A

Foreign.

B

Thank you very much for doing this. So in the United States, I think most people, to the extent they're paying attention, are watching what's happening in Iran and have a sense that what's happening between Russia and NATO, Ukraine, United States, the festering war in Eastern Europe is kind of a stalemate, and nothing really is happening there. I don't know if that's true. Assess what you think is happening between Russia and Ukraine and its proxies right now.

A

Yeah, I think you're right. I don't think it is true, Tucker. I think that the general sense in the west is that you'll hear from some people that Russia is losing on the battlefield and that the Russian economy is about to fall apart. I mean, I've heard it time and time again, and there's no evidence to support either of those things. There's the battlefield issue is poorly understood. And I think. And the reason is that people don't understand Russia's motivations and they don't understand what the strategy is. In an article I wrote recently on the coming war with Russia, I said that Plazewicz, who was the great political philosopher of war, said that the most important decision that a military man and a politician can make is to understand the nature of the war. And I don't think that the west has understood the nature of the war with Russia, north, for that matter, with Iran. But what they haven't understood with Russia is that this is, as far as Russia is concerned, is an existential war. You know, they are fighting to make sure that Russia is preserved. And when you get people like Kayakallis saying that Russia must be broken up, who can blame them? I think. Have we understood that? I think that would be a start. And unfortunately, we're approaching the war, it seems to me, as a negotiation, a negotiation with arms. And if we increase a bit of pressure on Russia, then they'll eventually come back to the negotiating table. What they've missed, though, is that Russia, I think, has a clear strategy. And I can't be sure about it. I'm not in the Russian general staff, but I think it's got about five key phases. I mean, we know that the run up to the special military operation, Tucker, it was clear that there were so many warnings going back as far as 1996 and you. Yet, unfortunately, we've ignored them all. Notwithstanding, the warnings not only came from Russia, but from some of our very best strategic thinkers, from George Keenan back as far as 1996 and from John Mearsheimer in 2014. But when you get to the start of the war, then it seemed to me, as the war kicked off, and I have to say I did not see the war coming. I was involved in the offshore energy sector. But as I got to understand it then, the first thing that became obvious to me, that this was not a war or a special military operation to invade Ukraine. And the reason was simpler. There weren't enough troops. Ukraine is about the size of half of Europe, and you're not going to do that with 190,000 troops. I cannot for a moment think that the Russian General Staff advised Putin that they had enough troops to invade Ukraine. This was always about the Donbas. And I think the first phase of the strategy was really the use of military force to support a diplomatic engagement. And indeed, that diplomat engagement actually went quite well. The Russians had opened negotiations with the Ukrainians after day one, and, you know, as we arrived in March, then they were ready to sign, as both sides were, an agreement which would have stopped the war. It was no NATO neutrality for Ukraine, self determination for the Donbas, but that was ready to sign, and it would have been signed, I'm almost certain, if it hadn't been for Boris Johnson, no doubt with Biden's support actually going across and persuading Zelensky to fight Russia and that he would have all the support he needed. So that's phase one, I think at phase two, when it becomes clear to Russia that they are going to have to fight and are likely to have to fight NATO because of what they're hearing, what you then see is what I would call militarist, a withdrawal in contact. So essentially what the Russians were doing were recognizing that actually the Kiev attack and the actions in the Donbass were, although diplomatic, they would now need to withdraw to a line. And what they did was they withdrew back to what's known as the Sorevekin Line, which was a defensive line constructed by the general, who was the expert in Russia in defensive lines, and that from about September onwards, they then moved into phase three after withdrawal, which is what I call attritional defense. And what that essentially means was meeting their two objectives. Their objectives were denazification and demilitarisation, both of which were operational objectives. And the strategic objective, though Tucker, was clear it was to preserve Russia's security. And what defensive attrition means is wearing down the men and materiel of the Ukrainian Ukrainian Army. And goodness me, we helped them a lot in that because we persuaded them to expend not one army but two armies against that defensive line for not a single penetration. So you get to late 2023, and at that stage, I think what Russia does is they've started to. As the war got going, they started to mobilize and increase the forces they need the industrial capacity. And so by late 2023, they're ready to move into phase three. Phase three was what I call offensive attrition. Not necessarily securing territory, but really going on and starting to continue wearing down the men and material of the Ukrainian Army. Don't forget, the Ukrainian army had no air superiority, none of the things that you want fighting an offensive or indeed a defensive war, and moving slowly forward. I think, as well, they were probably starting to clarify what would be their ultimate objectives. And I remember saying, I think, to Danny Davis about a year and a half ago, I thought their minimalist objectives would be to secure the Donbas and the four eastern oblast Crimea, and their maximum objectives might be to go further, might be to go to secure the whole of Novorossiya, which is the Odessa, and the next four oblast to the west. I wasn't sure which way they would go, but I've heard Putin say quite recently that actually he's talking about Notoricia. And the logic behind that is about security. It's about establishing what they believe to be a secure buffer, protecting the Russian people within it. And the question really is how long it takes them to get there, if indeed they keep going in that way. So I think when you start to understand that, then all of the stuff that we've heard, well, the Russians are going slowly. It misses the objective. It misses what they're trying to achieve. When you understand what they're doing, what I think is a clear strategy, then I think what that does is to actually help you work out what they're doing, why they're doing, why they're doing it, and how the west should be thinking. Because at the moment, we sort of see, on the one hand, Russian army is not doing very well. It's not securing much, much territory. That's not true. It's actually increasing. It's been securing territory for at least the last 30 or so months. But they're not securing. They weren't securing territory initially simply to secure the territory. They were doing it to actually to wear down and attract the Ukrainian army with a high degree of success, as we know from the casualties. So I think when you get that tougher, I think it's much easier to understand what they're doing and where they're heading.

B

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C

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B

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A

It's a really, really good question. And I have said for quite a long time now that the Russian operations are being guided by a military strategy and the Western operations are being guided by a political narrative and with objectives that change quite a lot. I think the initial objective, and it depends which particular party on the NATO side that you're talking, but the initial objectives were possibly to break up Russia. There's a very interesting RAND study written in 2018, I think it is, which is called Extending Russia. The Russian intelligence chief, Budenov actually In a on YouTube video which is on YouTube talked about the need to actually have a war with Russia to actually help them get into NATO. I think there's also what I would call lag in thinking because a lot of the, the people who were proposing the expansion of NATO without thinking through the consequences did not anticipate this. I'm certain they didn't anticipate it because they weren't ready. Another great failure of NATO, I'm afraid to say they were not ready for the war. I mean, if they had thought it through and said that if we keep doing this, then Russia will respond, then actually they would either have made defensive preparations or they wouldn't have done it. So I think we can say with a high degree of certainty that they did not think it through. So I think there's some lag in there. And I think there's also, I'm afraid to say, and I think this is probably more European than the United States, although you will know better than the United States. There's a high degree of Russophobia, which I find it very, very difficult to understand. I think it's in part our press, it's in part the narrative that we've built. It's in part the nature spin in modern Western politics where, you know, an event kicks off and people spin to, to help those parties that are in power stay in power. And what that means is that the population generally start speaking, start to get deceived. I don't think they're live to, but they're deceived because they're presented with one side of the story. Now that really matters in war, because in war you need to be able to look at all sides of the story, which is why I pen the article the Coming War, the Russia, because nobody seemed to thought what that war might like. It's very difficult to understand fully though the motivations, but I think within those factors, Tucker, you probably got the answer.

B

I. I understand why the European populations are Russophobic because the propaganda has played upon their best qualities. Russia is seen as the aggressor. Ukraine is the underdog. I think Europeans in general root for the underdog. That's a sign of their decency. It's also allowed, you're allowed to hate Russians because they're white, so you don't have to feel guilty about painting them as animals. You're not racist when you do that. I understand all of that. And they just don't know any better because Europe is a biosphere in its media, like no outside information comes in. Right? Of course, same in the United States. What I don't understand is the motive of the liars. Like, why do European leaders seek a war with Russia? Why do American leaders seek a war with Russia? I mean, these are not stupid people. And yet they are hell bent on destroying their own countries in the service of this war against a country that doesn't need to be our enemy. I mean, it doesn't make any sense.

A

If I had to answer the question in one phrase, it's the lack of the ability to think strategically. There is a wonderful American general who I studied when I was writing on strategy called Andre Beaufora. And he said that in war, the loser deserved to lose because his defeat will be a consequence of Inadequate strategic thinking either before or during the conflict. I think that the institutional lag in entities such as NATO, which had done badly in Afghanistan, I was in Afghanistan and let's face it, NATO lost idea that NATO could prevail over Russia having lost against the Taliban. It's just extraordinary thinking. But it's, it's in NATO. I think as well that the advice within the, the establishment, I, I used to call, call them the elites, but I've now realized that they're not elite because elites about high performance. Whereas, yes, we're not seeing that within the establishment. So I think the, the, the establishments have what I can best describe as a sort of institutional lag and sort of blink of thinking. And we see that in many ways. And when you look across the broad nature of the strategic context in which we're operating, and if you can be bothered to listen to what the Russians have been saying, then, you know, the logic that they present is. I find it sort of unequivocal. I may have listened, of course, to your interview with Vladimir Putin and of course a Levroff, and there was almost nothing that I could think of that I disagreed with the problem, though. The west is not interested in listening, it seems to me. And so I think this is more about incompetence and it must be incompetence on the Europeans. There might be within the neocons and certain elements of the sort of neocon like establishments in the west and the E3 in Britain, Germany and France that is determined to break up Russia, but it's obviously impossible. It seems to me, you know, when you hear Kayakallis saying that, well, can I ask you.

B

I was at a dinner with her not long ago in a foreign country with a lot of foreign diplomats who are not mediocre at all. And she got up to speak and the feeling of contempt for her in bewilderment that someone this stupid could have a leadership position in Europe. People were shocked by just how unimpressive, how uninformed she was, how childish, how girlish she was. Everything was a kind of grotesque and dumb moral generalization, Hitler versus Churchill kind of level stuff. How does someone like that, how does a structure like the EU of continent with the smartest people in the world, in my opinion, promote someone like callous to a position of leadership? Like, how does that happen?

A

It's a very good question because you could ask exactly the same question about Von der Leyen. Yes. Von der Leyen, when I was serving, was notorious for being the worst minister of defense that Germany had ever had and suddenly we find that she is, is in charge or the, you know, has a leadership role in the eu. You could also say it about, about Rutte as well when I thought the last negative Secretary General was bad, but my goodness me, he's got very good competition now. I think it also goes across the Western leadership as well generally. In my experience, you know, I'm sort of, you know, started in my naval career back in 76. This is the worst set of leaders that I think we've got collectively for, for as long as I've been alive, I think. So I, I can't answer your question other than to say that it's, it's an ex. It's a very difficult position. But also it's an incredible weakness that we have in the west and explains so much of what's going wrong in the west is the lack of high quality leadership. I used to teach leadership and I look at some of the ways that these leaders are operating and it's extraordinarily well. The issue is competence and I'm sure some of these are decent people, they're doing what they think, but they're obviously not competent. And I say that strategically, that for a strategic operation, the measure of success is was the operation effective, was it enduring, were the results enduring and was it efficient? Now, on all of the interventions of this century, starting Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and now Iran, we failed at every one of those. I would say some people argue about Syria, although if you think recreating a caliphate within Syria is a good idea, that's open question. It looks to me like Iran is being lost. It looks to me like Russia is being lost. So we've got a consistency in terms of capacity to think and act strategically. I think this isn't just though about the politicians. I think it's also about senior military officers, about senior diplomats, about senior intelligence officers. So, you know, this is, I wouldn't want to blame the politicians entirely. I've operated right at the top of British government as the executive assistant to our Chief of Defense Staff. So I've watched people operating and being part of that, that. But strategic thinking is, is the key shortfall and it's caused us a lot of harm and I think it explains as well why we're going backwards, whereas many other countries in the world are going forward.

B

Sadly, that is absolutely consistent with what I've seen. Lots of reasons to be strongly in favor of Mars men. Low testosterone is bad. Obviously it affects your performance more than anything else. In almost every part of your life. And that's why Mars Men exist. To fix that, the body makes testosterone, but a lot of it gets stored away and remains impossible to use. And that explains why a lot of men at a certain age feel low energy all the time. Indecisive. Sad. Mars Men could be the answer to unlocking that testosterone so you can actually use it. So to be clear, no needles here. Nothing synthetic. Real ingredients that optimize energy, focus and strength. Made in the United States, third party tested, built with just eight natural ingredients, Mars Men supports healthy testosterone levels, energy, stamina, basically a sense of drive throughout the day. Doesn't work for you. 90 days to get your money back. For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off for life plus free shipping and three free gifts. All available now@ MengotoMars.com MengotoMars.com for 50% off and three free gifts. After you buy it, show your support for the show. Tell them that we sent you to Mars Men. So at, at the point we're at right now, it, it seems more dangerous in the west war against Russia than it has been ever. Can you describe where you think we are and where this is going?

A

Yeah, let me do it. Through the tool, Tucker, of the article I wrote on the coming war with Russia. And the reason I wrote it was now hearing a lot of people here saying, we're getting ready for war with Russia. We'll be ready to fight in 2030. I don't think that's true because we can't afford to be. But anyway, that's the narrative that's being sold to the European publics. And the problem is that of course the Russians will be listening to this. Of course they'll be listening to it. So I thought it would be a good idea to say, well, okay, well, if we're going to be ready to fight a war with Russia, what's it going to be like? And the first thing about the article was I said that let's not assume that Russia is going to wait doing nothing until 2030 until we're ready. So let's assume that because of the way that we're starting to promote attacks deep into Russia by the E3, that's Germany, Britain and France providing weapons and weapons with significant warheads as well. 250 kg and significant range deep into Russia. Let's not assume that the Russians are just going to sit back and let this happen. So my starting point was to say, okay, well, let's assume that Russia attacks Europe or attacks certain elements of Europe and what the Russians have said is they have not taken these attacks off the agenda, which is a warning, and it's a warning which we seem to be ignoring. So let's assume that the first attacks happen in September of this year. And my scenario, and I should emphasize it's a scenario, not a forecast. So it's trying to make people think about what could happen. So let's assume these attacks happen in September of this year and the Russians destroy with hypersonic missiles the factories that are making drones and missiles in Britain, in France and in Germany. And the question then is, what does Europe do? And of course, the first thing Europe does is it says, okay, well, we're now going to invoke Article 5. And all of a sudden people realize what Article 5 really means. I mean, you've got NATO, which, you know, when I was serving in NATO, understanding NATO force Mediterranean, we used to say that NATO still for no ability to organize, slightly unfair, but actually NATO isn't this great omnipotent coalition. People say it's the strongest coalition since the. Since. Since. In history. I mean, that obviously isn't true. The strongest coalition history, as far as I can see, was the Allied coalition, the second war with the United States, Britain, the Commonwealth, Russia and China. That's the strongest coalition by far. So NATO invokes Article 5, and the three countries that have been attacked invoke Article 5, and they realize that suddenly that actually what Article 5 means is that an attack on one is an attack on all. But it doesn't, doesn't mean that actually those. The whole of the NATO forces have to resp. People decide to respond as they think best. And in the article I propose that Hungary says, nope, we're not getting engaged. Spain says, no, we're not getting engaged. We don't think this is in our interest. I think other countries might equivocate. It's difficult to say, but countries like Hungary, for example, obviously won't. So at that stage, we suddenly see that this isn't all it means. But the big issue, Tucker, is what does the United States do? Now, of course, we know that Rubio has looking as if the United States are shifting back in to support these operations. But at that moment, I think there's an open question about what United States do if it does, if it says seize attacks into Russia, especially if those have been warned that the attacks are worn and we've made no response to them. And my guess is that the Americans will not want to commit troops into mainland Europe to fight a line of War against Russia on European soil and for the US Troops to fight and die on the European soils. I wouldn't if I were in the United States. So you're then in the situation, well now what do the Europeans do? And again, just to develop the scenario, I assume that Europeans do the only thing they can do because their land forces are not ready is that they use air forces to respond to Russia. And that that doesn't go very well, that actually they find that they're up against Russia, which has got a lot of experience in air defense. And one of my jobs in the navy was to be the capsule air defense destroyer. And I was what was known as the anti air warfare commander. And I can tell you that we are in poor shape in Europe in terms of being able to defend our skies. We would struggle to respond to saturation drone attacks. We've got extremely limited responses to conventional ballistic missiles. I'm a great fan of Ted Postal who is an MIT professor on this. He thinks that the, the Patriot PAC 3 systems are possibly looking about 3% effectiveness. And when it comes to hypersonic missiles, we've got no response whatsoever. So suddenly we're making attacks that aren't very successful. But in return I say that because the E3 have decided to respond to Russia's attacks, that they then take the gloves off and use hypersonic missiles, probably with conventional missiles to do more damage. And the thing that I would go after, especially as a energy expert, would be to do the same thing that they've done in Kiev and in Ukraine, which just surgically start to undermine our energy infrastructure. And I can tell you that a Resnick missile landing in a liquid natural gas terminal or an oil terminal in Milford Haven or Rotterdam would do extensive damage. That would be bad enough. But unfortunately, of course, because of the sanctions we placed on Russia in the first place about 40 years, four, four years ago, we've switched ourselves off from Russian oil, switched ourselves off from Russian gas. So that's 40% of our gas. We've also, of the, of the particular products, we've switched ourselves off to Russian diesel, who used to provide us with 40% of Europe's diesel. Now as an energy expert, if you can explain to me how you can run a modern industrial society without diesel, then I'm all ears. But I don't know how to do it. It's response diesel is critical for farming, for fishing, for food, logistics, for construction, for running the other two primary energy sources, that's renewable energy and nuclear energy. I could go on and on. It is really is the critical fuel and we've switched ourselves off to it. And of course having switched ourselves off and increased our prices indeed in Europe, which of course is having an effect on our economies, especially German's economy, we're now in the situation when the strata formos is closed. And so we've got a second wham on top of the first wham. So talk about being in a very, very fragile position. It's an extremely weak position, not least of all because we import about 12 million barrels a day into oil into the European region. Norway is reasonably self sufficient, in fact, Norway is completely self sufficient and we get about 45% or so of our hydrocarbons from the North Sea, although that's reducing. But Europe generally is extremely, extremely vulnerable. So what you've got a situation which is that our energy infrastructure is being written down at a time when we have no chance of defending our skies against it. And again, this is why I was trying to actually make the point to people who are prepared to think about what this war might look like, because the economic consequences of this would be profound. Mathematically there's a really close relationship between the use of energy and GDP. It's extremely close. It's close to 1. It's about sort of 0.99 or something.

B

Yes.

A

So what that means is when you take energy out of the system, then you are going to have a consequence effect which is similar in rough order of magnitude on your economy. So if we take 10% of the world's energy away, then surprise, surprise, don't be surprised if we get a global reduction in GDP of 10%. Now that's getting close to a depression. Indeed, it's on the borderline of depression. But going back to Europe, it wouldn't surprise me at all if we're in a situation where were such an attack to happen, then we would be in deep economic trouble. And I think that would lead to deep political trouble as well. But again, it is a scenario. And the point of the scenario was to help people really think about what such a war might mean and really make sure that we've done the risk assessment. Now I developed it as a scenario because what I wanted people to think about was doing the risk assessment at the moment. The Europeans risk assessment of what they're doing, as far as I can see, is based on a guess. And the guess is we're going to keep firing long range weapons into Russia and we're going to guess that the Russians aren't going to respond. And I think that's a very dangerous guess. I mean, people say the Russians don't have red lines. And I keep saying to them, well, just second, the Russian told us that if we tried to expand NATO into Georgia or to Ukraine, then it would result in a war. And indeed all our clever thinkers told us the same thing. And surprise, surprise, when we did do that, a war happened. So Russia do have red lines. So I think it's wrong to have that guess. And the way that risk management works, I'm not a great fan of risk management. It's used by the financial sector to do risk analysis. And as far as I can see, it doesn't work work for them. But what they do do, they say if you're thinking about a risk, have a think about the impact. And the probability. Now, even if the probability is low of Russia doing what I've said, the impact is profound. So to me, that's a risk which you really need to work very, very hard to think through and to make sure that the population who you're exposing to that risk have been taken on board rather than just crack on without really thinking about it. So I think there needs to be in Europe a political debate about this and whether we're prepared to let our politicians lead us into a situation where we're exposed to this risk and we've been here before in Europe. It's 2014, 1914, I should say. The run, the fame, Barbara Tuckman's famous book the Guns of August, where we fell into the First World War. People thought it would be over in four months and four years later, Europe was devastated. So let's at least try to do the thinking this time round and decide that if we are going to do these things and to poke the bear for we're ready for a war which we would lose anyway. Let's at least have a public debate about that and see how the country feel about it and other countries feel about it. Because I'm strongly of the view that actually if the country were exposed to what I'm talking about, the difference in terms of political support for it would be profound. I think the political support for it would fall away. It doesn't matter what the moral issue is. I happen to think that the moral high ground lies with Russia. What happens is the issue of power, and Russia has the balance of power here and overwhelmingly so my suspicion is if we were able to have that debate, and I think we should have that debate, then I don't think Europeans would continue to feel quite so russophobic

B

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A

It's a $64,000 question, and I actually cover that in the article. I think what we're talking about is that if either Britain or France, the two nations with nuclear weapons, chose to respond with nuclear weapons, that essentially is committing national suic. Suicide. Yes, I would expect the Russians to respond. Let's forget They've got nearly 5,500 nuclear weapons just short of that. And I think Britain's got sort of. I think there might be 200 as those sorts of figures. I think that a prime minister or president of France who is prepared to use nuclear weapons to support a conventional war, which we were likely to lose in the first place, I think that'd be a very. It's a suicidal call to make. So I cannot see it, I cannot

B

see it happening, really, because they cheered the destruction of their own energy pipeline. They abetted the invasion of their country by, you know, north and sub Saharan Africa. Like they're suicidal. That's what it seems as an observer.

A

So, yeah, I think it's, it's the, the, it's suicidal by incompetence. But I would like to think that within the establishment, there are enough people who would, by this stage especially we were starting to go to war, had really start to, to, to think this through. I would also like to think that, and I'd be interested in your view on this, that there were Americans who were saying, this isn't very good. You know, this isn't what we, you know, we, we were thinking that we could help with the breakup of Russia. It's not happening. This war is starting to kick off. We need to get this to a close. And I don't know if that would happen, but I would like to think that actually there would be some voices in America, you know, the sorts of people who would spring to mind for me would be people like J.D. vance and Tulsi gave us. No longer there, but the voices of reason within the White House. Curious to see what Donald Trump's view as well. But I'm sure that Americans would not want to be doing anything which opened them to the possibility of a nuclear exchange with Russia.

B

So, you know, my sense is that Trump's views are irrelevant. I don't think he was for this war with Iran. He did it anyway. He's utterly controlled. So, so there's that. J.D. vance is the only person I'm aware of in American national politics with any power at all to extend. He has power who would oppose this. But I don't see anyone other than JD Vance hope I'm wrong.

A

Yeah, I hope you are too. I mean, there's no doubt that the voices of the independent media is starting to be heard. We've got a long, long way to go, but we're starting to be heard. But again, this is why I think this debate needs to happen now rather than later. I mean, Europeans haven't thought about this a lot. I mean, when the attacks were conducted on the Russian strategic bombing force, I thought that was an act of incredible strategic Recklessness because those bombers were out on the airfields on the Pan so they could be seen by satellites as part of the START treaty. So it was part of the treaty and Russian nuclear doctrine is such that if their nuclear triad, an element of the nuclear triad is attacked then their response is to respond with nuclear weapons. They chose not to do it, thank goodness. But we're playing with fire here. And I think that the issue I think is not the nuclear response and I think it's a very open question. It's an open question not only for us but for the Russians as well. I could imagine the Russians saying yeah, actually we've got people who are so incompetent in western capitals that we perhaps don't want to respond this way or they might do it in a more measured way. I mean, here's a very good question. What if the responses were not against Germany, France and Britain, but against Germany, Germany and one of the responses was such that they took out Germans, Germany's drone factories and Poland's drone factories. Would then Britain and Russia and France be prepared to sacrifice their nations and tens of millions of deaths to support Germany in that situation? Very, very good question and I don't know what the answer is but I mean to me the answer is let's at least think carefully about what we're trying to do with these long range weapons in fight attacks into Russia. And let's also think about diplomacy. I mean the fact that we can have. Meetings where the west is talking about solutions to the Russia Ukraine war and triumphantly exclude one of the belligerents and its diplomatic incompetence of the highest order. I can see we in the very difficult British and Irish relationships during the, the troubles in Ireland maintain diplomatic, very, very subtle diplomatic engagement throughout the, almost the whole of that war. And thank goodness we did. What we need I think is to at least think about this alternative pathway to peace. I'm sure it's there. I mean I've often thought that one of the biggest problems is NATO. You know, NATO at the moment is a bit, bit of a self licking lollipop. But what, what I, what I once said, NATO exists to confront a threat which is created by its own existence, yet doesn't have the power to confront the threat that its existence has created. So I think NATO to my mind is a key part of the problem here.

B

And what a beautiful formulation that is. NATO existic in front of front the opposition it's created but doesn't have the power to successfully resist that up. I mean that's that's the truest thing I've heard today.

A

Yes, as it was in a real, it was in a, a one of the Quincy Institutes, a Responsible Statecraft article about 18 months ago. I mean, it's so obvious, you know, and yet people think that NATO's omnipotent. So I think that understanding that actually the NATO guarantee is, is. I wouldn't say it's as little as paper, but it is less comprehensive than people think because it relies on military forces which are to my mind nowhere near as battle hardened as Russians are. You know, the second best army in the world, I would say at the moment in terms of battle hardened is the Ukrainian army. Yes. You know, the first is the Russian army. The Chinese will be watching extremely closely. So the idea that NATO, you know, can, with a disparate group of countries with different levels of force, forces with different levels of equipment capabilities can actually be brought together into coalition to defeat the most battle hardened army in the world, you know, it just doesn't stack up, does it? You need to be a military man to understand that it doesn't stack up. Unfortunately, a lot of the military people don't understand this. They're not really interested, as far as I can see, in understanding Russia. I just find it profound. I've been listening to a couple, I was listening recently to one of our former chief of defense staff and I said in a meeting in which we were at, I said, what do you think about talking to Russia? And his response was yes, I think we probably should do that. But he said, but not Putin. I thought well, that's just astonishing that anybody could say that. And it shows you the degree of Russophobia. I mean I was, you know, I, in my service career, I spent a lot of the time in my service career preparing to fight the Russians. But when the Cold War came and Partnership for Peace was kicked off and we started to engage with the Russians, nobody we were, were, most of us in my experience were delighted that we could be in that position. So quite how we've got back to this situation of seeing Russia as the enemy is a good question. A lot of it is to do with not listening to Russia and not hearing Russia, because when you listen to them and hear them, it's fairly obvious what they want, but people just don't seem to be able to do it. It's a bit like, I mean, I'm not a soccer player, but it's a bit like getting your team ready for a, a match and not bothering to study the opposition. Yes, I mean how many football coaches would do that? How many American football coaches to do it? How many? You know, everybody would be studying the opposition and if we were studying the opposition, then that'd be a good start because we then realize the challenge we've got. But we would also be in a much position to understand the opposition.

B

Well, they're much more serious than we are and much more. It's not close. And so that right there gives you pause. Why would you ever get into a conflict with people who are at least as smart as you and much more committed? You wouldn't. So where you after your military service spent 15 years in the energy sector? Where's your qualified to answer this question? Where is the west, the U.S. europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada with energy right now?

A

I think it's a very good question and think I my strong sense this is intuitive with some analysis to support it, but my strong sense is that we're on the edge of a crisis. And the reason I say that is if you take it's not 20 million barrels per day and let's just stay with oil for the moment, not natural gas, but just taking oil, which is the critical resource for almost all of the others. If you take 20 million barrels of oil out of the straight hormones, in fact it's 30 then sooner or later that has to show up. Now what I was surprised with is how long it's taken and of course and when you start to see what's going on, you start to see what's happening. It takes from the closure of the straight from those, it takes about two months for the ships which are traveling at 12 knots, which is about the same speed as a bicycle to get to the United States and to places like Cushing, it takes about a month or so to get to Europe. So firstly you've got all the ships which had left were still moving. The inventories of course were significant. There was a bit of an oil glut at the time. So those have been largely drawn down. As far as I can see the strategic petroleum reserves as well have largely been drawn down. I think Cushing is now the American Petroleum Reserve, I think is pretty low figure I have in my mind, you may know this better than me, is about 20%.

B

That's right.

A

Again, when you get start to get to the dregs, you've got to think carefully about it. Even when the oil moves through pipelines. So from Cushing up to this, up to New England, it's traveling at between three and five, three and eight miles an hour. So that of course takes time. And of course the oil in the pipeline needs to, you need to have oil in the pipeline for the pipeline to work. So the oil in the pipeline isn't working. It's not working inventory. And last but by no means least is China. And what I don't think any of us understood was how China would respond to this. And I don't think we completely understand, but China reduced its demand by about 5 million barrels per day, which is a significant reduction. It's also home to the largest strategic petroleum reserve in the world. I think the figure I've got is 1.3 billion barrels per day. So it's a very significant reserve. I also suspect, I don't know, I suspect one of the ways that China was thinking about this was not just about self interest, but I suspect the Chinese were thinking that as an exporting nation they were thinking long and hard about the impact that the straight home most closure would have on the rest of the Far East. Because there are other nations in the Far east which are much more vulnerable. Japan had a very big oil reserve, but places like Taiwan, the 90% of the semiconductors are made in Taiwan. So places like Taiwan were much more, much more vulnerable. So I suspect one of the reasons China may have done that is not just, not just for tactical reasons but also for thinking about their export markets because reduction in oil in these other places could have a significant impact. I don't think anybody really knows, but one of the other things to think about is that. Sorry, I'll just finish. I think I would be surprised if we were not seeing consequences of this in August. And I've certainly heard some very, very good analysts who I, I follow talking about September as well. I'm a great fan of an American geophysicist called Art Berman who's an exceptional, exceptional analyst. The other thing though, of course is that even when the straits hormones open, then there is a lag, there's a lag on actually those, the whole system getting going again. It's a bit like sort of closing off your plumbing and your pipe in your pipes at home and then expect it to function perfect. Now one of the interesting things is that when the, I can't remember what the ship's name was, a ship like the container ship blocked the Suez Canal. And for every one day that that container ship blocked the Suez Canal, there's a, there's a very good merchant navy analyst called Sam Cogliano who said it was about six days for the whole logistics system to recover so even if it's three days, you could be talking for, you know, as a minimum, it would be the amount of time that rates have been closed, it will take to recover, but it could be twice that or it could be three times that. So I'm expecting and forecasting that we'll be looking at a significant recession starting in the autumn and that could tip into recession in the new year. Quite where that recession will play in the globe is an open question. I mean, the country that's most insulated from it, surprise, surprise, is Russia. Russia is an autarkic nation. It well understands the consequences of. What's going on, I think. Although Putin's first degree is in law, his postgraduate work was in resource economics. So I would be astonished if they don't understand this. I know that the Chinese have been looking at their own energy situation for decades. There's good evidence to say that in 2003 when the Americans with allies went into to Iraq, that the Chinese thought that that was about oil and they began increasing their own reserves. But as for places like Europe, we're incredibly vulnerable, so is a lot of the Far East. So I'm afraid to say on places like Africa. Africa. And as an open question about the United States as well, the Trump line that the United States is an exporter of oil is true in as much as an exporter refined product. But when it comes to crude, it's an importer of crude to the tune of about 6.5 million barrels per day. And even if you've got access through, for example, Venezuela or Canada. Canada, oil is a fungible commodity, so you may have access, but the prices of the oil are going to go up. So I don't know what it's like over there in the States at the moment in terms of cost per barrel. It's up here. But if those costs were to increase significantly in the next two to three months, I would imagine that would not be the sorts of run you'd want into the midterms. And I would be surprised if they don't increase significantly. And even if you open the straight of hormones, I would be surprised if the lag in the system is such that you're still not suffering from the consequences those well into the midterms and probably into the new year.

B

So oil Brent crude was like priced in dollars, I think 71 last week. If you told me almost four months after the closure of the straight that it would be 71, I would never have believed that. What, how did that happen? Were you surprised by it? That it's so low.

A

I was just as surprised as you and I think most of the analysts weren't. But I think a lot of it is to do with the lag. It's also there's this distinction between the futures markets and the actual delivery. I was talking to a Singaporean colleague last month and he said that, and I don't know whether this is still the case that notwithstanding what Brent was at or what WTI was at out, but in Singapore they were buying crude for $200 a barrel. So you know, the difference is, the difference is, is the interesting one, it's what, what people are actually paying for it. I mean there may be a short term lag, who knows. But that's, that's the open question, the so called crack spread between you know, what you're paying what or what you're forecasting to pay in the futures markets and what you're actually paying on the day.

B

How does a country exist at $200 a barrel? Barrel.

A

Yeah. Well, fortunately Singapore is an extremely efficient country.

B

Yes.

A

So you know, but that must be having political effects I guess as well. It's quite a small country. I didn't, I was so surprised when I had 200 a barrel. I didn't ask, ask much more. But again if, if we get up to those sorts of figures, you know, think Back to, to 2007 and 2008, the great global financial crisis. I was happened to be in Houston at part of that. I remember vividly seeing the stock market red all over. I'll never forget it. I remember talking to an American who was working in the British consulate in Houston. He'd lost half his, half his retirement savings in that, that crash. And again it seems to me that, that if you were to get up to those sorts of figures 150 then if you could got a global economy which is already not in trouble but already very precarious and it wouldn't surprise me if we have another great financial crash. I mean who knows, you know, we might see it was $150 an oil barrel. Oil a function of that to me it seems impossible that it wasn't a function of that. People will talk about, people talk about synthetic collateralized debt obligations in the housing market. I think a lot of it's to do with the Eurodoc dollar areas actually and how funding in the euro dollar areas were actually tightening. But it seems impossible to me that actually that oil, which is the primary resource wasn't playing into that. I mean it's playing into things Like Lufthansa, I think, cancelled 20,000 flights about a couple of months ago. I don't know what bunker fuels are like, that's the fuel used for ships. But when I was talking to somebody recently about those, those were double doubled. So again, it's what people are actually paying rather than the futures market. And it's when those two come back into alignment, then we'll know probably more what's happening. The, the, the problem, I've said this before as well, Tucker, is that when somebody, Danny Davis, who I think you know, Daniel Davis, yes, said to me, he said, if you were the czar of the world, what would you do about solving the energy crisis? I said, the problem is that the energy crisis, nobody's in charge of the whole of the energy markets are run by the market. So there is no single entity can say, well, we need to do X, Y and Z to sort this out. You know, you can't just say, well, we need to actually run more tankers, fewer straits foremost. Because if the shipping companies say, well, we don't like the look of that, thanks, we'll wait until it's ready. So there are a whole load of issues here which are really run by the market. And there I think there's nobody who really understands the thing itself. And even if they did understand, there's nobody who can actually, actually press a button and press five or six buttons to make the whole thing work again properly.

B

That's right.

A

Again, I'm hearing the same thing from other analysts. And you know, I listen to this like a book and I don't say that I've got the answers, but what I do say is that you take this amount of energy out of the system, it's bound to have economic consequences. It's a mathematical impossibility that it won't.

B

And in a globalized economy, no nation can have real sovereignty. Of course, you can't act independently, only on behalf of your country because you're not in control of your country because you don't control its economy. So, yeah, no one kind of thought about that obviously in the post war era. So let me just ask you a final question, which is how long are these two conflicts likely to continue? Do you see hope of resolution in Eastern Europe or in the Middle East?

A

I think if I take the Middle east first, I've got a strong suspicion, and I can't say for sure that as the continued close of the Straits comes home to the United States and that as the midterms go, as I think it's almost impossible to avoid now badly, then I suspect that that will create a very different political atmosphere in the United States. If you've got very significant price increases and you're seeing lots of damage being done to the global economy. So my suspicion is that that's the thing which might bring the Iran war to a closure. I can't say for sure. The interesting thing as well will be to see the extent to which if were the situation to be improved between the United States on the one hand and China and Russia on the other hand, both China and Russia could actually have a hand in helping to bring that that war to a close. What's for sure is that unless United States is able willing to deploy significant land troops, when I say significant, we're talking tens, hundreds of thousands because nothing else is going to make a difference, then the war cannot be mummed militarily. Yeah, and we know. I don't think I'm over guessing to say that there's no political appetite in the United States to deploy land forces into the Iranian war. I think as regards the Russia Ukraine war, that's a more difficult one to call. My guess is that what Putin will be thinking about will be about the coming economic crisis in Europe because one of the things that he could be saying to himself is okay, I could respond by as the Europeans start to ratchet up pressure on me, but actually I can see what's coming. So by the time this economic crisis hits Europe, then at that stage the Europeans will be recognized finally that they simply can't afford the weapons. And because they're actually tipping into recession. I mean arguably Germany's already in recession. I think both Britain and France probably are on the edge of it, but suddenly they're in deep economic trouble and the last thing they want to do is to actually invite the their countries to invest 5% of their GDP in fighting a war which by this stage they'll hopefully rise, cannot be won. If that happens, then I would like to think that it could be brought to a close by the end of the year if the recession hits. That's slightly sort of weird way to think about it. Perhaps if it were to be diplomacy, a lot will depend I think on again it might depend on the midterms, it might depend on how the neocons see it, it might depend on the E3 and their policies. But sooner or later people I'm sure are going to recognize that the war cannot be won. The one other thing that could bring it to a close would be a change in policy. By Russia, because the alternative to striking Europe, and I still do not think that's off the table, even though it's in the scenario. The alternative could be a move on Kiev, another move on Kiev. And I think that would be done not for military reasons, but for political reasons reasons. And if Kiev, the Kiev government were to collapse, then I think at that stage, I think it would be game over. So I wouldn't, Russia would never mention it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's been something they thought through as a, a possible course of action. I do.

B

I mean, Putin has got to be under domestic pressure. He doesn't rule as an absolute dictator. I mean, he's got constituencies in the gru, the military, lots of people would like his job. I mean, how much pressure is he under to respond with force? Greater force, do you think?

A

I think he's under significant pressure. But I actually took the time when the war kicked off to listen to Oliver Stone's interviews with Putin to get to know the man. And I also took the time to actually read Philip Schultz biography of him. And then I came out of that thinking, this is a man who's extremely strategic and whatever you think about him, due to what you heard in the press, this is a person who deserves significant respect.

B

Yes.

A

So if I had been thinking about this, I would say we need to think very carefully because this is a strategic leader who deserves significant respect. I think he is under pressure, but equally I think he's the sort of man who will be able to resist this pressure and do what he thinks best, which is what I think he's been doing until now. So although I often hear people say, oh, why hasn't Putin. I hear podcasters and people in the alternative media saying that people are not being affected, he should have responded by now. I have a strong intuition that supported by the General Staff Staff. And when I went to Afghanistan, before I went there, I read the Russian, the general's Russian general Staff's analysis of their Afghan campaign. They did a 10 year campaign and got out in good order after 10 years. And the structures they left there took two years before actually things started to become again. We got out after 20 years, much more money expended and things were collapsing around. I was really impressed by what the Russian general said Staff. So I would think that actually he's going to be very well advised as well by the Russian general staff. So I would think he's the sort of man who will be able to hold his nerve. And I think he's the sort of man who will do what he thinks. Right. Strategically. So, again, although I've pushed that scenario as one to think about, and I would think that he will have that on the table and it wouldn't surprise me if that one way in which that if I were to forecast how that scenario would play out, rather than to. To put a sort of worst case, I'd say if he were going to use weapons, the first thing he would do is he would ring up the White House and say, we are going to use weapons against the E3. Then having done that, he would then say ring up Mertz, Macron and Burnham as it will be, and say we are going to use weapons against production facilities unless we have a clear. A clear response from you saying that you will stop providing Ukraine with these sorts of weapons. So that's what I would guess he would do because he would escalate. So. So it's a different type of escalation, but in terms of. Hold his nerve. I would think he will hold his nerve for a bit, but I think a lot will depend on. On firstly, how the war continues to play out, secondly, the economic conditions, and thirdly, the extent to which they, the Russians become nervous that they are going to find large weapons fired into the middle of Russia, Russia which have been built in France, Germany or Britain. And if they do start to think that is. That is going to happen, then I would expect Putin to respond, but in a very measured way.

B

That sounds exactly right to me. What a wise analysis. Thank you for taking the time to do this.

A

It's a pleasure, Tucker, I think keep up the good work. I think we in the independent media, it's important. I get so often I get to the podcast I've done with Danny and Glenn Deason and others, people say, saying, thank goodness, at last, some common sense. And we really need this common sense because the danger otherwise is that we'll do a 1914, which is the last thing we need to do.

B

Yeah. I spent 35 years in traditional media and the second I went to independent media, I thought this is where all the smart people are. I wondered where they were. They're not in traditional media. So thank you. And you're a perfect example. So thank you for doing this.

A

Yeah, pleasure, pleasure.

B

Thanks.