Speaker 1: You're listening to The Buck Sexton Show podcast, make sure
Speaker 1: you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody, welcome to another
Speaker 1: episode of The Buck Sexton Show. I have Michael Tracy
Speaker 1: with me now. He is a journalist with really interesting
Speaker 1: opinions on foreign policy, a perspective you're gonna want to hear,
Speaker 1: specifically on Ukraine. And he also has a great substack,
Speaker 1: Michael Tracy substack. O check it out. You can follow
Speaker 1: him on Twitter. Mister Tracy, coming to us Live alf Deutschland.
Speaker 1: So I know you're over in Germany right now. Let
Speaker 1: me let me start there. Actually, what's the feeling in
Speaker 1: Germany about the largest war in Europe in eighty years? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: first off, greetings, I would do a German greeting, but
Speaker 1: I'm just so pathetic at even adopting like basics of
Speaker 1: the linguistic context that I was supposed to be in.
Speaker 1: And in part because you know, coming to this conference
Speaker 1: with this was the Munich Security Conference that just concluded
Speaker 1: in here in Munich where I am now, and like
Speaker 1: so it's all these people flying in from all over
Speaker 1: the place, so there's not really an expectation that you
Speaker 1: have to acclimate it all to the local customs. So
Speaker 1: nobody really expects that you're going to speak German, and
Speaker 1: they probably wouldn't anyway, frankly, but it was even less
Speaker 1: of a burden to do so this time for this trip,
Speaker 1: which is kind of embarrassing because now I feel like
Speaker 1: an arrogant American. When we have more time, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you when I went to a Swedish counter terrorism conference
Speaker 1: and ended up partying late night at a nightclub with Danish,
Speaker 1: Swedish and I think Finnish federal police. So you know,
Speaker 1: fun things could happen in that part of the world. Okay,
Speaker 1: so how do they feel or what's the sort of
Speaker 1: tenor or what's the just general sense that you can
Speaker 1: pick up from the conference. Well, first of all, I
Speaker 1: should disclose that the whole system that this conference had
Speaker 1: set up for press was quite peculiar, and you'd almost
Speaker 1: get a sneaking suspicion that they didn't really particularly want
Speaker 1: the press to have full access to the conference that
Speaker 1: they could make inferences about what the tenor was. So
Speaker 1: just let me explain it to you real quick, because
Speaker 1: this is amazing and no journalists who I spoke to
Speaker 1: at this conference had ever seen or experience anything like
Speaker 1: it or even heard of it. So as best I
Speaker 1: can tell, it's like an unprecedented thing, at least for
Speaker 1: this particular conference, and maybe just you know, conferences of
Speaker 1: this sort writ large, with this being you know, a
Speaker 1: pre him and security conference for the you know, basically,
Speaker 1: you know, the rules based international order. So you have
Speaker 1: to sign up ahead of time to get a press credential,
Speaker 1: which is standard. But once you arrive and our issue
Speaker 1: the press credential, you can't just then waltz in to
Speaker 1: the venue as you might anticipate, right. You have to
Speaker 1: go to a press sort of monitor or a selection
Speaker 1: of staff who have this booth or this room setup,
Speaker 1: and in order to get into the main venue, which
Speaker 1: is a hotel right in the center of the old
Speaker 1: city of Munich. In order to get into the hotel,
Speaker 1: you then you have to declare a specific purpose or
Speaker 1: a specific destination or a specific task for why you're
Speaker 1: entering the hotel number one and then number two. You
Speaker 1: also have to be escorted the entire time. They actually
Speaker 1: call it an escort system, that you're in the hotel
Speaker 1: by one of these like twenty year old German guys
Speaker 1: who they have lined up ready to accompany journalists as
Speaker 1: like a chaperone or a babysitter, and you know, you
Speaker 1: could try to lose them. I've heard of instances where
Speaker 1: like journalists where it's able to sneak away and like
Speaker 1: you know, hide in the bathroom or something to have
Speaker 1: a bit of free access. But you know, they were
Speaker 1: pretty you know, uh insistence on making sure that you
Speaker 1: never left their site, and it was very odd. Um,
Speaker 1: definitely not the embodiment of press freedom that you would
Speaker 1: expect based on the rhetoric of these people, where they're
Speaker 1: always talking about how we have to stand up for
Speaker 1: liberal values and defend the rules based in international order
Speaker 1: because we cherish principles like you know, freedom of the press,
Speaker 1: whereas these authoritarian countries they cracked down the press, which
Speaker 1: you know is true in certain respects, but that tends
Speaker 1: to kind of obscure how you know, Also the high
Speaker 1: minded liberal order countries or entities can engage in a
Speaker 1: bit of chicanery themselves in that respect. Um, but that
Speaker 1: just a little bit of a sort of ephemera of
Speaker 1: people are curious. So how giants as how freaked out
Speaker 1: of the Germans about the war in Ukraine right now,
Speaker 1: or rather, what's the opinion of the Germans about the
Speaker 1: war in Ukraine. Well, so there is a new or
Speaker 1: Newish Defense Minister who came into office in January. His
Speaker 1: name is Pistorius and he entered that position right around
Speaker 1: the time when there was that whole hubbub about whether
Speaker 1: Germany would send these leopard tanks to Ukraine. And then
Speaker 1: there had to be a deal struck between the Biden
Speaker 1: administration and German Chancellor Shoals for the US to at
Speaker 1: least pledge in theory to send m one Abram's battle tanks,
Speaker 1: whereas in the meantime so as to enable in the
Speaker 1: meantime Germany to send these leopard tanks. And you know,
Speaker 1: just going based on the rhetoric of the of the
Speaker 1: new Defense minister and also the Foreign Minister, which is
Speaker 1: a woman who's from the Green Party Babback, they're getting
Speaker 1: almost very conspicuously strident in their rhetoric because you would expect,
Speaker 1: in ordinary circumstances Germany to be among the more resistant
Speaker 1: countries in one of these like transatlantic coalitions, so it
Speaker 1: would be the US, the UK, you know, maybe the
Speaker 1: Baltic States and Poland and so forth, at least in
Speaker 1: the context of Ukraine being most strident and most aggressive
Speaker 1: in pushing certain measures that they would like to take
Speaker 1: in terms of the conflict with Russia, whereas Germany and
Speaker 1: you know, to some extent France would be more wary,
Speaker 1: right given for a variety of historical reasons. Also, you know,
Speaker 1: Italy and so forth would be in that category. But
Speaker 1: what's notable now, and this is sort of a break
Speaker 1: with precedent or a break with what have been the
Speaker 1: more convention expectation, is the rhetoric is hardening even with
Speaker 1: the German officials like Pistorius, the Defense Minister gave it
Speaker 1: speech or declared at one of his appearances at this
Speaker 1: conference that Ukraine must win. He gave like a maximalist
Speaker 1: declaration as to what must happen militarily in the war
Speaker 1: for victory to be achieved, which is beyond the kind
Speaker 1: of declarations that you would have gotten even maybe just
Speaker 1: six months ago from the German government. And in terms
Speaker 1: of the woman who's the Foreign minister, Babback, she's been
Speaker 1: one of the most hardcore advocates of accelerating the kind
Speaker 1: of interventionist policy in Ukraine from the outset, which is
Speaker 1: ironic because she's a member of the ruling coalition as
Speaker 1: a Green Party member. So the Green Party is one
Speaker 1: faction within the ruling coalition of Schulz Right, and so
Speaker 1: they have Green Party members that get appointed to positions
Speaker 1: of state such as Foreign Minister. And she's been agitating
Speaker 1: for months and months and months for Shoals to be
Speaker 1: more assertive and more you know, antagonistic toward Russia essentially.
Speaker 1: And why is that ironic? Well, first of all, the
Speaker 1: Green Party is kind of what have what most people
Speaker 1: probably would have thought for a year ago, the Dovish
Speaker 1: Party right, like the peace nick crunchy party, where you
Speaker 1: know they'd rather like strum an acoustic guitar and sing
Speaker 1: Kumbaya than do anything even related whatsoever to the military. Um.
Speaker 1: But they're among the most strident now. And why think
Speaker 1: that is? And if you look at their wait, why
Speaker 1: is it's interesting? Yeah? Um? Why is it? Yeah? It's
Speaker 1: a good question. And it also relates to why the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party is so unified. That was my next question.
Speaker 1: There's a more dissension and among the Republicans even though
Speaker 1: they're like there's definitely a majority support for the policy,
Speaker 1: but there's a little bit more dissension, right, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: I think it has to do with this with the
Speaker 1: ideological contours of the war that have been imparted onto it.
Speaker 1: Or they look at the conflict, meaning just the generic
Speaker 1: liberal kind of mainline opinion, especially within elite circles. They
Speaker 1: look at the conflict in Ukraine and they heighten like
Speaker 1: the cosmic significance of it to the point where they're
Speaker 1: imbuing it with these dimensions of some sort of you know,
Speaker 1: apocalyptic battle between authoritarianism and democracy, or fascism and liberalism,
Speaker 1: or one of these like grand ideological crusades. Right. That's
Speaker 1: why they're always invoking World War Two. That's why World
Speaker 1: War two, now more than at any point that I've
Speaker 1: been alive anyway, is the most potent analogy and kind
Speaker 1: of conferring moral salience. Yeah. This is a good versus
Speaker 1: evil conflict, is the basics of it. This is this
Speaker 1: is the the good guy, the bad guy, the cowboy
Speaker 1: and the white hat, the cowboy and the black hat.
Speaker 1: Putin is Hitler, Right, That's that's how this is lined up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And they also then can relate that to their domestic
Speaker 1: political foes, right, because you know in the US, I
Speaker 1: don't have to tell you it's not just a it's
Speaker 1: not just the determination to stop Putin that's informing the
Speaker 1: fury with which a lot of Democrats approaches this ue.
Speaker 1: It's that it also they also view it as connecting
Speaker 1: or you know, intersecting with their domestic struggle against insurrectionists
Speaker 1: and fascists and you know, white nationalists and so forth,
Speaker 1: because Trump was seen as this colluder of Putin's right,
Speaker 1: and so Putin was depicted starting in twenty and sixteen. Really,
Speaker 1: and Hillary Clinton, believe it or not, initiated this, or
Speaker 1: I don't know why you wouldn't believe it. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you would. She sort of initiated this conception of Putin
Speaker 1: that was sort of new circle of twenty and sixteen
Speaker 1: that he wasn't just this you know, revanchist Russian former
Speaker 1: KGB agent who we had to be suspicious of, right
Speaker 1: he was also this like exporter of right wing authoritarianism
Speaker 1: and trying to undermine liberal democracy by subverting the rules
Speaker 1: based international order to demodeological interventions. To democrats, there is
Speaker 1: a Putin Trump axis of evil, if you will, I
Speaker 1: mean this is what this is what they've created over
Speaker 1: the years of the Trump over the Trump presidency, and
Speaker 1: now it's extended. And I do remember with some of
Speaker 1: the not just hyperbole, but the outright fabrications from the
Speaker 1: Trump from the Trump era about Russia and putin specifically,
Speaker 1: some people, and I believe you were among them, if
Speaker 1: I remember from your Twitter, were learning, Hey, maybe just
Speaker 1: creating Russia as this almost cartoonishly evil country that is
Speaker 1: trying to destroy America from within and with fate, whether
Speaker 1: it's be a Facebook or democracy. Maybe this will have
Speaker 1: long term foreign policy implications. I think we're actually already
Speaker 1: seeing some of those foreign policy implications right now, and
Speaker 1: I want to return to that in a second. And
Speaker 1: also the notion of this doesn't stop till Russia loses
Speaker 1: what does that actually look like? But I want to
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Speaker 1: That's one eight hundred LifeLock. All right, Michael, back back
Speaker 1: to this a few things. I feel like we're being
Speaker 1: told a lot of contrary because because I really want
Speaker 1: to drill down into the what the strategy is that
Speaker 1: kin make a quick Can I make a quick point
Speaker 1: about the ideological dimensions that I wanted to make, and
Speaker 1: then we'll move on to the other stuff before I forget.
Speaker 1: I think it's like setting. Sorry to interrupt, but in
Speaker 1: terms of forward, go for it. What do you got?
Speaker 1: Usually I'm just free flowing nonsense out of my mouth
Speaker 1: and people have to tell me to study every so often. Therese,
Speaker 1: I'll just ramble for hours on in terms of the
Speaker 1: ideological dimension right, I think the whole the reason why
Speaker 1: liberals are and even leftists some degree like you would
Speaker 1: associate with a Green Party, have been so enlivened by
Speaker 1: this conflict is because it fits so perfectly into their
Speaker 1: pre existing sort of ideological warfare that they were already
Speaker 1: waging even if there had been no invasion last February. Right,
Speaker 1: But that's not the full story, right, That just one
Speaker 1: component as to why the consensus around this issue is
Speaker 1: so intractable. You also have other factions of ideological consensus
Speaker 1: as represented for example by Poland or the government of Poland,
Speaker 1: where you have a socially conservative party in power, the
Speaker 1: Law and Justice Party, rather rather conservative country overall all,
Speaker 1: at least relative to the rest of Europe, and they're
Speaker 1: among the most vehement, if not the most vehement, in
Speaker 1: terms of supporting the more and more aggressive measures in
Speaker 1: Ukraine and being really beating the drum harder and harder.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's where Biden is right now, right where
Speaker 1: he just gave his speech. So that that I think
Speaker 1: that fervor that Poland exhibits kind of comes from a
Speaker 1: different ideological angle. But again, the reason why the consensus
Speaker 1: is so potent is because you have like different interlocking
Speaker 1: ideological schools of thought that can become equally sort of
Speaker 1: vigorous in their support for this particular cause. So you
Speaker 1: asked me just to answer quickly, what is like the
Speaker 1: tenor at this security conference, because obviously I was able
Speaker 1: to do stuff and talk to people and whatever, notwithstanding
Speaker 1: the ridiculous press restrictions. I would just summarize it as
Speaker 1: it's like an ideology overload, Like it's people overdosing on
Speaker 1: these ideological intoxicants that they've been hopped up on for
Speaker 1: a year from whatever particular direction where to the point
Speaker 1: where they almost can't be reasoned with in many respects,
Speaker 1: and they're just full steam ahead toward a particular end
Speaker 1: goal that they can't quite articulate. I have theories as
Speaker 1: to what the end goal actually is. Maybe we'll get
Speaker 1: to it. But yeah, that's just basically how I would
Speaker 1: answer it. It's just this really strong, to say, to
Speaker 1: put it mildly, fervor that has overtaken this like Western
Speaker 1: so called security establishments, such that they're really radicalizing rapidly
Speaker 1: in a whole variety of areas, even once that are
Speaker 1: just tangentially related to Ukraine, like they essentially institutionally endorsed
Speaker 1: regime change in Iran as well at this conference. And
Speaker 1: then there's this whole China issue that is kind of
Speaker 1: trending in the same direction. So it's um, yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's so I want you to tackle this for me.
Speaker 1: You have. On the one hand, in Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: recently editorial said, not only should we give them, meaning Ukraine,
Speaker 1: another ninety billion or whatever whatever they need, we should
Speaker 1: just send the F sixteens now because why wait, because
Speaker 1: we're just this whole incremental game, what's the point. And
Speaker 1: on the one hand, you have them saying effectively this
Speaker 1: national security apparatus, that Western national security apparatus that the
Speaker 1: US is leading, and obviously NATO's as the other big
Speaker 1: component of it, saying or making it seem at least
Speaker 1: like there's really no real risk here of anything getting
Speaker 1: going really bad for US. And yet on the other
Speaker 1: side you have Zelenski saying, if China is support if
Speaker 1: China does for Russia what we are doing for Ukraine,
Speaker 1: and even a fraction of what we're doing for Ukraine,
Speaker 1: Zelenski said, that will start World War three. Well, how
Speaker 1: is one in an escalation to World War three and
Speaker 1: the other has no risk of anything bad happening. That's
Speaker 1: what That's what I'm wondering. How they can make sense
Speaker 1: of this for me? Right, I don't know exactly what
Speaker 1: Zelenski meant by that, because he could have meant it
Speaker 1: in a sort of more superficial sense, and that if
Speaker 1: China did become a bonified co belligerent in the sense
Speaker 1: that it was furnishing Russia with armaments that it would
Speaker 1: be using Ukraine, it would sort of just expand the
Speaker 1: geographical remit of the conflict to where you could say
Speaker 1: it's now a global conflict. Is that what he meant
Speaker 1: by World War three? Or does he say that? Or
Speaker 1: is he suggesting if there's gonna be some like you know,
Speaker 1: Pacific Theater opened up in the war, and it's going
Speaker 1: to be something more recognizable as But even either one
Speaker 1: of those would be right. It's escalatory, that's the point. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's a conventional wisdom now that's
Speaker 1: congealed around the idea of escalation or whether there's risk
Speaker 1: in kind of ramping up these weapons provisions and going
Speaker 1: further and further with the tactics employers. Remember, it's not
Speaker 1: just the weapons. People don't I think, fully appreciate this
Speaker 1: or appreciate this enough. It's such that the US is
Speaker 1: dispatching this endless supply of weaponry in an unprecedented like
Speaker 1: you know, arms funneling operation that as soon as March
Speaker 1: of last year dwarfed the most recent precedent, which had
Speaker 1: been under Terry Truman in terms of unarmed supply operation
Speaker 1: in Europe. Now it's like, I guess, you know, it
Speaker 1: just has no precedent at all. Really, that we can
Speaker 1: reasonably sort of invoke to kind of contextualize what this
Speaker 1: mission is. But it's not just the weapons themselves, it's
Speaker 1: this it's the operational coordination of the warfare itself that
Speaker 1: the US is first and foremost undertaking in Ukraine. Remember
Speaker 1: when Ukraine launched its counter offenses last August and September,
Speaker 1: right where that that were more successful than maybe people thought,
Speaker 1: and they took back a fair amount of land around
Speaker 1: you know, Kharkiev, and then later her song. It was
Speaker 1: reported in the New York Times and elsewhere. Shortly thereafter that,
Speaker 1: the US generals literally were involved in the process of
Speaker 1: drawing up the war plans themselves. Right, So it wasn't
Speaker 1: just we send Ukraine a couple of Javelin missiles and
Speaker 1: hope for the best, you know, and you know, wish
Speaker 1: them good luck in coming up with tactical plans. No,
Speaker 1: the US is intimately evolved in creating and formulating and
Speaker 1: then executing those tactical practical plans because some of the
Speaker 1: systems were giving them also require require US training and
Speaker 1: an active monitoring and assistance. So some of these weapons
Speaker 1: hand someone in ak and say go shoot the enemy.
Speaker 1: That's one thing you give them a Patriot missile battery,
Speaker 1: there has to be US training and US support for
Speaker 1: that to actually function, right, right, I mean one of
Speaker 1: the reasons that the Biden administration had cited as to
Speaker 1: why they were not going to send those Patriot batteries
Speaker 1: that he announced in December. But when they were asked
Speaker 1: about this, meaning when Pentagon officials were asked about this,
Speaker 1: you know, last March or so, would the US entertain
Speaker 1: the idea of sending Patriot batteries to Ukraine, it was
Speaker 1: dismissed as just a nonstarter because to operate those Patriot batteries,
Speaker 1: these Pentagon officials said, would require US forces on the ground,
Speaker 1: and we don't want US forces on the ground. That's
Speaker 1: what Biden says, is the red line that the United
Speaker 1: States is not going to cross policy wise. And then
Speaker 1: sure enough, you know, like nine months later, the Patriot
Speaker 1: batteries are deployed. Now, who knows who's going to be
Speaker 1: rating those. I mean, do I doubt that Ukrainian soldiers
Speaker 1: can garner the knowledge necessary to at least in part
Speaker 1: operate the missiles. No, I don't necessarily doubt that, but
Speaker 1: I don't know for sure. You and I and nobody
Speaker 1: knows what the actual operational ratement will be in the
Speaker 1: management and opera and execution of those well to be
Speaker 1: what they're set up from my previous life and our
Speaker 1: patriots system, someone has to train them, and to your point,
Speaker 1: they could learn how to do it themselves, but there
Speaker 1: has to be active assistance in that phase of getting
Speaker 1: them up to speed so they can operate what is
Speaker 1: a complicated and very expensive weapons system. Is it your perception?
Speaker 1: I feel like the biggest um, the biggest debate right now,
Speaker 1: or maybe maybe the center of the problem is absent
Speaker 1: US troops in Ukraine. I think the perception of the
Speaker 1: national security apparatus is Putin won't do anything to us
Speaker 1: or to escalate unless we actually send in troops. Therefore,
Speaker 1: why not send F sixteens? Abrahamstad like the whole all
Speaker 1: of it, Just go with all of it? Are they right?
Speaker 1: You know? I think that that logic is actually coherent,
Speaker 1: meaning I wouldn't endorse that logic necessarily. But if you
Speaker 1: do believe, say that it is true that Putin will
Speaker 1: not escalate short of some sort of more overt, unambiguous,
Speaker 1: direct US military intervention, then they have a point when
Speaker 1: they're saying it doesn't make a whole lot of sense
Speaker 1: to deploy these different weapons systems so incrementally and haltingly, right,
Speaker 1: because you're saying that that's all under the escalation threshold,
Speaker 1: So why not just do it all at once rather
Speaker 1: than yeah, you know, dither for for months now. I
Speaker 1: don't think that's necessarily an accurate assessment. But if that
Speaker 1: is your assessment, then at least it's internally coherent to
Speaker 1: make that argument. But my question is, do you think
Speaker 1: that's an accurate assessment? Well, I don't think there's really
Speaker 1: a basis to believe it's accurate. Here here's the conventional
Speaker 1: wisdom that seems to have emerged around this question of
Speaker 1: escalation and so called red lines, which I hate because
Speaker 1: it's a cliche, and I guess I just hate all cliches,
Speaker 1: but this one in particular because it like obscures the
Speaker 1: gravity of the subject matter in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: They think that because there's there, you know, conventional wisdom
Speaker 1: now among people who will always want to escalate anyway,
Speaker 1: So they were going to try to like fashion whatever
Speaker 1: arguments they could to justify that. But those people now
Speaker 1: have like settled on this sort of circumstantial argument, or
Speaker 1: this argument based on what's happened so far in the conflict,
Speaker 1: where they're saying, look, you know, back in the fall,
Speaker 1: there was that period in October where Putin seemed to
Speaker 1: allude to the idea of potentially using the Russian nuclear
Speaker 1: arsenal for some sort of reprisal. He didn't make a
Speaker 1: direct threat, but you know, there's a clear allusion to it.
Speaker 1: It was in actually the speech that he gave him
Speaker 1: September twenty first, when he announced the annexation of those
Speaker 1: four new oblasts, right. And so then you know, Russia
Speaker 1: annexes the Oblasts, they have these so called referenda, which
Speaker 1: I don't think necessarily would hold up to scrutiny if
Speaker 1: you wanted to sort of decipher what it means to
Speaker 1: have a free, fair election. They're under older occupation. That's
Speaker 1: sort of a separate issue. But so then no, Russia
Speaker 1: then formally declares that those four Oblasts are part of Russia, right,
Speaker 1: and they also assert that the Russian nuclear arsenal can
Speaker 1: be used in the event that parts of Russia are
Speaker 1: existensionally threatened. Now you have parts of Russia that are
Speaker 1: in a hot war zone. So theoretically based on what
Speaker 1: is understood to be there nuclear doctrine, although who knows
Speaker 1: what the actual nuclear doctrine is. I mean mean, people
Speaker 1: just kind of pontificate somehow. There are more people in
Speaker 1: the United States, like on CNN who are experts on
Speaker 1: the Russian nuclear doctrine in the American doctrine. I don't
Speaker 1: know how that came about. Yeah, but it is true
Speaker 1: that those territories were incorporating to Russia, and you could
Speaker 1: make like a theoretical argument if you're Russia, that the
Speaker 1: nuclear nuclear use is warranted to defend those oblasts. They
Speaker 1: think that meaning these national security types and whoever would
Speaker 1: be of the sort that would populate like Immuniq security
Speaker 1: conference there. They've convinced themselves that because or as they're
Speaker 1: claiming to be convinced that because Putin's red line was
Speaker 1: crossed in that the United States didn't back off from
Speaker 1: like Zappariga, Oblast and whatever when he annext them and
Speaker 1: made them part of Russia, that that means his whatever
Speaker 1: red lines he suggests that he has, or that might
Speaker 1: even postulated that he has, they're they're not really there,
Speaker 1: and it's just all a bluff and so that gives
Speaker 1: us license. These people say to themselves, just press on
Speaker 1: even more aggressively forward because we know that Putin really
Speaker 1: is all talk. Now, I think that that makes no sense,
Speaker 1: because Putin not doing a nuclear reprisal just because one
Speaker 1: so called red line wasn't crossed doesn't mean he wouldn't
Speaker 1: do it for an additional one. Like one doesn't that
Speaker 1: one thing doesn't lead to the other there in the
Speaker 1: logical construction, it's just like an assumption or a conjecture.
Speaker 1: And second, you don't even know I mean, these people
Speaker 1: don't even know what a red line is. I mean
Speaker 1: they use that term because Obama said it once at
Speaker 1: a press conference in twenty twelve regarding Syria, and then
Speaker 1: it just became this like constantly invoked cliche that really
Speaker 1: has no tangible content to it other than what people
Speaker 1: are speculating might be like the point of no return
Speaker 1: for a certain world in like military and national security
Speaker 1: analysis circles. It is used all the time. And when
Speaker 1: they talk about war gaming, which is another thing, by
Speaker 1: the way, that doesn't I've partaken in war games in
Speaker 1: my past life, I've seen and the problem with war
Speaker 1: games is not a game, and so you have no
Speaker 1: idea how the war is actually going to go, gives you,
Speaker 1: at best a very rough approximation of how conventional force
Speaker 1: on force would react if the following dependent variables are
Speaker 1: all true. That I'll said on even just the redlines issue.
Speaker 1: The notion that there is an axiomatic where that there's
Speaker 1: a dogmatic and immediate response that you would get from
Speaker 1: an action independent of everything everything else going on, I
Speaker 1: think that is it is a problematic way of thinking
Speaker 1: about it, right. I mean they could say, well, redline
Speaker 1: as if someone goes to take the capital city or something. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean certain red lines are so obvious you don't
Speaker 1: need to say them. And others I think would be
Speaker 1: more situational, which brings us back into Ukraine and what
Speaker 1: Putin is willing to do here in order to see
Speaker 1: this thing through, which I think, by the way, is
Speaker 1: he'll see it through with whatever he can, however he can.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you go ahead, sorry, I was
Speaker 1: just gonna make a quick a quick point on that,
Speaker 1: and the certainty that these people have meaning like this
Speaker 1: conventional nat SEC community, who I think probably the one
Speaker 1: demographic on Earth that I can most confidently say is
Speaker 1: just full of crap almost twenty four to seven and
Speaker 1: almost universally with so few exceptions that like, they don't
Speaker 1: even really factor into whether you can just declare them
Speaker 1: universally full of crap. One thing that they don't factor
Speaker 1: into this whole newfound certain city that they have about
Speaker 1: Putin's decklessness or how he's really just you know, feinting
Speaker 1: when he suggests that there could be lines, is we
Speaker 1: have plentiful evidence that there have been escalatory tit for
Speaker 1: tat exchanges between the United States and Russia that have
Speaker 1: heightened the intensity of the conflict. Right and here, let's
Speaker 1: just to give one example. And when I say the
Speaker 1: US and Russia, you know, I'm including Ukraine within the
Speaker 1: US side of that dichotomy because Ukraine only exists as
Speaker 1: a state right now because of the sponsorship of US,
Speaker 1: and not even just the military portion of the Ukrainian
Speaker 1: state either the civil state as well, like the USA.
Speaker 1: I d is just paying all the state pensions and
Speaker 1: benefits of state employees in Ukraine. But that's side issue.
Speaker 1: But when Ukraine, remember it did that truck bombing attack
Speaker 1: on the Kirch Bridge in Crimea in October, which was
Speaker 1: odd because or odd the standpoint of it had certain
Speaker 1: kind of classical markers of what we've come to believe
Speaker 1: would constitute a terrorist attack. But of course it wasn't
Speaker 1: called that at all in Western media because that would
Speaker 1: impune Ukraine and can't do that because you know, the
Speaker 1: high principle always is to be a partisan for one
Speaker 1: of the warring parties rather than be you know, truthful
Speaker 1: about stuff. Sends to be the case with warfare, at
Speaker 1: least as I have observed it when that happened, which
Speaker 1: is obviously a fairly adventurous or audacious act on the
Speaker 1: Ukraine Special forces part given the kind of centrality of
Speaker 1: CRIMEA to like what seems to be Putin's sort of
Speaker 1: conception of his sort of historical epoch as leader of Russia,
Speaker 1: and that bridge is one that he personally oversaw the
Speaker 1: construction of and opened it relatively recently. Once that happened,
Speaker 1: Russia did escalate in turn. So that was an escalation
Speaker 1: in the sense that it opened up sort of a
Speaker 1: new sphere of warfare and a new newly audacious sort
Speaker 1: of tactic of warfare. And then Russia did the same
Speaker 1: in that it reciprocally then began what became a months
Speaker 1: long campaign of bombing civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, the electrical
Speaker 1: grids and whatever. It was not even not even ambiguous
Speaker 1: if that was portrayed by Russia as at least in
Speaker 1: part retaliation for the truck bombing on the bridge. Right,
Speaker 1: So when people in these national security cliques say that, oh,
Speaker 1: the red lines are all of bluff, we've you know,
Speaker 1: Putin has belied with his actions, any idea that we
Speaker 1: should be concerned about this in terms of esculatory potential.
Speaker 1: What they I think willfully or I think there or
Speaker 1: even though either they willfully ignore it or they're so
Speaker 1: ideologically intoxicated that they can't bring themselves to even be
Speaker 1: able to perceive it anymore, what they're not mentioning is
Speaker 1: that there is a huge array of evidence that there
Speaker 1: is this kind of center synergetic esculatory dynamic in Ukraine
Speaker 1: where we do we can anticipate that Russia will escalate
Speaker 1: given escalatory behavior that you know us, the US does,
Speaker 1: or that Ukraine does in tandem with the US. So
Speaker 1: that dynamic exists. It's just a point of like how
Speaker 1: high does the escalatory ladder reach to the point where
Speaker 1: it becomes something truly kind of clismics such as nuclear use.
Speaker 1: I want to come back to the very important, I
Speaker 1: would argue central question of is this all from the
Speaker 1: US perspective and what the Bide administration has done to
Speaker 1: this point a massive blunder. But hold that for a second.
Speaker 1: I want to come back to it. I want to
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Speaker 1: dot org. All right, mister Michael Tracy, Is this a
Speaker 1: massive blunder in the making the US role in the
Speaker 1: Ukraine Russia War? Or is this something that can drag
Speaker 1: on and it will just be another budget item that
Speaker 1: some people complain about but eventually no real consequences. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess it depends on what the desired outcome is
Speaker 1: or what objective is being pursued. Because given the objective
Speaker 1: that was articulated around when the war started, or at
Speaker 1: least in the first several months, you could make an
Speaker 1: argument that far from being a blunder, it's actually been
Speaker 1: a grand success in that when Lloyd Austin and Anthony
Speaker 1: Blincoln first made their triumphant entrance into Ukraine after the
Speaker 1: war started in April, Austin made a comment that became
Speaker 1: fairly well known and widely remarked where he said that
Speaker 1: one of the chief aims of US policy in Ukraine
Speaker 1: was not merely to enable Ukraine to achieve victory on
Speaker 1: the battlefield, but to quote weak in Russia. And unless
Speaker 1: you think the Secretary of Defense is just off his
Speaker 1: rocker and freelancing without any sort of authorization or without
Speaker 1: commenting on a policy ambition that really does exist, I
Speaker 1: think it was fair at the time and still fair
Speaker 1: now to believe him when he says that is a
Speaker 1: goal of US policy. Right. And there was also a
Speaker 1: column that was published by Neil Ferguson and Bloomberg in
Speaker 1: March of last year where he claimed to have overheard
Speaker 1: a Biden administration official blabbing at some function where the
Speaker 1: official blurted out that the whole point of this Ukraine
Speaker 1: interventions policy was to quote bleed Russia dry, Right, which
Speaker 1: then kind of gives a little bit more explanatory power
Speaker 1: to why certain decisions have gone the way they have. Right.
Speaker 1: So we talked before about the people who are complaining
Speaker 1: about the laxity of the deployment of different weapons systems, right,
Speaker 1: they want it done faster, and they don't want any
Speaker 1: sort of more hindrances in terms of which styles of
Speaker 1: weapons can be sent. Well, if your whole object is
Speaker 1: to just bleed, rush, or dry, then maybe your idea
Speaker 1: would be to just prolong the conflict and escalate it
Speaker 1: incrementally and gradually, rather than dumping everything into the war
Speaker 1: zone at once, because the idea is just to have
Speaker 1: Russia burn its resources and eventually weaken it to the
Speaker 1: point that something can be done in terms of potentially
Speaker 1: fostering regime change or some other resolution. So yeah, in
Speaker 1: terms of a blunder from a more i guess substantive perspective,
Speaker 1: so kind of doing away with like whatever framework the
Speaker 1: actual advocates of the intervention have adopted for themselves that yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well yeah, or like what is what will reduce the
Speaker 1: incidents of just mass death and suffering and destruction. I
Speaker 1: always get a kick out of these people who have
Speaker 1: been hardcore champions of US interventionist foreign policy, because in
Speaker 1: Ukraine they've gotten their way. I mean, they always erect
Speaker 1: these boogeyman of isolationists as though everybody's kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: chomping at the bit. These isolationists are all chopping at
Speaker 1: the bit to just undercut US policy because they're they're
Speaker 1: so sinister and they have such outside influence, whereas I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no isolationist. Isolationism is not the policy of the
Speaker 1: US is following in Ukraine right now, Certainly the interventionists
Speaker 1: have gotten their way. I mean, there's a massive, sprawling,
Speaker 1: multidimensional intervention as of as we speak in Ukraine, and
Speaker 1: it's going on for a year, and it's escalating pretty
Speaker 1: much by the week. But they'll they'll sort of posture
Speaker 1: as having the moral high ground. Right, So the people
Speaker 1: who maybe are skeptical of intervention in US foreign policy,
Speaker 1: they're morally blighted, they're sinister, they have ulterior motives, maybe
Speaker 1: they're paid by Russia whatever, or doing propaganda or spreading disinformation.
Speaker 1: Whereas the people who are champions of this policy, they
Speaker 1: have the moral high ground, they understand the stakes. They're
Speaker 1: like humanitarians of some kind. Meanwhile, look at the fruits
Speaker 1: of the policy that they've been voted for the past year.
Speaker 1: The German intelligence services, at least it's reported by Drshpiegel
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago, said that there are hundreds of bodies,
Speaker 1: hundreds of dead Ukrainian soldiers piling up every day in
Speaker 1: the war as of at least late January, and then
Speaker 1: also a heck of a lot of Russian casualties apparently,
Speaker 1: although we don't know the precise figures. Let's just I
Speaker 1: don't know, give a ballpark estimate of I don't know,
Speaker 1: six hundred, seven hundred. If there's at least one hundred
Speaker 1: a day right just on the Ukraine side, then like
Speaker 1: a lower tier estimate would be like a thousand killed
Speaker 1: in action a week, right, something like that. You have
Speaker 1: the you have the moral standing or you you presume
Speaker 1: yourself to have the moral standing to pontificate about the
Speaker 1: humanitarian virtue that you embody by your advocacy of this
Speaker 1: interventionist position when the results of it are a thousand,
Speaker 1: like twenty year olds blown to bits every week. I
Speaker 1: don't really I'm not sure that you have the really
Speaker 1: the right to be pontificating, as I just jump in
Speaker 1: really quickly here, because if it were either a Democrat
Speaker 1: interventionist or there are, as you point out at the
Speaker 1: beginning of our discussion, the right, there's more or dissent
Speaker 1: about this issue than on the left. I don't I
Speaker 1: do not see any Democrat pundits of any platform or
Speaker 1: standing a considerable platform who are opposed to what's going
Speaker 1: on in Ukraine. I do see, you know, Tucker Carlson,
Speaker 1: for example, very prominently is a skeptic of what's going
Speaker 1: on with US intervention in Ukraine. But the people that
Speaker 1: aren't skeptics, what they would say to you, Michael, is Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of casualties going on, but if we
Speaker 1: weren't giving the Ukrainians to fight, it would be an
Speaker 1: invasion by Putin with genocide and tyranny and even more casualties.
Speaker 1: By the way, I don't subscribe to this theory. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying, what do you what is your response to
Speaker 1: what would clearly be their attack at that point of view, Well, right,
Speaker 1: they have to immediately resort to conjuring up one of
Speaker 1: these counterfactual scenarios and make everybody really intimidated by this
Speaker 1: hypothetical prospect of you know, mass genocide or you know,
Speaker 1: who are doing a blitzkrieg throughout the rest of East
Speaker 1: of Europe, or one of these other more you know,
Speaker 1: extreme scenarios that they conveniently don't have to ever prove
Speaker 1: are true, because they're intentionally bringing up a counter factual
Speaker 1: that can't be proven or disproven, whereas I have the
Speaker 1: luxury of looking at the facts on the ground and
Speaker 1: what has actually been done and what is in the
Speaker 1: observable record, and what can be empirically verified. And that's
Speaker 1: the fruits of the policy that they've promoted. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're they're the ones who have been chanting stand with
Speaker 1: Ukraine for a year, waving flags, demanding escalations in weapons
Speaker 1: provision and just being general advocates of the overall sort
Speaker 1: of policy framework that's been employed in Ukraine by the US.
Speaker 1: And yet somehow the mass death and destruction and economic
Speaker 1: turmoil and you know, basically just total obliteration of Crans
Speaker 1: state capacity and so on, none of that they bear
Speaker 1: any responsibility for, because they'll claim, oh, what do you mean,
Speaker 1: it's all just Russia. Now, of course, Russia is a
Speaker 1: belligerent in the war. They're fighting the war. They're responsible
Speaker 1: for the warfare that they undertake. Right, But this idea
Speaker 1: that the United States hasn't pursued a policy explicitly that
Speaker 1: was intended to facilitate the intensification of warfare. And then
Speaker 1: we see intensified warfare on the battlefield and the casualties
Speaker 1: associated with that. And there's no culpability at all or
Speaker 1: no responsibility that is borne by the United States for it.
Speaker 1: It's just a deflections. They are understandably resistant to being
Speaker 1: called to account for the ramifications of what they promoted,
Speaker 1: because what they what those ramifications are, we can see
Speaker 1: with our own eyes. It's the ad miseration of Ukraine
Speaker 1: and and with no end in sight. Well, that's that's
Speaker 1: I don't know that I would be so smug if
Speaker 1: I were in their position to somehow act like you've
Speaker 1: been morally vindicated or tactically vindicated, or indicated in some
Speaker 1: other sense. Given what seems like a rapidly expanding disaster,
Speaker 1: where do you see it going? Because right now it
Speaker 1: sounds like it very much sounds like this, because Biden
Speaker 1: has said it, We're in it until the end, whatever
Speaker 1: it takes, whatever it costs. That is the explicit policy
Speaker 1: of the Biden White House and and really of the
Speaker 1: of the uniparty. If there is such a thing and
Speaker 1: a natural security there there really is, I think almost
Speaker 1: more than anywhere else a uniparty um. That is the
Speaker 1: position and Vladimir Putin is not backing off of this.
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone believes he's going to back off
Speaker 1: of this, even if they have another one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: casualties this year. So where do you see it going? Well,
Speaker 1: a lot of the fretting among if you want to
Speaker 1: call at the uniparty, or at least you know, the
Speaker 1: sort of mainline consensus of the national security operators who
Speaker 1: were the most sort of art enthusiast for this gambit.
Speaker 1: The main fretting that they do, it seems as regards
Speaker 1: the ultimate outcome of the war is they're concerned that,
Speaker 1: you know, Kevin McCarthy is all of a sudden going
Speaker 1: to become an anti war activist and decide to cut
Speaker 1: off aid to Ukraine, which was always such a ridiculous concept.
Speaker 1: It was kind of manufactured as this mid term election
Speaker 1: talking point by you know, Democrats and the media who
Speaker 1: wanted to like paint McCarthy and the Republicans as somehow
Speaker 1: stooges of Putin, and it wasn't actually in accordance with
Speaker 1: anything McCarthy had ever really said or espoused. He made
Speaker 1: one fleeting comment about how supposedly the Republicans don't want
Speaker 1: to give Ukraine a blank check anymore. But you know,
Speaker 1: everybody pretty much agrees with that statement, or he says
Speaker 1: they do, Democrats and Republicans alike. I mean, Marco Rubio says, oh,
Speaker 1: of course, we don't want to give Ukraine to blank check,
Speaker 1: but we have to still send them tons of military equipment.
Speaker 1: So like everybody can just claim that they're not in
Speaker 1: favor of blank check. It didn't mean anything when McCarthy
Speaker 1: said it. I mean he was actually criticizing Biden early
Speaker 1: on in the war, starting last March or so, for
Speaker 1: not being aggressive enough in sending, for example, or facilitating
Speaker 1: the transfer of those MiG jets early on that Poland
Speaker 1: wanted to deploy. And McCarthy was a critic of Biden
Speaker 1: from a hawkish perspective on the war as at least
Speaker 1: an earlier juncture, as have been the core leadership of
Speaker 1: the Republican Party, and that both the House and Senate
Speaker 1: at least tophonic Steve Scalise, Kevin McCarthy all hardcore Ukraine
Speaker 1: interventionist hawks. Now maybe they sort of like modulate their
Speaker 1: rhetoric in certain contexts, given that they know there's a
Speaker 1: bit more consternation about that position within elements of the
Speaker 1: Republican colition, but doesn't change the fundamental policy that they're
Speaker 1: still clear and on the record as in support of
Speaker 1: same within with the Senate, with you know, Mitch McConnell,
Speaker 1: John Thune, Rick Scott, etc. McConnell was here, as you
Speaker 1: might know, at the Munich Security Conference with his blue
Speaker 1: and white striped tie saying that look what you should
Speaker 1: and he was right about this. What McConnell said was
Speaker 1: because of course all these people at who want to
Speaker 1: ask him questions of this event, they're all asking like,
Speaker 1: what can you do to make sure that the the
Speaker 1: the you know, Maga isolation as Republicans don't get their
Speaker 1: way and the House Republicans and Senate Republicans make sure
Speaker 1: that aid continues to flow uninhibited. He'll always he'll say
Speaker 1: a variation of or he started saying, a variation of
Speaker 1: a one that I think is actually just true. Whether
Speaker 1: it's good or bad as another question, but he said
Speaker 1: it's true. He said, don't really fixate on the handful
Speaker 1: of sort of eccentric personalities, like especially in the House,
Speaker 1: who get a lot of airtime, or forget about like
Speaker 1: the social media chatter on this or the media commentary
Speaker 1: TV commentary. Look at who the Republicans actually have impositions
Speaker 1: of legislative power in the Congress, and he's right. The
Speaker 1: heads of the three main committees that would be overseeing
Speaker 1: the drafting of any any forthcoming Ukraine AID legislation are
Speaker 1: among the most ardent hawks in either party on the subject.
Speaker 1: Mike McCall, Mike Turner, etc. On the you know, the
Speaker 1: Foreign Relations Committee, the Armed Services Committee, the actual committee chairs.
Speaker 1: So people who would be exerting power over the formulation
Speaker 1: of this procedurally in the House, they're all even they're
Speaker 1: in that crowd that criticized Biden for not being hawkish enough. Okay,
Speaker 1: So in terms of where the whole conflict is going,
Speaker 1: I think that whole side of it, meaning people are
Speaker 1: always cautioning or pointing out the specter of somehow Republicans
Speaker 1: becoming an anti war caucus and cutting off the provision
Speaker 1: of AID. I don't think that's a particularly realistic possibility,
Speaker 1: or I don't at least don't see much evidence that
Speaker 1: anybody should let that sort of dictate how they understand
Speaker 1: what the trajectory of the war is, because it seems
Speaker 1: like there's every reason to believe it'll just kind of
Speaker 1: the status quo will continue in that respect, Where do
Speaker 1: I see it going? I mean, you know, I'm hesitant
Speaker 1: to answer that question in a speculative sense because that
Speaker 1: always makes people look bad. Like we had. There's this
Speaker 1: talking point that goes around now where we're told everybody believed,
Speaker 1: or people will say and even like the Polish president
Speaker 1: said it last night introducing Biden in Warsaw, and like
Speaker 1: Alexei Navalni I saw saying, and everybody says it, it's
Speaker 1: just like a matter of like just it's an article
Speaker 1: of faith. It's part of like the war mythology. Now
Speaker 1: that everybody believed somehow that Kiev would fall within three days,
Speaker 1: and they were all wrong, because Ukraine showed how we're
Speaker 1: sourceful it is and how bold its fighters are and
Speaker 1: warded off the Russian menace heroically, and that's why we
Speaker 1: then have to have this indefinite commitment of perpetual warfare
Speaker 1: provision to Ukraine. Right, So I think that coal narrative
Speaker 1: is a bit of a misnomer. And let's like, you know,
Speaker 1: cleverly constructed war propagandic because everybody did not quote believe
Speaker 1: that there was one briefing that Mark Milly gave in
Speaker 1: early February where he suggested that Russia could or may
Speaker 1: sees Kiev Kiev in one of several possible scenarios, and
Speaker 1: then that was just extrapolated into oh, everyone unbelieved that
Speaker 1: this was going to be happening with absolute certainty, which
Speaker 1: was again not the case. But you can see why
Speaker 1: Ukrainians or pro Ukraine advocates would want to hype that
Speaker 1: as supposedly what happened, because it kind of gives their
Speaker 1: endeavor this like heightened purpose and it's like this animating
Speaker 1: sort of force for their argumentation. Here's what I can say,
Speaker 1: is happening. I've rather almost try to figure out what
Speaker 1: is happening then what may happen six months from now,
Speaker 1: because I don't freaking know what is very unpredictable. Well,
Speaker 1: what is happening is because you have this Western security establishment,
Speaker 1: so to say, And I hate even using the word
Speaker 1: West or Western in this context without scare quotes, because
Speaker 1: it's such like a ridiculous conceit or the West, what
Speaker 1: does that even mean? I mean, it's so sort of
Speaker 1: annoying and self aggrandizing. What is happening is you do
Speaker 1: see a hardening of the ideological zeal of the core
Speaker 1: decision makers who are party to the development of the
Speaker 1: just policy orientation of these security and state apparatus. Is
Speaker 1: Biden being a chief example. I mean, I actually think
Speaker 1: people under rate the significance of Biden's sincerely felt ideological
Speaker 1: convictions on this. Like people think that Biden is just
Speaker 1: senile and or his interest in Ukraine is all about
Speaker 1: how like he wanted Hunter to get like sixty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a month from the Barisma board. That's like an
Speaker 1: ancillarily related dimension of Biden's relationship with Ukraine. But I
Speaker 1: am inclined really to take on his word when he
Speaker 1: makes these incredibly zealous statements about how awesomely important he
Speaker 1: views the conflict to be, and it would be consistent
Speaker 1: with what his foreign policy views and what his emphasis
Speaker 1: has been in public life as a member of the
Speaker 1: Senate going back decades and then as Vice president. This
Speaker 1: is bright within his ballywick as something that he thinks
Speaker 1: is actually extraordinarily existentially civilizationally important. You can pull up
Speaker 1: clips of him in the nineties, like being the person
Speaker 1: that Bill Clinton and then later in the two thousands,
Speaker 1: George W. Bush designated to usher through NATO expansion in
Speaker 1: the Senate. You know, so while he might not have
Speaker 1: been like a long time zealous, he might have been
Speaker 1: like it have been a long time audiologue with regard
Speaker 1: to like Afghanistan, right, which is why he allowed for
Speaker 1: or you know, ordered the withdrawal in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: In terms of Europe and um, you know, Soviet Union
Speaker 1: and slash Russia relations in the United States, this is
Speaker 1: something that he actually, you know, been deeply, seemingly ideologically
Speaker 1: invested in for a long time. So I'll take him
Speaker 1: at his word on that. And that's actually all the
Speaker 1: more reason to presume that the commitment is going to
Speaker 1: be indefinite, or at least there's no reason to think
Speaker 1: that the current trajectory will change. And what is the
Speaker 1: current trajectory. It's these escalatory spirals that are hit for
Speaker 1: tat and have this center just a sort of relationship
Speaker 1: with one another between the US, slash Ukraine and Russia.
Speaker 1: That although people, I thought people claim that the red
Speaker 1: lines were never crossed and Putin was bluffing right as
Speaker 1: we were talking about before, We're at a point. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean if I if I told you a year
Speaker 1: and a half ago, or if you told me a
Speaker 1: year and a half ago, right, that the US would
Speaker 1: be essentially functionally effectively in a hot war with Russia
Speaker 1: in that you have this incredibly intense operational involvement in
Speaker 1: the actual combat that the US's engineering. You have the
Speaker 1: weapons provision, the diplomatic side of it, the economic subsidy,
Speaker 1: and so forth. If you had told me that and
Speaker 1: given me some examples of like what this has manifested
Speaker 1: as like, for example, in December of last year, there
Speaker 1: was a drone strike three hundred miles inside Russia, Okay,
Speaker 1: on an air base that housed part of Russia's strategic
Speaker 1: nuclear fleet. Ukraine did another audacious act and did a
Speaker 1: drone strike on that base. Now that's the US sponsoring
Speaker 1: Ukraine's ability to do that. Whatever direct operational world the
Speaker 1: US might have had in that particular action sort of
Speaker 1: beside the point. It's only because of the US sponsorship
Speaker 1: of the Ukraine military you can do anything at all.
Speaker 1: Right now, if you had told me that that happened, right,
Speaker 1: or that the US would be declaring through the words
Speaker 1: of the President that nuclear apocalypse. Mr Biden said this
Speaker 1: in October. Nuclear apo apocalypse is a greater threat than
Speaker 1: at any time since the Cuban missile crisis, or you
Speaker 1: had told me just a dozen or more other insane
Speaker 1: things that are that exemplified this conflict, I mean even
Speaker 1: just a few weeks ago or two weeks ago or so.
Speaker 1: The Washington Post reported that when the Ukraine military fires
Speaker 1: any rocket attacks on any at any Russian tar good,
Speaker 1: that every single time, or virtually every single time, the
Speaker 1: United States is effectively firing the rocket in that it's
Speaker 1: providing such precise and granular real time intelligence that it's
Speaker 1: essentially a second party to the actual conduct of the
Speaker 1: strike through a base that the US has on the
Speaker 1: periphery of Ukraine somewhere somewhere in one of these other
Speaker 1: countries like Romania or Poland. I mean, that's that's insane.
Speaker 1: That's like direct war with Russia. Okay, So people don't people,
Speaker 1: but people have been habituated or they've been acclimated to
Speaker 1: how jarring and insane that is over the last year
Speaker 1: because of the way that they've approached this issue policy wise, mean,
Speaker 1: the bind administration, Congress, etc. They've done the escalations incrementally.
Speaker 1: The war first started, supposedly, it was like this limited
Speaker 1: humanitarian aid mission with a couple of rifles and javelins,
Speaker 1: and that was it. Now we're furnishing Ukraine and entirely
Speaker 1: new military with F sixteens potentially, or at least that
Speaker 1: we know now, Abram's tanks and Patriot bat reason everything else.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's not Michael. We got to leave it there,
Speaker 1: Michael Tracy. Everybody check out his substack. Michael will have
Speaker 1: you back with more time to talk about this and
Speaker 1: other subjects too. Thanks for being here on the show Man.
Speaker 1: We appreciate you all right, enjoyed it. Thanks