Speaker 1: So joining me now is somebody I have I always
Speaker 1: make a priority to read when he has one of
Speaker 1: his big deep dives in whatever news periodical he's working
Speaker 1: for at the time. Currently, Dexter Filkins is with The
Speaker 1: New Yorker these days and has been there for a while.
Speaker 1: He's probably our country's best sort of war correspondent in
Speaker 1: the written word these days. Yeah, I was just going
Speaker 1: to say, I don't think Dexter's going to stop me there,
Speaker 1: and he you know, you do it in such a
Speaker 1: way where it is it is both enlightening illuminating, but
Speaker 1: at the same time it lacks an agenda. And I
Speaker 1: mean that in a positive way. In our era of
Speaker 1: journalism where everybody's assuming there's an agenda behind every story,
Speaker 1: that is not how you work. You work more like
Speaker 1: an anthropologist, I think, in trying to put the puzzle together,
Speaker 1: unpack it, and things like that. And it's your most
Speaker 1: recent piece. Is what sort of drove me to to
Speaker 1: to get you on the pod? Here is America ready
Speaker 1: for the next war, which was really powered It seems
Speaker 1: like by lessons that military planners are learning from Israel
Speaker 1: and Ukraine at the moment. But Dexter welcome.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, and thanks for the nice intro.
Speaker 1: No, please, it's it's well deserved. And I learned a
Speaker 1: little something extra that you're you got you cut your
Speaker 1: teeth down in Miami back in the day.
Speaker 2: I miss Miami, you know.
Speaker 1: I what I say about Miami and I I love
Speaker 1: visiting and my daughter's a resident now. It's a great
Speaker 1: place to be from It's a it's a weird place
Speaker 1: to live. It's a tough place to live sometimes, but
Speaker 1: it's a Yes, they keep adding people, and they you know,
Speaker 1: you can't widen us one the ocean gets the the way,
Speaker 1: you know, or yeah, yeah, they haven't figured that out,
Speaker 1: but let's start is you know, it was a pretty
Speaker 1: provocative headline, is US Is the US ready for the
Speaker 1: next war? It feels like this is one of those
Speaker 1: where we're a big military superpower that suddenly is vulnerable
Speaker 1: to uh, small tech innovation. Is that the Is that
Speaker 1: the good subhead?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean I think it's everything's changing really fast,
Speaker 2: and I think it's been changing kind of under the
Speaker 2: radar for some time. But what's happened in the last
Speaker 2: couple of years is is Ukraine And that's just that's
Speaker 2: like a real time laboratory for for for for war,
Speaker 2: you know, uh, for war as it happens. And so
Speaker 2: everybody's been studying that war. The Pentagon has been studying
Speaker 2: that war. It's kind of unfolded in ways that are
Speaker 2: very very different. And then you have and then you
Speaker 2: have Israel, which is I think somewhat also under the radar,
Speaker 2: but they've made extensive use of artificial intelligence in targeting
Speaker 2: Hamas and Hesbola and Iran and just the most interesting ways.
Speaker 2: And you know, we can discuss that. There's sort of
Speaker 2: pros and cons and ups and downs, but those two things,
Speaker 2: I think kind of drones and unmanned systems, say in
Speaker 2: Ukraine and artificial intelligence in Israel is kind of changing
Speaker 2: everything really fast.
Speaker 1: How where are we on drone warfare? And on one hand,
Speaker 1: it was I remember when Barack Obama was accused of
Speaker 1: over using drones and over relying on drones, and it
Speaker 1: looked like we were ahead of the game. Are we
Speaker 1: no longer ahead of the game.
Speaker 2: I think we do okay with with you know, we're
Speaker 2: I should say we're catching up in kind of drones themselves.
Speaker 2: But I think I think the really big issue that
Speaker 2: the Pentagon is grappling with and I think, you know,
Speaker 2: the smart people are kind of panicking, and that is
Speaker 2: that the US military has built. What the US military
Speaker 2: that they've built, it essentially relies on really really expensive
Speaker 2: weapons that they don't build very many of. So like
Speaker 2: we have, you know, we have something like eleven aircraft carriers.
Speaker 2: They cost you know, fifteen billion dollars each, and they
Speaker 2: take it, they take a decade to make. We have
Speaker 2: F thirty fives that cost the fighter jets to cost
Speaker 2: one hundred million dollars each. And you know, just the
Speaker 2: other day in the in the Arabian Sea, two F
Speaker 2: thirty five slid off an aircraft carrier and fell into
Speaker 2: the water, you know, and they and they sank to
Speaker 2: the bottom and there, you know, there's two hundred million
Speaker 2: dollars just down the drain. And and so what's happened.
Speaker 2: That's us. And then what you what you see in
Speaker 2: Ukraine is and where like I visited this factory in
Speaker 2: Ukraine which I write about. They can make really really accurate,
Speaker 2: super lethal drones for five hundred bucks apiece, and they
Speaker 2: crag them out and crag them out and crack them out.
Speaker 2: And so if you're suddenly if you're an aircraft carrier
Speaker 2: that costs ten billion dollars, and what do you do
Speaker 2: if there's a thousand of those coming your way? And
Speaker 2: I think that's kind of that's what has gotten everybody's attention.
Speaker 1: So what's the you know, the infamous military industrial complex, right,
Speaker 1: which which essentially where defense contractors have successfully convinced members
Speaker 1: of Congress of how many jobs are created with all
Speaker 1: of these things, and it becomes all untouchable. But you
Speaker 1: it also strikes me is that this is why legacy
Speaker 1: weapons systems stay and never get replaced, and so that
Speaker 1: it gets layered, right, It's it's a total, it's a layering.
Speaker 1: I assume that's where we are at the moment, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So depending on itself is like an aircraft carrier,
Speaker 2: and so it's you know, sailing steadily in one direction
Speaker 2: and it's not easy to turn and it's certainly not
Speaker 2: easy to turn around, which is what they need to do.
Speaker 2: And and that, I mean, you hit the nail on
Speaker 2: the head. You can't suddenly wake up one morning and say,
Speaker 2: you know what, we're not going to build aircraft carriers anymore.
Speaker 2: That's thousands and thousands of jobs spread, you know, very
Speaker 2: precisely to factories all around the country, and so all
Speaker 2: the all the members of Congress wake up and say, no,
Speaker 2: hang on, hang on, hang out. We got to have
Speaker 2: that and so and so that's kind of that that's
Speaker 2: a big part of the problem, which is you've got
Speaker 2: the you've got some very smart people in the Pentagon,
Speaker 2: and they're saying, look, we need to change, we need
Speaker 2: to change really fast.
Speaker 1: Or do we still have smart people at the Pentagon?
Speaker 1: Dexter like that, there's a creature.
Speaker 2: So there are creatures. Many of them are creatures of
Speaker 2: kind of group think, but but there's a lot there's
Speaker 2: a lot of right people who realize what's going on,
Speaker 2: but they can't be heard and that and that's the
Speaker 2: problem because it gets drowned out by what we're talking about,
Speaker 2: which is, let's carry on with the status quo. Because
Speaker 2: the status quo, you know, employees five thousand people in
Speaker 2: my district and so that's hard to change. And it's
Speaker 2: and that's kind of like that's exactly what the Pentagon
Speaker 2: is kind of grappling with in Congress.
Speaker 1: I feel like you wrote a similar story fifteen years
Speaker 1: ago about the transition from conventional military to counter terrorism
Speaker 1: and in some ways that and that we were in
Speaker 1: a similar place. Then this belief that hey, we're not.
Speaker 1: We don't have the military. We don't have the military
Speaker 1: that we need to deal with the threats of today.
Speaker 1: And it is this has this not been a sort
Speaker 1: of a twenty five year problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point. I think we did. We
Speaker 2: woke up, you know, we woke up on September eleventh
Speaker 2: and said, oh my god, what do we do? Yeah,
Speaker 2: the military doesn't turn on a dime, it just doesn't,
Speaker 2: and so and so so we spend you know, the
Speaker 2: country spends nearly a trillion dollars a year. I mean
Speaker 2: it's like whatever, eight hundred and fifty billion dollar, which
Speaker 2: is unbelievable amount of money.
Speaker 1: Look, there is the reason why this zip code that
Speaker 1: I live in, Okay, in Arlington County. Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like it's surrounded. I mean I sit here. In the
Speaker 1: thirty five years that I've lived here, this has become
Speaker 1: one of the you know, these counties in Northern Virginia
Speaker 1: become three of the wealthiest counties in America, and they
Speaker 1: were not that way thirty five years ago. And it's
Speaker 1: all defense contractors. It is all depends contractors.
Speaker 2: Yep, and that those are like vested interests. But but
Speaker 2: that's the irony, which is, we spend so much money
Speaker 2: and we're not really getting a lot of bang for
Speaker 2: our bucket anymore. We're really not. And so all these
Speaker 2: efforts to kind of say, well, we gotta we gotta
Speaker 2: do something different, it's really hard, even though even though
Speaker 2: there's like a mountain of cash to draw from, you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's basically it's all tied up.
Speaker 1: Is there Is there a little initiatives or is a
Speaker 1: starting to work?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, And they're little, they're little, give me little,
Speaker 2: you know, little relatives of the Pentagon budget is like
Speaker 2: can actually be pretty big.
Speaker 1: So it's a ten billion dollar program, right, yeah, And.
Speaker 2: It's you know, you talk to people to Pentagon, and
Speaker 2: it's it's hard to you know, it's hard to get
Speaker 2: to the Pentagon. It's hard to get inside of it.
Speaker 2: It's hard to find the right people. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: just such a vast place. But like you talk to
Speaker 2: them and they they talk about these kind of tiny
Speaker 2: initiatives and they're you know, they're very kind of rightly
Speaker 2: proud of them. But like you think, boy, that ain't
Speaker 2: that much, but they're doing it. There's a thing. There's
Speaker 2: a thing. For instance, there's a program called the Replicator Initiative,
Speaker 2: and it's basically the Pentagon making drones, you know, the
Speaker 2: Pentagon making cheap accurate Do.
Speaker 1: We have factories that make drones in this country.
Speaker 2: Yes, we do, not not enough. They're like the company
Speaker 2: that I wrote about, which is called androill Uh and
Speaker 2: they're they're a very interesting company run by the one
Speaker 2: by this very interesting kind of mad scientists. They're building.
Speaker 2: They're building a big factory outside of Columbus, Ohio, for instance.
Speaker 2: So and I because I think one of the things
Speaker 2: that one of the things that's also become clear is
Speaker 2: that our defense industrial base, you know, along with the
Speaker 2: rest of our industrial base, but particularly with defense, it's
Speaker 2: just been thinned out. There's not that much there. Like
Speaker 2: there's a I mentioned this way down in the story,
Speaker 2: and it's a long story, so everybody will be forgiven
Speaker 2: for not making it to the end. But there's a
Speaker 2: company called Govini, and Govini is a software company, and
Speaker 2: the Pentagon came to them and they said, look, find
Speaker 2: out trace all of our supply lines for all of
Speaker 2: our weapons systems and tell us come back and tell
Speaker 2: us where they came from. Fifty thousand supply lines go
Speaker 2: to China for and everything from you know, B one bombers,
Speaker 2: B two bombers, F thirty fives, microchip everything. Fifty thousand
Speaker 2: supply chains go to China for our weapons. And so
Speaker 2: we just don't make this stuff here, you know, we
Speaker 2: still't make it. And so again, like like these conversations
Speaker 2: are happening, but you know, like change is very slow,
Speaker 2: but everybody's kind of there is a kind of collective
Speaker 2: awakening like, oh my god, this.
Speaker 1: Is the leverage China has over this in these trade disputes.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. It's like all you have to do
Speaker 2: is turn it off, you know, which they would do,
Speaker 2: of course, I mean, of course they would turn it off. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: we're in a lot of trouble.
Speaker 1: Obviously, there's been rhetoric that we're trying to reverse this.
Speaker 1: Have you seen much evidence yet, Yeah.
Speaker 2: There's some, there's some. It's just again it's like, I mean,
Speaker 2: you know this as a denizen of Washington, but change
Speaker 2: comes very slowly, and particularly to a bureaucracy the size
Speaker 2: of the Pentagon. You know, you know, the famous story
Speaker 2: of the Pentagon is you know, like the did you
Speaker 2: hear the one about the kid that went in as
Speaker 2: a private you know, when he got lost in the
Speaker 2: Pentagon he emerged like ten years later as like a
Speaker 2: bird colonel, you know. But it's like and it's true,
Speaker 2: but it's like that is kind of it's a good
Speaker 2: metaphor because the place is so gigantic and unwieldly it's
Speaker 2: hard to tell what goes on inside. You can't get
Speaker 2: your arms around it, and it doesn't move, you know that,
Speaker 2: And that's kind of that's basically what everybody's waken up
Speaker 2: to right now. And I think that you know that
Speaker 2: the danger is the danger is like we don't move
Speaker 2: fast enough, you know, and and something bad happens, you know,
Speaker 2: something bad, like you know Taiwan, say.
Speaker 1: Well, let's tuck Taiwan. Because you referenced a war game,
Speaker 1: I actually held a war game. I convened one on
Speaker 1: China and Taiwan about three years ago as a as
Speaker 1: a little streaming special report that we did Who won?
Speaker 1: Who wins every Time? Right? China? You know it was
Speaker 1: they even used a nuclear weapon sort of they didn't
Speaker 1: launch it anywhere, but they exploded one just to show
Speaker 1: that they could off the coast of the Pacific well
Speaker 1: in this war game. But what was clear was it's
Speaker 1: a huge logistics challenge, right to turn Taiwan, to do
Speaker 1: for Taiwan what we did for Ukraine. You know, we
Speaker 1: had seventy years of NATO to essentially streamline supply lines
Speaker 1: and coordination and all of that. There is no Asian NATO,
Speaker 1: right and you just see that. You know, if this
Speaker 1: is a hot war in twenty twenty seven, which is
Speaker 1: what some generals have predicted, is America ready to help
Speaker 1: Taiwan survive it?
Speaker 2: We're not ready. We're not ready. I don't know what
Speaker 2: you know. And you you know, for this, as so
Speaker 2: many other issues, we have to peer into the mind
Speaker 2: of Donald Trump and wonder, uh, you know, what would
Speaker 2: he decide to defend Taiwan or not?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think would be shocked. I look, and I
Speaker 1: say this, forget Donald Trump, dexter. I always say this.
Speaker 1: If I put that on a poll question and I
Speaker 1: asked the American people whether our sons and daughters should
Speaker 1: be sent to defend this island, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: think you'd get the majority. I mean it isn't This
Speaker 1: isn't something that I think America would be signed up for.
Speaker 1: They'd sign up for a direct war with China, but
Speaker 1: not not a proxy one.
Speaker 2: Well, I agree, I agree with you on the on
Speaker 2: the politics of it. I think I think when you
Speaker 2: when you start to contemplate, say, a successful Chinese capture
Speaker 2: of Taiwan, it would be catastrophic for the United States,
Speaker 2: and and and that takes I mean, I think that's true.
Speaker 2: And I think if you just start with it's crazy Taiwan,
Speaker 2: I mean, who knew I didn't know this. Taiwan makes
Speaker 2: ninety percent of the world's advanced microchips, and so what
Speaker 2: that means effectively is that, I mean they're all made
Speaker 2: in one place. They're all made in one factory called
Speaker 2: TSMC in Taiwan.
Speaker 1: Talk about another like head scratcher, Why did you do that?
Speaker 1: Happen for this long? And you know who who gave
Speaker 1: Taiwan the resources to do this? The United States of America? Right, yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 2: It's a you know, it's a it's a super enterprising
Speaker 2: country and people work incredibly hard, and but like the.
Speaker 1: Necessity is the mother of invention, right A innovention?
Speaker 2: Yes, and the and the but the advanced industrial economies,
Speaker 2: I think it's fair to say would be they would
Speaker 2: come to a halt. I mean, if not, and if
Speaker 2: not a halt, they would be severely constricted. If Taiwan,
Speaker 2: if the micro chips of Taiwan makes suddenly were no
Speaker 2: longer available, And that's just you can't, like, if you're
Speaker 2: the president of United States, you have go God, like, what,
Speaker 2: you know, what are we going to do? And in fact,
Speaker 2: I remember I was in Taiwan a few years ago
Speaker 2: and and the joke was, you know, if the Chinese invade,
Speaker 2: what's the safest place going to be in Taiwan? And
Speaker 2: they said, well, it's the basement of TSMC.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, nobody's going to on the Chinese can't afford
Speaker 1: to lose access to that either, right, Yeah, and like,
Speaker 1: but but.
Speaker 2: Just to answer your question more fully, I think, you know,
Speaker 2: I think that if if the Chinese were to capture Taiwan,
Speaker 2: I mean, their their goal pretty clearly, they've made it
Speaker 2: very clear, is to basically push the United States out
Speaker 2: of the Western Pacific.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Uh, that's Japan, that's the Philippines. Those are our friends
Speaker 2: and allies and fellow democracies and so and.
Speaker 1: Hopefully we've seen in a lot of trouble are in
Speaker 1: there too, right, Yeah, I mean that was the question
Speaker 1: I remember in this war game with the Assi sign on,
Speaker 1: with the South Koreans work with the Japanese to do this,
Speaker 1: like there isn't this isn't like the alliance that the
Speaker 1: US would need isn't necessarily rock solid yet? Right?
Speaker 2: No? No, not at all, not at all. And that
Speaker 2: in fact that I wrote about in the piece there's
Speaker 2: a little bit I went to a wargame. God, it
Speaker 2: was like really scary, as was probably the one you did. Yeah,
Speaker 2: a lot of people died, They got out of control
Speaker 2: very very quickly. But one of those one of those
Speaker 2: questions was like what are the Japanese going to do?
Speaker 2: Are they going to jump in on our side?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: What's the Philippines going to do? What are the Chinese
Speaker 2: going to do? Are the Chinese gonna Are they going
Speaker 2: to strike the American mainland? Which they can do? They
Speaker 2: didn't in this in this war game. They did not.
Speaker 1: Did they get I'm curious in your wargame, did the
Speaker 1: North Koreans get involved?
Speaker 2: No? No, But that was.
Speaker 1: Another fear in our war game that the Chinese.
Speaker 2: Interesting that the guy who's running the war game this
Speaker 2: is at the think tank Center for Strategic International Studies,
Speaker 2: he said, okay, no no nuclear weapons today. No, so.
Speaker 1: Okay then, but they do.
Speaker 2: Like I know, they just ran one with nukes available
Speaker 2: if you wanted to use them. But as it happened
Speaker 2: the wargame that that I went to, and it it
Speaker 2: didn't start with an invasion of Taiwan. It started started
Speaker 2: very slowly. It was a blockade. It was a Chinese blockade.
Speaker 2: Some American planes got shot down. Well I mean the
Speaker 2: they blockaded and then blockaded Taiwan. But then once the
Speaker 2: shooting started, it just took off, you know, it just
Speaker 2: took off. And so you know, we were striking China
Speaker 2: and they they didn't strike the mainland, but but they
Speaker 2: they destroyed like a quarter of the American air force. Uh,
Speaker 2: thousands of people died on each side, you know. According
Speaker 2: to this, I thought, pretty pretty realistic wargame. We stopped
Speaker 2: the war game after like four go rounds. Like it
Speaker 2: was ugly, ugly, you know, hideous, not something you want
Speaker 2: to ever happen in real life.
Speaker 1: Another fear factor that I've heard about that that that
Speaker 1: we haven't brought up yet is low orbit space and satellites,
Speaker 1: and that are we that that would be among the
Speaker 1: first things China might do and whether you know which
Speaker 1: is the impetus of the space force. You know, people
Speaker 1: laughed at it at the time, but this is a
Speaker 1: serious issue, security in low orbit space and and and
Speaker 1: our satellites. I know this was a big concern about
Speaker 1: five or six years ago. Have things gotten better? Do
Speaker 1: we feel more confident that we could have security and
Speaker 1: superiority in low orbit?
Speaker 2: Nobody, nobody could answer that question for me, and I
Speaker 2: think everybody's really nervous about that. But would I mean,
Speaker 2: I think it's a it's a huge issue because when
Speaker 2: you think about it, let's say the worst starts and
Speaker 2: suddenly either you know, either we shoot down their satellites
Speaker 2: or they shoot down ours. You know, the lights go
Speaker 2: out right like you're done, you know.
Speaker 1: But it's like, we're so reliant on these lowerbit satellites
Speaker 1: now we haven't fully realized that. Yeah, we used to
Speaker 1: keep the lights on without satellites, but that isn't how
Speaker 1: it works anymore.
Speaker 2: No, Like we would be dead in the water, as
Speaker 2: would they. And so in a way, it's kind of
Speaker 2: mutual assured destruction. In fact, the one answer I did
Speaker 2: get from a couple of people was nobody wants to
Speaker 2: go there because if you if you ended up shooting
Speaker 2: a lot of satellites, low orbit satellites, it would make
Speaker 2: essentially it would make a band around the Earth kind
Speaker 2: of uninhabitable to other satellites for years and years and years.
Speaker 2: And no, and nobody wants to go.
Speaker 1: The entire planet goes into the dark ages.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's like, yeah, yeah, I mean, it's
Speaker 2: like a science fiction movie. But but I think the
Speaker 2: short answer is everybody's trying to figure that out, you know, militarily,
Speaker 2: like how do we destroy their satellites? But they're doing
Speaker 2: the same to us, And so I think everybody's trying
Speaker 2: to be like kind of you know, reasonable about it.
Speaker 1: What do we think the Chinese have learned from the
Speaker 1: Ukraine War? Right, we're learning something from the Ukrainians. One
Speaker 1: would assume, you know, they've never tested their military.
Speaker 2: That's right. I mean, I think they have that tiny
Speaker 2: little war with nasty little war Vietnam that lasted a
Speaker 2: couple of months, you know, like in the seventies. But
Speaker 2: they're watching the war. Yeah, well, I think I think
Speaker 2: that's pretty clear that the Chinese are watching the war
Speaker 2: in Ukraine, but they're they're watching us, you know, they
Speaker 2: want to see what we do. And I think I
Speaker 2: think what I mean by that is, you know, are
Speaker 2: the Americans is going to tough it out here or
Speaker 2: are they going to are they going to get bored
Speaker 2: and give up and go home?
Speaker 1: And the signal that hey, go grab Taiwan, you might
Speaker 1: be able to get it without firing.
Speaker 2: A shot exactly. And so so there's one of the
Speaker 2: debates that's going on inside the White House. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's like happening as we speak.
Speaker 1: And I say that, and it's funny. I'm glad you
Speaker 1: put up. Look, there's a lot of debates that don't
Speaker 1: happen that should happen in this White House. On this
Speaker 1: there's a real debate because there actually are multiple factions,
Speaker 1: right Rubios and Rubio does have his ear to an extent,
Speaker 1: and then you have the Vance Wing and some of
Speaker 1: these other isolations that are in a different spot. And
Speaker 1: it's a real debate.
Speaker 2: That exactly right it is. It's a real debate and
Speaker 2: you can see like one day one side wins in
Speaker 2: the the other one.
Speaker 1: No, I mean you see it in Trump's tweets sometimes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And like I think here.
Speaker 2: I think that you know, you have the one faction,
Speaker 2: what's called the Vance faction, who cares about Ukraine. Forget
Speaker 2: about Ukraine. There's the number three guy at the Pentagon Bridge, Colby,
Speaker 2: under Secretary for Policy. You know, he would say if
Speaker 2: he were on your show, he'd say, we have to
Speaker 2: get ready for China, like everything for China. So like Ukraine,
Speaker 2: the Europeans have to worry about that. We got to
Speaker 2: get we got to get ready. I think the problem
Speaker 2: with that argument, which you know, I'd like to hear
Speaker 2: him talk, But the problem with that argument is that
Speaker 2: the Chinese are watching very very closely, and I think
Speaker 2: they're watching our resolve as much as they are our capabilities.
Speaker 2: And so if we abandon an ally in the middle
Speaker 2: of Europe, what does that say about our resolve to say,
Speaker 2: support our friends in the Pacific? You know, and I
Speaker 2: think that the Chinese are taking notes for sure.
Speaker 1: I assume that Japanese are taken note as well. Yes, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, and you know they're obviously investing
Speaker 1: in military, doing more investments than they ever had before.
Speaker 1: It seems almost as a way of trying to preserve
Speaker 1: the relationship with US.
Speaker 2: Yes, though there you know, there's it's a big question
Speaker 2: if if the usn't go and China go to war
Speaker 2: over Taiwan, what does Japan do. They're not obligated to
Speaker 2: jump in. I think I think the chances are pretty
Speaker 2: great that they would because if only because there's these
Speaker 2: giant American bases in Japan, you know, Air Force, Navy, everything, Yakuska,
Speaker 2: and certainly I think almost certainly in a war with
Speaker 2: the United States, the Chinese would attack those bases. That's
Speaker 2: Japanese soil. So I think the odds are pretty strong
Speaker 2: that the Japanese would get in. But and that's the
Speaker 2: that's the thing that's so scary like about these war
Speaker 2: games is like it goes from being this like nothing
Speaker 2: thing in the straits of Taiwan and it's like it
Speaker 2: within like forty eight hours, you're in World War three.
Speaker 2: You know, it just escalates so quickly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's go to Israel, uh and their use of
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence, which you know, when I was reading about it,
Speaker 1: you know, there was a there's you're just sitting there
Speaker 1: going there's a there's a part of me that just
Speaker 1: is scared and nervous that a computer is deciding who
Speaker 1: to kill. Right, You're just sitting there going and once
Speaker 1: a computer decides, there's no human to stop it if
Speaker 1: it turns out you had bad intel, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know AI AI is. You know, it's a probability model,
Speaker 1: and I get that, but not everybody understands that, and
Speaker 1: they you know, there is this almost you know, the
Speaker 1: fear I have is there's almost like this belief in
Speaker 1: a super capability of AI that you they're never wrong.
Speaker 1: And it's like okay, and it does feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: the Israelis are relying on it. Now, is it really
Speaker 1: this reliable?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I think the short answers it's not
Speaker 2: always reliable. I mean, I think we can see the
Speaker 2: evidence on the ground. But I think what's so interesting
Speaker 2: about the Israelis you're doing? And I'll just sort of
Speaker 2: walk you through as it was explained to me before
Speaker 2: every war that Israel has had with Gaza, with Hasbola,
Speaker 2: they have a target list. You know, they have like
Speaker 2: two thousand names and like and their name, their names,
Speaker 2: they're people. There's a file there's a photo like we're
Speaker 2: going to kill Abu Ahmed. The moment the balloon goes up,
Speaker 2: that guy's dead, we're going after him. There's like two
Speaker 2: thousand of those. So what happens in the current war,
Speaker 2: the one that started in October twenty twenty three, the
Speaker 2: Israeli shot that target list in a couple of days.
Speaker 2: They went after everybody, and they wanted to keep going.
Speaker 2: And so this is where AI comes in. So AI
Speaker 2: is essentially identifying people who they don't know, like who
Speaker 2: is that guy in the ground, And so what AI
Speaker 2: does gathers like everything drone footage, social media posts, uh,
Speaker 2: telephone records, property records, and so it says, we don't
Speaker 2: know who that guy is, but he's going into a
Speaker 2: house that like Hamas uses, his brother's in jamas and
Speaker 2: yesterday morning he was on the phone with another guy
Speaker 2: who's in Amas. So so the AI machine spits out
Speaker 2: this target and it's basically a coordinate hit this and that,
Speaker 2: and so the Israelis will say, you know, they'll pound
Speaker 2: the table when they say this. They'll say, like, it's
Speaker 2: the computer's not deciding, you know, the human always has
Speaker 2: has the decision making power. But it's like yeah, but
Speaker 2: if you get the recommendation, like how many times are
Speaker 2: they detailing that? Now that again there's Raelis will say,
Speaker 2: you know, we only we only hit the target that
Speaker 2: AI recommends, you know, one in every five times or
Speaker 2: one in every ten. But still, you know, there's been
Speaker 2: a lot of there's been a lot of mistakes for sure.
Speaker 1: What you know, there's been some big announcements that you have,
Speaker 1: like Puenteer in particular, is going to be more involved
Speaker 1: in the Pentagon. Obviously they've been pretty involved with what
Speaker 1: Israel has been doing. What what is it that Palenteer
Speaker 1: can do?
Speaker 2: Well, now, that's like it's such a great question because
Speaker 2: it's so basic, and what Palenteer does is so basic.
Speaker 2: I mean it's super important and it's really difficult, but
Speaker 2: it's like really basic all Palenteer does. Somebody describe it
Speaker 2: to me as they said, like you know Anderil, you
Speaker 2: know the company that makes drones. They're the front end.
Speaker 2: We're the back end. They're they're like the back end
Speaker 2: they Pollunteer basically connects computer systems and brings all the
Speaker 2: data into one place. And so at a place like
Speaker 2: well if if in a place like Washington, where they're
Speaker 2: now doing billions of dollars with their contracts, billions they
Speaker 2: you know, if they go to the Pentagon and the
Speaker 2: think and says, look, we've got the CIA, we have
Speaker 2: the National Intelligence Agency, we have UH, the the National
Speaker 2: Reconnaissance Agency, we have the Geospatial Satellite Agency, all these
Speaker 2: different agencies, all these different satellites, all these different sensors,
Speaker 2: and none of them talk to each other. Like they're
Speaker 2: all completely different. So if you're trying to you know,
Speaker 2: I hate to go there, but if you're if you're
Speaker 2: trying to run a war in the Pacific, you need
Speaker 2: to do you need to have all of them. And
Speaker 2: so literally none of these systems talk to each other.
Speaker 2: They don't communicate with each other.
Speaker 1: Don't let me push back on that. Now here's what somebody,
Speaker 1: a cybersecurity person would say, Hey, that's a feature not above.
Speaker 2: That's a really good point. That's a really good point.
Speaker 1: Like they operate a big fear, right, the big fear
Speaker 1: I went knee deep into in the cyst sence and
Speaker 1: the cybersecurity folks, and a weird connection with a parent
Speaker 1: friend of you know, one of these weird parent connections
Speaker 1: you end up learning more about out a certain part
Speaker 1: and that, you know, because when you look at the
Speaker 1: government and think, hey, why isn't there sort of more
Speaker 1: shared cybersecurity, it would be yeah, well here's the problem.
Speaker 1: Do you want one agency down for a day or
Speaker 1: do you want the entire federal government shutdown with the
Speaker 1: cyber attack and so and I assume that's you know,
Speaker 1: times one hundred in our national security.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. I mean you hear. The great example I
Speaker 2: got was about how hacked up and chopped up the
Speaker 2: Pentagon is, and say said, look, if you're if you're
Speaker 2: a pilot in an F thirty five flying around and
Speaker 2: there's a pilot right next to you in an F eighteen,
Speaker 2: they can't talk to each other. So the only way,
Speaker 2: the only way they can communicate is like right on
Speaker 2: pieces of paper and like hold it up to the windshield.
Speaker 2: You know, these things cost one hundred million dollars each.
Speaker 2: You know. But I think the I think the imperative,
Speaker 2: as they would say, is that the modern war as
Speaker 2: they see it, will require really really rapid decision making
Speaker 2: and rapid coordination of all these assets. Which is to say,
Speaker 2: if you can, if you can imagine as they're trying
Speaker 2: to do. If you can imagine a fleet of Chinese
Speaker 2: ships traveling through the Pacific, there's like three or four
Speaker 2: different satellites that have to work together in order to
Speaker 2: target those ships. Uh, and and so that and and
Speaker 2: you know, guide the guide the weapons to them, and
Speaker 2: they and and so it's it's almost like a ballet.
Speaker 2: And so that that ballet is like not possible at
Speaker 2: the moment. It's just it would take a long time. No.
Speaker 1: And then what you're describing though, is like I'm having
Speaker 1: a warped flashback to the movie War Games, where suddenly
Speaker 1: it is computers essentially playing a game with each other
Speaker 1: while us humans watch.
Speaker 2: Look, I think some of this stuff is pretty scary
Speaker 2: when you when you play it out. And I you know,
Speaker 2: the Brian Schimp, who's this incredibly smart guy that runs
Speaker 2: and Orill the Weapons Company, he described the scenario and
Speaker 2: he said, imagine, you know, like a big area in
Speaker 2: the Pacific. Let's say it's you know, thirty miles by
Speaker 2: thirty miles, and let's say there's a squadron of Chinese
Speaker 2: ships that's moving through it. Now, you know, the Pacific's
Speaker 2: a big place. Let's say there's a squadron of ships.
Speaker 2: What we want to be able to do is fire
Speaker 2: a bunch of missiles at those ships and that's it,
Speaker 2: and then sit back, basically, because we're going to assume
Speaker 2: that we will be cut off from communications with all
Speaker 2: of our weapons anyway, because the Chinese will be jamming everything,
Speaker 2: but that those weapons individually will be able to find
Speaker 2: the ships. They'll be able to figure out with each
Speaker 2: other so that they don't duplicate each other's efforts, and
Speaker 2: they'll be able to do these things on their own,
Speaker 2: which means like thinking and talking. And you know, they've
Speaker 2: got brains, these these these weapons, and so it's not
Speaker 2: difficult to imagine that getting out of control. It's not
Speaker 2: that hard. You know, Like what happens if they what
Speaker 2: happens if the ships aren't there? They go somewhere else,
Speaker 2: you know, or they turn around? I mean, I you know,
Speaker 2: like what happens? Yeah, I mean to say nothing of like,
Speaker 2: how do you know that ship is a battleship and
Speaker 2: not a hospital ship? You know?
Speaker 1: Is is it? Palenteer, that's the the main UH company
Speaker 1: help in the Israelis it's one It's one of them,
Speaker 1: It's one of them. Palenteer does this it's it's amazing,
Speaker 1: it really is.
Speaker 2: I sat in the Palenteer office in Washington and they've
Speaker 2: got they've got a bunch of different offices. But because
Speaker 2: I said, like, you know what, can you just start
Speaker 2: showing me what you're doing, you know, And so they
Speaker 2: took me in this room and it was a huge map,
Speaker 2: an aerial map of eastern Ukraine. And they said, look,
Speaker 2: this is just a notional map. It's not like a
Speaker 2: real time thing. But basically it was everything that you
Speaker 2: could possibly see on the ground. You could see it
Speaker 2: the Russian military formations, the Ukrainian military formations, all the
Speaker 2: communications that were happening. And then so you know, we
Speaker 2: were just looking at this map and he said, the
Speaker 2: guy Palterer, said, let's go, let's go down to the ground.
Speaker 2: Take a closer look. He's like that thing right there,
Speaker 2: what's that that looks like a tank? That looks like
Speaker 2: a Russian tank? Do you want to take out that
Speaker 2: Russian tank? Let's see what's available to take out that
Speaker 2: Russian tank. So then he clicked on something and then
Speaker 2: it was like, well, there's some drones up here that
Speaker 2: we could use, or there's some artillery we could use.
Speaker 2: But you know, the drones, the Russian tanks are kind
Speaker 2: of a low priority target. So we're going to use
Speaker 2: a drone, you have to wait for a while. Why
Speaker 2: don't we use the artillery. That's a lot faster. Click click,
Speaker 2: click was done. We didn't. We didn't, As it happens,
Speaker 2: we didn't blow that tank up. But that's kind of
Speaker 2: what they do. So all of the satellites, sensors, every
Speaker 2: every piece of information you could imagine was being channeled
Speaker 2: into that screen. And that's green is called Maven by
Speaker 2: the way. That's that's the problem. And the palent here,
Speaker 2: I mean, really, to their credit, they gave it to
Speaker 2: the Ukrainians. They just like gave it to them when
Speaker 2: the war started. They said, just take it, will help
Speaker 2: you run it. You're going to need this. And the
Speaker 2: Ukrainians use it. But but the Americans used that, like
Speaker 2: the Pentagon uses that Maven all over the place. And
Speaker 2: it's software, but it's like incredibly effective.
Speaker 1: How much does this desensitize war? I'm sorry, how much
Speaker 1: does this desensitize war? You know, if you see it
Speaker 1: as a video game board, I mean, I'm sorry to
Speaker 1: be calling it that, but that's what, right, it's you know, you're, you're,
Speaker 1: you're it's a target, it's not a human, right, and
Speaker 1: so it's this extra you know. I know, this was
Speaker 1: a conversation that was had about fifteen years ago when
Speaker 1: these drone pilots in Nevada, Yeah, we're killing people in
Speaker 1: f a Stan in Pakistan and then going you know, oh,
Speaker 1: all right, my shifts up and now I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: you know, and some of them internalized it, some of
Speaker 1: them didn't. I mean, this is an entirely and I
Speaker 1: don't know, like, how does the Pentagon deal with that?
Speaker 1: Is there? Do they even think about those things?
Speaker 2: I think so? But but as you say, I mean,
Speaker 2: that's it's a it feels remote and it looks remote,
Speaker 2: and you know it is remote, and.
Speaker 1: And it makes it easier to do and you're not you're.
Speaker 2: Not hearing the screams. Yeah, that that that is for sure.
Speaker 2: And like the for instance, when I was in Israel,
Speaker 2: I had a long conversation with a targeter. He was
Speaker 2: one of the guys that was basically pulling the trigger,
Speaker 2: and he was he was explaining me how AI works,
Speaker 2: and he said, you know it, you know, grinds all
Speaker 2: this information and then it spits out a target and
Speaker 2: it says like do you you know you should hit
Speaker 2: this target? Eighty percent certainty that it's a bad guy.
Speaker 2: And then like you know, he talks a couple be
Speaker 2: blowing like signs off on it, and like we we
Speaker 2: had this whole conversation over like a really nice lunch,
Speaker 2: like not far from the Mediterranean in tel Aviv. You know,
Speaker 2: it doesn't make it.
Speaker 1: Full setting, right, tel Aviv doesn't make me a Miami guy.
Speaker 1: I remember the first time I went to tele Aviv,
Speaker 1: I went, hey, this is Miami beach.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes it is.
Speaker 3: My look, yeah, well this is a good transition to
Speaker 3: uh military recruitment.
Speaker 1: This has been an ongoing problem, both quality and quantity.
Speaker 1: Any has this turned around at all? And is there
Speaker 1: a concern that it's recruitment's getting say politicized.
Speaker 2: It has turned around. It has turned around, and I
Speaker 2: think Donald Trump would take credit for that, and and
Speaker 2: he he, he may be entitled to it. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's very it's very difficult to understand. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: not it's not where it needs to be. But you know,
Speaker 2: we can sort of talk about all those all those
Speaker 2: reasons why. But I wrote about this problem like a
Speaker 2: year and a half ago when it was really really
Speaker 2: at a low, and it is. It's like they, you know,
Speaker 2: they can't get people to join, and.
Speaker 1: There's nothing like an economic downturn that will increase military recruiting.
Speaker 2: I mean, thing that shocked me, the thing that shocked
Speaker 2: me about about reporting that story was I you know
Speaker 2: that the numbers are astounding. It's something like three quarters
Speaker 2: of American men and women between the ages of eighteen
Speaker 2: and thirty four, sort of prime physical years of your life,
Speaker 2: do not qualify for military service because they're either they're
Speaker 2: too overweight, or they have some prior illness or some
Speaker 2: kind of mental disability can't pass the test. Three quarters,
Speaker 2: like gone, seventy seven percent of young people in this
Speaker 2: country are out right away.
Speaker 4: Have our standards changed or I mean, well, what's what
Speaker 4: I did? Was I the army. The Army, like you know,
Speaker 4: they're they're the guys that are dealing with this are
Speaker 4: freaking out.
Speaker 2: So they they set up I can't remember. It's like
Speaker 2: it's called something has some glorified name, like the Future
Speaker 2: Soldier Training Courts or something, but it's basically a fat farm,
Speaker 2: you know, And so you come there you show up
Speaker 2: if you're overweight, because you know, you can't just you
Speaker 2: can't be like obese and join the military. You have
Speaker 2: to be like your weight has to has to you know,
Speaker 2: it has to match essentially your hide. And there's you know,
Speaker 2: there's various.
Speaker 1: The Army is going to be kind of like the greatest,
Speaker 1: biggest procure of Ozempica.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I well they haven't, they haven't gone there yet,
Speaker 2: but you know, I think that's next, right, but if
Speaker 2: you so so many you know, close to three quarters
Speaker 2: of the kids can't qualify because they're too overweight. And
Speaker 2: so they've set up a kind of pre boot camp
Speaker 2: boot camp and basically you're there to lose weight. And
Speaker 2: so I went down to this camp and you know,
Speaker 2: the great thing about and it's like, you know, you
Speaker 2: you kind of fall in love with America when you
Speaker 2: go to a place like this, because the kids are amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they talked about anything, They talked about their whole lives.
Speaker 2: And like I remember talking to this one woman, she's
Speaker 2: like nineteen, you know, and she came in and she
Speaker 2: was really really overweight, and I can't remember, you know,
Speaker 2: she weighed like, you know, two hundred and fifty pounds
Speaker 2: and she was gonna make way Like she was all
Speaker 2: the way down. She was like two pounds away.
Speaker 1: She had show the way you're it was amazing.
Speaker 2: But you know, she was like she's from some small
Speaker 2: town in Ohio and like, you know, like her dad
Speaker 2: had like a band in the family, and like she'd
Speaker 2: helped like you know, raise like her brothers and like,
Speaker 2: and you know, she's like, I was just eating like
Speaker 2: really bad food and like and playing video games all day.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of like, you know, it's like the
Speaker 2: world we live in, you know. And so, but but
Speaker 2: what was really touching about hanging out with all these
Speaker 2: nineteen year olds is like, you know, they're they're super motivated,
Speaker 2: like they want to do it, like they really want it,
Speaker 2: and like they were they were doing it, you know,
Speaker 2: they they were doing it.
Speaker 1: What sizes of force do we need? Like we just
Speaker 1: spent half an hour talking about her, you know, right,
Speaker 1: so and at the same time we're saying, we're our
Speaker 1: recruitment's down, but what do we need?
Speaker 2: You know that it's a great question because when you
Speaker 2: you know, you the first half of this conversation we
Speaker 2: talked about, you know, drones and AI and automating all
Speaker 2: these things that don't need people. And I remember this guy.
Speaker 2: I was talking to this general and we were talking
Speaker 2: about just the subject, and he said, you know, we
Speaker 2: really need we need like cyber we need like cyber
Speaker 2: warriors and any kind of pause and he said, like
Speaker 2: fat kids welcome. That kids welcome, But the truth is
Speaker 2: like fat kids aren't welcome. But you know, it makes
Speaker 2: you think you're thinking, like, look, if all we're doing
Speaker 2: is like or if a good chunk of the military
Speaker 2: now is basically just you know, doing cyber war and
Speaker 2: radar and tracking and satellites, do they really need to
Speaker 2: be able to fit? You know, they're not gonna you know,
Speaker 2: they don't have to do a ten mile hike. And
Speaker 2: then you know, cut somebody's throat, so like do do
Speaker 2: they really need that? And so that's one debate and
Speaker 2: then the other as you say, like why do we
Speaker 2: need all these people anyway to do what? Like I
Speaker 2: don't think seems like it's a good bet we're not
Speaker 2: going to a rock or Afghanistan anytime. Sint like the
Speaker 2: country's like, no way, We're.
Speaker 1: Not nation building for at least the rest of my
Speaker 1: I guess the rest of our time on earth. Right,
Speaker 1: maybe you know, maybe that'll come back in twenty five years,
Speaker 1: but that ain't.
Speaker 2: Happening once everybody forgets about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, we did Vietnam and this, we tried that.
Speaker 1: Then you know, thirty years later we try it again.
Speaker 1: I guess maybe every thirty years we touk ourselves into it. Well,
Speaker 1: that then dovetails to fractured alliances. Right, what made our
Speaker 1: military so strong was NATO and these incredible you know,
Speaker 1: that's sort of the It's obviously the biggest symbol of
Speaker 1: our alliances, but frankly seamless. It was becoming a seamless alliance.
Speaker 1: And now obviously the rise of nationalism. It's not just
Speaker 1: here in the UK, it's everywhere. And the rise of
Speaker 1: nationalism is going to mean less cooperation even among our allies.
Speaker 1: What kind of peril does this put our military in?
Speaker 2: Well, like, we're not strong enough that we don't need friends.
Speaker 2: You know, nobody is. They got to have friends. It's
Speaker 2: good to have friends. And I think, look there, you
Speaker 2: know Trump, Trump has spent the last six months bashing
Speaker 2: the Europeans, our friends, our best friends who we need.
Speaker 2: But so's it's a little it's a little hard to
Speaker 2: kind of figure out that whole act because you know,
Speaker 2: Trump is very crude, he's overbearing. Uh, he threatens to
Speaker 2: leave the Alliance. He's like, we don't need you, screw you,
Speaker 2: We're out of here. NATO's a joke. But he hasn't
Speaker 2: done any of that, you know. I mean, we still
Speaker 2: have a lot of troops in Europe on the front line,
Speaker 2: you know, Lithuania and other places, and and so, but
Speaker 2: he has like scared the hell out of the Europeans,
Speaker 2: and so they're now they've now committed, I think, pretty
Speaker 2: resolutely to increase their dispense defense spending, which I think
Speaker 2: you're when you said the Alliance is like at the
Speaker 2: point where it was seamless, it was worth you know, incredibly,
Speaker 2: but it was it was ours basically, like we paid
Speaker 2: for everything.
Speaker 1: Well, but I sort of viewed it that way, you know.
Speaker 1: You know, it's hard to tell the tell average American like, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: this is this is the moderns almost what I want
Speaker 1: to tell Trump, which is, you don't want more land
Speaker 1: for the United States. We got Europe without actually having
Speaker 1: to pay sold security benefits, Like we got Europe without
Speaker 1: actually having the responsibility of governing. It isn't that the
Speaker 1: best of all worlds. I hate to be that crass
Speaker 1: about it, but but that is one way to think
Speaker 1: about you know, quote you know, we it was a
Speaker 1: new type of imperialism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean I think yeah, I mean, look,
Speaker 2: I think if they if they start paying more for
Speaker 2: their own defense and they become more powerful, they're going
Speaker 2: to be They're going to be more difficult, right for sure.
Speaker 1: I mean every you know, when the Germans build a
Speaker 1: military usually goes really well.
Speaker 2: But it is, you know, it is a it's a
Speaker 2: it's quite a moment for Europe. It really is, because
Speaker 2: when you think, I mean, all these countries after the
Speaker 2: Second World War, they basically said, okay, like we're done.
Speaker 2: You know, like fifty million people just died. We're not
Speaker 2: doing that again again. Right, And they needn't entirely disarmed,
Speaker 2: but almost they spend tiny percentages of their GDP on
Speaker 2: you know, let's let the United States worry about our defense.
Speaker 2: And Trump has sufficiently like scared the daylights out of
Speaker 2: them that we're not going to be there. And you know,
Speaker 2: at the same time that putin, I think has given
Speaker 2: every indication I mean He's practically beat Trump over the
Speaker 2: head with the idea of I'm not stopping. We want
Speaker 2: all of Ukraine, right, And if they get all of Ukraine,
Speaker 2: where are they going to go next? He wants to
Speaker 2: reconstitute the old Soviet Union and so what does that mean?
Speaker 2: That means like probably Moldova, and you know, he's already
Speaker 2: got part of Georgia, and then like maybe the Baltic
Speaker 2: States and.
Speaker 1: Like, and another question I have is, you know, is
Speaker 1: Donald is Donald Trump willing to accept an Article five
Speaker 1: request from Lithuania?
Speaker 2: Well, I think that's that's the sixty four thousand dollars question.
Speaker 2: I think it helps that there's a brigade I think
Speaker 2: roughly thirty five hundred American troops in Lithuania and the
Speaker 2: other Baltic states, and so in a way they're kind
Speaker 2: of a trick wire. But so if the Russians tried
Speaker 2: to roll in, but you know, place like Lithuania is
Speaker 2: so tiny, the Russians would be at the Baltic Sea,
Speaker 2: you know, by the end of the day, you know,
Speaker 2: or the next day, and like and then and then
Speaker 2: it would be like, are we going to go to war?
Speaker 2: Deliberate Lithuania? You know, not just defend it. And you know,
Speaker 2: Lithuania is a long way away, and like it's not
Speaker 2: really connected to the other countries in the alliance or
Speaker 2: just just kind of barely, and so those are really
Speaker 2: hard questions. But I but I think the weird thing
Speaker 2: about Trump is that again he's like, he's very crude.
Speaker 2: But I but I think if the net resulted that
Speaker 2: is that the Europeans are going to start paying more
Speaker 2: and they're going to get serious about defending themselves than
Speaker 2: than Trump did a good thing.
Speaker 1: I was just going to say, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I was impressed when all those European leaders came with
Speaker 1: Elenski because it showed that, wow, Europe's never that united.
Speaker 2: With each other. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you had the Prime Minister of Italy who you know,
Speaker 1: who was not exactly you know, tight with Macron or
Speaker 1: you know, and yet they're not even share the same
Speaker 1: ideology these days when it comes to migrants of all
Speaker 1: these things. But they're you know, this defense Alliance does
Speaker 1: seem pretty durable in a way that I don't know
Speaker 1: if any of us thought that would have been the
Speaker 1: case even ten years ago.
Speaker 2: Well, I think I think Putin has focused their minds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, Well and you add in Finland and Sweden
Speaker 1: and you've added for a couple of pretty good armies,
Speaker 1: right yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean it's weird when you think about it, like
Speaker 2: what what a terrible miscalculation Putin made?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I mean huge?
Speaker 2: Right yeah, like has expanded NATO's rearming, you know, and
Speaker 2: you know the troops that it initially invaded, the Russian
Speaker 2: troops that initially invaded Ukraine. You know, they brought their
Speaker 2: parade uniforms with them because they were going in for
Speaker 2: the victory parade like seventy two hours later, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's like it didn't work out.
Speaker 1: Let me get you out of here. On more of
Speaker 1: a person, how did you end up that this was
Speaker 1: your beat? You know? You just sort of you know,
Speaker 1: like I've always been. It's like, how did you end up?
Speaker 1: Like as you're this guy and I say this with
Speaker 1: utmost respect, there's really no peer. I'm guessing you didn't
Speaker 1: set out to be you know sort of this was
Speaker 1: going to be your beat and you have this incredible
Speaker 1: beat that that I wish we would have if it
Speaker 1: was gone type of mindset. How'd you get there? You know?
Speaker 2: It was like one thing led to another. You know,
Speaker 2: I covered I started as like a police reporter for
Speaker 2: the Miami Herald in west On Beach. Uh and that
Speaker 2: was that was a fun job. And I covered the
Speaker 2: County Commission in Miami, and and then and then I,
Speaker 2: you know, I I one thing led to another. But
Speaker 2: basically I never set out to do it. And I
Speaker 2: and I and I should say, I like, I've done
Speaker 2: a lot of crazy stuff, but I haven't done anything
Speaker 2: really crazy for some time. Uh not not really since,
Speaker 2: uh not for more than a decade, like really really
Speaker 2: lunatic like I used to do. And I think the
Speaker 2: last thing, I just go into war zones.
Speaker 1: Maybe with that, yeah, well I like that.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I've kind of learned how to do
Speaker 2: them in a way that's pretty safe. Like you know,
Speaker 2: I was in Ukraine, but I didn't go to the
Speaker 2: front line and Craine for instance. But but but I
Speaker 2: mean the last I've had more close calls than I deserve,
Speaker 2: you know, way more than nine lives. And I did.
Speaker 2: I did have a couple of realizations. Again this is
Speaker 2: about a decade ago. There was one in particular in
Speaker 2: Afghanistan where I thought like, oh my god, like what
Speaker 2: are you doing? And you know, because being in a
Speaker 2: war zone like that, anyone will tell you it's like
Speaker 2: playing poker, and like if you stay at the table
Speaker 2: long enough, you're going to lose, you know, like cards
Speaker 2: are going to come up bad for you. So I
Speaker 2: so I just sort of cash most of that most
Speaker 2: of that in. But to answer your question, I had
Speaker 2: no idea that I would end up running around the
Speaker 2: world in this way.
Speaker 1: Who's the first war that you covered? God, that's a
Speaker 1: really good question, you know.
Speaker 2: I got I was living in India for the La
Speaker 2: Times in the late nineteen nineties, and this was kind
Speaker 2: of how I got started because it was I went
Speaker 2: I got a visa to go to Afghanistan and it
Speaker 2: was in the late nineteen nineties, so it was the
Speaker 2: first Taliban government. The first thing I did the first
Speaker 2: morning I got there, it was a Friday morning, and
Speaker 2: that's when they do public executions and amputations. And I
Speaker 2: went to the Cobbles sports Stadium and I watched an
Speaker 2: execution and an amputation as.
Speaker 1: They were reading the sports stadium.
Speaker 2: Think about that, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was like I
Speaker 2: was a special guest. I mean, they were very pleased
Speaker 2: to have me and Yeah, that was That was really something.
Speaker 2: And there was a civil war going on inside the
Speaker 2: country at the time, because you know, there was a
Speaker 2: big part of the country that didn't want to be
Speaker 2: part of the Taliman.
Speaker 1: But did we know what there was there yet or no,
Speaker 1: it was did we know Ben Laden was in Afghanistan?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I mean it was all you know,
Speaker 2: if I could do it all again, I'd do very differently.
Speaker 2: But I remember, I remember in that this is the
Speaker 2: late nineteen nineties, so it was a few years before
Speaker 2: nine to eleven. Right, It was all over town. You know,
Speaker 2: they said, look, if you go, I'm not kidding. There
Speaker 2: used to be a volleyball game that they would all
Speaker 2: play and they'd say, look that Jihads all play Bin Laden.
Speaker 2: They all played volleyball outside of town. And those are
Speaker 2: the guys, you know, they fought against the Russians when
Speaker 2: the Russians are here, but they never went home. And
Speaker 2: they all speak Arabic. Don't let them see you they
Speaker 2: see it Western or they're gonna go crazy. But everybody
Speaker 2: kind of knew that we're there. There were training camps
Speaker 2: that were there. I mean those are been Lauden's training camps.
Speaker 2: So it was all kind of there and it was
Speaker 2: sort of below the surface and you could kind of
Speaker 2: see it, but it was very difficult to kind of
Speaker 2: figure out what it meant, you know. I mean when
Speaker 2: nine to eleven happened, I knew immediately decided, oh god,
Speaker 2: you know I just watched all that.
Speaker 1: You saw it, right, it was like that. I assumed
Speaker 1: it made you jump right into that.
Speaker 2: Well. No, I mean I was covering the Bronx for
Speaker 2: the New York Times, and I was an absolutely failed
Speaker 2: Bronx reporter. But they Yeah, somebody came up and tapped
Speaker 2: me on the shoulder and said, haven't you been to Afghanistan?
Speaker 2: And like I was like the only person in the
Speaker 2: news or had been there, and I said, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: I've been five times. And so they put me on
Speaker 2: a plane and kind of you know, uh history, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: How do you uh you say that you've cast your chips,
Speaker 1: But every war correspondent I know has this. The adrenaline
Speaker 1: is there, it's a dopamine. How have you replaced it?
Speaker 2: Well, I think I've successfully weaned myself from from all
Speaker 2: from all that, from from getting because the like I
Speaker 2: never really people have asked me many times they say, like,
Speaker 2: do you do you get Are you addicted to violence?
Speaker 2: You know, no, like, no way, No. It's scary as
Speaker 2: hell to be out there and I don't want to
Speaker 2: get killed and I don't like to play those kinds
Speaker 2: of games. But what what what you do get kind
Speaker 2: of addicted to a bit is is kind of the
Speaker 2: largeness of it, because you know, to be in the
Speaker 2: middle of a war. Wars are very big things and
Speaker 2: and people are fighting and dying and putting their lives
Speaker 2: in the line, and and you know, in a place
Speaker 2: like a rock, I watched a whole society and disintegrate
Speaker 2: like in front of my eyes. And I, you know,
Speaker 2: I knew Iraqis, I was friends with them, and I
Speaker 2: saw this kind of happening, and those are you know,
Speaker 2: you feel that the continental plates are like literally shifting
Speaker 2: in front of you, and history is kind of unfolding
Speaker 2: in front of you. And that's that is kind of addictive.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: That's uh, that's like breathing pure oxygen. It's extraordinary. You know,
Speaker 2: it's amazing, and I'm lucky to have survived a lot
Speaker 2: of those things. But that's that's the allure. It's not
Speaker 2: so much the violence as the largeness.
Speaker 1: Well then you get at the and that's it makes us.
Speaker 1: You know, I've I've always felt too detached from it.
Speaker 1: You know. Area was covering the political implications, the policy implications,
Speaker 1: and these are very but not to be on the
Speaker 1: front lines. I always felt like I was missing something
Speaker 1: and it probably made it meaning that there were questions
Speaker 1: I wasn't asking that I would know to ask if
Speaker 1: I were there, right like that to me, that's irreplaceable, right.
Speaker 2: Well, yes and no, because I would I felt the
Speaker 2: same way being down there in the ground going the
Speaker 2: other way, going out, like what are they talking about?
Speaker 2: You know, what what are they going to do next?
Speaker 2: And so it's hard to it's hard to take it
Speaker 2: all in. So again it's if it's a big, big
Speaker 2: thing like that, and if you could say the same
Speaker 2: in Ukraine today, Yeah, it's it starts in Washington and
Speaker 2: goes all the way down to the ground. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, dexter Man, this is uh, this was this was fantastic.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I'd love reading your stuff. I know
Speaker 1: you think you right, you know that they're too long,
Speaker 1: But the New Yorkers has pretty good editors. They would
Speaker 1: they would tell you if it wasn't getting read. They're along,
Speaker 1: they would tell you if it wasn't getting read. And
Speaker 1: you know the way New Yorker subscribers are. They read
Speaker 1: all the way to the end, and they find the
Speaker 1: grammatical errors.
Speaker 2: Yes, weird most people. Well, well, Chuck, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for having me that brother,