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Speaker 1: You're listening to The Buck Sexton Show podcast, make sure

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Speaker 1: you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or

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Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody, welcome to another

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Speaker 1: episode of The Buck Sexton Show. I have Michael Tracy

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Speaker 1: with me now. He is a journalist with really interesting

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Speaker 1: opinions on foreign policy, a perspective you're gonna want to hear,

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Speaker 1: specifically on Ukraine. And he also has a great substack,

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Speaker 1: Michael Tracy substack. O check it out. You can follow

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Speaker 1: him on Twitter. Mister Tracy, coming to us Live alf Deutschland.

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Speaker 1: So I know you're over in Germany right now. Let

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Speaker 1: me let me start there. Actually, what's the feeling in

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Speaker 1: Germany about the largest war in Europe in eighty years? Yeah? Well,

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Speaker 1: first off, greetings, I would do a German greeting, but

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Speaker 1: I'm just so pathetic at even adopting like basics of

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Speaker 1: the linguistic context that I was supposed to be in.

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Speaker 1: And in part because you know, coming to this conference

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Speaker 1: with this was the Munich Security Conference that just concluded

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Speaker 1: in here in Munich where I am now, and like

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Speaker 1: so it's all these people flying in from all over

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Speaker 1: the place, so there's not really an expectation that you

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Speaker 1: have to acclimate it all to the local customs. So

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Speaker 1: nobody really expects that you're going to speak German, and

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Speaker 1: they probably wouldn't anyway, frankly, but it was even less

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Speaker 1: of a burden to do so this time for this trip,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of embarrassing because now I feel like

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Speaker 1: an arrogant American. When we have more time, I'll tell

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Speaker 1: you when I went to a Swedish counter terrorism conference

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Speaker 1: and ended up partying late night at a nightclub with Danish,

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Speaker 1: Swedish and I think Finnish federal police. So you know,

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Speaker 1: fun things could happen in that part of the world. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so how do they feel or what's the sort of

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Speaker 1: tenor or what's the just general sense that you can

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Speaker 1: pick up from the conference. Well, first of all, I

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Speaker 1: should disclose that the whole system that this conference had

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Speaker 1: set up for press was quite peculiar, and you'd almost

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Speaker 1: get a sneaking suspicion that they didn't really particularly want

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Speaker 1: the press to have full access to the conference that

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Speaker 1: they could make inferences about what the tenor was. So

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Speaker 1: just let me explain it to you real quick, because

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Speaker 1: this is amazing and no journalists who I spoke to

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Speaker 1: at this conference had ever seen or experience anything like

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Speaker 1: it or even heard of it. So as best I

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Speaker 1: can tell, it's like an unprecedented thing, at least for

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Speaker 1: this particular conference, and maybe just you know, conferences of

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Speaker 1: this sort writ large, with this being you know, a

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Speaker 1: pre him and security conference for the you know, basically,

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Speaker 1: you know, the rules based international order. So you have

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Speaker 1: to sign up ahead of time to get a press credential,

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Speaker 1: which is standard. But once you arrive and our issue

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Speaker 1: the press credential, you can't just then waltz in to

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Speaker 1: the venue as you might anticipate, right. You have to

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Speaker 1: go to a press sort of monitor or a selection

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Speaker 1: of staff who have this booth or this room setup,

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Speaker 1: and in order to get into the main venue, which

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Speaker 1: is a hotel right in the center of the old

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Speaker 1: city of Munich. In order to get into the hotel,

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Speaker 1: you then you have to declare a specific purpose or

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Speaker 1: a specific destination or a specific task for why you're

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Speaker 1: entering the hotel number one and then number two. You

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Speaker 1: also have to be escorted the entire time. They actually

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Speaker 1: call it an escort system, that you're in the hotel

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Speaker 1: by one of these like twenty year old German guys

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Speaker 1: who they have lined up ready to accompany journalists as

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Speaker 1: like a chaperone or a babysitter, and you know, you

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Speaker 1: could try to lose them. I've heard of instances where

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Speaker 1: like journalists where it's able to sneak away and like

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Speaker 1: you know, hide in the bathroom or something to have

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Speaker 1: a bit of free access. But you know, they were

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Speaker 1: pretty you know, uh insistence on making sure that you

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Speaker 1: never left their site, and it was very odd. Um,

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Speaker 1: definitely not the embodiment of press freedom that you would

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Speaker 1: expect based on the rhetoric of these people, where they're

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Speaker 1: always talking about how we have to stand up for

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Speaker 1: liberal values and defend the rules based in international order

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Speaker 1: because we cherish principles like you know, freedom of the press,

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Speaker 1: whereas these authoritarian countries they cracked down the press, which

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Speaker 1: you know is true in certain respects, but that tends

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Speaker 1: to kind of obscure how you know, Also the high

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Speaker 1: minded liberal order countries or entities can engage in a

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Speaker 1: bit of chicanery themselves in that respect. Um, but that

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Speaker 1: just a little bit of a sort of ephemera of

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Speaker 1: people are curious. So how giants as how freaked out

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Speaker 1: of the Germans about the war in Ukraine right now,

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Speaker 1: or rather, what's the opinion of the Germans about the

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Speaker 1: war in Ukraine. Well, so there is a new or

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Speaker 1: Newish Defense Minister who came into office in January. His

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Speaker 1: name is Pistorius and he entered that position right around

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Speaker 1: the time when there was that whole hubbub about whether

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Speaker 1: Germany would send these leopard tanks to Ukraine. And then

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Speaker 1: there had to be a deal struck between the Biden

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Speaker 1: administration and German Chancellor Shoals for the US to at

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Speaker 1: least pledge in theory to send m one Abram's battle tanks,

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Speaker 1: whereas in the meantime so as to enable in the

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Speaker 1: meantime Germany to send these leopard tanks. And you know,

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Speaker 1: just going based on the rhetoric of the of the

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Speaker 1: new Defense minister and also the Foreign Minister, which is

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Speaker 1: a woman who's from the Green Party Babback, they're getting

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Speaker 1: almost very conspicuously strident in their rhetoric because you would expect,

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Speaker 1: in ordinary circumstances Germany to be among the more resistant

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Speaker 1: countries in one of these like transatlantic coalitions, so it

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Speaker 1: would be the US, the UK, you know, maybe the

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Speaker 1: Baltic States and Poland and so forth, at least in

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Speaker 1: the context of Ukraine being most strident and most aggressive

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Speaker 1: in pushing certain measures that they would like to take

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Speaker 1: in terms of the conflict with Russia, whereas Germany and

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Speaker 1: you know, to some extent France would be more wary,

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Speaker 1: right given for a variety of historical reasons. Also, you know,

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Speaker 1: Italy and so forth would be in that category. But

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Speaker 1: what's notable now, and this is sort of a break

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Speaker 1: with precedent or a break with what have been the

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Speaker 1: more convention expectation, is the rhetoric is hardening even with

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Speaker 1: the German officials like Pistorius, the Defense Minister gave it

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Speaker 1: speech or declared at one of his appearances at this

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Speaker 1: conference that Ukraine must win. He gave like a maximalist

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Speaker 1: declaration as to what must happen militarily in the war

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Speaker 1: for victory to be achieved, which is beyond the kind

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Speaker 1: of declarations that you would have gotten even maybe just

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Speaker 1: six months ago from the German government. And in terms

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Speaker 1: of the woman who's the Foreign minister, Babback, she's been

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Speaker 1: one of the most hardcore advocates of accelerating the kind

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Speaker 1: of interventionist policy in Ukraine from the outset, which is

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Speaker 1: ironic because she's a member of the ruling coalition as

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Speaker 1: a Green Party member. So the Green Party is one

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Speaker 1: faction within the ruling coalition of Schulz Right, and so

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Speaker 1: they have Green Party members that get appointed to positions

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Speaker 1: of state such as Foreign Minister. And she's been agitating

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Speaker 1: for months and months and months for Shoals to be

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Speaker 1: more assertive and more you know, antagonistic toward Russia essentially.

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Speaker 1: And why is that ironic? Well, first of all, the

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Speaker 1: Green Party is kind of what have what most people

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Speaker 1: probably would have thought for a year ago, the Dovish

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Speaker 1: Party right, like the peace nick crunchy party, where you

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Speaker 1: know they'd rather like strum an acoustic guitar and sing

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Speaker 1: Kumbaya than do anything even related whatsoever to the military. Um.

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Speaker 1: But they're among the most strident now. And why think

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Speaker 1: that is? And if you look at their wait, why

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Speaker 1: is it's interesting? Yeah? Um? Why is it? Yeah? It's

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Speaker 1: a good question. And it also relates to why the

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Speaker 1: Democratic Party is so unified. That was my next question.

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Speaker 1: There's a more dissension and among the Republicans even though

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Speaker 1: they're like there's definitely a majority support for the policy,

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Speaker 1: but there's a little bit more dissension, right, Yeah, because

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Speaker 1: I think it has to do with this with the

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Speaker 1: ideological contours of the war that have been imparted onto it.

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Speaker 1: Or they look at the conflict, meaning just the generic

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Speaker 1: liberal kind of mainline opinion, especially within elite circles. They

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Speaker 1: look at the conflict in Ukraine and they heighten like

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Speaker 1: the cosmic significance of it to the point where they're

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Speaker 1: imbuing it with these dimensions of some sort of you know,

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Speaker 1: apocalyptic battle between authoritarianism and democracy, or fascism and liberalism,

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Speaker 1: or one of these like grand ideological crusades. Right. That's

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Speaker 1: why they're always invoking World War Two. That's why World

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Speaker 1: War two, now more than at any point that I've

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Speaker 1: been alive anyway, is the most potent analogy and kind

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Speaker 1: of conferring moral salience. Yeah. This is a good versus

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Speaker 1: evil conflict, is the basics of it. This is this

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Speaker 1: is the the good guy, the bad guy, the cowboy

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Speaker 1: and the white hat, the cowboy and the black hat.

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Speaker 1: Putin is Hitler, Right, That's that's how this is lined up. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And they also then can relate that to their domestic

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Speaker 1: political foes, right, because you know in the US, I

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Speaker 1: don't have to tell you it's not just a it's

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Speaker 1: not just the determination to stop Putin that's informing the

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Speaker 1: fury with which a lot of Democrats approaches this ue.

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Speaker 1: It's that it also they also view it as connecting

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Speaker 1: or you know, intersecting with their domestic struggle against insurrectionists

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Speaker 1: and fascists and you know, white nationalists and so forth,

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Speaker 1: because Trump was seen as this colluder of Putin's right,

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Speaker 1: and so Putin was depicted starting in twenty and sixteen. Really,

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Speaker 1: and Hillary Clinton, believe it or not, initiated this, or

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Speaker 1: I don't know why you wouldn't believe it. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: you would. She sort of initiated this conception of Putin

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Speaker 1: that was sort of new circle of twenty and sixteen

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Speaker 1: that he wasn't just this you know, revanchist Russian former

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Speaker 1: KGB agent who we had to be suspicious of, right

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Speaker 1: he was also this like exporter of right wing authoritarianism

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Speaker 1: and trying to undermine liberal democracy by subverting the rules

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Speaker 1: based international order to demodeological interventions. To democrats, there is

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Speaker 1: a Putin Trump axis of evil, if you will, I

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Speaker 1: mean this is what this is what they've created over

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Speaker 1: the years of the Trump over the Trump presidency, and

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Speaker 1: now it's extended. And I do remember with some of

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Speaker 1: the not just hyperbole, but the outright fabrications from the

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Speaker 1: Trump from the Trump era about Russia and putin specifically,

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Speaker 1: some people, and I believe you were among them, if

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Speaker 1: I remember from your Twitter, were learning, Hey, maybe just

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Speaker 1: creating Russia as this almost cartoonishly evil country that is

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Speaker 1: trying to destroy America from within and with fate, whether

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Speaker 1: it's be a Facebook or democracy. Maybe this will have

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Speaker 1: long term foreign policy implications. I think we're actually already

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Speaker 1: seeing some of those foreign policy implications right now, and

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Speaker 1: I want to return to that in a second. And

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Speaker 1: also the notion of this doesn't stop till Russia loses

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Speaker 1: what does that actually look like? But I want to

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Speaker 1: go to LifeLock dot com and use promo code buck

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Speaker 1: That's twenty five percent off with promo code bucket LifeLock

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Speaker 1: dot com or just call this number one eight hundred LifeLock.

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Speaker 1: That's one eight hundred LifeLock. All right, Michael, back back

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Speaker 1: to this a few things. I feel like we're being

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Speaker 1: told a lot of contrary because because I really want

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Speaker 1: to drill down into the what the strategy is that

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Speaker 1: kin make a quick Can I make a quick point

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Speaker 1: about the ideological dimensions that I wanted to make, and

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Speaker 1: then we'll move on to the other stuff before I forget.

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Speaker 1: I think it's like setting. Sorry to interrupt, but in

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Speaker 1: terms of forward, go for it. What do you got?

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Speaker 1: Usually I'm just free flowing nonsense out of my mouth

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Speaker 1: and people have to tell me to study every so often. Therese,

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Speaker 1: I'll just ramble for hours on in terms of the

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Speaker 1: ideological dimension right, I think the whole the reason why

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Speaker 1: liberals are and even leftists some degree like you would

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Speaker 1: associate with a Green Party, have been so enlivened by

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Speaker 1: this conflict is because it fits so perfectly into their

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Speaker 1: pre existing sort of ideological warfare that they were already

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Speaker 1: waging even if there had been no invasion last February. Right,

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Speaker 1: But that's not the full story, right, That just one

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Speaker 1: component as to why the consensus around this issue is

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Speaker 1: so intractable. You also have other factions of ideological consensus

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Speaker 1: as represented for example by Poland or the government of Poland,

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Speaker 1: where you have a socially conservative party in power, the

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Speaker 1: Law and Justice Party, rather rather conservative country overall all,

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Speaker 1: at least relative to the rest of Europe, and they're

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Speaker 1: among the most vehement, if not the most vehement, in

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Speaker 1: terms of supporting the more and more aggressive measures in

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Speaker 1: Ukraine and being really beating the drum harder and harder.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's where Biden is right now, right where

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Speaker 1: he just gave his speech. So that that I think

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Speaker 1: that fervor that Poland exhibits kind of comes from a

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Speaker 1: different ideological angle. But again, the reason why the consensus

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Speaker 1: is so potent is because you have like different interlocking

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Speaker 1: ideological schools of thought that can become equally sort of

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Speaker 1: vigorous in their support for this particular cause. So you

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Speaker 1: asked me just to answer quickly, what is like the

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Speaker 1: tenor at this security conference, because obviously I was able

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Speaker 1: to do stuff and talk to people and whatever, notwithstanding

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Speaker 1: the ridiculous press restrictions. I would just summarize it as

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Speaker 1: it's like an ideology overload, Like it's people overdosing on

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Speaker 1: these ideological intoxicants that they've been hopped up on for

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Speaker 1: a year from whatever particular direction where to the point

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Speaker 1: where they almost can't be reasoned with in many respects,

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Speaker 1: and they're just full steam ahead toward a particular end

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Speaker 1: goal that they can't quite articulate. I have theories as

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Speaker 1: to what the end goal actually is. Maybe we'll get

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Speaker 1: to it. But yeah, that's just basically how I would

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Speaker 1: answer it. It's just this really strong, to say, to

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Speaker 1: put it mildly, fervor that has overtaken this like Western

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Speaker 1: so called security establishments, such that they're really radicalizing rapidly

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Speaker 1: in a whole variety of areas, even once that are

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Speaker 1: just tangentially related to Ukraine, like they essentially institutionally endorsed

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Speaker 1: regime change in Iran as well at this conference. And

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Speaker 1: then there's this whole China issue that is kind of

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Speaker 1: trending in the same direction. So it's um, yeah, no, no,

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Speaker 1: it's so I want you to tackle this for me.

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Speaker 1: You have. On the one hand, in Wall Street Journal

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Speaker 1: recently editorial said, not only should we give them, meaning Ukraine,

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Speaker 1: another ninety billion or whatever whatever they need, we should

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Speaker 1: just send the F sixteens now because why wait, because

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Speaker 1: we're just this whole incremental game, what's the point. And

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Speaker 1: on the one hand, you have them saying effectively this

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Speaker 1: national security apparatus, that Western national security apparatus that the

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Speaker 1: US is leading, and obviously NATO's as the other big

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Speaker 1: component of it, saying or making it seem at least

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Speaker 1: like there's really no real risk here of anything getting

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Speaker 1: going really bad for US. And yet on the other

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Speaker 1: side you have Zelenski saying, if China is support if

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Speaker 1: China does for Russia what we are doing for Ukraine,

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Speaker 1: and even a fraction of what we're doing for Ukraine,

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Speaker 1: Zelenski said, that will start World War three. Well, how

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Speaker 1: is one in an escalation to World War three and

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Speaker 1: the other has no risk of anything bad happening. That's

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Speaker 1: what That's what I'm wondering. How they can make sense

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Speaker 1: of this for me? Right, I don't know exactly what

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Speaker 1: Zelenski meant by that, because he could have meant it

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Speaker 1: in a sort of more superficial sense, and that if

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Speaker 1: China did become a bonified co belligerent in the sense

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Speaker 1: that it was furnishing Russia with armaments that it would

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Speaker 1: be using Ukraine, it would sort of just expand the

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Speaker 1: geographical remit of the conflict to where you could say

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Speaker 1: it's now a global conflict. Is that what he meant

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Speaker 1: by World War three? Or does he say that? Or

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Speaker 1: is he suggesting if there's gonna be some like you know,

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Speaker 1: Pacific Theater opened up in the war, and it's going

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Speaker 1: to be something more recognizable as But even either one

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Speaker 1: of those would be right. It's escalatory, that's the point. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's a conventional wisdom now that's

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Speaker 1: congealed around the idea of escalation or whether there's risk

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Speaker 1: in kind of ramping up these weapons provisions and going

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Speaker 1: further and further with the tactics employers. Remember, it's not

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Speaker 1: just the weapons. People don't I think, fully appreciate this

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Speaker 1: or appreciate this enough. It's such that the US is

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Speaker 1: dispatching this endless supply of weaponry in an unprecedented like

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Speaker 1: you know, arms funneling operation that as soon as March

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Speaker 1: of last year dwarfed the most recent precedent, which had

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Speaker 1: been under Terry Truman in terms of unarmed supply operation

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Speaker 1: in Europe. Now it's like, I guess, you know, it

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Speaker 1: just has no precedent at all. Really, that we can

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Speaker 1: reasonably sort of invoke to kind of contextualize what this

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Speaker 1: mission is. But it's not just the weapons themselves, it's

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Speaker 1: this it's the operational coordination of the warfare itself that

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Speaker 1: the US is first and foremost undertaking in Ukraine. Remember

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Speaker 1: when Ukraine launched its counter offenses last August and September,

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Speaker 1: right where that that were more successful than maybe people thought,

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Speaker 1: and they took back a fair amount of land around

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Speaker 1: you know, Kharkiev, and then later her song. It was

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Speaker 1: reported in the New York Times and elsewhere. Shortly thereafter that,

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Speaker 1: the US generals literally were involved in the process of

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Speaker 1: drawing up the war plans themselves. Right, So it wasn't

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Speaker 1: just we send Ukraine a couple of Javelin missiles and

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Speaker 1: hope for the best, you know, and you know, wish

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Speaker 1: them good luck in coming up with tactical plans. No,

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Speaker 1: the US is intimately evolved in creating and formulating and

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Speaker 1: then executing those tactical practical plans because some of the

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Speaker 1: systems were giving them also require require US training and

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Speaker 1: an active monitoring and assistance. So some of these weapons

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Speaker 1: hand someone in ak and say go shoot the enemy.

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Speaker 1: That's one thing you give them a Patriot missile battery,

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Speaker 1: there has to be US training and US support for

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Speaker 1: that to actually function, right, right, I mean one of

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Speaker 1: the reasons that the Biden administration had cited as to

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Speaker 1: why they were not going to send those Patriot batteries

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Speaker 1: that he announced in December. But when they were asked

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Speaker 1: about this, meaning when Pentagon officials were asked about this,

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Speaker 1: you know, last March or so, would the US entertain

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Speaker 1: the idea of sending Patriot batteries to Ukraine, it was

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Speaker 1: dismissed as just a nonstarter because to operate those Patriot batteries,

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Speaker 1: these Pentagon officials said, would require US forces on the ground,

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Speaker 1: and we don't want US forces on the ground. That's

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Speaker 1: what Biden says, is the red line that the United

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Speaker 1: States is not going to cross policy wise. And then

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Speaker 1: sure enough, you know, like nine months later, the Patriot

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Speaker 1: batteries are deployed. Now, who knows who's going to be

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Speaker 1: rating those. I mean, do I doubt that Ukrainian soldiers

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Speaker 1: can garner the knowledge necessary to at least in part

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Speaker 1: operate the missiles. No, I don't necessarily doubt that, but

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Speaker 1: I don't know for sure. You and I and nobody

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Speaker 1: knows what the actual operational ratement will be in the

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Speaker 1: management and opera and execution of those well to be

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Speaker 1: what they're set up from my previous life and our

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Speaker 1: patriots system, someone has to train them, and to your point,

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Speaker 1: they could learn how to do it themselves, but there

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Speaker 1: has to be active assistance in that phase of getting

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Speaker 1: them up to speed so they can operate what is

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Speaker 1: a complicated and very expensive weapons system. Is it your perception?

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Speaker 1: I feel like the biggest um, the biggest debate right now,

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Speaker 1: or maybe maybe the center of the problem is absent

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Speaker 1: US troops in Ukraine. I think the perception of the

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Speaker 1: national security apparatus is Putin won't do anything to us

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Speaker 1: or to escalate unless we actually send in troops. Therefore,

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Speaker 1: why not send F sixteens? Abrahamstad like the whole all

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Speaker 1: of it, Just go with all of it? Are they right?

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Speaker 1: You know? I think that that logic is actually coherent,

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Speaker 1: meaning I wouldn't endorse that logic necessarily. But if you

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Speaker 1: do believe, say that it is true that Putin will

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Speaker 1: not escalate short of some sort of more overt, unambiguous,

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Speaker 1: direct US military intervention, then they have a point when

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Speaker 1: they're saying it doesn't make a whole lot of sense

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Speaker 1: to deploy these different weapons systems so incrementally and haltingly, right,

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Speaker 1: because you're saying that that's all under the escalation threshold,

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Speaker 1: So why not just do it all at once rather

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Speaker 1: than yeah, you know, dither for for months now. I

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Speaker 1: don't think that's necessarily an accurate assessment. But if that

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Speaker 1: is your assessment, then at least it's internally coherent to

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Speaker 1: make that argument. But my question is, do you think

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Speaker 1: that's an accurate assessment? Well, I don't think there's really

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Speaker 1: a basis to believe it's accurate. Here here's the conventional

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Speaker 1: wisdom that seems to have emerged around this question of

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Speaker 1: escalation and so called red lines, which I hate because

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Speaker 1: it's a cliche, and I guess I just hate all cliches,

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Speaker 1: but this one in particular because it like obscures the

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Speaker 1: gravity of the subject matter in a lot of ways.

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Speaker 1: They think that because there's there, you know, conventional wisdom

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Speaker 1: now among people who will always want to escalate anyway,

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Speaker 1: So they were going to try to like fashion whatever

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Speaker 1: arguments they could to justify that. But those people now

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Speaker 1: have like settled on this sort of circumstantial argument, or

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Speaker 1: this argument based on what's happened so far in the conflict,

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Speaker 1: where they're saying, look, you know, back in the fall,

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Speaker 1: there was that period in October where Putin seemed to

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Speaker 1: allude to the idea of potentially using the Russian nuclear

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Speaker 1: arsenal for some sort of reprisal. He didn't make a

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Speaker 1: direct threat, but you know, there's a clear allusion to it.

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Speaker 1: It was in actually the speech that he gave him

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Speaker 1: September twenty first, when he announced the annexation of those

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Speaker 1: four new oblasts, right. And so then you know, Russia

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Speaker 1: annexes the Oblasts, they have these so called referenda, which

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Speaker 1: I don't think necessarily would hold up to scrutiny if

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Speaker 1: you wanted to sort of decipher what it means to

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Speaker 1: have a free, fair election. They're under older occupation. That's

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Speaker 1: sort of a separate issue. But so then no, Russia

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Speaker 1: then formally declares that those four Oblasts are part of Russia, right,

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Speaker 1: and they also assert that the Russian nuclear arsenal can

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Speaker 1: be used in the event that parts of Russia are

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Speaker 1: existensionally threatened. Now you have parts of Russia that are

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Speaker 1: in a hot war zone. So theoretically based on what

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Speaker 1: is understood to be there nuclear doctrine, although who knows

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Speaker 1: what the actual nuclear doctrine is. I mean mean, people

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Speaker 1: just kind of pontificate somehow. There are more people in

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Speaker 1: the United States, like on CNN who are experts on

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Speaker 1: the Russian nuclear doctrine in the American doctrine. I don't

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Speaker 1: know how that came about. Yeah, but it is true

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Speaker 1: that those territories were incorporating to Russia, and you could

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Speaker 1: make like a theoretical argument if you're Russia, that the

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Speaker 1: nuclear nuclear use is warranted to defend those oblasts. They

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Speaker 1: think that meaning these national security types and whoever would

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Speaker 1: be of the sort that would populate like Immuniq security

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Speaker 1: conference there. They've convinced themselves that because or as they're

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Speaker 1: claiming to be convinced that because Putin's red line was

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Speaker 1: crossed in that the United States didn't back off from

429
00:26:55,937 --> 00:27:01,497
Speaker 1: like Zappariga, Oblast and whatever when he annext them and

430
00:27:01,537 --> 00:27:04,417
Speaker 1: made them part of Russia, that that means his whatever

431
00:27:04,497 --> 00:27:08,177
Speaker 1: red lines he suggests that he has, or that might

432
00:27:08,177 --> 00:27:12,217
Speaker 1: even postulated that he has, they're they're not really there,

433
00:27:12,297 --> 00:27:15,857
Speaker 1: and it's just all a bluff and so that gives

434
00:27:15,937 --> 00:27:18,897
Speaker 1: us license. These people say to themselves, just press on

435
00:27:19,057 --> 00:27:23,057
Speaker 1: even more aggressively forward because we know that Putin really

436
00:27:23,137 --> 00:27:25,297
Speaker 1: is all talk. Now, I think that that makes no sense,

437
00:27:26,177 --> 00:27:34,577
Speaker 1: because Putin not doing a nuclear reprisal just because one

438
00:27:34,697 --> 00:27:37,977
Speaker 1: so called red line wasn't crossed doesn't mean he wouldn't

439
00:27:37,977 --> 00:27:39,937
Speaker 1: do it for an additional one. Like one doesn't that

440
00:27:40,097 --> 00:27:41,977
Speaker 1: one thing doesn't lead to the other there in the

441
00:27:41,977 --> 00:27:44,937
Speaker 1: logical construction, it's just like an assumption or a conjecture.

442
00:27:45,977 --> 00:27:49,137
Speaker 1: And second, you don't even know I mean, these people

443
00:27:49,137 --> 00:27:50,737
Speaker 1: don't even know what a red line is. I mean

444
00:27:50,777 --> 00:27:52,937
Speaker 1: they use that term because Obama said it once at

445
00:27:52,937 --> 00:27:56,257
Speaker 1: a press conference in twenty twelve regarding Syria, and then

446
00:27:56,257 --> 00:28:00,577
Speaker 1: it just became this like constantly invoked cliche that really

447
00:28:00,617 --> 00:28:05,377
Speaker 1: has no tangible content to it other than what people

448
00:28:06,537 --> 00:28:11,417
Speaker 1: are speculating might be like the point of no return

449
00:28:11,497 --> 00:28:15,737
Speaker 1: for a certain world in like military and national security

450
00:28:15,777 --> 00:28:19,417
Speaker 1: analysis circles. It is used all the time. And when

451
00:28:19,457 --> 00:28:22,177
Speaker 1: they talk about war gaming, which is another thing, by

452
00:28:22,217 --> 00:28:27,057
Speaker 1: the way, that doesn't I've partaken in war games in

453
00:28:27,097 --> 00:28:30,057
Speaker 1: my past life, I've seen and the problem with war

454
00:28:30,137 --> 00:28:31,697
Speaker 1: games is not a game, and so you have no

455
00:28:31,737 --> 00:28:34,337
Speaker 1: idea how the war is actually going to go, gives you,

456
00:28:34,377 --> 00:28:38,457
Speaker 1: at best a very rough approximation of how conventional force

457
00:28:38,577 --> 00:28:43,737
Speaker 1: on force would react if the following dependent variables are

458
00:28:43,737 --> 00:28:47,497
Speaker 1: all true. That I'll said on even just the redlines issue.

459
00:28:48,057 --> 00:28:52,177
Speaker 1: The notion that there is an axiomatic where that there's

460
00:28:52,217 --> 00:28:57,377
Speaker 1: a dogmatic and immediate response that you would get from

461
00:28:57,417 --> 00:28:59,977
Speaker 1: an action independent of everything everything else going on, I

462
00:28:59,977 --> 00:29:02,097
Speaker 1: think that is it is a problematic way of thinking

463
00:29:02,137 --> 00:29:04,537
Speaker 1: about it, right. I mean they could say, well, redline

464
00:29:04,537 --> 00:29:07,017
Speaker 1: as if someone goes to take the capital city or something. Well,

465
00:29:07,097 --> 00:29:09,017
Speaker 1: I mean certain red lines are so obvious you don't

466
00:29:09,057 --> 00:29:10,937
Speaker 1: need to say them. And others I think would be

467
00:29:11,017 --> 00:29:15,177
Speaker 1: more situational, which brings us back into Ukraine and what

468
00:29:15,297 --> 00:29:19,617
Speaker 1: Putin is willing to do here in order to see

469
00:29:19,657 --> 00:29:21,537
Speaker 1: this thing through, which I think, by the way, is

470
00:29:21,977 --> 00:29:24,777
Speaker 1: he'll see it through with whatever he can, however he can.

471
00:29:25,777 --> 00:29:28,657
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you go ahead, sorry, I was

472
00:29:28,657 --> 00:29:30,417
Speaker 1: just gonna make a quick a quick point on that,

473
00:29:30,577 --> 00:29:33,457
Speaker 1: and the certainty that these people have meaning like this

474
00:29:33,857 --> 00:29:37,897
Speaker 1: conventional nat SEC community, who I think probably the one

475
00:29:37,937 --> 00:29:41,177
Speaker 1: demographic on Earth that I can most confidently say is

476
00:29:41,217 --> 00:29:46,017
Speaker 1: just full of crap almost twenty four to seven and

477
00:29:46,217 --> 00:29:50,897
Speaker 1: almost universally with so few exceptions that like, they don't

478
00:29:50,897 --> 00:29:53,017
Speaker 1: even really factor into whether you can just declare them

479
00:29:53,137 --> 00:29:57,337
Speaker 1: universally full of crap. One thing that they don't factor

480
00:29:57,377 --> 00:30:00,017
Speaker 1: into this whole newfound certain city that they have about

481
00:30:00,137 --> 00:30:08,097
Speaker 1: Putin's decklessness or how he's really just you know, feinting

482
00:30:08,257 --> 00:30:11,257
Speaker 1: when he suggests that there could be lines, is we

483
00:30:11,337 --> 00:30:17,297
Speaker 1: have plentiful evidence that there have been escalatory tit for

484
00:30:17,497 --> 00:30:21,937
Speaker 1: tat exchanges between the United States and Russia that have

485
00:30:22,817 --> 00:30:26,177
Speaker 1: heightened the intensity of the conflict. Right and here, let's

486
00:30:26,817 --> 00:30:28,817
Speaker 1: just to give one example. And when I say the

487
00:30:28,897 --> 00:30:33,137
Speaker 1: US and Russia, you know, I'm including Ukraine within the

488
00:30:33,217 --> 00:30:36,777
Speaker 1: US side of that dichotomy because Ukraine only exists as

489
00:30:36,777 --> 00:30:41,617
Speaker 1: a state right now because of the sponsorship of US,

490
00:30:42,617 --> 00:30:46,217
Speaker 1: and not even just the military portion of the Ukrainian

491
00:30:46,257 --> 00:30:50,017
Speaker 1: state either the civil state as well, like the USA.

492
00:30:50,137 --> 00:30:53,057
Speaker 1: I d is just paying all the state pensions and

493
00:30:53,297 --> 00:30:56,657
Speaker 1: benefits of state employees in Ukraine. But that's side issue.

494
00:30:57,457 --> 00:31:02,057
Speaker 1: But when Ukraine, remember it did that truck bombing attack

495
00:31:02,177 --> 00:31:08,297
Speaker 1: on the Kirch Bridge in Crimea in October, which was

496
00:31:08,337 --> 00:31:13,137
Speaker 1: odd because or odd the standpoint of it had certain

497
00:31:13,417 --> 00:31:18,977
Speaker 1: kind of classical markers of what we've come to believe

498
00:31:19,257 --> 00:31:21,497
Speaker 1: would constitute a terrorist attack. But of course it wasn't

499
00:31:21,497 --> 00:31:25,297
Speaker 1: called that at all in Western media because that would

500
00:31:25,697 --> 00:31:30,457
Speaker 1: impune Ukraine and can't do that because you know, the

501
00:31:30,577 --> 00:31:33,617
Speaker 1: high principle always is to be a partisan for one

502
00:31:33,617 --> 00:31:35,897
Speaker 1: of the warring parties rather than be you know, truthful

503
00:31:35,937 --> 00:31:38,737
Speaker 1: about stuff. Sends to be the case with warfare, at

504
00:31:38,817 --> 00:31:43,657
Speaker 1: least as I have observed it when that happened, which

505
00:31:43,697 --> 00:31:52,377
Speaker 1: is obviously a fairly adventurous or audacious act on the

506
00:31:52,497 --> 00:31:57,697
Speaker 1: Ukraine Special forces part given the kind of centrality of

507
00:31:57,777 --> 00:32:00,697
Speaker 1: CRIMEA to like what seems to be Putin's sort of

508
00:32:00,737 --> 00:32:05,857
Speaker 1: conception of his sort of historical epoch as leader of Russia,

509
00:32:05,897 --> 00:32:09,377
Speaker 1: and that bridge is one that he personally oversaw the

510
00:32:09,417 --> 00:32:13,777
Speaker 1: construction of and opened it relatively recently. Once that happened,

511
00:32:14,257 --> 00:32:17,577
Speaker 1: Russia did escalate in turn. So that was an escalation

512
00:32:17,617 --> 00:32:19,177
Speaker 1: in the sense that it opened up sort of a

513
00:32:19,257 --> 00:32:25,657
Speaker 1: new sphere of warfare and a new newly audacious sort

514
00:32:25,657 --> 00:32:29,857
Speaker 1: of tactic of warfare. And then Russia did the same

515
00:32:29,977 --> 00:32:35,217
Speaker 1: in that it reciprocally then began what became a months

516
00:32:35,257 --> 00:32:42,337
Speaker 1: long campaign of bombing civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, the electrical

517
00:32:42,377 --> 00:32:46,977
Speaker 1: grids and whatever. It was not even not even ambiguous

518
00:32:47,017 --> 00:32:50,497
Speaker 1: if that was portrayed by Russia as at least in

519
00:32:50,537 --> 00:32:53,937
Speaker 1: part retaliation for the truck bombing on the bridge. Right,

520
00:32:54,097 --> 00:32:58,537
Speaker 1: So when people in these national security cliques say that, oh,

521
00:32:58,577 --> 00:33:01,457
Speaker 1: the red lines are all of bluff, we've you know,

522
00:33:01,577 --> 00:33:04,697
Speaker 1: Putin has belied with his actions, any idea that we

523
00:33:04,697 --> 00:33:07,457
Speaker 1: should be concerned about this in terms of esculatory potential.

524
00:33:07,977 --> 00:33:10,777
Speaker 1: What they I think willfully or I think there or

525
00:33:11,337 --> 00:33:13,337
Speaker 1: even though either they willfully ignore it or they're so

526
00:33:13,417 --> 00:33:16,497
Speaker 1: ideologically intoxicated that they can't bring themselves to even be

527
00:33:16,497 --> 00:33:20,737
Speaker 1: able to perceive it anymore, what they're not mentioning is

528
00:33:20,777 --> 00:33:24,217
Speaker 1: that there is a huge array of evidence that there

529
00:33:24,337 --> 00:33:31,857
Speaker 1: is this kind of center synergetic esculatory dynamic in Ukraine

530
00:33:32,257 --> 00:33:35,377
Speaker 1: where we do we can anticipate that Russia will escalate

531
00:33:35,897 --> 00:33:39,617
Speaker 1: given escalatory behavior that you know us, the US does,

532
00:33:39,737 --> 00:33:42,777
Speaker 1: or that Ukraine does in tandem with the US. So

533
00:33:42,857 --> 00:33:45,417
Speaker 1: that dynamic exists. It's just a point of like how

534
00:33:45,497 --> 00:33:48,457
Speaker 1: high does the escalatory ladder reach to the point where

535
00:33:48,497 --> 00:33:53,097
Speaker 1: it becomes something truly kind of clismics such as nuclear use.

536
00:33:53,777 --> 00:33:57,497
Speaker 1: I want to come back to the very important, I

537
00:33:57,537 --> 00:34:01,577
Speaker 1: would argue central question of is this all from the

538
00:34:01,697 --> 00:34:05,057
Speaker 1: US perspective and what the Bide administration has done to

539
00:34:05,097 --> 00:34:07,737
Speaker 1: this point a massive blunder. But hold that for a second.

540
00:34:07,737 --> 00:34:09,297
Speaker 1: I want to come back to it. I want to

541
00:34:09,337 --> 00:34:11,737
Speaker 1: talk about the Tunnel Towers Foundation for a second. Born

542
00:34:11,857 --> 00:34:13,537
Speaker 1: from the tragedy of nine to eleven, the tone of

543
00:34:13,577 --> 00:34:16,537
Speaker 1: the Towers Foundation has been honoring America's heroes ever since.

544
00:34:16,897 --> 00:34:19,657
Speaker 1: The Foundation honors fallen and severely injured heroes in their

545
00:34:19,657 --> 00:34:22,897
Speaker 1: families with mortgage free homes. This year alone, hundreds of

546
00:34:22,897 --> 00:34:25,537
Speaker 1: gold Star on fallen first responder families with young children

547
00:34:25,737 --> 00:34:28,457
Speaker 1: and our nation's most severely injured veterans and first responders

548
00:34:28,457 --> 00:34:31,777
Speaker 1: are receiving homes. More than five hundred homeless veterans received

549
00:34:31,817 --> 00:34:35,097
Speaker 1: housing and services last year. More than fifteen hundred receiving

550
00:34:35,137 --> 00:34:38,057
Speaker 1: houses and services this year. This coming Memorial Day, all

551
00:34:38,137 --> 00:34:39,977
Speaker 1: the brave men and women law since nine to eleven

552
00:34:39,977 --> 00:34:42,297
Speaker 1: in the War on Terror are having their names read

553
00:34:42,337 --> 00:34:44,297
Speaker 1: aloud in a Tune of the Towers ceremony in our

554
00:34:44,337 --> 00:34:47,137
Speaker 1: nation's capital, to the tune of the Towers nine eleven institute.

555
00:34:47,137 --> 00:34:50,337
Speaker 1: The foundation is educating kids in kindergarten through twelfth grade

556
00:34:50,337 --> 00:34:53,417
Speaker 1: about our nation's darkest day. Joined talleth the Towers on

557
00:34:53,417 --> 00:34:56,377
Speaker 1: its mission to do good. Please help America to never

558
00:34:56,417 --> 00:34:59,537
Speaker 1: forget its greatest heroes. Join me in donating eleven dollars

559
00:34:59,577 --> 00:35:01,377
Speaker 1: a month the tunne of the Towers at t twot

560
00:35:01,617 --> 00:35:05,897
Speaker 1: dot org. That's t the number two t t twot

561
00:35:06,097 --> 00:35:10,377
Speaker 1: dot org. All right, mister Michael Tracy, Is this a

562
00:35:10,417 --> 00:35:14,977
Speaker 1: massive blunder in the making the US role in the

563
00:35:15,097 --> 00:35:18,457
Speaker 1: Ukraine Russia War? Or is this something that can drag

564
00:35:18,537 --> 00:35:21,697
Speaker 1: on and it will just be another budget item that

565
00:35:21,817 --> 00:35:28,257
Speaker 1: some people complain about but eventually no real consequences. Well,

566
00:35:28,257 --> 00:35:33,737
Speaker 1: I guess it depends on what the desired outcome is

567
00:35:33,857 --> 00:35:38,257
Speaker 1: or what objective is being pursued. Because given the objective

568
00:35:38,297 --> 00:35:42,177
Speaker 1: that was articulated around when the war started, or at

569
00:35:42,257 --> 00:35:46,017
Speaker 1: least in the first several months, you could make an

570
00:35:46,097 --> 00:35:50,137
Speaker 1: argument that far from being a blunder, it's actually been

571
00:35:50,217 --> 00:35:57,577
Speaker 1: a grand success in that when Lloyd Austin and Anthony

572
00:35:57,657 --> 00:36:02,097
Speaker 1: Blincoln first made their triumphant entrance into Ukraine after the

573
00:36:02,097 --> 00:36:06,057
Speaker 1: war started in April, Austin made a comment that became

574
00:36:06,177 --> 00:36:11,217
Speaker 1: fairly well known and widely remarked where he said that

575
00:36:11,257 --> 00:36:14,457
Speaker 1: one of the chief aims of US policy in Ukraine

576
00:36:14,537 --> 00:36:18,497
Speaker 1: was not merely to enable Ukraine to achieve victory on

577
00:36:18,537 --> 00:36:24,537
Speaker 1: the battlefield, but to quote weak in Russia. And unless

578
00:36:24,537 --> 00:36:28,257
Speaker 1: you think the Secretary of Defense is just off his

579
00:36:28,417 --> 00:36:34,777
Speaker 1: rocker and freelancing without any sort of authorization or without

580
00:36:35,097 --> 00:36:39,257
Speaker 1: commenting on a policy ambition that really does exist, I

581
00:36:39,337 --> 00:36:41,217
Speaker 1: think it was fair at the time and still fair

582
00:36:41,257 --> 00:36:45,097
Speaker 1: now to believe him when he says that is a

583
00:36:45,137 --> 00:36:48,417
Speaker 1: goal of US policy. Right. And there was also a

584
00:36:48,457 --> 00:36:52,457
Speaker 1: column that was published by Neil Ferguson and Bloomberg in

585
00:36:52,497 --> 00:36:56,657
Speaker 1: March of last year where he claimed to have overheard

586
00:36:56,737 --> 00:37:00,617
Speaker 1: a Biden administration official blabbing at some function where the

587
00:37:00,697 --> 00:37:04,977
Speaker 1: official blurted out that the whole point of this Ukraine

588
00:37:05,017 --> 00:37:08,297
Speaker 1: interventions policy was to quote bleed Russia dry, Right, which

589
00:37:09,537 --> 00:37:13,977
Speaker 1: then kind of gives a little bit more explanatory power

590
00:37:14,097 --> 00:37:18,017
Speaker 1: to why certain decisions have gone the way they have. Right.

591
00:37:18,297 --> 00:37:21,057
Speaker 1: So we talked before about the people who are complaining

592
00:37:21,057 --> 00:37:25,257
Speaker 1: about the laxity of the deployment of different weapons systems, right,

593
00:37:25,257 --> 00:37:28,537
Speaker 1: they want it done faster, and they don't want any

594
00:37:28,657 --> 00:37:32,377
Speaker 1: sort of more hindrances in terms of which styles of

595
00:37:32,377 --> 00:37:35,697
Speaker 1: weapons can be sent. Well, if your whole object is

596
00:37:35,737 --> 00:37:38,257
Speaker 1: to just bleed, rush, or dry, then maybe your idea

597
00:37:38,297 --> 00:37:42,017
Speaker 1: would be to just prolong the conflict and escalate it

598
00:37:42,097 --> 00:37:45,617
Speaker 1: incrementally and gradually, rather than dumping everything into the war

599
00:37:45,697 --> 00:37:47,657
Speaker 1: zone at once, because the idea is just to have

600
00:37:47,897 --> 00:37:52,137
Speaker 1: Russia burn its resources and eventually weaken it to the

601
00:37:52,137 --> 00:37:56,297
Speaker 1: point that something can be done in terms of potentially

602
00:37:56,337 --> 00:38:02,577
Speaker 1: fostering regime change or some other resolution. So yeah, in

603
00:38:02,777 --> 00:38:06,577
Speaker 1: terms of a blunder from a more i guess substantive perspective,

604
00:38:06,617 --> 00:38:09,537
Speaker 1: so kind of doing away with like whatever framework the

605
00:38:09,577 --> 00:38:16,217
Speaker 1: actual advocates of the intervention have adopted for themselves that yeah, yeah,

606
00:38:16,257 --> 00:38:22,577
Speaker 1: well yeah, or like what is what will reduce the

607
00:38:22,617 --> 00:38:26,977
Speaker 1: incidents of just mass death and suffering and destruction. I

608
00:38:27,017 --> 00:38:28,857
Speaker 1: always get a kick out of these people who have

609
00:38:28,977 --> 00:38:36,057
Speaker 1: been hardcore champions of US interventionist foreign policy, because in

610
00:38:36,177 --> 00:38:39,657
Speaker 1: Ukraine they've gotten their way. I mean, they always erect

611
00:38:39,737 --> 00:38:44,937
Speaker 1: these boogeyman of isolationists as though everybody's kind of, you know,

612
00:38:46,017 --> 00:38:48,417
Speaker 1: chomping at the bit. These isolationists are all chopping at

613
00:38:48,417 --> 00:38:52,297
Speaker 1: the bit to just undercut US policy because they're they're

614
00:38:52,337 --> 00:38:55,777
Speaker 1: so sinister and they have such outside influence, whereas I mean,

615
00:38:55,817 --> 00:39:00,377
Speaker 1: there's no isolationist. Isolationism is not the policy of the

616
00:39:00,497 --> 00:39:03,977
Speaker 1: US is following in Ukraine right now, Certainly the interventionists

617
00:39:03,977 --> 00:39:06,057
Speaker 1: have gotten their way. I mean, there's a massive, sprawling,

618
00:39:06,137 --> 00:39:09,737
Speaker 1: multidimensional intervention as of as we speak in Ukraine, and

619
00:39:09,777 --> 00:39:12,057
Speaker 1: it's going on for a year, and it's escalating pretty

620
00:39:12,137 --> 00:39:18,057
Speaker 1: much by the week. But they'll they'll sort of posture

621
00:39:18,697 --> 00:39:21,337
Speaker 1: as having the moral high ground. Right, So the people

622
00:39:21,337 --> 00:39:25,217
Speaker 1: who maybe are skeptical of intervention in US foreign policy,

623
00:39:25,297 --> 00:39:31,337
Speaker 1: they're morally blighted, they're sinister, they have ulterior motives, maybe

624
00:39:31,337 --> 00:39:36,177
Speaker 1: they're paid by Russia whatever, or doing propaganda or spreading disinformation.

625
00:39:36,177 --> 00:39:38,257
Speaker 1: Whereas the people who are champions of this policy, they

626
00:39:38,257 --> 00:39:41,257
Speaker 1: have the moral high ground, they understand the stakes. They're

627
00:39:41,337 --> 00:39:44,897
Speaker 1: like humanitarians of some kind. Meanwhile, look at the fruits

628
00:39:44,937 --> 00:39:47,057
Speaker 1: of the policy that they've been voted for the past year.

629
00:39:47,537 --> 00:39:51,097
Speaker 1: The German intelligence services, at least it's reported by Drshpiegel

630
00:39:51,137 --> 00:39:58,577
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago, said that there are hundreds of bodies,

631
00:39:58,897 --> 00:40:03,497
Speaker 1: hundreds of dead Ukrainian soldiers piling up every day in

632
00:40:03,537 --> 00:40:06,497
Speaker 1: the war as of at least late January, and then

633
00:40:06,657 --> 00:40:09,217
Speaker 1: also a heck of a lot of Russian casualties apparently,

634
00:40:09,257 --> 00:40:12,577
Speaker 1: although we don't know the precise figures. Let's just I

635
00:40:12,617 --> 00:40:16,017
Speaker 1: don't know, give a ballpark estimate of I don't know,

636
00:40:16,737 --> 00:40:19,297
Speaker 1: six hundred, seven hundred. If there's at least one hundred

637
00:40:19,337 --> 00:40:21,497
Speaker 1: a day right just on the Ukraine side, then like

638
00:40:21,537 --> 00:40:26,017
Speaker 1: a lower tier estimate would be like a thousand killed

639
00:40:26,017 --> 00:40:29,857
Speaker 1: in action a week, right, something like that. You have

640
00:40:29,977 --> 00:40:34,257
Speaker 1: the you have the moral standing or you you presume

641
00:40:34,337 --> 00:40:37,337
Speaker 1: yourself to have the moral standing to pontificate about the

642
00:40:37,417 --> 00:40:41,377
Speaker 1: humanitarian virtue that you embody by your advocacy of this

643
00:40:41,737 --> 00:40:46,057
Speaker 1: interventionist position when the results of it are a thousand,

644
00:40:46,377 --> 00:40:51,737
Speaker 1: like twenty year olds blown to bits every week. I

645
00:40:51,777 --> 00:40:56,177
Speaker 1: don't really I'm not sure that you have the really

646
00:40:56,497 --> 00:41:01,297
Speaker 1: the right to be pontificating, as I just jump in

647
00:41:01,337 --> 00:41:04,857
Speaker 1: really quickly here, because if it were either a Democrat

648
00:41:04,857 --> 00:41:07,457
Speaker 1: interventionist or there are, as you point out at the

649
00:41:07,497 --> 00:41:10,817
Speaker 1: beginning of our discussion, the right, there's more or dissent

650
00:41:10,977 --> 00:41:13,497
Speaker 1: about this issue than on the left. I don't I

651
00:41:13,537 --> 00:41:16,777
Speaker 1: do not see any Democrat pundits of any platform or

652
00:41:16,857 --> 00:41:20,337
Speaker 1: standing a considerable platform who are opposed to what's going

653
00:41:20,377 --> 00:41:22,577
Speaker 1: on in Ukraine. I do see, you know, Tucker Carlson,

654
00:41:22,617 --> 00:41:26,737
Speaker 1: for example, very prominently is a skeptic of what's going

655
00:41:26,777 --> 00:41:29,337
Speaker 1: on with US intervention in Ukraine. But the people that

656
00:41:29,377 --> 00:41:32,657
Speaker 1: aren't skeptics, what they would say to you, Michael, is Okay, yeah,

657
00:41:32,737 --> 00:41:35,257
Speaker 1: there's a lot of casualties going on, but if we

658
00:41:35,257 --> 00:41:38,697
Speaker 1: weren't giving the Ukrainians to fight, it would be an

659
00:41:38,697 --> 00:41:44,337
Speaker 1: invasion by Putin with genocide and tyranny and even more casualties.

660
00:41:44,377 --> 00:41:46,377
Speaker 1: By the way, I don't subscribe to this theory. I'm

661
00:41:46,377 --> 00:41:49,697
Speaker 1: just saying, what do you what is your response to

662
00:41:49,737 --> 00:41:55,617
Speaker 1: what would clearly be their attack at that point of view, Well, right,

663
00:41:55,657 --> 00:41:57,977
Speaker 1: they have to immediately resort to conjuring up one of

664
00:41:57,977 --> 00:42:04,017
Speaker 1: these counterfactual scenarios and make everybody really intimidated by this

665
00:42:04,097 --> 00:42:07,537
Speaker 1: hypothetical prospect of you know, mass genocide or you know,

666
00:42:07,937 --> 00:42:11,057
Speaker 1: who are doing a blitzkrieg throughout the rest of East

667
00:42:11,377 --> 00:42:13,737
Speaker 1: of Europe, or one of these other more you know,

668
00:42:15,097 --> 00:42:19,537
Speaker 1: extreme scenarios that they conveniently don't have to ever prove

669
00:42:19,817 --> 00:42:23,537
Speaker 1: are true, because they're intentionally bringing up a counter factual

670
00:42:23,617 --> 00:42:27,337
Speaker 1: that can't be proven or disproven, whereas I have the

671
00:42:27,417 --> 00:42:29,977
Speaker 1: luxury of looking at the facts on the ground and

672
00:42:30,017 --> 00:42:31,897
Speaker 1: what has actually been done and what is in the

673
00:42:31,937 --> 00:42:36,017
Speaker 1: observable record, and what can be empirically verified. And that's

674
00:42:36,057 --> 00:42:37,857
Speaker 1: the fruits of the policy that they've promoted. I mean,

675
00:42:37,897 --> 00:42:40,057
Speaker 1: they're they're the ones who have been chanting stand with

676
00:42:40,137 --> 00:42:44,777
Speaker 1: Ukraine for a year, waving flags, demanding escalations in weapons

677
00:42:44,817 --> 00:42:52,137
Speaker 1: provision and just being general advocates of the overall sort

678
00:42:52,137 --> 00:42:56,297
Speaker 1: of policy framework that's been employed in Ukraine by the US.

679
00:42:57,097 --> 00:43:03,377
Speaker 1: And yet somehow the mass death and destruction and economic

680
00:43:03,457 --> 00:43:10,377
Speaker 1: turmoil and you know, basically just total obliteration of Crans

681
00:43:10,457 --> 00:43:16,057
Speaker 1: state capacity and so on, none of that they bear

682
00:43:16,097 --> 00:43:21,577
Speaker 1: any responsibility for, because they'll claim, oh, what do you mean,

683
00:43:21,737 --> 00:43:23,977
Speaker 1: it's all just Russia. Now, of course, Russia is a

684
00:43:24,097 --> 00:43:27,097
Speaker 1: belligerent in the war. They're fighting the war. They're responsible

685
00:43:27,297 --> 00:43:30,577
Speaker 1: for the warfare that they undertake. Right, But this idea

686
00:43:30,657 --> 00:43:35,817
Speaker 1: that the United States hasn't pursued a policy explicitly that

687
00:43:36,337 --> 00:43:41,017
Speaker 1: was intended to facilitate the intensification of warfare. And then

688
00:43:41,137 --> 00:43:44,097
Speaker 1: we see intensified warfare on the battlefield and the casualties

689
00:43:44,137 --> 00:43:48,377
Speaker 1: associated with that. And there's no culpability at all or

690
00:43:48,497 --> 00:43:51,817
Speaker 1: no responsibility that is borne by the United States for it.

691
00:43:51,817 --> 00:44:00,217
Speaker 1: It's just a deflections. They are understandably resistant to being

692
00:44:01,017 --> 00:44:04,617
Speaker 1: called to account for the ramifications of what they promoted,

693
00:44:04,697 --> 00:44:08,177
Speaker 1: because what they what those ramifications are, we can see

694
00:44:08,217 --> 00:44:11,897
Speaker 1: with our own eyes. It's the ad miseration of Ukraine

695
00:44:11,937 --> 00:44:15,377
Speaker 1: and and with no end in sight. Well, that's that's

696
00:44:16,817 --> 00:44:18,337
Speaker 1: I don't know that I would be so smug if

697
00:44:18,337 --> 00:44:21,017
Speaker 1: I were in their position to somehow act like you've

698
00:44:21,057 --> 00:44:25,177
Speaker 1: been morally vindicated or tactically vindicated, or indicated in some

699
00:44:25,217 --> 00:44:32,057
Speaker 1: other sense. Given what seems like a rapidly expanding disaster,

700
00:44:33,017 --> 00:44:36,057
Speaker 1: where do you see it going? Because right now it

701
00:44:36,177 --> 00:44:40,137
Speaker 1: sounds like it very much sounds like this, because Biden

702
00:44:40,177 --> 00:44:42,817
Speaker 1: has said it, We're in it until the end, whatever

703
00:44:42,857 --> 00:44:46,297
Speaker 1: it takes, whatever it costs. That is the explicit policy

704
00:44:46,417 --> 00:44:49,537
Speaker 1: of the Biden White House and and really of the

705
00:44:49,577 --> 00:44:51,617
Speaker 1: of the uniparty. If there is such a thing and

706
00:44:51,617 --> 00:44:54,177
Speaker 1: a natural security there there really is, I think almost

707
00:44:54,177 --> 00:44:57,457
Speaker 1: more than anywhere else a uniparty um. That is the

708
00:44:57,497 --> 00:45:01,417
Speaker 1: position and Vladimir Putin is not backing off of this.

709
00:45:01,457 --> 00:45:03,657
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone believes he's going to back off

710
00:45:03,697 --> 00:45:06,337
Speaker 1: of this, even if they have another one hundred thousand

711
00:45:06,377 --> 00:45:11,897
Speaker 1: casualties this year. So where do you see it going? Well,

712
00:45:12,697 --> 00:45:14,897
Speaker 1: a lot of the fretting among if you want to

713
00:45:14,897 --> 00:45:16,377
Speaker 1: call at the uniparty, or at least you know, the

714
00:45:16,737 --> 00:45:21,137
Speaker 1: sort of mainline consensus of the national security operators who

715
00:45:21,137 --> 00:45:24,817
Speaker 1: were the most sort of art enthusiast for this gambit.

716
00:45:25,737 --> 00:45:29,297
Speaker 1: The main fretting that they do, it seems as regards

717
00:45:29,377 --> 00:45:33,977
Speaker 1: the ultimate outcome of the war is they're concerned that,

718
00:45:34,057 --> 00:45:35,857
Speaker 1: you know, Kevin McCarthy is all of a sudden going

719
00:45:35,897 --> 00:45:39,057
Speaker 1: to become an anti war activist and decide to cut

720
00:45:39,097 --> 00:45:45,057
Speaker 1: off aid to Ukraine, which was always such a ridiculous concept.

721
00:45:45,137 --> 00:45:48,097
Speaker 1: It was kind of manufactured as this mid term election

722
00:45:49,057 --> 00:45:51,697
Speaker 1: talking point by you know, Democrats and the media who

723
00:45:51,737 --> 00:45:54,977
Speaker 1: wanted to like paint McCarthy and the Republicans as somehow

724
00:45:54,977 --> 00:45:58,337
Speaker 1: stooges of Putin, and it wasn't actually in accordance with

725
00:45:58,377 --> 00:46:02,217
Speaker 1: anything McCarthy had ever really said or espoused. He made

726
00:46:02,217 --> 00:46:05,097
Speaker 1: one fleeting comment about how supposedly the Republicans don't want

727
00:46:05,097 --> 00:46:07,737
Speaker 1: to give Ukraine a blank check anymore. But you know,

728
00:46:07,777 --> 00:46:10,417
Speaker 1: everybody pretty much agrees with that statement, or he says

729
00:46:10,457 --> 00:46:15,177
Speaker 1: they do, Democrats and Republicans alike. I mean, Marco Rubio says, oh,

730
00:46:15,297 --> 00:46:17,297
Speaker 1: of course, we don't want to give Ukraine to blank check,

731
00:46:17,377 --> 00:46:19,937
Speaker 1: but we have to still send them tons of military equipment.

732
00:46:20,057 --> 00:46:21,537
Speaker 1: So like everybody can just claim that they're not in

733
00:46:21,537 --> 00:46:23,457
Speaker 1: favor of blank check. It didn't mean anything when McCarthy

734
00:46:23,497 --> 00:46:26,337
Speaker 1: said it. I mean he was actually criticizing Biden early

735
00:46:26,337 --> 00:46:30,017
Speaker 1: on in the war, starting last March or so, for

736
00:46:30,177 --> 00:46:34,777
Speaker 1: not being aggressive enough in sending, for example, or facilitating

737
00:46:34,817 --> 00:46:37,177
Speaker 1: the transfer of those MiG jets early on that Poland

738
00:46:37,177 --> 00:46:41,217
Speaker 1: wanted to deploy. And McCarthy was a critic of Biden

739
00:46:41,337 --> 00:46:45,777
Speaker 1: from a hawkish perspective on the war as at least

740
00:46:45,777 --> 00:46:50,617
Speaker 1: an earlier juncture, as have been the core leadership of

741
00:46:50,657 --> 00:46:53,377
Speaker 1: the Republican Party, and that both the House and Senate

742
00:46:53,617 --> 00:46:58,817
Speaker 1: at least tophonic Steve Scalise, Kevin McCarthy all hardcore Ukraine

743
00:46:58,857 --> 00:47:01,577
Speaker 1: interventionist hawks. Now maybe they sort of like modulate their

744
00:47:01,657 --> 00:47:05,057
Speaker 1: rhetoric in certain contexts, given that they know there's a

745
00:47:05,177 --> 00:47:09,217
Speaker 1: bit more consternation about that position within elements of the

746
00:47:09,297 --> 00:47:12,817
Speaker 1: Republican colition, but doesn't change the fundamental policy that they're

747
00:47:12,857 --> 00:47:16,697
Speaker 1: still clear and on the record as in support of

748
00:47:16,857 --> 00:47:20,177
Speaker 1: same within with the Senate, with you know, Mitch McConnell,

749
00:47:20,297 --> 00:47:24,097
Speaker 1: John Thune, Rick Scott, etc. McConnell was here, as you

750
00:47:24,177 --> 00:47:26,777
Speaker 1: might know, at the Munich Security Conference with his blue

751
00:47:26,777 --> 00:47:30,657
Speaker 1: and white striped tie saying that look what you should

752
00:47:30,657 --> 00:47:33,057
Speaker 1: and he was right about this. What McConnell said was

753
00:47:33,057 --> 00:47:35,337
Speaker 1: because of course all these people at who want to

754
00:47:35,337 --> 00:47:37,217
Speaker 1: ask him questions of this event, they're all asking like,

755
00:47:37,217 --> 00:47:42,217
Speaker 1: what can you do to make sure that the the

756
00:47:42,217 --> 00:47:45,377
Speaker 1: the you know, Maga isolation as Republicans don't get their

757
00:47:45,377 --> 00:47:49,657
Speaker 1: way and the House Republicans and Senate Republicans make sure

758
00:47:49,697 --> 00:47:54,257
Speaker 1: that aid continues to flow uninhibited. He'll always he'll say

759
00:47:54,297 --> 00:47:56,217
Speaker 1: a variation of or he started saying, a variation of

760
00:47:56,217 --> 00:47:58,497
Speaker 1: a one that I think is actually just true. Whether

761
00:47:58,537 --> 00:48:00,777
Speaker 1: it's good or bad as another question, but he said

762
00:48:00,817 --> 00:48:06,217
Speaker 1: it's true. He said, don't really fixate on the handful

763
00:48:06,297 --> 00:48:09,217
Speaker 1: of sort of eccentric personalities, like especially in the House,

764
00:48:09,257 --> 00:48:12,377
Speaker 1: who get a lot of airtime, or forget about like

765
00:48:12,417 --> 00:48:15,897
Speaker 1: the social media chatter on this or the media commentary

766
00:48:16,337 --> 00:48:20,897
Speaker 1: TV commentary. Look at who the Republicans actually have impositions

767
00:48:21,057 --> 00:48:25,377
Speaker 1: of legislative power in the Congress, and he's right. The

768
00:48:25,377 --> 00:48:28,817
Speaker 1: heads of the three main committees that would be overseeing

769
00:48:29,417 --> 00:48:37,217
Speaker 1: the drafting of any any forthcoming Ukraine AID legislation are

770
00:48:37,337 --> 00:48:40,497
Speaker 1: among the most ardent hawks in either party on the subject.

771
00:48:40,537 --> 00:48:44,057
Speaker 1: Mike McCall, Mike Turner, etc. On the you know, the

772
00:48:44,057 --> 00:48:48,257
Speaker 1: Foreign Relations Committee, the Armed Services Committee, the actual committee chairs.

773
00:48:48,257 --> 00:48:54,057
Speaker 1: So people who would be exerting power over the formulation

774
00:48:54,137 --> 00:48:59,577
Speaker 1: of this procedurally in the House, they're all even they're

775
00:48:59,617 --> 00:49:03,897
Speaker 1: in that crowd that criticized Biden for not being hawkish enough. Okay,

776
00:49:04,937 --> 00:49:07,817
Speaker 1: So in terms of where the whole conflict is going,

777
00:49:07,897 --> 00:49:10,377
Speaker 1: I think that whole side of it, meaning people are

778
00:49:11,217 --> 00:49:16,777
Speaker 1: always cautioning or pointing out the specter of somehow Republicans

779
00:49:17,697 --> 00:49:21,217
Speaker 1: becoming an anti war caucus and cutting off the provision

780
00:49:21,257 --> 00:49:26,137
Speaker 1: of AID. I don't think that's a particularly realistic possibility,

781
00:49:26,217 --> 00:49:28,057
Speaker 1: or I don't at least don't see much evidence that

782
00:49:28,097 --> 00:49:30,577
Speaker 1: anybody should let that sort of dictate how they understand

783
00:49:30,617 --> 00:49:32,577
Speaker 1: what the trajectory of the war is, because it seems

784
00:49:32,577 --> 00:49:34,737
Speaker 1: like there's every reason to believe it'll just kind of

785
00:49:34,937 --> 00:49:37,897
Speaker 1: the status quo will continue in that respect, Where do

786
00:49:37,937 --> 00:49:42,057
Speaker 1: I see it going? I mean, you know, I'm hesitant

787
00:49:42,057 --> 00:49:46,937
Speaker 1: to answer that question in a speculative sense because that

788
00:49:46,977 --> 00:49:50,057
Speaker 1: always makes people look bad. Like we had. There's this

789
00:49:50,097 --> 00:49:53,697
Speaker 1: talking point that goes around now where we're told everybody believed,

790
00:49:53,777 --> 00:49:56,297
Speaker 1: or people will say and even like the Polish president

791
00:49:56,337 --> 00:50:00,697
Speaker 1: said it last night introducing Biden in Warsaw, and like

792
00:50:00,737 --> 00:50:02,977
Speaker 1: Alexei Navalni I saw saying, and everybody says it, it's

793
00:50:02,977 --> 00:50:04,737
Speaker 1: just like a matter of like just it's an article

794
00:50:04,737 --> 00:50:06,857
Speaker 1: of faith. It's part of like the war mythology. Now

795
00:50:06,897 --> 00:50:11,497
Speaker 1: that everybody believed somehow that Kiev would fall within three days,

796
00:50:11,497 --> 00:50:13,937
Speaker 1: and they were all wrong, because Ukraine showed how we're

797
00:50:13,937 --> 00:50:17,177
Speaker 1: sourceful it is and how bold its fighters are and

798
00:50:17,537 --> 00:50:19,617
Speaker 1: warded off the Russian menace heroically, and that's why we

799
00:50:19,697 --> 00:50:24,657
Speaker 1: then have to have this indefinite commitment of perpetual warfare

800
00:50:24,657 --> 00:50:28,937
Speaker 1: provision to Ukraine. Right, So I think that coal narrative

801
00:50:29,017 --> 00:50:31,857
Speaker 1: is a bit of a misnomer. And let's like, you know,

802
00:50:31,897 --> 00:50:34,937
Speaker 1: cleverly constructed war propagandic because everybody did not quote believe

803
00:50:34,977 --> 00:50:37,977
Speaker 1: that there was one briefing that Mark Milly gave in

804
00:50:38,217 --> 00:50:42,657
Speaker 1: early February where he suggested that Russia could or may

805
00:50:43,617 --> 00:50:48,817
Speaker 1: sees Kiev Kiev in one of several possible scenarios, and

806
00:50:48,817 --> 00:50:52,057
Speaker 1: then that was just extrapolated into oh, everyone unbelieved that

807
00:50:52,137 --> 00:50:54,897
Speaker 1: this was going to be happening with absolute certainty, which

808
00:50:54,937 --> 00:50:57,017
Speaker 1: was again not the case. But you can see why

809
00:50:57,137 --> 00:51:00,337
Speaker 1: Ukrainians or pro Ukraine advocates would want to hype that

810
00:51:00,897 --> 00:51:03,457
Speaker 1: as supposedly what happened, because it kind of gives their

811
00:51:04,337 --> 00:51:09,777
Speaker 1: endeavor this like heightened purpose and it's like this animating

812
00:51:10,337 --> 00:51:14,417
Speaker 1: sort of force for their argumentation. Here's what I can say,

813
00:51:14,497 --> 00:51:16,857
Speaker 1: is happening. I've rather almost try to figure out what

814
00:51:16,977 --> 00:51:18,937
Speaker 1: is happening then what may happen six months from now,

815
00:51:18,977 --> 00:51:23,377
Speaker 1: because I don't freaking know what is very unpredictable. Well,

816
00:51:23,417 --> 00:51:28,897
Speaker 1: what is happening is because you have this Western security establishment,

817
00:51:29,257 --> 00:51:31,217
Speaker 1: so to say, And I hate even using the word

818
00:51:31,257 --> 00:51:33,737
Speaker 1: West or Western in this context without scare quotes, because

819
00:51:33,777 --> 00:51:36,337
Speaker 1: it's such like a ridiculous conceit or the West, what

820
00:51:36,377 --> 00:51:38,257
Speaker 1: does that even mean? I mean, it's so sort of

821
00:51:38,537 --> 00:51:43,657
Speaker 1: annoying and self aggrandizing. What is happening is you do

822
00:51:43,737 --> 00:51:48,617
Speaker 1: see a hardening of the ideological zeal of the core

823
00:51:48,737 --> 00:51:55,337
Speaker 1: decision makers who are party to the development of the

824
00:51:55,537 --> 00:52:02,897
Speaker 1: just policy orientation of these security and state apparatus. Is

825
00:52:05,257 --> 00:52:08,937
Speaker 1: Biden being a chief example. I mean, I actually think

826
00:52:08,977 --> 00:52:14,377
Speaker 1: people under rate the significance of Biden's sincerely felt ideological

827
00:52:14,417 --> 00:52:17,137
Speaker 1: convictions on this. Like people think that Biden is just

828
00:52:17,217 --> 00:52:20,857
Speaker 1: senile and or his interest in Ukraine is all about

829
00:52:20,857 --> 00:52:23,417
Speaker 1: how like he wanted Hunter to get like sixty thousand

830
00:52:23,457 --> 00:52:25,977
Speaker 1: dollars a month from the Barisma board. That's like an

831
00:52:26,377 --> 00:52:31,697
Speaker 1: ancillarily related dimension of Biden's relationship with Ukraine. But I

832
00:52:31,737 --> 00:52:33,737
Speaker 1: am inclined really to take on his word when he

833
00:52:33,817 --> 00:52:39,097
Speaker 1: makes these incredibly zealous statements about how awesomely important he

834
00:52:39,297 --> 00:52:41,777
Speaker 1: views the conflict to be, and it would be consistent

835
00:52:41,817 --> 00:52:45,217
Speaker 1: with what his foreign policy views and what his emphasis

836
00:52:45,257 --> 00:52:48,297
Speaker 1: has been in public life as a member of the

837
00:52:48,337 --> 00:52:51,337
Speaker 1: Senate going back decades and then as Vice president. This

838
00:52:51,417 --> 00:52:53,977
Speaker 1: is bright within his ballywick as something that he thinks

839
00:52:54,097 --> 00:52:59,337
Speaker 1: is actually extraordinarily existentially civilizationally important. You can pull up

840
00:52:59,377 --> 00:53:01,577
Speaker 1: clips of him in the nineties, like being the person

841
00:53:01,657 --> 00:53:03,777
Speaker 1: that Bill Clinton and then later in the two thousands,

842
00:53:03,777 --> 00:53:07,937
Speaker 1: George W. Bush designated to usher through NATO expansion in

843
00:53:08,177 --> 00:53:11,697
Speaker 1: the Senate. You know, so while he might not have

844
00:53:11,737 --> 00:53:16,017
Speaker 1: been like a long time zealous, he might have been

845
00:53:16,057 --> 00:53:17,897
Speaker 1: like it have been a long time audiologue with regard

846
00:53:17,897 --> 00:53:21,697
Speaker 1: to like Afghanistan, right, which is why he allowed for

847
00:53:21,897 --> 00:53:25,257
Speaker 1: or you know, ordered the withdrawal in twenty twenty one.

848
00:53:26,497 --> 00:53:29,297
Speaker 1: In terms of Europe and um, you know, Soviet Union

849
00:53:29,337 --> 00:53:31,377
Speaker 1: and slash Russia relations in the United States, this is

850
00:53:31,417 --> 00:53:35,417
Speaker 1: something that he actually, you know, been deeply, seemingly ideologically

851
00:53:35,417 --> 00:53:37,657
Speaker 1: invested in for a long time. So I'll take him

852
00:53:37,657 --> 00:53:40,977
Speaker 1: at his word on that. And that's actually all the

853
00:53:41,017 --> 00:53:45,697
Speaker 1: more reason to presume that the commitment is going to

854
00:53:45,777 --> 00:53:48,857
Speaker 1: be indefinite, or at least there's no reason to think

855
00:53:48,897 --> 00:53:51,297
Speaker 1: that the current trajectory will change. And what is the

856
00:53:51,297 --> 00:53:58,577
Speaker 1: current trajectory. It's these escalatory spirals that are hit for

857
00:53:58,657 --> 00:54:04,617
Speaker 1: tat and have this center just a sort of relationship

858
00:54:04,657 --> 00:54:06,937
Speaker 1: with one another between the US, slash Ukraine and Russia.

859
00:54:07,257 --> 00:54:12,017
Speaker 1: That although people, I thought people claim that the red

860
00:54:12,057 --> 00:54:14,097
Speaker 1: lines were never crossed and Putin was bluffing right as

861
00:54:14,097 --> 00:54:16,497
Speaker 1: we were talking about before, We're at a point. Now,

862
00:54:16,537 --> 00:54:18,937
Speaker 1: I mean if I if I told you a year

863
00:54:18,937 --> 00:54:20,137
Speaker 1: and a half ago, or if you told me a

864
00:54:20,177 --> 00:54:22,457
Speaker 1: year and a half ago, right, that the US would

865
00:54:22,497 --> 00:54:28,377
Speaker 1: be essentially functionally effectively in a hot war with Russia

866
00:54:28,457 --> 00:54:33,137
Speaker 1: in that you have this incredibly intense operational involvement in

867
00:54:33,177 --> 00:54:37,817
Speaker 1: the actual combat that the US's engineering. You have the

868
00:54:37,857 --> 00:54:43,217
Speaker 1: weapons provision, the diplomatic side of it, the economic subsidy,

869
00:54:43,217 --> 00:54:45,177
Speaker 1: and so forth. If you had told me that and

870
00:54:45,257 --> 00:54:48,137
Speaker 1: given me some examples of like what this has manifested

871
00:54:48,137 --> 00:54:50,937
Speaker 1: as like, for example, in December of last year, there

872
00:54:50,977 --> 00:54:54,897
Speaker 1: was a drone strike three hundred miles inside Russia, Okay,

873
00:54:55,497 --> 00:55:01,617
Speaker 1: on an air base that housed part of Russia's strategic

874
00:55:01,857 --> 00:55:07,617
Speaker 1: nuclear fleet. Ukraine did another audacious act and did a

875
00:55:07,697 --> 00:55:10,657
Speaker 1: drone strike on that base. Now that's the US sponsoring

876
00:55:10,857 --> 00:55:14,177
Speaker 1: Ukraine's ability to do that. Whatever direct operational world the

877
00:55:14,257 --> 00:55:16,817
Speaker 1: US might have had in that particular action sort of

878
00:55:17,137 --> 00:55:19,777
Speaker 1: beside the point. It's only because of the US sponsorship

879
00:55:19,777 --> 00:55:21,577
Speaker 1: of the Ukraine military you can do anything at all.

880
00:55:21,897 --> 00:55:26,417
Speaker 1: Right now, if you had told me that that happened, right,

881
00:55:27,457 --> 00:55:36,617
Speaker 1: or that the US would be declaring through the words

882
00:55:36,617 --> 00:55:40,937
Speaker 1: of the President that nuclear apocalypse. Mr Biden said this

883
00:55:41,297 --> 00:55:47,737
Speaker 1: in October. Nuclear apo apocalypse is a greater threat than

884
00:55:47,737 --> 00:55:52,257
Speaker 1: at any time since the Cuban missile crisis, or you

885
00:55:52,257 --> 00:55:55,937
Speaker 1: had told me just a dozen or more other insane

886
00:55:56,017 --> 00:55:59,697
Speaker 1: things that are that exemplified this conflict, I mean even

887
00:55:59,737 --> 00:56:01,697
Speaker 1: just a few weeks ago or two weeks ago or so.

888
00:56:01,897 --> 00:56:06,857
Speaker 1: The Washington Post reported that when the Ukraine military fires

889
00:56:06,857 --> 00:56:10,337
Speaker 1: any rocket attacks on any at any Russian tar good,

890
00:56:11,337 --> 00:56:15,417
Speaker 1: that every single time, or virtually every single time, the

891
00:56:15,537 --> 00:56:19,217
Speaker 1: United States is effectively firing the rocket in that it's

892
00:56:19,257 --> 00:56:24,257
Speaker 1: providing such precise and granular real time intelligence that it's

893
00:56:24,337 --> 00:56:28,657
Speaker 1: essentially a second party to the actual conduct of the

894
00:56:28,657 --> 00:56:32,857
Speaker 1: strike through a base that the US has on the

895
00:56:32,897 --> 00:56:36,017
Speaker 1: periphery of Ukraine somewhere somewhere in one of these other

896
00:56:36,057 --> 00:56:38,897
Speaker 1: countries like Romania or Poland. I mean, that's that's insane.

897
00:56:38,937 --> 00:56:41,697
Speaker 1: That's like direct war with Russia. Okay, So people don't people,

898
00:56:41,737 --> 00:56:44,537
Speaker 1: but people have been habituated or they've been acclimated to

899
00:56:44,937 --> 00:56:49,017
Speaker 1: how jarring and insane that is over the last year

900
00:56:49,057 --> 00:56:51,817
Speaker 1: because of the way that they've approached this issue policy wise, mean,

901
00:56:51,857 --> 00:56:56,497
Speaker 1: the bind administration, Congress, etc. They've done the escalations incrementally.

902
00:56:56,897 --> 00:56:58,817
Speaker 1: The war first started, supposedly, it was like this limited

903
00:56:58,897 --> 00:57:01,937
Speaker 1: humanitarian aid mission with a couple of rifles and javelins,

904
00:57:01,937 --> 00:57:04,617
Speaker 1: and that was it. Now we're furnishing Ukraine and entirely

905
00:57:04,657 --> 00:57:07,737
Speaker 1: new military with F sixteens potentially, or at least that

906
00:57:07,777 --> 00:57:10,897
Speaker 1: we know now, Abram's tanks and Patriot bat reason everything else.

907
00:57:10,937 --> 00:57:15,137
Speaker 1: It's like, it's not Michael. We got to leave it there,

908
00:57:15,177 --> 00:57:18,017
Speaker 1: Michael Tracy. Everybody check out his substack. Michael will have

909
00:57:18,057 --> 00:57:19,737
Speaker 1: you back with more time to talk about this and

910
00:57:19,817 --> 00:57:22,257
Speaker 1: other subjects too. Thanks for being here on the show Man.

911
00:57:22,297 --> 00:57:24,977
Speaker 1: We appreciate you all right, enjoyed it. Thanks