 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:24.840 we could say in Ukraine and some of their soldiers 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:27.600 maybe lacking in training, and with the fact that they 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:30.120 tend to carry fuel externally so their vehicles catch fire. 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:33.160 If you can just convince some conscripts that their vehicle 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:35.760 is on fire, they are going to get out, run away. 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:37.839 And we've seen that a lot, right, a lot of 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:41.280 people running away. Yeah. I think when I think about, 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:44.920 like outside of military uses, where I've seen molotovs be 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:47.600 most effective in like the time I've been covering conflict 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:49.280 that the first thing that comes up is the Maidan 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:55.079 Revolution Ukraine, where people were throwing some of the same 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:58.160 people throwing mollotops at Russian troops. Now we're through a 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:01.200 mix of throwing by hand and like catapult devices were 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:03.800 launching sometimes hundreds of molotovs in a couple of minutes 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:06.200 and like melting tank treads to the ground, which is 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.920 definitely like that's a that's obviously it was affected. It's 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:12.400 also almost a different kind of weapons system when you're 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:17.720 when you're dealing with that kind of volume grad molotov launcher. Yeah. Yeah, 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:20.440 but then I can think about, like, there's this really 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:22.400 amazing video that you can find if you look of 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:28.640 Greek anarchists on bicycles swarming past a Greek police station 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:31.120 and throwing it looked like about a dozen molotovs at once, 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:33.680 and and just like sacking a police station that way 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:36.120 and then biking right the funk off and like disappearing 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:39.840 into the city um, which is which you know, seemed 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:41.920 like a more effective tactic than some of the ways 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:44.160 I've seen them use where it's like a person throwing 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:47.760 a molotov um and then the cops get really fucking angry, 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:49.280 but it doesn't really do that much damage to them, 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:51.120 and then people get or they hit the wrong person. 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:53.240 Like it is, it is a tool with a high 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:55.480 degree of chance for error if you don't know what 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:58.640 you're doing. Yeah, it's there's a decent skill requirement. You 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:01.480 also really don't want to have anything flammable on your 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:04.160 hands or shirt or anything like that. Like I've seen 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:08.000 people really end up badly after trying to make a 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:10.240 molotov and just hurting themselves trying to light it or 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:13.400 throw it. Yeah, it's it's not. It's not one of 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:16.520 those things that like you want to casually suggest people 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:19.280 use because the odds of actually injuring yourself with it 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:22.040 are pretty high if you're not being careful, um, and 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:24.040 if you if you're going into a situation where you 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:29.040 think people might have molotov's natural fibers. People natural fibers, 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:34.480 not synthetics. Yeah, well is your friend welding gloves? Your friend? Like, yeah, 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:47.880 you don't want to be caught on fire. So let's 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:50.720 talk a little bit about how, like what are the 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.760 different kinds of constructions of molotops you've seen people using 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:55.640 and how they changed over time. You talked a little 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:57.680 bit about kind of the early Spanish ones where like 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.160 full blankets and stuff. Yeah, I think one of the 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:04.120 interests where we go from Spain to to Finland right 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:06.680 where we're seeing the same thing basically petrol or maybe 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:10.080 ethanol or something like that inside a bottle with with 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:12.840 just a wig or a something sort of. I know 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:15.120 in Spanish Civil War they were using jars a lot 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:19.200 like jam jars. But when things started to develop, I 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:22.520 think is in the UK, so in Britain, and you 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:25.160 actually have this guy called Tom Wintringham who went to 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:27.120 Spain as a walk correspondent and decided to become a 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:31.360 soldier and then returned to the UK and tried to 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:33.360 share what he'd learned with British people right in this 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:36.200 article he wrote for a Picture Post, and he was 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:39.320 very much into Monotov cocktails is a great way of 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.400 fighting an invasion, much like actually the old guy you heard, 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:46.040 did you hear the guy who called into NPR recently? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:49.800 he was outstanding, just just turning NPR into our how 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:52.720 to do gorilla warfare. And so what they did they 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.480 made this thing called the number seventy six grenade, and 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:58.880 they made six million of them. I think Jesus Christ, 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:01.280 and they still in them. It's funny, they'll still find 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:02.920 them in like when they'll be digging the foundation for 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:04.800 a building, they'll be like, oh shit, this is not 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:08.000 a box of beer. And what those had was a 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:10.639 strip of rubber that they dropped in it. It was 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:13.119 in a bottle with a cap, and it had a 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.439 phosphorus ignitor actually, so you didn't have to light it, 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:19.160 you just hosted it. And yeah, and those are extremely effective. 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:24.040 The rubber dissolves and then that allows the flaming liquid 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:27.360 to adhere better to the person or thing that is hit. Right, 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:31.920 and you're almost like making a napalm bark, yes exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:34.480 and the phosphorus will last for a long time. It's 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:37.680 much less risky to the thrower. And you can also 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:41.040 have the whole box of them and just keep throwing them, right. 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:42.399 You don't have to light each one, you don't have 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:45.080 to have someone else like each one. So those seem 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.080 pretty effective. I don't know if they were ever really 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:51.439 used in anger, because obviously the Nazis never landed in 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:55.320 the UK, but yeah, that was that was a pretty 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:58.320 big development, and that kind of set the tone for 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:01.399 the other developments which I've seen, at least. I'm not 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:05.360 like a molotov expert. But people put sugar in them, 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.520 people put polystyrene in them, or what do you call that? 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:11.680 What does sugar in them do? I think it gives 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:15.639 it a higher viscosity and I think they sort of 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:20.080 it maybe melts when they are like sticks, and it 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:22.560 creates like a sticky kind of hot like like if 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:25.919 you're making toffee. I would imagine, Um, the big thing 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:29.400 I've seen people putting in them is various like plastics. Right, 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:32.320 So when you look at the you've seen these videos 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:34.760 of old ladies in Ukraine with cheese graters just grating 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:37.840 like packing styrofoam, and they put that in there, and 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.560 that that does the same thing, right, creates a more 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:44.199 viscous kind of napalm which adheres to the thing that 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:46.040 you throw it at. And that I think if you're 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:48.600 talking about persuading someone that their tank is on fire, 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:52.480 if it keeps burning for ten twenty seconds, you know 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:54.560 you don't have a very long time to get out 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:58.000 of a BMP, so you're going to start getting out. 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:00.480 I would imagine. Well, that does point to like interesting 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:03.520 reality of like not just this war all war, but 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:08.200 like specifically in the context of territorial kind of volunteers 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:13.280 who are on paper terribly out gunned. Um. But the 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.560 psychological dimension is that, like you said, if you can 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.399 convince people they may be in an armored vehicle that 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:21.679 has unquestioned supremacy over the partisans attacking them. But if 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:24.160 you can convince them they are on fire, they will 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:26.919 make decisions that lead them to no longer have the 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:30.359 advantage in terms of firepower. It's not impossible to do. Yeah, 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:32.119 I think you saw that. I think there's some footage 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:35.160 from my dad of them sort of ambushing some armored vehicles. 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:37.880 And yet once you throw half a dozen molotov cocktails 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:40.840 from above at windows, you can only get as people 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:42.680 to abandon their vehicle and run away. That's the goal. 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:44.400 If they get out, there are a lot more vulnerable 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:47.400 to further attacks from molotov cocktails or anything else. Right, 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:50.560 So yeah, I think it. It really plays into that 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:56.240 kind of guerrilla or sort of like underdog side of conflict. Yeah. 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:58.000 One of the things that's interesting to them about me. 0:19:58.040 --> 0:19:59.840 I mean, you and I just finished this series that 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.440 ould heavily with like three D printed weapons, homemade guns 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:04.679 and stuff. But you know, there's a lot that you, 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:08.520 as the state can do to reduce people's access to firearms, 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:11.639 or even to reduce people's access to like knives that 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:13.399 are bigger than kitchen knives. A lot you can do 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:16.800 to reduce people's access to conventional arms, but everywhere has 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:20.760 got liquor. Yeah, exactly, it's almost impossible to stop people 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:26.399 having them. Right. If you have gasoline, diesel, alcohol and 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:30.440 glass things and fabric and lighter, you have access to these. 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:34.440 So yeah, they're accessible to everyone, and they are incredibly effective. 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:36.760 Like they're probably the most effective thing that you could 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:40.160 make in your home if you were doing an insurgency. 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:45.359 You're fighting Russian invaders in this case. Yeah, well, James, 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:47.000 was there anything else you wanted to get into on 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:52.360 the subject of molotobs or other forms of cocktails? Yeah, 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:55.119 let me think I should probably say that it's probably 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:57.960 illegal to make them in the United States. I mean, 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:00.720 there are specific ways you legally hand but you you 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:03.320 need a number of different permits. Yeah. Yeah, you do 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:07.320 have to ask the government. So I probably wouldn't suggest 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:10.320 to do Yes, you have to I probably wouldn't suggest 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:13.560 doing that, But no, I think it's always interesting to 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:18.560 look at these like, if we want to move towards 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:21.480 a world where there is less authority more freedom, then 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:24.359