The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1310

00:00:00.000 welcome to podcast of the lotus eaters um episode 1310 i believe it is on um must be

00:00:07.040 thursday by now uh the 4th of uh 4th of december um why have we got why have we got nate on the

00:00:14.400 screen mr editor it's very off-putting sounds yeah yeah we just we just got nate on both screens

00:00:24.560 yeah bear bear with us oh here we go there we go there's a map

00:00:29.120 right and the reason there's a map is because uh i'm well nate as you know obviously because

00:00:33.280 presumably you just had full nate for the last few years and uh faraz uh our our top geopolitics guy

00:00:40.240 oh dear yes and and we thought we might do a little bit of geopolitics today around um

00:00:46.240 well collapsing american order and the logic of that is it gets a tad kinetic

00:00:52.320 and and perhaps so they were we're not fully prepared yes for that yes perhaps a bit ballistic

00:00:58.000 one might say a bit ballistic slightly ballistic i'd say yes oh and also thank you um thank you to um

00:01:04.160 the americans in the comments who i did a podcast yesterday and i admitted i i didn't really understand

00:01:08.960 what was going on with um with thanksgiving but you have all now explained it to me a chat from boston

00:01:14.240 pointed out it's basically christmas foreplay but i might be getting a bit confused because you have

00:01:18.720 turkey on thanksgiving and you have ham on christmas day so now i understand ah well and apparently it's

00:01:25.440 it's based on the harvest festival which we used to do right we just forgot about it okay but they

00:01:30.080 still do it and then i don't like turkey but uh and they also add on thank you turkey leg get some

00:01:35.520 turkey leg delicious make goose that's all that's a good option goose is a much better option that's a

00:01:41.680 good option turkey leg is delicious so so thank you americans for explaining um all the old english

00:01:47.520 traditions which you revive um well done for that well so uh the global system is falling apart and

00:01:56.160 the americans role in the world is very quickly changing uh the first thing that i want to mention

00:02:02.400 is a couple of phone calls that happened after the japanese came out and said that uh any chinese

00:02:10.080 attack on taiwan would be considered an existential threat to them and you can see japan's perspective

00:02:16.320 because uh everything that they trade has to go through the taiwan straits and if these are

00:02:22.800 controlled by china the japanese are in a bit of a difficult position so when they said that this was a

00:02:30.080 existential threat what that means is that it allows them to intervene militarily and one of the

00:02:37.120 consequences of that was that the chinese uh pretty much lost their minds and uh for the first time since

00:02:45.360 september 11 2001 the chinese initiated a phone call with the americans uh this would be the second time

00:02:54.320 in history that they do it where they initiate a phone call and if you were to go through the readout

00:03:01.760 and try to understand the subtext of it they go on a long rant about how they had previously met and it

00:03:09.440 was very friendly and they resolved some issues in the trade war which the americans have shown that

00:03:15.360 they're incapable of fighting and winning um and this was all wonderful and good and they had fought

00:03:21.680 side by side in the second world war uh and it would be a shame if all this progress went to waste

00:03:29.840 essentially so there was please rain in please reading rain in japan well the the if you read it cynically

00:03:39.280 as i tend to do the chinese were saying to the americans we fixed some of the trade problems now

00:03:47.200 and we've accepted your tariffs and we've stopped restricting some of the exports of rare rare earth

00:03:52.800 minerals okay and unless you want these to come back and collapse your industry as almost happened when we

00:04:00.640 did it the first time yes and as almost happened when the the dutch took away the uh chinese chip

00:04:06.640 maker briefly and then had to give it back we need you to go in longhouse japan you need to explain to

00:04:12.160 japan what's what and you need to make them calm down well it's interesting situation isn't it because

00:04:18.080 you know is it them almost fearing japan to a degree possibly is it them also uh fearing i guess

00:04:28.720 the potential interference overall it's it's i i can't help but wonder it's through threats i mean

00:04:34.960 if you if you're looking at japan i mean they've got very old demographics i think they've got an average

00:04:39.840 age of something so they are and their fertility rate i think is 1.3 yeah so they are well past the

00:04:46.880 point of fielding battalions of young men yeah that's not what it looks like in fact what that

00:04:51.840 kind of pushes them towards is a porcupine strategy yes of missiles submarines air power that kind of

00:04:58.000 thing and japan have been ramping up their defense spending yes i think they're adding something like

00:05:03.040 a thousand new sort of missile sites yes and the interesting thing about these is because they're

00:05:08.080 long-range cruise missiles they're basically based on the tomahawk platform yes um they reach into

00:05:13.200 southern china yes so the japanese are doing their best to make themselves inaccessible to china

00:05:20.240 because their big fear is that after taiwan it's their turn and that the chinese would be able to

00:05:26.080 restrict trade to japan and make it extremely more complicated and more difficult um but they don't

00:05:32.800 have the means to fully take on china unless they're fully backed by the united states where does self-career

00:05:38.240 stand in this because i mean just going back to your map if they're close um the the the south

00:05:44.160 koreans they're just as screwed uh if if taiwan goes because i mean again they're also an export-based

00:05:50.080 economy that needs the the south china sea yes absolutely and they are divided internally over

00:05:56.720 those who want to reconcile with china and over those who don't and they're considerably less reliable

00:06:02.480 they as as a partner for the americans and the japanese um and china is their biggest trading partner

00:06:10.640 and so on and so forth so a lot of their own exports end up going to china ah okay so they're

00:06:17.680 not exactly in a great position well and actually also the other thing is is a lot of their early

00:06:22.480 supply chain starts in china yes they do high-end electronics but low-end components so the chinese

00:06:28.400 strategy has been to pretty much capture all of the smelting industries and a lot of the high

00:06:35.360 energy intensity industries in order to make sure that they are the primary supplier of refined

00:06:42.080 products which are the start of every single supply chain yes well i think i think china produces only

00:06:48.400 70 of the global rare earth metals uh closer to 90 closer to well i i think with the um high-performing

00:06:55.920 rare earth magnets is 90 right and actually if you look at things like um uh graphene which uh so

00:07:01.920 graphite which goes in which is actually most of the value most of the weight of the mass that goes

00:07:06.720 into lithium batteries for example they're about 99 of that yep so they've cornered these markets

00:07:12.320 deliberately and they've cornered them as part of an industrial strategy and when the americans decided

00:07:17.840 that they were going to counter this strategy with a trade war they very quickly failed

00:07:23.360 and the evidence of the failure is that now the chinese can call the americans and tell them what

00:07:30.560 to say to the japanese and so after the japanese said you know implicitly we're going to fight for

00:07:36.400 taiwan because it's existential the chinese then call the americans and then the americans call the

00:07:41.200 japanese and you can see from this chain of events that the americans are being placed in a position where

00:07:47.600 they can't say to the japanese that we will fully guarantee your national interest and your strategic

00:07:53.280 priorities okay and what the japanese turn around take from that well they take from that that they

00:07:58.320 need to rely on themselves but they are you know 180 million versus china's one and a half billion

00:08:04.560 1.4 billion and they are equally dependent on china because although the japanese are the only ones

00:08:10.960 who developed a strategy to reduce their dependence on chinese rare earths that only brought them down from

00:08:17.120 90 reliance to 58 reliance well it's still a long way which is still they did that was a jock mech

00:08:24.080 thing yes i forget what it stands for the japanese metal agency blah blah blah so yeah so they merged

00:08:29.600 the metals agency with the oil agency and as a result of that they were able to reduce their dependence

00:08:37.440 from 90 to 58 percent that's a good thing but that all has to go through this rate of taiwan yes

00:08:45.840 yes so it's good up to a point it's good so long as the chinese decide not to try to blockade japan

00:08:52.800 yeah um so the ability of the americans to guarantee security in east asia

00:08:59.600 has been tested in the trade war and it's been found wanting but i'm also wondering because you know as

00:09:06.000 i mentioned japan has to go for a porcupine strategy yes you can't be fielding but i mean you're not

00:09:10.720 going to win by against china no masses of young men they're not going to be able to do a 1933 on

00:09:16.160 china yeah so so so it so it has to be a porcupine strategy um but if the americans are signaling

00:09:21.360 look every time we get a phone call from the from the chinese we're going to attempt to longhouse you

00:09:25.760 if i was japan i'd be thinking okay well i need i need to be taking my porcupine strategy up to

00:09:30.080 yeah you're almost forcing their hand yeah to to strategic weapons well you are almost and they

00:09:36.160 could build their weapons whenever they want to but the japanese are also saying that we're not going to

00:09:41.040 stop buying oil from russia be and and gas from russia because the energy infrastructure in saharin

00:09:46.720 island is strategic for us and if the americans can reconcile with russia and remove the sanctions on

00:09:54.960 russia that would allow the japanese a lot more space to cooperate with the russians so one of the

00:10:01.760 things that i spoke about from the outset of the trump presidency was that to deal with the china threat

00:10:07.600 there has to be some kind of strategy that follows along the lines of george kenan's containment

00:10:13.760 of the soviet union containment if you remember was the americans trying to build a string of alliances

00:10:19.680 forces all around the borders of the soviet union in order to make sure that they couldn't expand any

00:10:26.560 further and if they were held in place for long enough they would collapse which proved to be

00:10:32.400 successful in the end you know it was a long-term strategy it took two generations but it worked well

00:10:37.600 it's a very different situation when china is at the start of the production chain with mines and minerals

00:10:43.200 and so it's a big part of it it's a huge part of the problem and the second part of the problem is that

00:10:47.840 the americans are still stuck in europe which is the next thing that we need to talk about

00:10:55.040 and so we're seeing the americans trying to get out of europe and trying to say to the europeans

00:11:01.600 just just just before we pivot on onto europe how do you rate the assessment of of the japanese

00:11:07.440 sort of holding up as their own military force because i mean it's easy to think okay for the last

00:11:12.080 50 odd years they've been a protector of the us but they do have the world's third largest navy by

00:11:17.520 tonnage yes they have the world's third largest navy they have the i believe the third largest

00:11:24.640 industrial power in the world that does sound right uh which yes the third largest but you have to put

00:11:32.480 it in perspective china has 30 percent of global manufacturing capacity japan has five percent also

00:11:38.960 japan has with the new prime minister stipulated quite boldly you know we're more than happy to begin

00:11:46.160 ramping up our own militaries work we've been pretty which they are in a position to do the

00:11:52.240 the dapan self-defense force on the naval side or on the aviation side is quite significant i mean like

00:11:57.920 if you're building it up so well yeah so i guess the the point i'm making is is that they they've they've

00:12:05.040 built the third largest navy or whatever um from a defensive uh outlook yes what if they pivot to an

00:12:12.880 offensive outlook i think things could drastically change yes but they can't conduct an offense

00:12:17.680 against china anymore i mean that's just not realistic they're not ground um they could punish

00:12:24.080 the chinese and hurt them but if this becomes a long slog and a war of attrition oh yeah no yeah

00:12:30.720 the japanese are in no position to win yeah yeah that makes sense so there is this reality of china as a

00:12:37.040 power and there is this reality that the americans waged the trade war on china and went as maximalist

00:12:43.360 as they could get and then they had to satisfy themselves with just high tariffs well and less

00:12:49.440 restrictions i mean the thing is that china so the us is coming to this late so japan was evidently

00:12:55.600 waking up to the china threat 20 years ago that's the introduction of drop mech and it's it's in 2010

00:13:01.120 the whole they they had their own japanese they had their own chinese imposed restrictions on rare

00:13:06.880 earths in 2010 and this is what drove them to reduce their dependence on china whereas the us

00:13:14.080 has been sleeping on this whole issue for 20 years yes and that's even if you don't come to the view

00:13:19.040 which i'm sure we will do as we get into the us side of things um that the biden regime was basically

00:13:24.320 bought and sold by china yes pretty much pretty much so they are in this difficult position where they

00:13:30.720 are having to admit that they need to manage their security commitments towards taiwan and even as

00:13:37.680 they keep on announcing these massive weapons sales to taiwan the reality is that the taiwanese have paid

00:13:44.240 for things that they have never received and that they don't look like they will receiving that they

00:13:50.400 will be receiving in some cases so the americans are slow walking the deliveries of weapons shipments to

00:13:56.160 taiwan right because because they're sending them to israel and ukraine well partly because of that and

00:14:02.160 partly because they have to be careful around china because the chinese actually now have hard economic

00:14:08.000 power as the americans have learned in these restrictions uh that the chinese imposed on on rare

00:14:14.000 earth mineral exports and now they are having to take a nicer tone and to tell the japanese to back off

00:14:25.120 and not say things that are overtly antagonistic to china like saying that the taiwan issue is

00:14:31.360 existential for them and so they made the americans re reaffirm the one china policy and all of that

00:14:36.880 stuff because we have to remember the official position of pretty much everybody is that taiwan is

00:14:43.200 part of china and that's why they don't have diplomatic official relations with taiwan they have

00:14:49.280 unofficial relations but they don't have a taiwanese embassy for example well i mean the other concern is

00:14:55.040 that it does look like the us is is preparing to withdraw from a reliance on taiwan i mean you

00:15:01.920 can't do it at the moment because they produce whatever it is 90 plus percent of chips that they

00:15:05.840 support the modern world basically yes with their semiconductors um again one of the things that

00:15:12.400 biden did um i mean again it looks like he was bought and sold by china but it's probably the right

00:15:17.840 thing for the us to do in that as he started setting up um fabs in the us or providing incentives for

00:15:23.120 fabs to be said well but he completely crippled them with all kinds of regulations around dei

00:15:28.880 that meant that the investments never actually properly broke ground and okay so he made that

00:15:36.720 noise but because of his base he couldn't actually follow through with it right so one sensible thing

00:15:43.120 he tried to do and ended up crippling with dei okay that makes sense ideology yes so there are these

00:15:51.120 realities that are sort of coming to the fore and the big one is the americans can't actually fight

00:15:57.840 a war for taiwan and you can see that if you look at the manufacturing figures but you can also see

00:16:04.720 that from the fact that china's shipbuilding capacity is 232 times that of the united states

00:16:13.520 the state now sorry a lot of that shipbuilding capacity the world shipbuilding capacity is

00:16:20.240 almost half china or more than half china and the rest is south korea and japan and both south korea

00:16:27.520 and japan's infrastructure is obviously very vulnerable due to their proximity to china

00:16:33.760 so that leaves the americans in a very tough position i mean this is i mean this is remarkable 232

00:16:40.080 two times greater shipbuilding capacity but the state always remembers is they've got a single

00:16:44.160 shipyard which is outputting more tonnage yes every single year than the americans have since

00:16:50.480 the end of the second world war um i mean one interesting comment somebody is stuck in which

00:16:55.600 are which i'll sort of bring up now is i don't think as china is as tough as he looks

00:17:00.160 um you know basically saying that you don't need to be that afraid of china

00:17:03.760 but i mean do you want to address that do we need to be that afraid of china because of course

00:17:07.760 we're actually talking about here is them operating within their local sphere so let's just look at a

00:17:12.880 map here let's just look at a map here okay and then everything becomes clearer south korea and japan

00:17:19.760 are immensely vulnerable to china extremely so and china is at almost 30 percent of global industrial

00:17:29.280 capacity whereas the americans are at 17 and i would argue that the american figure is inflated

00:17:35.600 because of the way they calculate some things well for a start this is probably done in and this is

00:17:42.400 2023 well but it's probably dollar base this which will inflate it straight away yes yes and and then

00:17:47.760 you've got germany on there at 5.1 but i mean they are collapsing fast they weren't hard up and then

00:17:52.720 your next set of allies down italy and france and they take yes long lunches quite and then you have

00:18:00.560 you know india and brazil that are part of the bricks arrangement and so on and so forth i guess mine so

00:18:07.680 there is a real issue there when it comes to the capacity of the united states to fight a long

00:18:14.080 industrial war and somebody here is asking the comments watching door what about us shipbuilding

00:18:21.280 capacity before world war ii versus during world war ii that was at a time when the united states

00:18:26.320 was able to repurpose all of its manufacturing base into military production and so with this

00:18:35.040 industrial capacity being heavily degraded and reduced um it's not that the united states is not

00:18:41.200 particularly impressive it is it's that it is starting from a much weaker base than it did at the start of

00:18:48.560 world war ii whereas the chinese are starting from a much higher base and because of the fact that

00:18:57.680 the americans are fighting russia and ukraine which is the next thing we need to jump to um

00:19:03.840 the chinese have a guaranteed natural resource supplier that can provide them with an enormous

00:19:09.680 amount of food and energy and and other things that are required that would keep them in the fight for

00:19:16.560 longer it's not that they're not vulnerable because they do import a lot of the stuff by sea but i

00:19:23.840 mean also the biden helpfully arranged to have all that russian energy yes redirected to the east

00:19:29.280 rather than the west so that was also another massive boom for china that was a wonderful boom for china

00:19:34.560 i guess i gotta wade in just briefly and just say that although china's manufacturing is massive

00:19:40.240 the quality isn't that good that does matter it's all well and good saying well some of it still is

00:19:47.120 pretty is some of it is still pretty sure well look think about it i would think about it in two ways

00:19:54.400 the first way that i would think about it is that in some areas the qualities become exceptional

00:19:59.360 yeah including cars and phones and all kinds of you know sophisticated things only from theft though

00:20:05.200 fine but it gets if it gets you there it gets you there well and they are now developing some of

00:20:11.200 their own technologies and the second point that i would make is that uh as talon put it uh quantity

00:20:17.360 has a quality all of its own well yeah i guess you can flood the market if you are incredibly reliant on

00:20:24.800 um very high quality weapons that are very vulnerable to certain technical glitches or exploits it's one

00:20:32.720 problem if you have the industrial capacity to manufacture on mass and from that you experiment

00:20:39.440 and iterate and figure out what works you are in a decent position so that's sorry the big chinese

00:20:46.080 vulnerability is a naval blockade which is why they're expanding in the south china sea and the way

00:20:51.360 that they're expanding so but that's something which i always doubt about china is their ingenuity

00:20:58.720 their creativity because effectively a lot of what they they create is all stolen it does matter so

00:21:06.560 they can't their ability to um build out problems they're not innovators no they're not in they they

00:21:15.360 aren't they aren't innovators i mean all of their cars are stolen it's all an amalgamation of like the

00:21:20.240 land rover for instance it's just stolen right like a lot of their stuff is not innovative and that does

00:21:25.680 matter so although they manufacture a lot they're not innovative with it and therefore the true

00:21:32.960 innovators long term would be more but that means you've got to hang in the wall long enough

00:21:38.800 yeah yeah for the innovation to kick in yeah sure if you lose early because you're just overwhelmed yeah

00:21:43.680 no i agree with that think about it this way throughout the cold war you had both sides stealing

00:21:48.800 technology from each other you had the american side working on stealing soviet jets and getting

00:21:55.200 people who had soviet equipment to defect so that they could bring that equipment with them and

00:21:59.280 they could try it out um and obviously the russians well among other things they still

00:22:04.800 stole the nuclear bomb yeah so this is normal and you can see this in a slightly different angle

00:22:13.280 in a slightly different light the russians in the beginning of the ukraine war bought iranian drones

00:22:19.280 and then as they used these shahed drones they figured out how to build them and how to improve

00:22:25.520 them and how to add all kinds of bells and whistles to them and really mastered them quite significantly

00:22:32.560 yeah but that's that's what i i would never be afraid of china doing that literally they they don't

00:22:37.280 innovate even though what even their watches are stolen i even write down to stuff like that i mean they

00:22:41.920 they they there is no level of creativity amongst and it's a broad i really wouldn't go that far

00:22:48.240 i really wouldn't go that far well they do though with the watches they steal yes but come on they're

00:22:54.880 they're innovating in some areas uh i think the australians did a pretty good study on this and found

00:22:59.920 that the chinese have become now dominant including having a technological monopoly in 57 out of 64

00:23:07.840 industries that are critical for national security and so i would humbly disagree with you on that

00:23:15.120 statement they they are making innovations they are coming up with things a lot of it is bs but it's

00:23:19.840 not all bs just one further question from taiwan did taiwan actually want to fight because i mean okay

00:23:24.960 yes fine they might want to fight but population 24 million they got a lower fertility rate than japan

00:23:32.320 it's 1.1 and they've got an old population so if they lose a lot of young men you can one shot that

00:23:39.200 country by taking out a generation and it's not actually that difficult to do uh yeah they're they're

00:23:44.080 saying that they want to fight of course they say and they're making all of the right noises but in

00:23:48.800 reality they are riddled with spies working for china and this is the homeland at the end of the day

00:23:55.280 because most of these people came from china to taiwan the true chinese exactly and then directly and

00:24:03.520 in some areas like they are um more right wing on nationalist questions than the chinese in terms

00:24:11.520 of the expansive maritime claims and things of that nature so you know it's it's not clear cut that the

00:24:18.240 taiwanese definitely want to fight and the americans are hoping that they wouldn't but every indicator is

00:24:24.240 that the chinese are getting ready for a war and that the chinese are building the right bits and

00:24:30.240 pieces of infrastructure and weapons that they would need to build a war the ferries for the ferries for

00:24:35.520 transportation and they are taking these from uh 30 ferries to 70 by the end of 2026 which is why

00:24:44.000 the americans keep harping on about this 2027 deadline where the chinese are expected to make a move okay so

00:24:50.640 what i mean my understanding of what that comes down to and please correct me if i'm wrong is that the

00:24:54.720 americans park a sub in the taiwanese channel and ultimately the decision comes down to on the day that

00:25:01.600 the invasion begins does the president give the order to start sinking chinese shipping yeah and if that

00:25:07.760 order doesn't come taiwanese are screwed yeah yeah so one of the things that is being done to prepare for

00:25:14.240 this is to beef up taiwan's uh ability to resupply itself because while most of their ports are on

00:25:24.240 this coast on the western coast facing uh china they have these two ports here hua lian and tai tung and

00:25:33.760 one of them is being linked to japan so that it can be supplied from japan and the other one is being

00:25:40.400 linked to the philippines can can the chinese not hit all of their ports that's what they are training

00:25:46.320 to do so if you look at chinese military exercises all of them focus on deploying against all of the

00:25:53.760 six or seven major ports in taiwan and surrounding them and then they could declare some kind of

00:25:59.840 emergency or say um you know we are implementing a new law and that means that you have to go through

00:26:06.880 uh chinese customs and therefore trade stops but the big problem for taiwan ultimately is energy

00:26:13.840 because they import a million barrels per day of oil uh that's going to run out fast they have a

00:26:21.040 three to six month stockpile strategic stockpile right that that is built in but the real problem is

00:26:26.640 natural gas because there the stockpile is maybe around three weeks and if you lose that then you are

00:26:34.160 shutting down industries or cutting power to domestic consumers or doing some kind of rationing essentially

00:26:42.480 and over time the rationing has to get worse and therefore you collapse them so somebody and

00:26:49.120 sorry and in the meantime the global economy it goes into a crisis uh of them not having enough chips

00:26:58.560 coming from taiwan challenge yes quite and a very difficult one the one problem that the chinese

00:27:11.040 have is that their ports in theory can be besieged and that would require submarines sort of deploying

00:27:18.640 up and down from the yellow sea all the way down to the south china sea and making sure that nothing

00:27:25.040 goes into chinese sports difficult strategy very difficult strategy even though american submarines are

00:27:33.520 much better than than chinese submarines at least as far as we know that innovation say again that

00:27:40.000 innovation well the americans are clearly more innovative in the field of submarines yes yes so there is

00:27:49.520 that going on um how would demographics play a play a role in this look everybody has bad demographics

00:27:58.880 and going by demographics alone russia and ukraine should have never gone to war

00:28:02.800 and here they are so the modern era is demographics aren't that there's still a concern there's still an

00:28:10.560 issue there's still something which you'd have to consider but in the modern era is less

00:28:15.680 less of a concern it is less of a consideration uh and as for india deciding to attack no if you look

00:28:22.560 at the himalayan mountains they the i mean this is a such a huge natural barrier there from tibet and so

00:28:32.080 on you can't really move on the ground from there and if anything it's the chinese who are building up the

00:28:37.840 capacity to do so because they're building a dam right about here which is supposed to be bigger than

00:28:43.200 the three gorges dam but the infrastructure that you need to build a dam is indistinguishable from

00:28:49.200 the infrastructure you need to build a military base and therefore they could sort of cut off the

00:28:55.040 so-called seven sisters states on this part of india and create a massive problem for the indians

00:29:02.400 that's a pretty powerful disincentive plus they have pakistan which has humiliated india

00:29:08.160 in the last few years twice um in both cases the indians ended up with a bloody nose and the

00:29:15.360 pakistanis really came out on top so it doesn't really look good for anyone there um the next thing

00:29:24.720 to move on to is the fact that the americans are slowly ditching europe uh this is from september 2025

00:29:35.120 where the treasury secretary of the united states said that uh the americans won't get involved

00:29:42.640 if russia makes incursions into nato territory so essentially he's walked away from article 5.

00:29:49.680 he essentially walked away from nato and he's walked away from nato

00:29:53.200 i mean at that point the only thing that nato is left as is a buyers club exactly if you join

00:29:58.960 nato you've got to buy american kit exactly exactly exactly and so you end up with this problem

00:30:06.000 that um trump has been saying and apparently told the germans in um in 2020 that the u.s would

00:30:15.360 never help europe under an attack so what what does can we just clarify what that means because

00:30:20.800 because if it means it won't put american boots on the ground fine that's one thing that's a blow but

00:30:27.280 recoverable from but american help goes a lot further than that it's satellites it's strategic

00:30:31.440 air lifting it's it's aerial refueling it's submarine support it's missile networks if all of that is so

00:30:37.600 we don't know what exactly that means right we don't know what exactly the extent of it is

00:30:43.280 but that does mean that in a hot war scenario between parts of europe and russia the americans would

00:30:50.960 be at arm's length sort of treating europe in the way that they're treating ukraine

00:30:56.400 so some provision of weapons and besant was saying yeah we'll sell them weapons as in we will profit

00:31:02.880 from a war but we won't fight in it which is you know a bit cynical mate um but trump said no we won't

00:31:12.720 we won't do anything to help you and there is evident growing hostility between the u.s and nato

00:31:21.440 i mean it's not yeah it's not a surprise though is it i mean europe you know europe as a whole

00:31:27.680 have made america and donald trump their enemy constantly well you made them their enemy it's so

00:31:33.440 stupid to do that so incredibly stupid i agree strategic allies but we are also our enemy no it's

00:31:39.360 dumb absolutely ironic i agree especially when you know trump's opinion on nato and the fact that

00:31:45.760 you know the other the other members aren't paying in nearly as much as what they should be what they

00:31:52.160 need to be spending on defense which they need to which they're supposed to so yeah yeah it makes

00:32:00.480 his position their position makes a lot of sense and it's historically accurate you know the states

00:32:05.840 doesn't like coming into wars to save you know it hasn't bothered with us that and also if you're

00:32:11.920 talking about world war etc i mean they just don't if you talk about european stupidity

00:32:17.200 what about if if you does actually escalate into a into a war with uh russia so i mean first of all

00:32:24.320 can you imagine trying to get young men from this country to want to go from fight a globe no one is

00:32:28.960 going to do it yeah a lot of them are just going to say fine put me in prison then but let's say

00:32:32.720 you like let's say you actually managed to activate five million young men from this country and you

00:32:37.600 sent them off to war and four million of them come back what do you think four million young men who

00:32:43.280 become completely inured to extreme violence are going to do to this region are going to do yeah

00:32:49.360 when they get back and and the globalist elites are sitting there having sent them away oh and plus by

00:32:55.760 the way they're now expected to resume their job so they can pay for abdullah to have his six

00:33:00.400 children and abdul has probably been having his having his way with their wives girlfriends

00:33:04.880 sisters and mothers while they've been away on the front line what do you think those boys are

00:33:08.080 going to do when they come back there is a degree in of recklessness in european thinking that is

00:33:14.080 beyond comprehension and it only makes sense if you assume that they are all somehow on china's payroll

00:33:21.360 and they're actively trying to sabotage europe or in somebody else's payroll insert your favorite

00:33:26.320 conspiracy theory here um but it only makes sense if they're actively trying to destroy europeans

00:33:33.920 european culture european nations that's the only proper um heuristic to use when trying to understand

00:33:43.760 what these what these elites are doing in europe and um not only has have trump and besant been saying

00:33:50.960 that look we won't be defending europe anymore now they're working on ditching ukraine and this has

00:33:56.720 been happening for some time uh rubio they did this straight away you know they were like no we're

00:34:02.720 going to stop we'll stop aid that was pretty much one of the first things that they once he went back

00:34:06.480 on it i wonder how much of this is negotiating tactics though well some of it is but some of it really

00:34:11.520 isn't and the thing to remember is that the latest trump peace proposal for ukraine is intended to

00:34:19.920 save the ukrainian military so if you just take a look at the map um this is ukraine okay this is the

00:34:28.560 central front line of ukraine and it extends from uh liman here in the north through slovyansk kramatorsk

00:34:39.120 and kostiantinivka this is the main defensive line that the ukrainians have when you look at this map you

00:34:46.400 immediately see a problem and the problem is that it's being outflanked from the north from this area

00:34:51.440 here it's a movement if i ever did see it exactly and it's being outflanked from the south and it's

00:34:57.680 being attacked from the front in order to pin the forces down and prevent them retreating and it's

00:35:03.200 being attacked again from here in order to start dismantling this line so the russians are if the

00:35:10.960 russians continue down this route in a year or so you will see that this line has collapsed and this

00:35:17.520 one is one of the most important fortified cities here kostiantinivka and already the russians are in

00:35:23.360 it and this map because it favors the ukrainian doesn't show that this eastern part here has been taken

00:35:29.680 so the reality is that what the americans are doing is saying uh we're offering a plan to save

00:35:40.960 you and in return we will make this a demilitarized zone so withdraw and it won't be handed over to

00:35:46.400 the russians if you can trust the russians which you can't obviously but the priority of this plan is

00:35:53.040 to save the ukrainian military and trump has already gotten sick enough of them to say

00:35:59.040 and by ukrainian military you mean ukrainians young men generation yes yes yes yes yes absolutely

00:36:05.440 because i mean the demographic i mean i know i keep banging on about the demographics because i feel

00:36:08.320 it's so important but yeah for the sake of holding on for a few extra kilometers of land territory that

00:36:15.920 that they're screwing over their own demographics yes and ultimately demographics are going to hurt you

00:36:20.160 more in the long term which makes sense when you accept that zelensky doesn't care about ukrainians

00:36:23.600 they've already there's already talk of flooding the country with immigrants to help rebuild it

00:36:29.040 exactly already i mean he's crazy exactly they could those ukrainian women are not going to go with

00:36:33.680 them so then you're left with a generation of immigrants that haven't been laid and getting all

00:36:37.680 violent and nasty and brilliant well done and so trump is getting really sick of this and he's saying

00:36:43.920 that zelensky should have accepted the first peace offer back in march and now the situation has gotten

00:36:50.000 much worse and that he told them that they have no cards and that they should settle and they refuse

00:36:55.280 to listen so trump is getting properly pissed off but there is a wider context to this which is that

00:37:03.520 all of the sanctions that the americans have been imposing on the russians have been got it getting

00:37:07.440 nowhere so they recently sanctioned the two biggest oil firms look oil and rosneft uh and 1.1 million

00:37:16.160 barrels per day reduction in exports but two other companies or three other companies are now

00:37:20.880 exporting another million barrels per day ah right well they're just going to via they're just being

00:37:25.760 laundered via india are they they're being laundered in a million and one different ways and the whole

00:37:30.560 campaign to say we're going to make the indians stop buying russian oil didn't get anywhere they're

00:37:34.640 still buying the indians why why would they not like they've got a massive massive um you know

00:37:41.680 population disservice they're not going to be like oh yeah sure we'll just do whatever you say

00:37:45.600 also they can buy it cheap and then sell it europeans at a markup exactly and in response

00:37:51.920 the ukrainians are saying we don't want any compromises and they had a meeting with nato

00:37:56.800 ministers which for the first time since 1999 uh the american secretary of state did not attend

00:38:02.960 instead the deputy secretary of defense attended and berated the europeans for wanting to buy

00:38:10.160 weapons without involving american companies that was the purpose of his participation and then he

00:38:16.000 left to go to another meeting so he imagine i come into this room i yell at you for a few minutes and then

00:38:20.400 i leave like that's what happened that's what happened right and the ukrainian reaction is no we're

00:38:27.600 going to keep fighting and we don't care that we're being out flanked on both sides yeah and we don't

00:38:34.800 care that we're feeding an entire generation of our young men into the meat grinder that we the deal

00:38:39.760 that we can realistically get is going down all the time yeah man the only way that i can stay sane as

00:38:44.080 an analyst is not to look at the human side of things yeah yeah because if you look at the human

00:38:49.360 side of things it is so genuinely heartbreaking you you like it it eventually breaks you if you look at

00:38:55.840 it for long enough yeah uh but this is exactly what they're doing they're just feeding men into a meat

00:39:01.680 grinder well yeah they were driving which is that a story awful you've seen all the videos of them

00:39:06.320 yeah just you know just jumping out of vans and stealing men from the exactly get in there like i get

00:39:12.560 it no i agree like i don't get it i i don't get it i don't want to say that i get it um you had

00:39:20.240 reuters do a story about 11 ukrainian men that they were tracking not a single one of them is still in

00:39:25.680 combat between those who are killed those who are injured and those who ran away not a single one of

00:39:32.560 them is is still in combat yeah and they did that in one camp just choosing a random sample of 11 mates

00:39:38.800 you know and seeing what they've been up to not one of them in a period of a few months not one

00:39:44.560 of them is still in combat so there is this breakdown here um in ukraine's ability to fight

00:39:51.600 which isn't recognized either by the european leadership or by the ukrainian leadership

00:39:58.480 uh somebody's asking about um talking about boris johnson convinced them not to have the peace deal yes

00:40:04.400 yes pretty much uh boris johnson intervened in the istanbul talks that were happening in april 2022

00:40:11.120 so two months after the invasion and the russians were saying you know we will return a big bunch of

00:40:17.840 land to you you will sign on permanent neutrality never being in nato etc and boris johnson goes in

00:40:25.760 and says to the ukrainians don't you dare agree to this and he sabotages the agreement and i believe

00:40:31.920 it is my opinion i can't prove it that he's still getting paid to warmonger because every single

00:40:38.960 time he writes about ukraine it is in support of more funding for ukraine keep the war going don't

00:40:45.920 accept any peaceful outcome i think johnson has replaced blair as my most hated prime minister of

00:40:51.600 all time yeah i can understand why i can understand why with blair you knew he hated you with johnson he

00:40:57.520 betrayed you so yeah there is a substantial difference absolutely so this is what it looks

00:41:04.880 like in terms of the americans in europe and this is why the theme of this is that the american order

00:41:10.480 is collapsing they can't properly defend japan or taiwan uh or maybe they can but they're very

00:41:18.720 hesitant about it they're finding their way out of europe and you can imagine i mean think about the

00:41:25.840 second order consequences if ukraine gets defeated you have hundreds of thousands of young men who

00:41:31.120 were sent into this horrible meat grinder uh where they were killed or maimed or their friends were

00:41:37.920 killed and maimed they throughout this were infused with a pretty nasty ideology and if they lose they're

00:41:46.720 not going to be able or a big chunk of them are not going to be able to stay in ukraine

00:41:51.680 and then they will cross the border into western europe because russia is committed to denazification

00:41:57.280 because russia is committed to denazification whatever that means in precise terms

00:42:01.840 um and then you end up in this position where these men who have connections to intelligence

00:42:08.880 who have combat experience and a massive chip on their shoulder and and deep networks and yes on top

00:42:16.960 of that all those weapons that went missing all those weapons that were continually go missing all

00:42:21.440 of that money and fundamentally just just at the point now where they're comfortable with violence

00:42:25.840 word extreme violence deeply so what do you think happens to these young men because they can't as

00:42:30.880 you say they can't stay in ukraine do they just all end up in western europe they probably end up forming

00:42:35.840 all kinds of criminal networks in western europe and then they're in competition with the muslim

00:42:39.680 gangs that actually do control crime in western europe oh good yes why not and then you end up

00:42:45.200 seeing them working on radicalizing young people in europe to get rid of the invaders and to

00:42:51.120 participate in criminal activities on the side which is how all militias and insurgencies fund themselves

00:42:58.640 and you end up with this powder keg of a europe that's collapsed economically

00:43:03.040 because of insane policies including immigration and including backing ukraine and cutting off the

00:43:09.840 supply of cheap russian energy into europe i mean the second order consequences of the ukrainian defeat

00:43:16.800 for europe are pretty catastrophic they're catastrophic not just for european elites they're also

00:43:21.520 catastrophic for european people and you know that the elites will get on a yacht somewhere

00:43:26.160 and piss off and you know that the regular people will end up paying the price for this lunacy

00:43:35.920 so when we when we say that the theme of this is that the global order is collapsing yes we mean it

00:43:41.760 the global order is collapsing including law and order in europe which has already collapsed

00:43:47.120 and that collapse will be accelerated as europe figures out what to do with a bunch of

00:43:51.760 recently demobilized very radicalized very resentful rightly so ukrainian men who are going to show up

00:44:01.520 and then that's even assuming we don't create our own class of them by taking on russia yes which is

00:44:08.080 so insane i can't believe they're serious about it but then they are so insane that i mean the america

00:44:13.440 the the the i think it was the american secretary for um the army driscoll who pretty much admitted

00:44:20.640 that the russians are outproducing pretty much everybody in terms of missiles five million shells

00:44:25.920 a year or something in terms of missiles and artillery shells and all kinds of projectile weapons

00:44:30.560 and drones and so on so as things stand the russian military industry is massive and they haven't fully

00:44:38.640 mobilized like they haven't turned the civilian economy into a war economy yet they haven't gone into

00:44:44.720 a war economy in russia but you can imagine that if they they're in a war in europe then yes or in

00:44:51.600 the rest of europe that is then yes and we had the sheep of the bundeswehr the the german army

00:44:58.800 saying when the ukraine war started that i could not imagine that there would be another war in europe

00:45:03.280 in my lifetime mate why are you in command of an army if you can't imagine a war hat

00:45:10.800 you're in the wrong business you're in the you're in the wrong line of work what are you prepping them

00:45:15.600 for exactly you're in the wrong line of work dei quotas presumably yeah i can't i can't help but keep

00:45:21.600 an eye on chat during all of this and you're getting the usual sort of nafo shills you're coming

00:45:26.320 out and saying that if and any time you put a realistic assessment of what's going on they just call

00:45:32.080 you a putin fan boy it's very very boring but then counterposed with that i'm also seeing a whole

00:45:37.760 bunch of americans just saying yeah we don't want to be anywhere near this no i understand and and

00:45:41.760 and those two views are not compatible the one is the one you get by watching european media which says

00:45:46.320 oh yeah do we we will fight putin and blah blah blah it's like well yeah but can you actually do that

00:45:51.520 yes versus the americans say no not interested so there's an interesting comment from testing here

00:45:56.400 saying that u.s weapons to taiwan are at record highs yes they are but the deliveries aren't always

00:46:02.000 being followed through there's when you look at weapon sales you got to look at the contract

00:46:07.040 that's an important part then you got to look at the weapon being delivered and a lot of what trump

00:46:12.080 sold them in his first term hasn't been delivered yet right so that this this is what i'm pointing

00:46:17.760 out i'm not saying that the americans aren't saying that they're going to back taiwan i'm not saying

00:46:21.600 that they're not saying that they're selling them weapons i'm saying that the deliveries aren't

00:46:25.200 actually for be happening yeah they're charging them yes they're racking up the debt on their ledger

00:46:31.200 they just don't actually get the weapons that's what i'm saying uh so there is this reality here

00:46:42.640 that the americans are ditching europe and to a lesser extent east asia and for all of the talk about

00:46:51.520 uh containing china and all of that it hasn't happened yet now if they do reconcile with russia

00:47:00.640 and lift the sanctions on russia it allows the russians to sort of step in and partner with japan

00:47:07.280 because china is too big and too strong so if america's edging back from taiwan yes and outright

00:47:16.080 pulling out of europe it's still got quite a large military where's that going to be used

00:47:21.440 ah let's talk about latin america so now we are seeing the americans are seriously expanding their

00:47:30.160 presence in the caribbean and all kinds of old bases that they had in puerto rico and elsewhere

00:47:36.640 are being refurbished and built up and they've deployed an armada off the coast of venezuela

00:47:43.600 and then declared that the airspace over venezuela is closed and the federal aviation authority issued

00:47:50.400 something called a notice to airmen notam um which says that the airspace over venezuela is going to be

00:47:58.160 very um dangerous shall we say until i believe it expires on the 26th of february 2026 because at the

00:48:08.400 moment obviously this can be extended yeah because at the moment we've got this posture going on where

00:48:13.600 you know boats supposedly carrying drugs going into the us they're making a big thing about we're

00:48:18.480 taking them out yes but the scale of the build-up is well beyond taking out a few drug runners this

00:48:24.320 clearly isn't you're not you're not ramping up military base so the scale of the build-up is really

00:48:28.880 interesting in in a couple in a couple of ways firstly in terms of the military bases these are necessary

00:48:33.760 for power projection over the area at some point they're going to get to cuba and we'll talk about

00:48:38.880 that um but right now the focus is venezuela and on building capabilities across the caribbean and the

00:48:48.240 main driver of all of this is the fact that the chinese are now the dominant economic player in latin

00:48:53.920 america because they're buying all the natural resource exports of latin america and they're making

00:48:59.760 big investments in infrastructure in order to facilitate these imports so right under america's

00:49:05.920 nose china were just coming in and sweeping out exactly of minerals i mean this is not like copper

00:49:12.240 from chile uh soybeans from brazil yeah oil from venezuela but it's ridiculous the americans have been

00:49:18.320 sleeping on this for 20 years because they've been busy fighting insane wars in the middle east that

00:49:23.280 should have never been fought in the well i mean presumably because their whole leadership class at the

00:49:27.520 pentagon uh a bunch of boomers who can only think russia and middle east yes just doesn't occur to them

00:49:34.160 no it doesn't occur to them that they've lost their grip on the most important part of the world for

00:49:39.680 them which is the western hemisphere yes yeah and that their own anglo allies are falling under all kinds

00:49:48.560 of leftist tyrannies from new zealand to britain to canada etc so they're not paying attention to what

00:49:56.480 actually matters or haven't been now they are and this naturally must come at the expense of their

00:50:03.600 commitments to asia and europe is like the lip and then there's the middle east it's like the liberal

00:50:10.640 parents who are trying to help um you know people around the other side of the world yes not noticing

00:50:16.720 that their daughter's become a prostitute they're some drug addict it's yes is they completely lost

00:50:22.000 track and and just on i mean i know you're highlighting venezuela there it's worth noting

00:50:25.840 that venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves of anywhere in the world yes i mean more than saudi

00:50:31.280 it's 300 i think it's 300 billion barrels so the saudis they might be lying about their oil reserves

00:50:37.680 but that's a different conversation for another time um they somehow never seem to go down

00:50:42.800 i don't know why but anyway their oil reserves never seem to decline supposedly because of new

00:50:50.480 discoveries or because of new technologies but they don't seem to ever go down uh venezuela has not

00:50:57.440 just the biggest oil reserves venezuela is a minerals powerhouse and you can pretty much extract any

00:51:04.320 mineral that you want from venezuela including some rare earth minerals which are sort of co-located with

00:51:09.600 other kinds of oh they they should be one of the richest countries in the world but they discovered

00:51:14.400 socialism first well they discovered corruption and then they got socialism and now here we are

00:51:22.000 because they were they were pumping out oil wasn't weren't they too they still export something

00:51:26.640 they say they're exporting 900 000 barrels a day which is a substantial amount yeah which is a substantial

00:51:32.480 amount uh however however it would be more uh it could be so much more yeah and that people could

00:51:41.280 actually be prosperous and not literally starving and immigrating all over and trump is saying that

00:51:48.880 we're going to start with ground attacks and we will put an end to those sobs love the way he talks

00:51:55.920 i find it refreshing i find the honesty quite refreshing to tell you the truth i mean the population of

00:52:01.600 venezuela is only 30 million and actually what what passes for their military is basically a bunch of

00:52:06.800 ragtag militants so yes it should be fun for the u.s troops but there is the other reality here which

00:52:13.440 is that maduro pretty much offered to give the americans everything that they wanted right

00:52:18.720 because he knows he cannot last five minutes well the the problem is this with venezuela maduro

00:52:26.800 and travis before him worked very hard on arming all kinds of insane local militias

00:52:33.600 especially in caracas itself which is geographically a bit of a difficult city to take on

00:52:39.920 and these local militias can drag you into the kind of urban warfare that is nasty it doesn't they

00:52:47.680 don't have to win they just have to maintain an insurgency for long enough right and that seems to

00:52:54.000 be what they're preparing to do so they have some anti-aircraft capabilities they have s 300 vms and

00:53:00.160 they have uh suhoys that can fire anti-aircraft missiles they have some anti-ship capabilities

00:53:05.920 including uh decent chinese missiles uh so they have some potential there but obviously they're not

00:53:13.680 going to beat the american military well and and that's fair i was going to say the americans know how

00:53:17.840 to deal with that you just drop bombs out of planes but but the hothi showed that it's that the dropping

00:53:23.920 bombs out of planes doesn't isn't a guaranteed solution no but but the other the other thing is

00:53:29.600 it's very different when you've been doing that to middle easterners as doing it to latin americans

00:53:35.520 when you've got the demographics of the us so around uh there are supposedly uh 38 million mexicans

00:53:45.120 in the united states yeah the position of the mexican government is fully supportive of venezuela

00:53:51.520 as are the brazilians and the colombians and the reason for that is that they are all

00:53:58.160 more or less narco states to varying degrees as in the real problem in latin america is not venezuela

00:54:06.960 venezuela is a natural resource powerhouse that helps prop up cuba because it supplies the cubans with

00:54:12.640 money and the cuban intelligence more or less runs big parts of venezuela and this sort of attempt by

00:54:23.120 the americans is to sort of secure the northern tip of south america meaning that colombia will have to

00:54:31.360 be next and mexico will have to be next and brazil because it has an insane socialist president lula

00:54:38.480 alongside colombia will be backing any insurgency that breaks out in venezuela and the geography of the

00:54:46.880 place is um so extensive and so large with this jungle along the borders with brazil and colombia

00:54:59.520 that really you can't supply the population but you can definitely supply an insurgency

00:55:07.280 and you can provide enough weapons in these ridiculously porous borders to make sure that

00:55:15.040 insurgency can keep going and part of the problem is that the mineral wealth is in these jungle areas

00:55:22.720 so you do think venezuela was first because i mean let's go with the official narrative the

00:55:27.520 official narrative is all about drugs but the real drug problem is mexico exactly so so the fentanyl

00:55:33.280 is going into the us via via mexican land routes it's not coming over on the occasional boat yes yes

00:55:41.040 so you so you think that you think that the official narrative is bunk it is venezuela first it is

00:55:46.320 is about venezuela first okay and if you remember you you sort of the oil you have to sort of go back

00:55:51.040 to the middle east and and think about it this way when the americans invaded iraq it was supposed

00:55:58.240 to be the first step in a plan to invade seven middle eastern countries so on the list were syria

00:56:05.600 lebanon somalia libya sudan and iran as well as iraq now over the last 20 years they managed to regime

00:56:14.320 change all of those except for iran and some of these were through civil wars and some of these

00:56:20.800 were through uh the partition and some of these were through all kinds of things but they did in

00:56:27.040 the end achieve regime change in all of them except iran and you see them now acting against venezuela

00:56:34.160 and you must assume that a they're planning to do more because they've lost control of latin america

00:56:41.040 which is core to their own monroe doctrine and their own sphere of influence and you must assume

00:56:49.040 that that plan will be delayed as it hits reality and you therefore must also assume that part of that

00:56:57.040 delay is going to be from neighboring countries trying to destabilize anything that the americans win

00:57:03.520 because again if you're brazil and you're asked well nice mr lula why don't you just bukele all of

00:57:12.000 the gangs in rio and kill them all or put them all in big jails part of the answer is because i'm

00:57:18.160 taking money from them and i give them welfare i mean i mean this brings us back to you know a brief

00:57:24.800 conversation we had when you were sort of outlining the segments before we came on which is how crazy it

00:57:30.720 was that um they let the lula coup happen in brazil because they went from having a friend of the us

00:57:36.320 to having an enemy of the us and you said well actually you can't prove it but you think that

00:57:40.400 the state department was behind that because biden wanted an insane leftist in brazil because

00:57:46.160 blinken and jake sullivan wanted leftists to succeed everywhere i'd argue probably because they're

00:57:53.200 either because of their ideology or because they're paid by the chinese but it always could be both

00:57:57.200 both i mean this is not an either or here uh and they'd rather not have somebody who is going to

00:58:04.800 be tough on crime tough on corruption a nationalist and who says no there is law and order and i believe

00:58:12.800 in god because people forget that bukele began his campaign as as somebody wrote me a letter and

00:58:18.160 reminded me actually a very nice lady um bukele began his campaign against the gangs with prayers in

00:58:26.160 cabinet on a regular basis this was the first step first we ask god for help then we go and do what

00:58:33.840 we're supposed to do and so seeing somebody like bolsonaro who is traditional in that sense is scary

00:58:41.440 or you know regardless of his personal life etc etc that is scary for them somebody who's openly

00:58:49.040 anti-degeneracy somebody who's openly against their agenda on the basics of it just just while

00:58:55.600 we're talking about biden's treachery yes and the extent to which he sold out maybe i can sidetrack

00:59:01.600 slightly and sort of bring up another point that is i sort of like to on this stuff because i mean

00:59:06.080 effectively what you're describing here is that the americans would like to see instead of this

00:59:11.200 circle being the energy powerhouse yes um the circle moves to basically over here because canada

00:59:18.480 u.s and venezuela i mean that is an absolute energy powerhouse absolutely if you start to bring that

00:59:23.280 together and if the canadians get rid of some of their insane laws that sort of yeah stop the proper

00:59:29.280 exploitation of canadian energy and if you go to the arctic circle yes and exploit exploit the resources

00:59:34.800 there which was one of the things that trump talked about in the outset when he was talking about

00:59:39.520 building the um 40 icebreakers that would be required to go to the arctic but what you're

00:59:46.000 kind of outlining here is is how um you know the u.s likes to do encirclements what you're kind of

00:59:51.680 describing here is they are being encircled down here yes and they kind of let it happen but the

00:59:55.920 other thing is the degree to which they've allowed allowed internally so uh the chinese have bought up

01:00:01.280 whatever it's 300 000 or is it three million kilometers of farmland in the u.s and it's not just the

01:00:06.720 sheer volume of the farmland that they're buying yeah it's extraordinary the huge amounts of farm

01:00:11.280 uh right but it's not it's not just the amount of farmland they bought out it's where it is so in

01:00:16.480 north dakota they they let the they let the chinese buy up um a site adjacent to an air force base yes

01:00:24.560 right and and they tried to hear starmer helping them with these deals well that's insane i mean the

01:00:30.240 democrats are just willing to do it themselves and they they try to buy up another um

01:00:34.240 um a load of farmland adjacent to an air force base in texas but the texans at least stop that

01:00:40.080 but the point is all of this us us-based chinese-owned farmland that could be turned into

01:00:48.000 basically a drone hub and for whatever reason i don't ever see american commentators talk about

01:00:53.040 this and i really think they should be yeah because okay fine you've got these potential drone bases and

01:00:58.160 they've got heavy farm equipment they've got storage barns um that one next to the air force base in north

01:01:03.760 dakota it's got a lot of wind turbines which are perfect for surveillance on it as well right and

01:01:10.000 the ability to ship in drones is not going to be difficult they might have some problem getting

01:01:15.200 high-grade explosives in there but it's a bloody farm no the american ports are open american ports

01:01:21.280 are open i don't think i don't think a big chunk of the cargo actually gets inspected in the united

01:01:25.200 states yeah i mean it probably even the explosives can get in yeah so even more to your point even if

01:01:29.760 they can't get the high-grade explosive in it's a bloody farm so you've got all the nitrate boost

01:01:33.680 explosives you you could possibly ask for and the point is even if they can't get the high-grade

01:01:38.480 explosives they can definitely get the drone stuff in um you don't actually need high-grade explosives

01:01:44.880 to damage sensitive equipment like pipelines oil tanks aircrafts um radar equipment

01:01:51.120 let me tell you how right you are the americans use the exact same playbook to support the ukrainians

01:01:57.760 conducting attacks on russia's strategic bombers yeah that were struck two thousand three thousand

01:02:04.320 kilometers deep in russian territory by smuggling drones on containers and then unleashing them into

01:02:12.240 russia to hit russian strategic bomb okay so if they could do them three thousand kilometers away it's

01:02:16.800 pretty safe to say the chinese can do it from next door to the air force base then precisely

01:02:21.280 precisely so having this kind of facility where nobody's going to bother if you're sort of digging

01:02:27.520 in farmland um or running heavy equipment or running heavy equipment or what or having large shipments

01:02:35.360 large crates in all the time so this can be used against the united states obviously and internally and

01:02:42.320 some of these are next to missile bases not just air force bases and then you add to that so one

01:02:47.120 more thing to add to that is because you've had a southern border open for long again it wasn't picked

01:02:52.560 up by american commentators that much but a hell of a lot of the people coming in with chinese yes and

01:02:57.200 they were maintaining their own route so so basically the south americans were going in one batch and the

01:03:02.320 chinese were coming in for a different route so not only have they got the farmland next to american

01:03:07.680 military bases they've lost count of how many chinese are coming there could be half a bloody

01:03:12.720 chinese army in america right now and they wouldn't know because they didn't count them they didn't

01:03:16.720 check because biden allowed millions and millions and millions of people to come in yeah so these are

01:03:21.440 real security risks that but at the end of the day the real american power is in their aircraft carriers

01:03:28.720 which while this is a problem domestically especially for industrial sabotage and this kind of thing

01:03:33.680 and for attacks on some of these bases to keep them off balance it's not as big as an existential

01:03:38.880 threat as knocking out aircraft carriers so there is a balance i don't want to over exaggerate this

01:03:45.200 it's a real problem they can't they can't be as if it's there's common sense as you say there can't be

01:03:53.280 uh legitimate intelligence which would indicate the chinese are planning anything like that that

01:03:58.960 the americans hold if trump has sat there and gone we're gonna let 600 000 chinese students come unless

01:04:10.800 they don't care i don't do you know i don't get it logic would dictate you just wouldn't do that

01:04:16.000 no then it's an insane step to allow to allow chinese students mad it's a mad step to allow chinese

01:04:23.120 students like wealth of history it makes sense if you accept if you if you accept that the chinese

01:04:31.680 have the whip hand when it comes to the trade war it makes sense yeah yeah no true true but then in

01:04:39.520 making sure that the western hemisphere is under control in order to supply you with the natural

01:04:45.120 resources to rebuild your manufacturing base also then makes sense so the fact that the americans were

01:04:57.040 that they just failed in the trade war against china kind of explains why they have to consolidate

01:05:03.200 on a natural resource powerhouse like latin america specifically venezuela

01:05:07.600 in order to build up their capabilities in order to not have 600 000 chinese students coming in every

01:05:14.880 year which is a crazy thing to do to begin with insane the other thing i've got to ask is is the us

01:05:20.480 cannot have a um a national border if it doesn't deal with mexico no and mexico the mexican government

01:05:27.760 has quite conclusively lost the monopoly of power at the moment there's a there's a oligopoly of power and

01:05:33.360 the mexican government is simply one of them and the cartels of the other members of the

01:05:38.320 no because let me draw your attention to this anyway let me draw your attention to this story

01:05:45.040 uh mexico city supposedly under gloria scheinbaum who is now the president uh there was a big fall

01:05:52.240 in the number of murders in mexico city under her leadership excellent news wonderful news i don't

01:05:57.760 believe that the reality is that while the murder rate fell they stopped recording a lot of deaths

01:06:05.520 as murder i love it i love it when and there was a spike in the disappearances rate oh yeah i want

01:06:12.640 to say all right so the cartels just disappearing people rather than leaving a trail of bodies

01:06:19.600 they're murdered elsewhere they don't count so that they like and and you can only interpret this one

01:06:25.760 way the cartels were trying to help her with the statistics so not only was her administration

01:06:31.680 massaging the numbers by not recording a lot of violent deaths as homicides the cartels were also

01:06:37.680 trying to be helpful by making people disappear instead of killing them right okay and so you sort

01:06:45.200 of see that what's happened here is that the cartels decided uh because they were over overflowing with

01:06:51.680 the milk of human kindness to help nice gloria scheinbaum or because she's on their side it got so bad that

01:07:01.120 when the americans captured so this was under her predecessor um amlo uh lopez operador whatever his

01:07:10.160 his name is yeah andres manuel lopez operador the americans somehow captured one of the top drug dealers in

01:07:17.280 mexico all right and they did so apparently through the help of the son of one of the other top drug

01:07:23.840 dealers they'd captured his father and him and so he helped them capture another guy as a way to get

01:07:30.240 a deal and in exchange the americans brought 17 members of his family into the u.s rather than let the

01:07:36.160 cartels murder them all which is what would have happened but amlo got so angry that the americans had

01:07:43.280 captured this guy out of mexico that he threatened to prosecute the other drug dealer who helped the

01:07:49.600 americans for treason well that's that's okay so you can't be more openly on the side of the cartels

01:08:01.760 than that and the cartels it's so the drugs might be three percent of mexico's gdp freezing to arrest

01:08:10.320 this cartel exactly exactly exactly exactly it's it's reason to help the americans take out a major

01:08:14.960 right this could you you couldn't make this no no it's insane exactly uh this the last election

01:08:21.920 that brought shinebaum into power was the bloodiest in mexico's history and they keep on killing

01:08:27.200 candidates that they don't like 175 000 people in mexico work for the cartels according to the la

01:08:35.520 he was the fifth largest employer fifth largest employer in the country fifth largest employer in

01:08:40.320 the country yes wow and they're in everything from chickens to avocados like when you buy your

01:08:47.440 environmentally avocado because you're too much of a wuss to eat meat you're financing the mexican

01:08:51.920 cartels so if you had a reason to abandon avocados and just eat british beef it's because you're

01:08:58.720 financing the cartels i mean you might as well just go straight to the cocaine just be done with it just

01:09:02.240 so yeah i'm just gonna finance the mexican cartels exactly uh so they've expanded into everything in

01:09:08.080 mexico and this is helped by the government because they need the money yeah and then the cartels extort

01:09:16.880 everyone they extort pretty much every single business that they that they can extort including a

01:09:22.160 bunch of the big manufacturing players whose wares end up going into the united states so mexico is a much

01:09:28.800 bigger problem than that as well i mean if if the us wants to fit its recruitment crisis in the

01:09:33.360 military right take on the cartels yes young men would love to sign up for that and i'm sure a lot

01:09:39.040 of mexicans would love to sign up i'm sure that a big chunk of mexicans would say yeah yeah if you

01:09:44.480 promise to kill them and and execute them all because there's a lot of mexicans because it's too nice

01:09:48.880 he's not killing them if there's a lot of mexicans in the us if the us goes to war with mexico but frames it

01:09:55.040 as an anti-cartel war what what happens to the population the mexican population in america problems

01:10:00.640 here because in these three border states uh that are on like between the us and mexico the dominance

01:10:11.440 of the cartels is so enormous that they've replaced the government they provide health care they provide

01:10:17.920 education they also extort your business uh but they also provide a bunch of services so they sort

01:10:24.960 of replace the government in these territories and and when we say the cartels are the fifth largest

01:10:29.120 employer we're not counting all of those guys as well the health workers probably not right

01:10:33.600 they could actually be the largest employer yeah yeah yeah yeah and scheinbaum has been working on

01:10:40.000 expanding the military's influence in businesses like tourism and transportation and so on

01:10:47.600 and as a cynical middle easterner i would say that she's trying to rope them into the corruption

01:10:51.840 network so that they don't fight the cartels that's what she's doing and then you get

01:10:59.440 people on x i'm gonna say people instead of what i actually want to say uh claiming that no no scheinbaum

01:11:05.280 is a big enemy of the cartels in reality she's helping fight some cartels in favor of others yeah

01:11:11.360 because they probably believe that if they could just consolidate it under one or two cartels the

01:11:18.560 level of violence would fall that would be their thinking it's a theory it's a theory

01:11:24.560 but it's insane as well so the problem for the americans that are on their own back door are so huge

01:11:35.360 huge that they require them to abandon asia and europe

01:11:43.920 because the fact that countries like colombia and mexico and brazil and venezuela and cuba

01:11:50.080 cuba less of a narco state but the the these four are sort of leftist narco states

01:11:56.720 is also tied to their relations with china is also tied to the immigration crisis is also tied to the

01:12:03.920 the drug crisis so these problems that they face because of the fact that they've neglected their

01:12:10.160 own backyard for so long are all in a very real way interlinked domestically and geopolitically

01:12:18.720 they let this region go to hell under leftists

01:12:24.000 and they exported a bunch of their manufacturing to mexico

01:12:27.040 so creating the market for drugs as a result of the despair of the workers who have lost their jobs

01:12:35.120 now that they have to fix it they have to fix all of it

01:12:39.600 which means yes of course they're going to be ditching europe and asia which means yes of course the

01:12:46.000 american-based order is collapsing because america itself has fallen apart under the idiotic policies

01:12:55.280 of open-door immigration and free trade and the export of industry and the financialization of

01:13:00.800 everything well and the original reason why so sorry while all of the resources got wasted

01:13:05.920 fighting in freaking afghanistan and iraq and libya and syria non-critical and iran which are all

01:13:11.840 completely not critical to the american security but obviously mexico is critical to american security

01:13:18.880 obviously all of latin america is critical to american security they were asleep at the wheel

01:13:24.480 and let china become the dominant player in their own backyard including even in canada in some

01:13:30.880 cases oh yeah yeah canada canada loves china don't they i was just gonna say the i mean the original

01:13:39.520 reason why we're everybody in the world is using the dollar goes back to the breton wood system the

01:13:44.000 whole deal was post-war yep america was going to be the global policeman and specifically they were

01:13:48.400 going to keep open global shipping lanes right and everybody said okay well if you're going to do that we

01:13:52.240 use that we use the dollar for all international transactions but i mean as you described here

01:13:56.640 i mean this is this is unwinding yes pretty much and we're going to do an episode to explain the

01:14:02.800 financial and why absolutely come as a result

01:14:07.600 well that's so that's yes that's the long and short of it really

01:14:12.720 if we have a look at the comments then yes please

01:14:18.240 um

01:14:26.000 yuki water who says uh as an american can you blame us uh for what bit well for wanting to abandon russia

01:14:33.040 and oh okay no consolidating to the states basically i can't blame him so the the only issue is is is

01:14:40.560 why did it become such a thing in the first place under biden but yeah um actually there's a lot of

01:14:45.200 them isn't there yep um paladin uh 141 paladin says i would love to see a video analyzing the un

01:14:51.840 it appears to be perfidious and evil but weak and indecisive at the same time yeah that sounds about

01:14:57.280 right to me yes i think you've analyzed it quite well yourself yeah he has yes that's most bureaucracies

01:15:04.320 though as well isn't it really the un is a special place in hell yeah no yeah um what else have we got

01:15:09.840 we got we got one from uh we've got we've got the morgue 70 right sorry the morgue 77

01:15:17.920 america wasn't asleep at the wheel uh the boomers sold the entire car literally yeah i mean

01:15:23.600 we didn't get into it that much but the degree of the treason from the biden regime yes i mean it's

01:15:29.280 off the charts when you start looking at it like this yes absolutely um chris says aren't all the

01:15:34.880 governments just criminal gangs that went out in the end i mean no that's that i'm sympathetic to

01:15:39.520 that one myself yeah i mean i'm pretty sympathetic yeah we're gonna have a long conversation about

01:15:46.400 this but there's more to it than that yeah luke says uh these long segments are nice and all but

01:15:50.880 could we do the super chats from time to time well we always do them at the end you were right now

01:15:55.760 where you were dipping into them yes yeah but we don't we don't normally do that so um you should

01:16:00.720 be you should count yourself lucky that you got uh included early um testing uh says uh hitting

01:16:06.720 disabling us uh nuclear carriers a big task each have four nuclear reactors serving as failed saves

01:16:13.520 uh to separate and secure bulkheads oh yeah no i i i don't think i ever said that hitting the the

01:16:18.880 reactors is uh the the uh carriers is easy i said that the real bulk of american power comes from these

01:16:25.600 react from these carriers those carriers are still going to need resupplies and the resupplies a lot

01:16:30.480 of them come from factories in the us that are next to chinese owned farmland yes that would be my

01:16:34.160 pushback on that quite uh no peace until russia leaves ukraine good luck with that yeah okay i mean

01:16:40.880 you're not going to learn you're not going to learn i can't help you yeah send a letter to putin uh

01:16:44.800 as soon as he as soon as he receives it here he will immediately pull out of ukraine yeah your

01:16:49.360 whisper your christmas wish uh yes dear santa please ask putin to pull out of you oh uh fine

01:16:56.080 yeah um what are chinese big problems is a lot of non-contaminated food comes from other countries

01:17:02.080 which is risky if they do something we cut it off their food imports their maritime imports are a big

01:17:07.280 vulnerability yes uh the problem here is modular drones allow even middling powers to drag big powers

01:17:15.920 into a world war one level of attrition imagine mexican cartels funneling military grade equipment

01:17:21.840 yeah yeah and they have anti-tank weapons they have uh obviously rpgs they have all kinds of things

01:17:28.160 and if you and they use drones in the smuggling as as well so if you assume that you know china

01:17:33.680 decides that it's going to just send them a thousand drones a month which is nothing that's a thousand

01:17:39.600 american deaths a month so it becomes quickly a huge political problem um venezuela has dirt oil

01:17:49.280 that needs to be refined in texas guiana has clean oil um in offshore fields yeah so i think the i think

01:17:55.440 what he's alluding to there is that both russian and venezuelan oil is is considered heavy crude heavy

01:18:01.120 and sour yes yeah whereas saudi oil is is quite light sweet and light yes yes and and actually the

01:18:07.600 refineries that you use for one um so i look into the guiana thing i know that there is massive offshore

01:18:13.280 oil off the coast of guiana and that the venezuelans were threatening guiana with an invasion uh just as

01:18:20.000 of last year so you know don't forget that detail but i'll look into the full dynamics of oil but yes

01:18:26.560 that's that's a very interesting point thank you musy fate thank you musy um don't forget mexican

01:18:33.760 hazards own problems uh two with the uh gen z protest causing issues in other south american

01:18:40.960 countries that would probably help as well yeah well mexico has a lot of problems i'd imagine yes

01:18:47.520 um arcadia i can't see the us taking on china in any significant way um they're too closely connected

01:18:55.360 now china uh held almost a trillion of us treasury securities um and foreign investment is 126 billion a

01:19:03.360 year i think german british trade peaked in 1913 and then we know what happened in 1914 yes so i i accept

01:19:15.920 this point but not entirely i'm quite skeptical of looking at geopolitics from an only economic lens

01:19:23.920 just as i am skeptical of dismissing economics uh luke says do you think russia would be able to keep

01:19:29.120 producing oil if we did to them uh what the middle east did to us why do we fight honorably what do you

01:19:35.600 mean what would you do to them i mean russian refineries and uh energy infrastructure is getting

01:19:39.920 attacked all the time but it's just it's just not working right the ukrainians are hitting russian

01:19:44.480 refineries every other week but it's just not working they probably put some thought into defending them

01:19:51.200 yeah um luke also says trump's trump is making america how i play in my uh how i play in my games

01:19:58.640 take over the entire continents and form the united continent of america would love that i mean i mean

01:20:06.480 i've i've been long in favor of reuniting the anglosphere because for everything we talked about

01:20:10.240 if i mean if you take the economies of uh russia china and the entire eu just chuck them in there as well

01:20:16.560 it's still smaller than the anglosphere yes i mean the u.s is doing a lot of the heavy lifting there

01:20:20.800 but the but the anglosphere with china and america that gets you all the energy and resources you ever

01:20:26.640 need um the uk okay fine it's you know it's strategically locate located we can call it that

01:20:33.840 um australia's got a load of resources as well yeah and new zealand is the bolt hold if the plan goes

01:20:39.440 wrong so you got everything you need there yeah um testing says we agree venezuela is really

01:20:46.320 about china to some extent to a large extent well and the oil yes absolute shed ton of oil and

01:20:52.880 resources um luke says is this why trump is trying to distance himself from europe so he could form a

01:20:59.280 russian-american alliance i mean actually uh yeah let europe's partitioning europe between them

01:21:04.720 essentially they end up partitioning europe between them um looked it says uh remember when ukraine

01:21:12.880 defaulted on its war bonds last year the bond holders had to take a haircut and then starma

01:21:17.440 promised to pay the bill oh that's nice i didn't know that i didn't remember yeah all right thank

01:21:22.400 thank you starma let me check that properly good times um uh luke uh we did that one oh did we okay um

01:21:30.880 testing says ditching ukraine equals what trump voters wanted and what he promised yeah a lot of people a lot

01:21:37.280 of people are up for that um reverend norse with is that 100 shekels or is that something else

01:21:44.720 that's 100 swedish kroners ah okay um i'd say it depends on the kind of war if it is a modern

01:21:50.400 humanitarian war then china is a problem if it's a proper kill and subjugate war total war in other

01:21:55.680 words uh then china gets rolled the rules determine the outcome i mean the the americans have massive

01:22:03.360 advantages but the chinese are also serious is is what i'm saying yeah and everybody's stronger next

01:22:08.880 to their own homeland obviously yes um luke um oh we actually know we did that one i think we did um

01:22:20.720 i think we did that we did the ones above yep okay excellent right and do we have any video comments

01:22:27.520 mr samson yeah yes or no oh no okay fine we have a couple of more comments that we can go through

01:22:42.720 if we want um well something from sigil stone the american order is collapsing because we've taken

01:22:48.160 stock of what the world offers us and realized it's nothing um it's something but yeah i can understand

01:22:53.600 why you might feel cynical about what a bunch of your allies are offering you well we've also we've

01:23:00.000 also got our own uh some supposed allies than others but okay yeah we've also got our own subscriber

01:23:04.720 comments let me just call up the in fact it might be at the bottom of the document right there we are

01:23:11.040 all right heathen so sophie live ah i suggest nate look up some chinese animation trailers they actually

01:23:19.200 looked at anime and said we need to be even better than that and they did they innovated all right

01:23:24.560 and once they start making english dubs to ship them over these will become quite big they're

01:23:28.800 beautiful to look at they're not better than anime all right i'm samson samson will agree i'm sure i i'm

01:23:34.480 not an anime fan i have no idea what they're talking about samson will get his weeb hat on all right

01:23:41.040 i'm kidding they are quite good in fairness they are quite good the animation is quite good but

01:23:44.960 the innovation on on an animation i mean it's not exactly massively transferable elsewhere but i

01:23:49.680 i take it on board they are actually quite good yeah um the ming uh something zao 2 or something

01:23:56.480 like that was a massive movie this year right um it's all tentacles though isn't it anime no

01:24:04.720 can we please not go down that rabbit hole no right okay um um i don't know what anime you've

01:24:09.600 been looking at me yeah the scotty swindon says um why not he says why not start why not start leaking

01:24:18.400 blueprints with fatal design flaws that aren't immediately obvious and watch them cripple

01:24:22.720 they're smart enough to see them and like a bunch of things that they've stolen they've also improved

01:24:26.960 a lot and their fifth and sixth generation jets are actually very impressive the chinese ones yes

01:24:33.760 um you you think out of a billion of them they could find one or two innovators i mean i do take

01:24:40.400 your point but i suppose they've got a billion of them so so yeah they just not they are they just

01:24:44.000 aren't massively innovative as a country no no that's true it it tends to be a slavic european thing

01:24:49.920 doesn't it what have they invented uh gunpowder uh the printing press uh steel the crossbow

01:24:58.560 uh uh paper they're nothing modern yes but but apart from that what have the romans ever done for

01:25:05.120 us i mean yes you know um michael uh dribulous i i must be pronouncing that wrong um yeah but

01:25:12.640 what is it it's not dribulous dribelbis dribelbis oh it could be that i couldn't do it one day he's

01:25:22.800 gonna send us a video comment saying you bastards you've been mispronouncing my name all of these years

01:25:28.880 and now i'm gonna explain it all to you and tell you why you're all about to jerk-offs

01:25:33.360 but michael dribelbis possibly bear with us um yeah but five million brits have a proven track

01:25:39.200 record of being able to fight uh at levels beyond their size yes one one british cavalry officer

01:25:46.880 is worth 100 natives again yeah i will stick to that all right um well it works we did we did

01:25:54.480 india quite nicely i mean a lot of it was getting getting the indians to fight themselves but

01:25:59.840 that's india i think well yeah we didn't just have india we had

01:26:04.240 we had the zulu bits two of that went bad um what else do we have yes fair enough yeah

01:26:09.760 fair enough but i think we had india at one point

01:26:15.200 apparently you uh luke says you skipped my comment about some of the internal flaws um

01:26:20.720 talked about from china uncensored and how the china shows a lot of internal problems

01:26:26.720 they have a bunch of huge internal problems i agree but think about it this way i think somebody

01:26:31.600 who did a proper analysis on their debt to gdp said that it was maybe all things considered in the

01:26:38.560 20 to 60 percent range depending on how you count it look at western debts

01:26:46.640 so and the difference with the chinese debt situation a lot of it's tied up in property

01:26:51.120 yes they kind of already taken the hit because they're sitting empty yes the the western debt

01:26:55.840 problem is is all underpinning the banking system and boomer retirements yes so are you are you

01:27:02.320 willing to just say to the boomers no yeah your pension's gone which it is yeah which it is

01:27:10.240 but admitting that is is slightly different problem another thing um uh lord inquisitor hector

01:27:17.200 rex says uh for us do you think the eu is trying to sabotage peace between right long story short

01:27:22.880 yes okay between russia and china was going to say but yes um henry ashman as we've seen uh with

01:27:29.920 groups like the yemenis attacking ships around suiz high quality but expensive to manufacture naval

01:27:35.760 kit can be countered worryingly well by mass bands presumably drones yep that's what the hothis did

01:27:41.680 and then the in the end the americans negotiated with them which was a big humiliation yeah i didn't

01:27:47.040 actually hear hear how that closed out well there were two things that happened first the americans

01:27:51.360 negotiated a deal whereby the hothis could still hit israeli shipping but not hit american shipping

01:27:57.040 okay everybody went ballistic then the israelis started bombing the crap out of yemen and the

01:28:02.480 hothis just kept on firing things at them until the ceasefire with gaza and then the hothis stopped

01:28:08.800 because the fighting in gaza had stopped so they did enormous damage to the yemenis and to the hothi

01:28:15.520 they just stopped the firing missiles and now they're rebuilding their missile capabilities

01:28:20.320 because the iranians are like you were the only ones who were effective in this war have some more

01:28:25.440 brilliant i mean that but that is also interesting that the deal was basically you can keep hitting

01:28:31.040 the israeli ships but stop hitting our ship yes that was literally the deal i guess the assumption

01:28:35.760 was that israel would bomb them to oblivion that didn't really matter yeah but i mean it's

01:28:40.640 another i'm saying the assumption you know i guess in that that is an interesting shift from a from a

01:28:45.360 from an american um administration that that generally puts israel first well ahead of america

01:28:51.280 first well they did put it first and went to yemen in the first place right which was a horrible

01:28:57.920 horrible place to go to anyway um and they didn't get anything out of it they pounded them for what 45

01:29:06.080 days 50 days and then they negotiated so yeah these kinds of spam small projectiles and fire them

01:29:14.560 endlessly yes do have some effectiveness now the americans are building their own one-way drones and

01:29:20.720 cheap counters and things like that but these take time yeah uh and we'll see how these really um laser

01:29:27.120 air defense system works when it's actually tested but that could be a game changer right there's a good

01:29:32.800 comment from our our in-house roman in the chat and and i want to end on this um the usa has arrived

01:29:39.040 at a contradiction it both it can't be both liberal and imperial correct exactly liberal imperialism got

01:29:46.800 us this it created the worst mess in history so get rid of the liberal part and just be an honest empire

01:29:54.400 and you know okay fair enough well i mean it works out for them for the first 30 odd years after

01:29:58.720 world war ii just doing the imperial bit and then they decided to add the liberal bit and it all in

01:30:03.280 in the sort of mid 60s and it all sort of fell apart well they yes they escalated the liberal to its

01:30:08.080 natural conclusions right which is collapse which is collapse right you can't it doesn't make sense so

01:30:14.160 you think we're going to get the incoming uh american empire we're going to get a bunch of different

01:30:18.720 empires right this is what multipolarity is what happens to the little old uk do we do we join the

01:30:24.400 american empire you're stuck between the european failed empire and the american fixing itself empire

01:30:31.360 right and then you have to choose a side essentially okay uh or the americans consolidate over western

01:30:38.640 europe and you're part of it too okay these are the two realistic options really and and yes

01:30:48.080 and and the well and and who's the other big empire is it is a sort of eurasian russian chinese

01:30:54.720 the russian and chinese are going to compete with each other at some point depending how things go with

01:30:58.800 japan okay the chinese are one the russians are one the indians are their own little island

01:31:04.480 uh i mean god put the himalayas there for a reason uh and iran and turkey they will be

01:31:11.600 struggling as they always do against each other in their own neighborhood right well on that cheery note

01:31:17.840 um yes as you can see it's all working out well for the global liberal order yes and um yes i hope

01:31:25.040 you enjoyed it thank you very much and um see you tomorrow thank you

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - December 04, 2025

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1310

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