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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and we are back with Army Veterans. Speculative

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Speaker 1: fiction writer Sean Patrick Haslett the editor of two anthologies,

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Speaker 1: Weird world War Three, Haunted Cold War Visions, and the

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Speaker 1: latest is Weird world War Four published. The publisher is Baine.

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Speaker 1: That's b ae N. And there's a quote in the book.

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Speaker 1: It's a very famous quote by Albert Einstein. He was asked,

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Speaker 1: you know, about World War three, and he said something like,

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Speaker 1: I don't know how world War three will be fought,

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Speaker 1: but world War four would be fought with rocks. You know.

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Speaker 1: Another word, world War three is going to be apocalyptic.

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Speaker 1: Marshall McLuhan, the great Canadian communications and cultural theorist, he

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Speaker 1: predicted back in nineteen seventy. I think it was that

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Speaker 1: World War three. He called it a guerrilla information war,

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Speaker 1: and there would be no division between military and civilian participation.

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Speaker 1: It would be get this again, this is nineteen seventy.

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Speaker 1: He predicted it would be a war waged in cyberspace,

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Speaker 1: not on a defined battlefield. What do you think of

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Speaker 1: that prediction? I think we're living it right now. In fact,

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Speaker 1: it's funny you mentioned that, Richard, there is a book

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Speaker 1: out in the market by one of my former classmates

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Speaker 1: called The New Rules of War and his name is

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Speaker 1: Sean mcphaigh, and what he theorized was the days of

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Speaker 1: nation states where there's a clear switch between a condition

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Speaker 1: of war and a condition of peace have long since ended,

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Speaker 1: and that Russia and China in particular are much better

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Speaker 1: geared and playing that game in a much more sophisticated

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Speaker 1: way than the United States is. So, you know, as

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Speaker 1: an example, we can look at the gray zone warfare

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Speaker 1: that China engages in in the South China Sea, and

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Speaker 1: to give to paint that picture is what the Chinese

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Speaker 1: are able to do is they're able to offer provocation

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Speaker 1: just to the edge of what a western Western society

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Speaker 1: would consider over warfare and then stop. So using that

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Speaker 1: sort of strategy, they've been able to fill the South

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Speaker 1: China Sea with bases in international waters where they should

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Speaker 1: have no territory and should not be participating in. And

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Speaker 1: the same manner putin if you look at the most

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Speaker 1: the most recent invasion of Ukraine, his goal, you know,

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Speaker 1: which appears just from watching how the initial days in

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Speaker 1: the invasion, it seems or appears as if he had

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Speaker 1: intended to use this sort of gray zone warfare to

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Speaker 1: orchestrate a collapse of the Ukrainian government and then easily

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Speaker 1: take control. And you can tell that because he didn't

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Speaker 1: include enough forces to be able to subdue the entire country,

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Speaker 1: and he was informed by an intelligence agencies which were

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Speaker 1: feeding him information that frankly wasn't true, and he got

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Speaker 1: caught in his own trap in terms of trying to

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Speaker 1: prosecute these sort of gray zone military engagements. The seizure

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Speaker 1: of Crimea is a perfect example of that. And then

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Speaker 1: you could also look at the sanctions that the US

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Speaker 1: government used against the Russians where putin orchestrated military action

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Speaker 1: and then we cobbled his economy and put asset freezes

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Speaker 1: on his military, on military officials and oligarchs, and we're

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Speaker 1: seizing yachts, etc. But to your point, this is something

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Speaker 1: that is crossing all spectrums of the you know, the

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Speaker 1: will of a civil population to fight. So you have cyber,

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Speaker 1: you have military, you have economic and then you just

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Speaker 1: have kind of culture, the cultural will to fight. And

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Speaker 1: you're seeing if Ukrainians are doing a masterful job of

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Speaker 1: using information ruler to portray aside that on paper did

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Speaker 1: not look like you could stand up to this Russian colossus.

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Speaker 1: But they are. But at the same time, you know,

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Speaker 1: all of us are not immune to various forms of propaganda.

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Speaker 1: So remember the ghost of Kiev, Right, the fighter ace

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Speaker 1: that we're seting down aircraft, Right, that didn't exist. So

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Speaker 1: you know, part of it is just the thirteen soldiers

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Speaker 1: on Snake Island that's supposedly told his Russian vessel. You know,

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Speaker 1: when they told them to surrender, they gave them the

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Speaker 1: middle finger, and they were then supposedly destroyed. Now celebrated

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Speaker 1: his heroes. That never happened either. Yeah. And the other

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Speaker 1: thing that they do that is, and you don't know

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Speaker 1: if it's true, but every time they kill a Russian

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Speaker 1: general or they spoil an attempt to assassinate Zelenski, they

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Speaker 1: always say that someone in the FSB leaked the information

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Speaker 1: or provided the warning, etc. Now is that true. It

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Speaker 1: might be, but even if it's not true, it is

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Speaker 1: very useful in getting inside Putin's head, causing paranoia, doing

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Speaker 1: all sorts of crazy things so that he starts unraveling

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Speaker 1: his own infrastructure and people start pointing fingers and make

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Speaker 1: it difficult to prosecute a war, and right now it's

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Speaker 1: not even clear who is in charge of the military operation.

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Speaker 1: It seems as if Russian troops and everywhere but Mariopole

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Speaker 1: have gone to ground. Not only that unless unless the

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Speaker 1: news came out in the last day or two, no

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Speaker 1: one's seen but the Defense Minister Shoigu in like, you know,

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Speaker 1: two weeks. So there's a lot. There's a lot of

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Speaker 1: that going on, and when and when asked, the Russians

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Speaker 1: will say, he's too busy, he's having heart problems. So

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Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of interesting, you know things going on.

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Speaker 1: There's the jamming, you know, radio communications. The Russians are

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Speaker 1: talking in the clear, which is unheard of for the

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Speaker 1: US military, like that just does not happen. In fact,

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Speaker 1: when I used to fight like the Russians, I had

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Speaker 1: to deal with jammers because when I first started at

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Speaker 1: the National Training Center, we didn't have as part of

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Speaker 1: the you know, the enemy force, we didn't have encrypted communications,

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Speaker 1: so we had codes where we would jump to new

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Speaker 1: radio nets. The Russians aren't even doing that. And one

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Speaker 1: general in particular was killed because he was on an

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Speaker 1: open source communications net and it was discovered and killed.

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Speaker 1: Not only that, there are people outside of the primary

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Speaker 1: combatants who are getting who are engaging in the conflict.

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Speaker 1: So you live anonymous, you know, writing you're using cyber

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Speaker 1: cyber warfare to take down Russian websites, etc. And you

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Speaker 1: know who knows that they're affiliated and not affiliated. It's

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Speaker 1: very murky and very unclear. And this is what this

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Speaker 1: raizone warfare is, you know, looks like in practice. And

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Speaker 1: even on these communications sites. There's a New York Times

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Speaker 1: report yesterday where they showed some of these encrypted communications,

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Speaker 1: there are jammers, there are Ham radio operators who are

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Speaker 1: listening in on Russian communications. On one of those communications,

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Speaker 1: there was somebody who's literally literally whistling Dixie. And it's

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Speaker 1: like that is that is that a? You know? Is

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Speaker 1: that a? Is that just a Ham radio operator in

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Speaker 1: the South who knows? And that's and that's what it is.

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Speaker 1: You can't put your finger on who's doing what, and

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Speaker 1: that's what makes it, you know, kind of the future warfare.

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Speaker 1: But it also makes it something that has the potential

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Speaker 1: to be much more escalatory. Right right, thing is attributed

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Speaker 1: to your side and you didn't do it. There's nearly

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Speaker 1: you know, it's very hard to prove that you didn't.

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Speaker 1: So it's it's the thing the Russians are doing with

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Speaker 1: chemical weapons, right, it's it's it's part of their doctrine

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Speaker 1: and strategy. When I trained US forces, we use chemical

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Speaker 1: weapons against US forces. Now it was CF gas and

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Speaker 1: it was you know, harmless and something like that just

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Speaker 1: forced you but training a bit. But the Russians are

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Speaker 1: you know, that's what they use and they they they

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Speaker 1: putin obviously wants to achieve some sort of a breakthrough,

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Speaker 1: and if he uses them, he could kind of push ahead.

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Speaker 1: The problem is what's our response going to be? And

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Speaker 1: I know that we haven't said it publicly, but and

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Speaker 1: I think the administration and did a good job of

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Speaker 1: you know, it seems as though, according to what Jake Sullivan,

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Speaker 1: the National Security Advisor, has said in public, that the

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Speaker 1: administration did communicate something in private to the Russians to

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Speaker 1: kind of give them a hint of what would happen

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Speaker 1: if they were to escalate the conflict in that manner. Now,

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Speaker 1: what is it? You who knows? But I think that's

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Speaker 1: an appropriate thing to do because you don't want to

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Speaker 1: make it public and you don't want to you know,

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Speaker 1: make it a question of prestige and and you know,

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Speaker 1: a tit for tat and you know, put Puttin in

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Speaker 1: a position where his back is it against the wall.

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Speaker 1: But you also wanted to know what very likely could

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Speaker 1: happen if he crosses that red line. Right, So, just

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Speaker 1: getting back to McCluin for a moment and this guerilla

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Speaker 1: information ward and you were talking about the participation of

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Speaker 1: non combatants in this war, cyber warfare and hacking and

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Speaker 1: so forth. So again no division between military and civilian participation.

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Speaker 1: And there are countries now that are sort of aligned

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Speaker 1: China with Russia, perhaps Iran Saudi Arabia refused to sort

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Speaker 1: of condemn. I think the United Arab Emirates India has

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Speaker 1: sort of been walking this fine line. Is it possible

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Speaker 1: that we're already in World War three but we don't

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Speaker 1: know it because it's not being it's not being fought

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Speaker 1: with along conventional terms, much of it is in cyberspace. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think it is certainly possible, And it all depends

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Speaker 1: on how you define it and what's really going on.

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Speaker 1: And there's things that we're not going to have access to.

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Speaker 1: But let me let me give you a few examples

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Speaker 1: of whether we you know, we might be in something

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Speaker 1: like this. One of the examples, this is very early

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Speaker 1: in the war, the United States offered to evacuate Zalinski

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Speaker 1: from Ukraine. Now, in order to do that rapidly, the

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Speaker 1: units that would typically handle that sort of emission would

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Speaker 1: be your Tier one operators. And by Tier one I

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Speaker 1: mean elements of Delta Force and or Seal Team six.

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Speaker 1: So to think that you know those and they typically

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Speaker 1: prosecute black ops to you know, I'm not saying that

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Speaker 1: they're in country or that they're they're operating there, but

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Speaker 1: it's certainly possible because those are your plausible deniable units.

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Speaker 1: So if you know one or two were captured or died,

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Speaker 1: the thing the US government would likely say is, well,

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Speaker 1: they they were part of the Ukrainian International Legion. We

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Speaker 1: don't we don't know anything about them, and they know

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Speaker 1: that when they sign up for those sorts of things.

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Speaker 1: I would be shocked if the you know, certain units

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Speaker 1: of the CIA when it comes to kind of intercepting

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Speaker 1: communication transcripts and things like that, were not somehow involved.

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Speaker 1: It is open knowledge in the media that the US

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Speaker 1: is actively sharing or it has been said in the media.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if anybody's confirmed it, but is sharing um,

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Speaker 1: you know, tactical, operational and tactical data with the Ukrainians.

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Speaker 1: So in other words, if there's a you know, tank

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Speaker 1: company that they observe from satellites in space, they try

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Speaker 1: to share that information with the Ukrainians in as much

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Speaker 1: real time as possible. And here's the other thing too,

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Speaker 1: Um there's also when when when soldiers upload things on

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Speaker 1: the social media, they can be gail located and then

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Speaker 1: they could be cross referenced with other things that are

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Speaker 1: that are put on social media. In that same New

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Speaker 1: York Times report, you can see journalists doing it. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's absolutely impressive that they're able to. You know, they'd say,

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Speaker 1: there there was a quote about an MPLB, which is

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Speaker 1: a tracked vehicle being abandoned, and then they would show

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Speaker 1: a video of that MTLB. This is where the location was,

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Speaker 1: this is where the transmitters were on the Russian side.

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Speaker 1: And the reason they're able to do all that is

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Speaker 1: that the Russians are, for whatever reason, communicating in the clear.

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Speaker 1: But going back to your original question, reachure, I don't

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Speaker 1: want to get too far away from it. There is

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Speaker 1: a chance. I mean, Putin himself said that the economic sanctions,

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Speaker 1: he considered them an act of war. So would he

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Speaker 1: choose to escalate, I don't know. And the other thing

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Speaker 1: too is the fact that we haven't seen a large

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Speaker 1: scale cyber attack means that I think both sides at

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Speaker 1: this point in time are acting rationally. I think, you know,

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Speaker 1: if I were in this administration, I would as soon

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Speaker 1: as possible communicate very clearly what the sorts of or

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Speaker 1: the range or menu of excavatory steps that would follow

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Speaker 1: an attack on say a power grid for instance. Right,

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Speaker 1: So let's say the Russians were able to take out,

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Speaker 1: you know, the free North American our grids that we have,

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Speaker 1: that would be borderline existential for us and could result

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Speaker 1: in a very quick and rapidly escalated hot war. Right.

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Speaker 1: I'm not saying that's the case, that that could be

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Speaker 1: one of the things that we communicate, because we're still

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Speaker 1: until a few days ago, is my understanding, we were

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Speaker 1: still communicating with the Russians, and I think they've they've

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Speaker 1: since shut down that communication, and this is a time

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Speaker 1: we should actually be talking more with them so that

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Speaker 1: we can calibrate this thing. Not getting out of control,

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Speaker 1: but I would be surprised if there was not some

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Speaker 1: you know, you know, there's some scrapes back and forth,

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Speaker 1: and it certainly does have a potential fascally. For instance,

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Speaker 1: we now have for the first time since two thousand

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Speaker 1: and five, one hundred thousand troops in Europe, and we're

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Speaker 1: continuing to reinforce them, I think, and we're pushing them

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Speaker 1: forward into Romania in Poland. So this is the you know,

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Speaker 1: and then obviously in the three Baltic States, and additionally,

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Speaker 1: right you have the Fins and the Swedes, more likely

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Speaker 1: the Fins actively considering, you know, who have traditionally been neutral,

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Speaker 1: but they also have a shared history with the Soviet

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Speaker 1: Union right where the Winter War and and everything that's

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Speaker 1: been suited from there. So there's there's certainly a chance

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Speaker 1: for this thing to sort of escalate. It seems, at

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Speaker 1: least from the Chinese side, that they've kind of stepped

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Speaker 1: back a little bit. I think their impression from Putin's

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Speaker 1: original communication was that this thing was going to be fast.

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Speaker 1: It's not going to be fast. And the other thing

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Speaker 1: that's concerning is if this thing continues to expand or

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Speaker 1: you know, to continue throughout the planning season, You're going

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Speaker 1: to have even more unrest in places that are receivers

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Speaker 1: of Ukrainian both Ukrainian and Russian green. So you start Pakistan,

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Speaker 1: Afghanistan exactly are you already seeing You're already seeing some

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Speaker 1: starvation in Afghanistan and just because the Taliban took over

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Speaker 1: and they're not very good at running a government. Listen

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Speaker 1: to were Coast to Coast am every weeknight at one

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Speaker 1: a m Eastern and go to Coast to Coast am

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Speaker 1: dot com for more