Scott Ritter Extra: Ask the Inspector

Ask the Inspector Ep. 176

Scott Ritter answers questions from the audience with host Jeff Norman most Friday nights at 5 PM PT/8 PM ET/1 AM GMT and most Tuesdays at noon PT/3PM ET/8PM GMT.

Submit your question in advance and donate to Waging Peace, Scott's campaign for nuclear disarmament, at https://ScottRitter.com.

Opening music by Ed Kliman https://texasmusicforge.com/, Brian Pothier https://www.facebook.com/pothierproductions and ShortBusMusic https://hearthis.at/shortbusmusic-6e/.

Duration:: 2h 19m
Broadcast on:: 13 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] To all units proceed, to your post assignments, all units proceed, to your post assignments. That's got his on fire! >> Yeah baby, it's episode 176 of Ask the Inspector on July 12th, 2024. Jeff Norman, AKA America Sweetheart with Scott Ritter, AKA our favorite weapons inspector. And this just happens to be the final episode of Ask the Inspector prior to Scott's 38th birthday on Monday. So let us take this opportunity to wish our dear friend Scott a happy birthday. >> 38 years old is a man. It's getting old, my knees are a shot, my back's about. God, I have no idea what's going to happen when I get really old, like say 63 or something like that. You know, that would be awful. >> You'll find out, you'll find out. >> Let's see if you're still putting out a prodigious output of work at that point, because certainly now you are. This week, there are two new articles from our favorite weapons inspector. One published by Energy Intelligence, What to Expect from Iran's new president. And just moments ago at Scott Ritter Extra are sub-stack, operation dawn. That's in all capital letters because it is an acronym. And it stands for what delightful, atrocious, winnowy, and nerdy. >> Or you could be asking the question, what would you be willing to do to save democracy, to save America, to save the world by empowering your vote in November? Which is what the acronym is about, what the operation is about. >> And we have some big plans in the works. It's not all worked out yet. But there's a basic concept in place and that involves rounding up some of our key allies and sending the message that we, if we act together powerfully and in unison, have the power to affect the presidential election. And it's going to be, hopefully, maybe not a one issue race, but the goal here is to make one particular issue very pivotal in the upcoming election. >> Well, look, the, you know, presidential election, as people know, is one who gets the most electoral votes, not who gets the most votes. And because the electoral votes are divided by state, oftentimes we end up getting what we call battleground states, where it's very close. And historically, you know, the margin of victory is, and the tens of thousands of votes. This is, some people say, is a weakness to American democracy, but I'm not here to debate that. It is what it is. It's also an opportunity because we are looking at an election that is shaping up to be evenly split. It's close to 50-50s you can get. It's going to come down to battleground states, and the margin is going to be based on tens of thousands of votes. So, there's a lot of issues out there today, and all of them are important. I'm not here to denigrate any single issue or any group of issues, whether it be abortion, whether it be gun control, whether it be, you know, the Supreme Court. These are all vitally important issues, and they should weigh in when it comes to presidential elections. I mean, we are collecting the chief executive, but I think we got to take a step back, and this is what I asked people to do, and reflect on some harsh realities. The threshold for the use of nuclear weapons today is lower than it has been at any time in history. I don't know if people understand what I'm saying. I'm saying that the impediments that used to exist to prevent America and Russia or the Soviet Union from engaging in nuclear conflict, those impediments are rapidly disappearing. I used to joke. I remember when I first published my book, the history of my experience as a weapons inspector in the Soviet Union, to disarm it, to have a pair of strike up. I used to joke, it was sort of a joke. I said, "If you meet me, take my hand and buy me a beer and thank me for saving your life, because if it weren't for me and the other weapons inspectors, you'd be dead." I've outlined why I meant it. Intermediate nuclear forces were extraordinarily destabilizing, and they reduced the threshold of mitigating error, and there was every opportunity that a mistake would be made that could not be reversed, and then we'd end up with a general nuclear war and we'd all die. Getting rid of the intermediate nuclear weapons eliminated that immediate threat, and it also opened the door towards even more arms control and arms reductions in the strategic sphere. The Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty was a landmark treaty, and the history of arms control made the world a safer place. In 2019, Donald Trump withdrew from the INF Treaty. This year, Russia, which had told the United States, "Look, we know you withdrew from it, I guess it's over, but we're not going to build any of the prohibited missiles, so long as you don't deploy any missiles into Europe." Well, last September we did. We deployed the March 70 containerized missile launch system, capable firing the ground launch cruise missile, a Tomahawk variant, and Russia now has responded by saying they are going to begin production of these missiles. And then we turned around the United States, we just announced that in 2026 we will be deploying on a full-time basis the March 70 containerized intermediate range missile launch system into Europe. This is a nuclear capable system, and the Russians have basically said, "Okay, we're going to deploy our missiles now, we're right back to where we were. Remember that war I said you should shake my hand and buy me a beer and thank me about preventing? It hasn't been prevented, ladies and gentlemen. Just so you know how serious this is, in 1995, the Russians detected a missile launch coming out of Norway. And the analysis was that this was a Trident missile fired from an Ohio-class submarine on a low trajectory designed to do a preemptive decapitation strike on Moscow. President Yeltsin, his national security team brought him the briefcase with the nuclear launch codes, and he was being told by his immediate advisors, "You have to launch now. They're coming in to decapitate us. If they get you before you issue the launch, then we may hesitate while they come in with the decapitation preemptive strike, and it's all over. We've lost." And Yeltsin was under pressure to do that, but he held off just for a second. It turned out it was a false alarm. But do you guys understand what I just said? Because if it was an intermediate nuclear force missile, if they thought that it was a purging tool, he would have had to push the button, because there would have been no time. We'd all be dead. Guaranteed. It's not a hypothetical. I'm not sitting here blowing smoke up your ass. I'm telling you that God's honest truth. The world was very close to coming to an end to the 1980s, only because of arms control did we save the world. And now that which saved the world is no longer in place, and we're putting back the same flipping systems that were going to fill us before we've gone back to square one. But what's worse, in the 1980s, we actually were talking with the Soviets. Diplomacy was working. Not perfectly, but we were talking. There were people saying, "Hey, how do we prevent this? What do we do about this?" And the other thing is everybody knew how dangerous nuclear weapons was. And there wasn't anybody who said, "That's your fake." I mean, today, that's a big thing. They're fake. They don't exist. Nuclear weapons, they're exist. They scam conspiracy theory. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I actually was a weapons inspector in the Soviet Union doing what we call radiation detection inspections. This is where we went out, and we used a very sophisticated detection device that we put over an SS-25 missile to collect the neutron flux. So a nuclear warhead, not a hypothetical, a nuclear warhead, and then we would assess whether it was a single warhead or a triple warhead. Single meant SS-25, triple meant SS-20, prohibited. You know, if it's a conspiracy theory, there ain't no neutron flux coming out of the warhead because there ain't no nuclear weapon. It's real, ladies and gentlemen, they exist. I know they exist. I know they exist. But I shouldn't have to have that conversation with you. You know they exist, too. But you don't believe anybody's going to use them. You think it's just a bluff because you've become accustomed to nobody talking about it. Europe lived under so many decades now without the fear of the nuclear umbrella, imminent nuclear attack. That's gone. It's back. But this time we don't have the mechanisms in place to stop it. This is a dead serious prediction. The next president of the United States will come into a situation where he or she would be called upon to make a decision about whether America goes to nuclear war. Let me just say that one more time so you understand what I'm saying. The next president of the United States, during that term, will be confronted with a situation, a scenario where he or she will have to make a determination whether or not the United States goes to nuclear war. And if the determination is yes, you will all die. Now tell me how important all the other issues are that you're facing right now. How many issues out there right now? Well, we talk about global destruction, the destruction of the nation, the destruction of society. None. As bad as Donald Trump is in the minds of the Democrats, we had four years of Trump and we survived. As bad as Joe Biden is in the minds of the Republicans, we're up on four years of Biden. We've survived. Now, if these are the two candidates, we know one thing. They're only serving one term. They can't serve another one. We're going to survive that term too. As long as we don't have a nuclear war, we can survive four years of Joe Biden. We can survive four years of Donald Trump. We can't survive a nuclear war. So now the question is, how do we get Trump and Biden to start talking about preventing nuclear conflict? To be proactive about ensuring that they don't face this scenario, which is inevitable if our policy directions stay on the same trajectory. And we do that by using the power of the vote come November. We have a chance if we make preventing nuclear war and promoting peace, a pivotal issue, a singular issue where enough Americans commit to a pledge that their vote hinges on the candidate that best articulates a policy for preventing nuclear war and promoting peace. Now, all those battleground states, if there's separation of say 30,000 votes and we have 50,000 commitments in the state of Michigan, suddenly we're the controlling factor over Michigan, the candidates will have to think about how do we get those 50,000 votes. And since we have said it's only about the person that comes up with the best plan for preventing nuclear war and promoting peace, they may start talking about it. They didn't talk about it the first debate. None of them are talking about it right now. How do we get them to talk about it? Make it important to them. Make it matter. And so this is what Operation Don is about. Operation Don is a program designed to use the tools available. I don't need mainstream media. In the past you'd want to get Bruce Springsteen to come up and get some big TV channel to host a far made or some sort of thing, big concert, lots of people speaking broadcast around the world. Don't need that. Can't afford it. Tough to organize. What we do have is a coalition of alternative media broadcasters that collectively have audiences of millions, millions of Americans. And we tend to be like minded. And so we're seeking to make common cause with these alternative media podcasters to put on an event on September 28. Historically, I liken it to the Jerry Lewis telephone for muscular dystrophy. If you remember those days, I grew up in Hawaii every Labor Day. I would plant my butt down on the couch with some popcorn and I'd watch the Jerry Lewis muscular dystrophy telephone cause it was entertaining. They had people come up and talk about the seriousness of this. But then they had people entertain you and the things of that nature, people talking. And the goal there was to raise money and they had a figure. So you watch the money go up and then at the end of the night Jerry Lewis saying you'll never walk alone and everybody cried and it was a wonderful thing. Well, we're going to do that on September 28, but instead of raising money, we're raising commitments. We'll be counting commitments and we'll be looking at the commitments not only in the totality, but by the battleground states. And when it's all said and done, Gerald Solante, just so you know he's the organizer of this, he has written a song that he is going to record. And it's going to be on an album of music that will be dedicated to this event. We hope to get some names involved. But we also hope to attract local bands from the various places we'll be playing. We'll make an album. But Gerald Solante, instead of seeing you'll never walk alone, is going to sing his song as we watch the counts go up and hopefully it's enough votes spread about certain jurisdictions that we have some leverage. And it doesn't end on September 28. That's just the beginning. The elections on over 5th. If we get the numbers that I think we can get and we can raise the money and we will be doing things, selling t-shirts, selling challenge coins, doing the standard thing, asking for donations. We begin to buy advertising in the targeted places, reminding the candidates that if they want to win Michigan, if they want to win Pennsylvania, you know New York is a battleground state now. The Biden doesn't have a guarantee about New York anymore. It's a battleground state. So Kingston is a big event for New York. We get all those New Yorkers to commit. We suddenly make that vote. The candidates have to commit. So that's the goal, is to get the candidates to articulate a policy or preventing nuclear war. And I think it's the single most important issue on the table, this election year, because without it, we're all going to die. I mean, that's just the way it is, ladies and gentlemen. And so any of the other issues out there, which are important, don't get me wrong. They are important. They won't matter. They won't matter. We have to ensure that we don't commit collective suicide. And we can only do that with a chief executive that makes preventing nuclear war, is or her top issue. And that's what Operation Don's about. This is the first of a series of articles I'll be writing on this issue as we get up to September 28. It's the initial blow. I'm trying to introduce people to the concept. And then as we develop our strategy, as we work with people, we are going to be promoting this more and more and more. This, I think, is the existential issue of our time. And it's literally a life and death issue. And I'm hoping to get as many people aware of this and supportive of the need to come up with a plan to stop nuclear war. And I think we have such a plan right now in Operation Don. All right. Well said. Scott, in other words, wants to live to celebrate his 39th birthday next year. Yes, I do. Please help all of us. You can read this article at scottritter.com, as well as basically all of Scott's recent work. And I just also want to mention this article, which was also published this week. This is what I had one last one last thing. Anybody who worked with me when I was a weapons inspector, or when I was a Marine, I had a reputation for being abrasive because I don't screw around. Once I get a mission, I accomplish that mission, and nothing gets in my way. Literally nothing gets in my way. I'm just warning everybody in advance, I'm on a mission, a life and death mission. One of the most important missions I've ever been involved in in my entire life. And there's already been some people who found out that trying to create an impediment on this mission isn't conducive to normal relations. For those people, I apologize. I got an email from somebody who was a little bit upset with my attitude. Too bad. Get over it. And for the people who want to get in my way, it used to it. There's a reason why I was a damn good weapons inspector because nobody could stop me. There's a reason why I was a damn good Marine Corps officer because nobody could stop me. And no one's going to stop me from doing my damnedest to ensure that we make the best effort possible to stop nuclear war in the coming years. And we can only do that by executing this plan flawlessly. And for people who want to get out there and make it something else, that's not what this is about. And if you want to make it something else, I will run you over. Maybe I'll buy you a beer later on and apologize about it. But this is about getting the job done straight up. And I just wanted to put that out there because there was somebody, Cynthia Poole was the person, that nice old lady that I interview all the time. I was a little rough with her because she was taking the conversation in a direction I just didn't want it to go. And people are saying, "Oh, you were mean. You should apologize." Okay, Cynthia, I apologize. But I wasn't mean. I'm focused. And that's just the warning, Cynthia. Unless you want to get on board 100%, maybe we don't do an interview between now and the time September 28th comes along because I'm not in the mood right now to play games. I've opened to constructive criticism. This is a team effort. It's going to take a team to make this happen. And if people have better ideas, I'm all on board. But what I'm not going to do is play games. What I'm not going to do is allow this to get thrown off track for things. People are commenting, "Scott, it's Republican and Democrat." No, you didn't mention RFK. Junior RFK Junior isn't going to be the next President of the United States. It's a waste of oxygen to talk about it. What about Jill Stein? What about Jill Stein? She ain't going to be the next President of the United States either. Vegas won't even take odds on these, because it just isn't going to happen. So why would I waste my time talking about what RFK Junior has said or what Jill Stein, Willard, won't say that's another issue. I tried to get her on the show, Jeff. She can't because I'm a problematic person now. But that's okay. Are you paraphrasing or quoting her? That is a quote. But that's okay. I am a problematic person now. I'm an asshole. I'm a jerk. And she may have other things about me. I don't care. That's her phone number. I need to commiserate with her. You should. Look, he called me dumber than me. She can get along. But it is what it is. But I just wanted to put that out there right now. Between now and September 28th, I am going to adhere to my no cursing standard. That's a good standard. But if it comes to this topic here, I have no patience because we have very little time. This is literally an existential issue of life and death for me, my family, my neighbors, you, Jeff, whom I love dearly, America, the world. And I don't play games. I wouldn't have committed to this article or this cause if I didn't believe in it wholeheartedly. And so I'm a frickin' freight train and you get in my way and I'm running you over. I'm sorry. It's that important. Well, it's been said and I'm paraphrasing. I don't know who that it's unreasonable people who are the ones who are the game changers. It's not by being reasonable that you make history. It's by being unreasonable. So with that, Scott, let us get to the questions from our beloved audience. We call this the loquacious version of Ask the Inspector because we spend two glorious hours together every Friday night. And Scott gets into it very extensively compared to Tuesdays, which is just one hour long. We call that the lightning round, and Scott answers every question in three minutes or less. The first question tonight comes from Flying Dutchman in the Netherlands. Do you know if there's a chance that the President of Ukraine, the Vladimir Putin, will have a meeting with Vice President Trump soon? Apparently it happened. Oh, why's that? So why's that? Yes, we have comedy tonight. Don't quit your day job. But I mean, they're referring to, of course, Biden's presentation at the 75th anniversary of NATO, the Summit in Washington, D.C., where he executed a series of gaps. They're pretty -- And there is, Vice President Trump. Well, that would be what it would look like. But I mean, I think the funniest one was when he was getting ready to introduce the Vladimir Zelensky. And he called him Putin. And you saw Zelensky's face. He's like, what? Guess who has a video clip of that ready to go? Shall we take a look at it? The most prepared host in the world. And now I want to hand it over to the President of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination. Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin. President Putin. He's got big President Putin. President Zelensky. I'm so focused on beating Putin. We got to worry about it. Anyway, Mr. President, I'm better. I'm better. But the funny thing was, Jeff, after you said Putin, they clapped. It just shows the brain that they are. Where's Putin? What are they going to do? I don't know if I'm not the audience. I mean, there's not much choice they have. But there's a great meme out there because he says Putin. And then it shows Zelensky. And all of a sudden Putin comes out. Shub Zelensky's side is standing there like, that's not much OK. That's pretty funny. But it is what it is. Alright, so I guess we're not going to give a... Oh yeah, here's the other one. This is when he called his Vice President Trump. Let's take a look at this term. I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be Vice President, but I think she's not qualified to be President. So let's start there. Number one. Let's start there. That was the first question of the press conference. So way to set the tone, Brandon. Way to set the tone. Look, you know me and Joe Biden. I don't like him at all. I actually hate him, viscerally. But I have to tell you, when I get tired and I get confused, when I get exhausted and I got a whole bunch of stuff going on, I am fully capable of putting out disease and saying stuff like that too. So I try not to be too critical right here because I have been in his shoes. I have said things later on, and you're just like, "Oh God, what did I do?" So I'm just... I remember the time you called me Fabio by mistake, which... Well, it was just because you had a wig on, and I was like, "Where the hell are they coming from?" Alright, let's move on. Enough of this. Tom Fullery. This is serious. Jasmine, who's from the United States of America. According to all objective and practical academics and scholars, says Jasmine, the US Empire is declining, which is clearly visible. This is irrefutable, as far as Jasmine is concerned. I like the attitude. But what I'm most concerned about is the harm that Washington psychopaths can inflict. Do you think the American Empire will fall quietly as the Soviet Union did, or will it use nuclear weapons to bring down everyone else and itself? Well, Jasmine, thank you for the question. Before we start, though, I have to address a certain issue. As you all know, my passport was seized by the Customs and Border Protection, so it was a very traumatic event. Apparently, I have PTSD about it. Three armed officers took my passport and told me that Tony Blinken himself ordered this. Because of that, I've been intimidated lately, apparently, because sometimes I answer questions that make it look like I've changed my entire stance. And those questions tend to be questions that bash the crap out of America. And so I've pushed back and said, "Look, there's no one more critical of America than me. No one more critical. But I have a right to be critical. I'm an American citizen. It's my duty and responsibility. But I don't bash America. And I don't wish harm on America. I want America to succeed. I have called America an Empire. I have said it's a declining empire. I don't disagree with the analysis that's being put out there. But I'm just getting a signal from Siri. She's telling me, "Do not blow my tongue." She knows what's coming. She knows you like a booklet. Oh, she's very protective of America. She knows I have an attitude right now that I'm like a powder keg waiting to go. So she's trying to say, "Thank you, honey." But the good work, Siri, keep them cool. The fact is, is America an Empire? I agree with Jasmine. And I agree with the assessment about America acts as an empire. I mean, the old adage, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, probably a duck. We look like an empire. We act like an empire. We walk like an empire. We're an empire. Bottom line. We're an empire of American hegemony based upon the principle of American hegemony. And we sustain our empire through what we call the rules-based international order. It's plain and simple. We seek to use military might to sustain this empire, especially as we have a declining economy. And we have a declining geopolitical influence. So we are an empire and decline. Now, that's where I agree with you. But then you go to, "Will the empire collapse like the Soviet Union?" And that's where I say, "See, now I'm not jumping on that horse. Because I'm an American. I want America to collapse. I want America to correct course." You see, I'm somebody that's trying to get America to do the right thing, not to kill America. And I've taken serious umbrage when people wish harm on my country. I know we've committed sins like you wouldn't believe. I know I'm aware of it. Hell, I was the guy out there fighting against the Iraq war. I know damn well what we did in Iraq. It's not as though I'm ignorant. But I also know how good we are. And I mean, Jasmine, you're from the United States. That's what it said. You know we're a good country populated by good people. You see it every day in your society. You know there's good people out there. My neighbors are good people. I used to be a firefighter in this community. And I know what it means to sacrifice everything to help your neighbors in need. And I've seen neighbors come to the aid of others in dire times. Houses burned down. People are taken into their homes, cared for. Red Cross comes in. The volunteers come in to help rebuild lives. I've seen it. Participated in it. America's a good country. America's a great country. Popular by the good and great people. So I'm not going to wish harm on the United States. I'm not going to wish it to collapse. I'm going to do everything possible to prevent that collapse. To say America collapses like the Soviet Union. You do know that when the Soviet Union went down what happened to Russia, a decade of the 1990s. Worst decade in Russian history since the Second World War. They've been digging out ever since. I don't want America to be digging out of anything. I want us to stabilize the decline, change our attitude, and reverse course become productive members of the international community. That's the goal. Because if we don't, then the last part of your question comes into play. Because if we continue to insist on being the global hegemon, we insist on enforcing, you know, lockstep obedience to the rules based international order through economic sanctions, which are losing their impact as our economic cloud declines or military force. Which isn't as effective as it once was because of our declining military strength. We may very well be compelled to use nuclear weapons. Now we come back to the very thing we were talking about at the beginning of the show. You see, that's the direction we're heading right now. That's the direction we're heading. We're heading to the direction where a collapsing American Empire falls back on the one thing it's got that nobody else can counter and that's the nuclear weapons. And we may use them in an environment where the Russians are bluffing, or the Chinese are bluffing, and they're not, or the North Koreans are bluffing, and they're not. And then the nuclear exchange begins, and it goes all downhill from there. So, let me see Angel. Unfortunately, the world sees America differently than you do, Scott. That's why the world has the attitude does. You know, I mean, I can't, how can I possibly disagree with what the world views America is? That's how the world views America. This election, in this election, I don't care how the world views America. I really don't, because you don't get to vote. You don't matter. You mean nothing to me. The only thing that matters come November is what Americans think about America, and what the role of America should be. You see, only Americans can turn America around. Nobody else can. I'd like the world to be a little bit more patient with us. That's a big ask. I understand that. But the world has to understand this is where some people take Umbridge at it. America's weak, they say. We're weaker than we used to be. But with the exception of Russia and China, if you're from a country that ain't called Russia or China, you do know that we can squish you like a bug if we want it. We're not that weak, guys. So, see Scott now, they took his passport, and he's a warm longer now. No guys, I'm an American Marine. I'm trying to close with and destroy the enemies for firepower maneuver. I know how war works, and I know what we have, and I know what you don't have. And I know that when push comes to sub in an existential fight, we will crush the living crap out of nations, not called Russia or China. Now, we don't do that, and I don't want us to do that. But for all the people out there saying America's weak, America's nothing. We don't have to pay attention. Guys, you don't do that. When a woman, when a bear is wounded, respect the fact that the bear can still reach out and swat and take you out. That's what I'm trying to avoid. I don't want America to crush people. I don't want America to behave this way. But if you pretend that America can't do that, and you promulgate policies that provoke America, don't be surprised when our back is in the corner when we lash out. And we will lash out with nuclear weapons. And then it's all over. That's what I'm trying to stop. That's what I'm trying to change. So, work with me on this one. See, Jasmine used a car salesman's technique on your shoes, trying to get you to think past the sale. It's like when you haven't decided you want to buy the car yet, and the car salesman says, "Well, do you want it in black or in gray?" It's like, "Wait a minute. I didn't say I was even going to buy it." That's what she did to you. She gave you two choices, but you didn't fall for it. You didn't accept the premise. The birthday boy is not easily fooled. All right. Take it easy, Jeff. Calm down. Daniel, my brother, you are older than me. You need Siri to come and talk to you? I might. She's full of capable of intervening. She's already intervened a couple of times tonight. I might need an intervention. I'll start by just breathing. We'll see if that helps. Okay. Just breathe, yeah. Yes. Daniel, my brother, you are older than me. Do you still feel the pain in the UK? I admire your rally idea to deescalate the nuclear war threat. You have said several times that these pledges are often ignored. Some agency denies them once in power. So with that thought in mind, Scott, why is this going to work? First of all, there's no guarantee that it's going to work. This may be an abject failure. We may hold an event on September 28th and nobody shows up, but at least we tried. At least I can look in the mirror and say, "Well, I gave it the best effort I could do, because I'm not going to quit." But I have a feeling that we are going to be able to get some sort of leverage. And if we execute the post-September 28th phase up until November 5th correctly, we may get some feedback from the campaigns. They may have to address this. There may be some response. But remember, then there's the third phase from November until the president is sworn in as he's assembling his staff and he's assembling people. We will be pressuring them to bring on advisors. I'm not telling the president, "This is a press S.B. Secretary of State or something." But I will say, and we'll get others. We have a whole bunch of allies out there. And we'll put together a panel of experts that will be acceptable. No controversial figures, no problematic figures. Don't want that. We don't want problematic figures. But people that will be able to sit down with the candidate who has articulated a policy posture to prevent nuclear war and advise them as they shape their cabinet. And we will do our best to follow through. This isn't going to be a one-of-done November 5th. We did it. We're done. No. We've got to follow through. Put the pressure on. And then what we do is once the person's sworn in, we keep putting the pressure on by writing op-eds, by writing papers, by continuing to promote the threat posed by nuclear weapons and the danger of nuclear war. And we keep the flame to the feet of these people. We don't let them forget that they're only here because they made a pledge that got boats to come in and give them the swing boat. Now, can they forget about us? And they can say, "Ah, no big deal." Of course they can. But, you know, that doesn't mean that I'm going to quit. And the people that we're hopefully going to get to align with us won't quit either. And we'll go down swinging at least. At least we'll be able to say at the last moment, as the flash goes on the horizon, we did everything we could to prevent this. As opposed to going, "Oh, I wish I had done more." That ain't going to be me on my deathbed. I can promise you that. It's not going to be me saying, "I wish I had done more. I wish I had done. I did that once." Again, I told this story before, but back in 2003, I got the Iraqi government to agree to a delegation to come in. Saddam Hussein himself agreed to this. A delegation that would be led by senior personalities from South Africa, other Nobel Prize winners to come in. And the Iraqis were going to commit to a, I think, a five-point peace plan that I wrote, and Saddam signed off on, that would transform the nature of Iraqi society. Because the White House press secretary in December said, "When we speak of regime change, it doesn't mean that we're removing the regime. It means that the regime has to change the way it does business." And he articulated certain things. So I wrote out a peace plan that had allowed Saddam Hussein to stay in power, but to commit to certain policy objectives. And then we were going to have Nobel Peace Prize winners and big names, and they were going to come in, and they were going to have a meeting with Saddam, and they were going to sign these papers. And the idea was to put something on the table that was cognizable to prevent a war. That could have worked. I think it could have. It would have made it very difficult, one more hurdle for the Bush administration to go over. But then they started that whole, you know, the cop called the paper, and they released this news about 2001, and everybody went crazy. And I backed out. I backed out because I didn't want to bring, you know, bad juju to the thing people started to drop out, and the whole thing collapsed. In retrospect, I should never have backed out. You know what happens from now on? I have to live every day saying, "What if I didn't back down? What if I did go to Iraq? What if I forced this issue to a head?" Would have been unpleasant for me? Could AO headlines on it? Yeah. But who cares about me? I backed out. I didn't do it, and I have to live with that the rest of my life. I ain't going to do that about nuclear war guys. It isn't going to happen. There's not going to be, "I wish I had done this. I could have done more." I'm going to do everything possible. If it works, yay, I get to celebrate my 39th birthday. If it doesn't work, at least I can say I did everything possible. I'll never have to say what if. This week on Rumbling, I was looking through the comments, Scott, and I came across possibly the dumbest, most obnoxious commenter I've ever encountered. And I didn't grab the comment, but I'll paraphrase it for you. He was complaining. He was complaining that everything on this show is contrived. We take only questions submitted in advance, and everything is scripted. This is what he claimed. Anyway, I told him that he's entitled to post his stupid opinions, but he shouldn't tell lies or defamise. I can say this. I haven't seen it. When Jeff puts the question up, it's the first time I've seen it. Now, the only filter we have is Jeff. Jeff doesn't coordinate with me. We have not talked about good questions or bad questions. Jeff puts common sense in. If the question is clearly irresponsibly provocative, and I think maybe you put some in before back when I could swear because he liked the rants. But now that we've agreed that I'm not going to swear, I think Jeff does a fantastic job of picking the questions, a mix of pre-submitted written questions, phone messages, and then we have no idea what's going to happen when people phone in. So literally, I'm getting at it. First of all, when you answer the questions for me, it's so obvious that it's not scripted. But we do take live questions. So anyway, let's take a live call right now. Hello, are you ready with your scripted question? Remember, remember how to word it? Remember how to word it? Yes. All right. You're on. What's your question? Hi, Scott. My question is about Russian military policy for electromagnetic pulse warfare. As I understand, they inherited a following the Soviet policy in which they do not consider that to be nuclear warfare, but rather a form of information warfare. And I'd like to get your comment with her, how the United States would view that. And specifically, if Russia made you decide to do a preemptive nuclear war, maybe they will go first through intermediate stage using EMT someplace over the Baltic or something, rather than going to nuclear status if things get, of course, that far, which hopefully they don't. That's it. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Scott, you want to grab your script before you answer that? Question number 36. Alpha EMP Russian doctor got it. You know, I don't know. I know that back in the Soviet times, we were prepared for a Soviet attack profile that included the use of EMP attacks. That basically nuclear weapons fired at altitude designed to fry electronics and things of that nature. And I know that the Soviets prepare for an American attack based upon the same premise. You know, it's not as though only the Soviets deal with EMP. We understand it too. And my understanding is that the Soviets, I know that when they build their missiles, the SS-25s and the SS-27s and the Yars, that they specifically build in shielding designed to, because let's say their missiles out in the Siberian woods hiding and the first strike comes in, hits the area and they're guessing and they shoot radiation all over the place and there's dust and dirt and stuff. But the missiles still there, the Russians are going to raise it, launch it, fire it. And as it's firing through, the missile is designed to survive intense radiation. Because normally, if you get a lot of heavy radiation, that can also fry things up. So it's designed to fry that. It's also designed to fly through debris because when you have a nuclear weapon hit, it sucks things up and it creates a layer of debris, so they do that. And it's also hardened while it's before it gets launched against the EMP. We know this because during the 1990s, the Russians were less protective of their state secrets, so to say. And so a lot of information came out about the various design factors. I think the Russians are a little bit more circumspect today and don't want to talk about this. So we know what they thought a nuclear strike was and I'm pretty sure that we have similar notions of what nuclear war is. Whether or not the concept of a nuclear device going up in the atmosphere constituted a nuclear war, that's a political question. And to be honest, I haven't heard what you're talking about. I'm not doubting you. I just have to do some research because that's something that I'm unfamiliar with. I'm basically showing that I don't know everything or whatever, but that's something I'm unfamiliar with. I'm not familiar with the notion that the Soviets/ Russians don't consider an EMP detonation to be a nuclear attack. I imagine that if a nuclear device goes off, it's a nuclear attack. However, it's configured. But I'll take you up on that. But I think that today, nuclear war is nuclear war. The basics of radiation, of heat, of flash, of shock waves, hasn't changed since nuclear weapons were first invented. The means of getting the weapons delivered are. So I think that the Soviets or the Russians continue to anticipate the use of EMP weapons as a precursor for a general nuclear exchange and they anticipate that we would do the same if we did a general nuclear exchange. Our satellites in space hardened. They're not satellites have to wait a lot. I mean, you have to look at wait. And so when you put a satellite up at their harden on certain things, I mean, you know, we have cosmic energy. We have the solar flashes and stuff. So they're designed to be protected. It didn't step. But if you put a nuclear device up in space and did a big flash, you will literally fry the electronics of all the satellites that are in that vicinity. Which is what the United States was accusing Russia of preparing to do just a little while back when we were accusing them, getting ready to orbit a nuclear device and Russia, of course, denied it. But it makes sense. If you want to destroy a lot of American satellite, remember we're a nation that has overwhelming reliance upon satellite connectivity. If the Russians were ever to use an EMP device in space, all of our military capacity would go blind instantly. It makes it tough to fight a war. If you were a senior decision maker for Hezbollah and the full-fledged war started with Israel, what's your first move captured the Golan Heights, target air defense, strike power stations, or what? But I'd start off twofold. Suppression of enemy air defense, I'd be taking out the Israeli air defense as rapidly as possible so I can then follow on to the next stage, which is the neutralization of Israeli airfields. That's Israel's big punches with the air force. I need to get those airfields in operable. I get to keep those airplanes from getting the sky and bringing damage to me. It's going to be a huge firefight taking place where Hezbollah missiles are going one way, Israeli aircraft are going another, and they're going to be trying to suppress the hell out of each other. What I need to do if I'm Hezbollah is I have to get my missiles to hit Israeli airfields as soon as possible so that the Israelis stop delivering death and destruction through their air force to my positions. So first thing you have to do is take out the air defense and then you have to move on to take out that. At the same time, I'm going to be bringing the fight to Israel. I'm not going to be sitting back in southern Lebanon letting the Israeli army come to me. The Israeli army will come to me, but then I'm going to be putting 30,000 guys into northern Israel, taking towns, taking villages, severing northern Israel, taking the Sea of Galilee, and I'm going to make the Israelis have to fight on their territory. So instead of doing urban warfare in a southern Lebanese village, we're going to be hooking a jabbing and carrying out Shimona, and the Israelis are going to be destroying their own towns. And that's the fight that I'm going to have. I'm going to make the Israelis fight on their own territory, and I'm going to move to destroy the Israeli air bases as quickly as possible. Next question comes from Chris in Norway. How do you view the close distance from northern Norway to Murmansk when it comes to security? Russia has its biggest naval fleet there. They do. And the Russians are obviously knowledgeable of geography, and I think they've planned accordingly. Northern Norway is not a friendly place to operate. The Nazis made an effort, trying to move across from Norway through that top to get to Murmansk didn't work, bogged down, difficult terrain, tough to logistically supply, difficult weather. And NATO doesn't have forces committed to the North capable of physically threatening Murmansk. The same thing with air power. You need air bases. The air bases will be vulnerable to Russia in the same way Hezbollah will be seeking out the Israeli air bases. Russia will be seeking to take out NATO air bases. So the air bases in the North will be taken out, which means that your air support can have to come from bases further away. That's time of flight refueling, reduce loiter time over the battlefield, not the greatest way to fight an air war. I think the Russians got this under control. I don't think they're too worried about northern Norway right now. All right, let's take another scripted phone call. Hello, you're on with our favorite weapons inspector. I had a question regarding during the Vietnam War, there were several incidents where there were breakdowns in basically control of the troops and there were several incidents of bragging where the military members would kill or threaten to kill their commanding officers. As the US pushes into these new fronts, do you see potentially a new wave of that happening? Thank you. Okay, thanks for the question. You know, the fracking took place primarily near the end of the conflict where we had conscript draftees who didn't want to be there. And the last thing they want to do is, especially near the end of the war to be the last man to die in Vietnam. And their officers tended to be 90 day wonders who come straight out of officer candidate school coming into Vietnam. At that time, the Army had gone into this whole package thing where, you know, if you're a lieutenant and you performed the following functions and lived, you got the package, the combat infantry badge, the bronze star, and then you would come out and that's how you could make your career. So everybody wanted the package. You wanted to qualify for the package. But to do that, you know, the captain had a package too. He wanted to get the silver star, you know, and things on a move on. And then the major needed his package and, you know, get the Legion of America with the combat V and all this other crap. I don't know if the Army does that. I'm talking about Marines right now, but a range weren't as bad. But the Army was pretty bad. And so what would happen there is, as the officers are seeking to go through the motion to qualify for the awards package, this is what happened during the end of the Global War on Terror 2. It was all about the awards package. You didn't earn your, you know, it's not like there's an individual thing. If you just did well, you got the medal. They'd find an excuse. But the soldiers didn't want to be going out. You know, let's go patrol so I can get my bronze star. Not lieutenant. We ain't going to do that. There's no need to do that. This war is winding down. If the lieutenant insists and push on it, then that's where you could get fragging. Because the soldiers were more interested in going home than they were in accomplishing whatever self-serving mission the lieutenant and the captain were conspiring to get so they could qualify for their package. The Marine Corps, even though we did have draftees, you know, they still went through the Marine Corps system. And the majority of the Marines that served in Vietnam were volunteers and more professional. And one of the things that prevents fragging, you know, because junior officers are junior officers and they're going to be a little gung-ho and they're going to be a little inexperienced. But the thing that saves you from a junior officer is a very good staff non-commissioned officer, a very good non-commissioned officer, your corporals, your sergeants, your staff sergeants, your gunnery sergeants. These are experienced Marines who have been around the block and they know how to deal with lieutenants. It's not their first rodeo. And the lieutenants hopefully have been told to listen to your platoon sergeant. And, you know, so in the Marines, you know, the lieutenant might say, "Let's go do this." And the staff sergeant might say, "Sir, that's not really -- what's the mission objective?" But we're supposed to do this. Maybe there's a better way of doing this, or maybe we can do this, that and the other thing, so we don't expose the Marines to unnecessary risk and all that kind of stuff. And then the lieutenant, if he's smart enough, says, "Yeah." Now, he may bounce up to the captain and the captain gives him a reason why they have to do that. He goes back and explains what bottom line is, it's a professional relationship as they work to come up with the best solution to the problem they've been given. And in that environment, fragging isn't -- it's not an environment conducive to fragging. You know, it's -- I'm not saying it never happened in the Marine Corps. I'm sure you can find examples of it, but it's far less prevalent than it was in the drafty-based army near the end of the Vietnam War. But it represents an absolute breakdown of discipline. You know, that's the issue. You know, you're supposed to obey your lawful orders. When we do a -- you know, but there's a process. You know, I read my plan out. I'm the lieutenant. I'll brief my squad leaders. My squad leaders will go back and brief the fire team leaders. Fire team leaders will have a discussion with their enlisted Marines. You're supposed to give feedback like, "That's the dumbest -- you're a dumber dirt. That's the dumbest thing I ever heard." You know, "Why do you want me to do that? I could do this." And if the Marine does it in the right way and says it right, the fire team leader goes, "Wow, you're right." Then he goes to the squad leader and says, "Hey, what you're asking us to do? What if we do this?" He probably goes, "Damn, I should have a V8. That's a good one." And he goes back to the lieutenant and the platoon sergeant is next to the lieutenant and they get the brief back and the platoon sergeant is going, "Sir, that makes sense. That's actually a good idea." And the lieutenant modifies the plan because you're communicating up and down. That's the way it's supposed to work. And if you do that, then everybody's on the same page and there's no frags going on. The fragging comes when you disregard that. You just come in and say, "Get up and let's move in that direction." And you don't explain why and the people might be confused and irritated. You better listen to your squad leaders. You're going to take a grenade with the ass. Anyways, that's that. All right. Next question comes from Roon Larson in Denmark, who's quoting the Danish Prime Minister at the NATO Summit. Let me take a deep breath. This is a long one, Scott. Well, you practiced it, though. Oh, yeah, yeah. Very practiced. Jeff, if you didn't like it, write your right, it's a long sentence. You can't be on a peace mission in Russia. We've tried, but we don't have anything to talk about with Putin anymore. And we in Europe will have to understand that Russia does not want peace. Therefore, we have to do what generations before us did, use military force to secure democracy and human rights. Russia must be shut down. End quote. What is it about female leaders from small European countries that want to see Russia dismantled? Oh, boy. A little misogyny, maybe? I don't know. Well, no, they're referring to call a callist. I think her name is the Prime Minister of Estonia. I think Estonia might be Latvia, but yeah. Maybe it is women, regardless. But no, it's, you know, it's not women because I watched the president of Finland just say the dumbest things in the world and he's a man. I think he's a man dressed like a man, but in this day and age, you don't know. You basically, Europe is, oh, Jeff, don't do that to me, man. I'm trying to hold you. Apparently both. We don't know. The fact of the matter is, Europe today is the old saying they would say about all something. I'm trying to be cute in a country like here, but I'm having a bite. What's going on down there? We got a war. I lost a couple of toes. I didn't get a new puppy, but Europe is, it's not a serious continent anymore. I hate to say that. And I know that sounds like a crossover simplification, but it's pretty much true. First of all, what is Europe? This defining concept of Europe. It's an artificial entity. I know what France is. I know what Germany is. I know what Italy is. Together, we could probably call them collectively, maybe old Europe because they've been around to common policy type stuff. But then we throw in Poland. We throw in the Baltics. We throw in Czech Republic and Slovakia and Hungary and Romania and Bulgaria. And that's sort of like new Europe, Eastern Europe. There's not much in common there, but we can also talk about Greece. You really think there's a lot in common in Greece and Germany? How about Portugal? I don't know. Spain? See, Europe's very complicated. What is Europe? They've tried to make Europe, all these nations disappear and just come up with a singular concept called Europe. And it's failed. It's fundamentally failed. But in the process, they've forgotten who they are and what they are. This concept that Europe, Europe, is able to dictate anything to Russia, Russia knows who they are. They haven't forgotten that. Russia knows darn well who they are. Russia has a policy that's reflective of the reality of Russia. You know, Europe. I mean, we're going to have to use military force. Denmark, use military force. I mean, get real, guys. Come on. You just gave away all your artillery. Now you have somebody saying we're going to give away all our airplanes too. Who's military force are you going to use? Not yours. Europe's? What is Europe's military force? Is there a European army? There's NATO. But what is NATO? I mean, I explained this a couple times a day, but I'm just going to do it again because this is the local issues version, so I get to do this. I own a house. When I bought the house, it was 15 years old. Lived it. Used. You would hope that the people, when they bought it, knew, maintained it during those 15 years. And when I bought it, we inspected to make sure that things were up to standard. You know, but gosh, I looked at the trim outside and I said, "It looks good." But later on, when I went around and I put my finger and I put it through the trim, I found out that they had painted over the rot. That there was actually rot in it and they didn't maintain it. They just painted it over. And some of that rot was related to carpenter ants. And the carpenter ants were actually inside the house, eating the house up. And now I had to take care of this issue. It cost money. We had a hot water heater fail. Got to replace it. That's money. We had a hail storm. Had to replace the roof. Money. You see what I'm getting at? To maintain a house, to make it livable. I got to pay money every year. That's how a military is. When you have a military, you have to maintain it. You have to train. That's one of the big aspects of maintaining. You have to upgrade your equipment. You have to also make sure that your military intellectuals are staying to pace with the needs of modern warfare. It costs money. And after the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed, Europe collectively said, "We ain't spending money on that anymore." We're just going into the deep freeze laziness. We've made smaller militaries. We could do smaller things. Yes, there's enough military in Europe backed up by America to do peacekeeping in the Balkans, to go to war against Serbia, to liberate Kosovo, to take that regime change in Libya. We could do that. We could even project in Afghanistan, but that didn't work out too well. The point is, that was all done with really inferior military forces, really inferior military forces, because we were focused on low intensity conflict. And conflict, even if it rose up in intensity, that wouldn't be sustained for a period of time. So everything became related to that. How much ammunition you need? Back in the Cold War, we used to have a quarter of a million troops in Germany ready to fight. When I say ready to fight, that means that their tanks are there maintained. Every morning, soldiers got up and did the maintenance on the tanks, turned it over, made sure it works. And then in a moment's notice, they might be called out to do an exercise to practice, "Can you go to the field?" And when you go to the field, it's with the ammunition you need to fight, but there had to be other ammunition that could be brought up if you had to sustain the fight. The gas or the diesel that needed to go into that tank was there, but you had to have other diesel, meaning you had to have whole stockpiles of fuel, ammunition, food, spare parts, everything right there to go. But not just for you, there were 300,000 Americans coming in within 10 days, and you need to have their equipment that was being maintained and all the stuff you needed to fight or we had all that. That's really expensive, really expensive. So when the Cold War ended, we just made all that go away because we don't need to do this anymore. We're not going to fight a major war in Europe, so we made it all go away. Do you know that the Americans pulled out their last tank in Europe a decade or so ago? We didn't have any tanks in Europe. Today we got some because we've now put in one brigades worth of pre-deployed equipment. I think we're getting ready to put in another one, two brigades. Guys, that ain't enough. And we have that there, but what about the ammunition? What about the fuel? What about the spare parts? We can't do it anymore. And this is America we're talking about. Germany can't do anything anymore. Olaf Schultz said, you know, Germany's the largest European economy. Olaf Schultz said we need to supercharge the German military because it pretty much sucks. They have a battalion in Lithuania. They're trying to make it a brigade by 2027. They're not going to be able to do that. They can't recruit the men to do it because they have to be volunteers to be based permanently overseas. They don't have the industrial infrastructure anymore to produce the new tanks and infantry body vehicles because the cost of gas makes running the steel plants impossible. So they're shut down. Where are you going to get the steel? They can't do anything. And that's just one brigade. To fight Russia, Germany's need to have like 20 brigades that they don't have. Olaf Schultz said 100 billion euros to jumpstart the German army. But that's assuming that the German army has been maintained the whole time, like the house that you fixed all the problems. But what happened when he said, let's jumpstart it. People said, okay, we want to put in a new sunroom out there. That's our jumpstart. But then you realize, wait, the foundation's correct. Oh, God, we got to replace the foundation before we put the sunroom in the deck. We were just going to leave the deck there. But he's carpeted your answer there. Yeah, we didn't do the maintenance. We didn't do anything that 100 billion quickly gets disappeared, bringing the house up to where it should have been. But it isn't. And they ran out of money. They run out of money in 2027. And they haven't done a damn thing to get the German army up to speed. So now in order to get it up there, they need to increase their annual defense budget. Boris Pasteuris was asking for an increase of 6.7 billion euros, went to the parliaments that we have to have this to get the German army where it needs to be. The parliaments went, the habitat economy sucks. You're only getting 1.2 billion euros, which is less than inflation. Now, let me make it easier. That means that instead of having more money to expand, they actually have less money, which means they can't afford the military they have, let alone increase the military. So the Germans are going to have to shrink. They're not getting stronger. They're getting weaker. The British are the same way. The French are the same way. The Italians are the same way. Europe is the same way. So this Danish idiot talking about fighting the rush case, you know whose army isn't shrinking? Ah, Russia's got from 900,000 over 2 million. That includes the volunteers and everything. Their defense industry is up and running, cranking out material. They have recruits coming in every day. They can train them, equip them. They have good lead. They have the best leaders in the world. All those bad officers that you get during peacetime and every military knows what I'm talking about. The guys that got promoted because they looked good, because they had political connections, and they got the right jobs. They're seen by the right people, shook the right hands, just the right ass. And they got promoted up there. Now they're sitting there, and they're the colonel of a regiment thinking I'm going to parade in my nice uniform, but now they got to go to war. And they haven't prepared for that. They go to war. They either die. They get a lot of people killed. They get fired. Russia has purged all of their little parlor princesses out of their military. All the peacetime pansies that hung around and played officer, but didn't really know how to do, they're gone. Out. Instead what they have are a bunch of combat hard and bad asses right now. Look at what's on their chest. You see a lot of the guys with the gold star. These are heroes of Russia. They don't just get those away. You had to put your life on the line to do that. And they back them up with a lot of orders of courage. They don't give that away either. You have to earn that. These guys got multiple orders of courage. I'm telling you right now, the Russian leadership today is combat hard and combat tested, and they don't mess around. These are guys that get straight to the point. They may not be the most diplomatic people in the world. In combat, there's no room for diplomacy. I've met these guys. They're bad ass. They're tough. And the Russian soldiers are the same way. These are guys who know what war is about. They know what death is. They've seen people die. They dodge death themselves. But they also know how to live. They know how to survive. They know the tactics necessary. These are combat hard and troops. In America, we have an officer corps that's untested. If they have been tested, they were tested in Afghanistan and Iraq, which isn't a test. But our junior soldiers, none of them have combat experience. And they aren't doing the right thing. They're more focused on implementing the DOD DEI plan of the day. Every soldier doesn't get a medal. Who knows? Diversity, equity, and what's the "I"? Inclusivity? Something like that. Inclusion. Basically, you did your participation award. Hi, I'm in the military. You put on a uniform this morning. Let me give you a medal. Hi, I'm in the military. You did the Toys for Tots program, and you collected toys for the kitties. That's important. I'm not mocking too much, but I mean, you get a medal. But what they're not getting a medal for is getting ready to go to war, because we don't do that anymore. We have all this DEI crap we've got to do. We've got to prepare for how to absorb transgendered. I'm not picking on transgendered. I'm just saying that if you're doing that, you're not preparing to kill the enemy. You're not going to kill the enemy. You're going to die when the enemy prepares to kill you. Our military has to be lethal. More lethal than our opponent than our adversary if we're going to prevail. If we're not spending every waking moment trying to perfect the increase in our lethality, we're doing it wrong. And I'm telling you right now, we're doing it wrong. And the Russians are doing it right. They spend every waking moment today focused on how I can kill the enemy more efficiently that they kill me. That's why this is a war of attrition. That's why Russia is winning. Europe's not doing that right now. The European military is a joke across the board. This Danish person comes back to another thousand new recruits a year. Russia has 30,000 new recruits a month. There you go. There's the difference. The old Top Gun movie, which I love obviously because they have a dog named Maverick and another one named Iceman. But in the beginning of the original one, Kagg, the bald-headed commander of the year group, talking to Maverick, "Your son, your mouth's right and checks your body can't kill me." Well, that's what that Danish person's doing, right, and checks that Europe can't cash, NATO can't cash. They're nothing. They mean nothing. And we just spend a lot of time talking about this. You know who's not spending any time talking about it? Russia. Just the Russians know that Europe just doesn't matter anymore. They've pivoted away from it. They're doing other stuff. Europe can sit there and pretend that it's a big, bad, and important. Ukraine has lost this war. They ain't going to win this war. It's not going to get reversed. It's going to get worse. NATO has latched itself to Ukraine. Irreversibly, we've been told. I like that there. Irreversible. You know what? Irreversible brings up. I'm giving away a line that I was going to put in an article about what the hell I'll do it right now anyways. You've got great lines to spare. Don't worry about it. You know, film in Louise. You've seen that movie, right? You know what the end when they're in the car and they grab hands and they go forward. That's irreversible. And it sounds really good. We ain't going back. But you know, when irreversible becomes sort of bad, when you go off the cliff. And by attaching itself to Ukraine, NATO is on an irreversible trajectory. And they're going off the cliff with Ukraine. It's Thelma and Louise, baby. It sounds good until you hit the bottom of the cliff. Then you're dead. They didn't show that in the movie. They just showed them going over holding hands. As if, oh, wait until it's the ground and the bodies are mangled. It's on fire and they're all blown apart. It ain't cute, ladies and gentlemen. That's the future of NATO right there. I'd be surprised if NATO makes its 80th birthday. And when Mark Root, the Dutch Prime Minister, takes over Secretary General in one October, I put even money on the fact that he will be the last Secretary of General NATO ever has. NATO is not long for this world. It's a fundamentally broken, you know, alliance. All right. But if it weren't for DEI, would we have Ryan working with us? No, Ryan is a DEI hire. I admit it. So there are exceptions. There are exceptions. Hey, you're on with the birthday boy. What is your very interesting question for Scott? Sure. Thanks, Scott. Thanks, Jeff. Scott, I know you've had very emotional time lately. I'm seeing the full death of the INF Treaty and all that you and the inspectors work towards. And now we're hearing rumors of intermediate range nuclear missiles, possibly being paced in Germany, Tomahawk, bees, and Russia saying it may respond in time to this escalation. Now, can you take us back in time to the Cold War a little bit and explain why the intermediate missiles were so destabilizing, and then maybe take us forward in time and say how in the hypersonic era, how intermediate range hypersonic missiles, how that may exacerbate the situation even further? Thank you. Thanks. Now, I'm going to read into this. This guy knows the answer. And I'll tell you why, because he's framed the perfect question. This is somebody who has listened to me before, read my books, read my articles. It's a perfect question. I mean, I'm smiling because it's a fantastic question. And it's imminently answerable because we don't have a three minute timer on. Look, let's go back in time. It's Cold War. Both sides are developing missiles. Russia develops a family of missiles called the SS4, SS5. You might remember them from the Cuban Missile Crisis. They get deployed into Cuba. They threaten the United States. They get pulled out. The United States has a family of missiles. We'll call them Jupiter. We'll call them four. We'll call them Atlas. And the Jupiter's get withdrawn when the Russian missiles get withdrawn and we come down. America de-emphasized the role of missiles. We became more oriented on aircraft, on deploying our nuclear weapons using aircraft. We had some battlefield weapons, a Davy Crockett and other things of that nature. But the intermediate range stuff was primarily aircraft for us. The Russians had the SS4, the SS5. But the problem is the SS4 and SS5 are liquid-fueled systems, which means that before they could be launched, they have to be fueled. And then they have to be erased. And while this is happening, it takes time. It's detectable. They can be interdicted. So the United States was pretty happy because we had aircraft that could fly in, drop bombs before those missiles could be fired. So we were happy with this calculus. So the Russians deployed something called the SS20. The SS20 was a road mobile missile, so it's not confined to a base, to a silo. It's road mobile. It's solid-fueled, so it doesn't need to be refueled, which means once you get into firing positions, pop, it's gone. Guys go on the internet and Google it, you'll see. There's videos of watch the missile come in. They drop the stabilizing jacks. They level it. The gyro spun up. They get the final data put in. Up it goes. Once it gets to the top, the top pops off as it comes off. It gets to the top. And once it gets in there, it ain't waiting. Pop, the boost assist, pops it out, it gets light, off it's gone. Three warheads, three European cities eliminated. The Russians built this thing and deployed hundreds of them, hundreds of them, into the European theater. Overnight, the balance of power shifted, and everybody went into a panic. Europe went into a panic. What are we doing about the SS20s? The United States was like, we don't have anything to counter this. And so what we did is we say we have to deploy our own intermediate missiles in there. The Pershing II and the ground loss cruise missile became the counter to the SS20. This was extraordinarily destabilizing. The Europeans knew this because what was happening was overnight Europe became a nuclear target. All of Europe was going to become a nuclear target. And when you put these INF systems into England, into Italy, into Germany, into maybe the Netherlands, they become targets too. And the people that are sitting there, the farmers are going, we don't want to be a target. And actually, this is where the big anti-nuke movement came up. We talked about the million person march in Central Park. That was a derivative of it. But in Europe, they were filling the streets out there saying, hell no, we don't want this. They brought down the German government. I mean, this is a big deal. But NATO and the United States insisted that we follow through and we did. We deployed these systems. The time of flight of the Pershing II, when it launches, could hit Moscow within seven to 12 minutes, depending on where it was based. I talked about this earlier. I meant that once the Pershing II is up and out, the Russians don't have any time to react. They have to assume the worst, especially if they detect the launch, they have to assume the worst. This meant that the Russians were on HairTrader Alert. We had an exercise, or they had an exercise, Abel Archer, I want to say 84. I could be wrong on that 82, maybe 83, around there. I can't remember the exact year. But Abel Archer was a NATO exercise. Again, it's part of the Reforger exercise. So we would send the troops in, hit them out of their barracks, get them up there. Then at the end of this Reforger exercise, the reinforcement of Germany, a return of forces to Germany, we got them in up. Then Abel Archer comes in, and it was a nuclear command post exercise, where we actually were issuing the orders for the launch of the Russian. The Soviet intelligence is picking up on this, and they're going, wait a minute, these guys are bringing their troops in, bringing their strength up 83. Thank you, bringing their strength up. And now, while they still have their strength there, they're planning a nuclear command post exercise that could be the nuclear preemption. That instead of issuing fake orders, they're actually going to launch nuclear weapons at us, and then come in with their troops, and we're screwed. So they went on nuclear alert. They put SS20 missiles on nuclear alert, ready to go. They had a fighter aircraft with nuclear weapons strapped underneath on the runway, ready to go. If there had been one damn mistake during that action, and there's mistakes all the time, ladies and gentlemen, it's the military. That's what we do for 11. We make mistakes, and we go, oops, we try and fix them. If there had been one mistake, one miscalculation, misjudgment, there had been a nuclear war in 83. That's how serious this was. Now, President Reagan was briefed on this. One of the reasons why he is a fan of the INF treaty is that he was briefed on this by the CIA in early '84. They said, boss, we're getting some reports back from the Russians. Apparently, that exercise we ran in '83, Abe Larger, the Russians thought we were going to attack them, and they put their nuclear forces on alert. They went, well, did they really believe that, because we weren't going to attack them. Why did they believe that? And they came back and said, well, that's how they interpreted what we did. And Reagan said, is this serious? Yes, sir. It's very serious. And suddenly, Reagan realized, this is crazy. This is insanity. These weapons are dangerous. We got to get rid of them. And that began to push towards what led to the INF treaty, getting rid of these weapons, because it was insane, ladies and gentlemen, absolutely insane. Again, I'm not joking. I mean, I say it with a smile because it's sort of cute. And it was cute at the time when I said it, you know, when you meet me, shake my hand by me a beer and thank me for saving your life. Because every inspector, Soviet and American involved in the INF treaty, saved everybody's life. Because that treaty, I strongly believe, prevented what would have been an inevitable nuclear war. We were on a trajectory where there was going to be a nuclear conflict. These weapons systems are so inherently destabilizing. They reduce the threshold of reaction so that any mistake that's made must be interpreted as a direct threat, because you don't have time to second guess it, and then you respond and bam, bam, bam, it's over. And that was back in the 1980s. We got rid of those weapons. The world dodged a bullet. Here we are right back to the INF treaties gone. America's deploying the Mark 70 containerized missile launch system with ground launch cruise missiles. But, you know, we are talking about putting in something called Ryan, just check me on this one, Dark Eagle. It's a hypersonic missile, supposed to be already deployed, but apparently we just can't make it work. But it's a hypersonic missile, so it's not just a ground launch cruise missile, it's a hypersonic missile. Hypersonic means speed, ladies and gentlemen, when we come back, the Pershing 2 was a very fast system. Seven to 12 minutes. We have hypersonics now. They can drop that down to under five minutes. So from launch to impact, under five minutes, which means no response time, which means now the Russians have to be really on a hair trigger alert. So they have it's pop, oops, before you get hit, hit the button, you die, your missiles go, they die. It has to be that way, because if it's not pop, oh damn, I got to get my stuff up and running, boom, I'm dead. There it is, Dark Eagle. Thanks. That's the direction we're heading. Now the Russians are going to redeploy. They were building a system. The Russians are very good at missiles. I just got to tell you guys, they're better than we are at missiles. They have perfected hypersonic technologies, and they're now bringing these technologies into all categories of weapons. Before the INF Treaty went away, they were developing a system called the Courier. It was sort of a small ICBM, but it was a mobile system. It could be containerized too. That system, of course, never got deployed because Gorbachev pulled the plug on it. If you read my book, you understand that's one of the reasons why there was a coup, because the defense industry of Russia was so pissed off that they said he has to go. But the blueprints are there. The Russians had follow on SS20s in mind. They had new versions of the SS23 in mind, short range system that could be expanded. Right now, they have versions of the Aschondor that can be easily expanded into longer range systems, into intermediate systems. This isn't going to take them long to respond. It takes America forever to build a new weapon system. I'm telling you right now, Russia will have an intermediate range system out within a year. It'll be a damn good system. They'll have the infrastructure ready for it. They'll have people trained on it. It'll be forward deployed, ready to rock. We're right back to 1983, Abel Archer. But this time we have more dangerous weapons, and we don't have any way to prevent this war from happening. There's no negotiations. In 1982, when we had the million-person march in Central Park, that was in June, July 16, 1982. Paul Nitzi, one of the most, I mean, the most senior, most revered American diplomats in the Cold War. He's the father of the Cold War. You know, John Kennan wrote the long telegram that was used by the Truman administration to justify containment. Paul Nitzi wrote the containment strategy, I think, NSM-54. Again, Ryan, you can help me on. There was NSM or NSD-54, which was the containment directive put out back in the 1950s during the Korean War. And it began the policy of containment. Nitzi's the author. He was there at the birth. Nitzi was one of the guys who investigated the aftermath of Hiroshima. His autobiography is from Hiroshima to, I forget what the last one, the implication was it was the INF Treaty. He was the negotiator for the INF Treaty. He went, it was met with his counterpart, a Soviet diplomat, Yuli Kavinsky, I think his name was. And they went for what's called the Walk in the Woods. Now, at that time, he was instructed by his, you know, seniors. I think Richard Pearl was one of the king of Prince of Darkness. But he, Pearl hated arms control, and he's like, "Don't talk to those Soviets, they're dirty." And Kavinsky was told, "Don't talk to the Americans, they're unreasonable." NSC-68, God, I got the numbers all wrong. But there it is, NSC-68, I'm worse than Biden sometimes. It's like NSD-54. No, it's NSC-68. Thank you. People are sure it was payback for operation. There you go. Sorry, Ryan. He's a DEI hire. What do you want? But the fact is, these guys went for a walk because back then we could actually talk to each other. And they had a conversation about how to overcome these problems. And they put together tables that went back to their respective ministries, or Secretariat. And they were rejected. But they began a process where people started talking. Because when you reject something, you have to say why it's bad. And then people say, "Yeah, but what if we did this, or what if we did that?" And both sides started a dialogue, and next thing you know, we have a treaty. Ah, imagine that. Today, somewhere in the United States is the modern day version of Paul meets him. But he's not allowed to talk to the Russian modern day version of Yuli Kavinsky. Not allowed to. Can't. If you can't talk, then this process never begins. We don't have the processes that we had back then. That created the processes that led to a treaty that saved the world. We are back to 1982, 1983, weapons deploying in, but we don't have anything in place to prevent the escalation. Which is inevitable, ladies and gentlemen, I'm trying to tell you. This isn't guesswork, guys. We're literally reinventing the wheel, and we know what happens. It's not guesswork. It's not like, "Oh, if we do this again, it'll come out differently." No, it won't. There will be a nuclear war if these weapons get deployed, and we don't have systems in place to create impediments for war. Which is why we go back to the beginning of today's show. Operation Dawn is so damn important. Hypersonic missiles are so fast. If they get launched, there's no response time. Now that means that first strike, preemptive strike, decapitation strike becomes something that war planners start thinking about. Which means the other side has to be on hair, trigger, alert, or be positioned to preempt the preemption. And now their boat's just waiting the fire. Waiting the fire. One mistake. We're dead. Let's not make that mistake. Let's have policies in place that back this thing up. It doesn't have to be irreversible, ladies and gentlemen. We don't have to be thelma and louis and go over the cliff. We can actually find an alternative path. But we can only do it if we work together. You know, last night's press conference, the question of whether or not Biden would talk to Putin came up, and Biden cleared it up. Is Putin ready to talk? I'm not ready to talk to Putin. I'm prepared to talk to any leader who wants to talk, including if Putin called me and wanted to talk. There you have it. He either will or won't talk to Putin. Well, you know, what's interesting is that the United States has been saying we're ready to have arms control talks with the Russians without preconditions. Let's just sit down and talk. And the Russians, you know, the Americans, the Russians don't want to talk. You know, what the Russians have said is why do we want to have a conversation about arms control, which means limiting the thing that prevents you from nuking us. We have really good nuclear weapons over here. And you've never negotiated good faith, by the way, except for the INF treaty. What happened during the Cold War, America always lied. Anatoly Antonov, the ambassador in Washington, D.C. right now was the lead negotiator for the Russians for the new start treaty. Talk to him. I have. I want to tell you how the United States is straight up lied, straight up lied. You know, there's a famous clip that shows Obama with mediators was the president. I think they're in South Korea. And the behavior was depressing about, you know, Mr. President, we have to talk about ballistic missile defense. This is a big problem for us. Russia won't be able to do this new start treaty unless we talk about ballistic missile defense, which meant these two sites. The Mark 41 assures that we put in Poland and in Romania. And Obama didn't think he was on camera. He said, we collapsed in the election of a lot more freedom to do things. And maybe I was like, well, okay, I trust you, Mr. President. And that order went down to Antonov, who was told, because Antonov was sticking to the Russian position, which is any treaty has to be not just strategic arms reduction, but it has to include ballistic missile defense that we have to ban it or control it or somehow bring it under control. So that as we reduce strategic nuclear arms, there won't be a ballistic missile shield that is of such quality and quantity that when nuclear arms get under a certain threshold, the shield can protect against what's left. You can't have that. That's not arms control. That's suicide. The Russians saying we can't speak of reducing as long as you have a shield in place that protects you because at a certain time, our numbers get too low to penetrate your shield. We need the shield to go away through. We can't bring the numbers down. And he was told by Rose Boot Miller that don't worry, Mr. Antonov, when this is done, we have to separate the two right now because the Senate won't pass a treaty that has a ballistic missile defense. But when this is done after the election, the President promises that we are going to negotiate a ballistic missile defense treaty. And Antonov went really? She went picky square and they picky squared and signed a new start treaty. Big deal. Yay for arms control. Antonov, though, being the consummate professional, waited and said, "Okay, we've very called the champagne for new start." Hey Rose, it's me, Anatoly. A long time no see. I want to do that ballistic missile thing. Think we can go out on a date? And Rose went, "Nah, we're not doing it. Click." He was lied to, straight up lied to, by the United States. Why would Russia ever trust us again? They were lied to by the United States. And the whole new start treaty all lies. We lied about how we're going to get rid of nuclear delivery systems. You know, we said, you know, as we take them out, they don't account because it's all about delivery systems, not about nuclear warheads. Those all go into storage. It's about the systems. And on, you know, submarines, for instance, each tube is a system. So as we reduce our systems, we can take tubes out of commission. And so the treaty was supposed to be about how you verify that the tubes are taken out of commission. The United States is like, if you see it, you know it. Don't worry about it. Don't cross that bridge when it gets there. Hey, you know, and the Russians are like, "Okay, we got to get this treaty done. Okay." Then they come into the sub and they go, "You didn't pour concrete into the tube." They're like, "Nah, we're not going to do that. We're just going to put a lock here and click that." They said, "Yeah, but what happens when you take the lock off and you unclick it?" Then the tube's good, right? Yeah, but we put a lock on it and click, "Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it." We are worried about it, especially when the U.S. Navy guy goes for the U.S. Congress and said, "If there's ever a crisis with Russia, this treaty won't hamper us because overnight we can bring these tubes back up, hit those warheads back onto missiles and get them into tubes, and we will have nuclear superiority over the Russians overnight." Now, how do you like to be Anatoly Antonov listening to that going, "I was duped. They duped me." Or, "How'd you like to be put in saying, "They duped me, too. I was the president." We did the same thing as the B-52s. You know, the B-52 nuclear capable armors, you know, you can tell me as you still canards there, but we can remove them from the nuclear accountability thing. How? By making them non-nuclear. How do you do that? Well, there's certain electronics in a nuclear capable bomber that have to be demilled. Normally, that means you just strip them out of the bomber, grind them up, and they're gone. So the bomber can never be brought back into nuclear. All we did is we left the stuff in there, and we cut the cable and taped it up. Now, I ain't much of an electrician, but I know that if you cut the cable and tape it up, I can slice it back in. I can't. I have to hire an electrician to do it. But you can just slice it back in, and you got a nuclear capable bomber, and the Russians are going, "What kind of game is this?" That's not a decommissioned bomber. You can bring that back in. Especially when the head of the Air Force tells the US Congress, "Don't worry. If there's ever a crisis with the Russians, we can bring all those nuclear bombers back in and make them nuclear capable overnight, and we'll load them up with missiles, and we got nuclear superiority over the Russians." The Russians can never trust America again when it comes to arms control. So why would Russia want to negotiate with the Americans to reduce their nuclear capability at a time when we speak of strategic defeat of Russia? How do you strategically defeat Russia as long as they have a nuclear deterrence that prevents that? So the Russians aren't about to enter into arms control discussions with the United States so long as we articulate a policy of strategic defeat, which is why Operation Don isn't just about preventing nuclear war through disarmament and arms control, it's about promoting peace. We have to stop this nonsense of strategically defeating Russia. It's the dumbest policy in the world, and it's suicidal in nature. So Joe Biden's disingenuous, because what is he going to talk to Putin about? Arms control? Well, first thing we have to do is articulate, we no longer seek the strategic defeat of Russia. And that's one of the things that a candidate's probably going to have to commit to if he wants to vote, if people who want to promote preventing nuclear war, is that the United States will reverse its strategic objective of strategically defeating Russia. That we will work with Russia as co-equals on this planet, we can have disagreements, but we're no longer trying to defeat them. And once we articulate that and we act on that in a way that's demonstrable, we'll probably require some treaties, probably require new European security framework along the lines of what the Russians were promulgating back in December of 2021. Then the Russians can say, "Okay, we got treaties, we locked it in, we're good, verification, boom. Now we can talk about nuclear disarmament." But the beauty is what we're doing all that talking, we're not preparing for war. That's the processes we need to start initiating. Arms control takes time. It took five years from Paul Nitzi and Yolikovinsky's "Walk in the Woods" to turn the theory of an INF treaty into the reality of it. We're not going to have a world-saving treaty next year or the year after, year after. It's going to take time, it's going to take probably more than five years because of the complexity of the situation. But if we begin talking to the Russians, if we begin opening up those diplomatic channels, it's much harder to go to war with somebody when you're talking to them. It's much easier to go to war when you're having no communications whatsoever. Paul in the United Kingdom. On the Joe Rogan podcast this week, Joe had Annie Jacobson on the show discussing her new book, Nuclear War Scenario. Do you know this lady and have you heard of this book? She has interviewed many people from the government, and I wonder if you have ever spoken to her in the past. So, Scott, that rang a bell, and I did some digging, and the reason it sounded familiar is because that question came up in our May 3 episode, and at the time, you said that you were not familiar with the book, but since she was on Joe Rogan and people are talking about it, I thought, why not bring it up again? That's the book right there. It's a nonfiction book. It outlines a timeline of a hypothetical first strike against the continental United States by North Korea. I haven't read the book. It's a Pulitzer Prize finalist. She's obviously a good author. Maybe I should read the book. I watched part of the podcast with Joe Rogan, and it seems to be about trying to scare people the very goal that you have, so it might be right up your alley. My goal isn't to scare people. My goal is to tell people the truth, and hopefully that will scare them. You can scare people by BSing them, pulling the wool over their eyes, making stuff up. The truth is scary enough, and the truth about where we are right now should scare the living hell out of everybody. Fair enough. Let's listen to a voicemail message from Ben in Australia. As soon as he said the first two syllables, I knew where he was from. I get a Scott and Jeff, Ben here from Australia. I just saw an interview, Tucker Carlson interview with Eric Prince from Blackwater, based on everything I understood about that group and that bloke. I was kind of expecting the devil, but he came across as something else. What's your take on Blackwater and this Eric Prince dude? Anyway, cheers. Well, thanks for the question. Thanks for calling in from Australia. Thanks for watching. Eric Prince was a Navy SEAL officer, so that tells you a couple things. One, he's physically tough. You don't get through buds if you're not physically tough. He's a commissioned officer, which means he has a certain amount of leadership principles. But as we know, there's a book out there called Alpha that talks about a Navy SEAL that committed murder in Iraq and in Syria. I think most people who look at the culture of the Navy SEALs today realize is as fundamentally corrupted. It promotes war crimes. It promotes the kind of rogue mentality that is not conducive to discipline in times of war. I think Eric Prince probably is somebody cut from that same cloth. Especially the officer class, they're trained on putting on their uniform right and polishing themselves up and presenting themselves well to their superiors while they brief them. But inside, if you're from a corrupt institution or organization, you're corrupt. Eric Prince is fundamentally corrupt. He's a businessman, first and foremost. Understand that black water isn't about patriotism. Eric Prince likes people to think it's about patriotism, but it's not about making money. What he did is he realized that there was a niche out there. When we began the process of looking for a peace dividend at the end of the Cold War, we started to remove the military from certain things and replaced them with contractors. We used to provide diplomatic security, Delta Force used to do that, things of that nature. But then that was stripped away and now we brought in contractors, diplomatic security service would do this. But as we expanded from when we went into Iraq, we suddenly expanded dramatically the diplomatic footprint in Iraq because the coalition provisional authority was this occupation force that was primarily civilians in nature. They needed protection. We didn't have the military resources to protect them. And so black water filled that niche. Black water said we're going to be that Delta Force-style personal protection force to provide convoy security, personal security, close in security, the whole thing. And so Eric Prince, being a skilled special operator, tried to build a civilian version of this and he would recruit a lot of people who was Iraq back with money meant nothing. So you could encourage people who just left with a certain skill set or people who were in and you get them to leave with the sales get come in and pay them a lot of money to do the same job they were doing in uniform, but now doing it for money. And that's the difference. You see when you're in uniform, you took an oath up hold and defend the Constitution against you. All image foreign and domestic. That's who you served flag on the shoulder. You were fighting for Uncle Sam paycheck could have been okay, but it's not there for the money. You're there for the duty duty to your country. When you work for black water, you're not there for your country. You're there for the money. Plain and simple. There's a huge difference in black water was about the money. Now, early on, black water had a lot of highly trained people. Many of them had just come out of your one special operations units and they performed quite well. They were professional, but then what happened is the mission expanded. You start to have to attract more and more people and there's just aren't so many tier one people available. So you started to lower the standard, bring in other people and then black water. You have all the one of these who couldn't be tier one when they were in the military. Now, coming out, joining black water and saying I'm the same as Delta because now I'm part of the black water team. And they have attitude. They don't have the training, the maturity, the discipline, and the whole quality dilutes. And you end up having a convoy go through Baghdad getting a firefight in a square, murder a whole bunch of Iraqis and disgrace black water. Black water is a disgrace. It's a mercenary outfit that fights for money. They're not there for America. They're there to make Eric Prince rich. He just found a niche where because of the reduction of US military's structure at the end of the Cold War, there were gaps. And he found a gap and he has filled that gap with black water. It's been renamed several times. It's something else. But you need to understand that he is not representing the United States. In fact, today much of his work is done on behalf of other countries. The United Arab Emirates and others use his organization extensively. But I just would encourage people to stop viewing black water, Eric Prince and people of his ilk as being patriotic Americans serving their country. These are the scum of the earth who forgot what it means to serve their country and they serve the US dollar. They're mercenaries and they commit crimes and they think they're above the law. And I have no use for them. I would prefer that we would just go back to using uniformed military personnel who are accountable to the rule of law because of the oath they took. All right, let's take one more phone call. You are the final caller on this episode of Ask the Inspector, the very last episode before Scott's birthday. What's on your mind? Interesting. Very interesting. There might be a pause for the cause. Or not. Let's go to John instead. Hold on a second. What's going on here? Yeah, I took the call, but the person's not there. All right, let me get rid of them. We'll go and we'll get to John instead. This is, this is our friend, John. Yes, I'd like to say a happy birthday to Scott and greetings, Jeff. Scott, my question is regarding the Chinese Belarus training that is going on presently. I believe it's been very popular in the European press and we have not heard anything about it essentially here in the United States. And I was surprised that we did not hear anything mentioned by Biden in the big NATO whoopi do. I was wondering if you could comment on that. Thank you very much. And again, happy birthday. Well, thank you very much. Well, you're 100% right. There are Chinese paratroopers in Belarus. And they literally just, oh, there's Richie Molina telling us what's wrong. As if I didn't know. Thank you, Richie. Well, I didn't know. In other news, water is wet. It's cold too sometimes. All right. Chinese paratroopers, Belarus. Yeah, they're doing joint exercises. Now, why would China want to have joint exercises with Belarus? Well, do you guys remember this organization called NATO? It's the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, by the way. North Atlantic. That's sort of a geographic specific thing. NATO has been making a lot of noise about how much of a threat to NATO. China is secure. China is all the way across the sea. But what China does, the economy, the belts and roads, what they're doing in the South China Sea, the South China Sea becomes a threat to NATO. So NATO wants to expand its reach into the Pacific. That's why at the NATO summit meeting, you had South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, observing. NATO wants to move into the Pacific because China is now an adversary. So now you're the Chinese saying you guys want to come to the Pacific. We'll do you one better. We'll come to Europe. So they're out there jumping out airplanes three kilometers away from Polish border. They're doing parades within a visual range of Poland. And they're just doing a little presence. It's not a lot of troops. They're doing some counterterrorism training. But there's Chinese troops in Belarus jumping out airplanes with Belarusian paratroopers. That's not the only thing that's happening. You do know that North Korea has dispatched thousands of combat engineers to the Dombas. Why? Well, they're not there to fight. They're there to reconstruct, to rebuild, to build up the villages and towns and the cities that have been devastated by this war is part of the Russian promise to the people of the new territories that life will get better. And North Korea is going to help Russia deliver on that promise. Why would North Korea do that? I don't know. Again, NATO is sitting there talking about opening up an office in Japan, the purpose of which is to use NATO as leverage against North Korea. So it's like a preemptive strike. I think you're going to see more and more Asian support for Russia and letting Europe know that in the future it's not Europe coming to the Pacific. The Pacific is going to come to Europe if they don't play this game right. And I think that's sort of the signal that's being sent here. Vladimir Putin has talked about the necessity of creating a Eurasian security arrangement. Whether it's an alliance or something, we don't know what it's going to look like yet. But the purpose of it is clear to withstand efforts by the United States and NATO to project power outside of the North Atlantic physical zone into the Pacific. What was that question? When can a provocation be considered in that progression? Also, the person that wasn't there before we called back. Okay, well, we can do that too. Yeah. You want to do the phone call first? When can a provocation be counted as a direct aggression? When it's a direct aggression? Okay, let's do the phone call. Hello, are you there this time? Oh, yes. Jeff Scott? Yep. Hello? Hey, Scott, I was wondering if could a Marine Corps expeditionary force do a better job than the IDF against Hamas and Gaza right now? And if could US military, maybe special forces find and rescue the hostages? So thank you. Okay, thanks for calling back. It's a good question. Well, a US Marine expeditionary force is a, I mean, it's, I mean, that's a specific term. So the implication is that it would be a division-sized ground force with a wing-sized air component with a, you know, a combat service, you know, element that's designed to sustain both of those in combat, it's a combined arms combat team with a whole bunch of combat capability. Could they do a better job? I don't know. I will say this, that we'd be a hell of a lot more aggressive than the Israelis are. We would take more casualties than the Israelis are because of our aggression and we would slaughter the living crap out of Hamas. But is that our mission? Is that something the American people want? I mean, you know, there's no doubt in my mind that the Marine Corps expeditionary force that given the task of clearing Gaza would clear Gaza. We lose a hell of a lot of Marines because we don't, we don't shy away from a fight. We will accomplish the mission, we will follow through, we are professionals, but we're going to go to get the job done and we're going to lose a lot of guys. And politically, is that the right thing to do? First of all, Hamas, this is our fight. Why are we? Why would we be in Gaza? This would become politically unsustainable. Remember, war is an extension of politics by other means. While the Marines are on the ground hooking a jab and doing their thing, there's going to be people back in Washington, gee, saying, nah, nah, nah. Fallujah, you remember when the, I think we were just talking about black water. The four contractors were driving through Fallujah and they got, they got stopped. They got killed. They got strung up. They got dragged. And there was political pressure now for us to go in to Fallujah and do this. And General Conlon, I believe, was Marine Corps General, begged. He said, guys, don't, don't, don't do this. We got this. We have videotapes of the, of the perpetrators. We have special forces, we have good connections. We'll get these guys. We'll find out who they are. We'll get them. There will be justice. But don't, don't make us go into Fallujah. That will be a completely different thing. They said, no, you're going into Fallujah. So he said, the next request was, okay, if we're going to do this, once we start, don't stop us. Because we're going to be, this, this is war. We're going to be doing things that are designed to create conditions for follow on action. We're coming in violent. And we're going to do things. And once we start, you can't stop us because we give a pause. The enemy refreshed. And I said, don't worry. I'm like, go. Larry goes off and go to the Marines. And it became bloody as hell. Because the Marines don't screw around. And I mean, it just is what it is. And next thing you know, there's a hue and cryo. Civilians are dying this, that and the other thing. And the White House pulled the plug and said, stop. I begged you not to do this because now you've got us involved in something. And now we're not completing the mission. We're going to withdraw. It makes us look weaker. The enemy is going to look stronger. Next time we go in, it's going to be that much more difficult. And it was because we did eventually go into Fallujah and clear it out. Bloody as hell. More difficult. But the Marines, they will accomplish the mission. But God's is not our mission. Hamas is in our enemy. Could tier one special forces go in and rescue the hostages? That's a different question altogether. It requires great intelligence. How do you get that intelligence? You know, it would require us to, again, have a physical presence on the ground. Maybe they would, you know, marry up with the Marine Expeditionary Forces as we went in. But understand as we go in, we're going to be killing the hostages because we're going in hard. We're going in underground. This would be a disastrous mission for the United States. An absolute disastrous mission that should never happen. We're not the enemy of Hamas. Hamas is not our enemy. There's no reason for us to be doing this. But the question was, would we do a better job than the Israelis? Hell yes, we were. We would, because we're professionals. The Israelis are a bunch of amateurs by comparison. All right. It's got somebody's on hold from Montreal. Do you want to take the call? Sure. All right. Let's go a little bit overboard for our international audience. I don't know if it's the Angel and Quebec or somebody else, but let's find out. Hey there. Are you the Angel and Quebec or another Canadian? I am from Quebec, yeah. All right. It ain't the Angel. Welcome to the birthday party. I can do the question in French if you are, if you're French is good. I have a question. I wanted to ask you. I wanted to ask you why they're Turkish troops in Syria. And do you think that if there is a confrontation with Israel, do you think that maybe they will have Hezbollah? Give my love to Mavry. Thank you. Oh my God. I love the way I'm involved with this woman. Marry me. Marry me. Jeff. Jeff. What? Is that out of bounds? No. I'm here. You can ask me French. Shall we do it? It's fine. Okay. You got to study French. Jeff. All right. I'm ready. Thanks for the call. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Why are Turkish troops in Syria? It's not as easy to answer as one would think if you're going to give an accurate answer. After, I mean, prior, you know, back in 2008, Turkey had a policy, you know, no problems on the border. There's a different title they used, but the concept was we will have no problems with our neighbors. No problems with our neighbors. We're going to get along with everybody. And Erdogan and Assad got along famously. They visited each other in 2008. I think Assad went to Turkey with Erdogan and they visited, they vacationed on the beaches. I mean, you know, these guys are vacationing with each other. And then came Arab Spring and then came 2011 and unrest in Syria. And Turkey's not innocent on this unrest. You see, the Muslim Brotherhood that was driven out of Turkey back when Assad's father was in power of, I think, homes in 1982. It was a big deal and the Muslim Brotherhood was driven out. They went to Turkey and they became sort of interwoven with the Turks, businessmen, politically, et cetera. And part of the stuff that was happening in Syria, you know, everybody's talking about, you know, oh, it's all internal, internal. And there's some internal, but there's a lot of external as well. And one of the big deals was that the Muslim Brotherhood was coming in across the border, making, you know, new connectivity with these radicalized elements of Syrian society. Again, I told you this isn't going to be the easiest answer in the world. There was a drought back in 2006, 2007. It caused a lot of problems. One of the big problems it caused was suddenly the Syrian population became a little disaffected with Bashar al-Assad. They're like, what the hell are you doing for us? You know, we're having problems here. Are you going to help us? And because of the drought and the failure of crops, a large segment of Syrian population went from rural areas into the cities and they weren't absorbed properly. There wasn't a plan for this. The other thing that happened is that the Saudis came in with their money to help rebuild places devastated. And they, with their money, came mosques. And with the mosque came imams that were more salafist and orientation than, I would say, the traditional, you know, Sunni, you know, non jihadist ilk that were there. So they radicalized a population that was already disaffected towards a Bashar al-Assad. So you have this taking place. And then on top of that, you layer just an overall approach by the United States and Europe that said that we need to, this is back in the day of color revolutions. And we believe that we needed to promote the color revolution to get rid of Bashar al-Assad to get rid of, you know, this government that we didn't see eye to eye to because he at least didn't like him. And so, you know, Jared Cohen, I don't know if people remember that name. He was a Google official. He worked for the State Department at the latter stages of the Bush administration. And then when Obama came in, he got, he latched on. He famously toured the Middle East and wrote a book that talked about, you know, sitting down in Beirut with Hezbollah. And he said, they're the same as us. They like the same things we do. You know, they like computer games. They like social networking. They like the internet. And that's how we have to explain. And he came over the term digital democracy. And so we were going to spread democracy using social media. And that was Jared Cohen's thing. He later on, you know, he famously or infamously interfaced with Twitter during the green revolution where he, Twitter was supposed to go down for maintenance. And he called them up and say, stay up because this is how we're communicating with the Iranian, you know, opposition that's out in the street because the Iranian opposition was trained by the State Department, by the CIA, and by European intelligence on how to use social media to collect information, get it out into the Western media in a way that made Iran look bad. And they did the same thing in Syria. They empowered these local teams of activists who were all given, you know, the ability to collect imagery and then to get that imagery out using either at the internet or using, you know, satellite phones, which they were trained on again. This isn't something that happened spontaneously internally to Syria. It was all imposed on. So you have all these forces coming together inside Syria that are designed to bring about the collapse of the Assad regime and replace them with something different. And Turkey was involved through the Muslim Brotherhood. Assad resisted, effectively so, and the Turks, you know, then bought into the narrative coming out of Syria that the methodology used by the Assad regime was brutal. They were murdering women and children and massacring and all this stuff. But remember, this is, you know, has to be taken by the grain of salt because the people that are promoting this are people trained by the CIA and other foreign intelligence services funded by the State Department to collect data for the purpose of making Syria look bad. And so you have this whole thing going on. An Erdogan begins to call Assad a dictator, he's a mass murderer, and the relationship goes to hell. Meanwhile, as Syria begins to fall apart, as the Syrian government starts to lose control of territories, you have lawlessness breaking out all over the place. If you have Islamists moving in and throwing the vacuum, you have Kurds deciding that they want to be independent, that they want to take this autonomy thing and take it a step further. Turkey had been fighting what's known as the PKK, which is the Kurdish People's Party of Turkey. In Syria, they have something called the YPG, it's an alphabet suit, baby. But the YPG is literally the PKK, it's basically the PKK in Syria, and they work with each other, and they were helping the PKK operate in Turkey, and the church said, "We can do that, we need to bring it under control." ISIS came in, they remember Battle of Kobani, Turks were facilitating the Kurds resisting that, but then the Turks said, "We need to take control." Turks moved in and created a buffer zone along the Syrian Turkish border, ostensibly to keep the Kurds coming in. There was a big unrest inside Turkey, a demonstration of some violence, military had to go in. The Turks were like, "We don't want that, we need to bring down these Kurds." But at the same time, the United States was in northern Syria, working with the Kurds to take down ISIS, and so the United States created a safe haven where the Kurds operated with American protection. So the Turks are now there to create this buffer zone. But the Turks are also there to continue to bring down Assad. They had committed to that course of action with the Muslim Brotherhood. Now the Muslim Brotherhood has been pushed aside by these more radical jihadist elements coming in from abroad. The Turks were a big role in taking weapons from Libya and bringing it into Turkey, into Syria, to arm the Free Syrian Army and these others, which were really not very effective. And they were actually funneling the weapons to al-Qaeda and to al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic fundamentalists. The bottom line is the Turks ended up being the protectors of Idlib province and this buffer zone. The Turkish troops are there. Initially, people said this is part of Erdogan's plan of creating the new Ottoman Empire. Again, study the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The viliates of Aleppo were considered to be part of Anatolia, just like the viliates of Mosul was the same thing. But as the Ottoman Empire collapsed and the Turkish Republic was unable to resist the British and the French and others, these provinces kicked off to make Iraq viable because of the oil. And Aleppo became part of the Syrian, the French Mandate in Syria. But the Turks have always said, "That's us, man. That's us. That's our land." And so Erdogan's come in and saying, "We're going in and maybe if we can get Assad to collapse, we can bring Aleppo back into the Turkish family." Just like they're in northern Iraq right now with some sort of thought about, "Maybe we can bring Mosul. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen in Syria either because it's gone bad." Right now, there are 3 million-plus Syrian refugees in Turkey. They've created this huge economic drain on Turkey and it's become a political problem for Erdogan. He has to get them out of the country. And you can't do that unless you make peace with Assad. And Assad isn't going to make peace with Turkey until the Turkish troops leave Syria. And so that's the process we're in right now, how to find a formula that allows the Turks to withdraw from Syrian territory without creating security problems from the Kurds. And what are you going to do in Idlib where they've empowered all these jihadists that were down around Dara and Dana surrounding Damascus. They were all beaten by the Syrian army. But one of the things the Russians did as part of their peacekeeping was to say, "Alright, rather than going in and closing with destroying them all and killing everybody, when the defeat becomes inevitable, call a ceasefire, we bring down the buses and we bust them all off the Idlib." And so all these guys went up to Idlib. Now you have a whole bunch of non-Syrian Islamic fundamentalists, many of them are Uyghurs from China, big Uyghur population. But there's others, there's Chechens, there's a whole bunch of people there that aren't from Syria, they are radicalized. And that's one of the big problems is what's going to happen to Idlib. Do you kill them all? What happens when they surrender? There's already a huge problem in the Kurdish occupied part of Syria. And even in Iraq, 30 or 40,000 ISIS civilians, women, the children, some men, they are in prison. They've been in prison now for almost a decade. What do you do with them? You can't release them because they're radicalized. You take them out and dig a ditch and shoot them, can't do that. And they're there. What happens to the guys in Idlib? Chechens might give them amnesty and let them come back in under closer, although after the most recent attacks in Dagestan, that may not be the case anymore. China's not going to let the Uyghurs back in. Turkey is not inclined to let radicalized Uyghurs come in into Turkey because that creates a problem. What do you do with these people? It's a mess. It's a huge mess right now. And it's going to take some very savvy diplomacy. The good news for Turkey and Syria is that Russia is engaged and that other nations are engaged as well and that everybody's looking to get this problem solved because from the Turkish standpoint, remember, they just said they're going to join BRICS. To be a part of BRICS, you've got to have to be stable. Syria is a Russian ally. Russia's interest to have Syria stabilized, if Turkey's part of BRICS, it's in Russia's interest to have Turkey stabilized. So Russia hasn't incented now to bring this thing to an end. China's also on board. Azerbaijan's just said, we want to join BRICS too. It's amazing how that's happening. A lot of people have just woken up, "Hey, for all the Georgians out there listening, you guys wake up to the fact that America doesn't like you, that we're not your friends, that we're going to stab you in the back and screw you everywhere from Sunday because you dared stand up for your sovereignty. Maybe BRICS is in your future too." Yeah, because EU certainly isn't. So that's my pro hint for the Georgians for the day. Think BRICS, baby. Think BRICS. All right. I want to thank our beloved audience for showering us with warmth tonight. I don't know if you were seeing some of these comments were quite nice. Scott, a few folks are saying it was one of our best episodes. That's always very nice to hear. And I'd like to remind everybody to check out Scott's two new articles at scottritter.com, that being one of them and this being the other one. What a great birthday present to you, Scott, to be told it was the best episode ever. And I think they meant it. It's a team effort. Well, including the DEI hire. Yeah, in fact, why don't we bring him in here and maybe you can join me in singing Happy Birthday to the weapons inspector. What do you think? Let's get Syrian on this too. She doesn't be on camera. We want her to sing along. Here we go. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Good day, dear Scotty boy. Happy birthday to you. Well, the Biden reference, you just slipped that one in there. Yes, I like it. That rendition was no worse than expected. Well, the only thing about that is I don't know if Mark could take it as Samford said and Samford says, it's the big one. It's the big one I may not make 39 because your voices were so beautiful. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. All right. Happy birthday. We love you. And it's Monday, by the way, in case folks are wondering, but this is the closest we can get to Scott's actual birthday. Friday's in Monday. Yeah, Friday's the new Monday. Yeah, there you go. 30 is the new 40. 40 is the new 50. I'm feeling so young. I'm going to start playing basketball again tomorrow. It could be the end of the world. Go easy. Go easy. Don't push it. I've been working on my dunk. I've been watching that movie, "White Men Can't Jump" and I can confirm this. This white man can't jump, but it's going to be fun. Trying to get back in shape. What about a spot? You know, I just joined in for September. Yeah. All right. I just joined my local YMCA too because, you know, my only exercise was walking. I do like to walk and I walk a lot, but it is so hot here. I don't even want to go outside and walk. So for that reason, I joined the YMCA so I can exercise where it's air conditioned. Wait, wait, wait. Is that so you can be strangely effeminate? Yes, yes. But Jeff, you have a new motivation in life. If I were, you know, a single man like you and I had a French girl talking to me telling me if you learned French, you have a chance. Dude, get straight to the language laboratory. It's your chance. Yeah, right. Now, you scolded me at first. Now, I don't usually hit on our audience members, but for some reason, the way she talked. I don't know. It's the French accent. It's, uh, it is what it is, man. It's the only accent. It's not that far. It's a Georgian accent. Georgian accents melt your heart. I mean, the second they speak, it's like, oh my God, I can't do anything. Right, honey? I hear her back there. I'm in trouble. We got to keep the show on because she's getting the knife and sharpening it. It's the only thing to save my life is to extend the show until she falls asleep. No. All right. Well, we'll be back the day after Scott's birthday, which is Tuesday at three o'clock eastern time for the lightning round. And thanks again to Ryan for his backstage work. And thanks to our audience. And thanks to you Scott. Happy birthday. Take care. Everybody. Thanks guys. I love you all. Except for Mark and Ireland. Bye bye. Bye. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]