00:01:52.220And their Tories are about as conservative as the Republicans or the conservatives in Britain.
00:02:01.500And they've now led Germany into a situation in partnership with the socialist SDP, the Social Democratic Party, where the German economy is falling apart.
00:02:17.260so volkswagen is laying off 100 000 people bmw has announced big layoffs bosch has announced
00:02:24.000big layoff the metals industry the automotive industry the chemicals industry they're all
00:02:28.920falling apart and they're largely falling apart because of the sanctions on russia
00:02:35.060and because the americans blew up nordstrom yes i mean i mean the americans deserve a portion of
00:02:44.680the blame here but even if the americans hadn't done that i mean the germans like i said were
00:02:49.920frantically pressing that self-destruct button before they they did many things before i mean
00:02:53.420i i put a lot of blame on angela merkel yes of course for two catastrophic decisions and both
00:02:59.800of them emotionally made the first one of course being she saw a photo of a dead child on a beach0.53
00:03:04.780and immediately decided emotionally that she was going to open germans bought germany's borders
00:03:10.160to as many immigrants as could get there and it turned out the number was actually quite a lot
00:03:14.180the other thing is that um fukushima a nuclear power plant in japan built on the coast in 1971
00:03:23.360so several generations behind the current generation had the severe misfortune to
00:03:29.500suffer a earthquake immediately followed by a tsunami yes which caused severe problems
00:04:59.460now germany has had to reactivate its coal plants yes because they are in such a terrible position
00:05:07.860now geopolitically germany can dominate europe if it keeps russia at bay and traditionally this
00:05:15.800has always worked through a german russian understanding that leads to them divvying up
00:05:22.200eastern and central europe between them they've had this long history of favorite they were you
00:05:28.360know uh able to do it under stalin and hitler it was a standard policy of germany and of russia
00:05:35.180let's not fight each other too much when that happens it ends in disaster let's figure out
00:05:41.040some kind of joint security architecture well and indeed that what you just described was a
00:05:45.880major concern for the british for the longest time they called it the great game it's how can
00:05:52.160we undermine these two powers in such a way that they don't ever form too close of a unity exactly
00:05:57.100Because for God's sakes, if those two ever got together and their cooperation was anything more than the minimum necessary to avoid open conflict, well, we're out of the game.
00:06:09.120Which was the strategic logic behind Britain entering the war in World War I and World War II.
00:06:14.320That was the strategic logic behind it, that if one of them ended up too dominant over the other, you would get a combined that includes German industry and Russian natural resources.
00:06:24.240and that would be such a formidable power that would dominate all of europe and then all of
00:06:30.100eurasia yeah likewise if they started cooperating too much same outcome that you just can't because
00:06:36.200of that because of their strength their size where they are if if they either if one dominates the
00:06:41.180other or they cooperate yes that's it they just they just own europe hence the american interest
00:06:45.700in poland and in keeping poland strong as a buffer between the two but the germans rather
00:06:52.680than recognizing their own national interest decided that no they have to fight russia
00:07:00.940they were increasingly if you go back to schroder he signed the deal that got the nordstrom pipeline
00:07:08.520set up in the first place and germany understood the cheap russian energy underscored everything
00:07:15.920that they did yes and many many times before ukraine something would happen and they'd
00:07:24.220double down on russia yes a great example being the 2014 um um invasion or if you call it invasion
00:07:33.860of uh crimea yes germany doubled down on russia then not quite did they not up to a point because
00:07:43.080they kept on buying huge amounts of Russian gas, but then Merkel says that the Minsk agreements
00:07:50.060that were, after she was out of office, and the 2022 war had broken out, Merkel says that
00:07:58.700her thinking along with Francois Hollande, the president of France, was that they would back
00:08:06.000the Minsk agreements intended to end the war between Russia and Ukraine in order to buy time
00:08:13.280for Ukraine to rearm. So their logic was a lot more cynical by her words. Yes. And this is something
00:08:23.460that has deeply antagonized the Russians now and placed them in a far less conciliatory mood towards
00:08:31.300Europe in general. It didn't look that way at the time. It did look at the time like they were
00:08:34.560doubling down on russia because they kept on increasing their purchases now they're saying
00:08:38.520that it was genuine yeah military necessity that forced them in that direction now whether or not
00:08:44.500this is a post facto explanation of what they did at the time whether when was she being honest
00:08:51.880when she went and signed the minsk agreements or when she said that the minsk agreements were
00:08:58.260intended as a temporary measure to help ukraine rearm we don't know that yes we don't know that
00:09:04.560But the behavior of the European observers that were deployed to Ukraine after the Luhansk and Donetsk republics sort of broke off wasn't completely fair to the Russians.
00:09:20.020Because the Ukrainians were shelling central Donetsk for an extended period of time, and the Europeans seemed to be fine with that, hoping to keep the conflict managed.
00:09:31.020Well, it's only keeping it alive, though.0.82
00:16:03.380Yes. And of course, by disempowering the... I mean, another thing I'll say on the industry front is they closed down the last two nuclear power stations after they already knew that they had cut off the Russian gas.
00:16:19.020Yes. Truly insane. I mean, they had potentially walked themselves into a situation where the only viable option was Russian energy. And even after they know that that's gone, they still turn off the last nuclear. And they're doing this in pursuit of lower carbon emissions.
00:16:39.780Yes. And like you say, they're having to power up coal and gas. So oddly, their emissions have actually remained flat. They haven't seen an improvement.
00:22:53.400if they were dominating you by non-military means.0.79
00:23:00.280You could imagine a situation where China governs Britain,0.92
00:23:04.780but then treats it as a sort of theme park0.61
00:23:07.060that is to be preserved and kept pristine and used for holidays.
00:23:11.500Now, funnily enough, I think that the future for a lot of Europe1.00
00:23:14.120is going to be as a destination for Chinese sex tourists.1.00
00:23:18.380And that is genuinely a disgusting but very plausible thought.1.00
00:23:23.720It's the path that we seem to have chosen.
00:23:27.260It is right now a destination for, you know,1.00
00:23:30.820rather rapey migrants who are on a form of rape tourism,1.00
00:23:37.000essentially, funded by the taxpayer.1.00
00:23:39.340And this is seen as acceptable for the majority of the German political class and for the majority of the European political class.
00:23:51.620So words cannot describe how unhinged that worldview is.
00:24:01.200And it's gone too far for it to just be a mistake or an error in judgment.
00:24:09.340yes the the example that you use decommissioning nuclear power plants after russian gas had been
00:24:18.960cut off the cdu has subsequently called that a colossal mistake well so what but they have to
00:24:26.100call it a mistake for political purposes that doesn't mean i mean the thing about modern
00:24:31.740politicians is that they are non-entities and it isn't obvious that they are making the decisions
00:24:39.020hence the policy continuity, if they were making the decisions, you would constantly see changes in policy and adaptations reflecting what has worked and what has not worked.
00:24:52.620You would say, well, actually, this idea was a bad one, so we're going to have a 180-degree switch.
00:24:59.260So I can make an argument, I don't know if it's a good argument, but I can make an argument that some of this is a result of external influences.
00:25:07.320So Germans are, as you can imagine, a lot of them are fanatically anti-nuclear.0.96
00:25:14.720That's how they were able to, I mean, because all of these things that they have done
00:28:15.540The second reason is the changing nature of warfare, the presence of drones everywhere, means that you can only advance in very small groups, which means that until you've defeated the enemy, you can't make rapid advances.
00:28:31.960And the third reason is that most of the fighting is happening in extremely well-fortified Ukrainian areas, as opposed to unfortified areas where you would have rapid advances.
00:28:42.860but these fortified areas are slowly being taken over and the main ones are in the uh three city
00:28:52.320belt uh slovians kramatorsk and konstantinivka these are being outflanked and dismantled slowly
00:29:02.720okay and in zaporozhia they're making decent advances on the verge of getting to the city
00:29:09.680itself after the last defensive outpost in Orchiv is taken. The issue, however, is that if the
00:29:17.740Russians do break through these, they still end up facing potentially, if the Ukrainians still have
00:29:23.480the will to fight and still have the money and equipment to fight, they still could end up facing0.85
00:29:29.500a wall of maybe seven or eight cities, which are much bigger than any of the cities that they've
00:29:35.740taken so far, or at least since Mariupol, in March 2022.
00:31:44.300I mean, the US is being destroyed by immigration in the same way1.00
00:31:47.640and by DEI and by all of that nonsense.0.65
00:31:51.240But they've got a good dollar and they're exporting lots of energy.
00:31:53.640But they've got a good dollar and they're exporting lots of energy.
00:31:55.640And the war in the Middle East, which, if you assume, as I do, that it's going to continue for some time, and the closure reform is going to continue for some time, does give American oligarchs a huge opportunity to develop energy exports in the United States, but also in Latin America, which has largely shifted right wing in the past couple of years, with only Brazil still holding out.
00:32:21.120so there has been this transformation in latin america that very much favors the united states
00:32:27.380which also immensely helps the don row doctrine of dominating that hemisphere and its resources
00:32:35.960we haven't seen them separate themselves from china we haven't seen latin america start causing
00:32:41.700trouble for china but evidently part of the play is to develop resources in latin america
00:32:47.040to feed the american industrial machine and if the german industrial machine is broken
00:32:52.040it breaks the rest of the european industrial machine with it because if you are a manufacturing
00:32:59.360plant in hungary or in poland odds are that you are linked to the german economy quite deeply
00:33:06.900and your clients are in germany odds are you're making components for german manufacturing
00:33:13.000and so you bring down germany you bring down the whole of europe
00:33:17.880and the europeans as well as the eu directly because they're funding most of it
00:33:22.780as well as the eu because the the the the germans are funding the eu
00:33:27.700and basically you're just making it a lot easier for the americans to dominate europe
00:33:32.960and if you're heading into a multipolar multipolar world what do you want you want to make sure that
00:33:41.900the United States is the dominant power over Latin America and Europe. Well, the whole point
00:33:49.140of the EU is supposed to be a block that can rival the US and China. Well, it was also
00:33:55.400sponsored by the Americans as a way of making it easier to manage Europe, except the EU went
00:34:03.600high on its own supply and got too crazy and too protectionist and therefore stopped serving
00:34:10.460american interest in the way that it was intended to so the americans now are basically
00:34:18.860in a stronger position vis-a-vis latin america and vis-a-vis europe which are critical parts
00:34:25.600of their empire and you know although they're not achieving very much in the in in the war
00:34:32.900against iran the big achievement of the war against iran has been to force the sunni states
00:34:40.180to prepare to fight iran which is why you saw which which is manifested in the turkish saudi
00:34:49.960pakistani alliance these are the sunni countries getting together and saying
00:34:54.780we need to stop the iranians from attacking saudi arabia because if they keep on doing it and they0.97
00:35:01.460defeat the americans on the saudis they take mecca and medina they become the real muslims0.98
00:35:06.200so that that's i mean i'm not familiar enough with that world but presumably that that's quite
00:35:14.420a big thing and yes that is an enormous thing right so the the fact that you have this sunni
00:35:19.740alliance it is in some ways a disaster for the west especially europe but it's a big problem
00:35:25.940for the israelis and really for the iranians yes i saw your recent real politic was very good on this
00:35:33.320you were saying that it is as much an anti-Iran pact as it is an anti-Israel pact yes yes very
00:35:41.840much Iran and Israel are natural geopolitical allies because they need to constrain the0.86
00:35:49.060Sunnis between them and their key geopolitical spheres aside from South Lebanon0.72
00:35:54.680don't conflict the Iranian interests kind of end in Iraq unless and what does it do for the
00:36:02.700United States over time, if that pact and military integration continues to the point where the three
00:36:10.140of them essentially decide, well, look, no, we are going to be the hegemon of this area.
00:36:16.160That does force the United States out of the region. But then if the United States wants to
00:36:21.140stay in the region, the Iranians will be desperate for an external ally. You're proposing that if
00:36:31.320if saudi pakistan and turkey cooperate sufficiently against iran they turn iran into an ally of the
00:36:41.160united states good god if you enjoyed that content and of course you did because you are a smart
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