Radio War Nerd EP 591 — Iran War/Ukraine War, feat. Ben Aris

Hello and welcome to another episode of Radio Warner.

Today is March 20th, 2026, and this is episode 591. I am the co-host, Mark Ames, in the western part of the Empire State New York State.

You are listening to Radio Warner. Go to patreon.com forward slash Radio Warner and subscribe to the show and support us, please.

Anyway, I am on the line, of course, with the Warner, John Dolan, aka Gary Brecher in Puglia, southern Italy, and John, how you doing?

Oh, okay. It's cold in Puglia. It's weird. It's been coldest year in a long time. Well, since we've been here, but that's not bad. The heat is worse.

Yeah, well, I think I've complained plenty about it already, but we've definitely had, like, like, Murmansk level weather here in Rochester this year. It's been a long, miserable winter.

Anyway, the fishers come out.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. The fisher kit, yeah, I sent you a photo taken from a trail camera of a fisher. We get fisher cats have come back.

Well, they're actually weasels or from the Weasel family. Amazing creatures. Someone get big too.

Yeah, speaking of Murmansk and Russia, I just had to drop this Chuck Norris died today. 86 years old. I lived a long time, but the reason I bring him up is because I met Chuck Norris.

I think it may be a couple times, but I the one time I remember the first time because he opened or he attached his name to the opening of a club in Moscow in the nine sort of late 90s, and they advertised in the exile.

And so I think it was called Chuck Norris as Beverly Hills Club or something like that.

Ben, you remember that? Yeah, so we went to meet Chuck and Chuck really wants to meet you. It was supposed to be a big honor.

So, Toby and I went to meet him. And while my first impression was, and I guess this happens a lot with with macho movie stars, but he was really short with a large bearded head.

And it was just kind of weird seeing him like that. And the second impression that I remember was just that he seemed to be talking to us off of a bad script.

And I don't think he knows how to talk to people except by polling lines from stuff. He said, I don't know. It was as if I was meeting like an early Ronald Reagan or something like, oh, you know, here we are to three Americans in Russia. Can you believe it?

Or, you know, it was very stiffly spoken.

And what Norris always has that that feel, whether he's being interviewed or whether he's trying to do a line from the movie script, it's like he's looking in several directions, and he seems really nervous about the whole deal.

Yes, yes. But BB Nits and Yahoo just posted Sarah and I were deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Chuck Norris.

So I don't know, maybe maybe the Iranians did this to him or something.

Good bye to you, Chuck Norris.

Anyways, and one other quick thing I wanted to mention before we get to our guest as you heard Ben Aras.

I just have to mention this even before Ben, if you don't mind, John, but there was an op-ed in the New York Times yesterday that had some tongues wagging.

Most people didn't kind of, you know, go below the surface of it, except to kind of rage at it.

It was titled, there's only one path to victory in Iran.

And basically the thrust that the article was, stay the course, bomb them, we're on the verge of victory.

The only way this thing turns bad is if we pull out.

And the sort of the nut graph or the nut sentence on this is, and I'll read this, if the United States can hold firm for the next few weeks, it can fully degrade Iran's warmaking apparatus, which has already been fully degraded as we've been assured several times over.

This would usher in a multi-year interval of calm of the kind that neither sanctions nor diplomacy has been able to produce in over four decades.

In that window, a better regional order could emerge.

Now the author of this piece is a former admiral, Mark Montgomery, who is a fellow at the foundation for the defense of democracies.

And if you know that it's, I mean, it is known as the most kind of uber hawkish, uber neocon, think tank of all the think tank front groups.

It began when initially filed its documents with the IRS just before 9-11 actually.

It was initially named the Hebrew word Emmett for truth.

And its mission statement to the IRS, and I'll quote, provide education to enhance Israel's image in North America and the public's understanding of issues affecting Israeli air relations.

It's basically a side project of APAC.

And this gets better.

Mark Montgomery was also one of the key figures in the fat Leonard scandal, John, that you know of.

Yeah, and he was cited by the higher command.

He was reprimanded for graft or whatever you call it.

I know because he wasn't jailed or anything, but he was indicted in a sense for graft and kickbacks.

He basically got money and gifts from fat Leonard and then kick back contracts to him.

So, so this is the guy then who was called, who was trying to push for sending in.

You know, he works the FDD, the foundation for the defense of democracies is funded by all the weapons manufacturers and Israeli pro Israeli billionaires.

And he wants to send Americans in to die.

I mean, this is the guy.

But it's the key I think here is that it's the New York Times publishing it, you know.

That's the real atrocity here.

Well, there's been a lot of turbulence internal descent, if you like, in the times.

But there's no sign of any change at the top.

There's, there's a group that's just locked in and they seem to go to the same parties and that's that.

And they decided long ago.

They love their empire and they'll do anything to save it.

Yeah.

So on that note, let's bring back friend of the show, returning guests Ben Aras.

He's the founding editor of B&E and Tellenews.

A great media site that has correspondence and articles from well initially it was from sort of the former, you know, Soviet sphere in the post Soviet era, but has expanded globally.

And Ben has talked with us in previous occasions about the economic warfare side of the Ukraine war.

And has been really a great source for us.

So Ben, thanks for coming back on Radio Warner.

My pleasure to be here always.

Yeah.

It's always under the worst of circumstances in it, but yeah, thanks for coming on.

So today we're going to talk about the economic side of the US Israeli war on Iran.

Probably the economic side of this war.

Well, in a sense, there's kind of a similarity with Ukraine because the US opponent in both wars, their biggest weapon in a sense is the vulnerability of the team USA's side economically, you know, economically, how vulnerable they are.

Although in this case, this seems to be magnitudes, magnitudes larger in terms of the damage and potential damage to the global economy and to the United States and its friends and allies.

So where do you want to start, Ben?

You've linked already the former Soviet Union and the Iran war.

I mean, what jumps out of me is, I mean, as you say, there are lots of similarities and Trump seems to be making all of the mistakes that Putin made in invading Ukraine.

The first thing is that he seems convinced that the Iranians were going to capitulate after days and Putin made that mistake.

And then what he faced was, I don't know, a heroic resistance, but mismatched.

And the same is going on here that the States has gone in with its arrogant assumption that it has the most powerful military in the world, but that makes it invincible.

And the big difference between Ukraine and Iran is that Iran has oil.

And moreover, it has this strangle hold, this choke point in the States of almost.

And with that, it has an asymmetric option to stop the energy flows and to disrupt the fifth of the world's supplies.

And that's somewhere also that Trump can't go because we're talking about $200 oil if they decide to smash the whole region.

I mean, the Israelis hit the self-pars gasfields day before yesterday.

And the Qataris just came out, Qatar Energy, the company that runs that came out and said, all right, we've lost 17% of our export capacity.

That's because the Iranians hit the Ras Lafayn LNG complex in Qatar.

Yes, in the retaliation.

And this is already we're slipping into a nightmare scenario because we've gone from the mere disruption of hydrocarbons, which is what has been the last two weeks.

Where in theory, if there's a peace deal or a capitulation, then go back to normal very quickly.

But if you destroy the production, that's a whole different kettle of fish.

And Qatar, by itself, accounts for a fifth of the world's energy and the prices now have doubled, but they won't go back down again.

Because that production is gone.

And with that retaliation, I mean, they only took out four of, sorry, two of 14 of the LNG trains.

So it's also a warning.

It's likely to take out the rest.

And we're escalating step by step.

But we're only in week three and we've already got to the point where we've gone from disruption to destruction.

And that's Iran's Trump cards.

And I think really, can I?

Yeah, but can I just ask you real quickly about the element because my understanding is that, for example, if you hit a refinery and the, the Iranians have hit several refineries, which I'm sure also talk about, including Kuwait's largest refinery, they just hit it for a second time.

But from looking at what's happened in the Ukraine, Russia war and how Ukraine has really caused damage to various Russian refineries, but the Russians have been able to get them back online or account for, you know, soon enough anyway.

But as opposed to that, with these LNG complexes, when you hit those, they don't go back on, you can't repair them as easily.

They're very flammable.

And from what I read, yeah, you said 17% of their capacity is already taken out.

That means taking out 17% of one of the worlds of maybe the world's largest provider of LNG.

And it takes three to five years to rebuild it and caughters already slated to lose.

I think I read something like $20 billion annually just so far.

Is that right? So the LNG complexes are a lot more natural gases, even more vulnerable than the oil.

Well, there's another big difference between Ukraine and Iran.

That Ukrainians have launched the last summer this campaign to hit Russian refineries and to basically take out reduced Russia's ability to make money.

The difference is that Ukraine has developed these long-distance drones, but those things only carry about 50 up to a maximum of 100 kilograms of explosive.

Moreover, as a function of the Cold War, all of Russia's refineries were hard-tops when they were built.

They were made resistant to attack.

And the key here is that Ukraine doesn't have missiles.

It doesn't have any powerful missiles. It's got this, what is it called?

Firebirds that they, the flamingo.

Oh, yeah, the flamingo, yeah, yeah.

But they fired one of them so far. I mean, I don't believe.

I think it's all being propaganda.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, psychological weapon.

But it does wrote about how a lot of that is just a graft operation.

Yeah, I mean, they spend a billion, they've got a billion dollar budget and they fired one missile that I've seen confirmed reports.

Yeah, so basically the Ukrainians don't have the missiles to hit refineries and really do damage.

And their drones just don't have the capacity, the payload.

The Ukrainian drones on refineries are basically mosquito bites.

And so you can fix the refinery pretty quickly.

If you create, if Iran were determined to destroy an NNG facility like South Powers, they can do it, they can flatten it.

And moreover, the technology, I mean, it's been reported that Iran now has fired its first hypersonic missile.

This is a Russian technology, the Chinese have it as well.

The Americans do not have that.

And moreover, these missiles are so sophisticated that they can dodge the Patriot into sectors.

And this wasn't expected.

And I mean, basically what we're talking about here is the absolute vulnerability of the Gulf states and the Gulf industries and economies.

The consequences of blowing up Qatar's entire NNG production for the global economy are just catastrophic.

You're going to get prices going through the roof, which will cause a global recession, which will cause several countries,

weak countries like Egypt and Pakistan to have at least going to recession, if not going to life financial crises.

And we're looking at, I mean, put it this short answer is that we've got a vintage crisis on our hands.

As good as 1998, as good as 2022 energy crisis, this is going to be a classic.

Yeah, the International Energy Agency just said this is the worst energy crisis in its history.

It hasn't stopped.

And it barely stopped.

This is the thing I think that people don't quite get that Iran has, and they've been saying this, I've seen the Foreign Minister posting this on Twitter,

they keep saying we're only just barely beginning to play our cards in this.

We will go all the way and everybody will pay badly.

We will too, but everybody will.

We haven't played any, you know, we're just giving you a demonstration so far, and it's not getting through to people's heads.

And including in financial markets, I mean, I don't know what you think Ben, but it kind of surprises me.

I know that that crude has gone up a lot, but I don't think crude has quite priced in.

I think that the Americans in Israel, they stuff a lot of faith that they're going to solve this is what it looks like.

That's a very interesting point.

I mean, we're both veterans of multiple crises, and it's very dramatic.

We're seeing missiles right down on Tel Aviv and in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, etc.

But the way crises work is you have the initial shock, and we have oil trading at 65 bucks pre-war, and now it's already at 100.

But that sets off a chain reaction.

I like to describe it as the crisis virus, because what happens is it spreads down the supply chain, and that's actually a slow process.

So if you take the 98 Russia default on its debt, that happened on August 17th, but the market, the stock market, didn't reach its end of the year until October.

It takes about two months.

The example I've been bringing out recently is that not only does the Straits Home carry most of the oil out, but it also carries food in, because nobody in the Gulf produces anything.

And the supermarkets are reporting.

We're about to run out of fresh fruit and salads, and I think it's today, or yesterday, that that supplies dried up.

When it takes in the UAE or in the UAE in Dubai, the supermarkets.

And then because it takes two months, you have some stocks, stockpile, you have to burn through it.

And then here we are three weeks later, and suddenly they've run out of fruit and veg.

But the prices of fertilizers, the Straits, is responsible for 25% of oil and gas exports, but it's responsible for a third, 30%, 33% of fertilizer exports.

So those now have also doubled in price.

None of that's getting out, bit of oil's getting out, but none of the fertilizers getting out.

In March is when farmers buy fertilizers to put in the fields.

So already we've got a crisis in fertilizers, but because the farmers now can't afford the fertilizers, they're not going to fertilize their fields, which is going to have a knock on effect to food production.

And that crisis won't hit until August or September when the crops, the yields on the crops are halved.

So we're waiting for a food price shock that won't arrive until the end of the summer.

And as I say, it spreads out, and the damage has already been done, even if it were stopped tomorrow.

It's still spreading, and so actually the worst is ahead.

And probably we won't reap pain until August or September.

Right, let's talk about some of the other commodities here, because we know about oil and gas more.

But there are a lot of other products, you know, as you mentioned, fertilizers, you know, urea.

And this and the fertilized helium.

So yeah, let's talk about helium.

So helium is important.

Well, can you describe why even helium would be something that caught or is such a big player in and what is used for?

It's a byproduct in the production of energy.

You know, you're dealing with methane and gases and you produce helium.

So again, Karaz is a massive producer of helium.

Helium is a very difficult thing to work with because the helium atoms molecules are so small that it's very hard to contain them.

They're basically so tiny what they do is they eat into metal and they escape.

So your helium boils off even and moreover, helium, you can't liquefy it because it freezes at only four degrees above absolute zero.

So there's no way.

Number two on the.

On the.

The camera.

Thing is number one.

No.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, it's no.

Two.

You meant a lot.

Good for you.

Yeah.

There are some very early table.

Yeah.

So it's it's it's number two.

It's number one in terms of liquefying.

Helium hydrogen is slightly higher.

But you know, to get something down to 270, three degrees below zero is just in energy.

You can't do it.

Right.

So you can't store it.

It's incredibly difficult to store, which means that this people have stockpiles of it.

But they only last for 45 days until they basically boil away.

So again, people do have some stockpiles.

And why is all of this important?

Because helium is absolutely crucial to making microchips.

You have to use super cool helium in order to freeze the chips down to the point where you can etch them.

And you cannot make microchips semiconductors without helium.

And everyone's going to run out of their stocks in 45 days.

Now there are other places where you where it's made.

You can't get it.

Right.

Yes.

Is it sanctioned?

Is it sanctioned?

The Russian helium also?

No.

Okay.

Interesting.

You know, all the things that you can't get anywhere else like helium, like LNG in Russia.

None of that sanctioned because there's no other alternatives and there's not enough.

But then that's going to have a knock on effect because what's it called to TSMMC in Taiwan,

which is the world leader, is basically going to have shutdown production again in a couple of months' time.

And there's already a chronic historic shortage of semiconductor chips because of the AI boom.

And then suddenly the price is going to go through the roof.

And what the company will do is take what limited supplies it has.

And it will stop doing the mass production.

But then that means you can't make iPhones, you can't make computers.

Or these, you know, everything's massively reduced.

You have to go back to generations.

Wow.

And this is again, all in the middle east.

I mean, the thing is, you know, gas is basic to all sorts of plastics already,

the Asian plastics producers, petrochemical related.

They're all with the natural crisis.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, you know, after this missing, helium is going to be missing.

And sector after sector is going to be infected by this crisis virus,

which is now creeping down the supply chains.

So how to buy through other supermarkets is just run out of food and veg.

And fertilizers will be next.

Then there will be a food shock after that.

Then the plastic producers will stop.

Then, you know, so on and so on.

I mean, it's going to affect everything, which is why I'm saying this is such a vintage crisis.

And already the damage is massive.

You're feeling it.

But you will do when you get your electricity bill in a few months time,

when you get your food bill in a few months time, because all that stuff is going up.

Another one is aluminum.

Both Bahrain and the Qatar are major aluminum producers or smelters.

And that, of course, has been cut off as well.

So again, that will also help Russia, which is one of the worlds,

the world's largest aluminum producer.

I'm not mistaken.

So, you know, this is, I mean, I think this is why when we talked about earlier,

it's kind of hard to talk about this war without talking about the Russia Ukraine war.

It all does.

We see, you know, we see kind of the more surface stuff, which is drones.

And Solensky offering Ukrainian know-how.

In fact, there was just an article in Murdoch's The Times

that the British won, that these Ukrainian drone experts,

who are, you know, experts in combating against Iranian-derived drones.

Now, the Russian get-on drones are already, I think, somewhat different than the Shahids.

But they've also, the Russians, I'm sure, shared their know-how with the Iranians,

which is why the Iranian drones are doing so well.

So, the Ukrainians have offered their services to the Gulf States.

And at least what's being reported is that the Ukrainians have been shocked

at how the Gulf States and the US have been blowing through interceptors just to shoot down.

Like they said, eight Patriot interceptors for each target, like fire.

And so, they've already blown through in, they said in the first four days,

from the Gulf and the US, they blew through 800 Patriot interceptors.

Now, the Ukrainians in four years of war have only gotten a thousand in total.

And they just blew through that.

And there aren't a whole lot of these interceptors around.

Now, the problem, so this is another aspect of the asymmetrical war

that the White House hasn't taken account of, is that it's to do with what we've been calling the cross-to-kill ratio.

And it costs four million bucks to make a PAC-3 Patriot interceptor.

And they only produce about 600 a year.

And in the first three days, there was a very nice study recently that she went into the details.

So, of the 34 munitions that the Americans have been using,

14 after three days, were already critically low production levels.

Trump called in the CEOs of all the major arms firms like last week

and screamed at them and said, like, you guys need to do overtime

and produce more of this stuff because we're running out already in the first weeks before the first month is up.

And they were like explaining to him, like, yeah, we can go from 600 to a thousand

and that will happen next year.

I mean, they really thought this thing through, didn't they?

No, it's nothing.

The thing that stuns me about this, it's nice.

Zelensky offered Trump last year a 50 billion dollars swap saying that we will sell you 50 billion bucks

and swap your Patriots for our drone technology, which is state of the arts.

And Trump told them to get lost.

Zelensky called them again last week and said, like, now you need the drone technology.

And again, he turned it down because again, I think he's still fixated, like,

we don't need, and he said explicitly, we don't need your help.

But yeah, the thing with the Ukrainian drone production is, as I said,

they're producing about four million a year and recently, last six months,

they've specifically developed these intercepted drones,

which can not only bring down not just drones but missiles,

but they can also bring down jet fighters, they can bring down helicopters,

they've got one with a rotating turret and a machine gun that chases helicopters.

And the Russians have, like, they can't fly anything now anywhere near Ukraine because of this stuff.

But the poignant point here is that the Ukrainian is saying that we're operating at a quarter of our industrial capacity.

We need investment.

If we had that investment, we could triple our output of drones of all sorts, including these interceptors.

And nobody's given them any money.

Nobody's investing. I don't understand why the White House isn't like,

or at least the European Union isn't flying to Kiev and dropping several billion dollars.

Because for Trump, it would be seen as a humiliation, having to get help from Ukraine

and as an unacceptable humiliation.

And for Trump, everything including this war is about the appearance of domination,

of manly anti-woke domination.

But it's the answer. Look, the answer's there in your lap.

It's like drop a billion dollars on Kiev.

And they already have the factory set up.

And it's not like we're going to produce the interceptors next year.

They could happen by the end of the month.

But aren't a lot of the drones that, I mean, look, the Ukraine Russia battlefield.

I mean, in that way, we're talking about two vastly different wars.

These are large conventional old infantry based with shit tons of drones,

thousands and thousands and thousands of drones, crowding the skies at all times.

It's almost unimaginable.

Some day, I guess, they'll be able to depict in movies or documentaries

or something how this actually looks.

And so, whereas, you know, I mean, the Ukrainians have not, they have, of course,

a lot of experience and know how, on how to down the get-on drones,

which are originally based off the shaheads.

But, you know, the Russians also got a lot of their drones through.

But I guess my point is a lot of the Ukrainian drone technology is really about

how drones are used on the front to terrorize infantry and logistics.

Isn't that right?

There's a nice example.

So, a couple of weeks ago, there was a NATO exercise in Estonia.

And they were basically practicing to fight the Russians.

And they invited a single unit of Ukrainian drone operators, ten guys,

who came with their kids.

And then the exercise is started.

And by lunchtime, these ten guys had destroyed an entire battalion of NATO forces

with their drones, an entire battalion.

And the NATO generals were looking on, and they were just, they were in shock.

I mean, the quote from one of the generals was, I forget who reported me all times,

I think it was, was like, we're fucked.

We are totally unprepared to deal with this.

And everybody's ignored it.

And again, you know, you've got London Lion and EU Rearm program,

800 billion, they've already spent 150.

And they're doing the same thing.

They're buying patriots and F-35s or F-16s, and they're fighting the wrong war.

And Zelensky is sitting there with the solutions.

And the irony here is that because of this crink alliance around Russia-China,

the Iran is fighting the same modern war that Zelensky is fighting.

With spectacular effects, he's held off Russia.

He's only captured 20% of the territory.

And Russian troops cannot move.

They, you know, they bombed them with their superior jets,

and their glide bombs, which are heavy orders that the Ukrainians don't have

and don't have a defense against.

And yet, you cannot follow up with infantry.

You can't move, because anybody who steps into that no-man's land is dead.

There's, you know, the kill rate on drones is like 50-60%.

If you shoot at someone with a bullet, it's like fraction of a percent.

But what are the Americans doing?

They're going into Iran with exactly the old-school mentality.

We're not going to lose anyone.

We're going to sit on our ships and buy our tomahogs.

But you only make 800 rebows a year.

And they've burned through.

As I say, of the 34 munitions, 14 of those are already down at critical level.

So the state is going to have to capitulate by the end of next month,

because they've run out of ammo.

Speaking of some of these numbers, I just saw somebody post somebody,

I think it was a academic guy or writer.

Anyway, he posted the per capita spending on military spending of each of these countries.

So Iran per capita spends $90 per Iranian citizen on its military.

The US spends $2,900 per citizen.

So that's a few hundred times more on $2,900 per citizen on its military.

And Israel spends $5,000 per citizen.

Of course, some of that is subsidized by the US.

So the point, I think, is that Iran, it seems like one of the goals here of the US

is to sober well and basically impoverish the Iranians, I don't know,

by supposedly taking cargo.

They're so fixated now on a silver bullet, Carg Island being the silver bullet,

that Iran won't have a capacity to fight anymore within weeks.

But Iran already is a low, low cost military.

And it doesn't need to have a conventional force.

It's just getting so different from the Ukraine.

Again, the state is thinking in its own terms.

And we spend a lot of money then we can gear up and crush them.

And you're exactly right.

Well, I mean, the US Navy has been speaking really for decades about the moment

when its mythical laser weapon will be ready.

Because that will overcome the inequality of attackers to defenders,

which is really impossible.

You can't store enough interceptors on a typical Navy ship to kill everything

that might be sent against it.

But you could do that in theory with the lasers.

There was a report.

It's actually a sort of report about microwave weapon that's just been tested.

But all these things seem to be, I'm not a military expert.

Then John and I, John can tell you as a fan, as a young nerd fan of war,

you know, James and aviation weekly.

John, that laser weapon has been right around the corner.

I swear to God for it.

Oh, it's like you killed all Jesus.

The coming of Christ.

The second coming.

Yeah, but it needs now.

They need now.

It has to happen now.

And they're not there.

As I said, I've seen reports.

But it's like the wonder of a buffer.

The Hitler was always talking about it to turn the tide.

But the joke is that the Iranian technology is there,

and moreover, the factories are there, ready to go.

And you could turn this around very fast.

But as you say, I don't have a combination of ignorance, arrogance,

is that they're not going to go to Ukraine.

But for me, I might take away from this war.

So I'm just stunned that there's a new modern way of doing it.

We've been following it closely in Ukraine,

who have taught everybody a lesson,

and there's an arms race going on between Russia and Ukraine,

on drone tech that's driven it at incredible speed,

to incredible level sophistication really fast.

And it's all ready.

And you've got the problem that Russia is connected to Iran.

And so last year they did a technology deal,

a transfer where the Iranians sold the rights

and expertise for developing drones, the Shahids,

and so Russia set up a huge factory to produce these things.

And as you've mentioned, Mark,

I mean, they've gone from the Gerald II up to the Gerald V,

and these things are very sophisticated.

So Europe is also screwed because it's got no defense against drones.

Yeah, and neither do the Americans in the Gulf for that matter,

as we've seen with all the hits.

And carriers are on the V-22 carrier,

whatever it is when it tries to storm through the choke point.

They're very fragile.

They're innately fragile,

because too many different technologies

are going on on many decks.

And there's the sense that I've seen articles recently,

like, you know, it's very hard to sink a carrier.

Well, that's kind of disingenuous at best,

because you don't have to sink them.

I mean, you have to-

All you need is a fire in the laundry.

Yeah.

And it's done.

Like with the hell.

Yeah, literally.

And there's even talk that that fire may have been said deliberately

by sailors who didn't want to become sitting ducks for a rainy and drone.

And maybe that's a way of spinning what is just actually

an incredibly vulnerable ship that catches fire

and has toilets exploding despite the $13 billion price tag.

But yeah, it's-

Well, quickly.

Yeah.

Well, we're on this subject.

I mean, as I say, I think Trump's doubling down,

and he still hasn't got it about the asymmetric nature of the war,

and they're sailing now and the rest of the U.S. Navy forces are on the way

to the Gulf.

They'll arrive by the end of this month, including troop carriers

with, on the trip,

there's like, 5,000 guys.

And I saw a report today that they've just taken another 4,000 guys

from wherever it was.

Yeah.

There you go.

Yeah.

And that's insane, because if they'd land them and try and capture the coast,

I mean, the bit, the tight bit in Hormuz is only like 30 kilometers long.

And there's a couple of islands, which you can occupy in theory defend.

But again, they don't understand the nature of the war.

These guys, the Marines, if they think it's going to be some sort of private rions

storming of Normandy beaches,

and then they'll control it, and then they'll be able to allow, you know,

stop the drones attacking.

It's not going to work.

They're going to be sitting ducks, because they've got swarmed by drones

in the same way that the Russians sitting in no-man's lands on the front line in Donbass

are just annihilated.

They're just slaughtered.

And there's no protection.

And as we've said, the states and Europe, too,

has no effective counter drone measures.

In other words, their own drones.

They haven't invested in this.

They don't have the production.

They don't have the numbers.

And the Marines have their own space.

So I don't know.

It's going to be a bloodbath if Trump goes there.

To some degree, this is a really venal decision.

And it has been in every budget for decades,

because I remember an interview in Armed Forces Journal about 20 years ago with a

high-ranking naval officer who said,

nobody ever made joint chiefs by being head of drones.

And that's true.

So it also won't get you a big golden retirement once you go back into private industry,

the way piloted weapons will do.

In a way, it's their attractive features that made them unattractive to a really venal navy.

All forces.

So I think you're right, though, it looks like what I read was the first expeditionary or amphibious force

that's heading towards the Gulf has already passed Singapore.

So if you believe what there's a lot of flak out there,

and could be in the general area by the 25th,

I don't know how long it'll take for the second force to arrive.

But it is as stupid and crazy as it seems.

What can we learn as observers?

If it's stupid and crazy, it'll probably happen.

And that's so far like the lesson of the American side of this war.

The thing about these wars is that it never goes the way you expect them to.

And this one is so much more...

And you can easily imagine how much unimaginably worse this thing can get.

If the Iranians see that the U.S. is actually preparing to try to take land

or move the Marines into the Arab Sea or the Gulf,

and things move to that level, they will decimate the rest of LNG, oil,

and other industrial infrastructure in the Gulf.

They will bring the whole world economy crashing down.

And they can't.

I mean, why would they...

This is an existential war for them. What else do you do?

They've already warned over and over. This is what we will do.

They warned beforehand if you actually attack, this is what we'll do.

They keep telling us.

And Trump doesn't want to listen because Trump cannot accept

that somebody has escalation dominance over him.

It's like a better dead than red thing for Trump.

It's better that everyone dies than he gets humiliated.

And he cannot accept the reality of that situation.

We don't have correspondence in Washington.

I mean, I hear bits and pieces every now and again from what context we do have.

But I get a very strong sense here that the White House is starting to panic.

That they're starting to wake up to the realities of how badly this is going,

mainly through the lack of ammo issue.

But Trump, that once he starts to face up to reality,

the generals tell him that everyone's going to die if we land them.

The arms producers saying, like, no, we're going to run out of missiles in April.

And that's the end of it. There's nothing to be done about that.

There isn't he going to check it out and do some sort of...

I wouldn't count on that myself.

I would be afraid in Trump's case that he must in some corner of his mind realize

I've got a couple of years at best going to take everything with me.

Yeah. And on top of that, I don't think the people...

This is also what I've been reading and it looks validated by what we're seeing.

He's surrounded by... And this happened with Biden, and it happens a lot.

He's surrounded by only a couple of people who are absolute sick offense,

constantly tell him what a genius he is.

Tell him how well this war is going.

Basically, they're excused for why it's not necessarily going exactly our ways

because the Iranians are cheating.

And the TV is unpatriotic.

Yes, the TV is unpatriotic, so we may have to pull some licenses.

But I don't think Trump believes... I don't get this sense from him at all,

or Hegg Seth, that they think this war is doomed in any way whatsoever.

Well, he's had a lifetime of business books that are ghost-written,

telling people that will is everything and that will can remake the world.

And the funny thing is, it can't.

You can will all the military technology to overcome the Gulf of Formals,

but it's still going to sit there.

I mean, in a way, the really strange thing is that Newt Gingrich's insane childish plan

to explode five H-bombs along the root of the Gulf of Formals

to straighten out the path and make a new straight.

That makes more sense than Will Alone will do it.

Yeah, you know what's funny about that is Gingrich took that from a satirical post,

and he thought it was serious, and then Owen claimed it as his own.

So it's even better.

No.

And that was the intellectual of the Republicans, by the way, but yeah.

I mean, one of the reasons I asked my question is that,

like, so, you know, we have, we follow Russia closely,

and the Demetrieth camp, and which leads us to Bitkov,

and also to the Amanis, who've been leading in the mediation in this,

who are pushing very hard to try and find a way out.

And that Bitkov, as far as we know, has actually made two approaches to Tehran,

via Aman, to ask if there's any chance of starting talks.

And he, as I say, I mean, why would he ask for this when Trump is convinced

that Iran is about to collapse?

So I don't know if it's a twin trick.

I mean, they do think, I think they think they need to start dying.

But it's, okay, that's true, but I think also for Trump,

it's a way of testing out to see how badly the Iranians are doing,

and are they ready to call on to say uncle yet?

And it's one of the reasons why the Iranians, I think, aren't talking.

I mean, on top of the fact that Trump is backstabbed them every time they've tried talking to them.

But there's also, talking is itself a signal of your strength,

their weakness, especially to Trump.

Another horrific mistake that Trump's made,

with the decapitation, which as I say, if you decapitate a regime with the dictator,

then it collapses because the guy is in charge.

And what's happened in Iran is that the Ayatollah was bad.

But by killing him, what you've placed, what you've replaced him with, his son,

is even more extreme, even more fanatical.

Moreover, he's a IRGC placement.

Also, we killed Larjani, the top security chief,

who was also more of, I mean, it comes out later, like John Simpson,

even from BBC.

Everyone really kind of liked this guy.

He was very smart.

You could do business with him.

You could do business with him.

And he's replaced by Hussein Dickon, maybe pronouncing it wrong,

who is much more as they would say, hard line.

He was a guy, they replaced him with a guy who took part

in taking, you know, the American embassy,

taking the hostages in 1979.

And he's accused of being the top Iranian IRGC point man

for the 1983 bombings in Beirut that killed 241 American Marines,

which is the largest single day death toll of a Marine since Iwo Jima.

That's who we replaced him.

It's the head that grows back is more dangerous, more hostile,

more determined.

It's the opposite.

It's just the stupidity, the levels of stupidity here are just mind boggling.

Yeah.

But it's a strategy, you know, again, the West is going in,

like, you know, be reasonable in Ukraine.

They've been battering.

So, let's get into basically giving up the Don Vass,

which Putin is being adamant about.

And if he does give up the Don Vass, then deal,

stand on the war in Ukraine and stop.

But the people you're dealing with now in Tehran,

the people you were dealing with in Tehran,

I mean, even Trump admitted there were several people there

we thought we could talk to him and do business with,

but we killed them all.

Yeah.

And what you're left with.

Yeah.

It was like, really, of course, say Zimoffi again.

I know.

A comedy bit.

I'm going to kill them all.

What you're left with are radical fanatics.

And I come back again to my point in an asymmetric war.

Only one needs to get through.

And so with these people in charge,

they don't give a shit about anything.

They don't give a shit about the global economy,

or energy markets, or anything that they will,

they're out to punish.

They're out to punish and they're out to have Iran survive.

And they're their way of thinking.

They're the people.

I don't think they can.

I don't think they can.

I really care if Iran survives.

I mean, I think they want the regime to continue.

But put it this way, the amount of pain and damage

they're prepared to stop.

I had a friend who used to go to Millwall football matches.

Millwall famously football matches.

Extremely violent.

Everybody used to throw a 50 piece at each other.

You know, in the sort of hexagonal comfort weapon

that we have it for money.

And he got into a fight with three guys.

And they came up and said like,

and he's like, yeah, come on.

If you want to go have a go.

And they were like, but there's three of us.

And he said, yeah, there's three of you.

But I don't care if you hurt me.

You're care when I hurt you.

And he fought them.

And they lost because he's prepared.

He doesn't care what they do to him.

He's going to flick more pain.

And Iran is like a Millwall supporter.

They will go in and they don't care what you do to them.

They will bloody your nose.

And the options with the weapons that they have

is to cause the most horrific economic crisis

we've seen since cut nose wins since the 20s.

I suppose the answer to this would be what?

Like to determine the date on which they mine the straights?

I mean, because that's straights already mine.

There's already some mining, but not fully mined,

as far as we know.

And there's also kind of like how they've done some damage.

What they've done with the mines, as far as we know,

is the southern, so the channel is two lanes

that go through the middle of the channel in and out.

And what they've done is they've mined the southern part,

which is forced.

So the route now is the ships that are transitioning,

the Iranian ships, Chinese, Bangladesh, actually, Indian,

are being forced to sell very close to the shore.

So that any mine goes to the street, basically.

Well, they moved the traffic close to the shore

so everything's in range of the most pathetic drones

that they have.

And this is another massive change,

because I think that as part of that day before

the war started negotiation in Geneva,

that Vidkov was demanding that basically

the Iranians dismantled its navy.

And I think part of the plan here,

although this hasn't been set out loud,

was that the Americans were hoping to take control militarily.

Of the passage through the straits.

And part of that is part of a game plan,

which again hasn't been set out loud,

but seems to be emerging that Trump is trying to control

the oil supplies to China.

Because I think he's fixated on China

as our main strategic rival.

And they have a monopoly over our

rares and critical minerals.

And so what I'm going to do is take control of their oil supplies,

which is what Venezuela, bulk of its oil, went to China.

Bulk of the oil coming out of the Gulf, goes to China.

And so I think the idea was to put the U.S.

military oil navy into the straits.

But the irony of this is that currently,

that a channel that was open to international traffic

under the maritime right of innocent passage.

Anybody can sell through there who wants to.

Is now strictly under the control of the Iranians

who are only allowing friendly countries to go through.

Specifically, their own tankers are leaving.

They're all going to Asia.

The Chinese have been given a pass,

all going to China.

The Indians have been given a pass,

the Pakistanis and the Bangladeshi have all been given a pass.

All the oil now is going to Asia,

which is Iran's friends.

And you've taken it off the market for Americans

and Europeans in particular.

And for Europe, I don't know if we want to get into this,

but Europe is in the most horrific position imaginable.

It was already suffering a gas crisis.

The tanks are record lows following the big freeze this winter.

And they're not going to get to 90% by November 1st.

Deadline.

They're liquid natural gas.

Notice that in regard to your earlier appearances on the show

about Europe's prospects, a German politician,

I forget his identity, said recently,

we have to be realistic.

Wow, it's time to just build up our reserves,

whether it's with Russian oil or any other oil.

That was, or at least repeated by the Belgian government.

Right, the Belgian Prime Minister,

he's saying we're so screwed,

and he's the first one to say it out loud,

apart from Hungary and Slovakia.

He's saying we're so screwed and they are.

We are.

That it's time to drop sanctions and to start re-importing Russian oil and gas.

And actually, this is actually a very serious point,

because as I say, if Europe gets to November with only 75% of the gas in the tanks,

we're going to have another repeat of the 2022 energy crisis.

And we, I live in Berlin, and we usually pay about 400 bucks a year for electricity.

We had a surcharge in 2022.

1,400 euros on top of our normal bill.

It's insane.

Suddenly, they hit us with this bill.

We had to pay.

And it's going to, I don't know,

I mean, the European economy was not in good shape before.

But then again, there was just the EU summit in Brussels yesterday.

And Katya Kalas, God bless her,

the foreign policy in chief.

It was like, no, we need to increase the pressure on Russia.

And of course, we're not going to drop sanctions.

And we need to increase them and persuade everybody to stop buying exported oil.

Whereas the Americans just issued a,

not only do they issue a 30-day waiver to India to buy as much Russian oil as it wants

in order to keep a big consumer to stop pushing prices up.

Today they announced they're going to ease the sanctions on Iranian oil.

So you're going to go to war ran in order to use sanctions on Iran.

So we can increase our imports of their oil and put more money in their pocket,

which is insane.

But then again, this is exactly what we did with Putin when we put sanctions on him in 2022

is at the same time we continue to import copious amounts of Russian oil and gas.

So that that year, Russia earns current account surplus of $225 billion,

which was not only a new all-time high.

It was double the previous all-time high.

So Europe paid for the first year of the war.

And Trump is now just proposed to pay Iran for his war.

Real quickly, Ben.

Could you give us a quick rundown of where Ukraine's finances are?

Because as I understand it,

we haven't talked specifically, I think, really about where that war is at the moment.

No, that's very good question.

Yeah, because just up until a couple of months ago,

there was a lot of another wave of real big happy talk from the sort of pro-Ukrain war lobby

that this time, actually, I know we said this before,

but this time Russia really is on the verge of some kind of financial crisis.

And there were actually some indicators that were looking, you know, rougher for Russia.

But of course, that's done now, but Ukraine is in a really bad spot right now, aren't they?

Yeah, and it's getting played down.

So what happened was Ukraine has been running out of money for the last years

since Trump took over American cent zero support.

Previously under Biden, it was responsible for 40%.

So the burdens fall an entirely on Europe.

And Europe has been struggling because the economic situation

chooses the boomerang effect of sanctions in Europe is really bad.

And countries like France is an absolute chaos that the UK is in chaos.

Huge debts, massive budget deficits, slowing growth.

It's like horrible situation.

Both those two are actually facing or close to asking the IMF for bailout.

Wow.

And within this, suddenly they have to take on 100 billion a year funding Ukraine.

Because Ukraine is entirely, or at least half the budget is dependent on like so of funding.

And the solution to this, in December, there was a summit where they went forward

with a so-called reparation loan.

Basically, that was the confiscation of 300 billion of Russian frozen money.

But that was blocked by the Belgian Prime Minister as illegal.

Long story, but it's a nightmare and basically you can't do it.

So that was the first line of defense.

And that would have cost Europe nothing.

So they fell back to the unpopular second line of defense,

which was to issue 90 billion euros of collective European debts

that's backed by the EU budget.

This, basically, it's a European T-Build.

So this is unusual because unlike the states, federated states issue a federal level,

Europe doesn't do that.

There's like no T-Build.

This was the second one ever.

They did one before, large one, post COVID.

And so they proposed the second one.

But it works and you can get that from the markets.

And anyway, the problem with this 90 billion,

which would have been enough to fund Ukraine for another two years,

is that it's being vetoed because it has to be a unanimous decision.

By not just urban and hungry and feature in Slovakia,

it was also scuppard by Greece and Malta,

who were complaining about the 20th sanctions package,

which would ban their oil business, carrying Russian oil,

as part of the shadow fleet,

which nobody wants to talk about in public, but it's there.

And so they can't get this 90 billion through,

and Ukraine is running out of money fast.

So at the summit that's going on right now,

the Nordic countries have come up with a proposal

to go to the third line of defense,

which is to issue bilateral debt, 30 billion.

And that's even more unpopular,

because that falls on the national budget,

so at the moment the Nordics are proposing it,

which is taxpayers' money.

And none of these deals have been put in place.

Without that money, then Ukraine runs out of money completely in April

and has an economic collapse.

So, Zelensky's back is up against the wall.

Volodya Lyam was on the podium today saying that we will do it somehow,

but because they can't get the 90 billion through without Hungary's OK,

because he's in a huge row.

He promised to actually do it when it was agreed in December.

Or ban you, but he...

Or ban, yeah.

And he's changed his mind,

because in January, the Russian bar pipeline

that delivers all the Russian gas to Hungary and Slovakia

was hit by drones.

There's a rower who did that.

You know, one side said it with Russians, the other side said it was Ukrainians.

Zelensky's been dragging his heels about fixing that pipeline,

which is not going to happen for a year in month or two.

And or ban is basically saying, no oil, no money.

And this could drag on to April,

and so Ukraine's position is decaying rapidly.

And if they get to April and run out of money,

war's over.

Basically, Ukraine goes bankrupt.

Yeah.

So everyone's running around.

And if you just look at the situation,

compared to what it was a year ago,

there's massive disunity in Europe

to the point where the Belgian Prime Minister and Maloney in Italy

is suggesting enough that stop this,

let's lift the sanctions,

let's go back to importing cheap Russian oil and gas,

because they're looking at their own economies.

Right.

And they're not going to get through this.

And then you've got the burden of 100 billion,

and you're going to take on some very unpleasant debt

at the time when you're already up against it economically,

that's going to come out of your taxpayer's pockets.

You know, it's political linemas.

So Europe is looking absolutely fractured,

divisions are appearing everywhere.

You've got new people joining up in the light.

Let's end this camp.

And it's an absolute mess.

And then on top of that,

you've got Trump bullying you and asking you to send like warships

down to the Gulf, which everybody said no to.

So again, there's a huge route brewing with the states,

because Trump came back and said,

right, I'm going to pull out of later.

So the whole international Western rules-based,

value-based order is falling to pieces.

Yeah.

And Xi Jinping and Putin must be looking on just laughing their heads off.

You know what?

They're like the Romans in life of Brian,

who are watching the different Jewish groups mass occurring each other,

and the Romans are like shaking their head.

Eating an apple.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

It's really quite amazing what an absolute shit show this is.

And I think it's made good.

I think we're living through really historic times.

I've got a series of pieces in the queue

that I haven't been able to get to,

called Post-Pax Americana,

that the Pax Americana,

we had the Pax Britannia,

which collapsed in the Second World War,

and then we had post-war Pax Americana,

which was very prosperous,

and it's over.

And the enormity of the changes,

I mean, I'm not just talking about the East-West class,

the enormity of the changes,

the rise of the global markets, the emerging markets,

who are taking over.

And the irony is that they were,

you know, you just look at the technology sector

where suddenly China is trumping the West on every technology,

one after the other is falling to China,

and that the growth,

60% of the world's growth is in emerging markets,

and the developed markets,

the model has fundamentally changed.

It's no longer competitive,

in a very, very basic way.

And Trump has been put into doing these tariffs

in order to re-import manufacturing jobs,

but you don't get it.

The bond or the horses bolts it,

that you're no longer competitive,

the technology,

the emerging markets have left over several stages,

and you're left with legacy technology

and legacy infrastructure that costs you money,

that you can't upgrade easily,

and the emerging markets,

because they haven't got that stuff,

have gone straight to state-of-the-art,

and they're investing in education,

and R&D, and the way that the West isn't.

The Draghi report came out in Europe,

whatever it was, last year or the year before,

saying that Europe is no longer competitive.

It had an economy that was twice the size of the states,

two years ago in 1991,

and now it's half the size.

And I don't know, people haven't woken up.

It's the same way they haven't woken up to the new war

that they're fighting, how that's changed.

So in long slow decline,

I recommended to both my boys,

go, emerging markets,

one to speak Spanish,

go back to Latin America,

the other speaks Japanese, go back to Asians.

No, that's a waste of time here.

Yeah, Mandarin would be a good one too.

Spanish definitely good.

Yeah, and I have to say,

that's one thing you talked about this in the early,

some early episodes on the economic side of the Ukraine-Russia war,

that Russia had really pivoted,

you know, kind of anticipating this war,

and in response to the sanctions after the 2014 kind of semi-war,

and taking Crimea, they pivoted in a big way,

or, you know, really worked on building up and reconstituting

their relationships with emerging markets, countries.

Well, really Africa, Asia,

Global South.

Global South, in general, yeah.

And the global South, a lot of them were very receptive to it,

because for one thing,

the Europeans and the Americans had been

fucking them off for a long time,

and not taking them seriously,

except a brow beat them every once in a while in a UN vote,

and they kind of then tried to catch up,

but still kind of half-heartedly.

No, I mean, that's another catastrophic for the US consequence

of this Iranian campaign,

is that process of the global South coming together

and getting organized,

is going to be accelerated with NOBSON.

I mean, for me, the telling one was that,

when we had the, I think it was the Kazan brick summit,

and Indonesia turned up,

and Indonesia is the big catch,

it's the fourth largest populous country in the world,

it's a big chunk of like non-China and Southeast Asia,

so, you know, you want to be in there,

because for Putin, it's also a balance of China's influence,

and they were dithering,

they were offered to join the so-called BRICS PLAST,

the expanded BRICS.

And for two years,

the first year they said,

maybe in the second year they were,

sit on the fence to see how it goes,

they joined in January,

and they were like,

the way the world's going,

like, absolutely,

we don't want to be part of the West,

and we need to rally together with the BRICS,

with the emerging markets,

and the differences,

and again, I've got a series of pieces about this,

but what's interesting is that people have criticized China

and Russia for not coming to the aid,

on first Venezuela,

and then not coming to the aid of Iran,

and they're supposed to be allies.

But then that's old school,

them and us, cold war thinking,

and that we form blocks

because we have common values,

and we're all fighting on the same page,

and the new asymmetric diplomacy

that comes with this asymmetric wars

is that it doesn't work like that,

because EU,

and this is where it's being called out with America,

is like, you know,

we have common values,

liberal ideas,

what Trump's done,

is taking America out,

that maybe it doesn't have any liberal ideas,

he's just like America first,

it's an imperialistic approach.

But within,

and within the West,

you know, Germany, France, UK,

we can all like join together on a block,

and people are blaming China

and Russia for not supporting their allies in the same way.

But this asymmetric diplomacy

is about cooperation on mutual interest,

and very strict non-interference

in the domestic affairs of other countries.

We, in the West,

dictate lecture other countries

for not having gay marriage, for example.

We impose our values on them,

because we have the arrogance

to assume our system is best.

In the emerging markets,

the global south,

it's like, you can do what you like.

Kill the egos,

you know, kill the Chechens,

off you go,

it's your problem,

it's your issue,

I'm not going to say anything about it.

But then,

when we're fighting against America,

who is punishing us with sanctions,

then we can operate.

And you have the amazing

Shanghai Corporation organization,

meeting in November,

where you had,

at the same table,

Kim Jong-Un,

Modi,

Putin,

and Xi Jinping.

And none of those countries are friends,

natural friends.

But they all have common interests,

and this asymmetric diplomacy

that's emerging,

it's not about blocks,

them and us,

it's about networks.

So you've got,

all these proliferation of networks,

you've got the G20,

you've got the bricks plus,

you've got the ASEAN countries,

you've got Megasaur,

and they're all setting up multiple network.

And the thing with the network

is very hard to breach.

If you have them and us,

if you have a block,

you take it out, you lose.

But if you have a network,

it's ultimately flexible.

And then,

you can have China and India,

which have effectively been at war for decades.

But at the same time,

they turn up and Shanghai,

and when they're coming to talk about

getting rid of the dollar for trade,

and developing a digital currency,

which is coming,

then they're on the same page,

and they're like,

no problem.

And you've got money buying weapons from Russia,

but at the same time,

playing to the White House.

Same thing,

it's like, you know,

you can't tell me not to buy Russian oil.

It's in my interest.

Why wouldn't I buy Russian oil

when they're offering it to me

at a $20 discount on $65 oil?

You're crazy.

Of course, I'm going to do that.

And Trump is doing old school.

You're going to do what I'm saying.

And all the global emerging markets

are just like,

I'm not listening to that.

I'm looking at my own interest.

And it keys on self-interest.

So Russia and China,

I suspect strongly,

are giving Iran technology,

drone technology,

because the same situation

that Europe and America

don't want to see Ukraine lose the war.

In exactly the same way,

China and Russia

don't want to see Iran defeated

by America.

But not to the point,

in the same way

that the West is not putting troops into Ukraine,

not to the point

that they're actually going to overtly

give Iran military help.

Yeah, I mean,

but it,

no, it's true.

I mean, seeing people

complain that Russia

is providing some kind of intelligence aid

in China like,

what the hell do you,

it's weird.

I've seen these,

these complaints

and they don't mention

that the U.S. has helped

Ukraine target missiles,

provided missiles,

provided intelligence,

and helped target the

missiles hitting Russia.

On that story,

what they've done mention

is that China is overtly

and openly

giving extremely high quality

satellite intelligence.

Moreover, China's upgraded

a satellite,

so they have sub-1 meter

resolution intelligence.

And there's been pictures openly

released on the incident,

showing U.S. fighter jets

on bases in UEA,

Bahrain,

with Chinese labels saying

what they are.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And that's been given to Iran,

so the four

third radar stations,

which are key

for the missile defense,

American.

We're all taken out

in the first days of the war,

by incredibly high precision,

very powerful Iranian missiles,

which blinds a big chunk

of Americans.

So the thirds are basically

made useless,

because their eyes have been

taken out,

which was Chinese,

Chinese.

But no one's writing about that.

They're all speculating

that maybe Russia

maybe is sharing some

sort of insight.

Well, we know openly,

China is doing it.

And the drones,

this is another interesting

story, because

in the 12th day war

with Iran,

that the Israelis

have good electronic warfare

and manage to spoof

a lot of the inbound drones.

But in the last year,

the Iranians

changed over to the

what's it called,

Bay Do?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

China's

exactly the same.

Yes, actually system, yeah.

Yeah.

And that has improved the accuracy

and it's made the

electronic defenses

of Israel useless.

And again,

I think you were talking

about this before we started.

But I'm here in the same thing

that Israel is

absolutely getting pounded,

that the Iron Dome

has been breached.

It doesn't work.

Yeah.

And Israeli cities

are getting absolutely

pounded.

Yeah, it's

everything did not go

as they expected.

Iranian intelligence has been

far better than anyone

expected.

And how could they have known,

except by maybe, you know,

reading a little history

or listen to Radio Warner

for that matter?

Yes.

But anyways, Ben,

thank you so much

for that very grim talk.

I mean, we're looking at

that sort of like,

I don't know,

the global north

as Ottoman Empire.

And it's a dangerous time.

I mean, America in particular

in decline, we knew it would be

dangerous.

And I mean, I was talking

about how dangerous it would be,

you know, going way back.

I didn't know it would be this dumb,

but definitely knew it would be dangerous.

And it's,

we're probably going to have a lot

to talk about.

It's very worried.

Late stage decaying empires,

which is where we're at,

hence my post-Pax Americana

theme, which I hope to get out,

as soon as it comes down a bit,

is typically where you walk

into world wars.

Yeah.

And I'm very worried,

and I've been very,

I shall say, pessimistic

in this talk.

I can see a major financial crisis

coming in the next few months

or this year.

And the whole world has been

turned on its head.

And what distresses me is,

what you're alluding to,

it's just the insane lack

of quality on the leadership

on our side.

And I'm looking at the quality

of the leadership.

I mean, not nice.

They do harsh stuff,

decision-paying,

Putin, et cetera, et cetera.

But they're all very competent,

and they're really good at their jobs.

And our long idiots.

Yeah.

So that's bad news.

Yeah, and we used to kind of rely

on the Europeans to

keep us a little more sane.

And now you've got, you know,

Kaya Kales and Vandolein

is the lead Europeans.

And it's just,

it's so decrepit there too.

So it's a really,

it's a bad time all around.

And the rise of the rights.

I mean, the European leaders,

I think every single one of the top guys,

Macron, Matt Stammer,

are the most unpopular

Prime Minister's president ever.

And they give the election

two years, cycle two years.

And we're going to get

for Ranch, Le Pen,

and the IFD here in Germany.

Fashion is coming in.

Yeah.

And, you know.

Yeah.

Not one.

A lot to look forward to.

Who we are.

Yeah, and I'm not happy now.

I'm not happy now.

Yeah, let's say I'm happy now.

Thank you so much to

friend of the show Ben Orres,

and thank you everyone

Brendan John Ben.

Dr. Soon.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Bye.

We'll be back soon.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.