Ex Intelligence Officer Exposing Truth About Russia Ukraine War & Trump's Golden Dome Proposal EP79

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
If you build more weapons, sometimes that other sides not
gonna see that as a good thing that they could feel like you're
taunting them. Oht really, you're doing that?
We're gonna do this now. So it just cranking up the
offence constantly, constantly is not the the goal at the end.
In the in the beautiful thing here is that building a golden
Dome strategic defence. Basically, you put your

(00:22):
opponents in a dilemma, said OK,they can't really say, well,
we're going to build our own golden Dome, we're going to
build our own strange knock yourselves.
Out guys that great bro. I know that money trying to
block a nuclear attack from us because we're not planning to
attack you with. Me exactly.
We just wanna neutralize your weapons for Iron Dome.

(00:46):
Israel only has to worry about short range intermediate range
ballistic missiles and their Iron Dome is very effective
against that. And they have to worry
principally about Iran. Now for the United States, it
United States has to worry aboutintercontinental ballistic
missiles, which come over the North Pole to intercept

(01:09):
intercontinental ballistic missiles in their boost phase.
That's the key. In order to intercept an
intercontinental ballistic missile, a long range missile
with lot, with multiple warheadsand decoys and things like that,
you have to be able to catch themissile while it's on its way
up, when it is most vulnerable. And where you can do that, you

(01:31):
can only do that from Earth orbit.
It has to be sitting up there inEarth orbit and has to have the
right weapons with laser weaponsor even short range missiles to
destroy those missiles in their boost phase.
Right now, the systems that we have cannot, you know, people
worry about, oh, an asteroid or meteor or comet could one day

(01:55):
collide with Earth. Not if you have a space fleet.
You assign the mission of blocking, deflecting, or
destroying any near Earth objectthat threatens to collide with
Earth and with a space fleet. With Space Force Guardians you
you have a means of of doing precisely that, with one or more

(02:15):
ships assigned to a potential Near Earth object threatening to
destroy Earth. That's perfect.
Just like an Armageddon. There you go.
Only aren't. This is Armageddon plus this.
This doesn't have to be as dramatic.
Yeah. In theory, in theory, Sam, you
could even with the as AI robotsbecome more sophisticated, you

(02:38):
could if it if it turns out thatyou needed to really knock a big
asteroid off course, you could take a a Starship man it with a
nothing but AI robots, sophisticated AI robots as the
crew, no human crew, but you putyou put that Starship on a

(02:58):
collision, on a collision coursewith the asteroid to knock it
off course. It would be a suicide mission
with a human crew, but with AI robots.
OK, it's AI robots, so that thatwould be unconventional.
Of course they're they're saying, oh, you're sacrificing
the robots, you cruel person. I know.
Shut up. I'll build.

(03:20):
I'll build more as. Like we could build more robots,
we'll make a memorial to the AI upgrading the the golden Dome
with a space fleet. And no one, I'll tell you, Sam,
no one is talking about that. No one even thinks of that
because that is a, that is what you call an out of totally
out-of-the-box solution. So the golden Dome, it is a

(03:42):
worthwhile objective. President Trump needs the right
most, the right way to do it, the most cost efficient and
effective way to do it. And the way to do it is not
simply build more satellites, which simply creates that
Mexican standoff by talked about, but instead create a
space force with a space fleet that can effectively destroy and

(04:04):
control Earth orbital space. And oh, by the way, you get
other interesting bonus capabilities once you have a
space fleet. How do you stop that?
Well, interestingly enough, ElonMusk has the solution in his
very hands. What you do is in order to make
the Golden Globe perfect. Sorry, Golden Dome.

(04:24):
Now you got me doing it. Yeah, you're you're you're
contagious. Anyway, Go.
In order to make the Golden Domeperfect and make it perfect
seal, you have to upgrade the Space Force.
You upgrade the Space Force withstarships, Falcon Nines, Falcon
Heavies, and starships that ElonMusk already has.

(04:47):
You give them to the Space Forceohe about say 12 starships, 12
Falcon Heavies, 12 Falcon Nines and entire space fleet with
supporting resupply spacecraft. And you arm those space growth
starships with laser weapons. Armed.
Put them in orbit with laser weapons.
That's crazy. What's crazy about the war games

(05:08):
that you just said there? I I didn't know that and I
researched Pearl Harbor and I didn't know that part.
And that is fucked up because when you look at 911, OK, well,
we were doing war games that dayto and in the week prior and
that data because when the air traffic controls were like, oh,
we have a maybe a hijacked planeis like, is this a real life or

(05:29):
this? So they they had to confirm to
the the that's because they werepracticing a terrorist taking
control of hijacked planes and hitting US targets.
That's what they were practicingthat date.
And then it happens and you see Bush on television saying, Oh,
we would have never thought thatbro, you were practicing

(05:51):
working. It's like I I can't even believe
it. And now you're telling me as
well, Paul Harbor, that that is so crazy, guys.
The beauty of War Games, Sam, isthat.
Now, what's another thing peopleshould try at once in their
life? Hmm, well, I, I, I, I'm, I'm

(06:15):
going to say this at at the risk.
I said that the single most single most effective thing and
I have found is my faith in Christ.
My, my faith in Christ is my savior and having that as the
governing influence in my life. If you have, for those of you
who have, you don't have a relationship with Christ, my

(06:38):
advice is get one idea because it will change your life in ways
that you do not expect God will.God will lead you.
The God will lead you through paths that are very surprising,
sometimes frightening, but you you need never be afraid of

(06:58):
being alone because because the Bible says that God works all
things together for good. All things work together for
good to them that love God, who are called according to his
purpose. And so you may not believe it at
the time, but it is only after you have gone through some
seemingly very bad experiences that you look back and you say,

(07:23):
oh, that's why that happened. You see how other nations view
us once they understand that andunderstand that other nations
have different perspectives. We're not angels.
Angels, but we all have unique motivations and unique mindsets
that affect the way we do things.

(07:44):
And so that is and that is why again, reading reading books
like prisoners of geography are a good aid to starting that the
studying historical war games orplaying historical war games
causes you it stimulates your mind.
It opens you to possibilities that it would rather than
otherwise not occur to you. So that is a very useful thing.

(08:07):
And right now it's, well, it's, it's just a, a very useful, very
useful exercise in general. Absolutely, cause we're, we're
such in a world that we only think about Osler in our shoes,
how we feel about right. It's like you gotta understand
what they're going through really in their shoes to be, to

(08:30):
be able to make a great opinion about this.
A lot of people are giving opinions and don't even.
Know by the way, that's what I would I would recommend to your
viewers. While this thing you've done in
the name of learning or personalgrowth that most people would
not attempt. Well, I thought you were going

(08:50):
to ask me what was the craziest thing I've ever done.
No, no, that that would that would be interesting.
I don't wanna put you in that. Position I went to Santiago,
Chile in the in December of 2000.
And ironically enough, it was because of my invention of the
Lockwood analytical method for prediction.

(09:12):
And it had spread. And these these young women who
are graduate students at Bernardo O Higgins University in
Santiago, Chile had discovered my method.
And they used my method and showed me and they sent to me a
copy of their masters thesis in which they, you know, all in
Spanish, you know which, which Ihad double the time we had to

(09:34):
get somebody translated from. Yeah, but they had they had used
my lap method and they wanted toinvite me to come give a
lecture. And I did get my company to
sponsor me to a trip down there.And where I was there a
translator over? There, Yeah, yeah, I had a, I
had simultaneous translation, Spanish, English.
Yeah, I had the earphones on andI discipline myself to speak

(09:58):
slowly. Yeah, to to let the guy
translate. Yeah, in UFC, sometimes the guy
doesn't do that. The fighters just happy about
his fight. So he's talking, talking, and
I'm just like, Oh my God, poor translator.
And then the translator goes andit's long there.
But there are some that are smart enough.
They they talk slowly, they stop.
So the guy translate. So you were smart, you picked on

(10:19):
her. Let's not mix them up.

(11:01):
Oh, welcome back on our RumblingFacts podcast.
You're #1 destination to challenge the status quo,
dissect the system, think outside the box and extract raw,
unfiltered wisdom in every episode, no matter how it
rumbles your perspective. People.
Welcome to Romley fax podcast, my dogs.
This is where uncomfortable truths collides with our reality
to fast track our learning in life.

(11:22):
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(11:43):
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(12:03):
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know existed yet, so subscribe to the God damn podcast.
And like the God damn video, it fucking helps a lot.
Today, we're thrilled to have Jonathan Lockwood back on the
show for a second round. And if you haven't heard from

(12:26):
their first conversation conversation, make sure you go
check it out. And in the episode 69, we dove
deep into John's incredible career.
Explore exploring his expertise and his sights on global
security. And we got to hear about his
extensive experience in the US Army, his time and Department of
Homeland Security, and his unique perspective on

(12:49):
international conflicts. And it was truly eye opening
people, and you should go check it out.
He's also the author of A2 groundbreaking books, The Russia
View of US Strategy and the Lockwood Analytical Method for
Prediction Lamp, both available on Amazon.
People. But today, Jonathan is back and

(13:09):
we're taken to another level. We're shifting gears into some
of the most pressing topics on the world stage, the Russia
Ukraine war and the ever evolving geopolitical tension
between the US and Russia and the controversial Golden Dome
proposal from the Trump administration.
Jonathan's a wealth of knowledgeand his ability to breakdown

(13:32):
complex issues with clarity and makes them a perfect guest to
help us understand what's reallygoing on behind the headlines.
So sit back, let's dive into it.Welcome once again to show
Jonathan Lockwood how you doing today, John.
Doing just excellent, Sam. Glad to be here as always.
I'm so glad to have you. I really appreciated that our

(13:53):
first episode we really stuck with your career.
So anybody that wants to understand of the career and
behind the scenes of somebody that went to the highest of high
and insecurity and and it's a very incredible and putting you
through that uncomfortable truthwas kind of nice too, seeing
your thoughts about that. He's always a good mental

(14:15):
exercise. It keeps me on my toes.
A damn right, given that your expertise in intelligence.
How does the disinformation campaign surround the war
surrounding this war play a rolein shaping international
opinion? Are we misreading him?
Are we missing? Misreading Putin of.

(14:37):
The media for to a large extent have been misreading Putin and
to a certain extent the Trump administration.
They and the Trump administration came into office
sincerely believing and President Trump believed that he
could work a deal, that he couldin fact negotiate an end to the
war in Russia and Ukraine because he had.

(15:00):
In 24 hours, like that's what hewas saying.
It I, I could tell that said that that's an overstatement
that would have been stunned if he would have been able to,
especially given Russia's perceptions.
Russia because that that assumption of President Trump
assumes that the Russians were open to compromise.

(15:23):
Now the problem with that is, isthat the Russian language until
the early 1990s had no word to express the idea of compromise.
Now when you think of compromise, when you talk, when
you say to someone, let let's compromise on this.
You. You give, I give.
We. Fair.

(15:43):
Just stop there. You give, I give.
When we think of compromise, we think both sides gain something,
gain something of what they want.
And when the Russians borrowed our word compromise and
incorporated it into their language, gave it to Cyrillic
lettering, transliteration and so forth, when they translate

(16:05):
compromise, they translate compromise.
They're meaning of compromise means mutual surrender.
Both sides lose something. It's a negative connotation.
The Russians hate that. They hate compromise.
And their concept is talk of allwho whom?

(16:26):
Who is superior to whom? Who dominates whom.
In Russian culture and society, you're either someones superior
or you are their inferior. You are never their equal.
Equality is kind of a transient until the proper relationship
can be established that is different.

(16:47):
And so that's why it's so difficult to negotiate contracts
with the Russians, you know, contract to the Russians.
Contracts are like egg shells made to be broken.
Well, what? What do you think the real
reason of this war started compared to what we we've been
fed? Well, we we got part of the

(17:08):
truth. You know, the when the Obama
administration was in office, the Russians tested it by
illegally annexing Crimea, and the Obama administration did
nothing. OK.
That sent a very important signal to Putin and the Russians
and said, OK, they are giving usa Crimea and they're not saying

(17:30):
a word. Maybe we can go farther.
You know, it's kind of think, think about.
It's like that bad kid, you tellhim not to do something and he's
just checking how far he can just profit.
The analogy you seeing how far he can push and until he until
he has forcibly confronted with no and you back it up, he's

(17:51):
going to keep pushing. So the Russians kept pushing and
now then in during the Putin, excuse me, during the Biden
administration, again, there were no signals indicating that
the Biden administration was going to react forcefully to an
invasion of Ukraine. So they invaded Ukraine, and

(18:12):
then all of a sudden they turnedaround and did something.
I expected that when the Ukrainians showed their ability
to resist and frustrate the Russian advance, then the Biden
administration starts supplying them, but in an inconsistent
way. It's sort of not enough to
really beat the Russians back, but just enough to keep them in
the war. Just to keep this going like.

(18:35):
The right. So it's so that was bad.
And then when the Trump, so whenthe Trump administration comes
into power, they see Trump thinks I can, I can work a deal
here, let me do this. So he's he's thinking in terms
of the deal, but he's looking atRussia through the wrong prism,

(18:55):
through the wrong set of lenses.He sees them as someone, some
people like him who are willing to make a deal and they are not
interested in a deal. They are interested in
surrender. You know the the Russian concept
of security is Gaza passionist without danger.
In order for the Russians to feel secure, the nations next to

(19:19):
them must be made to feel insecure or weakened or
subservient, and that is a very different concept.
The Russians will keep pushing forward until they meet decisive
resistance, and that is what theEuropeans understand this.
Yeah, yeah, there's the right beside it.
They know. They remember they are, they are

(19:39):
flocking to Ukraine's defence, European for European Union, for
example, they have imposed sanctions on Russia and they
have European Union has stated that those sanctions will remain
in place until Russia withdraws completely from all of Ukraine,
including the Crimea. Well, Russia showing no signs of

(20:01):
wanting to do that. But guess what?
Those sanctions are going to stay in place.
And you've we've seen increasingly, you know,
President Trump is being enlightened by the situation.
He is realizing that perhaps he had miscalculated that, that
they are not open to a deal in the sense that he understands
it. So he is saying he's getting
ready to impose sanctions, walk away from the ceasefire, walk

(20:24):
away from any deal making and just say the heck with the
Russians. Let the let the Ukrainians beat
the living daylights out of them.
And it is moving toward that andthe Europeans are moving toward
that. So what we are seeing in a net
in the Ukrainians have just thatthey recently started another
counter offensive in in the Kursk region.

(20:44):
So they're showing the Russians,yes, we can still fight, we can
still throw counter offensives. And what I predicted on the
other show, the big move, one that that could be decisive for
this entire Russian Ukrainian war is the Crimea.
You know, you know, the Russian Prussian military theorist Clot
Caravan Clausewitz talked about something called the culminating

(21:05):
point. When a nation launches an
attack, eventually the attack, the offensive reaches a point
where it runs out of steam, where it goes as far as they can
possibly. And then at that moment, the
defender has an opportunity to counterattack and drive the
defender, drive the attacker back.
That is what we are seeing here in the Russian Ukrainian war.

(21:28):
Ukraine has been getting stronger and stronger, building
up their industry, building up their military forces, expanding
their forces, getting new weapons.
They're building new weapons, they're building their own,
they're building their own drones in massive numbers.
They are introducing an entirelynew style of warfare to the
Russians and to the West for that matter.

(21:50):
And so we we're seeing, we're seeing a point, things move
toward a point where eventually in the next few months, quite
possibly where the Ukrainians will be able to unleash a
decisive counter offensive. In my view, it will be in the
Crimea, seal off the Crimea, cutoff the reinforcement link, cut
off the link so they can't supply it, can't reinforce it.

(22:14):
And then the Ukrainian, because they've been building up their
forces, they will have a reserve, a strategic reserve
that that that hasn't been used in combat yet that they will use
in a counter offensive to force the Russian occupiers of Crimea
to surrender when they've been cut.
Off, OK. That will be such a decisive

(22:34):
defeat, operational defeat, which no one else, by the way,
in the in the West is predictingright now.
They're saying all right now there's a way they, that they
Ukrainians can take back Crimea.I disagree.
There is a way to do it, but thebut the key to this is timing.
They have to pick the right moment at which they have the
decisive accumulation of forces.They catch the Russians off

(22:59):
guard. And there are signs that the
Russians are worried about this because they're, you know,
moving forces out of evacuating civilians out of Crimea.
They are not acting like a nation that is confident of
being able to hold on to Crimea.So they're they're not, they're
not the their actions are reflecting something different
than their words. So this is it's a very dynamic

(23:25):
and fascinating situation. Yeah.
Yeah. If you were, if you.
We were, if we were in the middle of World War 2 and we
were saying we were observing the events leading up to the
Battle of L Main in that 1942 late.
Yeah. Before that, that you had been
looking at the president saying,Oh my gosh, that the Nazis are

(23:45):
going to overrun the Middle East.
There was all sorts of panic going on.
Then came the decisive battle. And what we did not know is that
the Nazis were a lot weaker thanwe thought they were.
They did not have the the strength to punch through and
take over the Middle East. And we would not know that until
after the fact. In that same way, we because we

(24:06):
have better intelligence now, wehave a lot more people observing
the situation. Yeah, it's not.
We can we can see the factors take interacting with each
other. Plus, remember, President Trump
is with his energy policies and the Saudi Arabia with their
energy policies. They are dropping the price of
oil down to around $50 a barrel.Russia depends upon oil exports

(24:34):
in order to finance their war effort.
OK, Yeah. And if they can't, if they can't
finance the war effort, they runthe danger, very high risk of
going bankrupt, bankrupting their and distorting their
economy to where when the war eventually does end, they will
be in a state of collapse for atleast a couple of decades.

(24:54):
Right now, right now, the Russians are caught in a no win
situation. They can't.
They can't win the war. They can't afford to end it
either. They're caught in a no win
situation. How does the Russian population
view this war and is there any significant opposition in the
country of Putin's actions? Not that we can see yet.

(25:17):
OK, Yeah, They, they're the Russian population.
They are in supporting the war effort.
You know, they would listen. They believe, they believe
Putin's propaganda to the right.This is a war against NATO, that
we it's a war against the entireW, not just against Ukraine.
Yeah. And that they may not

(25:40):
necessarily agree wholeheartedlywith his idea of restoring the
Russian Empire or or some some maybe sympathetic to his rolling
back the borders of NATO back tothe 1991 at borders are where
they where the Warsaw Pact be Former Warsaw Pact nations were
still more or less aligned with the Soviet Union.

(26:02):
But at this point it it, but if the Russian casualties continue,
if, especially if Ukraine inflicts A decisive operational
defeat on Russia, then these casualties are going to matter
very much. Because that if Russia, if Putin
stock has to stop the war and they all and all these Russian

(26:24):
soldiers return home. And then the people are asking,
why do we, why are we, why did we do?
What do we gain from this, from this war?
We gain nothing. We lost over 1,000,000 people, a
million, a million men. For what?
For your, for your ego, for youregotistical dream of having a, a

(26:45):
restoring the Russian Empire. You know, the both the
demographic consequences, the economic consequences and the
political consequences for Russia will be severe at the end
of this war. And what we the challenge for us
in the West is to manage that very carefully so that we do not
have more chaos. So we can we have the ability to

(27:07):
consolidate Ukraine and restore its economy, give economic aid
to help it to build and to do those other things.
That's why the mineral, the minerals deal concluded between
the US and Ukraine is important because it's, it's the start
potentially of even more, even more cooperation to come.

(27:29):
And especially because the the Ukrainians have shown the United
States military some very valuable lessons, particularly
their their creative and imaginative use of drones.
Secretary of Defence Hegseth hashas decreed it told the
Department of Defence that the all US divisions will

(27:51):
incorporate drones into their weaponry so that the latrine.
Is light and you can bring it anywhere at men.
No sound, man. It's also it also saves manpower
you to stand off. You're fighting the enemy with
robots. Yeah, that.
Your own men. If you exactly.

(28:12):
If you could stand off and engage the enemy without having
to risk your own manpower, and mind you that your own manpower
should still be physically fit with wants you should still be
physically fit. They should have all their
combat skills, but if they haven't the additional weapon of
drones, it makes them that much more effective.
And so forth. They they can risk machinery not

(28:33):
their own, not their own lives. It's like there was a movie.
I I forgot the the name of the the the title, but it's a guy
that detects a minds and bombs at war.
So he has a whole full suit and he's there with a long stick.
And that's what he does in his career, like detecting bombs.
I'm like now that don't exist nomore.

(28:53):
We got little fake dogs and robot just going there and thank
goodness because we were, we were losing men on and on.
Just with you, the movie Terminator.
The original Terminator movie in1984, that was where, you know,
machines were at war with humanity, but you could you can
imagine only in this case now you've got machines and robots

(29:16):
taking the place of of men on the front lines.
And there's sort of an analogy with that.
But drones have a very low a much longer history, a much
longer history in in warfare than you would think because you
first you first started seeing drones and Modern Warfare back
during World War 2, where the German World War 2 and in 1943

(29:40):
and 44, the Germans began launching their V1 buzz bombs.
They were the first cruise missiles and they were low and
slow, but they were terrifying because if you think about the
buzz bomb, when it when you heard the sound cut off, that
meant that it was diving and going to.

(30:00):
It was already too late. If you want what's it suck?
You know what the British could do could do is they could send
some of their fighter aircraft beside an incoming buzz bomb,
yet underneath it tip the buzz bomb so that it spun and went
into the water in the English Channel before it reached.
But you only have so many fighters.
You can't do it if they saturated it with enough buzz

(30:22):
bombs. And of course, then they had the
V2, the the V2 rocket was the first surface to surface
missile. And that that was impossible to
stop. Yeah.
You didn't know. You didn't even know it was
coming until it was too late. Yeah.
Your first warning is the explosion.
Yeah, that's it. So, but anyway, those are those
that those are examples of drones and surface to surface

(30:45):
missile attacks. And to a certain extent, if you
go back far enough, you can see other examples of drone warfare.
But my point is the use of of drone technology and other
technologies. This war is very instructive for
the West, and if we draw the proper lessons from it, it will
it will stand us in good stead and help helping to keep the

(31:07):
peace as well as being prepared for any military conflict with a
sizable opponent. Yeah, hopefully that won't, that
won't take place for we can stave that off for hopefully a
couple of decades. And drones are so like precise
compared to like a helicopter and stuff like that.
And there was a the show, the Olympics, I forgot which one.

(31:30):
And there was a drone show. Oh my God, you were they, they
were creating a huge human walk in and it changed a fraction of
a second. And me, the only thing I was
seeing right there, I'm like, Ohmy God, this is so dangerous.
Like this is incredible because it it's one computer that you
you you choose the design of what you want.

(31:51):
And all the drones are being controlled by this.
And they they do the form in midair.
You're like, Oh my God. So I was just thinking about war
and and how it'd be easy for another country to do real
damage to another without putting nobody in danger,
without creating a huge thing. No, no, you don't need to hijack
no plane now. Yeah, just that drone is

(32:12):
dangerous. Back when I was a kid and my dad
used to like to build model airplanes, gasoline powered
model airplanes. And we would go to these clubs
where everyone would be flying their model airplanes, their
radio, some had radio controlledplanes.
Yeah. And we?
Must not be cheap in that time. No, no, no, no.

(32:34):
No, those are here. Yeah, but radio, this guy, well,
what was really sad, this one guy had a nice radio controlled
model airplane, right? Took off, great look, beautiful.
Then all of a sudden something went wrong with the controls and
the thing did a power die right into the ground.
Completely shattered the model. Anyway, yeah, the guy, the guy

(32:58):
was upset. For sure, there's no fixing it.
Nope, not at all. What do you believe is one of
the biggest mistakes that the West made the the West did in
response to this war? OK, since the thing since the
war is still in progress, it's kind of it's kind of hard to
second guess in the middle of the war.

(33:19):
However, once the Biden administration, once the Biden
administration started giving aid to Ukraine, they should
instead of putting restrictions on how the Ukrainians were to
use the aid that they were given, they should just give the
Ukrainians the maximum amount ofaid that we could afford at the
time. Said, use your best judgment.

(33:42):
Yeah, hit, hit. And arguably it could have hit
the Russians a lot harder. And given the Trump
administration a much easier situation because they're
they're had, they might administration really followed
through and being consistent in their aid and not put any
restrictions on the Ukrainians then, then it it might have been

(34:05):
even easier. The restrictions that they put
on. Not not allowing the Ukrainians
to strike deep. What it's like here we're, we're
giving you 2 of people, but you can't, you can't do this right
here. No, no you can't.
What the hell? Excuse me?
It's our country, not yours. That's incredible you're here.

(34:27):
But they did. They did it anyway.
Wow. Had they not done that, then
arguably the Russian army in in their offensive efforts would be
even even worse shape now. Yeah, they don't exist.
And the Trump administration would have a much easier time of
it negotiating a peace, or at least an Armistice.

(34:52):
Hmm. Because the Russians would be.
Absolutely. As it is, the Russians are
demonstrably weakening in their ability to conduct offensive
operations. They're running out of steam.
They're running out of gas, figuratively and literally.
And as the economic pressure continues, the sanctions,
they're all beginning to bite and steadily lessening the

(35:13):
Russian ability to sustain offensive operations.
And it's up to the Ukrainians now because they're keeping
quiet. They're not they they've
unleashed another tactical counter offensive in the cursed
region. But you know, that's that's just
a prep in my opinion, what the decisive moment will come when

(35:35):
the Ukrainians have decide, OK, now it's time for us to go for
the big prize and that's gettingthe Crimea cut off so that we
can bring it back under our control because the Russians
have made no secret of how important Crimea.
Is. And no secret.
So what Klaus, which would call the centre of gravity, You know,

(35:56):
the entire the correct on this. Yeah.
If in the in the North African campaign in World War 2, the
centre of gravity was the control of the fortress of
Tobruk because it was a major supply port and a fortress.
And whichever side control code Toe Brook had it would have a
big advantage in the in the North Akron desert campaign.

(36:20):
And the reason was that it was so close was that in 42 the
Nazis managed to capture Tobruk and they had that as a forward
supply place. They were able to drive into
Egypt and come very close to taking over Egypt and winning
control of North Africa. But as we but as I said, this is
a things that things are not always as they seem.

(36:42):
Yeah, but it in 1942 the Nazis had just about run out of gas in
1942. And now in 2025, the Russians
are very visibly running out of steam in their in the Russian
Ukrainian war. So that is what what I'm looking
at. And we have to be able to manage
the peace just as skill just as well as being able to Ukrainian

(37:06):
submitted to war thus far. So that is that is where that is
where I stand pretty much right now.
We're Mike, my guest Co commentators on the Russia,
Ukraine, the Ukraine show. We are increasingly optimistic
that and the reason you can tellby the way, that the Russians
are, is their use of missile attacks and drone attacks

(37:29):
against the civilian population of Ukraine.
It it's terror bombing. They're trying to break the will
of the Ukrainian people in much the same way that the Nazis
during the Battle of Britain, once they, they were hammering
away at Fighter Command. They almost had Fighter Command
destroyed. But then the British in

(37:50):
desperation, they launched a night bombing campaign.
They want a night bombing straight against Berlin that
made Hitler so angry that he ordered Gearing in the Luftwaffe
to counter bomb London, begin the blitzing London taking the
pressure off Fighter Command. They're off Fighter Command
allowed Fighter Command to recover, but they were hoping to

(38:11):
break the will of the British people by terror bombing London
who didn't work. So there, that's a historical
example for you. This is a signal that the
Russian military effort has failed.
Now they are resorting to terror, trying to break the will
of the Ukrainian people. From from a national security

(38:33):
perspective, do you think the USshould have a more direct
involvement in the Ukraine conflict or supporting Ukraine
with weapons and sanctions just enough because maybe we don't
want to extend ourselves in there and.
You're correct. We, we do, we don't want to
extend ourselves as far as, as far as military commitment of
actual troops in there because President Trump does not want

(38:54):
that. He will.
He wants to focus on, as he says, making America Great
again, which is not just a slogan.
He is. Just yeah.
He is interested in improving the economic and military
infrastructure, rebuilding and getting us back to a position of
great strength, but he does not want us overextending ourselves
with military commitments to something like the Ukrainian
war. Now he'll use sanctions and

(39:17):
he'll, apparently he's willing to use military aid and resume
that and provide intelligence information to the Ukrainians so
that they can react to and stop any Russian offensive.
So this is all good. And the Trump administration has
come to the realization that thethese are people with whom we
cannot make a deal. It doesn't exist.

(39:37):
So therefore we got to go to this, the second best option.
He he so used to being a businessman and like everybody
got that, that that number. Give me your number.
We got to do and that's he is inthe mindset of everybody.
He believes that everybody wantsto make a deal.
He did a book called The Art. Of the deal.

(40:01):
Have you ever Have you ever watched the movie Kelly's
Heroes? Oh, you should see it that I it
was in 1970. Oh shit.
It had a a, a whole cluster of movie stars in it.
Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Donald Sutherland,
a whole raft of really big name actors.

(40:24):
And basically it is about a ragtag American force that goes
behind German lines because theylearned of an existence of a
bank with a large stockpile of gold, gold bars.
And they want to get that goal for themselves.
And there's a totally unmilitaryoperation, but they had to do it

(40:46):
under the guise of a deep penetration operation.
So anyway, they they go, they gointo, they get to this town and
they find the gold being guardedby an S S commander, a Panzer
unit commander, 3 Tiger tanks and Tiger tanks were superior to
anything that. Were faster.
No, they were bigger, much better armored.

(41:08):
OK, 88mm guns and Sherman tanks against the Tiger.
No, no, no, not, not very, not very good at all.
But in any case, the they, it was realistic in that they had
the ability to use the town to shield themselves from and make

(41:28):
it difficult for the Tiger tanksto maneuver.
But in any case, the climax of that movie shows the shows at
Don Rickles talking to Clint Eastwood.
You're saying he's and, Cleans said.
How do we convince that commander, you know, as he, he
doesn't know what he's guarding,He says.

(41:49):
Well, he said, and Rickle says, why don't you make a deal with
him? This is a deal.
Any in Rickles from New York says, you know a deal.
Deal. Yeah, he's got.
He doesn't know what's in that bank.
So they eventually let him know what the German commander know
what was in that bank and got him on their side and they got
the gold. But but still, that's an example

(42:14):
of the American mindset if you're a businessman mindset
because you saw everybody has their price, price and Trump
think of logically from his mindset says he's got to have
his price. And unfortunately Putin from
Putin's mindset, no, he doesn't.His price is price is

(42:37):
existential. He demands complete surrender.
He wants the reunification of the Russian Empire.
He doesn't just want part of Ukraine, wants all of you.
Create. Yeah, exactly.
And he also wants to rollback NATO's borders.
That is not a problem. That is not a deal that
President Trump is willing to cut under any circumstances.

(42:58):
That's it. Because I think he's going to
fold under everything that you just said there.
He needs all that there and we're not doing that so.
That's not going to happen. So the Russians must be
compelled, not persuaded, compelled, showing that they
have no choice but to pull back,reconsolidate, deal with the

(43:19):
circumstances as best they can. And that because as the as the
Romans once ancient Romans once said, if you want peace, prepare
for war. The the notion that Ukraine is
not a country. Surkov is not the first Russian
to official to make such a claim.

(43:40):
But historical parts of Russia appear to be deeply ingrained in
the minds of Russian leadership,and competing interpretation of
the history has turned into the key ingredient of the Deeping
dispute between Russia and the West, And the subject that Putin
is particularly appears to feel unusually passionate about.

(44:03):
Can you explain this to to people that don't understand
that at all? One anecdote that I recall when
I was talking to one of my colleagues, he said that he was
talking to one of his Russian counterparts about the strategic
arms START talks or reduction inforces of nuclear forces.

(44:23):
And the he asked, he asked the the Russian general what he
thought was the most beautiful city in all of Russia.
His response? Kiev.
Now what does that tell you? Is it that the Russians have
never, the Russians have have always seen Ukraine as being an

(44:47):
integral part of Russia, and in many respects it was the seat of
how the Russian Empire itself began.
An empire itself began. Kievan Rus, Kiev.
He expanded from there. Yeah, that the old hockey team
wasn't just Russia, was Kiev. Exactly what you just said right
there. And I didn't even realize that

(45:08):
till you said, well, OK. So, and during the 20th century
in particular, when right after World War One, there was a clash
between Russia, between the Bolshevik Russia and Ukraine,
the Ukrainians were fighting fortheir independence and trying to

(45:28):
break away. This dispute between Ukraine and
Russia has been going on since really the shortly after World
War One and going through World War Two.
World War 2, after the Soviet forces had come through Ukraine
and reoccupied it, the Ukrainians kept fighting against
the Russians. Russian occupation for years

(45:54):
after World War 2. And it was a a guerrilla
movement which did not fully, was not fully suppressed until
1954. And this was not given much
publicity in the West. But they had this resist, this
continuing resistance to Russianoccupation and seeing themselves

(46:15):
as a separate NS, separate people.
This has been, it is not something which is new.
It has been going on for more than a century.
Century and so therefore, you know, you have two nations with
politically irreconcilable objectives.
Exactly, Russia. Russia believes that Ukraine

(46:36):
should not exist. It has no right to exist.
It is part of the Russian Empire.
Ukraine believe it wants nothingto do with any Russian Empire.
We just want to live on our own.We want to live on our own.
We are a separate people. We are legitimate.
We have we have separate things to offer and they have a very
good argument for it. And there is a book out there by

(47:02):
let's see. It's the title is the Russian
Ukrainian notebook. Look, I have your have your
followers look that title up theRussian Russian the Russian
Ukrainian notebook. It's by author named Earth off
IRI ROV. But in any case that it's the

(47:25):
history of of Ukraine, Russian oppression of Ukrainians under
Soviet rule, and there are some very graphic and very disturbing
stories which show you the depthof animosity that exists between
Russia and Ukraine. And it's not.
It didn't just happen like in the past three years, like
everybody has seen it for years and decades.

(47:49):
Decades and. Stupid people.
We just see what we've been toldher.
Well, and when you read it, whenyou read it, it is the stuff of
nightmares. For sure it is.
Is that disturbing? This is not children's reading.
It's not a a lullaby, people. You know, now this, this make

(48:11):
this makes some of the some of the fairy tales of the Brothers
Grimm look positive, positive, like a Sunday school picnic.
Now, these are these are really,really, really frightening
stories. But in any case, we have this
this long history of animosity between the Russians and
Ukrainians. Back in college, I had a
professor, Doctor Stevens Peroneus, who was my Russian

(48:34):
history professor and who arguably helped set the set.
The. Direction the tone for my future
career. And in his his class on Soviet
Russia, he had two classes of 1 Czarist Russia and one on Soviet
Russia. And one of the things that he
said on more than one occasion in describing the Russians and

(48:55):
Russian behavior, he said the Russians are animals.
And, and I thought, and hearing that from there, I thought that
he was just saying that for dramatic effect.
OK, surely you can't be serious.And but then I started reading
the actual accounts of what the Russians did and who with very

(49:18):
good reason, the jury. Which made me wonder why it
towards the end of World War 2, the Germans didn't take their
two Panzer armies that they wereused going to use for the Battle
of the Bulge, their audience offensive in late 44.
Why they didn't throw them against the Russians and try to
drive them back in order to be able to strengthen the defence

(49:42):
and so as to enable the Germans to surrender to the Americans,
the British or the French, that given the choice, you would much
prefer to surrender to those nations.
You don't want to surrender to the Russians their their
treatment of those who surrenderwould would be actually vicious.

(50:02):
Yes. And so this is a this is yet
another reason why people underestimate because Americans
are for A to a large extent, a historical, we do not look at
history very seriously. Well, in some pocket.
In some pockets we do. Like, yeah, like we discovered

(50:23):
the US and that year the Constitution was here and yeah,
yeah, those parts. But when it comes to stuff that
happens somewhere else. Instead, the most enthusiastic
that we get about our own history is, I would argue, the
American Civil War. Yeah, because that was the most
violent war in our history. Over 687,000 Americans were

(50:44):
killed in the American Civil Warmore than all other wars that
the United States has fought in put together exceeded by
American Civil War and the scaleof casualties is just absolutely
mind boggling. So.
But even then we do know our ourchildren and the populace at

(51:09):
large that does not fully appreciate the impact that the
American Civil War had on our modern society today.
Matter of fact, Ken Burns did this one series on the Civil War
back in the 1990s as I believe about a ten part series and that
you can still get on VHS or something like that.

(51:30):
You can Ken Burns the Civil War.It is well worth getting.
Perhaps one can get it on DVD orsomething like that.
Or online. Or on what you.
Get almost everything is online now.
There you go. You can.
You can get that online and viewit and it is very educational,
very eye opening about the the extent of the influence the

(51:50):
American Civil War had on what we eventually became as a
country. And but anyway.
I'll go check that out. OK.
And so and uncomfortable truths of life.
And have you ever realized that you were a villain in somebody
else's story? And how did you deal with that?

(52:11):
Have I ever with that I was a villain in someone elses story?
Yeah, realizing that you had a negative impact on a person in
particular. We were like, damn, I didn't
even know I was a villain. His story.
Let's see. Well, my wife Kathleen has told
me that that I I'm a very go on the positive side out, she said.

(52:33):
I'm a very wispy weight type of person.
What you see is what you get, but also that there are very few
people who react neutrally to me.
They either will really like me or they really dislike me for
one reason or another. So as far as my being the
villain in someone else's life, that would imply that I was

(52:54):
somehow the oppressor. Not never.
Have I really been viewed as theoppressor.
Emma. Was I a threat?
There were situations in which the, you know, a couple of ex
bosses of mine viewed me as a threat, someone they needed to
get rid of. Or in one in one case, one of my

(53:17):
ex bosses was trying to drive mein.
One ex boss was cooperating withanother EX boss of me and they
were teamed up. When your exes talk to one
another. Two EX bosses, this is even
worse. So they were getting appeared

(53:37):
having apparently colluding in trying to drive me out of the
federal government. Fortunately for me, you know
that and I saw what they were upto.
Fortunately for me, I had been in the federal government taking
advantage of a little clause where I if I paid back money to
the federal. Government you talked about.

(54:00):
Lying back, buying back my active duty service 14 years
worth and being able to then take that and apply it toward my
civil service retirement. Once I had done that, I did
that. I was succeeded in doing that.
They informed me that Human resources informed me in the
fall of 2016 that I had had accumulated enough credit to to

(54:26):
qualify for a 25 year DHS retirement.
Now DHS had not even been in existence for 25 years.
By buying back I created something shouldn't exist.
I have GTA levels, so I I was the villain in the sense that I
was a threat. Yeah.

(54:48):
There there's and so, but my strategy there was simply
escape. Just curious to take that and
once they made their move to tryand drive me out, you know, I
was this is during Christmas leave Christmas vacation.
I looked up and I thought I gavea call human resources and I
said, OK, how soon, how fast canI retire?

(55:14):
And they told me you can retire at the end of any month in which
you at the beginning of the month send a message indicating
your intent to retire and you can retire as of the end of that
month. So at the beginning of January
2017, I got sat down, my computer said get included my

(55:34):
China, my chain of command, all the people that that needed to
know and said this is to inform you that I am retiring as of
January 31st, 2017. Point of contact and human
resources that and it was incredible.
Yeah, that's it. And then when I came back off of
Reed and confronted my soon to be ex boss, yeah he was.

(56:00):
He was a thrashing around. If they said he was going, he
wanted to write an end of the final performance appraisal.
Wanted to write one last performance.
Yeah. And I told him you might as well
save yourself the trouble. Save yourself the trouble.
It does you no good. I'm I'm leaving the federal.

(56:21):
Government legally and that loophole was closed right right
when you. Left.
I'm getting my retirement. I'm getting retirement.
You can't stop. It exactly Yuki you all you can
stop. The next ones did not.
Do that. You can't.
Yeah. So you save yourself a lot of
trouble and a lot of unnecessarywork.
Just let it go. Don't bother to write the

(56:43):
report. I'll be gone at the end of the
month and that's the end of it. And he was he?
Reluctantly, yes. Concluded that I was right.
And so, you know, so I had my retirement and he retired about
a year or two after that. So realistically, but yeah, have
I ever, have I ever been the villain?

(57:04):
Not necessarily the villain, butI have been the object of
opposition where other people regarded me as the person that
needed to be destroyed. God, what's an uncomfortable
truth about human nature that your career has shown you?
Who An uncomfortable truth abouthuman nature.
That your career showed you. People will lie.

(57:27):
Absolutely. When you think that the first
night I would. I wouldn't lie to you, bro.
Yeah, you would. People will lie, they will lie
like Persian rugs if they see itis in their best interest to do
so. You have my father once advised
me that when I was growing up, always consider the source of

(57:48):
any remark because what they say, because they're not
necessarily telling you going totell you the truth.
And my mother gave me similar very useful advice that whenever
I run into an obstacle in life. If you can't go over it through
it, no go around it to find a way around the.
Obstacle. Don't deal with it.

(58:09):
Wow. Well, it's something what's
something's society celebrates, but deep down you believe it's
completely backwards or broken. Society celebrates success.
Society celebrates being able tomake money.
Society celebrates worldly success.

(58:32):
As a Christian, I believe that you know, worldly success is not
the is not everything. God does give success and does
grant, but He does it for his reasons, not ours to us.
Something else for my part? Well, one of my best friends in
high school wrote in his annual to me when I was getting ready

(58:55):
to go to West Point. He wrote to me that he he was
going to be praying for me next year when I was at West Point
because he wanted me to do the impossible, to retain my
uniqueness at West Point. And he said, in spite of what's
rumoured, I believe you care very much for all of us and you

(59:16):
care very much for peace. He said then, I don't wish you
success in life, but I do wish you happiness and I wish you the
wisdom to know the difference. And yeah, very profound.
This is something at that momentthat you don't get 100%, but
years later you're like oh damn,that was.
Quickly realized and the interesting thing, and in

(59:41):
retrospect, it was more true as the years went on.
Yeah, for sure. And I have a I have had a lot
of, I do have a lot of happinessin my life and I have had
interesting enough also enough of enough success to wearing of
course, I'm retired Colonel, retired GS15 published books.
Now, that's not exactly a sign of failure.

(01:00:04):
And there is a prospect God is arranging the circumstances of
my life so that there are prospects for me to have further
successes for for reasons that God only knows.
And that's the key is that to bebe able to keep ones priorities
straight in the not not thinkingthat worldly success or worldly

(01:00:29):
material goods are the thing that that you should be striving
for. Exactly.
And so that that that that's what helps keep things in
perspective. For example, you're talking to a
man who's grateful that he doesn't have cancer anymore.
You know, You know, remember what?
Yeah. God spared President Trump from

(01:00:50):
an Assassin's bullet twice in order so that many people have
told us that he could fulfill God's larger purpose for his
life. Well, I would argue in the same
way my wife told me that God spared me from dying of cancer
three years ago so that I could fulfill a larger purpose.
So now my job is to continue exploring now that I'm grateful

(01:01:13):
that I didn't die of cancer and everything else is under
control. So then now I my adventure is
saying OK, OK God, what's next? I like that and and what's a
hard drive, truth about love, relationships or loyalty that
you had to learn a painful way. OK, love.
People like that could be good. Well, yeah, I mean, I've had,

(01:01:38):
I've had young women lie to me before, for sure.
I've had, I had and I've had unrealistic expectations about
relationships. But the interesting thing is my
wife, Kathleen, 2, Mama. I've been married for over 36
years and we came to each other.We're kind of almost like by a

(01:02:02):
broken Rd. in and we ended up almost by divine Providence
coming to each other. And Kathleen has told me on more
than one occasion that you and she said that you, you and I are
not everyone's cup of tea, but we are very well suited to each
other. Yeah, last episode when you said

(01:02:22):
that, when you said that last episode, I was like, no, but
you're in the same cup of tea. Yeah.
And and people were like at you,you 2 are like 2 sores that keep
sharpening each other and one that you have a one person in
the relationship that's a highlyintellect.
Well, somehow that other person needs to be a little bit that

(01:02:43):
somehow because or else that person is never going to be
enough for that. Person, let me tell you, my wife
arguably has a higher. IQ than that's what you said the
other day. Too.
Yeah, also she is an absolutely voracious reader. 70,000.
And that's, and that's a conservative estimate.
Yeah, we tried to do an estimateof the number of books she's

(01:03:03):
read over her lifetime, right? It could well be closer to
100,000. But she can speed read and she
can speed read with comprehension.
So I mean, that's impressive. Yeah.
And she she is not, she is not just narrowly focused.
She reads everything she can gether hands on that interests her
in the slightest. And so she is a very, has a very

(01:03:24):
wide-ranging eclectic set of interests which are very useful
to me. And I get, you know, likely
lectures or data dumps and stuffin new insights and things to
think about. Yeah, drug that feeds your
knowledge. They're like, oh man.
Oh yeah, but. But our relationship has never

(01:03:46):
been boring. Never.
Ever. And what is your I analyze of
Putin's broader vision of Russia's role in this world,
especially in relation to the NATO and the West?
Putin's view is very much an extension because no man ever

(01:04:07):
really escapes the assumptions of his age or of his culture.
And remember, you must remember Putin's outlook.
And This is why my both the Russian view of US strategy.
Still relevant. Today, still relevant because of
that viewpoint shaped Putin's viewpoint.
The book itself ends just beforeends, really just before it ends

(01:04:28):
with the end of the former Soviet Union.
But the outlook, the viewpoint that that's what shaped Putin's
outlook. So if you understand what the
book does is it helps you understand why Putin thinks the
way he does, why he thinks Russia's nuclear arsenal is so
vital to Russia's great power status.

(01:04:50):
Russian Former Russian PresidentBoris Yeltsin in a speech to the
Russian Duma back in 1994, stated that the only reason
Russia is considered a great power is because its armed
forces have nuclear weapons now.He practically gave the game
away when he did that because that shows you on what a
slender, on what a narrow foundation.

(01:05:12):
Russia's great power status rests without their nuclear
arsenal to act as a means of intimidation, as a symbol of
great power status. Without their nuclear arsenal,
they're just a second rate power.
They're they're conventional forces are nothing to nothing to
be afraid of. They've shown that they can't
win conventionally there. They have gone through the skill

(01:05:36):
of their armed forces is questionable and they are
relying on mass attacks and whatthey what they call meat
attacks, which are just simply not not working out.
And so Russia and Putin believesthat when he calls it Yadera,
Anaya Lustra, Shinaya seal, nuclear intimidation forces,

(01:05:57):
luster Shinya means intimidation.
You know, they don't have an exact word for deterrence in the
sense that we use deterrence. They translated as us as
intimidation. And so this is a very important
point. That's why they brandished the
use of their nuclear arsenal. The potential is they they've
been threatening to use it the entire war.

(01:06:19):
And even in the very recently hesaid he hopes that he would not
have to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
OK, Yeah, yeah. OK.
OK. We've heard that.
We've heard that before, boot. And so now it's a but it's a
question of he said he sees Russia's nuclear arsenal as
being key to helping Russia achieve its foreign policy

(01:06:43):
objectives, the reunification ofthe Russian Empire and the
rollback of NATO to its pre 1991borders.
And This is why the way, by extension, This is why President
Trump's Golden Dome proposal, which is serve a 21st century
version of the Strategic DefenceInitiative Star Wars program.

(01:07:04):
This is why I can tell you that that Golden Dome proposal
terrifies the Russians. They won't say it publicly, but
it terrifies them. Because the one thing what
you're readers should, what yourlisteners should take away is
that the one thing with the Russian military, political and
military leadership fear more than anything else is the

(01:07:25):
potential of American technologyto neutralize the one thing that
makes Russia great power, its nuclear missile arsenal.
And by extension, the Chinese political leadership and the
North Korean political leadership.
And certainly they're Iranian political leadership.
They fear that potential, too, because United States, through

(01:07:47):
its golden Dome, is able to neutralize Russia's nuclear
arsenal. By extension, it neutralizes
China. And everything, yeah.
Everybody. And with that, without their
nuclear arsenals to threaten or intimidate the West, nothing.
What's the worst case scenario if Russia doesn't fold for

(01:08:07):
fucking anything and the war keeps dragging on?
Will will it? Will this keep confined in
Europe or it has a potential to escalate into something even
more global? The the only historical analogy

(01:08:28):
or example that I would use for it.
Escalating beyond that, during the during the Cold War, the
Soviet leadership like to discuss something potential
problem which they call the crisis of capitalism.
And in that they institute they were cautioning their readers to
be aware of the crisis of capitalism which could occur at

(01:08:50):
any time. Essentially the United States,
the capitalist leaders of the capitalist world.
Well, as the socialist revolution continues to gain
successes in the world, eventually the United States and
its capitalist allies will become so desperate that they
will lash out with a nuclear warand reverse the situation.

(01:09:12):
And that's what they call the crisis of capitalism.
Now we are seeing its potential reverse here in the Cold Post
Cold War era, where Russia sees that its offensive in Ukraine is
failing and the consequences of the failure in that war are
going to be absolutely devastating for Russia.
And for Putin to say he hopes that he will not be have to use

(01:09:35):
nuclear weapons, well, that's a very veiled way of again, trying
to use the intimidation value ofnuclear weapons in an effort to
coerce a peace that is favorableto Russia.
And the danger is if Putin perceives that his own his own

(01:09:56):
life is at stake or his own existence is at stake, he might
well lash out with a nuclear strike in Ukraine.
It is possible. Now I would, I would caution
people would say, well, that would be strategic suicide for
Russia. I don't think he cares about
what other countries think. No, I don't think he.

(01:10:17):
Does that that would be I would caution historically before
World War 2 before the Japanese strike on Pearl Harbor World War
2 the United States Navy to its credit and conducted a series of
war games studying potential warfare in the Pacific against
Japan and as part of this they war games.

(01:10:40):
The possibility could the Japanese strike Pearl Harbor and
they warned and they concluded that yes the.
Japanese. They they they said yes, the
Japanese could launch a successful strike against Pearl
Harbor and what they said that they added, but it would be

(01:11:00):
strategic suicide for these Japanese to do it with something
mobilize and kick their bus in so many words and they're the
Navy was correct. It would be strategic suicide if
the Japanese they were. Corrected.
What they did not recognize was the state of desperation in the

(01:11:22):
Japanese leadership mindset whenthe when the US cut off steel
and oil to the Japanese. At that point, the Japanese
leadership had two choices, surrender or attacker or.
Do they do a big move? You do a big move and roll the
dice. Take your chances.
What's crazy? What's crazy about the war games

(01:11:44):
that you just said there? I, I didn't know that and I
researched Pearl Harbor and I didn't know that part.
And that is fucked up because when you look at 911, OK, well,
we were doing war games that dayto and, and the week prior and
that date because when the air traffic controls were like, oh,
we have a, maybe a hijacked plane is like, is this a real

(01:12:05):
life or this? So they they had to confirm to
the The Jets because they were practicing terrorists taking
control of hijacked planes and hitting US targets.
That's what they were practicingthat date.
And then it happened and UC Bushon television saying, oh, we
would have never thought that bro, you were practicing

(01:12:28):
working. It's like I I can't even believe
it. And now you're telling me I was
a, well, Pearl Harbor, That thatis so crazy.
Guys, the beauty of war games Sam is that what what why war
games are such a beautiful tool is that they can not only show
you what can go wrong with your plan.

(01:12:49):
You could war game to see where the bugs are.
But war games can also, if properly used and properly
constructed, can also tell you why you shouldn't start that
particular war at all if you're willing to listen.
But unfortunately with some war games, the the war game
controllers don't always pay attention to the lessons of the

(01:13:12):
war game. I'll give you one more example.
The Battle of Midway where the Japanese, you know, lost 4
carriers and they had, the Japanese had war games that an
attack on Midway and they were, and they had the American side,
you know, conducting with their operations, with their carriers

(01:13:32):
and with their original plan, the American side in the war
game successfully sank 4 of the Japanese aircraft carriers.
And yeah, the, the Japanese leadership could not accept
this, this, oh, that can't be right.
So they, so they restarted the war game, reflowed, and they

(01:13:53):
repeated the war game until theygot the results that they wanted
when they started. And then they launched their
disastrous Midway campaign. So you have people.
War games are useful, but only if you're willing to pay
attention to the result. Like are, are you analyzing the
details of what's happening, the, the, everything,

(01:14:14):
everything, instead of just fucking doing a war game until
you get the right result that you were there?
Can you, um, the, the Trump administration proposed a Golden
Globe in the Middle East. How does this proposal fit into
the broader strategy interest for the US?

(01:14:34):
And how? And does this relate a bit to
the war as well? Well, Golden Dome proposal of
the Trump administration, as I point, I think I pointed out
previously, is a, an extension or a, an upgrade really of the
previous Star Wars program, the SDI program of the 1980s that

(01:14:54):
Ronald Reagan had proposed. The the difference is, is that
SDI was a research and development program.
It was not actual deployment. The Russians misread that
program. They thought it was an actual
deployment program and they spent all kinds of money trying
to counter what was eventually essentially a phantom SDI

(01:15:15):
program. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Problem. But now Golden Dome is we have
the technology, now we have very, we have very good
ballistic missile defence technology.
And the aim of Golden Dome is toaccomplish for the United States
what Iron Dome accomplishes for Israel.

(01:15:36):
The crucial difference is that for Iron Dome, Israel only has
to worry about short range intermediate range ballistic
missiles, and their Iron Dome isvery effective against that.
And they have to worry principally about Iran now for
the United States, it United States has to worry about
intercontinental ballistic missiles, which come over the

(01:15:59):
North Pole from Russia, from China, and potentially even from
North Korea if they have a missile that's can reach that
far. But intercontinental ballistic
missiles have a much higher arc and it is much more difficult
for normal ballistic missile defence systems like Patriot or

(01:16:20):
Thad or other systems to intercept intercontinental
ballistic missiles in their boost phase.
That's the key. In order to intercept an
intercontinental ballistic missile, a long range missile
with a lot, with multiple warheads and decoys and things
like that, you have to be able to catch the missile while it's

(01:16:40):
on its way up, when it is most vulnerable.
And where you can do that, you can only do that from Earth
orbit. It has to be sitting up there in
Earth orbit and it has to have the right weapons with laser
weapons or even short range missiles to destroy those
missiles in their boost phase. Right now the systems that we

(01:17:01):
have cannot based on where they're deployed, the the
geometry just doesn't work out, the orbital mechanics don't work
out, the numbers don't. There's no way we think you can
deploy or fire fast enough and be able to to intercept them.
So in the the Congress realizes this implicitly because what

(01:17:23):
they are doing they are proposing for example, I think a
$900 million a part of that golden 900 million of that is
for a space based interceptor study.
OK, none, Hernandez to study this problem, Say, OK, what's
the best way to deploy space based interceptors in order to

(01:17:43):
seal the golden Dome so there's no hole in the golden Dome for
which the enemy can fire. So now, now here comes the
problem. Elon Musk, you know, probably
speaking a little bit too hastily.
He and other companies are talking about building hundreds
of satellites. You know that we aren't, but

(01:18:04):
lasers and missiles and things like that construct this huge
constellation of satellites to complement existing systems and
basically relying on satellites to defeat these intercontinental
ballistic missiles. Well, there's a problem with
that. Back in 1997, I participated in
a war game called the Army 1997 Army.

(01:18:26):
After next Winter War game it ithad 500 / 500 participants
representing nations from all over the world, including and I
was on the red team representingRussia and and then on that
Russia team were Russian experts.
You know, experts had signed to know how the Russians thought.

(01:18:49):
Yeah, blue had its experts and all these other colour coded
countries had their experts. And we set up a scenario which
oddly enough was to occur in theyear 2020 in with both sides.
Both sides had satellites in space that could do these types

(01:19:10):
of things, which wasn't doing golden Dome now and then.
So they had those satellites andthe the trigger cause of the
war. Well, you know, the war game
designers wanted it to be in Belarus and and the the red team
decided that no, Ukraine is the more decisive.

(01:19:32):
We decided we just decided to invade Ukraine in the war game.
But when we were discussing thatwar, I looked at the force
structure of Blue and the other assumption says, and I told the
Red leader that everything that Blue does run through their
satellites. Unless we make is the first act
of the war a preemptive strike in space that takes out Blues

(01:19:57):
communications and intelligence satellites, we are going to
lose. And.
So and you have full sidelights falling from the sky.
No, no, no, not raining satellite.
Ohe shoot. There weren't that many, that
many satellites in, in this particular war game.
But what red did is we launched A preemptive strike to take out

(01:20:21):
Blues communications and intelligence satellites.
And we, we submitted our move for the day and went home to
hotels. And then I came back in the next
morning and the the blue, the blue people, the blue
controllers are all in a panic because they could not move.
No, you, you, you checked them. Checkmate.
Right away and we were told by the war game controllers that

(01:20:45):
absent intervention by the war game controllers, Red had just
won the war. And and of course to the people
who were at the war college who were organizing this war game,
that's not supposed to happen. The bad guys aren't supposed to
win a war game because this threatened to whole bunch of
contracts and other development that this so they restarted.

(01:21:06):
The. They restarted the war game
pretending that the red attacks weren't successful.
And so, yeah, I went to the red president and said, oh, he
thought they were just trying towhitewash the whole thing and
cover everything up. So, OK, so I went to our ASAT
people. And so how many Asats do we have

(01:21:27):
left? Or about 30?
I said, fine, put high yield nuclear warheads on them and put
them in orbit. We put them in orbit.
And in the war game we detonatedall the nuclear weapons in Earth
hurt simultaneously. That absolutely destroyed in the
war game the entire space infrastructure and created an
event that the war game could not simulate, namely the global,

(01:21:51):
the collapse of the global economic infrastructure that
will result from the instructionof all earth satellites.
So anyway, what what the lesson of that war game to me was if
you rely on satellites for spacebased defence, you are creating
an unstable hair trigger situation in low Earth orbit.

(01:22:13):
You are creating the equivalent of a Mexican standoff in low
Earth orbit in which the side that fires 1st 1st and this has
a decisive advantage. And so that is why when I hear
and I read about people like Elon Musk said, oh, we'll just
put a bunch of satellites out there.
No, you won't. You better not because he he's a

(01:22:33):
threatening to duplicate or replicate the situation that
occurred in that 1997 war game, and we would have the same bad
result. How do you stop that?
Well, interestingly enough, ElonMusk has the solution in his
very hands. What you do is in order to make
the Golden Globe perfect. Sorry, Golden Dome.
Now you got me doing it. Yeah, you're you're you're

(01:22:57):
contagious. Anyway, the goal In order to
make the Golden Dome perfect andmake it a perfect seal, you have
to upgrade the Space Force. You upgrade the Space Force with
starships, Falcon Nines, Falcon Heavies, and starships that Elon
Musk already has. You give them to the Space Force

(01:23:18):
ohe about say 12 starships, 12 Falcon Heavies, 12 Falcon Nines
and entire space fleet with supporting resupply spacecraft.
And you arm those space growth starships with laser weapons
armed, put them in orbit with laser weapons and you have other
weapons with which to destroy nuclear missiles in their boost

(01:23:40):
phase. You have a series of those that
can destroy them in their boost phase.
And the advantage of that is theRussian, the Russian and Chinese
counter space satellites dare not fire on a Starship because
that's a clear act of war because sadly, if a satellite
destroys another satellite, big deal satellites satellites don't
have mothers. But if you have Space Force

(01:24:02):
Guardians in those starships patrolling or low Earth orbit
and guarding against a nuclear attack that you fire on that
clear act of war. And realistically those
starships would, would, there would be no prohibition against
their preemptively destroying Russian and Chinese counter
space satellites before a war even begins.

(01:24:24):
That's the promise of upgrading the the golden Dome with a space
fleet. And no one, I'll tell you, Sam,
no one is talking about that. No one even thinks of that
because that is a. That is what you call an out
totally out-of-the-box solution,and your listeners are hearing

(01:24:45):
this for the first time. They should do and what they
should do, well, other than buying my book and using it as a
good and good thing for if they're having trouble falling
asleep at night, if you do that is, they should be notifying.
They should be talking to their congressmen and their senators
and say, oh, by the way, you know, we need, if you want, if

(01:25:09):
you were serious about the Golden Dome and protecting
America, you need to upgrade theSpace Force with a space fleet
that's a lot cheaper, believe itor not, than building hundreds
of satellites that could be easily destroyed by counter
space action. And by the way, it's also a
response that would totally throw our opponents off balance

(01:25:30):
because they do not expect that.And, and there's and so that is
that is something. So the golden Dome, it is a
worthwhile objective. President Trump needs the right
most, the right way to do it, the most cost efficient and
effective way to do it. And the way to do it is not

(01:25:51):
simply build more satellites, which simply creates that
Mexican standoff I talked about,but instead create a space force
with a space fleet that can effectively destroy and control
Earth orbital space. And oh, by the way, you get
other interesting bonus capabilities when you have a
space fleet. Yes, what you can do with a
space fleet, what's in Earth orbit, you can do other things

(01:26:14):
such as, for one thing, this sounds mundane.
It's very important, cleaning upspace junk, you know, although
all those spare parts and all that junk we got the space fleet
could, as an ongoing mission, just gather up and you get
taken, you know, on board all that excess space junk and then
periodically send one of its starships to the moon, establish

(01:26:40):
a space base on the moon and you, you create an effect, a
lunar junkyard where you offloadall that junk.
Yeah, there's lots of rare earthmineral.
There's lots of rare earth minerals in those satellites.
Probably. Process that, process that and
recycle it back to Earth. So you could have, but you could

(01:27:04):
clean up the space junk, recycle.
What's it, what's you still useful.
Rather than having those those pieces of space junk burn up in
Earth's atmosphere, which could be hazardous, you just keep
policing up all that junk. That's one thing.
Another bonus capability that you get with a space fleet.
You know, people worry about, oh, an asteroid or meteor or

(01:27:26):
comet could one day collide withEarth.
Not if you have a space fleet. You assign the mission of
blocking, deflecting, or destroying any near Earth object
that threatens to collide with Earth and with a space fleet.
With Space Force Guardians you you have a means of of doing

(01:27:47):
precisely that, with one or moreships assigned to a potential
Near Earth object threatening todestroy Earth.
That's perfect. Just like an Armageddon.
There you go. Only aren't.
This is Armageddon Plus this is.This doesn't have to be as
dramatic. Yeah.
In theory, in theory, Sam, you could even with the as AI robots

(01:28:09):
become more sophisticated, you could if it if it turns out that
you needed to really knock a bigasteroid off course, you could
take a a Starship man it with a nothing but AI robots,
sophisticated AI robots as the crew, no human crew, but you put

(01:28:30):
you put that Starship on a collision, on a collision course
with the asteroid to knock it off course.
It would be a suicide mission with a human crew, but with AI
robots. OK, it's AI robots, so that that
would be unconventional. Of course there are, they said,
Oh, you're sacrificing the robots, you cruel person.

(01:28:51):
I know. Shut up.
I'll build. I'll build more as.
Like, build what? We could build more robots.
We'll make a memorial to the AI robots if you want.
But in any case, once you have aspace fleet, my point is you
have more options, you can do more things, and you have more
ways to react to what would otherwise be an existential

(01:29:12):
crisis. And that that this, this gives
you and the Space Force fleet could also assist NASA in its
return to the moon in the exploration of the moon.
And even if, and this is still, I still consider this a big
stretch mission, a mission to Mars.
That to me, the big sticking point for Mars is you need to

(01:29:36):
get there fast. I mean, you're not going to do
it with a chemically powered Starship that takes six to seven
months to get there. That's just insane.
And with a nuclear thermal propulsion engine, which they're
working on, OK, that cuts down the time maybe to two months.
My argument is you really, what you really wanna do is you wanna

(01:29:57):
get a he fusion, fusion propulsion, fusion power that
puts the entire solar system within our reach and it also
enables you to get to closer objectives a lot quicker, thus
reducing the stress on the crew and other other factors that
would otherwise make interplanetary exploration

(01:30:18):
problematic. Would there be a political and
and diplomatic consequences? Consequences to building a
golden Dome. Well, the the political
consequences for building a golden Dome is that the Russians
and the Chinese and the North Koreans would be absolutely

(01:30:40):
against it. Yeah.
But like they have no call they're in that or do they?
They they, they, they don't havethe ability to prevent it.
They have. They might, in an extreme case,
think, well, we might as well launch a nuclear attack now
before they build it. Yeah, it could trigger.
Them but but that would be again, that would be strategic

(01:31:03):
suicide on their part. Maybe once once they realize
that we have the capability to create a golden Dome with a
space fleet as its central pillar, they would.
I would suggest to them that they all should start channeling
Mr. Rogers and learning how to be good neighbors.

(01:31:25):
So for the critical thinking andthinking outside the box
situation, name two things people should try at least once
in their life. OK, two things that people
should try at least once in their Life.
OK, try putting yourself in the position of an opponent and

(01:31:48):
opposing nation. Now, one of these things is
there are, for example, I'm a big fan of war games, a big fan
of commercial war games. And you should try putting
yourself in the position of the traditional enemy in in the war
game, for example, and learning how the opponent would see that

(01:32:10):
situation. And the intelligence community
has a method called the devil's advocate method, where you try
to, and this is where you try totake an opposing position and
argue in favor of that. And so you should.
And debating societies, debatingclubs always have always done

(01:32:31):
this, where you've had people trying to take opposite sides of
an issue and learn to see both sides of an issue.
So This is why games, games as ageneral rule, are very excellent
tools, are very excellent hobby.Like risk like you said.
Ohhhhh yeah go. I'm so confused.

(01:32:51):
Because the last show you, you talked about risks and how that
changed everything when you werea kid.
You just wanted to learn more about the knowledge of the of
these countries and games. Games can really put your mind
to. And why while I would, there are
two things I would recommend forour viewers regarding the
current world situation. If you want to educate yourself

(01:33:13):
and have a tool towards towards how to understand the world
better if from a geopolitical standpoint first, I would
recommend him to them the book Prisoners of Geography.
Yeah, I put on screen that last show, Yeah.
By Tim Marshall Yeah, excellent book 10 maps that explain the

(01:33:35):
geopolitical situation for various countries.
There's a chapter on the United States, there's a chapter on
Russia, there's a chapter on China, and then it goes through
all the other, you know, potential areas.
And that gives you a very good basic understanding of the
geopolitical factors affecting major world powers.
That's one. Then another good tool extension

(01:33:57):
with this. And this is a great exercise for
people to play with their friends.
I think you said in the. Show me the Take the game of
Risk. Take the game of Risk.
That any game will do but the game of Risk and you play what I
call the Trump scenario you have.
You have six players in this game each.

(01:34:20):
Each player is given control of one continent each.
North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia,
South America, Those 6. The Trump player has control of
North America, all of North America, and each of the other

(01:34:41):
other five players. They have control of one
continent each, so they get the benefit of the starting control
of the continent plus whatever additional armies they get.
And then you and they each player, they get 20 armies to
deploy. They can deploy them any way
they wish. And then the Trump player gets

(01:35:02):
the first move. And depending on what the Trump
player does in North America, does he try a war of conquest?
Does he know that? How?
How did he distribute it? But you play the Trump scenario
and you see, and it becomes a very interesting exercise in
diplomacy, how diplomacy affectsthese.

(01:35:24):
And so using that, plus having read Prisoners of Geography now
you know, you have a greater understanding and a comma and
all your readers gain a common language, a common framework
will create within which to analyze all of this.
So that that's an interesting exercise and I would highly
recommend it. And now, what's another thing

(01:35:45):
people should try at once in their life?
Hmm, well, I, I, I, I'm, I'm going to say this at at the
risk. I said that the single most,
single most effective thing thatI have found is my faith in
Christ. My, my faith in Christ is my

(01:36:08):
savior and having that as the governing influence in my life.
If you have, for those of you who have, you don't have a
relationship with Christ, my advice is get one.
Get it because it will change your life in ways that you do
not expect God will. God will lead you.

(01:36:29):
The God will lead you through paths that are very surprising,
sometimes frightening, but you you need never be afraid of
being alone because because the Bible says that God works all
things together for good. All things work together for
good to them that love God, who are called according to his

(01:36:51):
purpose. And so you may not believe it at
the time, but it is only after you have gone through some
seemingly very bad experiences that you look back and you say,
oh, that's why that happened. Because you, as many of the very
good things that I am now experiencing could not possibly

(01:37:13):
have happened unless God led me through those bad experiences
first. I had to experience those bad
experiences in order to experience the greater good that
came after them. It's like at the phrase you said
of was Winston Churchill your your day that if you're walking
through fire and here is like walk through.

(01:37:34):
It says if you find yourself going through hell, keep going.
That's it. I love it.
Man, I first time I ever heard that too.
Name three countries or places that people should visit at
least once. Hmm, three countries as well.
OK, the countries that I have visited during my lifetime, OK.

(01:37:56):
Of course, as as an army intelligence officer, I visited
Germany in France. Germany I would highly
recommend. See, I would have, I would have
thought you would have said that.
That's nice. OK.
Germany. Germany would.
I studied German in high school and in college and it was my
natural inclination when when I was came first came on active

(01:38:20):
duty and I was at Fort Huachuca and the assignments officer has
assigned me to Fort Huachuca. And I asked them why didn't you
send me overseas when they told me, well, we saw that you had a
PhD and we wanted to get immediate use out of your PhD
and so fun. Then in 1984 and they tell me,
Captain Lockwood, you need a tactical assignment.

(01:38:42):
And I said fine, send me to Germany, make me a big great
brigade AS2 brigade intelligenceofficer.
So I was able to get make use ofmy German, make you make friends
with the population. You get along got along great.
So I went to Germany. I was able to experience and
have a greater appreciation for German culture and history.

(01:39:03):
So that's one place that I one country that I would visit that
and I would still recommend it to our viewers that if you
definitely want to see Germany and especially if you love beer,
they have over 300 different kinds of beer.
Awesome. You're not going to be able to
stamp them all. No, sorry.
They they have they have beers, they have breweries that go back

(01:39:24):
to the year 900 AD. Wow.
It's absolutely amazing. But in any case, that's one
country. Yeah, Germany and in another
country that I would recommend, even though I have myself have
not been to it. England, Great Britain, England.
Yeah. And those would be the second

(01:39:46):
one now in one other country that I was invited to, that I
got to see that I didn't think Iwould ever see.
I went to Chile. Santi went to Santiago, Chile in
the in December of 2000. And ironically enough, it was
because of my invention of the Lockwood analytical method for

(01:40:06):
prediction. Awesome.
And it had spread and these, these young women who were
graduate students at Bernardo O Higgins University in Santiago,
Chile, had discovered my method.And they used my method and
showed me and they sent to me a copy of their masters thesis in
which they all in Spanish, in which which I had double the

(01:40:29):
time. We had to get somebody, yeah,
but they had, they had used my lamp method and they wanted to
invite me to come give a lectureand I did get my company to
sponsor me to a trip down there.And where I was there a
translator over? There, Yeah, yeah, I had a, I
had simultaneous translation, Spanish, English.
Yeah, I had the earphones on andI discipline myself to speak

(01:40:53):
slowly. Translate Yeah, in UFC sometimes
the guy doesn't do that. The fighters just happy about
his fight. So he's talking, talking, and
I'm just like, Oh my God, poor translator.
And then the translator goes andit's long there.
But there are some that are smart enough.
They they talk slowly, they stop.
So the guy translate So you weresmart, you picked on.

(01:41:15):
Let's not mix them up. I spy spoke deliberately and
slowly and so they, they they probably still have that and
that was in December 2000. They probably still have that
that lecture on tape somewhere down there and my brother
briefing. So that was good.
That was quite amazing. But if visiting, visiting South

(01:41:36):
America, any country in South America, but I highly recommend
Chile because they're again, very excellent culture and they,
they treated me like a king and,and so, so, so Chile, Germany.
And London. In London, yeah, those those
are, those are places I would highly recommend.
Can you share? Can you share an instance of

(01:41:59):
where your intuition or gut feeling made you do made you
make a particular decision? Or my gut feeling.
Or intuition. OK, alright.
When, um, OK, in my again in my high school, my friend had

(01:42:21):
encouraged me to yeah, he hoped that I would be able to retain
my uniqueness at West Point. At the same time, in the month
before I entered West Point, my grandmother on my mother's side
had written me a letter and she said, when you enter West Point,
take Christ as your partner. And I thought, well, excellent

(01:42:46):
advice. You know, I've been.
My mother had taught me to pray from the time I could speak and
intuition, the gut feeling says.I saw that West Point had as one
of the activities they had it Cadet Sunday School teachers and
those Sunday School teachers were responsible for on Sunday

(01:43:06):
morning teaching the children ofthe officers and non
commissioned officers all at West Point.
And so I volunteer as soon as I could.
When I got there, I volunteered to be a Cadet Sunday School
teacher and that turned out to be very much a psychological

(01:43:26):
refuge for me because I could gothere.
I was the only person in my company who was a cadet Sunday
school teacher. So it gave me refuge from
otherwise a high pressure situation.
And so that, that was something that that I that I did that that
I went with my spiritual instinct, if you will, as a

(01:43:48):
focus. My grandmother said take Christ
as your partner. If Christ is going to be my
partner, then the only environment in which I can do
that is to be a Sunday school teacher, and so that worked out
very well. What's the while while this
thing you've done in the name oflearning or personal growth that
most people would not attempt? Well, I thought you were gonna

(01:44:13):
ask me what was the craziest thing I've ever done.
No, no, that would. That would be interesting.
I don't wanna put you in. That position but but there's
for repeat the question again. Please.
And what's the wildest, wildest thing you've done in in the name
of learning or personal growth that most people would have

(01:44:34):
never attempt? Hmm, maybe.
Hmm, well I I think learning German it's impressive.
Ohe yeah. Learning German.
Yeah. That that that was that was
something I did first on my own and then I took it in high
school and then continued it at West Point and continued in the

(01:44:56):
other college. So I used that.
And that was very glad that I did that because that language,
because in Graduate School, because Russian was going to be
the principal language that I needed.
I needed time in order to learn the Russian well enough, so for
my PhD program it required mastery of 2 languages, so I

(01:45:19):
used German as the first one anduse that to our masters degree.
So I've got credit for that. While I was doing that, I took
Russian for credit only and began studying the Russian for
two years. So like good enough, I got
enough time to where I was able to pass the Russian competency

(01:45:39):
exam. You need to qualify to be able
to use it in my dissertation research.
And I did do a fair amount of translation from original
sources from the Library of Congress and the University of
Miami that had never been translated before.
So they're in the Russian view of US strategy.
By the way, that is present in some of my translations during

(01:46:04):
these chat, in the chapter on the Soviet Russian view of
massive retaliation, that was where I had to use original
Russian that had not been translated elsewhere.
So learning German was one of those intuitive moves.
That standard stemmed from my interest in history, military
history and other things, but itcame to prove to be very useful

(01:46:26):
because it gave me that extra language and gave me time to
gain competency in the Russian language.
I I have four more for the end and let's say you have time.
I got four more. So yeah, but because I.
You gotta you gotta lot there, see.
Cause I got the four last ones of this show and I got four of

(01:46:47):
the last show that I didn't. I died it used, but we don't
need to use all of them. So I'm just asking you, right?
Now, how do you feel? You got the time, I've got the
coffee. OK, perfect.
Perfect. In terms of military spending,
do you think the US is probably allocating their resource and
the defence technology right now?
The In terms of military spending, there are way, there

(01:47:12):
are certain areas where I believe that the US military
could not be spending money at all, particularly because they
are advocating building a goldenDome.
And the reason I say this is because because the Trump
administration is advocating a golden Dome.
The Biden administration is a repudiation of the previous

(01:47:35):
Biden administration's approach.They were talking about a
preparing for a conflict againstthree nuclear armed adversaries
and recommending that we expand our nuclear arsenals.
They weren't talking about Golden Dome at.
All yeah. No defence, just that.
Just more just they were operating under the under the

(01:47:56):
Mutually Assured Destruction concept, which have been
governing during the entire ColdWar since McNamara and the.
Unfortunately, based on my research and analysis, building
more nuclear weapons does not affect the perceptions of your
adversaries at all. If anything, it reinforces their
belief that nuclear weapons are useful, and the only way you're

(01:48:20):
going to break that perception and neutralize it is to build a
strategic defence that neutralizes their nuclear
arsenals. And if you're going to do that,
you do not spend a single additional dime on nuclear
weapons. You don't build more.
You don't try to build better ones.
All you should really do is maintain the ones you have, make

(01:48:46):
sure that the ones you've already got work.
That's all they have to do. You you redirect all those
additional resources that you were going to spend on offensive
nuclear weapons or improved nuclear weapons universe, those
resources into building the golden Dome or even better, the
space fleet. And and like you said, like if

(01:49:08):
you build more weapons, sometimes the other side is not
gonna see that as a good thing. They they could feel like you're
taunting them. Oht really, you're doing that?
We're gonna do this now. So it just cranking up the
offence constantly, constantly is not the the goal at the end.
In the in the beautiful thing here is that building a golden
Dome strategic defence. Basically, you put your

(01:49:30):
opponents in a dilemma, said OK,they can't really say, well,
we're going to build our own golden Dome, we're going to
build our own strange knock yourselves.
Out guys. Great bro.
And all that money trying to block a nuclear attack from us
because we're not planning to attack you with.
Me exactly. We just wanted neutralize your

(01:49:51):
weapons if we put them on. A real dilemma, it says, if they
don't bother to spend any money on strategic defence against our
nuclear weapons, well, guess what, They're still vulnerable
to our nuclear weapons. We we aren't vulnerable to
theirs. They're not even worse
situation. So it's a we put them on the

(01:50:12):
horns of a dilemma. Absolutely having.
Shared. Having shared that your career
and books with the public, do you hope people what what do you
hope people take away from your work, both as as a scholar and
as someone who served as an intelligence for decades?

(01:50:32):
Well, what I what I hope people will take away from my book The
Russian View of US Strategy is that they they should.
It gives them insight into the principle into the mindset of
our opponents. And the Scottish poet Robert
Burns and I include this quote in the book is he said, oh what

(01:50:54):
some power the gifty give us to see ourselves as others see us
to it from many a blunder free us in foolish notion.
The ability to see yourself as the your opponent sees you gives
you greater insight, greater wisdom.
And this This is why by reading our book, the Russian View of US

(01:51:14):
strategy and understanding its implications, it will encourage
intelligence professionals in particular, but the public in
general, to be able to study themindset and history and
historical mindset of other nations.
See how other nations view us once they understand that and

(01:51:35):
understand that other nations have different perspectives.
We're not angels. Angels.
But we all have unique motivations, unique mindsets
that affect the way we do things.
And so that is and that is why again, reading, reading books
like Prisoners of Geography are a good aid to starting that the

(01:51:57):
studying historical war games orplaying historical war games
causes you, it stimulates your mind.
It opens you to possibilities that over other than otherwise
not occur to you. So that is a very useful thing.
And right now it's, well, it's, it's just a, a very useful, very

(01:52:20):
useful exercise in general. Absolutely, cause we're, we're
such in a world that we only think about Osler in our shoes,
how we feel about right. It's like you gotta understand
what they're going through really in their shoes to be, to
be able to make a great opinion about this.
A lot of people are giving opinions and don't even.
Know by the way, that's what I would I would recommend to your

(01:52:42):
viewers and I've sent you, I've sent you links before.
I believe I've sent you links onthe the to the Ukraine, no?
Yeah, yeah. I would if you, if you can
through your channels for that, those links to your listeners,
make those links available so that we can watch every Tuesday
and Friday because we discussed the ongoing Russia.

(01:53:04):
Ukraine situation. It is about the only show that
does that just got and discussesthe impact of other nations on
this Russia, Ukraine conflict. So I highly recommend that.
And this is and the the the our man in Kiev, then you coaching
Ko. He regularly provides videos of

(01:53:28):
what is going on in Ukraine. I mean.
The real video there, not propaganda.
Not sugar coated either. OK.
They're not. They're not.
They're not for the squeamish. In your time as a intelligence
officer, you must have encountered situation where
stakes were incredibly high. Are there any specific moments

(01:53:50):
or operation and now that classify that you can talk about
where the outcome had a major impact on US security?
No. No, perfect.
We never. Know classified classified
OER's? No, absolutely not.
Is there some garden declassified?

(01:54:12):
No. I cannot cannot talk about them
is because the knowledge that would be revealed might give our
adversaries clues people would die who would.
Not yeah, absolutely. I totally, I totally understand
why. Given your vast experience and
Russian strategy and defence, can you tell us about any

(01:54:35):
declassified intelligence that shaped the US response to Russia
during key historical events? OK, well.
That. A good example that I can think
of as in my position as a Brigade Intelligence officer in

(01:54:56):
Darmstadt in 1985 on my new brigade commander, Colonel Anson
Schultz. He and he was a key person in
the development of Patriot, the project officer developing the
Patriot, what was then billed asan air defence system.

(01:55:16):
But I knew and I've been told bythe contractor that Patriot had
a ballistic missile defence capability.
At that time. It was rudimentary.
The the Patriot could basically only defend itself against
attack from a short range ballistic missile.
It was not designed for area defence.
But so my brigade commander asked me, says Captain Lockwood.

(01:55:40):
You read those Russian military journals, take a look at them
and see if the Russians are saying anything about Patriot.
So I looked through my journals and in the January 1985 issue of
Vesnik Protovis Roshni Alberoni which is Herald of Anti Aircraft
Defence, I saw an article on US medium to high altitude air

(01:56:04):
defence systems. And in the last third of the
article the author was talking about Patriot.
And I'm painfully working my waythrough the Cyrillic you because
you know that Cyrillic is it's achore.
When I was reading through it and I saw that the author was
talking about Patriot as a pair.O proud of O'Hara kept noi over

(01:56:28):
Ronnie. Anti missile defence is an ABM
system, animalistic missile system describing Patriot has
having that function and it thenhe further interpreted it as
being intended for the defence of the United States, the
strategic defence of the United States against missile attack.

(01:56:49):
And I'm looking at now how couldthe Russians ohm be drawing that
conclusion given the fact that, yeah, cause I knew at the time
that the contract says we have any Patriot hadn't even
demonstrated capability to intercept missiles until as a
matter of fact, Patriot did demonstrate a capability in

(01:57:12):
September of 1987 when it successfully intercepted a US
Lance missile, showing that yes,Patriot can intercept a missile.
Oht very useful. But the the problem is, how can,
how, how could they know that? Well, the Russian, how could
they conclude that? Well, Raytheon was the company

(01:57:36):
that developed the Patriot and there still are and what
Raytheon also had developed a safeguard anti ballistic missile
system that President Nixon tried to deploy in 1970 and
eventually tried in 1974 and it was eventually canceled after it
was operational for one day. But Sakar so Raytheon developed

(01:57:59):
safeguard, Raytheon developed Patriot.
What did safeguard have? Phased array radar.
If you see this big circular radar with lots of little little
circles inside it, that's phasedarray radar.
What does Patriot have? Phased array radar.
A smaller version, more compact.So the Russians obviously could

(01:58:21):
conclude just from open sources that Patriot had an anti missile
defence capability and they so logically they could do it.
So that's an important insight. And so and also that that
perception was reinforced when in the Persian Gulf War in 1991,

(01:58:42):
the US had sent Patriot systems to defend Israel from missile
attack by Scuds. And I knew that the Patriot did
not have the radar profile to beable to intercept a Scud missile
unless they tied in defence satellites or the defence

(01:59:02):
satellites basically tell the Patriot battery, the missiles
coming in here, point your radars in that direction.
And then they get gave the Patriot computer time to plot an
intercept course, intercept and destroy the Scud.
Great. But then that was that was
improvisation was still a very rudimentary capability for

(01:59:23):
Patriot. In the decades following that,
Raytheon kept on product improving the Patriot, improving
its capability to intercept and process.
And it was so good that when they finally supplied those
Patriots to the Ukrainians, the Ukrainians were even were able
to use them to even better effect and achieve a very high

(01:59:45):
rate of intercept against Russian missile attacks.
So they have. So Patriot has demonstrated it's
worth it has reached it pretty much reached its full
capability. In combination with other
defence missile defence systems,this gives the United States the
potential to construct an impenetrable golden Dome.

(02:00:08):
But again, as I pointed out, Golden Dome has a hole in it.
It's still has it has still has that hole against
intercontinental missiles. And the only thing that will
effectively plug that hole is a space fleet.
Army closers, not of not more satellites.
And finally, from your strategicperspective, what do you think

(02:00:29):
will be the legacy of this Russia, Ukraine war both in the
short term and long term? In the short term, we will see
the greater use and influence ofdrones.
You have perfecting the use of drones to supplement and in
theory it would enable the United States the impact on the

(02:00:51):
United States. It would enable the United
States to reduce the number of the sheer numbers of its armed
forces. Yeah, because if you look at the
where spend military spending should occur in the United
States, the two top priorities in my opinion are naval forces
to be so we can still control the world's oceans because

(02:01:13):
that's how we're going to be able to conduct commerce and be
able to prevent other nations, rival nations potentially such
as China from disrupting global trade or control of certain
notions. So the the naval power is still
going to be preeminent. Space power is going to have
them take a much greater proportional.
Right now it's not. It doesn't have much right now.

(02:01:37):
Considering because when Trump mentioned Space Force they were
like oh we don't need to, there's not aliens attacking us.
That's not what it meant becausehe wanted to start spending for
Space Force. But he even he did not fully
grasp the the the the importanceof a space fleet.
He appreciated the importance ofspace control, of being able to

(02:02:00):
control space, but he had not yet fully developed his own
ideas about the necessity or a space fleet, and neither had
Elon Musk, even though Elon Musk, interestingly enough, has
created the means for doing it. We can adapt that to space
control. So you had so space power of the
Space Force will take a much a greater degree of spinning, but

(02:02:23):
not nearly as much as we think. So we need to control C, we need
to control space air power to weneed to be able to do that
regionally. And so we all of this supports
the role of the United States inthe future as geopolitical
balancer. We are not the world's policeman
exactly. We are the balancer.

(02:02:45):
We throw our weight in areas where it is necessary to contain
or prevent adversaries from expanding their empire or
threatening world stability. In that scheme, things, the US
Army takes the lowest priority, relatively speaking.
It does not need to be as big asit is.
It's to be smaller, much more technologically advanced.

(02:03:09):
It doesn't agree with Hegseth. It does need to be physically
fit. You can't neglect that, but it
does not need to be as large numerically as traditionally in
the past, but he needs to it will be able to compensate with
Americans have always loved gadgetry.
It goes all the way they've always loved gadgets and ways to

(02:03:30):
to supplement their their ability to fight.
And so drones as as Hegseth has recommended that every division
should have drones and be able to use them effectively in
combat and reconnaissance and other things.
So you will see drones proliferating in the use of the
in the American armed forces. It will be a much more cost
effective tool. And so drones will be a very big

(02:03:53):
part of things and as well as the incorporation of lasers,
drones, lasers, all of this designing to to create what I
eventually envision as the worldwide Strategic Defence
Matrix WSDM acronym WISDOM. Yeah, it is a both a strategic

(02:04:14):
as well as a real, a symbolic aswell as a real paradigm shift
between the old doctrine of mutually assured destruction MAD
to worldwide strategic Defence Matrix.
WISDOM smart. My proposed slogan for wisdom is
Wisdom does not kill, and it does.
It simply destroys. It simply destroys.

(02:04:35):
Nuclear attack? Yeah, you stopped attacking.
It calms everybody down in placethere, that's for sure.
So I wanna I wanna thank you again for coming on and I hope
that people got something out ofit there because there's so much
to learn in the Russia Ukraine conflict that people don't
understand. And people see that that golden

(02:04:56):
Dome and right when Trump said it and people are are just
fucking crazy thinking of the news are going anti Trump and
everything. But there's some good and bad
and everything. And I hope people understood
that today. And you want to leave.
The objective of what President Trump is trying to accomplish,
He said he wants to abolish all nuclear weapons.

(02:05:17):
Yeah, well, great if you do. And he wants to protect the
United States from nuclear attack.
Great, but there is a correct way to do that.
Exactly. You need to find the most cost
effective, efficient way to do this.
The correct strategy will enableyou to correct strategy will
enable you to achieve that objective, and it will be to the

(02:05:39):
security of the United States, not just the United States, but
to the world in general. He's actually so, um, do you
wanna leave us with a a last message or anything?
And everybody can go check out your books on Amazon and the the
last show that we did was episode 69.
So guys, go check it out if you didn't.
So do you want to leave us on the last message?

(02:06:00):
You have something. To say, well, let's see, I think
I've, I've delivered quite a fewinteresting messages for through
this particular session. And I think that there are going
to be other very interesting, very interesting messages in the
future, particularly as the Russian Ukrainian war reaches
its climax and hopefully a successful conclusion for the

(02:06:22):
people of Ukraine. So both and as far as the as far
as the LAMP, the book goes, whatthe LAMP method does is it
provides you a structured methodfor predictive analysis.
And for intelligence professionals, as well As for
those who are considering doing strategic analysis that involve

(02:06:42):
multiple actors, the LAMP is a very useful system.
Is an entire system of intelligence analysis that
enables you to It discusses why intelligence fails.
It discusses what what factors you should consider in doing a
predictive intelligence analysis.
So it's not it's it's not the it's not the be all and end all.

(02:07:05):
You can't use LAMP for every intelligence problem does you
will readily see that it does cover a wide range of potential
problems. Exactly.
So thanks again, John for takingthe time to come on and I'll put
the links underneath. Guys, go check it out the the
Ukraine and Russia show there. I checked it out and yeah, it's

(02:07:28):
fucking interesting because yourwhen you check it on the news,
it's always the our side or their side.
Well, you're you're seeing people from different countries
talk about exactly this. So I'm going to put the link
below. So guys, go check it out and
have a great weekend everybody. And that went great.
I went through fucking everything.

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Ex Intelligence Officer Exposing Truth About Russia Ukraine War & Trump's Golden Dome Proposal EP79

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