Is it a good idea for the United States to leave NATO? Is it a sound investment if we don't have to pay for all of the costs associated with defending Europe? Is it even a good thing to be part of NATO if they don't help us defend us? In this episode, Simone and I discuss the pros and cons of staying in NATO.
00:18:08.200No, like actually. So, but let's, let's start with NATO.
00:18:11.340Look at the UN and people are like, oh, but the UN is, the UN is constantly putting like
00:18:15.420countries that chop up journalists as like leading their human rights councils and stuff
00:18:19.500it's it's ridiculous we'll talk about that in a little bit let's start with nato it was in this
00:18:27.680i think it just when you look at its creation it's just so obvious that it has run its course
00:18:32.340and it doesn't matter anymore it was created early in the cold war as a direct response to
00:18:37.620the soviet union's expansionist actions there isn't a soviet union anymore i get that russia
00:18:42.860is a little expansionist, but it's also about to contract significantly. Just look at their
00:18:46.600demographics. The situation just isn't what it was. There is no iron curtain anymore.
00:18:54.260And you also don't have Western European nations crippled by World War II. They've matured.
00:19:02.840They are much older now. I mean, there's even some language in the NATO charter that kind of
00:19:09.820implies that they didn't expect it to last very long they're like well after 20 years you know
00:19:14.160like they say anyone can leave really easily like they were sort of just the language implies to me
00:19:19.600that the people who wrote it thought it would be sort of a 20-year commitment and that maybe people
00:19:23.840after that would kind of walk away because you know European countries would recover from World
00:19:28.240War II and they'd be fine on their own and you know that the Cold War would end and it did but
00:19:33.740we just kept NATO going and this is something that happens with many bureaucratic institutions
00:19:39.060and just general like group-based power things they just stick around well past their their
00:19:45.820point but what nato does because people don't really understand what it's all about is they
00:19:51.940coordinate on defense they coordinate on crisis management and they engage in cooperative security
00:19:57.800it's it's very similar to a neighborhood watch group so unlike with the un where where countries
00:20:03.600like pay in for this overhead of this bureaucratic structure. NATO is much more of a like, hey,
00:20:10.600let's all promise to like have each other's backs and to make sure that that we are ourselves
00:20:16.840investing in defense. So there are obligations of members of NATO to spend certain amounts of money,
00:20:23.880but the spend obligations are on their own internal defense budget. It's not on like,
00:20:28.740i promise to contribute this or that and they don't spend it we're the only ones who do it
00:20:34.400yeah so it's well we're not the only ones but i'll get into how much exactly we're spending but
00:20:42.280here are the things that they that they do they they regularly meet and talk sort of like oh you
00:20:49.380know here's what's going on with defense here's the strategy what do we think they also do joint
00:20:54.100military planning and some exercises they they will coordinate on how they deploy standing forces
00:21:00.020and then they they sometimes commonly fund some some command structures and infrastructure
00:21:06.260like naval bases and stuff so the most important thing about nato is article five the collective
00:21:12.320defense point which basically is like if you attack one of our one of the members of nato
00:21:18.500we consider that an attack on all of us and we will treat it as such like we all we all agree
00:21:23.860that like basically if you come for one of us we're all going to come back at you yeah but that's
00:21:29.020you know as as has been demonstrated members don't necessarily have your back and all of this is like
00:21:34.880it's very non-binding well no hold on people would say that iran didn't technically attack us so
00:21:40.060article five but that's not really relevant it's like you're being an active d when we are paying
00:21:45.940to have a military base in your country that's protecting your country and leading to the death
00:21:50.160of American service members over something so utterly petty is social signaling. Yes. And
00:21:56.260let's go over what NATO doesn't do, because I think that's the bigger thing. They don't have
00:22:03.140any concrete financial obligations in terms of like contributing to group efforts. So even if
00:22:08.880someone is helping you, they might do, oh my gosh, tax, please. They might not actually like help.
00:22:15.640So, for example, after this 2014 summit, all members pledged to aim for 2% of GDP on defense, with at least 20% of that on major equipment modernization. And pretty much everyone agreed to do this.
00:22:31.120But then in 2025, there was an updated commitment at the Hague Summit where members, except for Spain, which just seems to always want to be like, yeah, I'm a member, except don't make me do anything the members do, agreed for a 5% of GDP annually by 2035 on core defense requirements and defense and security related spending.
00:22:49.520so again like spain wasn't really willing to do this but like basically all they're saying is
00:22:55.840hey i plan on again if this were like a neighborhood watch group it's like well i
00:23:00.160plan on having security cameras out and i plan on arming my home so that i can be there to help
00:23:05.760both myself and everyone else here so that we can make sure that we're the kind of neighborhood where
00:23:10.100criminals don't feel safe that's kind of the gist of it but nato also doesn't guarantee that members
00:23:16.800will host bases for each other. NATO can't force a country to go to war or host a base and all
00:23:23.020participation in operations and basing arrangements are negotiated and voluntary. So I don't really
00:23:27.940know why we need to have NATO when all of this is on a case-by-case basis anyway. We have no
00:23:35.480more luck approaching Spain about having a base with NATO existing or without it existing. And I
00:23:41.740almost feel like just having bilateral agreements would be more efficient and more effective because0.77
00:23:45.760you actually have more chits in that case you know it's like well oh like we're grandfathered
00:23:50.360into this whole thing and blah blah blah blah it's more like hey look i'm not going to give you x
00:23:54.700unless you give me y and it would be much more effective and i think much more efficient another
00:23:59.160thing that that made of nato doesn't do and the un does this a little bit more is nato doesn't
00:24:03.980have any sort of standing army everyone's just contributing on a voluntary basis certain numbers
00:24:09.440of their own troops you don't know what quality you're going to get you know
00:24:11.940simone don't don't worry you can barely hear him okay good um i'm trying to aim him away from the
00:24:20.740the microphone but yeah like you don't know if or when troops from any participant are going to come
00:24:26.640and help out it's just kind of like oh yeah sure maybe like maybe we'll like pitch someone in so
00:24:31.160it's like if again if we had like a neighborhood watch group it's like yeah like we'll we'll help
00:24:35.440if someone's like you know invading your home but like maybe they'll send like you know their
00:24:40.060their 16 year old son with like a like a baseball bat two hours after the police have arrived you
00:24:46.540know like not very helpful and the uk they're trying to get their one measly ship down there
00:24:52.400the right exactly exactly you know is it prevents us from attacking european countries yeah
00:24:57.460that that is something that we should be seriously considering
00:25:12.760and there's also just no way to meaningfully enforce anything within nato so again i'm like
00:25:18.800what's the point like we should be i think it would just make so much more sense especially
00:25:23.580considering the geopolitical situation that we're all in now and the way that dynamics work now to
00:25:31.000just on an ad hoc basis negotiate bilateral agreements with each individual country using
00:25:37.800various economic and social incentives trade partnerships etc like as as bargaining chips
00:25:44.760it's more efficient and effective and i think you would get better results for any participating
00:25:50.620country plus you would i think you would encourage more alignment like right now a lot of countries
00:25:57.260that are in nato and in the un are like oh i don't have to actually like be useful to the united
00:26:02.440states like i'm just gonna i'm gonna benefit from their large broad defense infrastructure anyway
00:26:08.040whereas if we didn't have all these assumptions associated with nato and the un they would be
00:26:13.420much more likely i think to try to be less dickish to us so there would be less dickish if they
00:26:22.480didn't like if they didn't feel they had us in their back pocket like yeah they take it for
00:26:26.600granted and they shouldn't and we shouldn't be responsible for defending sort of being the de
00:26:35.200facto security system for nations who are not paying us for it and who are not working to
00:26:42.340help us in any way, who sometimes work counter to our best interests as a country, and even work
00:26:49.020with our adversaries. It's ridiculous. Now, so there are lots of examples also of NATO members0.90
00:26:54.940not really contributing or helping out when asked. Article 5 was only invoked once in NATO.
00:27:01.360It was post 9-11. It was by the United States. It was in 2001. NATO invoked Article 5 after
00:27:08.380we were you know we were hit by terrorists and while allies offered broad political solidarity
00:27:16.640there were some like limitations once again spain this is this goes way back did not obtain
00:27:26.200parliamentary approval to send combat forces initially and it provided much more limited
00:27:30.900support like they provided i bet they don't have a meaningful military so i decided to research how
00:27:37.180easy it would actually be and spain spends about half what the uk spends on its military and given
00:27:42.620that due to bureaucratic incompetence indicative of an eu country the uk hasn't even been able to
00:27:50.040field a single battleship recently i suspect spain is probably in a similar zone of bureaucratic
00:27:56.800incompetence and lack of will to fight on behalf of the country at this point for people who are
00:28:02.700being systemically replaced as we've seen the spanish government attempting to do
00:28:07.300and note here in spain it's different from the u.s there's been politicians that have gone up and
00:28:11.700said like that's the goal of our uh like in the u.s they've let this through other words in spain
00:28:18.520it's incredibly explicit that that's one of the goals and and the people that they're replacing
00:28:22.800don't care about spain either so you know quiero pedirles a las personas migrantes y racializadas
00:28:29.420that, please, don't leave us alone with so much facha.
00:28:33.420And of course, we want to vote, of course, we have achieved papers,0.98
00:28:38.420regularization already, and now let's go for nationality
00:28:41.420or change the law so they can vote, of course.
00:30:00.500And then there was the 2003 Iraq crisis.
00:30:03.840Turkey had its Article 4 request moment.
00:30:06.520In early 2003, Turkey, which borders Iraq, asked NATO for defensive assistance.
00:30:11.800They wanted Patriot air defense missiles and some other measures
00:30:15.020because it feared retaliation of the U.S. invaded Iraq.
00:30:18.080And France and Germany and Belgium blocked NATO planning for weeks. They argued that preparing defenses would signal that war was inevitable and then undermine UN diplomacy. And this left Turkey feeling super exposed. And they accused allies of failing their obligations. So it wasn't just the US that was sort of left feeling exposed. Turkey felt that way too.
00:30:38.320the country the only country in nato that matters is turkey yeah the biggest military in nato they
00:30:44.880are in an incredibly important geopolitical position we would be better off just forming
00:30:49.560a better relationship with turkey especially because the values of turkey aren't even in
00:30:54.060alignment with the values of the rest of nato trump and erdogan get along really well turkey
00:30:59.580because of russia's actions is increasingly being pushed into the united states sphere of influence
00:31:05.200but why not just form a nato with turkey and say f you to all of those european
00:31:09.920p words well and again not a nato we don't need that it's it's a group project okay anyone who's
00:31:18.180like gone to some you know nonsense make work university in america has or gone through like
00:31:23.940high school in america has been subject to a group project what is a group project a group project is
00:31:28.820when you get given a group assignment in a class and inevitably like you know most people do
00:31:35.060absolutely nothing and then one student ends up doing everything we need to just admit on a on a0.99
00:31:41.180geopolitical international societal level that group projects are stupid and that in the end0.97
00:31:47.280if you need to agree to something you guys need to like you know between two people you know decide0.98
00:31:52.360hey our interests are aligned tit for tat here's what we're going to offer each other you know
00:31:56.920here's what we're going to do or we both want the same thing here's how we're going to work together
00:31:59.940and we don't need the standing ongoing group agreements they're just well no but the reason
00:32:06.200they would say you need the standing ongoing group agreement is for deterrence they would
00:32:09.980no well yeah but you know what it deterrence exists if you understand okay nations a b and c
00:32:17.100are all aligned in this one like right like they all these european nations don't like the idea
00:32:23.140of russia expanding into western europe okay and neither does the united states so if i'm russia
00:32:30.560i will understand that they don't want that and that they will coordinate on stopping me0.92
00:32:34.580if if i go into that we don't we don't need some stupid like weird agreement i want to make0.90
00:32:41.040something clear for people who think nato is like a magic wand that forces people to go to war to0.97
00:32:45.560defend a country. If Russia decided to attack Estonia, for example, or Finland, for example,
00:32:53.520the probability that any individual European nation would decide to militarily intervene
00:32:59.640while NATO was still fully formed and active versus when NATO was not active, like e.g. if
00:33:08.160the U.S. pulled out of NATO and NATO completely disbanded, would be about equivalent. By this,
00:33:14.060what i mean is a lot of the countries are just not good they're going to be like i don't want
00:33:17.040war with russia i don't want to escalate i don't want to you know how european countries are
00:33:21.460they'll be like yes article five but but but as we've seen before historical limited effectiveness
00:33:26.980also shows that it it acting as a deterrent is is fairly effectless now russia's gonna be like
00:33:32.540yeah sure everyone's gonna come and help actually felt like doing something they would do it
00:33:37.740regardless of whether or not nato was there exactly exactly either your incentives are
00:33:42.240lined or they're not. And this basically non-binding agreement doesn't change anything.
00:33:48.320In fact, the fact that it exists and is non-binding and people don't really stick to it
00:33:52.300only makes it a bit of an embarrassment and wastes a lot of money and resources and time
00:33:57.220and gets in the way of making much more efficient, strategic, and short-lived but effective
00:34:03.860agreements. So going back to just to rehash our, oh wait, did I talk about the Afghanistan mission?
00:34:10.360No, I didn't. But basically, once NATO took on the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, some allies employed really strict caveats in their troops, again, like where and how they could fight. And that meant that combat burdens really fell heavily on the US, the UK, Canada, and the Netherlands, who actually had a pair of balls to like go in and fight where it was dangerous. And the caveats were widely criticized within NATO as a way for governments to claim solidarity while avoiding the riskiest takes.
00:34:37.540i think totally okay with us saying low heaven dado that's the uk and the netherlands and no0.98
00:34:43.600again that's stupid people are either aligned and they're like hey i'm in or they're not okay0.98
00:34:48.800and then you know we will we will reward those who are in who show through their actions that0.99
00:34:53.340they're helping us right like i think we're way more likely to have you know fewer tariffs or
00:34:58.100whatever like a better trade arrangements you know more more all these things with with countries
00:35:02.780show up okay it's who shows up all right i don't i don't care who's on the list everything should
00:35:09.180be based on actual actions and on on promises everything should be actions even capabilities
00:35:14.240these countries like when we saw that the uk couldn't even field a single destroyer to help
00:35:19.860in the operation because all of them weren't working or we see other countries constantly1.00
00:35:24.380crashing their destroyers because they keep putting lesbians in charge of them like freaking1.00
00:35:28.480new zealand or what was it they had a girl running one in like norway and it sank you know maybe1.00
00:35:34.000these countries are too feckless and we should look at entering a page of expansionism again
00:35:39.480i think what we need to do is fix a fertility rate in the united states and then go on an
00:35:44.340expansionist crusade to reconsolidate the world under the u.s imperium are you going to make the
00:36:50.520but also i just so going back to the ways that nato has failed us or failed in general the it
00:37:18.200wasn't only spain that completely screwed us over with with iran recently another both basically
00:37:27.140both france and germany had limited and or qualified support and they declined direct
00:37:33.400involvement or coordinated nato naval effort to open the strait of hormuz so i'm kind of glad
00:37:39.680they're suffering due to their their decisions right now because they were like i don't want to
00:37:44.600and I want to get involved. And then in terms of how we disproportionately help NATO countries,
00:37:48.800despite the fact that people aren't showing up for us. Just to be clear, in 2024, U.S. defense
00:37:53.660spending was about two-thirds of the total defense spending for all NATO allies combined.
00:37:58.440We spend as much as everyone else in the alliance put together. And the U.S. overwhelmingly
00:38:04.460dominates high-end capabilities that NATO depends on. All the strategic airlift and aerial refueling
00:38:10.560in global intelligence and surveillance and precision strike capabilities and of course
00:38:16.380the most of the nuclear deterrent that's us like all the stuff that actually matters i mean even
00:38:21.420people will we spend this much and that means that we're contributing we have all the best toys
00:38:26.420so that's another really important thing and after seeing what we did in venezuela or what's
00:38:30.660happening in iran right now like our toys are good and the only other person was toys worst
00:38:34.600playing with is israel and this is the thing they're actually fighting along with us in iran
00:38:40.30050 of the ordinance dropped has been dropped by israel and they're not in nato because look again
00:38:45.160aligned interests well yeah aligned interests for the most part a lot of people are like well
00:38:49.560israel didn't help us in the war in iraq okay let's give a few things about the war in iraq so
00:38:55.100there's two important points about israel in the war in iraq one we explicitly asked them not to
00:39:00.260help us because we were concerned about that further destabilizing the middle east have israel
00:39:05.520actively involved in the war and two massad put out a big report saying don't go into iraq it's
00:39:13.460going to be a complete shit show they don't have weapons of mass destruction what are you doing0.65
00:39:18.540and they were right okay the the core thing that's real was freaking right well the war in iraq was0.99
00:39:25.780a complete waste of time uh and they they told us that day one they are like you cannot nation
00:39:32.860build there what are you doing and you can look this up this is something that like people complained
00:39:36.880about at the time that they were not on message that they said you're wrong about this and it's0.71
00:39:43.560because they have a high sneak stat look they've really fucked us over it i'm like the first to
00:39:48.920admit that okay but they have this over less than europe less than the un and right let's talk let's0.58
00:39:55.980go back to how we have helped europe so during the cold war and then immediately post cold war
00:40:02.040We stationed large ground air and nuclear forces in Western Europe, like West Germany and the UK and Italy, specifically to deter an attack on NATO allies by the Soviet Union.
00:40:11.680And the deployments were largely seen as the core part of NATO's collective defense during that era.
00:40:17.700It was just basically us being the security guard of Europe.
00:40:21.480And then even after the Cold War, the U.S. kept substantial forces and nuclear weapons in Europe as a tripwire and security guarantee for allies like Germany and Belgium and the Netherlands and Italy and Turkey.
00:40:31.000It was, again, just this had nothing to do with them doing a solid for us. It was just, no, we got your back. And then there was the defense of exposed allies after Russia's actions. So from like 2014 to present, after Russia seized Crimea and intervened in eastern Ukraine in 2014, we rapidly increased air, land and sea deployments to reassure all of our NATO allies.
00:40:53.880And this included extra fighters in in the Baltic air policing mission over Estonia and Latvia and Lithuania. And we also sent F-16 and hundreds of personal personnel, sorry, to Poland. We moved naval forces like the USS Truxton into the Black Sea for exercises with Romania and Bulgaria. And we pledged thousands of troops and assets to NATO's response force as part of a visible shield.
00:41:16.960like this is a lot of money on our part and and they're just basically locally defending
00:41:22.660themselves and we are all the way like we're sending troops all the way over to europe and
00:41:27.000for what like to what benefit of us and you know this is again like over 350 a year for your mid
00:41:32.180range tax paying family i'm not really sure what they're getting out of it then we have these
00:41:36.800personal or sorry permanent and rotational deployments in europe and we've met plenty of
00:41:41.400people who've served on like military bases in Germany for long periods of time. We have key
00:41:46.940elements of NATO's missile defense for allies, such as radar in Turkey and Aegis ships forward
00:41:52.700based in Spain and land-based interceptor sites in Romania. There's even like planned stuff in
00:41:58.400Poland still that's aimed at protecting European allies from missile threats. So much for like our
00:42:03.520golden dome, which is like, I guess still under development. Like we're basically building the
00:42:08.320same stuff for our European allies. And then we deploy forces for exercises and forward positions
00:42:13.100across NATO territories. There's Marines in the Baltics. There's so many more US troops in Europe
00:42:19.760right now than I even thought after looking into this. And then we also have the largest share of
00:42:25.340many NATO common programs and high-end capabilities, like all of our surveillance stuff, all the cool
00:42:30.500toys. I'm not going to go any further into this, but basically, I want to get to the United Nations
00:42:35.700because this is the, this is the, I think, bigger thing. And I don't see the point in being a member
00:42:40.660of either of them. My larger thing is again, like either you're aligned with a country or you're
00:42:45.360not, we don't need these blanket standing agreements, especially when countries are
00:42:50.120demographically and politically changing quite rapidly and typically in directions that are
00:42:55.040antagonistic towards us. And you can't have this like standing agreement of like, oh, we'll always
00:42:59.440be solid when like meanwhile countries are turning against us like bit by bit and suddenly we're
00:43:05.920going to be in these like standing agreements to defend people who actively hate us and are
00:43:09.420working counter to our best interests so for 2026 the u.s paid approximately 827 million
00:43:16.220into the u.n regular budget just as just as just the regular budget this is like their
00:43:21.660administrative budget like the office stuff okay and for 2025 it was around 820 million
00:43:27.920Then on top of that, the U.S. has been spending around $1.1 to $1.2 billion on U.S. peacekeeping. And that is through, I will say, to our benefit, the Trump administration is trying to cut this amount, but it's still incredibly embarrassing.
00:43:45.120To be clear, the difference between NATO and the UN, just to make it clear, is that the UN was established earlier. It was established in 1945 versus 1949 for NATO. It has more members. So the UN has 193 member states, like basically all countries.
00:44:03.220even more pointless oh no for real it is and nato only has 32 member countries the un is is meant to
00:44:11.060basically maintain world peace it's supposed to prevent conflicts through various like economic
00:44:18.780and diplomatic things in addition to like security related efforts whereas you know that the nato was
00:44:25.380really about the cold war which again is it just makes it seem so ridiculous like nato just seems
00:44:30.680like this short-term thing on top of the UN to be like, by the way, let's not let the Soviets win
00:44:38.200the Cold War. And then the Cold War ended and we just forgot to turn it off. It's just so obvious
00:44:43.280when you look at it in context. And the UN, furthermore, is meant to not act just through
00:44:49.160coordination on security, but also through diplomacy and international law and human rights
00:44:54.040and cooperation on economic and social and humanitarian issues. So why does the UN suck?0.98
00:44:59.060Well, first and foremost, it is a huge lumbering bureaucracy with six principal organs. There's the General Assembly. There's the Security Council. There's the Secretariat. And then it has these specialized agencies on top of it. The World Health Organization, UNESCO. And then there's also the International Court of Justice. They just kept building like, oh, I need this new. And I don't know.0.97
00:45:23.980So we have been in New York City when the UN General Assembly convenes, and the city basically shuts down. Like the number of bureaucrats who are involved in just small facets of the UN are sufficient to just totally shut down entire cities. I've never seen a city shut down like New York does with the UN General Assembly. You can't go anywhere. Like the streets are just clogged. It's bizarre.
00:45:52.140are I will say that the one thing that the UN does that I do kind of think has some value can you
00:45:57.840guess what it is it's not the World Health Organization it's not UNESCO I don't know
00:46:03.660something died to ocean defense or something sort of it's it's actually like UN peacekeeping because
00:46:09.660I was I was like expecting do anything meaningful I thought it was just a massive waste I thought
00:46:15.120so too but historically it appears to have actually been helpful there are conditions
00:46:21.000on the helpfulness so counterfactual and by the way i'm looking to sources in the show notes
00:46:25.540counterfactual analyses estimate that without un peacekeeping since the early 2000s there would
00:46:31.260have been three to four more countries in major armed conflict by 2013 with up to two-thirds
00:46:37.000reduction in major conflicts possible under stronger mandates and budgets so he's pretty
00:46:41.720sure the un did that study simone um i'm pretty sure people associated with the un did that that
00:46:47.100does not seem true to me at all. I, I could see other, other people. Hold on. Trump stopped like
00:46:54.66020 wars in these past two administrations. No, and I'm going to get to that. I'm going to get
00:46:58.700to that because the, the effectiveness has gone down, but peacekeeping appears to increase the
00:47:05.820durability of peace agreements in, in instances, in various instances by reducing the risk of
00:47:12.140repeat war by 75 to 85 percent in some analyses this and it supports sort of like a post a post
00:47:19.940war stabilization because look i mean admit it after a war just recommend who we gave money to
00:47:26.960it i i think it makes sense that it doesn't have to be you doesn't make sense but if you have
00:47:34.760keepers are not a meaningful unilateral force in the way that the american troops are or american
00:47:40.140I agree with you on that. I agree with you on that. Just let me make my point, okay? Some sort of peacekeeper, some sort of like rule enforcer can help maintain ceasefires. They can support local peace processes. They can reduce communal violence. They can aid demobilization and reintegration.
00:48:00.640Things are rough when you're like winding down from a war. And I think having like a mod present to just like calm things down is helpful. Does the mod have to be the UN? Absolutely not. In fact, the UN is doing peacekeeping less well now, and it can almost certainly be done better by just the US.
00:48:22.120So in places like Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo, UN peacekeeping missions have more recently struggled against active insurgencies and armed groups and lack of political will.
00:48:35.360And some have just withdrawn amid rising violence.
00:48:38.700And they're just like, oh, I can't do it.
00:48:40.880One analysis of 69 missions found only 43% were fully successful.
00:48:46.840And there were lower rates of successful peacekeeping after the year 2000.
00:48:52.120And in general, like of enforcement and humanitarian focused operations, bureaucratic nonsense.
00:48:57.400And yeah, no, that's the thing is, I think that over time, over time, bureaucracies become more
00:49:02.940feckless. The UN is just too old as an institution, too bloated, too, too ridiculous and, and to0.97
00:49:09.540mission creep ruined, you know, too cancerous to be effective anymore. So what I think would0.96
00:49:15.680actually be great is if the UN were to dissolve, at least the UN just is left abandoned by the US
00:49:23.480and the UN could spend so much less than it's even obligated to pay to the UN peacekeeping
00:49:29.100mission, which is like $1.1 to $1.2 billion a year, which is a lot. Imagine if the US just
00:49:36.180spent $1 billion, it would be even more effective in peacekeeping. And it could also put more of
00:49:43.140that money into peacekeeping measures that utilize u.s defense suppliers so it would be better for
00:49:49.000our internal industries and defense one of the things that people are like well if you withdraw
00:49:52.760from the u.n then they'll stop buying american weapons and i'm like okay then they'll be easier
00:49:56.700to conquer later we would know we would be buying proportionally more because i'm sure like when we
00:50:01.520pay all this money into the u.n for their peacekeeping there may be some stipulations
00:50:07.100that we set you know that congress sets of like you have to buy this much from u.s you know based
00:50:11.940suppliers but we would be able to do 100 u.s manufacturing like all anduril because i love
00:50:18.060them and they're amazing to to do all this work instead of just like i'm sure like a ton of money0.82
00:50:22.860is like lost and laundered by that stupid wasteful bureaucracy so it would just be a lot more
00:50:27.760effective and then like think about how it will be like post agi you could have some ai driven0.98
00:50:32.580organization that that manages peacekeeping and deployment of like enforcement drones it just i'm
00:50:39.040super ready for it to be gone. So generally I see your NATO doesn't make sense anymore. And I raise
00:50:47.640you, let's just get rid of the UN because the whole point is I, I, there, there was a place
00:50:53.680for this world war two, everyone was like beaten up, bloodied, completely weak. The U S was kind
00:51:00.920of okay. And the U S was like, dude, I don't let's just recover. Look, I've got your back.
00:51:09.040it was like it was like a big brother being like look uh if someone comes for you again
00:51:14.480i'll beat them up okay like you're gonna be fine but now our our little friends have grown up
00:51:21.060and they've they've grown into entitled surly needs and we need to like a like a 30 year old
00:51:29.920living with their parent at this yes yeah like it the time has passed okay they they're not
00:51:35.260recently bloodied and impoverished following a devastating war. This is water under the bridge.
00:51:42.560Also, the Cold War is over and there is no longer a Soviet Union. None of this makes sense anymore.
00:51:48.980Beyond that, this giant bureaucratic sprawling apparatus that has grown into a bunch of
00:51:54.480tumorous cancerous growths needs to just be excised. Even if you completely believe in the
00:52:00.000concept of the UN, if you really care about it, you would be like, well, nuke it and then start
00:52:04.980it completely fresh now with technology and also like an understanding of current geopolitical
00:52:12.000tensions and imbalances and stuff like you would you would start fresh and just get rid of all of
00:52:18.960the bloat that has grown over these years if you actually cared about the mission of the un but i
00:52:23.440personally don't think that it makes sense to have these standing agreements so the question is why
00:52:28.760is anyone fighting for this and i think it's it's it's a fear of change it's inertia it's inertia
00:52:33.100yeah and also i think there's this big like sort of largely leftist view of like this is the
00:52:40.440responsible thing to do we you know you have to let the authorities do their thing they're the
00:52:45.940educated ones you know it's all about like trust the experts trust the science and of course the
00:52:50.660un well we respect the un we respect the world health organization when in the end like no they're
00:52:55.900not doing respectable work they're no smarter than anyone else and if you want to talk about like
00:53:00.560the un's reporting on demographic collapse has been astonishingly bad yeah atrocious truly they've
00:53:08.640gotten the numbers wrong in the exact same way every year for the past 20 years with that famous
00:53:13.600graph that we show every year they say this year it's going to stop well they don't want to cause
00:53:17.740alarm when they were reached out to by a professor at pin an american ivy league institution and he
00:53:23.700said these numbers are wrong are you going to update them and they said we don't want to cause
00:53:28.400a panic the un sees it as one of its duties to replace you okay i'm just saying i don't want to
00:53:36.640be i'm i don't want to be too spicy here but if you've heard trump's recent thing on re-migration
00:53:41.340and all of that the whole idea that demographic transition is a goal for certain groups especially
00:53:48.020in spain where they have come out and said that's our goal is that hillary clinton has come out and
00:53:52.580said that's our goal we have an episode on how she became a great replacement theorist
00:53:55.860The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, despite Trump saying he knew nothing about it, if you'd read it, it's all in there.
00:54:04.300Return to the family, the nuclear family, return to being a Christian nation, return to producing a lot of children,0.98
00:54:13.880which is sort of odd because the people who produce the most children in our country are immigrants and they want to deport them.0.90
00:54:20.200So none of this adds up. But, you know, one of the reasons why our economy did so much better than comparable advanced economies across the world is because we actually had a replenishment because we had a lot of immigrants legally and undocumented who had a, you know, larger than normal by American standards families.
00:54:40.680it's ridiculous at this point like everybody knows populations are changing and that is the0.96
00:54:46.760goal for some individuals like the guy here who says he'd kill every white woman and child and1.00
00:54:52.000is a mainstream leftist influencer right and make it my mission in life to murder every single white0.98
00:54:56.940man woman and child on the eastern seaboard of the continent you know this is a real thing that0.98
00:55:03.400a lot of them feel at this point yep it's ridiculous burn it down and i love you very much
00:55:09.380welcome. Love you too. Oh, by the way, you got a number wrong in yesterday's. Oh, what did I get
00:55:19.360wrong? So there was a number of news articles that reported that Daily Wire, specifically Ben Shapiro's
00:55:25.360show had had an 80% reduction in viewership, but it was wrong. It was a 35% reduction that we can
00:55:32.460measure on YouTube, assuming the official numbers are real. However, if you take the botting argument
00:55:37.560i made into account the number could easily be 95 no from vid iq it was 85 oh it's from vid iq
00:55:45.200yeah okay well then i wish i'd known that okay then i'll put that in the discord
00:55:49.600yeah tell them to look at my show notes i like linked to sources and stuff
00:55:55.320i say where i get my things okay okay okay i'll put this
00:56:00.680okay note just look at the tell them to look at the show notes
00:56:08.980on substack and on patreon on substack they're not paywall during weekdays so
00:56:18.320but they only show up when i outline the episodes because you don't do show notes
00:56:24.660you work differently you name files things like stuff and like you know how to do thing
00:56:35.300i don't i really don't know what your naming convention is i have no idea
00:56:40.120i can't predict or model it it scares me you are amazing simon i appreciate how diligent you are
00:56:48.180that you always double check everything do you have a naming convention for yeah just don't name
00:56:55.180it the same thing as the last thing so like if i have a folder named new folder then the next one
00:56:58.880is new folder one and then the next one is new folder one and then like a because i happen to
00:57:04.540mash the keyboard and that's what i got because that was less time than naming it new folder two
00:57:09.380which would require deleting or highlighting the one oh my god okay i'm sorry i asked simone
00:57:17.560don't you know about my genius naming convention i really don't because you sometimes use words
00:57:23.660it's it's really not consistent like that i love tormenting you you are the best woman in the world
00:57:30.140to torment ai will probably render that irrelevant soon so who cares what tormenting you no the your1.00
00:57:38.720naming convention thing like i can just say find the file that's about this and then it will find
00:57:45.680it regardless of titles which is oh i don't okay octavian are you going deep in the water
00:57:56.240oh is it gonna eat you okay well then go