Episodio 1 - Reibaldi

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This one is going to be. This one's interesting to me because I was alive for part of this and I was sentient for. I mean, I remember a lot of this So we had teased about talking about the Cold War But you said that you had a. We're going to start at the end and then go back to the beginning So what do you got? Well, there's a few things here I want to explain my ration to Elle before we deep dive into it You know, I don't want to presume that viewers and listeners have knowledge that they don't I mean, I'm not saying that anybody's not smart or anything but some of this stuff has become somewhat insultary It's just because the way the news cycle doesn't properly provide context to historical events particularly where there's military variables involved and putting all narratives become paramount to characterize these things But also, it's as hard to place oneself in a subjectually in an epoch that has totally passed You know, I went through that when people, like my parents, they had to talk about the 50s and 60s and things You know, I mean, all people go through that but you know, the reason why I indicated you know, I want to, I'm treating this as kind of the end was the beginning Everything that is happening today in political terms and foreign policy terms in terms of the guiding ideology of Washington and I say ideology not ideology's plural because I really do believe that there's a true consensus there There's no opposition party in Washington at all I mean, arguably since 1933 there hasn't been real opposition but in discrete policy terms there was now that no longer exists There's an absolute quorum There's one ideology There's one strategic vision There's one sense of when intervention and force is legitimate and that is totally ideologically driven It's not driven by strategic variables of a realist or even particularly concrete nature You know, it's very based on a very abstract thing It's an ideological thing But you know what I would understand why that's the case and you know what I would understand why Ukraine is the designated battleground and the only way to understand why Russia, the Russian Federation, as it exists today hasn't slated for annihilation is to understand how the Cold War resolved and why it resolved the way it did So to begin I'm going to go back to the last sort of conflict cycle of the Cold War Very briefly to speak on detente detente was born a two thing so those that don't know detente was it was an explicit and series of implicit agreements between the United States and Soviet Union Warsaw PAC to not engage in direct strategic competition Part of this over the fact that America was losing the Cold War militarily not just in Vietnam but on secondary battle fronts like Angola the Indo-Pagostan War was very much an attempt to go into the then-NASA Soviet split that the Soviet dynasty in the hedging China with India being a huge populist country Pakistan was kind of the American response to that creating trying to cultivate Pakistan as a proxy but these things were not going well and obviously direct intervention this weird period between the end of the military draft and you know the the the kind of full development of the all volunteer force and the full development and implementation was to become known as the revolution in military affairs you know they're entailed in the command and control technology to global positioning technology you know to do the smart munitions becoming the norm rather than the exception okay there's a strange kind of period between those two things where the US Army was operating on a shoestring budget I mean the whole not just the armed military there was no political will and watching it in front of the plumber sees communism in the third world in Europe and become very stagnant but in the third world it had this great animating power and the Soviets were blessed with a great deal of proxies who were already in being you know in in cadre with a full cadre structure and you know men under arms that facilitate military outcomes that very much benefited the Soviets all they really needed was to constantly play a weapons and the Soviets could kind of take a hands-on approach so from about 1973 onward you know this this kind of this kind of strategic paradigm reigned however during that period the technology that that underpins strategic nuclear weapons dramatically improved you know only to the only the early revolution in computing technology only to improve circular or probable from you know things like the space program you know and just only the only the real satellite technology we'll get into that a minute what I mean you know it it we take a granted that satellite imaging you know gives you a real-time picture of the battle space but that was not the case until the late 1970s probably until 1980 okay so uh this endured until 1979 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan uh and that really alarmed people because for reasons we're going into in a moment beyond the obvious it was misunderstood why that happened I know Mr. Trump said it was to fight Islamic terrorism that doesn't make any sense other people claim that well it was the version of doctrine you know that being that the Soviet Union declared that it would intervene on behalf of the socialist community of nation is to preserve socialism okay that was the rationale the pretext what it really was was that outside of Moscow the primary commanding control hub for Soviet strategic nuclear forces was in Kazakhstan or was uh yeah it was in Kazakhstan okay um and that's why not accidentally this where star city is you know where where the Soviet Union and later the Russian Federation you'll launch their space vehicles from so if Afghanistan could be flipped or could have been flipped and transformed into a western client state with basing rights there uh the Soviets have been looking at a situation where their strategic nuclear commanding control would be decavitated you know at least a substantial portion of it and that was not acceptable now in drop-off even the bridge that was at the helm in drop-off was really kind of the the the the shadow executive of the Soviet Union you know the Soviet political structure was very Byzantine not just because the party in the state were we're we're interstitially combined with one another but because who was who was the true executive you know varied you know generally it was a man well-accompanied to have offices you know like um the uh he often would be a man well both a premiership and the general secretary of the communist party um other times it was it was it was far more uh opaque and uh in drop-off rained formally as uh as as as you know the the general secretary from 82 to 84 but I'd argue that probably from our 1969 he was a true shadow executive of the Soviet Union and he was a very brilliant guy and the world had its structure today and the failure of the Soviet Union and decisions made their end for better and ill over and much to Mr. and drop-off but it was his decision to invade Afghanistan and he was looking many steps ahead in terms of you know the implications for the strategic nuclear balance and uh the ability of the Soviet Union to survive up all from the blue nuclear assault which was a real concern for reasons we'll get into and it's um it's typical to emphasize How dangerous it was to have two superpowers. fully mobilized with massive nuclear arsenals on hair trigger alert all time. When the technological curve was really moving towards removing human decision makers from the equation, you know, only with the narrowing temporal window of decision making in the vet of nuclear war, this was really becoming out of, it was really kind of becoming removed from human hands. You know, technology is its own momentum. And societies at scale, we were talking about literally hundreds of millions of people and thousands, about thousands, about thousands of aggregate decisions, you know, control and the trajectory of that massive state. You know, these things can't just easily be moved one or the other and the perennial breaks can't just be put on an apparatus of that scope scale complexity. You know, like I, I mean, this is just fundamental to understanding the paradigm. Do you think that they did that because of, you know, Daniel Alzberg put out the Doomsday machine, which really shined a light on what he saw in the nuclear policy. So the way in the late 50s, early 60s, how the, how the nukes were being overseen, do you think that that because of the way that could have turned into a disaster, they possibly thought that well, if we turn this over into more of a even starting to talk about AI and things like that, it would be better than having human handled this. And the progenitor, like the proverbial father of AI is strategic nuclear war planning. The idea was this, okay, and I'm jumping a little bit ahead because he asked, I want to kind of deal with this now. By the 1980s, you know, where true parity existed when the sewer power was in terms of strategic nuclear forces and being as well as capabilities. A, a bolt on the blue strike, I launched by hypersonic cruise missiles from Europe against the Soviet Union. They would have as well as five minutes to render a decision on retaliation. The United States would have longer, but we're talking about eight to fifteen minutes in the case of the United States. I'm not going to bore people with the details of how they would have played out. They would have involved things like an SLBM, assault, launch at the press trajectory, the spoof early warning systems detonating a ground burst detonation, thus an EMP would knock out remaining early warning. But the point is, like imagine the situation where, okay, you know, if policy is to, you know, policy is to launch on warning, not launch on confirmation of assault. It's like, okay, it's two in the morning, you know, American time or in Moscow. You wake up the, the wake up of the United States or you wake up the general secretary. You know, he said, Mr. President, you know, we just received like confirmation like incoming assault. He's got eight minutes to decide like how he's going to retaliate. If he's going to retaliate, what their retaliation is going to entail, what forces are going to be available to it? Whether it's going to be counter-force, not counter-value, whether it's going to be, you know, full spectrum attack. That it's where at the point, it was just totally academics. That's not possible. Okay. So the idea was, you've got to be able to discern absolute indicators before, you know, not just before launch detection, but before even what's considered early warning detection. And you could code those indicators into variables that could be rendered as inputs. Then your AI could tell you when you're facing imminent assault. But the problem with that is like, when do you decide, when do you decide to launch? Is that when there's over 50% probability of imminent attack, when it's 80%, when it's anything over 10%, you know, when it's 5%, you know, these deeper parodies make this incredibly difficult. But regardless, there was a secondary issue too. I'm going to get into this now because this is a perfect kind of way to kind of slide into it. As they taught, ended Carter, who gets a better rap. Now don't get me wrong. Carter was not a good president, but he was not a terrible man. He was actually a very moral man. And he did some good things. One of the good things he did was in 1979, Carter, Carter Tech, William Odom, who was a general, a very brilliant guy. Odom was rare because he kind of had the logistical brilliance of a Vomar Bradley, but he was also a real warrior. He was like a soldier's general. He understood combat. He really understood nuclear weapons. Okay. I think it's kind of a counter-parad, is a strong counter-parad, would be somebody like Blackjack Pershing. But William Odom went through the presidential decision-making handbook and literally something existed for nuclear war. And it was incredibly opaque. It was incredibly obtuse. It was not up to speed in terms of the technology of the day. And it didn't give the president any real ability to -- it didn't give him any liberty of action with respect to the war plan. Now part of that is because this was drafted in 1965. So basically what it entailed in the core of this presidential handbook was the SIO, not the psychological operation, the SIOP, the single integrated operational plan. Because this day there was an SIOP, but it's totally different. And it's changed many times. But as of 1979, it was this arcane document that was no longer relevant. And it basically gave the president a handful of menu options. It was literally listed as response menu. It was counter-value and counter-force assault against the Soviet Union. All war-subpacked states were strategic nuclear forces are based. And the same for the people of the Republican China. There's another menu option. That was the same thing for China, but not the US, the SIOP and war-subpacked. There's another menu option that was the reverse. There's another one that was strictly counter-force, no counter-value. A lot of this came from the fact that we were talking about a moment ago about satellites. Okay. And until about 1980, or like 1977, 1980, US satellites that would provide data on the basing location of enemy forces, there were always several weeks at a date. Because these satellites would take their pictures. The little film would be deposited in a canister. The cancer would fall to earth and be recovered from the ocean. It would be retrieved, developed, and analyzed. So some of them are talking about months out of date information. And one of the things that Soviet did, which was kind of cunning and simplicity, rather than availing their land-based ICBMs to the super-hardened structures, they put them on trucks and mobile launch vehicles. Like everybody's seen the footage. I mean, at least if you were a kid like when I was, you know, they'd be the ominous hell. They'd be the ominous little footage from the Moscow military parades. Now, these SS19, these huge ICBMs on these trucks, you know, literally here. Okay. They were moving around every single day, you know. And that, the spoof enemy targeting. And there's like the totally crazy stuff. Like by the mid-80s NSA satellites and DI satellites, they were photographing the soil in the Soviet Union and East Germany to detect tracks from these vehicles. Because based on the depth, you could tell if the payload was something of the wave in SS19 or not. Like it's totally insane. Like not insane, it's stupid or bad. Like totally insane. Like they might have worked in like man hours that went into this. You know, people can't even see what somebody had today. But so a card or an Odom decided was there was another thing too that was disturbing about the SIOP and the entire response plan. And it was that by the time, by the state of technology of 1979, it was just accepted that the event of a bolt from the blue assault or an unforeseen escalation of conventional war, wherein, you know, the enemy, the enemy just, you know, goes on with, you know, escalates to countervalue nuclear assault. It was just accepted that the president would be dead. And all civilian decision makers would be dead. So the only people who would be able to manage the response would be strategic air command. Based as they were in super hard and places like Shion Mountain, as well as in the looking glass aircraft that was the airborne command post. That's really disturbing. It's also damn unconstitutional. You can't craft a war plan and be with an article to be parameters that says, well, the president's going to die. So, you know, general powers, a general, the mayor, or general so and so. He's not that effective president. You know, he's he's is Lord high executioner and then he's totally in control of the strategic nuclear forces, but also he's just like the raining like government official who's going to survive. So it all comes down to him. That's a very dangerous situation among other things. And also like I said. family and other things. I was just saying, it's unacceptable. So what Carter did was ordered autumn to draft a comprehensive response plan. Basically bring the SIOP up to speed, account for deeper parodies, account for up to the moment intelligence that could be gleaned from the then contemporary satellite systems that would allow for instantaneous retargeting as needed and things like this. Carter demanded that part of his plan include designated civilian national command authorities. Based on the president's cabinet would all be issued these ID cards that all had a code and the code would constantly change. But these men and a handful of women are in the cabinet because they did a cabinet. They'd have to every day they'd have to report on their whereabouts and if they left the different Columbia they'd have to report like every hour as the where they were. So there was a series of military bases and hard structures that they would be designated to travel to wherever they were in a amount of war. So basically launch very short. The system was put into place. This was not completed until about 9.845. But the system was in place. There was no way that every civilian national command authority would be killed. There would always be someone who could manage the war on behalf of the executive and the civilian leadership. There was other things too. But basically what this all came down who taken together this meant that owing to the technology of the time and the kind of the evolving state of warfare, command and control, smart munitions, everything else. America was planning to get about a nuclear war in a fight in winning nuclear war. This cause of the conservation from people who didn't really understand the properties. Even some people who should have. People had this ongoing kind of delusion that MED was one part kind of talking point, one part kind of in joke of within the nuclear fraternity in the earliest days. The assert destruction is not literally mean the end of everything. Assured destruction is a victory metric in strategic nuclear warfare. It's the point in which an enemy society can no longer reconsitive the wage war. It's based upon the attrition point in which you kill an enemy society. Which is a horrific metric because in the case of the Soviet Union or America as a 1970s, that would entail about 70 or 80 million people. But this idea that the only reason nuclear weapons exist is to make sure they are never used. That's an absurdity. It also wasn't by the 1970s, the 1970s, you had multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles. You had decoys. You had ways to spoon for early warning radar. You had hypersonic missile platforms that didn't even travel on ballistic trajectory. It was totally obsolescent. As William Odom said, he said, look, he said at the time, he reiterated later to one of his biographers, he's like, I have an obligation that if America was attacked with nuclear weapons, I have an obligation in contact with the president to fight and win a nuclear war. And he's absolutely right. With the other kind of perverse feature of man and that kind of whole ethos, it's like, I'm obligated to commit suicide. It's always like 80 million other people because we failed in our effort to maintain peace to the balance of terror. There's something crazy about it. But that's basically what ushered in the final phase of the Cold War. Now I want to fast forward a bit to what exactly happened when it became clear that not just cracks in the edifice of the Soviet Empire emerging, but that there was a genuine structural crisis underway. And part of others developed, always the personalities quite literally, of George Herbert Walker, Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev. Now Mr. Bush, I've got to drop some biographical background on Bush for this to make any sense. I'm not trying to bore anybody. Bush was a very dynamic guy, frankly. And he's not a well-loved individual and that's fine. I'm not saying people should light-boist it morally. You're thinking that he was like a good man or something, but he had an incredibly in depth understanding of the nuances of the strategic balance of the Cold War. But he was head of the CIA in 1974 when something very controversial happened. See, as I made the point before in the Red Ribbon context, the CIA really lost its KFC in the '60s and subsequently with the gates hearings. It wasn't just that people were morally outraged by things like the Phoenix program, which they put squarely on the shoulders of CIA. When really kind of responsibility, if you want to look at that way, if you do this as a great evil, kind of rest it equally with army intelligence, man can be sawed, the Pentagon itself. But one of the reasons this misplaced some people like CIA is kind of the seat of deep-state power, it's really not. It was really, really low by a lot of very hawkish Cold War leaders. So something happened in 1974. There's something of this day that is corralled by the intelligence services called the National Intelligence Estimate. It's become kind of meaningless now because intelligence and the whole intelligence game is totally different today. And we could do an episode on that if anybody is interested. But I'm not going to deep dive into that because it's just too much kind of collateral stuff. But it was the belief of everybody from hawkish senators and congressmen to Pentagon types, to guys and army intelligence to Ronald Reagan himself who was really as the mid-70s had his eyes on a White House bid. The believes that the CIA was not feeding, they were not feeding good data to those whom they were accountable, civilian or military. The claim was that they were consistently underestimating Soviet capabilities as well as just kind of internal dynamics within the Soviet Union relating to the leadership cast as well as relating to probable decisions that the Soviets would make and it went confronted with crises, both of them without their sphere of influence. So it was proposed that what was called team B be corralled as a competitive analysis exercise. Now what was the mandate of quoteable team B? It was commissioned to aggregate and analyze data from diverse sources, basically any available intelligence sources that were then relied upon. To judge the accuracy, comprehensiveness, the predictive value of the national intelligence estimate of the proceeding civil use. Now the forms of team B, it was 16 experts total and I'll get into who those men were in just a minute. They were divided into three teams, okay, or teams or classes of you will. One of them was to study specifically low altitude Soviet air defense capabilities, which, again, I don't want to bore anybody, but this relates to things. Stealth technology didn't exist yet, but it was understood that this was in the wings. And even where it not, platforms like what became the B1 bomber, the idea was if you can fly below conventional radar, it stretched super hard targets with very heavy nuclear weapons. That's the most effective way to knock out these counter-force targets. So even though it seems overly specific and as a tariff, that's why this was such a priority. The study of low, the fact that it doesn't give abilities of low altitude, doesn't give a low altitude, so-and-a-doveance capabilities, in places like Moscow, in places like Kazakhstan, okay. Another team was to study the accuracy of land-based Soviet and Warsaw-PAC ICBMs, okay. The circular error probable. Traditionally, the Soviets larded their launch vehicles and boarheads that had actually massed throw away. So even if they lost a substantial amount of them, to ABM technology, those that hit would be absolutely devastating. That's kind of how they resolved the issue. I mean, America had every-my mario's ethos kind of the opposite. And there was an idea was eventually to create basically smart munitions on strategic plate and in the strategic arsenal and pepper the target area with sub-megaton warheads, which is far, far more devastating than one massive device. For reasons I don't fully understand about your physics guys to like to have some light on And finally and most importantly the third you know team within team B Their role is a study soviet strategic priorities and how this interface with policy orientation Basically what's the Soviet? What's the Soviet was the Soviet doctrine on nuclear war like when would they truly escalate and beyond that in more More kind of global figuratively little terms like what is their grand strategy like how does the Soviet Union aim to increase its power And this kind of uncertain epoch that we're entering Now who was on this team and you're going to understand why I made a big deal about Bush and and Like Bush the man is personality This team was headed by Richard pipes It included Daniel Graham William van Cleve 4d-color steamer-blice Paul Wilfowitz and Paul Knitz who'd been the creator of the committee on the present danger in 1950 which over time at various iterations all of which basically it's it's not really relevant now, but That was always kind of the That was always there was it was kind of the political action committee of Cold War thoughts, okay now If you notice from that list as a ticked off these like the fathers in New York and servanism not philosophically but in policy terms That is not an accident, okay, and these guys basically were saying well Bush's CIA is totally incompetent and they do not know what they're doing okay and Thus when Bush was brought on board as Reagan's VP Reagan was surrounded with the old conservatives as advisors and I would go as far as the argue People like Oliver North people like point extra on People like L. H. Goodin last long in middle E From devices and apps to support and security Apple has everything you need to help your business thrive and that select We help you unlock that power Whether you're just starting out we're scaling into something much bigger as Your local business partner with over 30 years experience we support businesses of all sizes Visit select online.com/business to find out more and speak to the team Puyla what you're looking for from 2nd or 2nd to 2019 tall tight it's too much DETROID pool gosta 9th Intern酒 no, luggage no dont etcetera that's Also Apple has everything to help business thrive and that select we help you unlock that power whether you're just starting out or scaling into something much bigger as your local business partner with over 30 years experience we support businesses of all sizes visitselectonline.com/business to find out more and speak to the team these guys were ultra hawkers but they were not in New York and so however, New York cons were much had Reagan's year and Reagan himself is something of a New York he was in the Roosevelt New Deal or who had a kind of solemnly wrote in the mask moment in the post-war years that's another issue but so Bush was based on the company man who was Reagan's president mission of the White House and Bush and Reagan did not really like each other and when Bush found himself elected president he was surrounded by men who had gone on to very story and powerful roles in policy planning courtrooms and the national security apparatus who were very hostile to his world and who did not view him as particularly competent okay Bush tried to insulate himself with his own loyalness and I think he did that in large measure people like Baylor people like Skowcroft who's kind of a complicated figure in terms of his values he had neo-Kanish tendencies but first and foremost he was loyal to Bush and when Bush took office you know February 1989 again not only was this kind of TV faction that would much later he become kind of known to the public as you know the neo-Kan cabal some aspect of it at least not only were they insinuated very much into the into the national security apparatus but you know so the expectations have been raised by Reagan you know Reagan and Gorbachev had this tremendous rapport and that was legit that was real Bush found the speed of things very alarming a few months before Bush took uh before inauguration day Bush actually had tenor Kissinger um and he had some of the kind of Gorbachev and intermediary Kissinger has seen really traveled to Moscow um and he met with Gorbachev and Kissinger explained as ordered that there would not be a seamless transition of administration from Reagan to Bush and when Gorbachev was kind of put out by this as well as taking a back you know and Gorbachev said well why what Kissinger articulated was exactly what Bush instructed him to he said there's a danger here of a structural and political nature you know a reckless US president could totally derail the transition away from behind me and then he said there's a coup of hardliners which there was and we'll get into that but that was not until it would have appeared uh there could be uh there could be uh open civil war between the nationalities and that did happen in some theaters uh there could be uh a complete uh vimar style collapse which also did happen to some degree to some degree to reduce the skids uh to facilitate the pro-summa rapidly now to understand what Bush's vision was it was a lot like Nixon's after Nixon left office now as you probably remember it's from a my age Nixon kind of got a second lease on life by the by the mid-late mid to late 1980s he wrote some very good books on uh the strategic situation which frankly was Nixon's like raison d'etre and you know and even he was even tapped by CNN during the Gulf War like not infrequently he showed him very died but Nixon and Bush their idea was this their idea was that we can preserve the Soviet Union as some kind of benign structure at least for the time being you know what has to be paramount is total nuclear disarmament uh demobilization of conventional forces and so as such that they're drawn down to basically nothing more than a vimer style you know a constabulary force to manage internal strife you know ethnic conflict or things like this in Bush's case it was very much a kind of it was very much a kind of vision of Roosevelt that you know the United States and the Soviet Union but that you know this massively federated structure that took up literally one-sixth of the earth should remain intact because the alternative is just too unpredictable and uh it seems unrealistic to us I mean regardless the mirror is such things on their own terms or such concepts whether you're talking the art there's a singular fixation on policy planners armed conflict." And if you look at government, there's some kind of progressive instrumentality in what going is, as either a necessary evil or as a means by which you know, the posterity and historical mission of a people is preserved, you kind of view this as the zenith of government. So the Bush faction, if you want to call it that, contra the neo-con or proto-neo-con faction, this was their vision, okay? And contrast, the guys who had stiffed team B and who had now become these kind of overhawks and situated in various roles, they viewed the Soviet Union as quite literally evil. Like, that was not a probally, that's the way they looked at it. Some of this was ethno-sectorium or in the background of a lot of these men. Some of it was not, it was just, you know, guys who were not of that particular background, but who just viewed it as evil incarnate. So their idea was it had to be destroyed. Now, you know, if we destroy the Soviet Union by open warfare, so be it if that's what, you know, God, or God. or a fortuna or whatever in their names, or if we destroy it by dismantling it through a detonation strategy of stirring up the nationalities against Mother Russia and against each other, if we destroy it by imposing a kind of looting operation on it that strips of its natural wealth, it strips it of its natural resources and national wealth and control of such commodities that we can just render it cross-regnant, that was the competing viewpoint. And this is not, I probably, these people, spoverly, hopefully, this, Dick Cheney went on a record as saying quite literally, quote, "fuck them," they lost, when confronted with the kind of bush-baker vision. Which seems incredibly reckless regardless of your politics, but this had the effect of really kind of, really kind of driving a wedge between a bush and Gorbachev off. And this was exacerbated because one of, one of Bush's first acts as president, he visited Poland. You know, Poland was gonna ground zero of anti-Soviet, not just anti-Soviet sentiment, but of organized resistance, like Valenza and the Solidarity movement. Bush did not like Valenza, as I think part of that was kind of inherent snobbery because Valenzav was very much a proletarian. I think Bush's freedom was a real rouser. What Bush did was he met with General Zelzowski. And again, if I'm purchasing these names, I apologize, I'm rebad with that. I don't, like, any Slavic guys or girls listening, like, don't hesitate to correct me in the comments or whatever, but I'm not good with these pronunciations. But Jelzelowski was an interesting guy. He was the only military man who was a chief of state of a Warsaw pet state, which is interesting to me at least, because tone deaf is the Soviet's word. Like, as bad as their optics were, they realized in some basic way that they couldn't just install, you know, these like military strongmen in the several satellite states. But Poland, I mean, Poland is intermarial law, from 1981 onward. But General Zelzowski was a tragic guy. You know, he looked ominous, because there was a uniform where these really dark sunglasses. General Zelzowski's eyes were ruined by snow blindness. He was a Polish, and he was a Polish national of noble birth. When the Soviets invaded Eastern Poland in 1939, Owing to his parentage and pedigree, he was sent to a gulag, and spent years in hard labor, and the glare of the snow ruined his eyes. But he was telling too that he was, that the Soviets had to rely on him. You know, there were no dedicated Polish communists. You know, it was more of a, the communist Poland was more of a contrivance, even then the DDR or anything else, within the Warsaw pet structure, which is interesting. But, Bush and General Zelzowski had a certain rapport, and Bush went as far as to convince General Zelzowski to stand for president when Poland had their first multi-party election. And Bush was criticized roundly and uniformly for that. But his notion was that, you know, General Zelzowski, once the, once Moscow's boot is no longer on the neck of the Polish nation, particularly in winter league. A man like General Zelzowski can really rise the occasion. And I understand that even if that's not realistic in context. But this was Bush's notion, okay? And it was his defense, what he said later in his own words, where he wasn't gonna go, he wasn't gonna visit the Eastern blog and go on thumping his chest and trying to stick it to the Soviets that their system was crumbling. And he also, with looming really large over US policy, you know, in 1953, in 1956, in 1968, the Soviets, these were the elements square-level interventions, or in crackdowns on the people, first in East Germany, then in Hungary, then Czechoslovakia, there was an understanding among, it not just Bush, but among people on kind of both sides of the divide in terms of how to proceed with the situation developing in the East that if we push this to a hard, or get too greedy in terms of demanding results and demanding too much too soon. And we may see some kind of, we may see some kind of Stalinist backlash and a full-scale invasion of coal and then it would be a massacre. So I'm not, I'm not still understanding again, that people should like a Bush 41 or should like share that in view, but I'm just trying to give a balanced perspective and his view was not born if some kind of simple tends to lose it, even if it was not realistic. But what ultimately did happen was, it was very interesting and really conspiratorial, kind of figuratively and literally. And again, we're gonna come back to the CIA and it's in competence and I know people think I overstate this, but consider this William Crowe, he was another general who was kind of, he would have been considered something like a minister without portfolio and he served a European government, but he was close to Bush 41 and Baker and spoke for automatically, he said the CIA literally in mid 1989, he said there was still, there was still such a big dispatches that spoke about the USSR or as if it was 20 years earlier. They were claiming that Gorbachev was simply abiding the President doctrine, but he was reluctant to play force because he was trying to lol the Western with false sense of security. And so they were in prose words, he said it says that the CIA didn't never see the news. He said it was as if they'd take just kind of official dispatches from East Berlin or Moscow, kind of knock a percentage off of the credibility and then released it as basically fat. Oh, the East Berlin says that the regime is stronger than ever, that must be true. Or Gorbachev's general secretary, he says there's gonna be no, they're not gonna drop the plan economy and the Soviet Union will remain. So that's just a fact. I mean, I'm not using that probally, this was literally what they were saying. And I mean that anybody again thinks that CIA is like the seat of a shadow of government or the intelligence community has got to consider that. Defense intelligence really, I mean, not forget the tangent, but defense intelligence, the CIA, they really gotta became the gods of US intelligence in a basic way, okay? Them, the NSA, and a lot of quasi-private entities that are contraven, things like that. What the, as everybody knows, the great foil to Gorbachev is Yeltsin. But Yeltsin's ascendancy, Yeltsin was not, it's kind of great democratizer. I mean, he's viewed that way because, he was kind of the king of the referendum. But it's not, people have this idea, I think, because it's Byzantine literally, but also like memories are short, I mean, including my own, I'm not saying I'm like a father or something. People seem to remember this as, you know, there was a, you know, the Soviet Union finally held elections. Yeltsin beat Gorbachev and then there was some kind of referendum to dismantle the Soviet Union. Like, that's not what happened. When Yeltsin seized the power, it's when Gorbachev was, you know, kidnapped by the coupplotters. Yeltsin proceeded to race to the Russian White House, declare himself, or the radical purpose is present to the Russian Federation. Upon ascending to that role, and I mean, there wasn't a referendum in synuating him into that role, he declared the Soviet Union to be abolished. So the officers Gorbachev held such a general secretary of the Communist Party. He seized the hold of the meaning because the entity that Gorbachev held that office in was abolished by Dictat, which is very strange. Now, who are Yeltsin's backers? There's a combination of kind of radical reformers, you know, these kind of, these kind of wild west capitalist types who kind of saw the looming energy as opportunities for great private potential. But it was also a lot of Stalinist hardliners who hated Gorbachev. Now, why did they back Yeltsin? I mean, the kind of conventional wisdom as well, they just wanted power in the new regime. I don't know if it's that simple, man. I think some of them thought that Yeltsin would Gorbachev, Yeah, they have to sell for a rough state of just, you know, you know, Russia basically, but I think they thought that Yultsin was just going to return things to the status quo after that. But then he didn't, and why didn't he do that? I think he was basically bought off by, you know, Team B, the op-on faction, like, fearatively and literally, bought off. I can't prove that with receipts, but I've thought about this a lot, I've studied a lot, and I've read a lot of direct testimony in the epoch, I think that's what happened. Now, also, you know, Putin became Yultsin's successor. He put in a variety of roles like some more prestigious than others, and it's certain genres, or he was sidelined. I mean, never in some disgraceful way, but the fact that Putin himself, Putin is not some hardliner, but he is a product of the old system. Okay? If Yultsin really was this kind of arch-limbr-- I'm using it in these terms and the terms of regime employees, and I don't mean that that's what he actually is. But if Yultsin's got this arch-cap was for former, you know, neo-liberal ideal log, like, he would not have had men like Putin in his orbit. He would not have taken-- he would not have had him taken up a shot or something, but these guys would have been pensioned off and sent far away from Moscow, figuratively and literally. But again, I don't speak Russian or read it, and I'm not some kind of expert on the Russian people, their culture, or the Soviet Union. But I am convinced that that's what happened. There's also something that people got to consider. The other kind of factor, their constellation of factors that roped Bush's vision, and I don't want to go off track because this is its own topic that's really dense. But you know, the casting of Sloughan Malozovich as this mass murder and nationalist extremist, he was the State Department's guy, and he was the guy who was viewed as the moderate they could work with by Washington. And boys very much wanted to keep you a slavvy together. What happened was Helmet Cole, who I think was about as nationalist as any chance of the Buddhist Republic could be, or can be, when a Tugemont's Croatian declared independence Cole recognized them immediately, and then the die was cast. There was going to be war in the Balkans. And that was key to forming contemporary identities. That's why in a very approximate way, and I'm saying directly, the Slavic Orthodox identity became paramil again. There was a whole lot of a national soul, some claim German guys who, like Ingo Hasselbach, he was not an attractive guy. He was a skinhead, and he was very involved in the right wing, and in the DDR. He and his people were treated a bunch of Germans to go fight for Croatia. And this was really real. It was not some Ukraine got a situation of guys pretending to be things they're not in strange, kind of propaganda doesn't really make sense. This really was a return to Europe's identity and status quo. Now, in the wake of this, obviously the view that ran out was not the Bush 41 view. And, you know, the, what was also my opinion, kind of the Nixon view, although he had pushed part ways on key issues, what one out was the Neocon view, literally. And what you're seeing in Ukraine is the culmination of this kind of 30 year effort of the detonation strategy of radicalizing the nationalities. Like that's what it is. It also has to do with preventing Europe from, you know, becoming at all our time is because a Russian German concord is really what is the path to super power them, okay? But, and I mean, don't be wrong. There's many, many guys watching, they don't care about Ukraine or Russia. That's their notion. However, the faction we're talking about, they very, very much have an ancestral hatred of Russia. And they very, very much abide this idea that, you know, the structure is rotten. It should be destroyed. If we can utilize Ukraine as a kind of torpedo, so be it. You know, if we can, anyway, we can, anyway, we can, we can still, let's say, burial detonation on the frontier. We want to do it. It's really that simple. But that's, I know it seems like I jumped around a lot, but these are the key developments to understanding what happened. And like I said, next time we'll, we'll start out with the Berlin airlift. I think that's a good starting point because I guess there's have to be the start of the Cold War, okay? And from there, it will go in like linear terms. But I thought that this was important. I hope I didn't bore anybody or put anybody off by doing it that way. But that's, that's I think we're all stopped for now. Well, let me, let me ask you a question. Yeah, you'll keep going, you'll keep going a little bit. What would happen if Tukakis would have got elected in 1988? That's a really interesting question. And it's anything you raise that because the other day on Twitter, I was talking to some of the fellows about the fact that there was an actual policy divide, like a real cleft between national security hawks and people who thought that's how it can be preserved. Tukakis was definitely from the latter tendency and that was held against him. You know, there's that famous people think Tukakis is kind of how we're being scream, scream moment is when he was writing a tank, like we're going to like an idiot, we're like a hometown, like the wrong way. You're trying to look like Snoop. Yeah, like Snoop. Yeah. But actually, he's kind of a badass though, like Snoop fights through a baron like, like in the middle of the conference, I took like a fucking jig, but he looked and even if Tukakis had been more of kind of like a like a manly like photogenic guy, it was so, it was so much drive. It's him trying to look like, you have tough on defense, look at me in this tank, you know, you know, yeah, you know, the hell with it. But it's, but if Tukakis came to it, I mean, I think Tukakis was, I think Tukakis was a, was a tackling dummy who was, I was a foreign conclusion that people wanted another Reagan term and they weren't going to get that obviously and Bush was the closest thing. And even though Bush was very, very at odds with Reagan, people associated them. I mean, just, I mean, you know, how voters are especially in those days. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I was a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And he, and he, even though I like Mondale, kind of an old line more run of the middle, democratic, Tukakis got a weird nominee. You know, he was like, I'm not being prey, I was being like this ethnic politician for ANB. Yeah. Even a more traditional kind of Democrat, he would have had real problems, especially if you had a House of Congress, but it's also the, I do believe, and Bush made this point too. I mean, despite everything I just said about Bush is, Bush very, very, very much believed in negotiating the end of the Soviet, negotiating with the Soviet Union that ended front position of very, very profound strength. Okay. And I think that was essential. I think I think it all really gets slayatory executive who'd approached the Soviet, who'd approached kind of the failing Soviet Union as, hey, we want to reestablish the top. That kind of got a game changer, maybe. So then a team B, Co, Co Henry was right about, if they were right about anything. I think Wolf Woods himself, I think, is the source of this, and I agree with it. And I definitely, I say, oh, Wolf Woods, it all. He said that Soviet Union by 1974, '75, out of the third world, nobody had any respect from Marxism, Leninism. People in the Soviet Union, their quality of life was better than the third world, but not by hell a lot. And nobody believed that the Soviet Union was leaving the world in the sciences or something. All the Soviet Union had was arguably the world's mightiest military. Arguably the mightiest army that ever existed. If the only thing, the only thing making you a superpower is your military. And the fact you've got 8,000 nuclear weapons, that changes things. That means power projection becomes, becomes overvalued. It means the entire discourse within the state apparatus orbits around hard power. And that's what happened in that North Korea today. Yeah, it's superpower scale. And the, so this idea that the Soviet Union was bent on world domination in a very concrete and brutal way, I believe that. The United States has been on world domination too, but the United States had a way of separating those societies other than, you know, we're going to level you and decimate you and genocide you. I mean America would do that too if they had to, but that wasn't just like the option of first recourse. And I have no doubt. The war which won his memoirs made this point. If this, if it, every, every decade, okay? 1953, 1962, 1973, and '83, the world came closer, very, very close to nuclear war. And each time arguably, it was like even closer. Like the Cold War didn't definitely continue. I mean, let's say continue to like the late '90s, just even. And so like by 1996, you know, nuclear weapons are basically all in all of this space, you know? And it's okay, like, it was like a three minute warning time. You know, basically like the Soviets like bling, it's like, okay, we gotta destroy them. I mean, what would happen then in a crisis? You know, or like, eventually, what had happened? That doesn't mean the world event did, but there would have been probably 40 million people dead, or like 100 million people dead. And that would have changed everything, man. They would have changed life on earth forever. Like not in like horror movie terms, but the Terminator. But it, if like 100 million people died in nuclear war, like the world would never be the same. You know, and it's in ways we can't even imagine. You know, I mean, think about that. It's a, so I mean, one of the things is so, one of the Soviet Union, even guys, I think believe, I know this, even guys who believe in the system, they knew they had to find a way out of the Cold War, like they knew it. Because again, this technology cannot be controlled. And people think it's, and I think people are dumb or something. They just don't have a comparative basis. People think that something like the Soviet Union of 1985, it's not like the office you work at, even a big company of like 50,000 people. Like it's not something like any one man, or a hundred man, or a thousand man can just control. You know, it's like once the apparatus gets in motion, towards kind of a nuclear war vector, it just works like a happen. You know, I mean, that was what was happening. You know, and this was not some paranoid fantasy or something. You know, I mean, so that's one reason I guess I'm kind of, I've got kind of a, I've got kind of a, like what are you guys in the right state? I've got like a soft view of Bush 41. I mean, maybe I do, I don't know, but I, I mean, whatever, right? I don't care what people think about my takes on, on, on chief executives of history, but, they're like, what it's described didn't happen, okay? And some of that we owe to people like Bush, okay? Yeah, the cold war shouldn't have happened in the first place. You know, war was not have happened, but it did happen. So that's where we were at. You got to judge things in their epoch. So that's, I realize that's the name, complete answer. That's the best I can do. That's a great question. All right. Thank you. Yeah, it's, he, I just remember them selling, oh, he's from Massachusetts and they tried to connect them to be like the next Kennedy or something like that. It was just, it was just, well, I mean, Bush, you know, God love Bush, but other than, and Bush was actually a great commandorant chief. And the way he managed to go for with, like, like, like a, like a crushing officer of the highest caliber, okay? But other than that, I mean, Bush was not a man of the people. I mean, that's why he got smoked in the threw away race with Clinton and parole. But, I mean, the fact that Bush was able to sweep the country against Ducakis, it's like, look, man, it's like, if you're getting, if you're getting smoked by Bush, you know, it's like, you got, you're not a viable candidate. See, Ducakis was a weird, like a guy like Greed Scott Greer, he'd be a good guy to take that up with. Like he, I mean, he knows like a electoral politics like the bag of his pants. Like I really don't, I mean, I know the outcome, but I don't have like deep takes on that stuff, generally. But Ducakis was a weird, he was a weird nominee, man. He definitely was. He definitely was. - All right. - The thing that's gonna be a great first episode, give your plugs and we'll end it. - Yeah, thank you Pete. The main place people should hit me up is on my subs deck. It's real, real Thomas 777 at subsdeck.com. Dot subsdeck.com, sorry. You can find me on Tgram, Telegram, at t.me/d number seven, H-1-S7777. I bet I got to Twitter once again because Elon seems to not be laying a hammer down on people. You know, for the record, man, like I've never actually violated Twitter terms of service. I'm not just saying I never have, but I've been banned like half a dozen times, but you can find me there at Triskeli and Jihad. The first T is at number seven. But I'll post it up on my subsdeck and stuff. I'll just go there. And I mean, for all I know in like two days I won't be there anymore. So it's, and I am watching the Dan YouTube channel. Please don't think I'm being a total flake. I just had a lot on my plate in terms of content and like other stuff. But I, it is moving forward. I gotta announce that I think people will be happy about. I'm debating the JFK assassination in a few days with a guy that I got a lot of respect for. And he's actually a college professor of the right kind. He's like a right-wing history guy. But he does agree with me profoundly. So I think people will dig that. I'm gonna do it on a live stream. So I'll hit people to that and that's what I got. And thank you very much Pete. I really appreciate you hosting me. I really appreciate people watching and calming stuff. I really mean that. I'm just being pulled. Well, I can't wait until we go back to the beginning because that's where the intrigue of that is. Oh yeah. Not really. Yeah, yeah. Not very sane, man. I'm very, very stoked that you had to say, to hit this notion for us to do this seriously. So thank you very much again. All right. Thank you. Take care, Thomas. Welcome everyone back to the Pete Kanyota show. Ah, got Thomas 777 here. And we're going to get into some stuff not only about the Cold War. Maybe we'll talk some current events. How you doing, Thomas? Very well. Thanks for hosting me again. Yeah, I was thinking, I mean, your point before we went wide, you were talking about the election results. And I agree with you. I think that warrants mention not just because they kind of think it's important, but what's happening in Russia and central Europe at present? I believe the current conflict cycle is resolving somewhat peaceably, if not ideally, from my own perspective. But it's going to remain relevant for the foreseeable future. And this is approximately caused by the Cold War. And if we're talking about anything of a foreign policy nature or anything relating to the strategic situation, as it stands in 2022, we're talking about phenomenon events. And even percentages, like the primary players are people who can only be understood in the context of the Cold War. And also, some of the fell is on T-Gram. We're asking some questions about the topic. And we can get into some of those, too. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that they were asking, some of which is kind of like ahead of where we're at on the timeline. Some of which relates more to the revision of stuff we were dealing with the Second World War. But in a long way, as movie four, and we'll cover all of those. But I just briefly-- I'm not some pole-bacher, like our friend Scott, rear DJ Scuddy G, internet serial thriller, and a beltway killer. But I'm having a fun, man. He's a good dude. And he's been nice enough to host me on his show a few times. And I don't know why anybody would do that if they were a reputable person, because I don't like that. He's like-- Thanks, man. Thanks, man. That's all that's-- I really appreciate that. No, no, no. I'm not saying it seems like a good cause. You will not agree if I'm not allowed to know that. I mean, you're a guy who's-- you're not like a fringe guy, but you're a guy who's not afraid to deal with radical things. Not radical things. Oh, there's also been radical. People have radical tendencies. I don't think I have those tendencies. But I deal with stuff that is a magnificent, sincerious type of enforcers. That's all I meant. But he's got a real-- he, guys like him and our guy Paul Ferrinheight, I always tap them for kind of their thoughts on during election season, because they're really clued into that. And I am not. However, national elections, I tend to pick presidential candidates pretty well in primary season. But regardless, I didn't think there's any big surprises, man. And I know this morning, I got on Twitter, like that sling blade guy in Pennsylvania, like, Bob a federal person, or another fuck his name is, or a federal woman, a federal person. I don't know. He-- I mean, he-- they're that and like the-- he-- because the diabolical doctor Oz going down in flames made a lot of people upset. From devices and apps to supported security, Apple has everything you need to help your business thrive. And that select, we help you unlock that power. Whether you're just starting out, we're scaling into something much bigger. As your local business partner with over 30 years experience, we support businesses of all sizes. Visit selectonline.com/business to find out more and speak to the team. But the Republicans, they-- they weren't huge in Florida, like statewide. And GD Vance captured Ohio. I mean, granted, I'm not a little bit. I like look at those things as like a win, man. I mean, I-- like, unless I'm missing something, like that's a win. And they obviously got 20-- they got the way I was doing it 24, unless they joined the kind of witch hunt against their guy, Mr. Trump. DeSantis turned 10 districts in Miami that are normally blue red. - Yeah, that's insane. I mean, the state of Florida is now like a safe red state. And that's crazy. I mean, not like objectively, but I mean, considering the last 20 years the way things have gone, I mean, I don't see how there's not a win. I mean, what are they expecting? Like some nationwide sweep? I don't, I mean, I don't know. They seem, I think they should be happy, but all I saw, I mean, granted, like social media is its own thing. And some of this forget a weird it is. And it's pretty exciting, but on it for a minute, like this morning, like I got always like, I got at least Twitter alerts and these like Republicans type guys who were, not Scott Breer, he's a very, he's a very, not only is he a sensible guy, but he doesn't go in for that kind of stuff. He had a very balanced view. But a whole bunch of these kind of internet, you know, GOP, cheerleaders, they were acting like, they were acting like, this is some crushing defeat or something. And I'm like, I started like looking at the returns and like, what the fuck are they upset about me? I'm like, I, I buy contemporary metrics that seems like a win, but again, what a win. Oh, I'm a guy who writes about stuff from long ago and speculates about the future. Maybe I don't really, (laughs) Maybe I've plugged into the present day. But I don't know, man, like that, and yeah, the San, this is a phenom. I'm not really impressed with the San is. I mean, it's an op, it's a political operator like he's dope. He's really good at what he does. And yeah, it's very impressive that the way he's been able to flip, you know, some key jurisdictions at the local level. But yeah, I don't know what they're, I don't know why they're crying and they're fucking corn flakes. But again, I'm not, and that's some poll watcher. So I'm freaking beltway expert. Way to contrary, you know. Or you put it down in Texas when you were there. Where people are going to fire up about Trump and stuff or they just kind of like, whatever. Oh, they just wanted to be Beto. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all they wanted. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there are a lot of people, you go around Austin and you see some Beto signs. Once you get outside of Austin, once you're in the cities, you'll see some, when you get out of there, out of the cities, you'll see some everyone. So in a while, but it's mostly, you know, I think most of the people from Texas really don't like Abbott, but they can't stand Beto. Yeah, Texas is a weird, Texas. I'm not saying bad things about Texas. I like Texas and I like Texas people, but their political culture is kind of strange. You know, like there's like Rick Perry, for any of these are weird guy. I mean, I know he's not, I know he's not, you know, I know he's not, he doesn't have the catch shade that he did, you know, some years back. I mean, like nationally, I never, I never bought the height that he was going to be impactful on the national stage, but he was a weird guy, even for like, even as, you know, even as a state ball. Like I, I mean, frankly, W is a set and C was kind of weird. I mean, I don't really, I don't think it's weird that, I mean, W frankly, it's shit together a lot more when he was younger, but I thought it was weird that, I mean, Texas really liked him. You don't forget that W was actually, he had a very strong rapport with his constituency in Texas, and then in his first term as president, like this idea that, you know, everybody always hated W and he was just a failed politician. That's not true at all. I mean, nobody else though, I don't like the guy, and nobody, nobody should, but he's, you know, he did not, you can't simply buy your way to, to competitive this, you know, even especially, if I didn't have my work against you and I say like Texas, okay, I kind of like Bush. So I mean, yeah, it's, but I thought it was weird that, I thought it was weird. He struck me as like the kind of 20th or century version of a Rockefeller Republican, and I'm like, why, why is Texas like this guy's foam base? But I mean, what do I know? And he's big on gun rights, he was big pro death penalty. And I mean, back in the days, like, those were issues that were kind of still up for grabs. So I don't know. - Back in '06, somebody had put a video together, it was a split screen video, and it was, it was W in the gubernatorial debate in like '92, and then it was W in the presidential debate in 2004. - I know that night and day right. - Oh my God, yeah. - Oh, in '92, he's just, I mean, no notes, no, no, I mean, there was no teleprompter. He had everything in his head, and he was right. And then in 2004, it was, you know. - Oh, he seemed like he had the guy, I think Bush had some, I think two things. I think first of all, I'm the last guy who can like put shade on anybody with substance abuse problems. So not like saying like, oh, Bush, you know, they drove you, they drove you, they drove you. But I think he probably relapsed, frankly. I mean, he was acting like somebody you did, okay? 'Cause yeah, I mean, the guy, it's not like, man, I think also like gets some health problems that we're not, what I'm not doing. Because yeah, I wasn't just, I mean, so I remember some of his apologists just being like, oh, he, you know, it's just like nerves. He's not used to the office. It's like, a text is a huge state, man. Like he's not, he was not some freshman congressman. He was a fucking governor. You know, you can't tell him he's like scared of the camera or something. It's, you know, he was not, he was compromised in some way. You know, whether it was health related, or the illness or substance abuse or whatever. And again, like I said, I'm not like putting shade on him. I'm the last person to do this. But yeah, he was like two different people. He was really weird. I'll see you go that footy of the talking about. But we can, we can dive into the cold waters that something will help a lot more. I know a hell of a lot more about than I do the goings on in the swamp. I kind of wanted to get into, you know, there's a big debate in like to this day. And frankly, there's actually some decent scholarship coming out about the cold war. Not as much revisionist stuff as I would like. And that's kind of one of the things I believe I'm like here on earth to do. I mean, I'm not, I'm not being melodramatic. I can really believe that because like there's not, there's a million guys who are, who are more to revisionist. And that's dope. That's, that's important. Okay. Frankly, there's, there's almost nobody dealing with the cold war and, and a, and a critical capacity. So I think we're doing important stuff here in that regard. And we always are. But in any event, there's a scholarly debat going on. It's like when the cold war ensued. I mean, you can't, it's tricky because obviously, when you're talking about a discreet armed conflict, even when it's complicated as, as the second world war, you can kind of identify points at which the status of relations fundamentally changed. You know, September 3rd, any 39, you know, the Western Allies declared war on the German right. Okay, that starts starting point. Like, yeah, there was hostilities, emergent and active before then. But there's not, there's not any such point in the cold war. And the kind of tonal shift, not just in optics and narrative, but in policy, from between the Truman administration and the Roosevelt administration was dramatic. I don't people on our side don't like Truman. I mean, I, I, Truman was not an evil man. He was not a, he was not a gangster like Roosevelt. He didn't have a hubris of Roosevelt. I've got mixed feelings about Truman. I don't think Truman should have been president, okay? But we're talking about his moral character. And if we're talking about what constituted his policy or orientation was the Soviet Union, he was in a very, very difficult position. And most of the variables that were framing the decisions he had to make had nothing to do with his own sympathies. You know, he quite literally inherited this bizarre situation. Whereby, Germany was occupied by the four powers, the United States, UK, and then France got to see the table, I mean, that's a total other issue and the Soviet Union. There was, there was no, not only was there no permanent status of, of, you know, there was no, there was no part of peace treaty in the running. Nobody was even talking about it. And it wasn't even clear like what they would constitute. And really the only thing that had set the tender of relations at Yalta or at Tyran. Everybody thinks Yalta is kind of where like everything, you know, everything kind of was set in proverbial stone. It was not, it was Tyran in '43. That's when Roosevelt ceded Berlin to Stalin, which seems crazy, unless you understand the New Deality Ideology, which we delved into in earnest in our whole World War II series. But beyond that, what's fencing to me is even men who you would think would have known better, like Eisenhower, okay, Eisenhower, whatever else can be said about him. The guy was something of a savant in terms of logistical and engineering military matters. And he was a protégé of person, Blackjack person, who was an under-undestated figure in contemporary histories. The guy's in May, Eisenhower said, Eisenhower said to one of his adjutants, and this was laid by Omar Bradley, you know, when there was discussion as they, you know, the issue of the lobby, the Soviets to take Berlin, Eisenhower said something to affect him, oh my god, like who would want it? You know, they're gonna lose, you know, 100,000 men taking it. And Bradley, let's say he was stupified by that, he's like, well, what do you mean? You know, like how, you know, I can just say that. You know, and Eisenhower's retort was something like, well, as a military objective, it's meaningless, you know, what significance does it hold? You know, and Bradley said, well, you know, and in a few years, that's gonna be quite clear. You know, in Molotov, you know, the Soviet foreign minister, old Bolshevik that he was, like a lot of those guys, he actually had a pretty strong sense of geopolitics, and he said, you know, what happens in Berlin decides the fate of Germany, what happens in Germany decides the fate of Europe. So, if you look at a map of, I mean, I can't pull it up now, but those who are inclined to do so, if you look at, if you look at a map divided Broadway. and it's strange because the Soviet sector is kind of bulges. East Berlin extended to Mitha, which was kind of the historical core of the Berlin City Center. That was like the municipal like Hobb traditionally of Berlin. You know, that's where city hall was. You know, it's a parliament was. That's all these other traditional structures and administration of the machine and the machinery of garment work. So it was obvious why Stalin was making these demands. Okay. I mean, it wasn't and it wasn't just for prestige or something. Roosevelt had no problem with that. But Roosevelt also what he the only the only kind of signaling he'd given to Stalin was that Turan and then before he died, apparently according to people in court of the hall. He said Roosevelt stated to Stalin as well as to, you know, his cabinet and the department of state and in the department of war that, oh, well, you know, American forces, I can't see them staying in Europe beyond two years. Why would they? You know, which I don't think he can try to talk to them to naivete because Roosevelt was a, Roosevelt was not naive, whatever else we can say about him. And, you know, like we discussed in the, you know, earlier, we discussed it a couple of times. Even before we began, it dedicated the series on the Cold War. You know, the new dealer vision was a permanent concord between the United States and the Soviet Union with United Nations. That's kind of a world legislature. You know, it's the Security Council being, I mean, ultimately, this is what they had in mind, you know, early on. So the Security Council, it's equivalent being, you know, kind of like the upper house, the general assembly being the lower house, you know, in America, having a monopoly on atomic weapons, you know, therefore, you know, being able to reign in the Soviets when there was policy disputes out of government world. But even that aside, the, there's no possible outcome where, where we're a neutral Germany, or demotivized Germany is tolerated. Okay. You know, the, true, true, true, true, true, true, true, true, true, true, true, true, the, the, the office with a hospital Congress. The, even though, even though Apollo against gutted as they were, because the America first movement had been cast into disrepute and some of these people had actually been prosecuted and founded and terrorized, sounds kind of familiar, isn't it? But Robert Taff still made, we remained like a strong voice on Capitol Hill as kind of, you know, the opposition. But even people who are interventionists, you know, even like hawkish Republicans who, who, who are not isolationists, you know, they were, they were demanding essentially that, you know, Germany not be allowed to just fall into the Soviet steer of influence outright. So living ahead, unless Roosevelt's plan quite literally was to simply just seed Europe to the communists, you can't really come to any other conclusion, okay? And it's not me just being like the fanmatory, making some ideological point, like what, what are the conclusions can you come to? You know, in one of the, despite what, despite the kind of public face, like pretty much everything, and well, I'm going to get into the Berlin-Erolift in a minute and what that signifies. But pretty much all the negotiations with Stalin from, from 1945 onward were, or in the US, basically bad faith about, we're talking about the Stands in Germany. Because again, I mean, nobody was gonna, nobody in America, regardless of Plingle's strike, was gonna allow a neutral Germany, okay? Because that meant that there was absolutely no point in fighting the Second World War. And the Second World War should not have been fallout, but within the strategic logic of the war planners in America, at all costs, Germany must be prevented from capturing the East. Whether that's by a concord, a peaceable concord, relatively between Germany and the Soviet Union, whether it's by conquest, you know, with Hitler at the helm. I mean, today, as we see, I mean, what, this is one of the lies that Ukraine war, isn't it? Not the fact that the unit of penance facilitated by, by from Merkel and Mr. Putin, was not something that America was going to tolerate. Because that's the only way that Europe casts off the shackles of America in the UK and becomes a superpower, okay? So even, no matter where anybody fell in the political spectrum, you know, they were not just gonna allow a demilitarized Germany, but we're in, you know, just by ex-neg geography and proximity, they were gonna be incorporated into the Soviet sphere of influence in some basic way. So there's that. And probably there's more there than we have time to cover right now, but I think that that it's not a mystery, but it is enigmatic as to what exactly Roosevelt's intentions were. And especially when it considers to that, I mean, Roosevelt, in all of certain terms, knew that he was not going to liberate war, okay? So I, how exactly saw the world developing, after he was gone, is an open-ended question again. I mean, Roosevelt was a lot of things, he was not Joe Biden, he was not Cineil, okay? And he, it was really, it wasn't until the final months of his life, he was really compromised and he wasn't really, you know, running, running the country or the war in an executive capacity anyway, but it, but back to, back to the top of it in hand, what, to give an idea of how kind of slap the ass, like a better word, the elementary, the divided Germany was, there was a, what was implemented was called the common, common detour. And it was representatives of the United States, the Soviet Union, the UK and France meeting in this kind of mini, executive council. And they were supposed to come to terms and how Berlin was to be administered. And Berlin being, you know, to Molodov's point, you know, Berlin being quite literally, you know, the kind of heart and the lungs of Germany being, you know, the ex-Ylphim to Europe. The idea was, well, what's the sense of Berlin has resolved, you know, the, the sense of Germany proper will be resolved. And then, you know, this, this will just be a, you know, a, a, a done deal. It seems incredible anybody could entertain that possibility is anything realistic. And it's time, it's probably passed to begin clear that not only did the Soviets have absolutely no intention of, of allowing Western military presence in Berlin, but the Soviet delegates, the Soviet delegate, neither him nor any of his, nor any of his, uh, Agitans, spoke English. The American delegation, nobody spoke Russian, you know, a couple of people were like trying to communicate like pigeon French, kind of like across the aisle. Like this whole thing, this whole thing was a ridiculous charade. You know, like most petty issues would be debated for weeks, some as months. Um, the, uh, the Russians were demanding, uh, they, they issued something and the, sorry, um, and, and the, the Wilsonian language is not unintentional. They, they produce a document called the 14 points, which, uh, which basically demanded that in the Eastern sector of Berlin, there could be like no, no, no, no, profit hearing at the expense of workers and things like this. You know, like it was, uh, it was, it was, it was basically like a radical socialist manifesto saying that, you know, the, the, the only, the only, um, the only legitimate, uh, capital producer in, in this arbitrarily designated Eastern sector in Germany, you know, was Moscow and nobody else. Um, the, uh, and finally, this carried on for, uh, a good, uh, close to two years. And, uh, finally, uh, a, a clerical staff. So I'm kind of skeleton crew remained at, uh, at, uh, at the, at the, at these meetings, um, represent in the Soviet Union. But on, uh, by August, first, 1948, um, some, uh, some representatives, uh, honestly, removed the Soviet flag, took all their files, clean other opposites, and the Soviets never returned. They basically saw a boycott that killed the enterprise, because it had no. None of the second reason it forced a law without all four representative, all four occupation states present. What's more significant to show you kind of the dysfunctional state of East Germany? I've noticed a lot of people. I mean people obviously. I'm talking about court historians, okay? They're obsessed with the percentages of the third Reich, generally because they want to cast on those punitive light possible, but even more sensible, even more sensible people, they fixate very much on the individuals who constituted sort of the control group of the party and of the state. You don't find that at all with East Germany, okay? Now, not in any sort of imagination suggesting that these men were nearly as dynamic as those who constituted the NSDAP, or that the DDR was, you know, some kind of independent power into itself that we all did any great. just starting out, we're scaling into something much bigger. Um, authority or power of rejection capability. However, it was in fact part of the German state, okay? If you don't even if that is now people didn't recognize its legitimacy as a sovereign regime. It, you know, 20 million Germans lived there. Berlin was within its borders. And it was, it was quite literally at the front lines of the geophotic divide for 40 years. Now, who, who came to run the DDR? Well, the Soviets tapped Walter Ubert. Walter Ubert was an exiled member of the KPD. Um, you know, he'd been an active revolutionary in the Vimar years, you know, into the, into the years of the, of the Third Reich. And like a lot of communists, you know, he, he realized that he was going to be prosecuted and imprisoned if not, uh, if not shot any flood of the Soviet Union. Um, Ubert was deployed to Berlin, uh, before the cessation of hostilities. He arrived in April 30th, what was called the Ubert group. Your various, various functionaries, uh, prisoners of anti-fascist prisoners of war, um, you know, various guys like Ubert himself who'd fought for the Reds in Spain and then, uh, and then, and then, um, found Anastey in, in, um, in the Soviet Union after the ascendancy of the NSDAP. But these guys, uh, and in all, and, and all, and there, there was, uh, what was called the Ackerman group who was deployed to Saxony, the Sabatka group to, to, uh, to Mecklenburg, you know, all named after their, their cadre, a leader, you know, and, and, and, and, and time, Ackerman of the Stonemd Ackerman group. Uh, he was part of the, he was a function of the communist youth movement in Germany. Um, in the 20s, you know, then he joined the KPD. Uh, he was sentenced to death in absentia, you know, and, and after 1933, like these guys were basing the whole post-work codery of, uh, of Germany. They were the old KPD control group. So that meant that, you know, not only, they, they've been, they've been gone for ten, sometimes twenty years. They hadn't been, they hadn't been home, you know, so they were, it's not like they had, uh, cadres and being on the ground. I mean, even among the colonies who stayed behind, you know, people like who the hell are these guys? You know, they had no, they had no real mandate from people, okay? I mean, arguably, you know, when you're under occupation by the Soviet Union, it can't be said that, um, any kind of genuine expression of popular will is, is possible, but this was especially contrived. And famously, when Uberuk derived, um, you know, everybody knew who he was, you know, he was, um, you know, he, he arrived in, in, um, you know, in, uh, in what had been East Prussia, initially, you have to have been, you know, like liberated by the Soviets. And, uh, there were Germans who were some of the communist empathetic who said, oh, you have no idea what they're doing to us. We need the right army, you know, this, this rape and this, and this, this pillage and this destruction. You know, and Uberuk said, uh, you know, that, that's fascist propaganda. I don't believe that, you know, if you order that again, I'll let you shot. You know, people were like, who the hell is this guy? You know, I mean, like, they, uh, so even what I'm getting at is that even, even he considered that people were not enthusiastic about, you know, the KPD or its legacy party coming to, coming to dominate the state apparatus. The, uh, we're pretty unique, like a lack of, of credibility. You know, they might as well have just deployed, you know, some, some, some Russian apparatus like from, uh, from Moscow or from, or from Vladivostok, you know, like, what, what was even the point? Um, but I believe in my opinion, uh, it was basically for the benefit of the outside world, like I was saying, like, hey, look, you know, we're, we're not afraid of Germans having, you know, sovereignty over the run of affairs. Like, you know, Uberuk is, you know, he's a German national, you know, so zackerman. So I believe that's what it was all about. And, uh, I mean, the story's never to trust a genuine, um, I mean, even a genuine, like, radical socialist movement that was truly indigenous to Germany, like that, the war changed all that. But I, uh, people are often, they are going to say, like, you know, how could the, uh, how could the Soviets think that the people respond to the SD? You know, it's like, well, I don't, I don't think that was the point. I think the point was, you know, the, it was, it was, it was a kind of, it was a kind of alibi when, um, the eviction was raised that, you know, this, this was, uh, nothing but a hostile occupation in all that name. But in any event, um, and then when I said the SD, the, in the, in the, in the Soviet occupation sector, there was a, the KPD declared, uh, it emerged with the social democrats and it came to party as socialist unity. Okay, the ruling party in the DDR was not the KPD. It was the SD. Okay, just for reference sake. But, um, as this, uh, as this was developing, um, there was a, in the West, there was, there was not a clear kind of policy trajectory. Now enter, uh, enter George Kennan. Um, Kennan was the, he was the defecto, uh, ambassador to the Soviet Union. He was actually the charge, the affairs. Okay. I mean, for all part of the purposes, he was the ambassador. You know, what Kennan's, uh, what Kennan's knows known for is, uh, is the long, uh, the long memo. Okay. Um, there was so, so named because it was the longest state department dispatched ever sent by telegram. It was over 5,000 words. Um, the long telegram, not the long memo. Um, I find this to be the most mischaracterized, uh, document, or, uh, the long memo. It was a long, uh, statement of the Cold War saved maybe for crucians, quote, secret speech. Okay. The term containment was, yes, it was coined by this telegram, but, uh, Kennan was not calling for some kind of hawkish military, uh, resistance to the Soviet Union. Like, like Kennan was profoundly an agonist. He was horrified by the Soviet Union, but he was not a military man and he was not proposing any kind of military doctrine. But he, when the long telegram was expanded to an essay length, it appeared in foreign affairs, which at one time was a great periodical. I've not looked at it in years. I assume it's kind of woken silly like everything else or it's full of crazy people who aren't like a tack everybody on this planet for no reason. But, uh, at one time it was, it was, it was, it was not just a lot of prestige behind it, but it had real cash pay because it was very serious. So, the, uh, the actual title of, uh, the long telegram expanded to proper, uh, paper form with sources of Soviet conduct. And that's exactly what it was about. Kennan was a rare kind of accidental man and I'm not trying to be offensive or say bad things about Russian people. Uh, but they're very different. Okay. They're very different than the West. Um, even the best of times, even when they had a more normal government, it was difficult to decipher their intentions. And there was not just linguistic barriers, there's, there's cultural barriers that relate to symbolic psychology and historical experience and all kinds of other things. But Kennan's enterprise was, I've got to try to make the Department of Stay in the Department of War. And more importantly, Mr. Truman, understand the world through the Soviet's eyes. Now, Kennan said that, uh, there's not going to, there's never, there's no one, you're not going to be able to come to come to terms with the Soviet Union. Okay. He said, so get that out of your head right away in policy terms. He said, the Soviet is never going to give you what you want. They're not going to, you know, they're not going to abide Roosevelt's vision of, you know, willing the world with Uncle Sam as a junior partner. Um, they're not going to accept the United States as a benign influence out of Europe. You know, they're not, they're not going to view any of America's moves outside the, outside of its immediate sphere of influence is legitimate. And that owes you a few things. It owes the, it owes the, it owes the Russian traditional Russian fixation on security and in very basic terms, the Russians need defense and depth and Russia is a state that is in a nation that is constantly attacked by its enemies. So there's that. So after that, um, the overlay of a Marxist led into cityology, which at that time, it's still very much, was still very much interstitially bound up with another Russian political mind. Um, they view the United States as a, as, as not much different than the Third Reich. And they view the Third Reich as the still-descent of evil. And they view the United States and the UK as capital states in crisis who at all costs are going to pursue an adversarial post with the Soviet Union because the only way capital of states can keep from cannibalizing one another is to find an enemy from without. Okay, now this is boilerplate letting his own, but the, the Soviets actually believe that. And can it made the point that, you know, unlike in the United States, unlike in the UK, you know, where a political discourse is kind of this, it's almost kind of this, it's almost kind of like play acting. Um, in the Soviet, Soviet leaders, like when they say things, they actually need exactly with these say you know it sounds. crazy. The Soviet Union is not able to transparent, but the official statements coming from the Kremlin are actually exactly what the Soviet mean. And you can extrapolate that to today. When the Russian government issues a formal statement, that's actually exactly what they mean. Now, don't get me wrong. The Kremlin then is now literally Byzantine. Russian political cultures, totally opaque. It's manzily conspiratorial. It's all screwed up, but you don't have like weird actors, you know, just kind of seeing things in in Russian political life like you do in the West. It's totally different. And obviously American political culture then was that nearly as degenerate as now, but there was some of that. And this was a very important point. And um, so Kenham's point was what event by containment is this. You said, the way the world's got to be ordered the way this entire planet, the fate of this entire planet quite literally in political structural terms, political structural terms and sociological ones. It's going to be decided by who can win over the developing world and the third world. And the Soviet Union can point it out. It has a lot of cash shade there, because the third world is full of people who are already kind of radicalized. They've not had a good experience with the white Western world. Um, part of that is the scapegoating. Part of that is, you know, just kind of the tragedy of when traditional societies, especially primitive ones. And again, I'm not saying that punitively, that's just an accurate assessment. You know, colliding with modernity, you know, and the, uh, and, uh, and the double edge sort of technology, you know, and, you know, the quote unquote, "we've used progress," but what they view as, you know, very, very traumatic, uh, processes. Um, and beyond that, the, uh, just within, you know, we, we, even the 1950s, you know, uh, people in America had come to look at Bolshevism and Marxist Leninism outside of, you know, economic corners and things, like the man in the street, you did something that did not really deliver. And he viewed as basically alien. And those who didn't view as basically alien, you did as something that, you know, was, was, was not, was, was not, it did not animate him towards, you know, some kind of a passion, defense of the ideology. Okay. But in the third world, that was not the case at all. I mean, really until the 80s, Marxist Leninism had great cash in the third world. And if you want to understand the Cold War and white endurance was so long, that is why. Okay. I mean, long after there was any kind of risk of, you know, France, you know, people in France, going to the polls and voting in some Stalinist party. No, long after, you know, Gus Hall and his friends said any any chance of turning, you know, the teachers, you need into a, it is some kind of communist client, you know, uh, in places like in Gola, you know, a place like Nicaragua, in places, uh, in places, you know, like Indonesia, there was, there was still cash shade of communist. Okay. So, Kenan said, uh, there's got to be a broad spectrum, uh, attack on communism, um, particularly, uh, you know, in terms of, uh, in terms of swaging anxieties about, uh, the developmental model of the West, you know, that means not disturbing and upsetting, uh, indigenous cultures where it's not essential to do so in order to, uh, you know, to create a political culture that, you know, is, is is suitable for American goals. You know, that means that, you know, not overreliance on, on the military aspect of competition, but, you know, demonstrating, uh, demonstrating, uh, American systemic superiority, never can see you away. You know, scientifically, culturally, technologically, um, you know, uh, in the arts, like, all of these things. Unfortunately, the people are selective in, especially in policy terms, in what they, what they take from, uh, these kinds of broad based position statements of, of inspired people like Kenan. So, the way people read, uh, the Kenan, uh, the long telegram and the Kenan memo was, oh, we, we, we've got a challenge of so we union, militarily at all costs, uh, basically like in every theater where they serve themselves. Um, and that, uh, and that, and thus Kenan and that, this was, this was the bane of his existence for his whole life. And he made that clear, uh, decade after decade that he was called the quote father of containment. But in any event, regardless of the fact that he kind of did not appreciate being forced to go to the court of public opinion to co-sign, you know, what became containment this policy with what was, uh, fleshed out in his, um, in his position paper. Uh, you know, Truman had a problem, uh, because Truman was facing an increasingly aggressive Soviet union that was quite clearly doing everything could, uh, to lock, uh, the west out of Berlin and ultimately locked the west out of Germany at all. And as we said, he had a hospital Congress already. People had become very, very sourd on the idea of the Soviet Union. Um, not just as an ally, but as if a nine influence in the world. Um, and furthermore, you know, one of the things we're speaking of, Tehran, uh, the Tehran summit not, not fleshing out what the status of Berlin and the status of Germany would be moving forward. It didn't indicate anything as to how what would become of the world where, you know, the UK just simply, you know, uh, just simply declared these people in the media instead of like, you know, to, to have like rights of British citizenship, though, you know, and like these, these territories in Africa, you know, they were being, um, they were being seated to indigenous rule and and divested from, you know, from the, from the French and from the Belgians, you know, like what, like what, how do we manage these places? You know, like what moving forward, like, you know, who's going to take the lead here? You know, is it going to be, you know, is it going to be under some kind of like you win jurisdiction? Is it going to be under the jurisdiction of the former colonial authority? You know, this was not clear and this caused huge problems and it led to, uh, it led to, uh, from devices and apps to support and security. Apple has everything you need to help your business thrive. Visit select online.com/business to find out more and speak to the team. And what I consider to be on the first, uh, active crisis of the Cold War. One of the many horrible things, uh, we can say about Churchill and they are many, you know, I'm not trying to preserve that verbally. Um, as it became clear post the yolta in Churchill's mind that the United States was not going to do anything to preserve the British Empire. Like why why it goes to show you the man's fundamental lagam understanding onto the character of Roosevelt, but of, you know, the emerging kind of geopolitical culture of, uh, of the epoch. Um, Churchill decided that something had to be done to guard the UK's fledging interests in the Mediterranean. So he approached Stalin and Molotov uh, without Roosevelt's knowledge and he drafted this absurd document, what was called the percentages agreement. Quite literally where he wrote out what percentage of influence, uh, the Soviet Union be allowed and the UK would be allowed and key territories in the Mediterranean, like literally writing, well, the you know, the US is are going to 10% influence in Greece and London is 90%. Like how any rational person I think that's the least fear of influence works. And I would what that was 90% influence and power political terms. The whole thing is absurd. It's it's crazy. It's literally crazy. But Greece was the first state post war. Really? What the Germans withdrew from Greece and 44. Uh, a communist that was a certain as he jumped off and it was very complicated like who the players were and everything like that. But it was, uh, the UK deployed to prevent. A communist takeover. Uh, people sympathetic to the communist. They you referred with as the second white terror in Greece. Uh, there's a lot of mercenary action there. I was it was actually a very, it was a bloody conflict. Okay, but the, uh, but the point is that, uh, you know, this was also a later lead, you know, a decade subsequent to the Swiss crisis. Right. And that led Eisenhower to kind of, you know, declaring a status of, uh, of a relations for the Middle East, you know, and shutting, uh, shutting the front, the French in the UK out of it permanently. And in those days too, Eisenhower the last president wasn't only old. That's the issue. But in any event, um, you know, there was not, uh, what, whatever Truman thought about containment, we were talking about the Soviet Union. Um, if you wanted to continue as president, you have to take some of the firm line, at least what appeared to be such. There's going to have to articulate some of the policy, um, and make clear, you know, what, what the conflict diets were that if the Soviets traversed them. They're what inevitably be war. And, uh, a lot of that was the experience of Korea and how NATO was formed. And the next episode is going to be NATO up the next episode. And I think it's going to be hugely important, especially today. But I don't want to jump into that now. But, uh, to continue, um, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the real kind of key. Incident in my opinion, or like, seriously about events. What started the Cold War is the Berlin Blotting, okay? And as people probably imagine, even people who don't reel out of the Cold War, West Berlin was 110 miles into the Soviet occupation sector, okay? The entirety of Berlin was in what became the DDR. And the Western half, the only way you could access it, civilian or military vehicles, was by dedicated access routes. There was roads for the duration of the Cold War that were literally dedicated access routes for US military and civilian and Western European traffic to pass through the DDR to reach West Berlin and then to return the dedicated access road. And that was the only traffic permitted there. And that was the case early on. These routes were later not as formalized, structurally as a matter of law. But the Soviets weren't simply allowing open, ingress in the egress of Americans and British and French civilian or military in and out of West Berlin. But they weren't outright blackaded before. But what was kind of the struggle of the camel's back was the United States as a true economic policy kind of took shape. I mean, just not an necessity. I mean, this just proceeded, you know, a formal political outlook, whether on policy on West Berlin. But I mean, the economy had to rebuild because people, I mean, their infrastructure was destroyed. You know, people weren't even fed. What, and it became a, it became imperative first and foremost, to introduce a viable currency. So the United States introduced the, the, the, the Deutsche Mark, which is interesting because it's interesting. I mean, a lot of people think of the Deutsche Mark because I mean, the Deutsche Mark was, I mean, the strongest currency in Europe. I saw them taking them to the other day. The Germans didn't sign the matrix treaty because they wanted to get off the Deutsche Mark. It was owing to political pressure and other things. But people have an idea of it. It's just kind of a, it's like, it's kind of an ad now, where, you know, and like the, and like the Buddhist Republic, like Deutsche Bank or whatever, just, just saying like, okay, this is a successor to the Reichsmarg. And this now would happen. It was the US occupation authorities who introduced it and, and very much sold the, the NASA, West Berlin government on it. But the Soviets went nuts when this happened and they banned, they banned the Deutsche Mark from the, from the Eastern zone of occupation. And yes, they were literally arresting people for, for, for, for using it. So in the Eastern, in the Eastern Augur-Based Center Berlin, people resorted using cigarettes as a defector currency, like no lie. I mean, it's quite literally shows like what a prison society this was from, from jump, I guess. I mean, I don't even know a particularly punitive view of the DDR. And I mean, that should be clear to anybody. But the, the introduction of the new currency when, you know, before with, with all, in the, of course, all the failed four powers, administrative bodies, you know, the, the one thing that the Soviets that opposed unconditionally was, you know, the introduction of a, of a private enterprise in the Eastern Augur-Based Center. Okay, because there's no way they could have controlled that. I mean, obviously, and it couldn't have, eventually, if the Soviets had played their cards right, I'm talking like years later, if not decades, I think they could have made East Berlin, kind of like, they could have viewed it treated, they could have treated, kind of like, you know, the, the Chikams, treat Hong Kong. But I mean, that was many years off. Like, they, this could not, that was not in the, in the cards in, in 1946, '47, '48, especially not by, you know, the shock therapies, the introduction of, of, of this new currency backed by, you know, backed by American dollars. Okay, there's no way. But the, it was, things changed, the, the, the George Mayors introduced on June 17th, 1948, or June 18th, June 18th, 1948. The next day, Soviet guards suddenly crant down, you know, suddenly, suddenly people, the relatively kind of free ingress into, into East Berlin, you know, people being stopped and search, people are being turned back. You know, the trades are being halted. Any freight shipments, any wild water transport, the ADDSDK here is special permission from the Soviet authorities, not from the East Berlin authorities, but the Soviets themselves. And kind of the final, kind of the point of no return. 3D Subsequent on the 21st. The Soviet halted a US military supply train to Berlin and sent it back. So essentially, the Soviets were a huge resupply of United States Army forces in Europe. And a UNIDN Berlin, because Berlin, again, Berlin was 110 miles into the interior of the DDR. There's only, at that time, there's only about 3,000 US combat troops on the ground, about 2,000 British. The Soviets had a comparable size force in East Berlin, but the Soviets had 300,000 forces in being throughout Eastern Germany proper. So if they came to war, those guys must Berlin were dead. They would have been slaughtered. I mean, so this was an ominous thing. And that same day, the 22nd of June, the Soviets announced that they were introducing the East German Mark in their own zone of occupation. It was the only legitimate currency. And later on, it was really, really weird in East Berlin. I'm talking like into the 80s. There were especially shops. There were like duty free shops. Where non-Eastern citizens were visiting. They could buy stuff with foreign currency, like cigarettes or liquor or like other things, like, especially food items. But they were like, designated foreign currency shops. I mean, the kind of like the hoops that these Marxists lend, it stays junk through. They've got to maintain the fiction that their currencies were actually worth something. It's really, really weird. You know what I mean? It's, it's got like, you know, the old movie Brazil, say a tire movie, with that thing. Yeah, yeah. Like it's very gallium. Yeah, it reminds me of that in some basic way. But it was a June 24th, the Soviet severed land and water connections between the non-Soviet zones in Berlin. So all ground rail or water traffic was cut off. Like nobody, nobody got in or out of West Berlin. Okay. The, the, they couldn't cut off obviously like electricity and water. Because that would have been an own goal. Because I mean, Berlin was literally just divided down the center with this kind of artificial, like what, like, and, and, and a battle map, he considered like a salient, but it, you know, there wasn't, it was not people. Sometimes that is the idea that there was some like rhyme or reason to how Berlin was divided. Like there was not. So I mean, it's not that you couldn't cut off utilities to half of Berlin, but not the other half. But just the same, um, West Berlin at the time, uh, at the time it was blockaded. And it's just sort of like a month's worth like between like 35 and 45, like days with a food. So like 50 days worth of coal. I mean, it's like a very critical situation. Um, and the entire, the entire night of the day is army. It's total forces and being by 1948. I've never reduced about half a million men. Um, the, uh, in total force in the Western sector were about 8,900 Americans, about 7,600 British, about 6,000 French. Uh, there was only 31,000 combat forces and all of West Germany. Um, so I mean, if it came to war, like a, a, a, a, a, we saw it attack total Soviet military forces in the Soviet sector were 1.5 million. Um, now the United States at that point at that time, I'm an opley in the atomic bomb. But I mean, what do you, if, if, if, if, if, if the government's forces, it's true to Berlin. What are you going to do? You know, you're going to, you're going to, you're going to launch the atomic assault in Berlin and waste your own people and, and, and all the Berliners. I mean, this, this, this was, this was very, very dangerous. And frankly, it was a, uh, it was a gamble, uh, the sort of that Stalin did not usually take. But interestingly, um, it was Lucius Clay. Uh, he was a commander of, uh, the US occupation zone. You know he said it was what he said he Kurdish what made interestingly, let me want to do a, you want to, you want to mobilize atomic capable of B-29s and assault the Soviet sector, like Newcomme, you know, and mobilize with inventory that were available in West Berlin, in West Germany, you know, and then to proceed to liberate West Berlin with them after the, after a massive atomic assault, Soviet forces with B-29s, but that that that that suggestion was not invited, obviously. I, I, I, I, I may, it was not some kind of mad man, I'm, I'm, I'm quite fond of the May in history, and I think you've kind of undoing characterizes this kind of like, "Jecty Ripper Type", you know, like in, in a strange love. But, uh, Lou just clay, uh, it was, uh, in concert with, uh, a lot, a lot of civilian types, you know, we're still, we're still kind of, uh, we're still kind of insinuated into, into government and quasi-military roles, going to the war, only being three years past. Um, you know, it's not me core of engineers. Uh, you was army air forces. The Berlin air lift, uh, was really, uh, was really got an amazing, it was really got an amazing, that is a pile, that is policy too, but it's sort of strategic rooking of Stalin, but it, it, it, it, it, uh, it demonstrated the feasibility of, uh, of air power, um, in, uh, and not just in military capacity, so it was obvious, but it, in some ways, weird and sound, it made me more comfortable with the idea of, you know, huge amounts of air traffic in and out of a major city, you know, and there's, there's, there's, there's one of the ideas before like, oh, it's going to be like pollution and noise and things like it, you know, these like thousands and thousands of sorries, um, in and out of Berlin, uh, that, that kind of changed things, uh, and that's, I mean, honestly, that's like a lot of time, how people become have a good way to do technologies. It's not any kind of, uh, it's not any kind of small thing. Um, I mean, there was guys like, what may have self and these guys, really guys who fought with the army air forces in the Pacific, you know, they develop these, uh, they, you know, they develop these, uh, these, these assault routes from the Marianas Islands and things. And, uh, you know, there was the experience with the airlift, uh, over the quote, hump of the Himalayas, you know, from India to China, but it was military guys who kind of understood the potential of air power, um, and broad spectrum application, you know, military and civilian and commercial use. It like the man in the street really didn't then, um, the Berlin airlift, uh, the Berlin airlift change that, uh, it, uh, it, uh, but Lamey was, he, uh, in terms of staffing decisions, he did a, he did him, he did end up appointing a lot, mostly key figures and executive roles who, uh, who made airlift happen. General Joseph Smith, not to be confused with like the father of Mormonism. He was, uh, he'd been, uh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But Smith had been, like, there's a huge amount of guys who served, uh, served under Lamey, uh, during the war, uh, who went out of like for the steed roles, including Robert McNamara or, uh, yeah, McNamara, uh, Smith had been, uh, let me chief of staff, uh, when Lamey had a B 29 command, like in India, and then the Marianas, uh, you know, lose his clay, uh, wasn't under a lease command, but I mean, they, you know, they made acquaintance during the war at, um, but the, uh, it demonstrated, it demonstrated what was possible. And it also, uh, it was such a collaborative effort between, I mean, it had to be in the United States and the UK. I mean, for better words, you know, like, and I'm not trying to the UK, you know, UK remained irish trip wanted a real way, obviously, because of this. And owing, you know, like we, like we talked about what is that FDR is kind of inconsistent and bring the queer signaling about the status of, uh, UK, US relations, uh, post, uh, it wasn't clear like what role the UK would have here, or whether or not the United States would raise a finger to defend, you know, key strategic interests, not just the interest of the empire, which nobody related interest in the United States and preserving for any reason. But I mean, they're adults. So I mean, it's solidified the quote. I hate that term, special relationship, but it's all kinds of like things that are far, far less than admirable that that entails, but it purely like collaborative strategic terms, it's solidified, you know, the US UK, um, um, uh, particularly as regards, uh, operational coordination with, uh, with their forces and that's no small thing. And before the revolution in military affairs and decades before contemporary command control, that was incredibly difficult. They really can't be overstated. I mean, the Southern England, I love to be the hell of a hell of an operation today, but I mean, you're talking about like radio is the cutting edge of like command control technology and 1948, like think about that. It's like stuff. So this like is so as much reliable than like the walkie talkies you played with this kid and like the early 80s. But the, um, the, uh, that was, uh, that was the, uh, that was the, that was the, um, that was the awesome of the Cold War in in real terms, and I don't know, I don't think anybody would, I don't think anybody would dispute would dispute that. Um, and there was shenanigans too, like the, there was one single municipal election for Oliver Lynn in, uh, in 1946 and the, um, the, uh, the social security party didn't pull pathetically yourself. I've only pulled like 20%. You know, and that's what the Christian Democrats on the map. Not just in the West Berlin, but it's like the Bundesrepublic like conservative party. But the Soviet basically they, basically they were like, you know, OK, the hell with it. Like we're not, we're not going to pursue a political solution, you know, because obviously they weren't going to get, you know, because we've been, like, that it been like the communist heartland, you know, like in the vibrant years. I, and people, people post a question like not as curious like readers, but like historians who like are deeply understand, you know, Russia, the era, they're like, why the Russians do this? And, uh, it was just to get the way the land. I'm telling you what I mean, that, that's, it makes total sense from Stalin's perspective. Stalin was, Stalin was it, would he, if Stalin's a guy, even the personality that we can say, we can look at data junkie. Like Stalin's obsessed with informational awareness. You know, he really was. It's, I guarantee you just said like, well, let's, I mean, let's see, let's hold that little election, like a legit election. Let's see what's more we got in the ground. OK, about 20, 20, 25%. That's fair. We can build copies around that. But this is never going to happen again. You know, but that's, I think we're going about an hour. I think we'll stop there and, uh, we'll, uh, we'll deep dive into that. This might not have been the most exciting episode, but it was important because otherwise, we're dealing with a huge phenomenon. They're going to cold war where no actual kind of starting starting point or a catalyst has been identified. But we're going to get into the Korean war, the formation of NATO and just the Truman doctrine next episode. That sounds great. Um, plugs in. Well, then. Yeah, we're, I'm very happy to report that I mean, you might see it. I've got, I've got this cool, like, backdrop and the apocalypse. I've got my production values. And also, like, I got, I got a video editor to join like our production team and he's great. So the YouTube channel is finally going to launch. I, uh, I'm back on Twitter now because Elon is apparently giving people like me a, um, amnesty. Uh, you can find me at Triskeli and Jihad. Uh, the first tea is a number seven. Uh, you can find me a substack. Uh, at real Thomas 777. Um, and I mean, you can find me, like I said, when I, in, in about a few days, when I, when the YouTube channel does launch, I'll upload a lot of this stuff there. And it's a Thomas TV in front of these Thomas 777. I know it's corny. It's supposed to be. It's a riff on Dave TV. If you're old like me, you remember, you remember Dave TV. I got Thomas TV. So yeah. But thank you, Pete. I really, really appreciate it. No problem. We'll pick it up again next week. Thanks, Thomas. I want to welcome everyone back to the peeking at a show. Part three with Thomas 777. How are you doing, Thomas? I'm very well. Thanks for hosting me. There's a few things I wanted to talk about today. And I want people to not be shy. If I'm being too skater shot or not focused enough, the Cold War is such a massive topic and it touches and concerns all kinds of theoretical matters, which is kind of like my wheelhouse. Um, but it also, you know, in terms of practical affairs and very quantifiable things. You know, it really kind of created the contemporary strategic landscape. You know, and it endured for an end or trip of a century. So there's so much there. You've kind of got to. I'm trying to go in linear order because you know that's, and whatever you're trying to, whatever your emphasis is in revisionism, you need to be as rigorous as you would in any other historical study. I mean, that doesn't mean just relating facts and documenting events for its own sake. But I don't just want to be taking off a list of you know what I consider key events or something. However, if I'm getting ahead of myself or if it doesn't seem to be a kind of tie that binds to make the narrative listenable or intelligible, please tell me in the comments and not going to get upset. What was out my mind a lot lately, especially because in the morning a couple of days a week, you might day I give me a ride downtown for stuff I got to do and you know I wasn't 890 AM talk radio, which isn't it's not garbage like NPR but it's garbage of a different sort. And they have all these polemical takes from you know these like retired you know captains and majors. You know like kind of like third rate want to be work college types you know as well as you know some of these kind of the Santa type Republicans are kind of like the token conservatives on the panel and these morning talk radio programs. You know there's it's interesting the way these guys talk about Russia. Okay because Russia kind of like Darla is long you're still allowed to stay basically prejudice things about it. You know because it's not you know it's not part of that kind of protected. It's not conceptually you know incorporated into you know the the victimology narrative. Okay but also there's even as even as the race needed as people are in America you know especially in terms of these you know the kinds of people who populate media. What remains a traditional media at least you know even academic types who couldn't tell you anything about their own heritage and are not very racially conscious at all. The remains is kind of addivistic fear of Russia and that's not just some that's not that's not just some kind of hack need polemical take that people like Lavrov. You know drop on the on the floor the UN General Assembly in order to make a point or to scandalize people. They really is true and to understand the Cold War you got to understand why they came about. I've been reading lately this book on Michael Proudin and it was released in a few of the titles the value my god it's under the title the Mongol Empire. There's another one there's another addition identical book you know called called storm out of Asia. But what it's all about is it's all about when the Europeans made first contact with the Mongols you know in the 13th century AD. Okay now why was this so significant well you know the European since 1095 it intermittently been at war with with the serenessens. You know it's saladine and his descendants you know this is the crusading era okay and what was facing about the Ed is that it was the only time until I mean let's you count you know the Napoleonic wars which were kind of more convenience than then then you know then I'm a unity of faith obviously. It was really only time you had you know truly European armies you know going off the war against the common civilization army. However some kind of concord had been have been reached with the Muslims okay I mean sometimes you know sometimes there's relative peace that rained you know in the kingdom of Jerusalem you know after that battle of Hattin and the Muslim conquest things that deteriorated. You know there's this kind of like an ongoing thing but in the 12 you know the 1220 something these rumors came about that there was this huge moroting army was a slaughtering everything in its path. And a lot of people and monasteries and monks they're like well you know this this is the scourge of God and he's he's punishing you know the infantile Muslims but he's also punishing these pagan tribes that populate the step. You know these barbarian people were living with the driven west the European frontier and saying you know there's these men on the horses with long torsos and they kill everybody you know and they like those left alive you know they take the women as slaves and they force the men into you know into into duty as Janissary's basically you know and they drive them you know up front then you know they take. They take the first blow when we when they encounter their enemies and their enemies are everybody but them and some of your thoughts is this nonsense and saying these are primitive pagan is it you know they don't know what they're talking about they probably spent the serenessens you know other people said there were Jews who said like well you know King David is come bit you know and he's coming to punish you for the way you treated the Jews you know he's coming to punish Jews to like forgotten God well obviously it's not those things is the Mongols okay and um. The association of the east with this barbarian element that never really left okay and I mean never really left in the European cultural mind and conceptual horizon but it also never really left literally okay like I'm not saying Russians are a bunch of Mongols or barbarians but there was this massive this massive monolithic force the emergent from the step that was destroyed everything in its path. It's for when everything in its path assimilating everything that was left alive or left standing like literally into its into its structure. You know that's that's really what the Soviet Union was okay and at the at the at the at the SS. You know the youth or schools the the problems book was actually given officers okay and that that's significant him or the sign him or in Paul house or didn't have people reading the international Jew and people reading clouds with I mean people didn't recalous much for the curriculum but you know the book you got my graduation graduation was this book by proud of both because it's you know it's always saying you know this is your enemy. You know this is what you know you're in you're in you're in the new blood order of of Europe you know in the SS and this is what we're fighting against you know because we're the we're the we're the watch on the right okay but also after you know 300 years of the Westphalian paradigm it you know the reality of true total war was was emerging again okay. And that they cannot be emphasized enough and even it sounds corny but you can glean things from you know you can you can you can discern symbolic psychological things even in kind of triacy media you know I watch I watch it in years you know I like a lot of little kid you know red dawn you know with a physics Wazey and see Thomas how you know that's the actually kind of an interesting movie like it has a period piece mostly but you know like the black history teacher when the when when when when when the talent for skips assaulted by like the Soviets and the San Yistas and the Cubanos, he's teaching a class about Yang is Khan okay and that's like not an accident, there's really like an on the nose okay, but so when you consider that you consider that you know Europe is literally this kind of indefensible peninsula that you know it that that's the way you got to understand that's what you got to understand the Second World War that's what you've got to understand essentially the entire the entire kind of the entire European military orientation and the you know and and the the the the the the the the striding eastward of of the tonic peoples and in the Cold War this was very much kind of transposed to America okay there was there was very much a racial component here okay even though there was strange things going on America you know there was the the fact that the Soviet Union became you know a superpower without a annihilated oh do uh oh to the United States allowing with it to to crush uh Imperium Europa we're you know um under the under the German Reich but you know nevertheless uh you know these uh these these things reemerge again and again um it's it's almost like a it's almost like a natural structural form that like snazze back in a place even when people try to corrupt that or mold it into different configurations but I uh what I want to talk about today is the war in Korea and this bear is directly what we're talking about and the Cold War actually was fought in terms of hot war I mean all kinds of ledger made and there was there was true violence in Europe of uh but it was all I mean there was never there was never a general war fought in Europe during the Cold War there was the cold war was literally really hot in Asia okay the Cold War whether it was lead in the air um between you know mass conventional forces they have been in Asia and it's not acceptable and uh that's not uh it wasn't just a matter of you know well you know this is a place where this is a place these this is a theater where you know the Soviets the Americans respectively can push and not risk triggering you know the the apocalyptic conflict diet that's going to lead to general nuclear war and interestingly or fascinatingly in the final phase the Cold War which we'll get into later um the real catalyst behind Reagan's 500 or I mean it's actually James Webb's but I mean the Reagan administration's 600 ship navy was that they wanted they wanted nuclear battle platforms um and and and supporting fleet elements, you know, to essentially like force force the Soviet Union where's up here to fight a two front nuclear war if you can think of nuclear war as having a front or rather two theater nuclear war and this uh this caused a serious problem um from uh frame drop of uh special any brezgen have it began really under Carter but that's one of the things that really really kind of worked uh soviet ambitions uh it wasn't just the revolution military affairs and like the technological edge being lost but getting into the Korean war um and again I hope that wasn't too like scarish uh sorry we got into the Berlin airlift uh last episode you know and and the Cold War you know the Cold War the Cold War it formally kicked off by that okay and then in 1949 the Soviets developed throwing the atomic capability you know uh we can get into the Rosenbergs maybe next episode if you want I I I didn't know if you wanted to cover the acts it's kind of controversy you and people strong feelings about it oh I don't know no we need to cover that okay we'll do that next next episode we're gonna deal with the early espionage uh issues we're gonna deal with um like the Cambridge five and and the Rosenbergs and Elger his and Roy Cohn who prosecuted the Rosenbergs but um I want to stick to the Korean war in the Orient um with this episode so here we are in 1950 Secretary of State Dean Atchison who he's uh there's there's been a lot of revisionist takes on him that are pretty unflattering but uh Atchison was kind of a peculiar I think he was kind of an a feat uh a aristocrat type of the sword of the worst source um but that I mean that's just my opinion I there's definitely been worse uh cheap diplomats but uh Atchison's great blunder I think it's an arguable and January 13th 1950 um you know mind you this was as we talked about uh we talked about you know the the desire to draw down conventional forces and rely upon that you know the the atomic bomb you know to resolve uh basically motor exitancies you know in the threat of mass emescalation um this was creating problems as you know the Cold War uh the you know began to heat up and earn us quite literally but there had not yet been an open challenge to uh the Truman okay there had not yet been I mean other than the Berlin blockade which was uh I mean that that was that was not a conventional provocation you know owing to the bizarre occupation regime and the fact that um you know Germany was permanently in limbo as a matter of law um you know because there it was it was quite literally under occupation authority and there was no there was there was no end in sight and no pathway to a permanent T-streetie emergent um but the uh you know the first true kind of challenge uh to uh to uh to a American burgundy american in Germany was the Korean War and I think of the Korean war and why it happened uh as somewhat analogous to why uh the first Gulf War happened it had to do with incorrect signaling by uh by uh by uh by u.s diplomats like when i say incorrect it really is a correct way to not disclose uh intentions well at the same time the Turing reckless acts by you know by uh by national uh enemies and uh that's the diplomats must have instincts to know when to resort to such measures and uh must uh have a basic understanding of how to code your language such that you know the signals can be clearly read um well still you know keeping uh keeping potential uh he keeping keeping intentions actual potential you know relatively hidden as need be a sustained credibility but the innocent certainly did not do that what the United States did on January 13th 1950 um he addressed he issued a speech the National Press Club and what he said was this when he was asked about you know what the policy was towards the communist in Asia he said look you literally said there's a defensive perimeter in Asia he said the extensive Japan do the right-ass islands down to the Philippines and the south so quite literally if you look at a map that constitutes kind of a line through the Pacific okay um within which i mean obviously you know or feel like you have ceilings and things but basically it's it's it's like it's quite literally like a containment barrier um uh you know uh ballwork against uh against the against the against the Asian landmass okay now Stalin was paying attention to this as was Mao and the way they read that was that well you know despite the fact that Korea was under similar occupation to Germany you know you had um you had um you know you had uh you had a Soviet occupied uh north uh you had a briefly American and um allied occupied south um and then north you had this uh kind of cargo cult Stalinist regime and in the south you basically had a military dictatorship but the military that was running it was not particularly capable however there was not forces in being on the ground in the south uh they had they'd left okay um and uh the uh the uh the uh the understanding was um that America was not going to defend Korea okay now why Stalin and Mao coveted Korea is uh is what's significant because Korea was not uh in Germany um and the reason why Korea today remains dysfunctional is because it uh it borders uh both China and Russia and so the striking distance of letty was stock um it's a stone's throw away from Japan like quite literally nobody wants united Korea about the Koreans you know um America doesn't the Russians and Chinese will not tolerate it Japan will not tolerate it this both supersedes and transcends uh Cold War rivalries and how obsolescent but also uh uh but what also is far less of uh of a of a potential conflict diet that uh that could result in true catastrophic escalation it became that way because of my car than we'll get to that in a minute okay now what happened months later um was uh on June 25th uh the North Korea launched a massive assault of of the south it was a Sunday uh President Truman uh was at home in Missouri we've Washington Dean Atchison was in Maryland that is his his his gentleman's farm Henry Knitzah who people the name people we recognize from our earlier episodes did so was the secretary of defense um you know fishing trip in New Brunswick but Knitzah decades later he was the principal architect of the team B exercise um he used a huge early neoconservative okay massive uh extreme Cold War hawk he was the author of National Security Council paper 68 which was drafted in April of 1950 and that was one of the most important policy blueprints or policy statements of the Cold War um it provided it provided the road map for the permanent militarization of America uh of both conventional forces uh and strategic nuclear forces from you know from the time it was written the 1950 until the other Soviet Union collapsed you know 40 years later um so it was a hugely significant guy okay and his uh his first uh his first kind of challenge political major was uh was was was budding heads with with you know Mr. George Kenan we we discussed earlier I mean Kenan obviously from what we discussed about him and you know from what we've talked about where's his kind of basic traits of character it's kind of it's kind of decent see in his basic sense of caution I mean he believed very much in strong defense but you know the cautious application of force and the service they're in um Kenan was one of the few men whatever people can say I mean well given them why this isn't a man but Kenan was really sandwiched in the era in the epoch by his opponents including people like Nitsa um you know for being can you know soft on communism and it's the laboratory towards the Soviets but Kenan uh he had been adamant for once prior to uh to the June 25th that there were definite indicators of communist military activity in Asia and that they were going to assault somewhere it was not clear where the fear would be for such activity and what the point of concentration would be and what would be prioritized they're in um but my brother's dad and to okia and just did not they just disregard him entirely they're like this guy's an egghead he's never been uniform he has no the fuck he's talking about and he can't even you know provide a uh an conceptual model of like where this is going to jump off you know and what what what forces it's going to entail you know and what and what what what feeders going to be the primary area of operation they totally disregarded it ok but um this uh to give you an idea of kind of a food bar the national security establishment was um neither Truman nor Knitz nor Atchison it wasn't until they returned to Washington from their respective, you know vacations That uh they they found out that career winner assault because they saw the news paper headlines, okay? There was no structure in place of you know Notifying national command authorities Of a wartime emergency Um in branded I mean this was this was the dawn of the atomic age, but it doesn't matter. I mean a you know America for better or worse had It had just come off of a total mobilization and you know a massive two front war There's unprecedented scope scale and intensity so Impossible to rationalize as it is that's the way things were When Kenan All right that night Kenan Kenan at this point was something that minister without portfolio, okay? He was he'd been dismissed as you know the kind of quasi-regent of the Department of State and Moscow Um, he'd ended his tenure as a special consultant to the national security advisor But he I mean Kenan was always in the executive orbit, okay? Um because he was a brilliant guy and He uh he was the he was the foremost expert on the Soviet Union and the Russian and Russian culture, okay? The evening of Sorry the evening of June 25th Kenan double time for the Department of State and he said look He said the critical strategic matter here is that Formosa, Taiwan has to be defended He's like if this is a general push Um and it may be will be you know, he said Uh The secondary assault is the soul in South Korea the primary assault is gonna be on Formosa Um and ultimately uh there there's gonna be a massive assault in Japan, okay? If the Soviets are going all in in Asia and uh the Chinese their Chinese protests are going all in We're we're gonna we're gonna fight a world war or Japan, okay? um Which is very interesting and Taiwan is interesting because um Taiwan is actually zero strategic significance today and it shows you like the the rut delusion of these of these These bizarre Fucking idiots like like Mrs. Polo was he mister Biden that they pretend that it's 1950 and that there's matters or that they actually have You know, not only is there no stake in Taiwan, but this idea that If I mean if an American carry group showed up declaring the Taiwanese in 2022 that we're gonna defend you like It'd be totally befuddled within the latin they're faced. You know, I mean it's uh it's incredible, but um in 1950 uh had Taiwan fall and um And had that been you know the like Moscow and Stalin's ambition um can it was absolutely right the um And uh as we will see as we get deeper into this series um The Soviets put remarkable pressure on Japan and the the Soviets were always seeking out a weak spot as kind of their counterweight to uh to uh to the situation in Berlin especially and and the inner German board of generally And that's what underlay Inkruv Chiefs on the service apparently reckless deployment of strategic nuclear force into Cuba um Which blew up in his face but uh the uh The fighting uh fighting a If the Soviets had been able to find a soft spot as it were in uh the Asian Defense paradigm or structure rather Where they could squeeze Japan uh with a combination of you know hard power threat and and soft power uh um Uh Incentivization Uh America would have a real problem in that regard So Ken was not just you know dropping wild Doomsday scenarios that what he was saying was impossible um As it was I uh I think I think Stalin was a uh I think Stalin was testing Mao's loyalty and uh The side of the Soviets split as complicated. There's profound cultural variables there as well as political ones As well as simple uh as well as things as simple as you know the uh Like dang who was you know who's the shadow Executive I mean basically after Mao and after the gang of four got eliminated He was trying to somewhat breathe and and so were and so was his inner coderian and been meant like him and men like them can be blocked But also The reason why uh it wasn't just owing to the kind of nascent uh nascent nature of the uh the cold war paradigm um During the last years of Stalin's life that That that that pay king Wasn't basically unconditional alliance with Moscow as because they were they were well to Stalin I mean Stalin was a remarkable person I I maintain he was probably the most powerful man wherever it went. Okay um hands down but the As Kenan came to realize uh China very much was the Soviet Union's proxy and he treated them very much like a client state I mean a very important client state one with potentially great uh power political potential and uh Military mobilization potential But nevertheless they very much treated them like uh Like a somewhat inferior race. Okay. Um not to be chrasse about it that is the reality of the situation Can it maintain um, you know uh in that same vein Well here first of all like how how is Truman able to corral this this this whole uh um coalition effort and again the parallel with with the golfer stands out here Although the way in which the coalition was uh was corral. This is quite different The USSR is boycotting the United Nations at this point. Okay. No as people probably know The Soviet Union had a permanent seat in the UN Security Council the UN Security Council acts as the defagle higher house of the UN If you want to look at the UN is like a unit camera legislature of nations Uh any permanent members security council is a veto on any resolution. Okay The Soviet Union or boy it was boycotting this the US they simply were their seat was vacant And why were they boycotting the UN? They're a boycotting the UN because their proxy China had not the UN and not permitted them to be seated Okay, there was there's a absurd situation where the Americans were demanding that Chinkye checks government down from also He recognizes the true government of China I I mean what I I mean when you're sitting in pay king and you've got the many and over night and Not a hundred million people we you know declaring like you know the guys on that you know little island over there The real government is something that There's no instateriable about that But there's one that's so it's for boycotting the UN thus when Truman uh Um through at just and you know said look you know this is this is an this is an egregious violation of international law You know uh the the communists are are you know in the front that do you see and you know the It's you know the the more is the civilized community and nations have assaulted Korea this this marvelous nascent democracy You know we we've got a rush to its defense. So that's what happened. Okay Truman uh Truman wasn't any kind of wasn't any kind of pure Wilsonian But he was like a liberal internationalist so this this kind of stuff really got him excited. You really you really don't that And frankly Plutically it was uh it was a savvy move. Okay. I mean granted it's it's intended to do anything to facilitate it And there was the Soviets were you know playing typical kind of comedy games that uh you know A political theatrical nature that facilitated it but That's what happened now back to Ken and Ken is observing all of this and he's growing very concerned because Ken and knows MacArthur pretty well And MacArthur was just a weird guy Uh He lived with his parents Pretty much his whole life until he was pretty um He uh He was immature and out of the way that Churchill was like he wasn't like this kind of the foolish piggy drunk who was playing with army men at age you know 25 but he Like MacArthur had this kind of His father was a A Medal of Honor recipient who fought for the Union Army in the world win the states MacArthur himself He was awarded the Medal of Honor in this in this anti-banded action in the poncho via era But it was strange and like it it seemed very much like MacArthur kind of coveted this Medal of Honor and he created circumstances where and he could he could you could grab one by kind of spinning facts In such a way that would appeal to the you know to the uh to those you know commissioning such an award He was not a very attractive guy and aside from that There's a reason why um He was uh He was sent to the Pacific theater The Pacific theater was in it was it wasn't Navy show okay now the grudge there It was got suffered like nobody else okay, and they fought harder than anybody else. I'm not saying that at all but the army in um in the Pacific war they really Were not center stage and that's like uh Something if you one reason I like to film the thin red line because it's one of the few words. It's about the army in uh in the Pacific war You know, not the Marine Corps. And you get to sense these guys being literally in the middle of nowhere. And desertion in the Pacific was almost zero if there's no where to desert two. You know, you're in this green hell. A lot of time they weren't getting the gear they needed. You know, things have become totally savage by this point. But, you know, all that aside, I mean, that there's enough there at the constitute of an episode and they've sewn right. But the key takeaway is that there's a reason why MacArthur was not given some theater-wide command. You know, there's a reason why he wasn't given an armored Corridor in Europe, okay? There's a reason why he was sent to the Pacific where he was basically under the thumb of guys like Nimitz, okay? Because he was a cowboy, he was a glory hound. And by this point, he was basically running Japan like some kind of swaggering codillo, you know, or some kind of like great white hunter or something. And what Kenham's view was is, I don't know what the hell this guy is gonna do. You know, Kenham's view as well. You know, MacArthur is in his element with this, you know, if he sticks the mission orientation of liberating Republican Korea, but MacArthur decides he wants to collect more medals and Merce of Lady Vostok, he's gonna start rule more three. You know, now I know there's like the stupid cliche of fucking idiots who are always like, part of like, you know, talking about like general officers like go through some crazy generals and do something. Like nine out of 10 times that the fucking retarded take, but in MacArthur's case, MacArthur did crazy shit. And he didn't really get respect to chain to command. And Kenham, what Kenham did was, Kenham, he began very publicly saying, look, and this is fascinating because it presages obviously what ultimately resolved the Cold War and what Mr. Nixon and Kissinger did. Kenham said, look, he's like, we need to give MacArthur a free hand in operational terms. So long as the mission remains limited to the liberation of their public of Korea, not the Congress of the North. He's like, can permanently simultaneously. He's like, we need to offer Beijing inducements to not cooperate with USSR. You know, he's like, we should even offer them a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. If they willing to formally break with Moscow. And we should tell him that, you know, a further ado is what it is, we will recognize them unconditionally as a sole representative of the Chinese government. Now, John Foster Dolez would preserve, when Kenham said this. And people are saying that Kenham was, they were saying he'd been like, gotten to by the Soviets. He was like, awful, slanderous things. He was literally just shouted down. And this really, really hurt him. Okay, as the Korean War started to go very poorly. And despite what they, I don't know how the HGTS in school about this, but the Korean War was incredibly unpopular. Because the incredibly brutal was incredibly bloody. You know, it was, and not in like Vietnam, in all kinds of ways. Okay. I don't know what the world wants you to do. It's the grotesque things that happened. And the awful thing is the guys where they go, they're suffering through, but there was a lot of commonality. Okay. Not just only the fact that we're talking about, you know, Asian battlefields, but this really, Kenham really got, kind of sandbagged until the Eisenhower era. And well, we'll get into that too, because we progress also. We're gonna come back and Kenham again and again. Not just 'cause I got a huge esteem for Kenham, but he's a key player in the Cold War. And like I said, I give Nixon all credit for the Syllidate and the Sino-Soviet split. Because he's the man who actually facilitated it in an executive role. But conceptually, this was George Kenham's kind of auguried, and instinct for hard power politics. But as the war dragged on, Truman did increase in the evil patrols and just overall the evil presence of the Pacific. And especially in the Taiwan Strait. And hugely significant. Truman began basically bankrolling the French war and ended up shining against the Viet Minh. Okay. And America's involvement in ended up China goes back to the late 40s, in some capacity. You know, this idea, this kind of Oliver Stone went to Howard Zinna idea that like, Viet Minh was a lie, man. And like a bunch of fish and generals and capitalists just decided to fight a war there. Like that's not true at all. And it's not. Okay. And you gotta look at Korea. You gotta look at Vietnam. You gotta look at this entire paradigm I talked about that ultimately kind of resolved in this sort of massive escalation. Yeah, massive escalation of forces and being in the Pacific you know, the Reagan era. You gotta look at it as part of the kind of paradigm. Okay. You can't look at any of these things in isolation. (coughs) Now, what Kenan did do during this time is he started writing a lot in policy journals. Okay. And he kind of, back in those days, you still had public intellectuals that we talked about. And Kenan first and foremost among social science types and political theorist types, he was the king, okay. So Kenan started kind of making his case to the American people and kind of like, you know, and kind of like the learned, you know, like top layer of a civilian world. And Kenan's plan for, I mean, we think of history of the rear view mirror because that's inevitable. But he comes up money morning quarterback when they're like looking backwards. Kenan was pretty convinced along with everybody else that there's probably gonna be, there's probably gonna be a world war within several years. And at some point there's gonna be a catastrophic nuclear war. That was inevitable in his view. And I understand why you thought that. And frankly, had, had a birch off in Reagan not found a way to end that paradigm there would actually would have been at some point. You know, be it in 1993, 2003, 2003, it would have happened eventually. I'm sorry you called me, so I've been on the weather. But the Kenan view was this, okay. This was Kenan's kind of grand design for how to, not to deescalate, but like get out of the cold war without seeding ground at the point that America's totally compromised, okay. He said this guy is gonna copy as a settlement with the Soviets that would terminate our stillness in Korean. Because if, if, if, if, stillness went on indefinitely, he's like eventually, you know, the Chinese who by then were fighting a general war on the peninsula against the, the, the, the American let you enforce us. You know, he's like eventually they're either gonna get the upper hand or we're gonna escalate and we're gonna find ourselves in a general war with the Soviets and the Chinese. So we've got to find a way of pull up plug on this and go back to pre war, you know, really go back to pre war lines of demarcation in a 30-throw low. He said we got to admit that people were probably trying to the United Nations in some capacity, okay. Even if we're not gonna give them a permanent seed on the security council, we can't pretend this government is not legitimate. There's a billion people who live under this government. You know, they're, they're, they're, they're the third most powerful state on this planet. Um, they're ridiculous. He's like, concomitant, we need to, we need to allow a plebiscite to determine Taiwan's future and Kenyans, like don't worry the time when he is in overwhelmingly vote for independence. But he's like, we've got to do it. And we've got to allow third party monitors, you know, so that it's, they can't just be said that, you know, these Taiwanese are under the heel of some cod billow who in turn is taking orders from the white man or whatever, okay. And finally, and finally, this is a, this is most significant and this is fascinating. Kenyans said to prevent mass of escalation in the Pacific theater and to obviously it was probably, you know, gonna, this paradigm that's probably gonna result in a nuclear war is like, we need to bring about a neutral and demilitarized Japan. I know, you know, US forces there, you know, no, no, not even a token kind of Japanese army, you know, is like Japan, Japan needs to be called just a new tools on, okay. And that's the only way moving forward. We're gonna keep it off the table as, you know, the, it's kind of like the prize objective in the Pacific. And also, this is long forgotten to history. Other than there's a, you know, changing to come across copy, most of them like grand students come across headlines in the 70s and stuff, when the Japanese red-army faction was killing people because they dropped a lot of bodies, but communism had real momentum in Japan. It was entirely possible that Japan would go red, okay. That's a whole another story, but just for contact, it seems weird that Canada's like emphasizing that look, like we got it, we got it basically like take Japan out of the Cold War entirely. That's why, okay. And in turn, he said finally, he said that we're entering into a cast room. He's like, "Wintering on arms race with the Soviet Union." He's like, "We can probably win just because we can essentially like, and definitely have spend them on weapons." But he's like, at some point, the Soviets are probably going to go all in and assault us with everything they have rather than just moves. Okay. Like, we need to reduce the mere UK mobility as to a mixed combined arms force. That's capable of dealing a concentrated and devastating blow on a limited front, but basically anywhere on this planet. And that was very pressing, too. Okay. Because that kind of thing, if you give down in by the end of the Cold War, definitely. And even beyond, although the traditional ANSKI has totally changed and arguably, arguably, the reason why that notion has gained legs is for totally different reasons. But there's all kinds of factors in playing with that. You know, like political or technological in others. But Ken and I guess what I'm getting is this. Ken and I had him, he wasn't something I'd augur in like or anything. But Ken and I had him as peers, particularly on the issue of Korea, but also Asia generally. Yet understanding of, it's any causation in politics. Cosality in politics. I mean, causality in human affairs obviously isn't like causality in physics or something. I mean, everybody can see that. But in politics is a peculiar domain of human endeavor. And there's a weird kind of causation in politics. And part of this owes to what men and command rules have to do to maintain credibility. Part of it has to do with the way humans perceive threat at scale. Part of it has to do with just how decisions are made in technology-driven societies. Where we all such great power over the forces that animate them, that oftentimes once a decision, once a decision making process and motion it really cannot be stopped. Ken had had instincts for all this stuff. And he kind of understood the implications of the strategic matters as they were happening. And that's what truly makes a political theorist, particularly like an IR theorist, is you can look at affairs as they unfold and you can basically disturb the trajectory of the war and peace parents. I can't think of a better way to put it, but that's kind of the thing you can do. Have we lost that now or is it just we're so far gone with leadership, our leadership being, why can't we see something like this when it comes to NATO? Is it because we're the aggressors? Is it because we're in the wrong? What you're describing, I mean these people, the people you're describing now would be considered enemies of the regime. What it is complicated, but a point I made to people again and again, during the Cold War, guys who had the best and the brightest, they were basically corralled in the government. I mean if you were a nuclear physicist, you went to work in Los Alamos. If you're some really game theorist, you got sent to Harvard and you got sent to some penning on fun and think tank to figure out how to wage nuclear war. If you're a brilliant economist, you'd meet with the president and you'd say, what's the best way, the Marshall Plan was great for politics, but it didn't do a whole lot for capital and return on investment and for technological development. How can we build up Korea? How can we build up Taiwan? How can we build up these kind of key proxy regimes to fight the Soviet Union? Now it is, the only people who had a government are real losers. It's like weirdos, freaks, like literally, like half ass actors, like weird people who have nothing going for them, but they have some desperate need to be famous or something. Any guy who's been going for them is going to have nothing to do with government. I mean that's part of it. I have a friend, his son is a genius, engineering, trying to, Raytheon offered him an insane amount of money and he's like, I just can't work for these people. Is that what's happening now? Because basically we have a corporate run government that the best and the brightest are just going straight into the corporations and then the. Look at a guy, I mean look at it, look, like 50 years ago or even 40 years ago, like in the early 80s, like Elon Musk, he'd be like working in government. He would have been like making, he would have been going on TV, debating Carl Sagan, saying, no, this is why we need SDI, no, this is why we need to roll back communism. Like no, this is why we need to subscribe to the ABM treaty and develop weapons platforms that truly have split the first right potential. That's what he'd be doing. And now, who the hell is going to go debate with AOC about whether like kids should learn about anal sex or not in seventh grade? Like, who the hell is going to do that? Like any normal person that's only beneath them and they wouldn't like selling themselves that way. But also it's like government is for losers. You know, it's for people like the Biden's. You know, it's for people like AOC. It's for, it's for, or it's for guys, or it's for kind of like, you know, guys like to see it this, so it's kind of like, like, like, scribe renouresists need to like, you know, see their face on TV or something. Like, you know, people have something going for them. Like, aren't going to want to be having to do with it. And I mean, but it's also part of the problem. I mean, like we talked about before and I'm sure people think that I'm flowing to that horse here that maybe I overstayed my case, but even if it's not the fact that we've got like a hostile regime that's wholly destructive and like an enemy of the people and stuff, even in them, like, let's say you have like a normal regime of like, of like normal people, like the government has structured. It's only structured to really fight the Cold War and not much else. I mean, it's like, why does it even exist? You know, there's like, there's something of a, there's more than a modicum of fraud to it too. You know, and people see through that like a highly intelligent guy, aside of the fact that there's nothing government is doing that got positive interest in now. He's not going to go, he's not going to go pretend that like, you know, he's actually accomplishing something by working in some idiotic bureaucracy. You know, when you, I mean, if people want to, Jerry Portnell, I mean, I'm a big science fiction guy. So I love Jerry Portnell. You know, he, the committee on the present danger, he really kind of took over that, that role. I mean, the committee on the present danger went back to the 50s, when the 80s, it should have ended into like a, a, a, into like a military science like political action committee. Okay. And Portnell was the guy who put like, SDI on the map. Okay. That's why the Cold War, I mean, dynamic people were in government because of the Cold War. Okay. They were there. Like they weren't there. He's government is awesome because they really want to, they want to figure out, you know, how to drag to school curriculum for like, portiers. Because they are like pass laws like make gay people feel better about themselves. I mean, like they, they were there to fight the Cold War and that's it. And the Cold War was something that comes, like a paradigm like that happened once in a thousand years, if that. And people realize that at some deep level, even when it was horrifying. And even when people wanted done anything to get out of it, when like in joggers, you know like Cuba have 63 or 62, you know, the '73 war and like Abel Archer, even as horrifying as that stuff was. Like people realize like, you know, these were apoccal or shattering events that I'm participating in. That's why. Yeah, I mean, you go back to like, you know, they would send Carl Sagan out to make an argument for them. Now, who is their science as now? Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, guys who can get owned on Twitter by like, by people like anonymous, anonymous accounts. Yeah, like, like, they're like high school kids too. Yeah. Like, like, there's plenty of sort high school kids, but point is, yeah, they're going to get better. It's by just like, like 16 year old John's, you know, there's just no one. It seems like there is no one who's impressive anymore. And if they are impressive, you know, it's like to a certain extent, Elon Musk, I think is an impressive guy. But he's also, you're also like, what the hell does this guy believe? You know, it's like, yeah, you don't know what his ideology is if he has one at all. Yeah, I don't really think he does. I mean, generally business moguls don't, I mean, I defend Musk a lot because I mean, he's a high speed low drag guy. He's the one who's keeping real space. tech alive and he's doing a credible thing. The fact that the story's done for telecom is incredible. The things he's introduced are game changers. I mean, I'm not just in telecom, I'm like across the board. He has an eccentric weirdo, but all these guys are. But I mean, he's around and he's a great man, and like not in the sense of I love him, I think he's awesome, but by any objective metric, but that's, you know, government, you know, government is going to attract losers when it doesn't. I mean, this is, I don't want to go too far afield, I don't want to be in the hour, but it, but I mean, I, government is going to cease to exist as we know it today in the next 200 years. Like I'm not saying like the state will wither, you know, like some utopian anarchist or some, you know, kind of like low key, like trot skis or something, but you're not. It's just not going to have, you know, essentially now people, the stuff like, you know, the 20th century feature is that they created this regime, it's going to be so remote as to be like not even an intelligent one anymore. So like a lot of what government does as its make work, business, a day-to-day is just not going to exist anymore. And it's like a natural deal solution, you know, like, like, localism is going to become just like more and more thing it already is. But so I think the problem is going to take care of itself in some basic way. But that's, that's, there's something I, I can't, I thought there was something I wanted to bring up in conclusion. Again, I swear I'm not going to see Nile, but. Well, I, I derailed you. It's just that, you know, when you think back on the Cold War, there were so many, you know, it is as psychotic as it was at many points. There were so many impressive people out there giving, you know, talking, um, technology. I mean, it, we just don't, I'm not saying we need another Cold War. I'm just saying it's just when you look at what we have today compared to the people that we were looking at then, it's just like, what the hell happened, man? It's like, you know, it's like, anyocracy, like, snuck up on us in a decade. No, it's so, so I'm not. So like I said, I, I found it jarring, like, you know, the Clinton administration was jarring because I mean, Clinton was such a fucking slob. But these people, like, all they did, something really wrong. And it was like, it wasn't even gradual. It was like, okay, I mean, whether you like Bush 41 or not, I mean, he was, he was a high speed low-drag guy, you know, and that whole, and James Baker was, when I was a kid, like a teen, like James Baker was like, like a, like a hero, I really looked up to him, you know? But these, you know, go from that kind of very heavy, severe, well good and bad ways regime, you know, to Bill Clinton, then it's kind of like Mary band, circus freaks, like it, it was bizarre, man, like it's jarring. But I mean, that's what I like I said, I get it was a joke. I think these boomers were like, who like flying to like, you know, rage is about Donald Trump, you know, these like the same assholes were like telling us, three years ago, like you're gonna get with the times, man, you like Bill Clinton is the future, like we don't want your weight, male stuff anymore. Like, you know, it's like, you can't like turn around and say like you're outraged at some reality TV show star as the president. It's like you guys made this shit happen, you know, like you're the ones who said, like we're a bunch of squares and fish, just an idiot, you know, like weight, male stuff to rule, man, and you know, we gotta like get with the times. So it's like, you know, yeah, yeah. And it's really, and it's really only a matter of time before people start begging for that to come back. Yeah, I mean, I'm going, I mean, I'm very optimistic, man, I mean, I don't worry about anything, because I'm so awesome or like, fearless, but I, you know, I'm like a Calvinist and stuff and like, you know, like stuff doesn't really bother me. And but also like, you know, I see I see causes for optimism all over the place, you know, and there's a lot of like horrible things too, but I mean, there's always horrible things. You know, the world is a fallen place, man, like that, that's that's why, you know, that's that, that's, you know, we're all born and sinned, but on any event, uh, yeah, well, let's some, let's, uh, let's wrap up now, I don't want to go into another big, uh, like some topic, because it's coming up in the hour, but like I said, for one live, man, I'm, uh, the fellow is invited me to go with them to the American Renaissance Conference this weekend. So that's where I am going. I'm going to Nashville. So if you're there, you will see me. If you seek me out, um, please don't try to assassinate me or something like that. But I so, I so want to be able to get these things that they're, they come as friends, but unfortunately, I don't think this is going to come out before the weekends. No, I heard off. But no, I, in any event, uh, plugs. Yeah, I mean, I'm on, I'm on, I'm on Twitter still, because I mean, apparently, uh, I was making up Mr. Mosque that, uh, that the, uh, the world censorship regime is done. I mean, you can find me there. You'll see can you shall find I'm on substake at real time is 777 that's substake.com. There's my podcast is it. Um, the, the sequel to Steelstorm is dropping in January. I promise, I'm sorry for the delay. It was not my fault. Nor was, was it my dear publisher's fault, I'm here to impress. Um, we've had censorship problems in our own and deplatforming problems, but it will be here in January. I'm starting to be here to the holidays, but, uh, that is, uh, that is where I met. I appreciate it. Yeah, until the next time. Thank you. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pikenyana show part four of the Cold War series with Thomas 777. I'm very well. Thanks again. What I wanted to get into today, we finished off last week. We taught, yeah, we're like a week and a half ago for apps, but you know, talking about the Berlin area, if Berlin, the air lift and the Korean War, and I kind of finished talking about the Korean War, and I wanted to talk about the Buddhist Republic and this political culture and how I'm going to develop the way it did. And into that, the listeners will understand what I mean about why that's significant. But, you know, the Korean War, it, uh, it, you know, like we discussed in the last episode about, I was essential in end, you know, uh, containment as policy. You know, I just says some sort of theory abstracted from, from concrete military decision making, you know, you're going to understand the Korean War as kind of the first iteration of that, you know, and as, as well as, you know, what became to great, your electricity policy towards the communist for the next, the next 40 years. And it's also, too, that's when America truly situated into the Vietnam conflict, you know, like I made the point before there's no kinds of lies about the Vietnam War and just miss, just kind of misperception, some deliberate, some deliberately confagulated, you know, for political, biological reasons, support of broad ignorance. But the other thing that Vietnam was just kind of a lot of opportunity, you know, owing the, the deserves of, you know, profit years and finance years and things, this nonsense. And the, uh, it, and arguably, you know, the far east was, it was far more dangerous during the middle and late Cold War than than the European theater. I mean, obviously, I've come to Europe, that would have been characteristic because basically a single conflict diet and had it been triggered or traversed the potential for cancer, I've a escalation was, was, was, was ever present. But there was many, many clikdiads potentially and how and where, uh, you know, actual warfare wouldn't sue. That was very difficult to predict. And, you know, one of the hostilities didn't sue. Um, it was, it was equally difficult to predict, you know, what the potential for escalation was, you know, um, it's also to the, there was, there was more fluidity, the sphere of influence and things like this. But that's, you know, that's what Korea is important. And it's also, it, um, it's, uh, it's essential to, I think you're kind of the outcome of the Korean conflict, you know, in terms of, um, it's pretty much, Truman came under, you know, Truman left office really kind of in disgrace. Not, I mean, he was, he was in the eye, whatever he was about true. I mean, he was honest. He didn't have character issues. He wasn't corrupt. But, um, his rating was in the toilet. The Korean war was incredibly popular. And, you know, the, uh, the Republic rift between Truman and Carthor, which led to the Carthor's dismissal. Um, the, the public generally sympathized with the Carthor, not just because, you know, he was kind of this heroic person, the adhesion that had been very deliberately created by, you know, by media. Um, but also the view of, the view of Truman was that Truman's abged, you know, as stated, where to quote, restore peace and security on the Korean peninsula, you know, there was, in the, you know, basically, the rest of us, it stays, quote, "moo of victory." And in Truman's words, you know, we're waging the Korean war to, you know, not just for the sake of, um, you know, deterring aggression and, uh, and they're prevailing. And, you know, in guarding the prevailing peace, but it quote, "protect our forces." You know, and that's, one of the officers in the ground referred to that as an absurd toiletology, you know. Your forces are there to protect your forces. I mean that doesn't that that's not why you go to war and You know, we're talking about you know not just men's lives you know and and and and Expecting them to sacrifice their lives in the national interest, you know You you really have an obligation to the country not just to those men and and their families and relations But you know the country at large You know to what the wage war to win, you know now not not to It's isn't it also an insult isn't it also an insult to the men on the ground Oh, we got to drop more forces in there because you guys can't handle it It's like the whole Afghanistan thing. We have these Afghani troops that we've That we've trained and you know, they have platoons, but they can't do it on their own So we got to get someone in there. Yeah, yeah That's a good point It has the effect of really kind of sapping morale and and and kind of discouraging and any enthusiasm You know for the for the war effort and it um So I mean it I for good for good reason, you know the Truman was kind of savaged over his prosecution of the war But also suddenly you know kind of court historians within the right and the left they kind of they kind of view this as as this real low point for There's a America in the cold war uh, you know kind of a Precursion of what ensued Uh during the detente they're uh after you know say gone felon things But I got a different take on that. I mean if that's part of the reason we're doing this is is knowing the You know The earth of rivenous perspectives and and dealing with the cold war But in Kissinger's diplomacy he's about the only kind of I mean I said kissinger a lot because I you know who told I before for whatever reason People kind of on both sides the ideological divide they they love kind of burning Uh kissinger to reveal effigy But he in power political analysis. He's really second to none. Okay, and he He made the point uh I grow a bit further than he did, but or he does, but he made the point that you know uh The Stalin and and the Soviet Union ended up in pretty and a pretty precarious position only to the Korean war um the uh You know the there's a basic ambiguity as to Where American sphere of influence stuff then Soviet Interest began in the region Um emergated not at the forces in being um Even I was headed to pan really, but even that is our goal uh, you know to the prosecute a a major war um And the far-reaster they are they you know those forces weren't present before the outside of hostilities in 1950 um You know the uh In the aftermath of Korea, you know the the department of defense it it asked for the defense budget to be tripled and it got its way um and it truly integrated military alliance developed in Europe under American supreme command I mean that's built NATO was the Korean War Before that there was you know talk of a European defense community um there was real hostility to the to you know to uh the uh the idea of an of of American for being in any in any in any real you know number Remaining Europe, but I'm not saying it's a good thing that that that this is what happened, but in terms of uh, you know relative power uh And it between the United States and and the Soviet Union and what began the Warsaw Pact Um, this really just really changed things uh and skewed the strategic landscape against the interests of the communists I believe um The uh it it it it it gave the United States a certain credibility in terms of multilateral action really is the appearance of it you know it uh It it it basically Congress uh gave a blank check to uh Eisenhower subsequently you know to to beef up these client regimes you know in Africa and the East and in the Orient You know and so huge amounts of hardware at them and you know this was this was the catalyst really for the you know for for American special warfare I don't like Kennedy gets all the credit for that you know and that's why you know this the the the spec war centers You know literally named for him, but you know this was really like like spec war and special operations really became a thing You know uh during the Eisenhower era, you know and then in this old do uh the experience at Korea and things like that and uh Stalin um Stalin had been uh Stalin really did not want that freedom where to happen I mean he had the he didn't have any problem with it. He green-lit it when uh When Mao uh was able to convince him To Mao and Kim Il Sung were able to convince him that you know victory would be rapid and initially I mean it did appear that that would be the case, you know the the uh Republic of Korean forces got pushed back to Busan and the perimeter was this tiny little corner literally the Republic of Korea um until uh I mean those guys fought fought hard and not putting shade on the South Koreans, but I mean you know they they were they were they were totally routed um it wasn't uh It wasn't until you know the the in-Chion landings, you know cut the country in half basically and um Uh the you know the American and you and forces essentially fought this kind of desperate rear action and uh and push the communist all the way back Like literally to the yellow river and I mean obviously that you know that's what triggered intervention by the the red Chinese but But um what being um You know this was not despite what similar like the the the cold the cold world hox alleged this is not shnollin like you know sitting in Moscow, you know trying to you know Goad American to this Asian war, you know whereby then you know The sovets would have it having an opportunity to run Berlin or something like that was and then that but it just you know Didn't go as planned like it's not what happened at all but um you know the uh What shnollin was really doing in my opinion is uh Stolen realized that the Soviet Union needed China. Okay. The Soviet Union needed China as much as the United States and needed western Europe Because what became the Warsaw Pact this was this was not some sort of you know equivalent to western Europe or some sort of equivalent to the You know the capital base uh and and resources human material that you know America and the UK had in NATO Really all the Warsaw Pact was with the exception of easy journey um was uh What was the defense cordon? You know it was literally space. We're in you know the right army could deploy in depth to protect itself for the stage, you know Uh what they characterized the preemptive assault against NATO um occupying occupying Poland with hostility you know uh You know creating like a climate regime in Bulgaria like this these things when this is not profiting the Soviet Union these things were huge dreams Okay, but with the Soviets head Was uh the Soviets had China and even though China was you know very very underdeveloped at that time Um and power political terms, you know pure military terms does incredible power potential and frankly a The climate is blocked that's literally from uh, you know from Berlin uh Uh to uh To Hanoi contiguously. I mean that that's a good that that's about that's about a fifth of this planet. Okay um Just the just the raw kind of geostrategic momentum of that is incredible. So um this uh This uh That there was a lot of what underlay kind of this this the apparently On the surface kind of odd posture that style of head towards Towards uh the Chinese and and the Chinese war against the Americans um But it also it did lay the foundation for the sign of Soviet split because The Soviets were not generous and there's in their material support at China and they very much made it clear that you know like you'd China's their client regime um And uh they would not it's just Stalin would not commit to a um A proportionate responsive if American deployed, you know atomic weapons uh you know what they were then as is atomic bombs You know against against the needs and don't get me wrong. I mean malemself Well, I think it was something of a crazy person and somewhat primitive frankly at mind I do believe he was basically plain spoken um and and he said no in certain terms that you know the You know the reason why you know peaking would not give its loyalty to to cruise jiv is because crucia was not the man that Stalin was and You know um Stalin was a remarkable figure. I mean what whatever else we can spout him and um but my point being that you know the man Just with Stalin at the helm um the the kind of relationship I just described you know characterized by the Chinese being very much subordinate to Moscow Um grudgingly that Chinese would have accepted that under Stalin they would not accept that under you know some Under some Under some apparatus like like crucia for under you know some kind of uh You know under some kind of uh you know Occasionally dictatorally in Paris and um but that's a better set of scope when I want to cover here um What it did and just what what it did do on the communist side uh um and and and kind of like the victory uh column As it were um I mean trying to did fighting the United States to withstand still and I mean that was no small thing Okay, I mean yeah the Chinese had certain advantages on the ground But America then had tremendous military might um you know the huge disparity and Tell G the other Chinese absorbed casualties, but I mean that you know that uh that that emboldened the, that emboldened the whole gene, that emboldened the pulp pot, you know, that emboldened the, you know, that emboldened the 100 insurgencies, you know, on every continent that, you know, the United States is not invincible, you know, and that, I think that, I think they can't really be overstated. And, you know, when people, people had kind of sustained my claim that, you know, the Soviet Union really, you know, kind of developed a, not so subtle credibility problem. And, in, in, in the way that Korean war, you know, it was, it was a year before Stalin died. It was March 10, 1982, you know, Stalin died basically right after the station of hostilities in Korea. And it was, we talked about the Stalin memo or the Stalin note last time, you know, what was called the, the key note in some of the, in some European media, so later on, you know, when, kind of the comments, this were on publicize. But, you know, Stalin's notion was a demilitarized Germany, you know, as in neutral zone, you know, Germany being partying a, kind of nominal military force under, under its own authority. But, you know, all, all, all troops, you know, gone from German soil and the, you know, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then during neutrality, enforced on Germany, how that would be enforced, I was never really clear because the gochie didn't reach that point. I would assume, you know, some kind of UN mandate, would have been, you know, the, that it was, it was managed, but it hasn't made, there's a reason why, you know, I mean, yeah, obviously the Soviet Union, they're big, their, their big problem was, you know, the strategic and so on, the fact that, you know, NATO was at their doorstep, what became NATO, and then, you know, was at their doorstep, I realized NATO was, was, was incorporated in 1949, but it was about 10 years in my opinion before it became a truly, you know, like, integrated combat force, other than just, you know, kind of, you know, kind of, kind of, I'm kind of handy for, you know, to operate within the borders of these, at least nominally sovereign states, but, you know, the reason, you know, the really much Stalin made the effort when he did, you know, if the Soviets were in this great kind of position of strength, and, you know, in, in power political terms, you know, if the Korean War was, you know, really going their way and really kind of, you know, breaking the face, not just the Truman, but of the entire, the entire kind of Cold War apparatus. I mean, that, that would not, that this not what he would have been doing, but, um, the, uh, it's also to the fact, I mean, it was due to fail because I mean, this was, this was a minute and a minute or eight months before the President election, you know, and it, uh, I realized, you know, I realized Eisenhower wasn't any arch war hawk, but he was, he was a military man and he was, he was viewed, uh, you know, kind of as a, the Soviets were afraid of him number one, and that's, that's all, that's an interesting topic unto itself. But point being for better or worse, where, where girls, what everybody feels about Eisenhower and history, you know, like he was, he was viewed as the man to wage the Cold War, okay, and that that's really what kind of catapulted him into office. Um, but even, even taking Eisenhower to the equation, um, obviously, uh, obviously eight months out from, uh, from, from, from a presidential contest, nobody's gonna, you know, nobody's gonna be willing to undertake, uh, you know, some kind of shift, um, in, uh, and in status relations with the Soviet Union, you know, in, in, in, in 1952, of all, of all years. But, um, when I want to kind of, sick way into was the person that Conrad and Adam, or, like before I said a recording, I said, I wanted to get into the culture, the boondess of public and, and how they came about and why it came about, to understand that you got to understand it. And now we're, you know, and now was the first, uh, he was the first post-war chancellor. I mean, if you, if you, if you, if you consider West German, you know, like the real German year, whatever, and, uh, you know, the successor state of, uh, of, of, of the German Reich, um, you know, he was, he was the first post-war chancellor. And if you reject that, which I don't think people do with some might, um, I mean, I don't, I don't consider the current German state, do you, which I could legitimately, but in terms of, you know, the linear political, um, uh, legacy, I, I think I don't think it's controversial to, I don't know if I, I know, was the, you know, as the first, uh, real post-war executive. But he, uh, I know, was an interesting guy. And it's kind of fancy to me that he was the man stood for the role, but it makes perfect sense. And it goes to show you how America at one time had a real political place of a man who, who really, really understood kind of the nuances of power politics and, you know, the kind of deeper implications of, um, of what, uh, of what, of what, of what, of what chiefs of state represent, um, both the, the people whom they ruled, but also to, uh, you know, allies and foes alike. And there was a primitive example of that. And now, uh, he was born in '76. So he took off his when he was 73. He stepped down when he was 87. I believe that makes him the oldest year and had a state in, in the modern era, um, pretend I think was 84 or 85. Um, I mean, I, I, I know, as a remarkable guy, and he, I, and now, I was born in the Catholic Rhineland, okay? Um, and he was born, uh, literally, you know, at the kind of scene of the Bismarck's Cooter Topp. And for those that don't know, you know, Bismarck, the, the kind of arch-pression Protestant, he did not trust Catholics. He, he purged Catholics from the kind of civil apparatus, which, uh, we had, by that point, was quite robust. You know, oppression was really kind of modern state. You know, they had, uh, they did the kind of, you know, real pension system. Um, if the, I mean, if anybody who can make like a, a kind of welfare state apparatus war against the Germans and they did, um, they can't be arguing. The, I'm not, particularly, I, I'm not some big government, uh, you know, teensy and type or anything at all. But even, you know, I stipulate that, um, pressure ran with, uh, which, uh, when you know, kind of military efficiency and all the best, uh, you know, I don't know all in with a lot of ways. But, um, one of the things that Bismarck did was, uh, he, he very, very much purged Catholics from, uh, positions of authority. And, um, it, it was, uh, it wasn't brutal in the sense of, you know, Catholics weren't rounded up and shot or something and weren't, uh, you know, the physical violence, but they really were locked out of, uh, political and, and co-fair, as well, practical purposes. And, and this, this made it, this, this made a huge impact on the end of our, okay, um, not only, because he was a Catholic, but, you know, his, his family was, was, was replically engaged, you know, in our own self, obviously, this is, you know, was his career path. Um, he, he, he, he considered this, you know, very, very unjust. And because he actually was devout, you know, um, and, and now it was not, um, it's Catholicism, it's not superficial. And it wasn't just, it wasn't just, um, you know, kind of a, like a perfunctory, um, identity and signifier, you know, he was very, very Catholic. Um, and, uh, he found his way, uh, to the, uh, to the center party, you know, which was the Catholic party, you know, really of, um, of the at-box. It was, uh, 1905, 1906, uh, and now, uh, it was like the city council of Cologne. Um, if he was later, it became the vice mayor of Cologne, um, you know, he, he was considered as not a political prodigy. Okay. And he, uh, he, he, again, he wore his Catholicism on his sleeve, but he was respected pretty much by everybody. I mean, even by the, even, even kind of the most, you know, kind of, kind of the most dedicated portion, like, culture warriors, you know, everybody, everybody respected him, you know, he's, he's a man of, um, a fine Terry. Okay. Um, he, uh, he was adamantly opposed to political extremism, but not in, not in kind of the way that, you know, Carl Schmidt disdained, you know, the, he was not the, kind of the parliamentarian, you believe in endless discussion and superficial compromises. Um, and I really did believe that, you know, the, the, the cutting of reason and history and, you know, the kind of the mind of God is what, is what guides politics and, and, and manner, kind of limited participants and, you know, fair as a state, um, it, uh, you know, he, uh, he was dedicated to rooting out disorder and efficiency, irrationality. He was very much a moralist, you know, he had no tolerance for corruption, but he, uh, you know, he had, uh, he had no time for, for ideologies of, uh, of the right as well as the left, you know, um, it, uh, I think, uh, I think of him as somewhat like, uh, I think he had something in common with people like, Dolphus in Austria, okay? Um, frankly, um, he was a sensible centrist. Yeah, yeah, but an authoritarian one called for, but also again, too, I mean, very not, not at all a secularist, you know, very, very much, you know, Catholic in his orientation and, and in, uh, in his evaluation of, of them, of what, you know, the metric is for good government, but, uh, I mean, Austria's political culture is very different than the one, um, they had no remorse from. And um, the, uh, they, they kind of, they kind of, the kind of quasi, clericalism of somebody like Dolphus, you know, like, yeah, now I wasn't running around, you know, like, like, like, it's still in priests and the city of Eurasia, something like that, okay? But he, but he was, uh, he was not at all kind of the secularist parliament, Sherry. And like I said, that, um, that people sort of associate with, with, with, you know, compromises, the, of the, um, of the Kaiser Reich and the, and the Vymer era, you know, I mean, that the, uh, the, the, the, the kind of, the kind of toxic parliamentarism that, that Schmidt, lamented, I mean, yeah, obviously we should zenith and Vymer for obvious reasons, but this, this kind of thing, it's Rooze, Kaiser Reich, you know, like, it, it really, it really did. And that's important to, they're in mind, but I know so it became, he became financially known during the Great War. Uh, he, uh, he involved himself, uh, you know, as, um, as, as, as a, as a merit clone, um, he involved him so very much in managing. So, whatever, through remedy, you know, food shortages, born of the embargo, uh, it was in a really, like, uh, like sausage, derived from soy and think this, um, these kinds of alternative, uh, food technologies, um, and not, however, was responsible for getting that off-hound, you know, um, which, which was revelry in those days, you know, the, uh, your account with the army, um, and, uh, availing Cologne is, uh, as, as a base of supply and, um, as a hub, uh, you know, to reconsidu forces, um, and things like this, you know, he, uh, he really, really, rose to the occasion, you know, um, and, um, the, the, the, became something of a hero of figure in the minds of people, not just, uh, in Cologne, but, uh, you know, he became quite well known about the right, uh, however, uh, he, uh, he, uh, he was somebody who became something an intermediate, something of an intermediary, uh, between, uh, between, uh, elements and, um, Emperor Lynn, um, was interesting. And when it became clear that, uh, when it became clear that, uh, the, the French intended to occupy the Prussian, Rhineland, here, the Machia Million notion of dissolving, uh, dissolving the Rhineland and, and we knew a ton of estate, um, kind of like a demilitarized zone, um, that, uh, would, uh, you know, with the stipulation of the French would, would not occupy it. And, uh, the foreign element would, uh, we said, foot on, uh, it's soil, you know, it's because it being this kind of like, you know, nominal a ton of his own and, uh, both the Prussian, uh, governments and, and, um, and, uh, and, the Vimer regime were totally against, against any plan to bring a Prussia with a Vimer regime. This, this would have been in the 19, so yeah, I mean, I mean, you need to work. I mean, you have to, you have to, you have to keep the, what remained of the right government was totally opposed to it, but it was a point is that was very, that was very forward looking in, in thinking and very much, uh, very subtle kind of an insum, and it's cunning. And that kind of became characteristic of Ann Arr. Um, it, uh, he also to, uh, when it was the tree of Versailles, which was presented formally in June 1919. And now I know as anybody did it was in the know that some sort of punitive regime was going to be coming down the pipeline. And, uh, I think his idea was that, uh, you know, the last kind of, uh, like the more like Fedeval, uh, the rake was like the harder it would be, uh, you know, to kind of bleed and dry, um, it's, uh, you can kind of indefinitely, uh, you can kind of indefinitely tie up reparations regime. If, you know, you have this kind of, if you have a kind of all the sovereignty, you know, in all kinds of ways. So, um, it's, uh, I, he had Germany's best interest in mind in these things he was doing. Um, what was interesting is he, uh, he, he, he very much collided with, um, with Gustav Stressman. And, uh, you know, I've, I made the point before I think in, in our, in one of our previous series that, that Stressman was a compelling guy. And I think he's not, I think he's not really given it to it. I think of him also kind of a counterweight in the Rams. He made that. I think it's kind of an unsung figure in British politics. Um, and now we're looking at stress. I'm just being too crushing. Um, he looked at him as, uh, you know, not, uh, not, not, not just, you know, arrival for the chance of shit because it, now it didn't affect COVID, uh, the office. But, uh, he, uh, you know, he viewed his vision fundamentally it is with what was possible and feasible. And that's really kind of sabotage, the sabotage and nervous designs. The idea was, you know, for the coalition of the Christian Democrats and the, and the, and the center party, you know, to, to, to constitute the ruling quorum and, and add an hour, true to forum, he'd, he'd, he managed to develop good offices with the social Democrats as well. He refused a negotiate with the communists, but he'd managed to decouple a lot of key figures of the social Democrats from the KPD. And this caused a lot of concern in Asia, obviously on the left, which was, you know, kind of a brilliant play by adding an hour, but it also, it, it ingratiated, you know, certain people to him that, you know, moving forward would have facilitated, you know, a, you know, a coalition that actually had legs and in terms of its ability to, to pass legislation and, and, and then take, you know, executive, take unilateral action when required and, and, and it'll, and have something of a mandate across the aisle, which was remarkable for 1926, but it has kind of, is this personal collisions with, with stress men ended all of that. I mean, that, that could be a whole episode of himself, but what's, what's significant is when, you know, the national socialists break through in, in night, or breakthroughs in, in 1930 and '32, and I wasn't just Mary Cologne, but he was president of Prussian State Council, you know, and, obviously, the national socialists, one of their key constituencies, not because they had, you know, such strong support on the elite circles, they certainly, but also just, I mean, you know, approaching the political, you know, the political core of the German Reich, defended, and now sad on the Prussian State Council meant that he was either going to have to, some kind of, some kind of, some kind of concord of the national socialists or step aside. And interestingly, it went on a night of the long nights, and now it was actually arrested. And, allegedly for his own protection, and he wasn't harmed anyway, and he was released after the, after the, you know, after the, after the dirty work of, or the, the, the bloody business of, whereout the, the revolutionaries was done, but he wrote a 10-page letter to Gering, you know, who, by the way, then was a guy who lied or Prussia, and as well as the chief of the Prussian police. You know, at the point of Gering said that, you know, when, when the national socialist party was banned, I allowed your people to, you know, fly your national flags and Prussian buildings. I built this of, you know, our public facilities, you know, to the national socialists so you could hold your meeting, you know, because I wasn't, I, I wasn't going to, I wasn't going to exclude German people, and, you know, veteran fighting minute that, which most of you were from the political discussion, you know, and this is how you think, and use my place and me under arrest. And apparently, this really kind of hit Gering hard. And according to Spear as well as others, and I don't, I don't, I don't here to be a valid I mean, I was just a little bit more about the business. I was just a little bit more about the business. he was very, very derisively referred to AdNauer as quote, rabbi AdNauer. There was a lot. There was a lot. There's a German right, the national socialist right, who actually despises AdNauer. But, they, that, and I understand clearly, like I get it. But it's not as simple as AdNauer as being like some NATO wacky or some, or some, or some social Democrat who, you know, who saw an opportunity and who spent the warriors, you know, you know, it's toy and a lot of he had to, you know, avoiding the front, well, so like avoiding the eye or the affordance suddenly, you know, he, you know, he started, you know, waving, waving, waving a NATO banner as soon as, as soon as the Soviets were a, Rinpolyn, you know, he had genuine integrity, okay? I'm not gonna, like I, I obviously am all the way to the sides with guys like Reenor, but in, in his, I mean, what, that's, that's, that's, that, it's, I wanted to take a basis entire episode and now we're into the semancy because that's, I realized something of a dry topic, but it's essential to understand and they could have very much gone a different way. And I think the point about Reenor kind of building NATO, because like, I mean, again, I realized NATO was considered in 1949, but it wasn't really much to it then, okay? And there's still, it still hasn't even been decided if, you know, Germany was going to be allowed to, it permitted the, you know, rearm at all in any capacity. And then what kind of became the prevailing sensibility, you know, people make the point a lot to the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the West German Army had such boring uniforms. That was by design, because the original, I, I think, floating was, you know, a European, the community, wherein, there'd be a common command structure, you know, no one's state, you know, would have, would be dominant in, you know, in executive officer roles, or in command authorities. And the, you know, the uniform for the post, the multinational force, it was supposed to be devoid of anything that could be affiliated with, you know, national showmanism or, or something that could be like a menify with any particular country or cultural tendency. So you're left with the, so the, the, the Bundeswehr, like then is now, it, like these guys look like bus drivers or something. You know, as opposed to like the East German Army, you know, it's like dope. You know, he's tiny. But it's, you know, it's, it's, I think the key take, also, like I said, was that the, I'll get into later on in this series too, the, like ultimately, in the final phase of the Cold War, the key, the key strategic battle, and the major strategic battlespace was the Pacific. You know, on that, that's one of the things that underlay the Department of the Navy under Jim Webb, you know, and Reagan's idea for us, some of ship Navy, you know, the idea was, you know, to deploy battle platforms, like survival battle platforms that take to wage what amount into a too fronk nuclear war. We can think of nuclear wars as I think fronts at all. But that's, yeah, I mean, the fact that people like Ken and who talked about the inherent danger of the Far East and the kind of, and you know, get the flea of possible conflict as, I mean, they were proven right. I mean, during the Cold War like Asia was pretty much always at war. I mean, America fought two major wars there and probably have it as an other is that, you know, we're kind of a something sort of, you know, open conflict, but, but, but very much not conditions at peace. And I mean, the, there was a, I mean, that that was hand in Europe. I mean, yeah, I realized again, as I stated that, uh, there's really only one conflict diet in the possible in Europe. And it was a catastrophic one, but that had the Korean War not happened or had it resolved some other way. Uh, the entire course of something that's would have been different. Um, and it, um, and it had MacArthur got his way, um, some kind of, uh, something to open it at war with, uh, with, I mean, the problem is, I mean, I stipulate that, um, what was referred, like we thought it was referred to the Totsology of well, you know, we, we, we've got to defend Korea because our forces are there. And we're going to fight to defend our forces. I mean, that's not sense. But if the alternative is, you know, we, we've got to push for a total victory in Korea, but doing that means fighting China and fighting China means, you know, landing the Chianggak-Shek's nationalists there and, and, and, and waging war to the end until, you know, and until the comments regime falls, what if you do that, then you're at war with the Soviet Union? You know, and then what? And I mean, there's this, this, this, this, not the, the Cold War was, it was important not to, not as important, but I mean, and it was negative. It was a question. It was an existential reality that, uh, it's, it's, thankfully, paradigms couldn't just be considered in binary terms. And I mean, that even, um, even up to the 80s, there was something to, uh, I'm not talking about like the, the fools like, uh, um, positive, they kind of, you know, they kind of, the kind of peace movement just calling for like, you know, light will disarm. I mean, um, but some of the people, you know, who, who really kind of like opposed the, the, the, the, the Reagan, um, uh, and team B notion, um, it's the, the, you know, there, the, the Cold War and nothing you can just turn off. And it was just a question of, you know, pursuing a quiet, like, a conciliatory posture or an aggressive posture, you know, on, the, especially by the era of deep parodies, um, the every, every, every policy decision, um, it had, had very serious consequences that the assaults, other consequences, not all of which could be foreseen. You know, it was an incredibly dangerous time. But, um, excuse me, I'm just, I'm getting over a flare up. So I realized that sound crummy. I'm sorry, but, uh, um, I'm gonna wrap a, I think that, I think I'm gonna wrap up this, uh, this episode. And like I said, I realized it was a big dry. It's kind of, right? It was, it's essential to lay foundation, um, for some of the, you know, for some of the summer events we're going to talk about in, we're going to get into the cute missile crisis and Vietnam in the next episode. And I think that everybody finds that sort of stuff exciting. I mean, I'll use to, I do, but, uh, you, you, you had also, you had also mentioned talking about, um, McCarthy. Yeah, yeah, we should let's, let's, we'll take that up next episode too. Cause yeah, obviously we're getting to, we're, yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna go into Eisenhower, uh, in the Kennedy area. Yeah, go up McCarthy. Yeah. All right. Sounds great. Give your plugs and we'll get out of here. Yeah, for sure. Thank you, Pete. You can find me on subsdick, uh, real Thomas 777. That's subsdick.com. That's where you can access the podcast. Um, we drive a podcast every other week. Uh, you know, on the same kind of stuff, you know, revisionism and, and mostly political theory kind of topics, but, you know, um, I take up current events to particularly worn piece kind of stuff. When it's timely to do so, um, you can find me on Twitter, um, at Triskeli and Jihad, uh, the T is in number seven. But if you search for Thomas 777, you should find me. That's mostly where I'm active these days. Um, I'm going to transition to YouTube and, you know, perhaps, uh, one or two weather, um, video platforms, um, on the first of January, and make that kind of the, the primary place where I pulled up content. But for now, that's, that's where I can be found. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pete Kenyoun as show continuing, talking about the Cold War. I know a lot of people are going to be really interested in this one. Thomas 777, right? I'm very well. Thanks. Yeah. I hope so. And I wanted to get some housekeeping stuff because I haven't addressed people directly for a minute. I mean, not like I've got this huge audience or something, but I do have some, you do. Patents, subscribers who are adult because they make a lot of what I do possible. Um, there's not much that's gotten done the last couple of weeks. That was second stuff. I think some of you noticed, but obviously I'm, I'm getting back to dropping fresh stuff now. Um, I mean, literally right now what we're doing here, but, um, I, I'm going to drop a fresh pod this week and kind of get back on top of stuff. So thank you for being patient. I don't believe people. I mean, I realize everybody's cool about such things, but I mean, people do pay to like read my stuff. So I don't really like to leave them. Pain like that. But yeah, today, uh, I wanted to get out of the Q and missile crisis today because it's something. It's key, not just understanding how the later Cold War developed. Um, I think of the later Cold War as Brezhnev onward. Okay. And Brezhnev became general secretary in, uh, in 1964. Okay. But, uh, the early Cold War, you can think of as, uh, you know, Stalin's tenure, um, through Mr. Kruschev's regime. And, uh, not, not, not, not just temporally, can we think of that as, as the early Cold War, but that was before parity set in, you know, strategic parity. And people band you a lot about nuclear weapons today, which is another example in my opinion, if I kind of disengaged the public policy, uh, discourses from the realities of things, um, nuclear weapons are a practical purpose is obsolete. Not because the technology is obsolete for say, but because they don't really have utility in, uh, in a technical strategic sense, I said, I'm going to repecule your paradigm. And unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on where you fall on the issue, that that paradigm emerged, splendidly in, uh, in the 20th century. Um, and, uh, what, uh, what's, what's become sort of dogma in terms of, in terms of strategic analysis and game theory, derived from the precedent to the Q and missile crisis, one of the other singular event. Um, this was somewhat, uh, compromised reliance on the model that, um, I just, you know, from, relying upon the data derived from the Q and missile crisis, and the models created therein in terms of strategic forecasting and, and nuclear war planning into turns and things like that. Uh, some of that, uh, was itself rendered obsolescent by the emergence of deeper priorities, after 17374. But the basic terms remain and the basic, uh, the basic conceptual model indoors. And I'm going to give it a way that it isn't a minute, but first we got to understand, to understand the Cuban crisis, you got to understand the character, Mr. Krushchev. Krushchev became pro-Prietyical purposes, you know, chief executive of the Soviet Union in 1958. You know, I mean, there was always kind of a strange, or that always, but in most cases, there's an unusual, um, sort of consolidation of all offices that constituted the executive seat of power in the Soviet Union. Sometimes that was a trifecta of sorts. Um, sometimes it, it came down to the rule of one man. Um, but it, it's superseded, uh, it's superseded in single office. Okay. Um, and after the death of Stalin in 1953, um, there, there was a lot of, there was a lot of Palestinian trees of the war. Okay. It's one of the probably imagined. Um, between Stalin loyalists, you know, between, and reformers, as well as, uh, you know, between men who represented, uh, uh, some of these, uh, common to the same faction, but, you know, who had personal designs on power. And Krushchev was emerging a triumphant for a variety of reasons. Uh, not the least of which, ironically, in the view of the West at the time, I believe, and even in hindsight, even among some revisionists. Krushchev really was something of a reformer. You know, he was, he was kind of a proto-Gorbic off in a lot of ways. People who cited this because his posture was so aggressive in foreign policy, as regards efforts to rectify the strategic and balance. So we're going to know what I mean by that in a moment. But Krushchev, he, he, he, he, he wanted to normalize the Soviet Union. Okay. Now this presented a problem with a few of the reasons. On the 180's imperative from the New York Times. normalize and thought relations with the West because otherwise nothing was going to get done. Okay, there were going to be some kind of interdependence between the East Block and the West. Okay, regardless of what anybody's power-puttical ambitions were. Okay, that was just the reality of NASA globalism. I mean, make no mistake, globalism began in the ashes of the Second War. Okay. I mean, there wasn't a realize until, you know, the night of November 1989, as so frequent, is incidental. This was the enterprise common to both Moscow and Washington and it would form that the system would ultimately take once consolidated was really under the political side of the Cold War. So cruise have had to present a face of normalcy of the outside world and some basic sense. However, as we talked about, particularly in the last episode, when we got into, you know, the battleground of the Third World and the need quite literally to, you know, to sway the non-Light world into one's own camp as a path to victory in the Cold War. The only way to really animate these post-colonial states and these developing countries to take up the cause of Marxist-Leninism was to sell them in a basically radical program. Okay. That's what was resonant with the people on the ground. That's what the cadre has been marinated in. That kind of thought, you know, during World War II and after. Frankly, that's what Orthodox Marxist-Leninism is. You know, it calls for the development of a truly revolutionary sensibility where, you know, power flow is from the barrel of a gun quite literally. Okay. In tactical terms, somebody like Mao was far more than Orthodox Marxist-Leninist than, you know, the Eastern block cadre is that succeeded Stalin. Okay. So notwithstanding the fact that I don't believe Mao had any great understanding of Marxism, I don't think he understood it at all particularly. But on the tactical side is a political revolutionary. Somebody like Mao or probably more precisely Ho Chi Minh was exactly what Lenin envisioned when he contemplated, you know, world social revolution. So there was this weird debt economy wherein the Soviets had to present a reformist face to their chief adversaries in the West. But, you know, they had to maintain a kind of a near of orthodox radicalism, you know, to their constituents if we can think of them that way or their cadres, you know, in the third world. And this was a very delicate menu wet. And it, frankly, led to the foundation of the Sinosovian split, which we'll get into when coming up, as always, but that's been outside the scope for now. When Khrushchev did take the helm of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union had some pretty substantial momentum technologically. They were arguably winning the space race. You know, Sputnik was the first manmade object in orbit. The first manmade object in space was a V2 rocket. So you're going to think that German rights for that. But, you know, Sputnik was a, this was a big deal, okay? Like a lot of people in the, in the NASA Pentagon at the time said, well, this is just a stunt. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't prove anything. It didn't matter if it proved anything or not. It didn't matter if, you know, there's a direct military application, you know, to parking a satellite in orbital space for a few minutes. The point is that they were the first to accomplish it. And this developed a kind of momentum all at someone in terms of perception, okay? But the Soviet said a real political problem that became a national security problem that was ongoing, even despite those victories in the syrup. We talked about the Berlin airlift last episode and, you know, how that really kind of was the key initiatory or instigating event of the Cold War, I think, if we can identify any singular occurrence between the 1945 and 1950, over 1.5 million people immigrated from the Soviet occupied zone to West Germany. And most of these people were young. They were prime working age, it disproportionate amount of engineers, men with military experience, people educated in the sciences, women of childbearing age. Yeah, I mean, this was a real problem, okay? A subtext to the issue of immigration across the inner German border, a level was never explicitly stated by their camp, was when the reason Germany's coveted, it's not, it's not just because of geostrategic accident, I'm kind of where, you know, Germany is located on the map, okay? And I did do it, it had to do with the human material, okay? You can control the German population that, literally, the human resources therein, that you will, to my power, in terms of your ability to mobilize for warfare. I mean, that's just a fact, okay? I mean, if people want to say that it's not true, or that it's eugenics thinking, okay, fine. And so on, it's a fact and everybody accepted it, okay? There's a reason why, there's a reason why the DDR was the G-Wheel and the Crown of Orsauce hat, okay? And it wasn't, it wasn't just because there was the westernmost point at which, at which the Soviet sphere of influence stretched. As this went on, another layer wasn't situated into the, into the issue of, into the issue of divided Germany, as the, as the four power regime fell apart, and it became clear that, you know, demilitarization was not in the cars. The Soviets came to realize that, was Germany as a basing hub for, for American nuclear weapons, was, was going to become the reality. And this had already been accomplished, in terms of low yield, tactical nuclear forces. It had an escalated beyond that, in part because the strategic balance was still unstable, and we're going to what I mean by that in a moment. But the Soviets were very, very aware of this, so the problem was twofold. You know, the problem was the fact that they were literally hemorrhaging people by the this seed that was Berlin, because the intergerman border had been shot since 1953, but Berlin, being a 110 miles within, the ease of Germany, represented a kind of metaphorical valve, as it were. Wherein, people could pass rather freely between the eastern occupation zone and the West. In West Berlin, the West Berlin authorities under the dominion of the United States, the UK and France, they considered all German citizens, they just be citizens of Germany. They did not recognize these Germany as a sovereign state. So if these German, if these German passports made it to West Berlin, they were good to go. They'd be grand full rights of many males in the Bundesrepublic. So there's the practical problem of the Soviets losing the human material they needed to wage the coal to work quite literally. There's the political problem of credibility in that, if you claim to represent the real Germany and the will of the working class and the government's situation in East Berlin, yet you're hemorrhaging people. It's a terrible look, frankly, and the entire communist enterprise, again, relied upon the perception, especially in the third world, to represent a competitive system that was an equitable alternative to that in the West. And finally, as I just indicated, the permanent division and mobilization of Germany essentially allowed America and the NASA Naval Alliance to potentially maintain a permanent, splendid first-strike capability, if they chose to deploy strategic nuclear forces. At that time, there were not hypersonic cruise platforms available, so we'll get into that later, obviously. The solution to this was somewhat fascinating. There was a terrible human cause, so I'm not being flippant, but on August 13, 1961, at midnight, the East German border police, the National Volks Army, and elements of the group, the Soviet force in Germany, it begins construction on the Berlin Wall, okay? And it wasn't clear at first what they were doing. The group, right, had actually suggested this, based on analysis from National Volks Army engineers, the Soviets did not think it was possible, and the Pentagon interestingly, near the Corvige in the years, said it's probably impossible. But to emphasize the point I just made about the mentioned material, if you will, of Germany Well, the Germans found a way to quite literally wall in West Berlin, which again, I'm not making light of the terrible situation, but the Berlin wall remains an architectural marvel that really I don't think anybody could pull off other than the Germans. And I think we can stand by the statement and confidence. So that had the effect of lessening tensions. There wouldn't be another Berlin air-lift type situation. Absent, a state of general war was unthinkable that Berlin would be blockaded again, however, that didn't obviously accomplish anything in terms of the remedying. The problem of basing availability in West Berlin, obviously, was to keep in mind, is that the Soviets could base their own nuclear forces in the DDR and they could threaten Europe with what the threat of a catastrophic nuclear assault. But that wouldn't matter. What it came down, it was the ability to deter the threat in the United States. Obviously, the Soviets said no capability to do that, which is why Cuba became so coveted. Now, before we get into the actual development of the crisis, let's get into what prevailing conceptual models were for strategic planning in the nuclear age. The two primary models were presented by Hans Morgan Thau, who I think I referenced in the last episode. Morgan Thau was a traditional realist. Mier's Shimer is a neo-realist. As I indicated, he deals with and dealt primarily in structures and institutional features and how they affect outcomes as regards deterrence and war-flating. Morgan Thau basically presented an anthropological model but dressed by what he called rational discipline in action. Like what did he mean by that? He was basically saying that the bounded reactionality to states that were political actors generally. They don't even have to be states. So the states are obviously the primary actors and parametripletical affairs, at least from 1648 to the present. That's changing but it's still indoors. Regardless of how pre-reational or even arguably irrational the origins of war are, like what is underway, war is guided by this bounded reactionality. Okay, the waging of it. It begs the question is the how, as the weather has been demonstrated in the historical record, like an agglatamorgant Thau would say, well over time, there's a remarkable continuity in the world. Okay, if you're talking about great powers at war, whether you're talking about the British, the United States, Russian foreign policy, even less of regional powers like the Oshwongiri Empire, in the most failing era, at least over time, this bears out. The competing model, maybe not so much competing in absolute terms, but the kind of game theory model that relies more on codable variables, if you will, based upon the availability of war fighting technologies, was present by Thomas Shelling. Shelling was primarily an economist, but he was a game theorist and he was a public intellectual, the sort that really thrived during the Cold War and it doesn't really exist anymore, at least not in public life. The main point was that deterrence is accomplished, not by the propensities of the individual men, or the human decision makers, nor by the relative balance of forces on each side, but the stability they're in, and the stability they're in comes down to available technologies. And the nuclear age that comes down to the ability of each side to basically threaten the other, whether a territory strike when attacked, that makes a bolt from the blue assault cost prohibitive. Unacceptable damage will be endured, in other words. Shelling's seminal attacks was the strategy of conflict, okay? Throughout the Cold War, this kind of informed policy, and some other directly or obliquely until the end of November 1989. Shelling's a controversial figure, but his influence cannot be denied. Now, based on either of those models, or both of them considered together, really 1962, 1963 was so dangerous because there, and he will every him had not yet set in. There's a lack of informational awareness on both sides as the absolute state of forces and being and capabilities, even if that awareness had been, even if those blinders could be, as it were, it could be overcome. I mean, even if there was a situation, a total information awareness, there's the availability of delivery mechanisms, and whether they're operational status would have caused a situation where it could have served either side's interest to strike first without waiting for an intelligence reveal as the absolute status of forces on the opposing side. One can think of two men blindfolded, and neither is aware of the aromain to the other, and whether it's trying to draw a bead, threaten the other to deter future hustle acts, but neither is capable of seeing is opponent. That's really what, in part, created the danger of the Cuba situation. Now, how it first came about, like white Cuba, again, and more to do with the accident in geography, is early July 1962, Raul Castro, who was Fiddles and Brother, and was in some ways the shadow foreign policy executive of Cuba throughout the Cold War. So we're not only addicted to a visited Moscow, and it's believed that this is when the Soviet Union began large-scale shipments of technical and military aid to Cuba, including the men who were qualified to operate strategic nuclear platforms. August 1962 is probably when the actual missile platforms arrived in Cuba. They were not yet operational, but this is when this assembled components first arrived on the island. September, interestingly, the kind of the administration declared that if Cuba became a base for a Soviet nuclear weapons, it would be viewed as an act of war. So this is on everybody's mind before the crisis ensued and before the reveal of the actual base and the weapons on the island. This gives you an idea of the dangerous game cruise ship was playing, frankly, okay? Now, it was Sunday, October 14th. That's when the famous or infamous U2 reconnaissance flight took the photographs that ultimately led to the reveal. It was a subsequent Monday, the 15th, that conclusively, at the National Photographing and Territation Center, the U2 film was analyzed and medium range ballistic missiles were identified in your sand crystal bowl without a doubt. Now, it doesn't suit the most dangerous phase of the crisis to the October 16th Kennedy and his principal foreign policy cabinet were briefed on the situation and discussions began immediately on how to respond. Now obviously there's two principal courses. I mean, there's three, I'm going to end up in a minute, but in terms of action, the two principal courses were a massive, a massive aerosol, possibly including nuclear forces. And if subsequent invasion of the island, the destruction of the weapons platforms, the overthrow of the defeat and other annihilation of the Cuban army, the overthrow of the castle regime and the occupation of Havana, which undoubtedly would lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands people including you know. any Soviet soldiers on the ground, or alternatively, sort of enable quarantine blockade and the threat of future military action. Now interestingly, McNamara was the man who had the third position, if you wanna look at it that way. McNamara said, don't do anything. This doesn't matter. Why doesn't it matter? Because these intermediate range platforms are gonna be obsolete in six months. And which was true. In America was about to replace their own Jupiter missiles with the Polaris system, which was a summary launched ballistic missile platform. And even with the not the case, McNamara said, despite propaganda of the contrary and despite cruisers of some statements, the Soviet Union probably has between 30 and 80 viable warheads. Okay, we get into a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, we can annihilate them. I mean, yeah, 20 million Americans may die, but that's a war the Soviets can't win, do nothing. But that wasn't really the issue. The issue was twofold. I mean, there's the Minerow doctrine, obviously. And that always is controlling on questions of a power political affairs, just unprincipled, you can't allow a rival actor to deploy within the Western hemisphere. I mean, if you do so, you're essentially making a hash with your own line in the sand as it were. It doesn't matter that, you know, the, I mean, even if the weapons deployed are already obsolescent, it doesn't matter. And secondly, you know, as a matter of a political will, if America won't fight 90 miles off its own coast to prevent the deployment of strategic nuclear forces, a credibility gap develops as the weather America is going to fight and sacrifice 100,000 men to defend West Berlin. You know, I mean, God love Mac and Merra, but there's, you know, there's a calculus beyond the, beyond the merely strategic that matters in these things. And particularly in the Cold War, which was as much political as it was, you know, a military contest and, you know, about, you know, who could accomplish what within, you know, the proverbial balance of terror. On October 17th before a, a, before a formal policy decision was reached, Kennedy ordered what we consider to be rapid reaction forces to be moved to bases in the southeastern US. Further, you two flights and the photos derived, there are indicated additional sites and a total of 16 to 32 missiles. So in other words, even taking with Mac and Merra a city face value, which I believe, which Kennedy did in which I believe we can in, you know, in upon reflection, obsolescent or not, if those missiles are operational, that's the potential for an utterly devastating counter value strike was definitely there. You know, I mean, this was not an illusory threat. However anyone feels about it. And the character of Castro is, is relevant too. You know, Castro, whatever he said about him, was a, was a true revolutionary in the purest sense. And he'd repeatedly stated that, and this was revealed later in communications between himself and the Soviet foreign ministry and cruise to its office itself, that in the United States, the Celtic Cuba, the Soviet Union should go all in and, you know, just treated as an act of war against the Communist bloc and and and and launch every missiles within operational decades later at the height of the conflict in Nicaragua, cashier was convinced that the United States is going to directly intervene, which might trigger a theodore White conflict operation and he reiterated that the Soviet Union and the war is up at you know if you consider a you know a waging printed nuclear war against against NATO, I mean he really believed this you know this wasn't that you know a it's easy to dismiss that as someone's bluster in the case of many men like yeah cash you absolutely meant that you know I mean I I have no doubt about that so consider that there's a question as to whether or not you know what what the Soviet response would have been if there was a massive invasion of Cuba I mean there's there's it's more than a remote possibility that you know there would have they would have responded by launching whatever munitions they were recurrently operational okay and again even if that you know even if that even if that was a war the Soviet Union could not win and that would have that would have that would have meant 20 to 30 million den Americans you know with an hours. Thursday, October 18th Kennedy was visited by the Soviet Foreign Minister Gromiko who asserted that the Soviet Union Cuba was purely defensive Kennedy had not yet revealed that he knew of the existence of the missiles. He reiterated his public warning of the previous September you know that deployment to Cuba strategic nuclear forces would constitute an act of war basically was signaling to give Gromiko an out I believe okay at and this also raised the question is the why why why why why why why why didn't Prusa try to de-escalate when it should have been clear that Kennedy was signaling through a kind of you know would pass for secret diplomacy in the post-Norah Mugera why why didn't why why why why didn't why didn't Prusa try to de-escalate the situation I've got my own ideas on that but what's in arguable is why why Prusa deployed these weapons in the first place when as we just acknowledged you know and as as as Mugera at the time observed you know this actually didn't rectify the strategic balance imbalance on its own terms and it had the potential for catastrophic escalation so why why did he do that I believe that this was supposed to be as trump card as regards Berlin I believe that Kruschef was going to demand on the open floor of the United Nations that NATO abandoned West Berlin and when and and when Steven sent her wherever you know hotly would just say you know it's laughable of course we're not going to do that at that moment Kruschef would reveal well you know we've got operational weapons platforms and Cuba 90 miles off your coast you know if you want them to be removed you know you'll you'll you'll see Berlin the unconditionally our sphere of influence which seems like a crazy assail idea but Kruschef was a gambler you know for all of his um for all of his tendencies uh towards reform and a conciliatory posture in absolute terms his uh he viewed none of this as being truly possible in power political terms unless the Soviet Union couldn't negotiate you know from a position of uh if not absolute you know than relative strength um that's what underlay all of this it was always a political uh ploy more than a uh strategic uh move um if that makes any sense um and that that's key not just understanding the Soviet Union in its epoch but I think the kind of Russian national character like I don't speak Russian I've never visited there I'm certainly not an expert on Russian people their culture or their affairs but I do know something about power politics and I think uh I I think that's I think I think I think this is key okay um Putin himself is is something of an unusual executive uh even for Russia but generally instructional terms with the Kremlin does reflects this same kind of tendency in common I I don't I think that's constant it doesn't change uh oh go ahead we can say something I know no okay um October 20th uh Kennedy uh finally decides on the quarantine um plans are drawn up uh to blockade the island of Cuba notify the American people and prepare for war if the Soviet Union opts to sue for war to break the blockade. During this time, Curtis LeMay maintained evil, sifferously objected. I made the point again and again about it being a towering figure and really throughout the Cold War. But especially, the force that made its personality and the thing about Kennedy, it was waging up to a battle to win the respect of the military establishment. He was a veteran and a war hero, but he was even something of a punk rich kid on the beltway by many. Back in those days, you had a lot more serious people who carved out nitrous with themselves and the national security apparatus. You know what we view as the deep state today. You know, you got Curtis LeMay demanding Kennedy giving a salt order backed up really by the entire Pentagon apparatus. And in those days, strategic air command was king. It very much eclipsed the army in terms of its cloud and policy authority and policy authority and things like this. I'm not some great fan of Kennedy at all. I think anybody should instinctively discern who's at all familiar with my content. But you know, the guy did Kennedy to have balls and he did have backbone. Okay, that can't be denied. What really, what really solidified Kennedy's position though, he consulted with General Walter Sweeney of a tactical air command who, you know, and going back to the Second World War, you know, the fighter mafia and strategic air command like it had this kind of ongoing rivalry. I, there's military guys who claim, well, yeah, there's, you know, obviously, you know, Kennedy tapped Sweeney because he wanted to foiled the LA May. I don't know that's true. I think it was because Sweeney was the man who, such that experts existed in those days on, you know, how to knock out, how to knock out strategic nuclear platforms. You know, Sweeney was it. And Sweeney said that, you know, even if the best possible mission outcome, he cannot guarantee 100% destruction of the missiles. Okay. So again, you know, there's raised the question as to, well, I mean, there's a possibility that's not, you know, and it's great on a slim possibility that the moment Cuba came under assault, if these platforms were in fact, operation, although law and charter would be given. You know, and who even knew the situation on the ground? I mean, we want to hope that the Soviet Army technicians responsible for the deployment would have ultimate authority. But I mean, who's to say, you know, that can't be guaranteed. And, and a proverbial fog of war situation, expressly delegated authority doesn't always carry the day anyway. On the October 22nd, Kennedy consulted former president Hoover Truman and Eisenhower briefed them on the situation, you know, asked for their support. If in fact, the country, you know, was, was, was going to go to war. He received, he received, you know, absolute blessing from all three men. He formally established Kennedy did the executive committee of the National Security Council. He was the only assistant of Mac Numera, Majority Bundy, Curtis Lemay, Bobby Kennedy, who probably should not have been in on the conversation because he was the president's brother and there's a conflict of interest there. But, you know, he was for better or worse. But that's, you know, the, the smoke filled room with all the personalities mentioned, they, I just mentioned present, you know, you see this like dramatized on like history channels stuff like that's, that's what they're depicted. And the big and the executive committee of the National Security Council. Okay. Um, ultimately, um, Kennedy wrote directly to Khrushchev, which seems like a breach of protocol. Uh, but the Cold War was strange in this regard. You know, it's, this really in my opinion, I said the president too. You know, there's like, people, people talk later in the Cold War by the, by the Carter era. You know, it was a quote, you know, like, bad phone or the red phone in the White House. That was the hotline of the Kremlin and vice versa. You know, uh, this idea of, uh, of, of, of heads of state directly kind of having one another, um, across, uh, across, uh, across the enemy divide and a potential crisis. Like it seems improper and the traditional kind of laws and customs of war. But the Cold War in some ways was, you know, a breach of precedent. Um, but in that, regardless of, of that, the merit of that or the efficacy of that, where the effectiveness of, of neutralizing potential crises, uh, it was probably the correct move for Kennedy to directly write to Khrushchev by telegram. Um, and he did him, uh, he did this prior to addressing the, you know, the American people by telegram, which was frankly like, you know, a sign of respect and, um, say, a lot of recruits to the safe face. Um, you know, in, uh, the key, uh, the key phraseology of the telegram was quote, I have not assumed that you were any other sane man would in this nuclear age deliberately plunged the world into war. What he was saying again was basically, you know, deployment to Cuba as an actor, a threat of war and I'm giving you an out here. Okay. When I'm well within my rights, as President United States simply to, you know, assault the island, neutralize the threat and ask questions later. Um, and, uh, regardless of whether it's correct or Kennedy directly addressed Khrushchev the man himself and I'll go through diplomatic channels. Uh, that, that was the correct statement, I believe. So again, we got to, we've got to give credit or credit as do it. Mr. Kennedy, however else anybody feels about him, um, 7 p.m. that evening, October 22nd. That's when Kennedy speaks on television, um, revealing, uh, the existence of the Soviet missiles in Cuba, um, announcing the establishment of the quarantine, um, and declaring that, you know, until the missiles are removed, uh, unconditionally and, and completely, you know, the, the quarantine will not be lifted. I feel like I do so, you know, what, what constitutes an act of war. Um, Senator, you're state dean of Rusk, uh, formally notified the Soviet ambassador, which, uh, again, uh, that's not just part of good offices, they've indicated the severity of Kennedy statement. Um, that's essentially what you do when, um, incident, you know, proceeding a formal declaration of war, okay? Um, so that's another thing to consider as well. Also, like we talked a lot about, even though I don't really except the mere ceremony model about institutions, uh, determining, you know, the course of, uh, power political events and crisis outcomes, there is a momentum to the apparatus of government, particularly as regards war and peace. And one is kind of the mechanism of war mobilization is in place. It's very, very difficult to put the brakes on it. Okay? Um, the fact that Kennedy was entirely serious about going to war, waging nuclear war over Cuba, that itself created conditions of escalation. I'm not saying that's the wrong thing to do at all. The point of the convent is the right thing to do, but this added to the danger at every step, decisions that are made that lead to, uh, real world outcomes in the, um, national security apparatus and its state of readiness and deployment, um, it creates, uh, an elevated, uh, creates an elevated danger, okay? Um, there's, there's a sociological question there. There's a comics question of, you know, man's relationship to technology. I, a lot of that stuff is like far beyond my abilities, okay, to analyze, but what I just stated is indisputably true. Um, um, Tuesday, October 23rd, the following day, um, the assistant secretary of state, uh, Martin, he, uh, started resolution from the organization of American states, um, and the OAS, uh, I mean, these days we think of it as, you know, primarily like a trade block and things like that. During the Cold War, obviously, it had, it had, it had profound, uh, geosathegic significance because any, if you're going to wage war in Latin America, which, uh, was a very real possibility throughout the duration of the Cold War, a quorum of support, uh, from friendly regimes they're in was absolutely essential, um, for obvious reasons. The Soviets proceeded to deploy submarines to the Caribbean Sea, which were facing off immediately opposite the US Navy black-aid vessels, which again to the -- in indicated a Soviet willingness to fight and to keep, you know, to fight at least defensively if Cuba was assaulted. You know, I mean, it became clear immediately that the Soviets were intending to fight for Cuba. Like, to what degree they're going to do that, whether the missiles were operational or not, you know, the Soviet Navy was going to fight. And that added another wrinkle as it were, because even if the nuclear-capable platforms were not operational, a conventional war in Cuba with the Soviet Union, obviously there was going to be some sort of response in Berlin. Okay, I mean, and then it's, you know, you're dealing with a potential conflict diet that will result in the Third World War at some point, you know, down a range of hostilities. When is the October 24th? Crucial Respond to the Kennedy -- to the Kennedy Telegram stating that the Soviet Union does not respond to ultimatums under threat. You know, stating, quote, "If we wreck, we have to wreck." And then, you know, the Soviet Union is going to fight for Cuba. And then, you know, the Soviet Union is going to fight for Cuba. So, the Soviet freighters that have been bound for Cuba turn back to a Bucharest. You win Secretary General, the UN Secretary General called for a, quote, "cooling off" period during which the embargo would be temporarily lifted. And, you know, only non-military prize would be permitted to pass through. This is rejected outright by the administration. On grounds that would leave the missiles in place. The removal of which was an express condition. But in the negotiation, Friday, October 26th, with the data, the infamous casual letter urging cruciate to initiate a first strike against the United States in an event of invasion of Cuba. Whether it's a proof of a spondid or not, or whether it's a grameco-respaunted or whether the ambassador to Cuba had any sort of formal response from the Kremlin. It's not clear. But again, there's an inference that can be drawn here, I believe. Not only that Cuba has not had the authority to launch the missiles, I don't believe they were capable of it. Did an entire protocol to launching a nuclear missile? It's not just a question of pushing a button or having the right code. You know, it, like in the movies. So, the odds of just a general countervalue with assault, nuclear assault if Cuba had been invaded. I think it's somewhat remote. I don't think I'm reading too much into this statement by Castro. I mean, this was a private communication accruciate. Why would Castro be fluxing in that kind of private capacity? It doesn't make sense otherwise. Yeah. Yeah. But it's the finally and finally, resolution ultimately came when Kruishiv wrote a long rambling letter, a second letter, a few drafts of which when the Soviet archives were open were found. And we didn't, a lot of people to believe that Kruishiv was drunk when he wrote or dictated this, which is probably true. It's not just something of punitive revisionist account. Like Kruishiv really was drunk and the execution of his official duties a lot. You know, it would, which owes in part owes, you know, to his apparent instability. This was the source of the the quote, you know, demand that America pledge to not invade Cuba. Like what in power politics would just some open ended pledge and not invade another country. I mean, that doesn't amount to anything, even as a face, saving measure. It doesn't really make any sense. This is immediately followed up by a second letter from Moscow, which probably came from from ego or from somebody in the Politburo Standing Committee, or it's equivalent. This second letter demanded actual conditions be met. Primarily, the removal of Jupiter missiles from Turkey. Now, Turkey and Italy were these Jupiter missiles were in immediate range ballistic missiles that have been deployed in, I think, 957, 5758 around there. Maybe as late as 50 now, I invite you to have to double check that. I'm sure somebody in the comments will rate me over the calls if I'm mistaking the date. They're deployed in Italy and deployed in Turkey. Yes, I said it by this, at this point, there were not strategic nuclear forces based in West Germany, but the Soviets made much of this at the UN in their own propaganda and formal objections to Department of State. But these Jupiter missiles were on the course of being obsolete. Like we talked about earlier, the Polaris submarine system was due to be launched within months and it was ultimately fielded in 1964. And so that that, I mean, this is basically meaningless. I mean, okay, as a safe face as a face saving gesture, maybe it carried some weight, but I, I think the Soviets were still very much in terms of the technological gap as regards strategic nuclear delivery systems that changed dramatically in the 70s for reasons we'll get into in subsequent episodes. But this was the source of, this was the source of the concession. If you want to look at the two of remove to remove the missiles from Turkey and that that night Robert Kennedy met secretly with the Soviet ambassador and they reached a basic understanding that the Soviet Union would be able to, they're, they're strategic nuclear platforms from Cuba under United Nations supervision. In addition to an arrogant pledge, you know, this pledge not to invade Cuba and a secret understanding as it was referred to to, you know, to remove the Jupiter missiles from Turkey. And this too, I believe that's what I just said about the Soviets not really realizing that the Jupiter platform is going to be absolutely because like if it was just a face saving measure, why wouldn't they make it public? Like they thought these platforms were viable and they thought they were getting something, you know, it, because the fact that it was a fact that it was not an above board concession that defeats the entire purpose of any, of any political theater that, you know, might have, might have been utilized by way of it. Of such a gesture. Now, the problem with that the problem was this and the view of people like La May, but also in the minds of people like shelling and trying to leave and people like Herman Conne. There's a sense that eventually conflict with the Soviet Union wasn't available. Okay, and only the precedent of the 20th century that seemed to reasonable that wasn't just a warmongers kind of fantasy, you know, wasn't just, you know, something that, you know, cynical, uh, a career is in in the national security establishment. like to say you're bandy about because it rationalized you know that the kind of cloud they had. I mean, yeah, there was some of that. But if you were a middle-aged man in 1962, who's entire career had been as a public service, directly insinuated in the national security establishment, like your entire professional life, I mean, characterized by negotiating crises, of a basic national security and conditions of general warfare, or crises, short of, but approaching general warfare, this just seemed to be the reality of the 20th century strategic landscape. So that being said, if eventually conflict is inevitable, you've got an obligation to defend the United States at all costs. And if that means preemptively, you know, waging a nuclear war against the Soviet Union or so of PECK to absolutely defeat them before strategic nuclear parity is accomplished, then that is in fact, you know, not just the moral thing to do, but that is what you're obligated to do, incident to, you know, your office and the duties incumbent their in. And that was really kind of the, this underlay a lot of what was going on in, you know, the proverbial war room, okay, around 10. It wasn't just, you know, it wasn't, you know, like the way people like Oliver Stone characterize it, like these kind of crazy cold war hawk war mongers, and you know, these kinds of men of like better nature, you know, saying, no, we're not going to go to war. Like it's not, it's entirely the wrong way to conceptualize it. I mean, yeah, again, I don't have any illusions about a lot of these people at all, believe, like there were personalities, you know, insinuated in roles the highest authority in the cold war, who definitely were like that, you know, who definitely did not, the national interest in mind, or they thought they did, but, you know, they were clouded by, you know, matters of a, of a prider or whatever. I mean, I think the Thomas power is being one of those types, frankly, what, this is, but that's what's essential to keep in mind, but even like, as like I said, even people, even people who are somewhat, you know, sympathetic to, you know, politics the right, or, you know, revisionist perspectives, you know, they continue to cast people like, they can name cast people like Lamey, as what I just said, these kinds of strange love, or genetic, deep-ripper type character, but, uh, it, uh, for giving it this was kind of dry, and it was essential to, um, kind of explain like how that entire paradigm developed of the Cuba crisis, and it's, uh, the shadow of it loomed a large. I don't just mean like in metaphorical terms, but, uh, in terms of how policy was conducted as regards to turns and, um, and, uh, and the strategic balance and the Cold War, and this really endured until 1983. 1983 was so dangerous, you know, I mean, that's the able-arger era. That's the way you kind of Cold War historians think of it, but, what proceeded able-archer, um, and one of the things that, you know, created the conditions that, that led to the war scare was, uh, the threat and deployment of, uh, and the Pershing 2 platform in West Germany, you know, which, uh, really was a game changer, and, you know, the, the end of the Todd, really kind of shattered the assumptions that it underlay, uh, you know, um, deterrence, uh, from, uh, the Cuban Missile Crisis onward. But that's a complicated issue, but, we'll get into, uh, we'll get into, uh, Johnson, Vietnam, and Nixon, next episode. Um, Nixon's gonna take more than one episode, but I- I will at least like get into, uh, Nixon's first term, um, next time, incidental discussion of, uh, uh, of Johnson and Vietnam, and, all right, I mean, we'll see, depending on how long you're going to go, but yeah, well, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll get into some of that stuff, uh, yeah, yeah, and again, forgive me if that was it, if this was a dry episode, it was essential to kind of, lay a foundation for what comes subsequent. No, I think this is a, a topic of interest for a lot of people. Um, I can't let you go without mention, and having you mention the Bay of Pigs. Yeah, it, uh, I think what the Bay of Pigs owes to, more than anything. Um, I mean, today, today, the traditional kind of discourse on it, you know, is, it's like, do we blame like, you know, the CIA and Department of State, or do we blame the President and the National Security Statement? It's not that simple. Um, there's a lot of, there's a long history, uh, I was reading about Angola a lot some years back, and um, you know, one of the reasons why those poor guys, uh, who ended up serving under Calon, got, got, got massacred, I mean, by the Cubans and by the, by the Angolan forces, like, holding Roberto, he basically sold British intelligence and CIA, Abilit goods, you know, about the reality of like, forces and being on the ground and what they were capable of. The anti-castro of Cuban lobby, similarly, they, they're shit together a lot more than somebody like Mr. Roberto, but they had a lot more money and they had a lot more flash and they had a lot more, kind of clout than they did actual capabilities. Okay, um, I think there's a lot of people, even in the intelligence community, and I've got nothing nice to say generally about, you know, the CIA of the era, but I think they had, I, I, I think they had good intentions within the dominant rationality of what they were trying to accomplish. And uh, I think, uh, I, I, yeah, it was maybe, maybe it was naive to think that they could accomplish what they set out to with what amount was skeleton crew of, uh, of cowboy type, more scenarios in, uh, and self-styled, uh, you know, it's in self-styled, uh, kind of revolutionaries, but they also, they underestimated the strength of, uh, of, of Castro in the game, this of, uh, of the Cuban army. And this wasn't entirely clear in a later, like speaking of Angola, you know, the Cuban's deployed 50,000 deep to Angola. They fought the South African defense forces, it was a crack army, you know, I mean, they met them head on. Um, you know, the Cubans, uh, the Cubans were basically constantly deployed throughout the cold war, you know, like, they, they, they really believed in the Marvins' winonous cause. Did, uh, what air cover made a difference? I mean, I, it wouldn't have hurt any, but I mean, I don't, this idea too, it's like, okay, let's say, you know, let's say, uh, let's, let's say this, uh, let's say this kind of like, you know, mercenary army, you know, had, uh, had ground assault aircraft and an air cover all day. You know, Cuba, Cuba would have just like, communist Cuba would have just like fallen apart the minute, like these guys marched on, on a Havanaugh. I mean, the, the Cuba still is, I mean, the, Cuba, they were, they were down for the cause. I mean, to this day as much as anybody can be, I mean, it, it, uh, I mean, I read it like that. I don't think it was realistic. It, the only, the only, uh, yeah, I don't, I don't think it was a military solution to the Cuba problem. You know, like, they're, I don't, I mean, that's my take on it. I get a glance. And we can do a dedicated episode on it if you want. There's a lot there, but that's just, um, you know, I, uh, my point is it's like, I mean, even one of the reasons that, you know, and, and when I jump, to go a little bit, I start to scope, but, you know, let's say, let's say the counterfactual develop that, you know, we, I kind of touched on, you know, let's say that, you know, let's take the, let's say America did assault Cuba in 1962, okay? And the, the, the, the, the nooks weren't operational. And the Soviets didn't do anything in Berlin. And it didn't escalate. It was just, you know, the Marines and US airborne corps or 18th airborne corps and, you know, uh, and, uh, and the US Air Force pounding the hell out of Cuba, you know, and killing half million people, you know, like, what, what then? Where you, I mean, I mean, I, I mean, affecting some permanent hostile occupation in Cuba, like, what have been a blood death? You know, like, like, think about that. Like, that would, that would have been a complete freaking mess. You know, like, I don't, I don't, uh, I don't think there was a, I don't think there was a political, there, I don't think it was a military solution to it. One of the reasons why, you know, I'm one of the few people, even though I'm far from any kind of, like, like, cold war hawk in, in the study of history, as I think you know, but, I consistently praise, um, I, you know, US efforts, uh, in, uh, in, you know, in the cone of, South America, and then later, you know, in, uh, in, in, in Central America and the Panama Canal Zone, you know, to resist, uh, Warsaw Pact in Gratz, because that was absolutely essential, because that would have, in military terms, America was actually losing the cold war in the final phase, okay? And if, uh, if Latin America had truly gone red, um, in these key locations, um, That would have that would have that would have that would have totally changed things But notice what Nixon and then later Reagan administration didn't do is didn't go in heavy You know, they made a they went in with very small footprint, okay, and they developed very effective counter-relusionary Todorys you know I think that the conference weren't like nice guys or something okay like the reason was not a nice guy But they were effective guys and they weren't they weren't just guys were in it to you know get paid in advance their own You know kind of cloud instead. I mean, but my point is that you know the the American National security apparatus treated it as a political problem not as this like military exigencies, you know like We're gonna go in a niggeraag with 50,000 Marines and kill everybody like that No that that that that doesn't work. So that's my but it's complicated and I'm not a military guy But again, I don't I don't think what I'm suggesting can be disputed in any kind of a fluke sense, but yeah, that's that's that's this might take on it at the Got a bad at the land or in short rather What one thing you said early on About the million and a half Basically Soviets pouring into West Germany. Yeah, those who hate Germany and wanted to destroy her Have never stopped that attack have they of just pouring Farners into there to because no, I don't I And that's what's key is that the And that was I mean that was the occupies a point about the cold war. Okay. Yeah, he's a point was that look Yeah, he's Germany is is is a horrible regime in some ways it's you know In some ways it's literally dystopian, but it's not gonna be here forever And it's not it's not destroying you know the cultural and in like racial foundation of the country You know like you can weather that storm like you can't weather the storm of you know the US NATO Social engineering Germany out of existence. I mean, that's what we're seeing today You know, and that's what I constantly like I can't see brush up against people You know not just online, but I mean that this happens to me in person when I'm in At venues where you know the issues being discussed like I think I'm like defending Stalinism or something like I'm not okay But it's not the point, you know like I don't see others can be the student anymore. Okay, it's like you think you think You know, I mean it's like how can anybody how can anybody to shoot that you know, I mean it um Well, I mean, it's just like the this I mean that that that's that's the you know Yachty was it was a genius because he was you know, he was writing about this and I in you know in 1958 59 or whatever like even before You know, he wasn't you wasn't some guy like me like you know looking at history in the river you mirror You know, I mean, but look at I mean look at look at the former East block. Okay. Yeah those states have terrible problems today But they don't know the problems of some you know some some crazy of some crazy Zionists or You know elite or are these these kinds of devils types, you know declaring that you know they You know they you know we need we need we need to import as many you know federal populations as possible because you know This this country is you know too orthodox or too Catholic or you know or too white or too German I mean that that's that that's an existential problem that can't be overcome Okay, like if you got a fucked up government in Romania or Croatia It's like well. Yeah. Okay. Government's not part of the world. I was fucked up. There's different than having you know Social engineering regime with endless resources that's trying to annihilate you as as a culture as a people You know like one you can handle the other you can't I mean, but I mean I guess it's a topic for another Episode or series entirely, but yeah, I mean that's yeah, that's the issue with the cold water nobody's I mean maybe some people claim that you know the the East block regimes were good regimes I mean I'm sure you can find some Marxist fossil at some college saying that I'm certainly not saying that but that's not the point you know it There's new ones outcomes. Yeah, there's nuance there when you yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the least Yeah, when you read when you read docky especially when you read the enemy of Europe Your your experiencing nuance No, exactly and it's also let's do bear in mind like the Cold War by design wasn't supposed to happen I mean whether it's like okay, even if you're this arch kind of like anti-communist and everything. It's like well, okay You know that the the Cold War happened basically because the Concord fell apart between Washington and Moscow You know the idea was you know Everybody in Washington you had any meaningful authority was perfectly okay with you know essentially half Half the planet being you know being under the being under the heel of Stalinism So it's the they're here or there you know like whether somebody like me and In the historical records defending or condemning that system. I mean it you know Like the fix was in like by America like it's these regimes didn't emerge out of nowhere and We're not for America the you know, communism would have would have What would have been annihilated from this planet in in 1941 what the But yeah, yeah exactly That's a great way to end it Give your plugs we get out here Yeah for sure man at I you can find the podcast and some of my long forum on the sub-stack. It's Real-time is 777. Substack.com and once again forgive my Absence from producing fresh just off the last couple weeks But I'm I'm back in the saddle at promise we'll be back to the regular kind of bi-weekly schedule You can find me on Twitter at Triskely and jihad the T is the number seven It's one word otherwise We're gonna launch the YouTube channel January 1st. I know that that's been long and coming I decided to push it back to January a few weeks back because I want to do it right And I've got a great production team helping me which is what I needed because I'm kind of a tech retard and At long last Imperium press and I Found a printer for steel storm - so that is going to drop in January and that's what I got Awesome. Thank you Thomas till the next time I can't wait. I Want to welcome everyone back to the Pikenyone show Continuing the Cold War series with Thomas 777. How are you doing Thomas? I'm well. Thank you, man Today, I wanted to get in the Get them to see a this is somewhat difficult topic to address. I mean not not for the usual reasons people bandy that But because there's so many misconceptions both on the left and the right and then kind of the sensible center I'm talking about historians. I mean and there's still a lot of people still a lot of strong feelings about it Be that be that as it may There's a basic lack of understanding even among a lot of revisionists of the kind of broader political context of the war roles in strategic terms and In ideological ones and what I think of as apoccal terms, I think people to watch our content They've they've kind of become habituated to some of my My my vocabulary when I talk about apoccal events, you know I'm not just trying to draw up on highfalutin language or trying to create my own kind of you know Revisionist Esperanto. I can't think of a better way to describe what I'm talking about and That's a rough translation of a phenomenon that earns an oldie describes You know and it Absolutely, I don't understand it is kind of practical zeitgeist, you know But that's I just wanted to kind of clarify that and you know as I've talked about before much as much as steam guys like Miersheimer They're kind of locked they're kind of boxed in to the kind of like the clouds of what's the inconceptual Cube as it were you know like I like Miersheimer If if one wants to understand predict in terms of predictive modeling I think there's nobody better than him and like for example like in the run of the 91 Gulf War nobody Model the outcome of that conflict with more accuracy than he did and in fact most people were totally off base He's a clouds of witsian thinker through and through and ways both Praiseworthy as well as not so praiseworthy but He so fixed stated on a Unconceptual modeling and unidentifying like concrete variables that can be insinuated into that sort of modeling that he He really misses a pockle Like variables of a pockle significance. Okay Nor is that more clear than in his discussion of the Vietnam war Miersheimer is one of these guys on The political right like at the time and subsequent You know he was costly he was costly make issuing the assertion that Indochina was with was strategically without value. You know, he's got this idea that the global north, you know, Western Europe, you know, the United States, in Canada, Japan, Korea, and some of the, some of the upper Pacific RAM that that's, you know, in the Middle East, that's basically, that's basically, geostrategic terms. That was the only, that was the location of the only stakes we're fighting for. But that's not like people go to war anymore. Okay. And in fact, uh, states going to war over, over commodities or, you know, to dominate trade routes and sea lanes. That's really, that, that, that, that, that, they really reflects kind of a narrow, uh, like, like, like a narrow, uh, kind of narrow, uh, piece of the modern era, you know, we're in, uh, that kind of power, political competition you know translated very much to the concrete the need to capture sort of concrete resources. So it didn't matter that Vietnam or happen in Vietnam. You know if it had happened in Nicaragua, if it had happened in Greece, if it had happened in Borneo, it would not have mattered. You know that's where the economy has pushed. That's where politics kind of conspired and intrigued you know for great powers to come together in hostile terms. And that's where America staked the line in the sand. So it didn't matter. All right, this is where communism fought you know the American wet opposition. You know what it would that's all identified as the free world. And that's what people like that's what people in the right miss. Okay, I think people on the left in contrast you know what they teach college kids you know bullshit probably about people like Chomsky or by people like Howard's in but they claim that like will the Vietnam war was just you know the Pentagon like murder machine profiting. That's not really true. I mean the there was a kind of the logic of the body count did become kind of a inside of into itself and that's perverse in all kinds of ways. But that's kind of the case in modern war in the 20th century. And I'm getting into that in the main is the right right now about Nurember because about half of it gets into the 20th century generally. And yeah there was you know there was all and anytime there's any time the general war on it and Vietnam was a general war. Okay, you had a draft you know you had real casualties. You know America is mobilized anyway one of the situation in Europe and the ongoing the ongoing strategic challenge presented by the Warsaw Pact. But I mean anytime and any time you're dealing with a general war situation or conditions you know with on that spectrum there's going to be there's going to be people and agents and companies that profit from it. Okay, but that's not that's not that's not the incentive. Okay, like you know America didn't America didn't kill three million people and and and lose a 60,000 of their own. You know and eventually like impose like a decade long recession on itself just that it could like sell helicopters to the Pentagon. You know or so that cold could you know manufacture the armor light and everybody makes money from you know outfitting the US Army with the shit that it needs like that's that that's just a very basic view with things and it's not that's not reality. And something I have to say to people too and it's hard to be able to put themselves in in this kind of conceptual mindset because you know the cold war is like receiving like out of living memory but there was real stakes to warfare in the 20th century. I mean that's not to say there weren't reckless decisions made and that's not to say that during the cold war you know men in the Pentagon and command rolls and in the Department of State didn't intrigue and inspire you know to to go to war when it wasn't absolutely the you know essential course of action but this was taken very seriously because it was real consequences but also you had a real coder you a public intellectuals shaping defense policy you know and you really did a lot of the best in the brightest putting their minds to the waging of warfare you know on the technical side at Los Alamos would be the zenith of that you know and people quite literally developing you know more and more effective nuclear weapons but you know you had you like I make the point of people a lot this was 1970 or 1980 a guy like Elon Musk would be working on SDI you know you'd have guys who are going to work in Wall Street now it's quads you know they'd be working for the Pentagon of the Department of State where they'd be working for these NGOs you know to figure out how to wage world war three you know you know you didn't just have these idiots and these these like I've been losers like like like Pete Buttigieg or the fuck his name is you know these other these other freaks that you know he's had in Washington since 1993 you know just kind of just kind of deciding that you know we're going to we're going to generally deploy in some theater for no particular reason I mean that did not happen in the Cold War because it couldn't happen and it just wouldn't it would have been like unthinkable you know the degree to which there's a paradigm shift in the public mind it can't be over emphasized but what I want to get into today I want to get into the political background of Vietnam and why it became such a critical fear and next episode like I said before when live you know we'll we'll get into the battlefield situation because that's an important topic it's not just I mean I'm not a military guy and I mean it's not really my wheelhouse but I do know something about military science topics of in a very like abstract sense I mean I would say don't I don't have experience like like brunch or something I would not report to but the but uh they kind of competing uh I want to get into Westmoreland just creating Abrams and they're kind of tag glory and Tation I want to get into getting John Paul Van and David Hackworth you know both of whom had uh it had uh profound ideas that they contributed an asymmetrical warfare and uh you know I want to get into why the US Army really really couldn't adapt itself it started I think about the Army because Frank and the Marine Corps as well as the Air Force like they did it that pretty well and the Air Force in case it's pretty remarkable because the Air Force was totally purposed essentially like drop nuclear ordinance on the Warsaw Pact at that time and the you know to uh to repurpose their aircraft um you know for essentially you know uh way way way way fire support you know um and it conventional bombing roll that uh but today we're gonna we're gonna talk about politics which isn't as sexy as uh as a battlefield kind of stuff but uh it's essential to understanding it and in the case of Vietnam I think I think it's I think it's uh I think it's paramount um or the military side of things the seeds of the Indochina wars uh which uh I mean really we we could say that it it will it's it you know it things come as in 1931 I mean when when the JNP are the assaulted China but for our purposes um what's convinced what's conventionally viewed as the Indochina wars is you know the French uh the French war against the Vietnam that kicked off in 1946 um you know there was the story defeat that the impenful you know the foreign Legion got you know surrounded and I awaited you know and then um the American war which traditionally is viewed as commencing in 65 because that's when there was the mass convention will build up you know um use involvement ended in '73 so I got in film '75 um I'd include uh I'd include the uh the the the the Camille Rouge uh conquest of uh Cambodia within that same like conceptual paradigm too as well as the 1979 war that the Vietnam fought against the people of the public at China who were just fascinating and that the later event informs the strategic landscape today in profound ways I thought it fascinating but actually sensible um I I I tribute this to Robert Gates also who was the rare like sensible man and um in uh in in in power in in policy corridors you know post-93 but he um Obama like in my opinion I'm going to Gates's um tutelage uh lifted remaining restrictions on arm sales to uh the people in public a Vietnam um very obviously you know employee Vietnam is a military hedge against the people of public at China which is very smart honestly that's that's that's it jumped out of me because it was one of the few uh one of the one of the few power political moves and not only made sense like rational sense but actually was was was was strategically sound um and you'd never really see you as government engage in anything sensible anymore but um and though China you know uh it really it really was kind of the jewel of Southeast Asia you know um there's a reason why a French hung onto it and it wasn't just for staging clout. The way they did, you know, Vietnam was not just this backwater. It's a comparatively huge country, you know, a very large population and it was a cosmopolitan place, okay. And in geostrategic terms, like I said again, that wasn't paramount, but a French into a China according to guys who spent a lot of time, spent a lot of time with geopolitics, you know, beginning and really in the 19th century, like on Crimean War, yeah, probably around like 1812, the final and the polyonic era, is that kind of closed out? And European sort of thinking a lot about them, you know, the then contemporary battlefield. People generally associated in those China with kind of the eastern third of the mainland of Southeast Asia, okay. And they viewed it as essential in that regard. Like, you know, not just as like a hedge against, you know, powers emerging within the interior, but, you know, there's, it's, you know, it's got, it's got CXS obviously, you know, on this extensive coast, you know, things like that. So it's Americans tend to be kind of geo strategically illiterate. And they, they mostly at this time, they kind of dismiss everywhere as some backwater. And that's particularly this guiding as a Vietnam. I'm like, yeah, Vietnam was largely backwards in 1965, but most of this planet was backwards in 1965. And those places that weren't, like a lot of them are still like in ruins, because 20 years before, like, you know, the world, they're going to hell on a hand basket. And, you know, in, there were some places including in Europe, mostly behind the wall, they're not exclusively that, I mean, still, like until 1980s, like, you know, there was visible like battle damage from, you know, combat 40 years previously. So that's something to keep in mind. The Ho Chi Minh himself was, well, actually, the Mili that Ho Chi Minh came out of, the Vietnamese were looking for an identity in peculiar ways. And Vietnam's a complex society. It wasn't like North Korea. There's something, I don't know, people know the history particularly well. It is restrained. But, you know, Kim Il Sung, you know, who, who, who, who became Stalin's protégé, he was one of the Soviet Koreans, you know, part of, part of Stalin's, you know, issue with the nationalities was, you know, not just, you know, genocide, programs against people that he considered to be, you know, politically unreliable. But also trying to assimilate populations that he considered to be useful, like, into kind of the Soviet sphere of influence and his Soviet life. Well, the Koreans in the Soviet Far East he considered to be one of these populations. And Kim Il Sung really had no interest to understand or understand or understanding of communism. And if you look North Korea today, like they, you know, it's, it's this kind of like pastiche of like 1950 Stalinism and, and kind of cargo cult, um, um, a military dictatorship type of the, of the 1980s or something. It's also a red it's a, it's a hereditary dictator. Yeah, which, yeah, exactly. I think Stalin had told them you can't, you can't do that. And they're like, screw you. Yeah, yeah, we want. Yeah, exactly. But it's, but people have this, like, people tend to send it to like transpose that, that those kinds of tendencies, the places like Vietnam, which is very, very misguided. And like, I'm on another thing is I'm sure, I'm sure some people are going to claim that this is me being like a show witness to white man or whatever. I mean, I obviously don't care. But I, um, colonized people, they tend to take on the characteristics that are colonizers. Okay. And, um, the French are very sophisticated people. Okay. Um, I'm not saying that the Vietnamese otherwise would be stupid or something. I find the V.S. actually to be very interesting. Um, that's why this people, I, I'm included. I, I, Vietnam features heavily in my fiction. As people will see when the second book drops. But, um, you know, so Vietnam, like any place, whether it's Algeria or Vietnam or anywhere, or Morocco, that was, you know, colonized by the French, it was not going to, it was not going to be some bad water like North Korea. Okay. I mean, regardless, even if what the German called the mention material was, was not particularly, I'm trying to delegate here. It was not particularly capable of human stock. Okay. But the Vietnamese, um, you know, they're, uh, they're, they're relatively creative people. And, uh, Ho Chi Minh himself, he was the son of a Confucian scholar. Um, and he was a mysterious guy. His birth year is generally accepted as 1890, but that's, that's never been verified conclusively. A lot of sources both within Vietnam and without, like, claim other years. Um, his father, uh, his family, like, lived in central Vietnam, which was kind of, like, a hub of culture as well as political activity. Um, and this endured through, like, the American war in Vietnam. But it, um, oh, and to his dad, is, is, is, oh, and it was father's prestige. Um, you know, not just as an, not just as an intellectual, but he was this, he was a kind of like, he was an imperial magistrate. Um, like the, uh, when the Vietnam became technically an empire, like, after, uh, the Japanese deposed like the, the French in 1945. This was before the war ended. It was the Vichy regime. Um, and, uh, and, uh, the 13th emperor of Vietnam, uh, who stepped down, who advocated 1955, but, as it may, there was an imperial court. And, whole shaman's father, uh, he, he was, he was like, this, he was like one half, like, top, one half judge kind of, and he was demoted because, uh, for, for abusive power. After some influential local Han show was, uh, was, was, was, was available to summary punishment. Um, in, in Ho's father's court, and he was sentenced to something crazy, like a hundred lashes, uh, with, with a cane, you know, uh, any, any, any guy died. Okay. So, so, Ho Chi Minh's dad was, I mean, that this, he was something, I mean, he loomed a lot to say the least that he was, he was basically a judge in an intellectual and a confusion, like, and a judge in a lecture on a priest kind of, I mean, Confucianism is, is, is kind of confusing to the Western mind, including my own, but, um, you know, this was not, Ho Chi Minh was not some guy, he's a peasant stock, like, quite the contrary. Ho Chi Minh did kind of rewrite his biography, um, it's calming us all kind of did. And I mean, to be fair, um, parisans all do that to some degree, even cromalded that, um, he claimed, Ho Chi Minh claimed that he was radicalized in 1908 when, because he was, he was sent to Ho Chi City to study. Okay. Um, and he said he came across a demonstration of these poor peasants, um, who were bound in this kind of peculiar form of a system that existed in Southeast Asia. Um, I can't remember what the French word is for it, but it was, it was basically, uh, like, think of a thing of a surf who's bound to the land and who's not compensated for his labor, but he's like, you know, paying rent on his occupation of the land, which he can't leave. Um, this was a big deal. In Vietnam, especially, you know, there was this, there was this demonstration that the Imperial Court cracked out on violently. And, uh, you know, uh, social justice types of the day, including a lot of Catholics, because, uh, you know, uh, obviously, you know, um, Catholic missionaries react in, in, in the channel, one of the French regime, but, um, as well as, as well as kind of the socialist international, this was like a big deal. And whole claimed, like, well, this is when I realized, like, I was a communist, okay? I mean, well, that's true or not, who knows, but, um, he was mired in a revolutionary environment. Um, owing to the fact, uh, only with family's downer mobility, you know, small measure because of the scandal with his father and, and this, uh, this canning victim, who died, whole realized that he wasn't going to be able to, uh, he wasn't going to be able to get a job, uh, you know, with, with, with, with this, with the imperial court. And he said he refused to, uh, to try and, um, work, uh, you know, as in the colonial administration, because he refused to serve the French. And that's probably true. So what he did do was he applied to work on a French merchant ship when he got from, when he got to Saigon. And, uh, in 1911, uh, he traveled first to France and then he ended up in Dunkirk. Uh, he hopped back in 420, UK and Marseille, uh, for a few years. And then from 1913 to 1919, he was in London. Um, it's disputed by some these days, but there's actually a plaque in the New Zealand house in London, you know, which is, which houses literally lean on like the New Zealand diplomatic mission that said, though, like, whole Chemen work here is like some kind of pastry chef, okay? Um, so I mean, he was moving in pretty elite circles, you know, I'll be it in, in a, in a kind of, in a kind of, in a kind of, me, a role, but I mean, he was a young guy, so it wasn't something that would have been seen as impressive. proper for a guy of his station and he wouldn't just be viewed as like a coolie, you know, because he was, I mean, he was, he was, he was very young, okay, even though he was a teenager to the early 20s. I mean, even though we don't know his precise birthday, I mean, that much is clear. In 1919, he returned to France in part because a French socialist named Marcel Kashin, I'm sure I'm, what's your name, that pronunciation as I often do, excuse me. He was an activist and the socialist party in France. What Kashin essentially convinced whole of was he said, look, you know, the, the Versailles summit, this is our chance to approach the L.I. leaders, you know, about freedom for, for Indochina, you know, because now they'll be receptive, you know, not only to any particular, you know, interest in our cause, but because, you know, something's going to have to, something's going to have to, you know, replace the imperial regime. And like, even they have to see that, you know, and part of this, part of this was kind of rigid, Marxist thinking deterministic rather thinking like, you know, this, this is, you know, like reading the proverbial signs, you know, like an augur wood, like obviously this is, you know, a crucial moment in the advance of history. You know, we've got to get the attention of these men because, um, capitalists, though they are, you know, oppressors as they, though they are, you know, they're, they're nonetheless, you know, they're not in the less serving, uh, the cause of history as a whole men are, you know, um, this is already clear to people, kind of understand, uh, Marxist ontology, such that it can be said to exist. Um, hold your substance, we'll only claim that what drove the dream to Paris initially was that he, uh, was that he, he joined the group of Vietnamese patriots, uh, then what it translated to the, um, uh, again, I can't, I can't pronounce the French, um, moniker, but it was this group that had coalesced in Paris, uh, you know, most clear, uh, uh, with university environments, but they all, they did have some power within the cynic within within the cynicalist, uh, unions that had, and there was a number of Asian workers like who were present on the ground. Um, I mean, obviously because, um, you know, the French Empire was always, uh, was always, um, was always hungry for media labor, was media laborers from the outer dominions, but this, this particular faction, um, it included a, basically the guys who became kind of like the core of the Vietnamese and nationalist movement. Okay. Um, including a fan shoot trend, um, fan band, wrong. Um, these names, I don't mean anything to anybody today, but they, they were, um, in the interwar years, and into, uh, into the French and no China war, uh, these guys constituted an early cadre of, um, of a, of a political leadership cast, um, resisting, uh, resisting French control, political and military. Um, some of these were like heavy, these were heavy people, okay? And I mean, undoubtedly, um, the whole was able to finagle that like, or into his background. You know, I mean, he downplayed his privilege and everything like that, but he, I mean, he was a guy who was, I mean, again, he, um, his father was, uh, was, uh, was a, was a very esteemed individual as well as, um, the whole is confusion education. You know, he would have had to be, he would have had to have mastered a cloak, we'll be enemies in a way that most people just would not, you know, he developed that dude in French, you know, he knew Chinese letters, um, because you had to study Confucian text. You know, I mean, he was, he was very, very well situated to, um, take it to, you know, to, to make contact with revolutionary cadres, um, particularly in, uh, particularly in, uh, in, um, in, uh, interwar, uh, France. But, uh, and whole, uh, and his, uh, his comrades, they actually, they formally sent their letter to, uh, to the allied delegation, you know, Clements, so Woodrow Wilson, um, they weren't able to obtain any consideration. But what it did do was it, I, I treated this the fact that a whole was very, he was covered with Westerners, he was familiar with them as well as his, his French was, um, was, was beyond competent. Um, it was probably not absolutely fluent, but it was far more so than, you know, your average, your average, uh, Oriental at that time that, you know, you run into in Europe. Uh, Ho Chi Minh began to identify it as the leader of the anti-colonial movement and Vietnam for better or worse. And we've discussed in the course of our, uh, you know, of our discussions and I made the point myself for pedaling my pod and my long form. A lot of what role any man because it's situated into regardless of his aptitude or ambition, I'm talking politically, particularly as revolutionary. If people decide that, you know, you are the leader well, then you are in some real sense, okay. This, uh, diverse ideologation identifying whole, even though they effectively snubbed them, the fact that they identified him as the leader of the Vietnamese resistance. I'd say that that's what watches career as a, as a professional revolutionary. Is there, is there any, is there any evidence of like who he was reading, who he was most inspired by? That's a good question. Um, I speculate. Um, despite the fact that this is going to seem strange, particularly because most people, you know, who are familiar with the French left, not just younger people, I mean, people might as well be older. They do the French left is kind of the driving force behind the 68ers and the kind of break with the Warsaw Pact and, you know, the kind of, you know, the new left was literally founded by Foucault, at least in an, an academia. Um, however, in the inner warriors, particularly at the time of her side, the French, the French common is for a very, very orthodox Marxist Leninist. They, they very much believed in the common turn, and it's orthodoxy. Um, probably even more so than anybody, it's probably even more so than the Germans, because there was, you know, one of the reasons why the, you know, the SED, not the KPD begin the ruling party in East Germany was because the social Democrats and the Marxist Leninists could never come to the table. France did not really have that problem. Yes, France was a, I mean, say France was a house divided quickly. I mean, with the girls understatement, but the French Communist, whatever reason, they, I owe it to, I owe this phenomenon to very strong cadre building. They were very, very much united. Um, and I would speculate. And again, I'd have to deep dive into it. It would be very hard. I think, I mean, it could be done. It would take time to kind of tease out real data on what the primary sources were, but whether we're talking about Paul Pot or Ho Chi Minh, or, um, or Jop, who, uh, who, who Ho Chi Minh, uh, and met it. When he was a student there, um, all these guys, uh, either only the fact that they were in France or, you know, only the French influence, um, upon their cadre structure, like in Indochina, they, they, they'd be reading Mars and Lenin, you know, um, and they, and they, and they'd be reading, you know, they, they'd be reading a haggle and they, you know, they would have become familiar with their Aristotle and, and, and, and they would have become, and, and Thomas Paine and Wach. But they, but they, they, like, Mars and Lenin would be their, you know, their Bible was a word. Um, yeah, that's a great question. And it's kind of a fascinating subject, especially like again, you know, like we just mentioned, uh, it's, uh, like, like, amazing. The French left is kind of like the standard bear of, you know, origin orthodoxy is kind of hilarious. But I mean, that's, that's, that's the way it was. Um, excuse me. The, uh, um, this is actually what gives Ryan's the myth. I don't know. I don't know how much this is bandied about by court historians these days, because frankly, they don't read a lot of court history. Um, on, uh, on either rule or one or on the cold war. I mean, any more, I mean, I do feel like for dedicated purposes, like in my writing and research, you know, like, if I say like, okay, well, you know, I like refresh my recollection. With what, uh, you know, with what kind of like the major of the story is the day we're saying about, like say like the French war and Algeria, you know, and then. You know, so it's not not just for the sake of like teeing off on the ad, but just kind of, you know, get a sense of what people take for granted. Um, in terms of kind of the, not just not just the key events that they identify as. As being essential, understanding them. The conflict, but also kind of like, you know, what, what sort of values are insinuated into the narrative. and the liberal at hindsight. But when I was high school age, if you read a college textbook, or if you took an international relations class in your high school, it said that, oh, you see, in 1919 there was this Bosonian moment where Ho Chi Minh, he could have adopted a pro-American stance if only Wilson had paid attention to him. Because he's like mean white men, we're just like being mean and racist, like this didn't happen. I think that that's nonsense, for all kinds of reasons. I mean, first of all, it's like kind of sending and fucking stupid, but also, I really kind of sells people like Ho Chi Minh short. Ho Chi Minh wasn't there to be a coolly and like gravel for, you know, towing concessions. He basically penned this document and Owen do was, and Owen to the influence of kind of his French patrons who were experienced revolutionaries. They seem to think that Wilson would recognize, Wilson and Clementso would recognize that he didn't know Chai and it was going to be a significant potential battlefield. Okay, there was nothing friendly about this communication. You know, and then this idea that everybody, if you give Ho Chi Minh a coke, you know, it's Snickers bar or first you aren't getting on the head, you know, give you a bucktooth grin and say, I love GI Joe, Coca-Cola. Like, that's way more cortical racist than anything in Wilson's mind. Well, this brings us to, I really don't know if I'm jumping around a lot, but as we get into this further, like, I think I shall be redeemed because people will understand. And I want to get out of the way now. I'm going to reference a lot of these things. As we get into kind of the hard and fast strategic analysis, the conflict. And I don't have to, like, keep jumping back and saying, well, this is what this was. People talk all the time about Ovi Anon was like this grave, kind of failure of collective security. And why do they say that? Well, they said because of Sito, SCATO, like, what was Sito? So you know, is the Southeast Asian tree organization? And do you think it sounds a lot like NATO, you'd be right? Because that's what that's what it's whole notion was. It was created by the Southeast Asia collective defense treaty, also known as the Manila Pack. It was signed in September 1954, and you guessed it, Manila, the Philippines. Now, who was the driving force by Sito? It was Vice President Nixon, who, upon returning from Asia, 1953 said, look, we need some kind of collective security arrangement in Asia, that, you know, Tantamont to NATO. There was far more confidence with conflict, diets in Asia. The strategic landscape was a lot more fluid, but Nixon realized that. But at the same time, he said that, you know, one of the reasons that's impossible to, you know, develop a meaningful, kind of strategic posture moving forward, is that it's uncertain like what, any, what if anything, you know, anyone's willing to commit, and what, what they're willing to stand on as, you know, essential interests. And this creates a credibility problem. George Kenan also was very much behind this idea, if not Sito itself. He said there's got to be some kind of collective security structure of a formal nature. Now, I make this point a lot because people, for a few reasons, people like NATO is this magical thing that, I mean, obviously, like anybody who claims NATO, if he still exists, is a fucking moron. But also, such that it does exist, it's profoundly destabilizing. But we don't know if NATO was, was, was, was effective or not. What we do know is that there's basic credibility behind it. And the Soviet Union considered America, you know, to represent a credible threat. You know, if, if, if, if the private conflict, like, diet in Europe was triggered, you know, which was obviously the inter-German border. But at the same time, America periodically had to meet Soviet efforts to decouple European collective security from American strategic interests, was one reason why America maintained inter-media nuclear forces in Europe. That's another question. And it does accommodate it. It will get into that. And the reason is that, it's not treaties themselves that, that, that promotes stability. It's, it's, it's, it's the willingness of the signatories, you know, in order to, as well as the signatories, they say, there's credibility there, then, okay. And this should be obvious. Where the signatories to CITO, it was Australia, France, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the USA. Okay. I might add this. Out of those signatories, Australia, New Zealand, came, showed up to, showed up to fight the Vietnam War. Okay. France had just fought the Vietnam War for eight years and been defeated. Thailand was definitely a combatant in the Vietnam War. If, I mean, this was very much below board in terms of their special operations forces, who were very effective. But Thailand unconditionally availed their, their bases in their aerospace to do anything that the L. I needed. Um, in the UK, the UK just, uh, this caused great cast donation. Um, Anthony Eden, I'm profoundly offended, uh, US Department of State, um, of the era. And, uh, by essentially making it clear, uh, that the UK would not commit any kind of collective security arrangement as, as regards to no China. Um, why they put pen to paper on, uh, the middle of packed, uh, that's another question that's kind of complicated. Um, I, it, it, oh, to the kind of the weasel words inherent to, uh, to, uh, to diplomats, I think I'm not, I don't know, I don't know. I'm going to hate for them. Of, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh. I don't know. I'm going to hate for the diplomats in another themselves. But there is, uh, there's a kind of lawyer ball they play about, you know, qualifying, um, they're willing this to outer tree allegations. And, uh, in the case of the UK, uh, the siding on was Cito. It, it had a lot to do with claims of, well, this is, this is a quote, defensive alliance. I mean, which is meaningless and more in P's, as Carl Smith taught us. There's no other thing as an offensive or defensive war. All wars are both offensive and defensive, but that's a bit outside the scope. Any of that, um, it was, uh, Cito was headquartered in, uh, in, um, in Bangkok, Thailand, um, incidentally too. Um, and again, Dolas, uh, uh, John Foster, Dolas was 100% behind it too. Um, in fact, he could be viewed as kind of the primary architect. Um, like I said, Nixon, Nixon was, was convinced a formal, Cleggus security arrangement was necessary. Um, model roughly on NATO, Dolas was the one who pushed for Cito as the answer to that. And it was Dolas who, uh, who, um, who, uh, who was profoundly offended by Eden's, anyone wants to commit. I was just interesting. And it goes to the two that, like, the quote, special relationship between the United States and the UK. I mean, there were people in the UK who had fed, realized the UK lost World War II, when Eden's a complicated figure. And a year later, in 1955, like Eden became prime minister, but that's, um, he's, he's one of the more interesting post-war, uh, British executives, I think. But he hasn't made, like, he, he made it clear that the UK was, was, was, was going to sit out anything that happened in, in, in Southeast Asia. And it's an interesting question. Um, you know, I mean, the, obviously, neither Eden nor anybody else was in kind of augur, but, um, you know, war literally came to the UK's doorstep, uh, in Northern Ireland. And, uh, the original IRAs, um, efforts were very much perceived as, as part of the anti-colonial movement. Okay. I mean, I don't want to, I don't want to start some big controversy with people. I'm not, I'm not sitting or saying that painians were all much agonist or something like that. Okay. But it, point being, um, everything else aside, even if, even if, even if it had been some kind of hawkish, uh, like, proto-thatcher type, um, at Downing Street. I don't, the situation that they actually developed in the UK in the 60s, I, I don't think they were in a position to be, to be fighting some general war against, against, you know, North Vietnam and, you know, halfway across the planet, but as soon as they got her factual, um, the, uh, the background of what, the, what immediately gave rise to CTO, um, from April 26th until July 20th, 1954, uh, there was a Geneva conference on the status of Indochina. Like, why was this convened? Well, the French, uh, had, you know, just taken a defeat by the Viet Minh, um, at the Embeddon Foo, uh, which I would say was, uh, other than Singapore, you know, or the, or the, the James and Pughal Army. I don't know. I don't know. just like smashed the United Kingdom. That Singapore was most devastating defeat, ever levied to a white western power by a rising, a rising non-western state. The embankment fool was the second. Okay, the psychological impact on this was devastating. And the Vietnamese showed that they were a martial race, okay? They may have handled their artillery up the mountain side and bombarded the French positions. The Vietnamese and the genuine aptitude for war. We'll get into that in the next episode as we get into the kind of battlefield realities of the war. But that aside, the characteristics of the Soviets, themselves aside, France was a real military power in those days, okay? They weren't slouches. They weren't the France in 1954, wasn't the France of today. This wasn't some half ass army of mercenaries or something either. It was the French foreign legion. These were correct troops, highly motivated. Arguably the best equipped army on the planet at that point. The kind of combat, we know the United States. The year they was combat with the United States was fighting with Korea. After mobilization kicked off in earnest. But there's neither conference and seismic of China. Half of it was purposed to deal with issues that were resolving from the Korean War. And the armistice and half was to resolve the French and no-China situation. Which is a very resonant issue to begin with. You know what I'll take that approach. You'll just say, yeah, we're going to knock up two words once again with this great conference. And we're just going to figure out these the whole status of Egypt by putting the right, putting the right paper work together. I mean, all the things were ridiculous. Delegation, the delegations represented on the status of Korea. It was the Soviet Union, the people of Republic of China, North and South Korea and the USA. And the indoscied side of the conference was France. The Vietnamese, although a non-state actor, they had a former representation. The US and SAR, the USA, the people of Republic of China, the UK, and the NASA and the, maybe the believer, I should say, like a successor government in Vietnam, to what had been the B.C. regime. That was deposed by Japan, which since I indicated at the start of this talk, only had a year to remain. In 1955, there was a referendum in the emperor step down. And Baodai was the emperor to be replaced by the-- what was the status of Vietnam in '94? Well, there was two regimes of Vietnam. There's the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, led by the Communist Workers' Party, and the state of Vietnam, again, the emperor, Baodai. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam was strongest in the North and in the center of the country, but had some followers in the South as well. So the base we were talking about is-- you're talking about a country that's almost-- a political map of it looks almost like leopard spots at this point, OK? And the-- the-- the-- the-- the-- the-- the-- the seat of sovereignty that's claimed by the emperor is really a sovereign name only, OK? At the time of the French defeat, 65,000 documented members of Workers' Party with South of the 17th parallel, which is what became the divider between North and South Vietnam. And the me calling Delta Regional Own, which is in-- in-- in-- in Northern South Vietnam. So I mean, a key strategic piece of real estate. There was 30,000 party members concentrated. In addition, there was hundreds of thousands, others in the South, where, you know, sympathized with the Viedman, or who were, you know, just, you know, caricarian communists, the very strikes. In short, the-- the-- the-- the-- the-- the-- the-- the-- Democratic Republic of Vietnam, which-- whose-- whose sole representative was the communist, they-- they-- they could claim membership throughout the entire country, OK? Um-- the-- the-- the formal state of Vietnam, led by the emperor, um-- part of the problem with this was, uh-- was-- was-- was part of the problem of characteristics because those were resisting the communist, uh-- movement globally. Um-- you were looking at a house divided. You know, um-- the war had-- the-- the-- World War II had-- it destroyed the right for all time. There was no-- there was no real political right anymore, OK? There's reactionary elements, you know, who begs people, like Emperor Bao Dai, you know, and various monarchists. You know, there was people who didn't really have a-- a-- a-- a political consciousness, but they, you know, they-- they were hostile to communist for self-hendrocyd reasons. You know, there wasn't-- there wasn't, uh-- there was under really corralling these people, you know, like, you can't build a movement, particularly when you're facing off and it's dedicated cadres. You can't just build a-- you-- you can't just build a political and-- a-- a-- a-- a-- you can't-- you can't build a political army based on opposition to something. That was-- that-- more-- nowhere was that more evidence than Vietnam. And I think that can't really be overstated. Because the idea that the music resists to the communist really do get kind of a bum rap. You know, they're either cast as cowards or just, you know, you know, these kind of third world kleptomanians are just, you know, pretty able kind of lackeys and coolies like that's not the case at all. I mean, they were mixed bag, but they were a, they, they, they, they, this advantage is from jump. And the people who should have been looking out for their interests most aggressively were not doing so. I think on the military side, I think, I think they were, um, the, uh, there was, uh, there's plenty of American commanders in South Korea. In South Korea, really came to fight in the Vietnam War. They deployed their, their course levels were about 50,000 men. Her country is like Korea. It's a major deployment. But on the military side, you got some very game, uh, commanders who were very much wanted, you know, to give the, the, the self enemies what they needed to win. Um, and, uh, and let these guys in the combat very briefly. And these guys perform well with, with honor. But on the political side, you know, it's like what, um, what's, what, what do you have in South? What do you have and what became South Vietnam? It's like, okay, you got, you got a cadre of like kind of up really more, or a cold or a kind of like upperly mobile Catholic types. Where's the French were still here? Um, you know, you got, you, you got, you got guys are basically small businessmen. They don't like the commies to take their stuff. You know, uh, you got the booties were kind of like put upon by everybody. You know, you got various minorities like a mountain yards on sundry who, you know, realize their numbers off of the communist win. But I mean, there's, I know what it probably sounds like I'm somebody who's like totally fixated, um, willing to, um, you know, kind of the, the central emphasis on my research being number and kind of the political theoretical trajectory of things subsequent. But, um, America's problems in the cold war really can be chalked up with the fact that, you know, it's like, well, you know, if you, waging, waging a war of extermination against the political right, like, it's not that that doesn't, you're not living a little hub a lot when you're trying to draw upon your own cadres to defeat the communist and, um, in Vietnam. That's a topic that's not particularly emphasized, but I, uh, I think it's more important than in some theaters, like, legit. I, um, it's, uh, and as we'll get into like a little later in the series, um, America learned its lesson in part, um, by the final phase of the cold war. And that's one of the reasons why, um, the, um, the, uh, that the conscience was so effective in place like Nicaragua, where, uh, honestly, um, the, uh, the Santa needs to regime. The so is probably invested more in that regime than any other sense, uh, since the Vietnam era, I mean, it's a client regime outside of media, it's here of influence. I mean, for the, um, in any event, uh, the, uh, the, um, The Geneva conference basically all it did was it formalized. It formalized the division that was already burning. Even before the French had been defeated at the Embedded Foo. But what it did was it created this kind of arbitrary dividing line. There was two sovereign states here that were at war. That was never the case. The Vietnam War was a civil war. It's not me having sympathy for the devil or trying to simplify the political and strategic situation. It's a civil war. It's a civil war because great powers converge and draw a imaginary line on the center of the country. That's quite literally what happened. The fact that you had, you know, you know, North Vietnam was a crack army. There was a war that was bullshit. There were aspects of the asymmetrical war, particularly the Meekung Delta and particularly early on. The Meekung Delta made no mistake. The reason why the Vietnam was so bloody and so brutal was because it was a conventional war where firepower carried the date. The North Vietnamese, the only way that the only way that they could accomplish their political objectives was through conventional military victory and they knew that. This is one of the reasons why America deployed so heavily the way that they did was that misguided, not in and of itself. But we're going to get into why that didn't produce the results that it had to. But this is a, this is also another example of how this, you know, whether or not we accept the kind of, whether or not we accept the quote democracy is utilized at Brent and even during the Cold War where it actually had, you know, some kind of identifiable meaning, even if it was only like contra Marxist Lenism. I return to kind of the Schmittian notion that it doesn't do you any good at war to have this kind of ongoing discussion and policy terms because even if people are doing so in good faith, which they never are because this becomes another means of exploiting divisions within the electorate for some sort of competitive advantage. But even if that were not the case, you know, you don't endlessly debate military questions as if they're, you know, ordinary policy matters. And the fact that that's what a general war became led to some really perverse outcomes both on the battlefield that in terms of what can be considered a success in political terms. And I think Vietnam is a rare situation where the political and the military was questions were basically synonymous. And the Pentagon on some level recognize that. But the way they proceeded actual policy terms was if these were two discrete things that had success metrics independent of one another if that makes any sense. I'm going to more of what I mean in the next episode when some concrete examples emerge as to how this phenomenon played out. But ultimately, and I'm going to wrap this up in a minute, what the Geneva court led to was this fiction of two Vietnam's, okay. And it created a pathway or at least a roadmap to to unification that was supposed to obviate any potential crisis of authority. But it was contingent upon it was it was it was it was contingent upon and claimed language, you know, both purported sovereign governments advocating any use of our enforce in order to affect a political outcome and dominate the future state. By way of a single party regime and obviously, you know, the Hanoi government always claimed that the Viet Cong or the national liberation front was was was independent of of of their authority was the spontaneous uprising. And I'm through to that, but obviously, Hanoi, Codraes were operationally insinuated into the NLF. The side guy regime always maintain that, you know, the NLF was nothing but a direct client of Hanoi and that so long as it existed. It constantly to terrorist threat to the to the unification process. So none of the terms that Geneva agreement had to be honored. So I mean this this outcome was entirely predictable. Okay. I mean, there's there's basically no way that there's basically no way that any other any other outcome would have been emerging. But that's that's why the kind of political foundation was so murky and kind of unworkable. You know it and also got to show you that you know, I make this point a lot. There's and I generally don't engage people because it's just like bad faith bullshit. But people that I know what they're talking about like those were like what you know, they want to ban you a colonialism and how bad this was. It's like. Okay, so you really think what I just described here like you really that's superior to having like the French administering Vietnam like I. I mean like in what way she performed you know and you could say that well that was just another example of you know white westerners imposing this paradigm like it really wasn't man. I mean the reason why was so dysfunctional and food bar is because you did have that you did have Beijing like having their say you did Moscow having their say. And obviously you know in having their say they're deliberately sabotaging the proceedings and creating conditions we're in. You know a country based movement could you know effectively sabotage any government that emerged in the south but you can't you can't you can't just. You can't shut down the conversation I said oh that's just like something the white man imposed on into China you know so it's um everybody's always. People act like this kind of you know people act like the 19th century regime that endured really till 1990 90 20. I mean like you know Britain France. Germany you know dividing up the world. In these key theaters like was this like a bomb situation it's like what's your alternative they're like they never they never have one you know it's on it's like. It's like the world's kind of existence sit you in like it's it's like a place of plenty in peace but then people screwed up to spell like imposing politics upon it it's a I think that's a logically like I think people don't. Like a lot of people in people are particularly dumb it's like can't grasp like the logical reality politics I mean I don't know what. Any event on let's let's let's wrap up for now because I want to ship the gears with what we get to do next and I really this might have been a little bit dry but again like I said I got a reference all this stuff when we get into the. The you know discussing the battlefield situation and and and kind of the political maneuverings of Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Johnson Mr. Nixon so becomes important but yeah I hope. I hope this didn't bore people at death I hope they got something out of it relating to the topic. So just run through your anything you want to promote and we'll go. Yeah yeah yeah indeed I mean good things are happening. We you know like I said within the next week or so we're watching the YouTube channel at one last. Steal storm to is dropping this month to be on the lookout for that I got some big stuff happening on the podcast but I'm going to announce that formally on. On the next pod episode what you're going to become more frequent but you'll you'll I don't want to I want to get into that like on the pod but yeah that's all I got you can find me on Twitter at Triskely and jihad the. He is a seven on finding its sub stack real Thomas 777 that's sub stack that come. Thomas I appreciate it until the next time. Yeah like was thank you people. This is part seven of the Cold War series Thomas 777 how are you doing everybody I'm okay man today. The issue with the Vietnam conflict is we kind of got into. Last episode it's not just that the sort of controversy around it that endorse it as they you know in terms of ethics and in terms of policy critiques I mean sometimes can try that some of it's not but even if we take people's sort of values and partisan. Ideas are the equation entirely of the Vietnam conflict straddle the flag of a way to. characterize it or describe it in multiple epochs in terms of political and military affairs. You know, as Vietnam jumped off and earned it, it says we're getting into what was very much doing the Kennedy administration. I know some people had this sort of like, you know, this revisionist notion that, "O Kennedy was trying to disengage from Vietnam." It's not true at all. But you know, regardless of that, the paradigm shift in military affairs was underway from the post-new look, Eisenhower era, you know, which was kind of bookended by the Cuba crisis, which, you know, put an end to their kind of thinking. And from the kind of like the first phase of the American war, you know, like 62 to 65, I guess you could say, represented, you know, that sort of gray area between, you know, sort of policy orientations. The kind of revolutionary period in the third world were like, you know, the color of old, if you want to look at it like that, was an underway full swing. You know, what remained of the Western powers were still engaged, you know, Spain, Portugal, France, who just, you know, been actually crushing defeat at the Emban-Fu. You know, they were trying to, they were trying to find a way to, you know, utilize firepower and the technological edge that they enjoyed, you know, in order to advantage them in counter-uncertainty warfare, Vietnam ended in the 1970s as the era of true strategic parity and was emerging from the United States and the Soviet Union. And major powers were disengaging from the third world in direct capacities, like only not just the fact that, you know, independent was causing more and more conflict diodes to emerge where escalation could have brought the superpowers into direct collation, like in 1973 in the Middle East, but also just because, you know, there's a certain weirdness for, you know, this kind of constant engagement in active combat and multiple, and multiple fears. So Vietnam's important for all those kinds of reasons, but also just, you know, because of all those things I just described and kind of the, you know, the historical situatedness of the conflict in, like temporally, I mean, there was a lot of dare to be derived from it about warfare, you know, it was over the road in terms of combat and things and technology and how these things impact the modern battlefield, but also you're going to extrapolate things like the American system and how particularly, particularly wartime administrations, politics is very much insiduated into the decision making process. I don't mean high politics, although that is the case too. I mean, these kind of like domestic intrigues spill over into the decision making process as regards, you know, warrant peace decisions. And that's very, very bad. And obviously this gained a lot of momentum, you know, during the kind of meat, you know, the rise of the, you know, the modern, contemporary, not modern, contemporary, like news cycle, which really began in the 60s and 70s, you know, like reaching a zenith, you know, in like 1990, 1991 where you had the true 20th century news cycle and the Gulf War on TV. I mean, now, obviously that's done. I mean, there's certain like, like, media as ubiquitous, like in a way, never, they've never been before, but there's not as bully pulpit of like the news media, you know, the terrestrial news media. So everybody watches and that controls, you know, narratives and the parameters of discourse. Like that's what I was talking about. But to dive into the topic, there's nobody is more associated with Vietnam than Robert Mankner. Okay. And Errol Morris, who I'm a great, I've got great scheme for. I mean, he's this weird, nebdish type, but he makes great films. You know, he did a documentary on Fred Leicter, you know, who I've had the report. He did a documentary on, um, on Donald Rumsfeld, you know, his, I mean, not to go too far, feel from our topic, but Errol Morris really pioneered the documentary style of filmmaking in a way that's become convention. And, um, him letting his subject in his, you know, obviously his primary, uh, his primary, um, efforts are, are biographical of historical personage, or if people he just interested in, like in the case of Leicter, but putting the camera on the subject and letting the subject just testify and Morris asking his questions off camera, or the, you know, the filmmaker or the interviewer asking to flip off camera like Morris invented that style. But he, I don't recommend anybody, um, the fog of war. I think it was released in 2003. That's a pretty good, kind of capsule summary of Mankner's career from, you know, it's testimony of Mankner himself, but because it's only like a 2 1/2 hour film, obviously a lot of these are left out, but I, I had a little demand that anybody wants to learn more about Mankner Mera. So let's talk about the Mankner himself. Robert S. Mankner, the S stands for Strange. His middle name was Strange. Robert Strange, Mankner Mera. Uh, he was the longest serving secretary defense, uh, to this day from 1961 to 68. Um, nowadays, um, even administration is that I have a comparatively strong mandate. Um, you know, they play musical chairs with their cabinet postings. Um, but even even, uh, even in Mankner Mera's epoch, uh, it was unheard of for a secretary defense to serve that long. Okay. Like why do you serve this long? Well, Mankner Mera came from humble, or a jans, he was born in San Francisco in 1916. His father was the sales manager of some kind of wholesale firm that literally made shoes and other things like this. Okay, like shoes and boots for, you know, like nurses and factory workers. Um, so I mean, like part of the upper kind of like a lower middle class upper working class. Um, he, he, he proved himself to be a prodigy of sorts with mathematics. Uh, what we consider to be, uh, um, logistics and data management. Well, I mean, logistics is just no, there's wicked to be like data management today. Um, the grade, we're in a 37 from Berkeley. We're not at the Harvard Business School. Uh, and then in grade with nine 39. Um, obviously right around this time, you know, the, uh, the new deal is war was, was jumping off. It was only about, you know, two years away. And when Magna Mare found himself in uniform, uh, he ended up in the army airport and guys of his kind of caliber and intellect tended to be shuttle that way. Um, for obvious reasons. And he, uh, he entered the army to captain in 43. You served under Curtis, Lamey, who then was a colonel. Um, when Magna Mare and Lamey, and it's interesting is Magna Mare and Lamey and, and Magna Mare gets into this and the, and the fog of war documentary. Like Magna Mare is probably the closest thing Lamey had like a friend, but like, uh, Magna Mare was sitting, you know, and he's like, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I felt like I didn't really know the man very well. You know, at all. And then it's like when, when Lamey died, apparently, let me, it's what kind of Magna Mare and it's like, yeah, Curtis said, you know, really, really love you. We saw these great things about you. And Magna Mare is like, really? Like I, I heard we heard this guy say more than one word. But many of it. Magna Mare is as a young officer, kind of a defector, agitat to Lamey. Um, he, he kind of demonstrated his chops for, for military logistics and just kind of, you know, apply, uh, apply analysis of, of, of, of, of, of, um, you know, the mission at hand in, in terms of like getting results within the rational of what, of what our mirror covers charged within the Pacific. Lamey and the magna Mare, they came up with a way to assault the Japanese mainland from the Marianas Islands, instead of having to, you know, drop the Himalayas. It's, it's had been, it's had been done. And there's other things that don't quite understand, like, you know, few of consumption versus load, you know, versus, you know, travel within or above or below the jet stream and all these kinds of things. You know, the, the complex, the complex calculus of the then, nascent science of, uh, military aviation. Okay. The magna Mare, the guy really was a polymath. Okay. I mean, um, any demonstrated that, um, really by the time he's about 30 years old. When, when I got discharged, you know, the Ford Motor Company in '46 and, uh, the Ford Motor Company, it's same strange these days because like a college reason really meaning thing. But in those days, um, when it was a rare, uh, credential and when, uh, unless you were one of these kind of rich boys went to Yale or something, if you want to college on merit, it's because you were a guy really, really, really, do with stuff. Um, there was very view. There was, there was, there was a dearth of, uh, of, of managers and executive officers at Ford Motor Company were college educated. Um, so guys like magna Mare wasn't demand. He got recruited there in the, as a manager of planning and financial analysis. um. he advanced rapidly by nineteen sixty years in his early years in his late years in his early forty-three forty-four. He became the first president of Ford Motor Company, plus the Ford family. Okay, what was the huge deal? And this was November nine, which is a. (laughs) I think we're all familiar with. And if you were not before, I hope that after watching stuff that Pete and I know when he's tonight doing you're familiar with it now. November nine, then he's sixty, was when he became first president of Ford. This was one day after JFK was elected. And during his tenure at Ford both as what we now consider a quance and like a corporate accountant. And during his like brief tenure as president, he's credited with basically like making Ford competitive in the post-war period. Like after like the government pork like one of way obviously. And this in the nineteen fifties and early sixties like a huge amount of American automakers like just cease to exist. Okay, I mean the other kind of brand some of them endured like games he endured to like the seventies or eighties. But like there's a huge number of of automotive brands that went under during the nineteen fifties. I mean that I mean one part market productive one part that just you know. This is the scaling back of of the subsidies they enjoy you know during the kind of holidays that need the old for for big manufacturing firms. But any event JFK whatever we can say about him and I don't want to get into a discussion on the man's merit or character or that is politics. What I'm going to say is that he is a disputable is that he he with the exception of of the kind of naked nepotism in the case of brother but I consider that to be more of a matter of self preservation you know with stolen him as the attorney general with the exception of that Kennedy or and or as advisers they had a remarkable eye for cabinet talent and. Kennedy's Kennedy's first choice for secretary of defense was Robert a love it who'd been the secretary defense center Truman interestingly from 51 to 53 high of the Korean war so obviously Kennedy was looking at for a man who had served the wartime secretary defense okay. Which indicates a kind of hard realism pre he will that the Kennedy's not conventionally credited with but that I think is clear people know how to read between the lines but the reason why he brought love it for us is because he didn't he nobody thought that man can really for more company so it wasn't even it wasn't even like with consideration not not on grounds as Mary anything it's just that you know the guy was a freaking all star and love it also but I'm pro's a George Marshall and I. I don't think the Marshall plan was this great policy coup I don't think it accomplished much of anything other than other than putting some shine on the occupation regime which really which needed to be rehabilitated in order to get the the public to play ball the way. The Truman and I was in our and the Truman and later I had no administration is needed to but that's another story George Marshall had some minutes clout in those days. And I'm not a starting to fact again that he you know he the he could cut his teeth a wartime defense secretary public effect that prior that it serves Marshall's secretary defense and he was very much a prodigy the guy but I love that decline these like you know out of raw fatigue I think but also he said you know I you you should you should approach me I can't. I'm because I'll probably take it and I can't even start a striver. And offered him the secretary defense position on the senator the treasury mag number immediately accepted the appointment of secretary defense. Was a magma knowledgeable about defense matters well I mean I mean compared to compared to anybody since. Cheney let me qualify that I mean I don't people think not not in private that cheney's a total piece of shit which he was secretary defense under bush 43. I think he very much had a sense of what needed to be done in the transition era from the from the from the as a cold war literally ending okay. And I only involved him because regardless of the guy's character which I think we're going to be is not. Something lot of all. And what other issues he has. I was a highly cool of a secretary defense no we did not come up to the military but he was something of a polymath and you understood military matters. I really split away subsequently I think the secretary defense these days is something is it's kind of. It's almost like it's a criminal knowledge you gotta look to the kind of big. There's always like city here is a mean any more and people's titles don't actually indicate. What their roles in fact are like I think Robert Gates was the defect all like shadow for policy president I also think that secretary defense has become secretary of state in a real way which is very strange but in the Kennedy era. These cabinet positions carried a lot more weight and there was a lot more transparency in terms of the man who said who held the office was very much the decision maker with some narrow exceptions. You know there it but we have an executive who is as much of who is as much of a hands on sort of all the return in his FDR. Yeah they're very much for some people were ciphers and key roles because he simply didn't want the point thing but exempting that. If you got a point of secretary defense you were pretty heavy hitter and that was on the fourth secretary defense because until you know the until November it was secretary of war was the cabinet posting but that's that's a lot on pack there frankly but that's outside of scope but any event. I was a perfect choice for this arrow because the technology and this is the dawn information is okay like computing as we know it was very much just beginning and it begun during the second world war but I'm in apply capacity was emergent. I'm not understood logistics better than anybody get a highly skilled systems and management of those systems and how do I identify variables and about it rationality of the system in question and what was purpose for you can identify what was most essential the production. I'm and that's an I'm skill set that's kind of like what management comes down to in the burden sense of managerialism I mean when I say management I don't mean some dick like man is a home depot I don't mean like the way he like fat each our ladies talk about management I mean terms of you know actual actually knowing how to. Optimize the performance of both the human element and and the autonomous element within some highly skilled structure you know what's the variables. I'm which are more essential in others you know but the core ones that facilitate productivity in the most country ways you need to identify by most people can't do that. I'm a protector of the in a mac than every day. Yeah I just indicated you know this was like the door the information age and you know technology is just going to punctuate it equal every technology and then we're going to agree on that. It's like once there's there'll be one of these and then you know that that that leads others you know in a very kind of in a very kind of rampant capacity this was under this one was underway but you didn't have your disposal like all this kind of you know you didn't even consumer tech. That we take for granted business in those days you know like you didn't you you you're basically like a pen paper and advocates like proverbially and sometimes literally you know to handle like. Massive dreams of death so the kind of like the right man in the role and the room of stories men i'm not for the spiritual reasons but for interpological ones. You know that it was this was more essential than even today although it still like remains essential but i'm mag the virus philosophy in his own words was a he said a certain defense in the then current era had to take an active role you said you know he aimed to provide aggressive leadership. Questioning suggesting alternatives proposing objectives and stimulating progress just as he had done a four-month company. That might sound cornea face like corporate PR like back there is a company man but in his case i think you really believe that and honestly i think a lot of respect that's like what do you accomplish. He rejected radical organizational changes i'm just indicated. There was a lot of people both within the military establishment and also within the policy establishment. This was very sustuous in some cases too. But on Capitol Hill, there's all kinds of people who are trying to force these kind of top down changes to the military apparatus. The command structure, the way forces in being organized at the division level and what weapons systems were going to get privileged over others. There was always that. There was a debate about the draft and its future. Okay. There was a committee that cannot remember the name of it. I'm sorry. Headed by Senator Stewart-Synington. He wanted to, he's committee with him leading the charge. They wanted to abolish the discrete military departments. They wanted to replace the joint chiefs with a single chief of staff and, you know, not, and, and, and, and give him dominion over. They wanted to like an interservice command structure. Okay. You know, you know, you abolished discrete ranks between the services. You know, we may be, we may be fighting world war three. You know, we're not, while we may be, you know, we may, we may be, we may be fighting world war three at, you know, in a few years. We're probably going to be at war, you know, in, in, in a secondary theater, you know, within months. We're not, when we're not going to fully upset the way I get in the, or the Apple cart, you know, and, and start playing games with, you know, with force structure organization. And that was, and that, and that actually that, that, that, that was huge. Okay. Because things would have, I, I, I, I, signing tins, ideas, particularly stupid. I think, but there was all kinds, there was all kinds of stuff being about that would have really, that would have really kind of upset the ability of, of, of, of the entire defense establishment to react. And really from, from, and after the Cuba crisis, I mean, in 73 and then in 83, I mean, yeah, there was, there was the punctual crisis of a strategic nature that were truly critical. But about every two years, like in between, like, there were, there was some kind of like, what you can think of as like brush fire. Um, uh, crisis of a secondary, in a secondary theater that, that nonetheless, you know, like required an active response. And this ultimately, this is one of things that led to like creation, a special operations command. But that, that's not just going to, you know, like a unit, a command for special operations forces. Unfortunately, a lot of disasters happened for that to become implemented, but that's kind of always the way it is. Not to slip the military. But, uh, what was Kennedy's policy vision? If you want to understand Vietnam's escalation, I don't just mean the punctual in escalation. That was yielded or exploited, depending on the perspective by the Gulf of Tomkin resolution. Vietnam, true engagement with Vietnam went beyond the eyes of our, okay. In real capacity. And when, when Kennedy took the ultimate office, there was, there was special operations forces types on the ground who were directly engaged with the communist. I mean, it's this idea that, you know, this idea that, you know, like I said before we went live, oh, Kennedy was trying to disengage from Southeast Asia, but then, you know, Johnson is this bad guy, you know, just engaged, just engaged in their, engaged the country at war. I said he could, you know, make money by, you know, fellow helicopters selling selling stuff to the Pentagon or whatever the fuck. All of a sudden Howard is in claim. That did not happen. Um, Kennedy, uh, in his, uh, in his, uh, speaks to Congress, I'm verse 28. The, uh, the core emphasis of the speech was defense. It was cold war. It was, uh, it was warm peace. It was power power stuff in part because, you know, the next one was always not just kind of an unacquainted. I mean, the next one was not just always trying to portray Kennedy as some, as some punk rich kid was wet by the years. He was, he was basically, he basically was always calling him a pussy, you know, and saying like he saw that communism, you know, um, he's a rich kid. He doesn't, he doesn't have the presence, um, to command. In order to have like the knowledge, you know, um, which is ironic is Kennedy was a lot of things, but he was like, they stay in the Kennedy. He was a gangster son and he was a worker when he started the brown war. Like to do his kind of a fan, you know, like, uh, like, yeah, he wasn't like a big pussy, whatever. I mean, yeah. But the, um, I mean, politics is politics and being what it is that's, you know, it, and I mean, it wasn't just Nixon other people too. The, you know, Kennedy, he had kind of like a boyish charm like our phony. I think that is like he did not. You know, he didn't come off as a, this like a heavy person and then especially succeeding eyes on how we're like this like the Soviets were generally afraid of eyes now. Um, and, uh, I think for good reason, like I'm not, I don't think I was this rare genius like some people do and I think if somebody was an ugly eye, um, in terms of his character. But he, uh, he was a ruthless S.O.B. You know, and he, he definitely had a kind of command presence. I mean, that goes without saying what. Okay, the outline to, um, to, uh, the March 28th, the next year, we'll speak to the outline is he said, look, um, massive retaliation as a doctor and he's like, that's over. Okay, so as the new look, as it's been, you know, as it was, uh, you've vermistically, um, assigned. You know, he's like, we're not, we're not gonna rely on, uh, on first, I'm split it for strike capability. Um, nor we're just gonna rely on the nuclear deterrent, you know, in lieu of conventional forces, like it's not realistic. It's totally inflexible and frankly, it's, uh, and frankly, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's morally bad for us. You know, you don't, you don't, you don't keep the peace by threatening the several states of the world with like massive, like, genocidal counter valley was sold. Um, you know, like as a standing policy, but it, um, now I'm being someone for seizures, but there really was like, um, they're, they got a miloo that Herman con came out of and I think Herman con was great. And I'm not going to get at them at all, but either they'll do a con and they're in no time. Like there were guys, like genuinely autistic guys, uh, who'd, uh, you know, come up through, uh, academia and game theory and stuff who, who are suggesting things that, you know, made sense in terms of, you know, the raw variables of, um, balance of forces and capabilities over just like, um, whatever it is grossly moral offensive morally offensive. It's in terms of like, uh, in terms of policy orientation, but I mean, like Dr. Strange love like, yeah, it's like, it seems like over the top ridiculous, like some of that piece that movie, but it was like, a real farm on, you know, like, uh, which is, which is kind of funny, but also kind of fucked up. But, uh, the, um, he, uh, Kennedy also, who was credit and this wasn't realized until Carter and, uh, uh, president, director of 5859, um, and obviously the technology that pointed made it far more critical for human decision makers to assert control over nuclear arms and commanding control. But things were already moving in that direction whereby we're, we're, we're human decision makers being sideline, but the military and specifically strategic air command, um, was very much taking control of these processes and, and Kennedy, you know, said that Scott to stop, you know, and, um, and back in Europe was exactly the man to kind of see to that, you know, in terms of structuring forces and protocol strategic forces, I mean, to, uh, to obviate the threat of, uh, of civilian control and the commander in chief role being appropriated by, um, by, um, military element, um, he, he, he, man, I believe did more to obviate that than anybody until Carter and as we get into the Carter era, we're going to talk about, like, all that cool stuff. I mean, it's not really starting to cool. Fancy, by the way, cold war and the kind of strategic nuclear paradigm and, and, and artificial intelligence there in, I, some people probably think that born as fuck, but I think it's really cool. Um, but in any event, what's key, uh, about Kennedy's policy speech on defense was, uh, he said, uh, quote, we, we need to offer an item to quote, prevent the steady erosion of the free world to limited wars. Now, this is the crux of why America went to war and Vietnam. Okay. The way that I look at the Cold War is that obviously there's the ongoing strategic nuclear threat of a total war between Warsaw Pact and NATO, which would be catastrophic. I mean, that goes on saying. But the real issue as a basic stability ensued between the superpowers, it could be imagined and the team B, the team B exercise and the men who organized and facilitated it and who were instrumental in getting ready elected, frankly. The scenario these guys painted was like, look, I mentioned in America where essentially all of Asia, South Korea and Japan, all of Latin America, say Mexico, all of Africa, say if I get a handful of the Arab states who are nonetheless like Soviet aligned, you know, goes communist or becomes basically sympathetic to the communist perspective and is either staked out, you know, a position of absolute neutrality in the Cold War or is available itself as a Soviet proxy. Like yeah, America would survive in those circumstances, but it'd basically be this garrison state that was kind of a second rate power within the Western hemisphere. You know, surrounded by a hostile, like there's a very dangerous world to live in. And a lot of the things we, even if it's not going to perennial peace could be achieved, a lot of the things we take for granted just would not exist. You know, that what it kind of froze in an American tech and American wealth at a certain point, because just by virtue of dominating the rest of the planet, you know, like the Soviet Union could have kind of like remade the world in its own image, kind of like America, like remade the world in its own image after 1989, which is not a good thing. My point being, like people like the Cold War was this kind of like ridiculous paranoid fantasy, or that was like this excuse to like, so munitions and helicopters, you know, by defense contractors, like it wasn't fair to real thing. And this was the, this was a potential outcome really until, until Gorbachev. And until the Soviets folded their flag, it wasn't this binary thing, like either, you know, total war or peace, or you know, oh, this dichotism doesn't work. Yeah, it doesn't work, but it doesn't matter. Well, because the shit doesn't work that, you know, never less like indoors or shuffles on, like, like some like, like some fucking Frankenstein's monster or something like that. That was a very real possibility. And Kennedy's, what he was saying here is, look, if we ignore, if we ignore theaters like you know, China, if we ignore theaters, it's up there in Africa, if we ignore, especially, you know, developments in our own backyard. I mean, that's two folds on the road after it, but that aside from it, you guys said, we're going to die, like a death by a thousand cuts, as regards our ability to, you know, influence the course of politics on the rest of this planet. You know, and you really want to be like a garrison state, albeit a continent-sized garrison state as large as the fifth self-sufficient, but you really want to be like the American island in like the red world. I mean, that was not only poignant, but it was very realistic. And I have ten of the other props for that speech. Like I said, I'm reading Winnelines as he intended, God was reading Winnelines, but that's, I'm not a Kennedy fan or a politician at all, but not only was the answer- -Let me ask. Okay. You said that the Cold War was a very real thing. Is that because of- was it a continuing ideological war between the- the neo-conservatives and who started them and the Soviet Union that whole time? Well, there's wars within- there's wars within that camp. I mean, do you want to know what I think? I agree with Yaku's perspective that the doctors plots like that epoch, not that incident itself, but that incident was demonstrative. I like a break within the communist camp, like a leadership camp, okay. And it's also one of the reasons why Israel often just became like massively anti-communist. Like all of a sudden, okay. So yeah, there was that. The Soviet Union became this kind of strange thing. Like yeah, it was a- it climbed a revolutionary socialism till the end of its life. But like, was it a Marxist-Leninist state? Like as much as such things existed it was, but you know, what the Soviet Union really had going for it was the kind of Soviet DDR model that was really appealing to people in the third world. You know, like Oliver North when he was undercover, like, doing very shady things. When he landed in Managua Airport, he relayed back under like state department cover, if he liked their teleps or whatever. He's like, "Man, Managua Airport, it's a mirror, it's like it's a mirror image of checkpoint Charlie and the inter-derman border." You know, he's like, these- there's a bunch of Nicaragua running around, they're like, "They're the Stasi." You know, he's like, "This is- and I mean, that spoke for itself." So even when- even when Stalinism, even when the- even when the Warsaw PEC kind of like, even after '68, and even before, like putting '68 has gotten the formal breach, you know, with the new left. Even when like nobody in France, nobody in the Netherlands, like even commies, I mean, like looked like the Soviet Union for inspiration. Like you better believe that like hundreds and millions of people in Africa and land in America, you know, Indonesia, like they did. You know, like they- they looked at that as like, "Wow, this- this is a great model for progress." And, you know, where we don't need to suffer, you know, the- we don't need to suffer the pain of exploitation to reach, you know, the bounty of- of- of technology and- and plenty and- and modern productive- productive techniques. You know, all we have to do is sign on with the Soviet blog and we'll get all those things. And plus, like, you know, they're gonna- they're gonna lead us- they're gonna lead us this to lyric, you told you, because eventually we're gonna fight America. I mean, like this. And yeah, within that, like the- the Godfiles and Neil Conservism, like they became like on that target list ironically. Like that's why like communism, like a Frankenstein monster, like a lot of people who were like called- which is a medium of term, but a lot of people are called like anti-Semitic people, like, "Oh, how can you say that communism was, you know, emerged from the Jewish world of social existence. That's still the union hated Jews." It's like, "Well, the such a thing is like, you know, the such a thing is, you know, a goal of Prague, okay?" Like you create something and it gets out of control or it turns on you. But it's also to, like, ideology is not then, like, one thing. It's like- you can't say like communism was Jewish or just not Jewish, or that, you know, the coalition that created in Russia, you know, consisted of like, XYZ kind of people and nobody else. The Soviet was a mere coalition of like indigenous Slavs, you know, who hated the European overcast, you know, they were aligned with a slightly more cosmopolitan element, you know, of the Vashkinazhi Jews who hated that same overcast for different reasons. And these people didn't really like each other, but they had common enemies and common interests. And when that fell apart, in large measure because the situation of the Jewish people are initially totally changed after November or death of the Elf-Rodovaration, yeah, they stopped keeping up appearances at all. And yeah, I agree with Yaki, basically, that if you were on the right after about 1953, '54, '25, they were running around like a John Berger, like, calling for the death of Ivan, you were fucking idiot. I mean, basically, because it- Russian is definitely, like, the Soviet Union definitely wasn't it, then Russia, honestly, is not really your friend if you're a white, western man, but they're not really your enemy either. I mean, it's- they- as a hedge against people who really are your enemy, it's better that they exist and they not exist. But that's probably a subject for a different episode. But yeah, the- but the Cold War- the way to understand it in very raw terms, especially in the Kennedy era, before things got a little bit more complicated through the time, and then, like, when the Cold War jumped off again and earnest in 1979, '80, but- it's not- it's not reductions to say that there really was a quote-cald revolt underway. This was the question of the day in power political and military terms. It was very much led from Moscow. It was facilitated by Warsaw Pact, arms, logistics, equipment, foodstuffs, technology, manpower, everything. And that's what was on the table. Yeah, there was other like deeper nuances to like the ideology that had created it. But in- in- as the world of the still and the Kennedy took the oath of office, like, the Cold War was what I just described, and that was a really real thing. You know, like I said, there were- yeah, guys like Yaki, you guys like got a reemer. Yaki was dead by then, but what even saying before when Reemer was saying, "Dull of Day, you died," was, you know, if you're a European, you know, who's under occupation, which they all were, I mean, it's still this day. In those days, you know, the Red Army was also in Berlin. But, you know, I said, "You need to be very careful about what you wish for," and advocating that, you know, the Soviet Union should be destroyed because it's really the only head against the traditional enemy at Europe. And I agree with that. But, for our purposes, I have a sense that the world situation has a weapon, Canada, the other office, because people have this idea like, "Oh, you know, what a bunch of horseshit. We got to go fight the communist and not or they'll be over here." Like, that was not what was on the table. That's not what anybody thought. And the quote, "Dominal theory" wasn't this like crazy thing that John Bercher's thought or that crazy general's thought. Like, this was actually happening. Like, huge swaths of the planet were going red. Okay? My Stalinism had real cash, and, you know, a huge, among huge percentage of the global population. And the entire, like, raise-own debt for us, supposedly, you never remember, was we're going to create this world society. I know we even have the United Nations. That's okay. Well, it's like, you know, at that time, and then there was about, like, I think there's about like five billion people in the world. It's like, "Well, if like four billion of those five billion people think that communism's great, you've got a problem." Okay? I mean, that's what the Cold War was about. It wasn't about, you know, when I walk outside, I'm turning it into, you know, there's going to be some Chinaman with a red star in his head, and a B&M, you know, it was going to like, fucking, you know, charge me and like, you know, turn me into fucking sashimi and like, it's slave my wife and, you know, maybe everybody's going to drive in and watch a shitty communist movie, is nobody likes. Like, that's not what people thought. I mean, some people thought that, but that's not, you know, like, that's not what under the Cold War and like, people like Matt in the room. Well, let me ask you another question. It almost makes it sound like you could, like, somebody would say that they're reactionaries. You know, how people on the right are always just, we're all reactionaries. It makes it sound like if the, if the third world is turning red and these dominoes are falling, there's a reason why they're doing it and they're reacting to what they're seeing happening to Europe, basically. Yeah. I mean, it was like in case too, and that's why, I mean, today, there's something interesting. I spent a lot of time, I spent a lot of time reading about and kind of studying as much as they can, what the, what some of these like Middle Eastern Nazi actors are doing. And a bunch of these guys, like the popular front of Liberation of Palestine, General Command, like who were big time alive with worse up hacks, like they flipped his comic like very profoundly, okay, and like very immediately. They have the wall came down. And like, some people will be like, oh, you know, those guys are just being mercenary and doing what they have to do to keep money and weapons flowing. I don't think it's that simple, man. I think to your point, a lot of these guys, they were basically, they basically had contempt for like the features of capitalist modernity. And they considered it to be like most offensive, you know, whether it was like sexual ascensionists or, you know, like the erosion of meaningful roles for men and women, or you know, like mixing between races or, you know, pornography. And I, there is a certain puritanical aspect to communism as it manifests in the third world, but even otherwise, you know, like that was one of the things, the, that was like, does it cause any refrain? I mean, there was like, I'll get the fuck the vice and stuff in the DDR, you know, like, I mean, there was like, not like narcotics, but like prostitution and sex stuff and all kinds of really crummy social deals, but at least the official line was that this stuff nasty. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's deplorable. This is the kind of thing characterizing the capitalist West, like we don't want any truck with that and, and this kind of thing should, should be identified and stopped out wherever we'd find it. So yeah, I think there's an aspect of that, you know, and yeah, that's, but that was, that was the obvious old point. And some of the people who inspired subsequent, like H.K. Thompson, and like, um, and like James Maddle, a lot of people think it was a crack. I actually hold, hold, hold on a lot of steam. Uh, they, that, that was the point. The, the whole point is that Washington, New Yorker, our, and Los Angeles, or, or a hell of a more, you know, political red and Moscow, East Berlin, everywhere. So yeah, there's an aspect that, it's a question. And it's like, it's like, it's a question. It's a quite, it's like a theoretical philosophical aspect to it. Like we just raised, but there's also a practical aspect. And in concrete terms, the way people are like leading their lives, you know, like you raised too. That's why I raised the issue of these Middle Eastern peoples and stuff, because I was thinking they're kind of like a bell weather for sort of radical tendencies. But that, I mean, that's, that's my, I don't know what thoughts on that. That's, that is like way too far a sense of scope. But yeah, I'll, uh, I'll, uh, I'll try, I'll try and get to the point of my brand of shops. It really has been a random one for a minute. But the, uh, I can ask questions that get people doing that. But I appreciate you asking questions, man. Like I appreciate that like the give and take. I mean, you, I mean, you always, you always see way, like, meaningful stuff that I have a lot of time out and thought about. But also it just, uh, it helps me because I, I, I was sometimes that like I go out too many tangents because my brain just sort of works that way. But yeah, I, I, I, way, interject whenever you want. Um, and don't, I, I'm not going to feel explain it or something. But the, uh, the, um, the, uh, yeah, Kenny's based, I mean, what basically underlay all this to in, uh, in, in, in kind of like raw strategic terms too. Like, without, I mean, aside from the politics, um, Kenny realized that you, you need a lot of, for lack of, I, I, I, I, forgive me if it sounds like flip into silly, but you need like a number of many options in military affairs in terms of your response. Okay. It can't just be either like massive assault, massive countervalue assault or something like in glorious retreat or doing nothing. You know, I mean, that's, uh, it's like, how do I set the stars of troopers? Like this, uh, was like a thinly veiled metaphor. I think we'll critique of, uh, of, uh, like, ice now, Truman and Eisenhower era, military thinking, like some young officer Kennedy says like this grizzled like inventory captain. Like what the hell, what the hell do we need conventional imagery for? And the captain's like, let me ask you something. Like if a child's misbehaving, you cut his head off or you spank him. You know, like, you know, you don't, you don't just like maintain a hatch, it's like the end of misbehaving child. You know, that's, uh, with, with scenes like McCob, it kind of silly, but, um, it's actually poignant and, uh, yeah, that's something we take for granted, um, as the way things develop, particularly through the Reagan era, and in terms of military affairs, I mean, but in the 19, in the 1950s, really through like 59, 60 people were literally talking that way. Like, hey, we've got nuclear arms. We can threaten anybody with, you know, basically like countervalue genocide. Like, why, why do we need, why do we need to mess around with conventional forces? You know, um, and that's, that seems crazy, but that, but it wasn't just another song about like, I'm not just talking about like goofballs like in, in the media or something. Like, you know, like, internet guys the day, like, I mean, like, like, actual guys with cloud of policy making circles, you know, and guys who had, uh, who had a chest full of ribbons and, and a half full of brass, like, you know, fucking talk in this way, man. But it, um, magna mirror, um, and that's why we'll get into this, I guess we, as we proceed in our series, but the roots of the revolution in military affairs are here with magna mirror, and magna mirror, one of the things he diligently worked towards, I mean, to be in the moron of taking up like a huge amount of his time and labor, but obviously, but, uh, developing a conventional capability, um, not just with a purpose of flexible response, but to really make like a devastating conventional capability, the kind of spearpoint of American power that very much came from magna mirror, and he realized the way the world was going, and, uh, part of it was he realized, you know, what we just talked about that, you know, nuclear arms are purposed for a very, very specific exigency that almost never, ever, ever occurs, but also just, you know, uh, the dawn of the information age, the, uh, you know, the, the kind of rapid, uh, punctuated development of all these applied technologies, you know, like things were becoming possible in the battlefield that run thinkable, even, you know, 20 years ago, you know, in the, in the, in the then present, it, um, the, uh, and magna mirror, magna is, for sure, it's really, if you're doing the candy administration, um, I mean, if you need any more evidence that candy really did, it kind of marry the US, there There will probably be a norm in terms of. in terms of global security policy. It was Matt Dempira, who put together really the first military advisory group that landed in Vietnam in real depth. I mean, yeah, going back to Eisenhower, there's been advise on the ground who became military assistance commander Vietnam, you know, Micky. It was, it was during, it was when Kennedy was still alive, it was during the last year, like, your natural life or whatever, the Matt Dempira raised forced levels to about, from a few hundred to about, to about 17,000. Okay. I mean, this was well before the Gulf of Toggan incident. Okay. In August 1964, after Mr. Kennedy was dead, of course, but the, the, and the Gulf of Toggan is a tricky issue too. Like, I, I don't know how to approach that because it warrants more attention than I'm giving it right now. But people talk about it. Like, I know that, I'm going to get like hate messages for this midnight, because I do anyway from libertarians. But libertarians have this idea about the, about, um, about Article 1 and Article 2, like express, like delegated powers. They do these things, like they do the gold standard, like some of like their sacrosanct and never ever change or something. But formal declarations of war between powers that enjoy the equalities of status and a multi-polar world, where they've had a plan, it's like divided up, you know, between these information powers. And where like, a change in the status of relations comes from like a formal declaration of war, and this is a recognized policy instrument that doesn't happen anymore. Maybe that's bad. Maybe it's not, but it doesn't happen anymore. And since Norm Berg, it's not thinkable for that to happen anymore. So for guys that come on and be like, well, actually, it requires a declaration of war. Like, no, it's not anything's work. Okay? And I'm not going to like worry about even the next position, if I don't like to, like, why doesn't it work that way? But it doesn't, and you've got to take my words for that. Okay? And Article 2, that expressly delegated power that is not negotiable and does not change at the times, is the president being a commander in chief. Okay? And the president's ability to command forces is not contingent upon a 19th century style declaration of war. Okay? However, considering Congress controls the purse strings, is a good idea to make your case for why you should get, you know, endless money in cargo to wage the war? That's what the goal of the time I came was about. Okay? Was it a ruse? Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. It doesn't matter. Johnston is going to get his war somehow, or as mandate some of it was Johnston's war. So, um, Congress had to find a way to give him the, uh, give him the, uh, the, the, the, the, the tabular rosa to do so. And also single the Pentagon that they were willing to, they were willing to put the bill. Um, and this is the way it came together, you know, basically to protect the record, you know, because America, I mean, he's the fiction of over always fighting defensive wars. Hey, we were attacked. And finally, like we talked about in the last episode, there was a lot of fictions that went into the drawing of the map in indochina after 1955. And whether Northern South Vietnam, actually sovereign states, that was really clear because the, the 70s parallel was supposed to get stopped yet, measure, um, pending, you know, the pending countrywide elections were by the, be a single seat of government. And that didn't happen. And the, uh, and, and the DM government claimed initially that that was because the NLF, you know, the Vietcong, you know, had resorted to violence in order to, in order to sway on, in order to sway, you know, opinion in their favor. So, uh, these elections were definitely postponed. So I mean, it's not as simple as, well, you know, there were probably a Vietnam's, a sovereign country, and then the results. And we have an obligation to them, moral as well as juristic. Um, but I'm getting it is that it's not, it's not as, it's not so simple to say like the golf and tongue and incidents or the alleged incident and the resolution was like some ruse by evil Mr. LBJ to, you know, get a war mandate for social law. And oh, by the way, that's the illegitimate anyway, because there's no declaration of war. Like it's 1840. Like not, it's not the way it works. And like I said, I don't feel like, it's something like fucking messages. I don't care. I'm right. You're wrong. But that's important. And I'm the last person to defend LBJ in the record. But whether it be Kennedy, whether it be an I think, whether it been Mr. Nixon, they probably would have finestable about it. And LBJ did, but they would have gotten their war mandate in some similar way. Okay. It is what it is. Okay. That's, that's not arguable. Um, obviously after the gold talking resolution was, um, was rushed through. Um, uh, basically the, the escalation over Vietnam, like, we literally began like with the air war. Um, and yesterday was massive intellectual year strikes. Um, against naval targets and, um, and targets within a North Vietnam proper that were said to, you know, be facilitating is, it's, um, it's blue water, navy capability, which supposedly is what had brought, you know, American vessels under assault. But, um, from there, I mean, the, uh, the kind of fix was in and people can, um, I mean, I, the fix was in. I'm going to characterize it. Like I said, I believe within the bottom rationality, the cold war, the Vietnam war had to be fought. Okay. Um, and I, I stand by that position. But magna mirror, even had that not been the case. Um, you know, man, if it was hearing defense, uh, you know, I get a camp that officer, I mean, you're, you're accountable to commander of chief. Okay. I mean, it's not, it's not like magna mirror ahead. You know, first of all, you can't, you can't need some conscience object or, and fulfill your obligations and the offence of secondary defense. But, um, whatever magna mirror did or didn't do, I mean, he was executing the orders of the commander and chief and, policy is not originate with the secondary defense of the office, or with the department of the army, or with the Pentagon, frankly. Um, however, as we get into magna mirror, a successor is true successor Melvin, where, um, I think, I think, I think the, the career of where, the kind of trajectory of his tenure, um, and his machinations against Nixon and Kissinger, I think that was kind of the origin of the true, like modern deep state, as we think of it. There's always a shadow government. Shadow government's not the deep state. That's something that was emergent in my opinion, really, in earnest around the 1970s. But, um, in, uh, in any event, uh, magna mirror anyway, he, he, uh, you know, magna mirror visited Vietnam repeatedly, like in person, you know, he, and not just, not just diplomatic, meeting reefs, you know, or he, we, we visit, you know, DM or two and go to, go to some embassy party and then, you know, take some like, handshake shots or some general. I mean, he, he visited mag, he, he spent time in Long Bend, asking junior officers, like, what's going on here, is that? You know, uh, he spent time pouring over, uh, you know, um, body count statistics that were coming from a tag of headquarters, you know, in the field, in a, like, doctor or whatever. And saying like, this isn't right. This is not possible. So this idea was just, like, this kind of ghoulish warmonger or just signing off and everything, or you know, something I would be risking himself. I mean, Magnumera, we don't need the city or, like, feels sad for Magnumera. You end up in the World Bank subsequently. You know, they've had a very good life, you know, but the fact isn't public life, you know, it's like, what great stuff did Magnumera get from, you know, this is kind of 70 years of managing the Vietnam War. Like, it's not, it's not like he got, like, some great benefits from this. You know, it's not like he pulled us a lensky and like, was pocketing a billion dollars and what he would have been at nobody before. Like, this was like a huge step down, you know, like, Magnumera didn't get anything by, by waging the Vietnam War on behalf of Johnson. Like, he really did. But, um, we're coming up in the hour here. Let's, I'm going to delve in layer and the rest of the minute. The mirror next episode and we can do that. Whatever you want, like, even this week. Um, and I'll, uh, I realize I got to come to the chase. It's just somebody is, uh, a person is just kind of towering as a man. They're really warrants a lot of attention, like more so than some, than some people and even some presidents. But yeah, so I hope I didn't, I hope I didn't drag it out too long for you to be a man. You're okay. Great. Yeah. Yeah. I'm afraid you would have like kind of raided me in if I was like, like too far entangence. But yeah. No, thank you. This was really great. Yeah. I mean, the only reason I interrupted was I had questions. So I want to take up that question proper to, I'm going to dedicate it up. So maybe I'll look at the book and what he turns to cold war. That's a huge, important question. And to me, especially like I spent a lot of time with it, you know, just only to my own kind of interest and things. So yeah, no, I interject whatever you want in like, please do. Like it helps me organize my thoughts. That's all right. Um, do quick plugs and we'll get out. Yeah, man. Uh, as people might have and all this is like tweeted it out as well as I announced it on my sub stick, shit. Like Steelstorm 2, you know, my second science fiction novel, it's been printed, it's in, it's in the hands of Imperial Press. I got to touch base on their dear friends there anyway, but they physically had it. So I'm going to get word from them when it's going to go up for sale on ImperialPress.org and I'll drop word of that. In the meantime, you can find me, you can find my podcast and some of my long form at Substick. It's real time is 777.substick.com. You can find me on Twitter @TriskellyinjaHod. The T is a number seven, but if you seek me on Twitter, you should probably, we'll find, or just like search time is 777. Basically, we're active right now. I am watching the YouTube channel by the end of the month. I promise I don't spend delayed and delayed, but by the last day in January, it was, I mean, before then, but by the end of January, you liked the channel to launch. So please look for that too. It's a Thomas TV on YouTube. I appreciate it. So the next time, I look like this, thank you very much. Thanks, man. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekinja Neshau for part seven. Is this eight or seven eight of the Cold War series. Thomas 777. How you doing, sir? I'm very well, man. Thanks for hosting me as always. Don't feel bad. I only know that it's part Ocho because that was indicated when I joined the meeting. That is Cold War with Thomas Part 8. Jason takes the main hit and it's just a Thomas talk on Zoom. But the days it may, we're going to continue to flesh out the career of Robert McNamara and the Vietnam conflict. Not just because McNamara is a key personage, in understanding the Cold War. I mean, he represented a certain type truly. People, derisively, would refer to people like McNamara and Thomas Shelling, who we'll talk about probably the episode after next. He was another brilliant Shelling. He was not a brilliant polymath. He was instrumental in Cold War strategic planning. Gaming scenarios that were wherein a strategy could meaningfully be incorporated into X-Stand Technology and weapons platforms. The degree to which this shape policy at every level like cannot be overstated. I guess on the one hand, that's obvious because we're talking about the essence of the political is war and peace. The zenith of war fighting technology is a general nuclear war. Even if we stipulate that a lot of the kind of hysteria around nuclear weapons is just that hysteria. But the Shelling was a far less of a public figure than McNamara. I mean, for a few reasons. That I think are obvious. Shelling didn't preside over an act of war. Americans were dying in theater. But McNamara became a figure that the left kind of loved to burn an effigy, proverbially speaking. I think it kind of embodies that era of the technocrat. I don't mean that in punitive terms. There's a lot of men who that kind of that kind of sociological structure produced that were not attractive people. That were lacking in a grounded morality. We're not the kind of men who one would want sort of guiding policy in concrete ways. McNamara himself was a complex person. And I make the point again and again, McNamara was not this guy who aspired to be Secretary of Defense. He wasn't one of these guys who really had no way of capturing clout other than going to Washington and capitalizing on connections. They asked him. He didn't ask them. And like we talked about, it's not like McNamara resigned and disgraced or something. He went on to be the chairman of the world bank. But at the same time, his name became synonymous with the kind of gruesome calculus of the body count with the kind of the kind of the kind of of evil that came to surround the panoperas. So it's not like McNamara somehow profited immensely from his tenure as Secretary of Defense. Even when public opinion precipitously turned against the war post-tet, McNamara didn't simply exit stage the laugh when things went bad. And I can't emphasize enough too the fact that he served for seven years. That's an eternity for a cabinet post, particularly for Secretary of Defense, and particularly during a wartime administration. So like I said, I'm sure a lot of people are just claiming I'm some kind of McNamara apologist going to either emotional factors or some kind of hero worship. Neither of those things are true. But at all, anyone who hasn't seen it, like I said, I highly recommend you watch the Errol Morris biopic on McNamara where I mean he interviews the man himself because that's what what Morris does. I've reserved judgment until one views that. McNamara quoted himself incredibly well. And compared that to one of Morris's subsequent biopics about Donald Rumsfeld, who came off just as really kind of, I mean just really just a really really nasty person. In every sense of the word, I think compared to those who followed who were either clowns or just kind of cynical creeps like Rumsfeld. I think McNamara leans very large in mostly positive terms. But we've left off last episode. I believe talking a bit about the Gulf of Talken resolution and the incident itself. I don't want to rehash the entire debate as it were that still surrounds the incident that gave rise to the congressional revolution that gave Johnson the tabular rosset escalate essentially. I just made the point then is I'll reiterate now that for better or worse, I understand the libertarian argument against this precedent. And I very much understand the kind of constitutionalist objection to it. But for better or worse, this is how the business of Warren P. S. is conducted and this is how it's finessed in policy terms. Okay. There's some kind of incidents identified as a clear and present danger or constituting an necessity. You know, demanding intervention. Congress affords the executive, the ways and means and budgetary terms and in command terms to accomplish the mission in general terms. And then it's the legislature bows out of the decision making process. And in large part, in a formal capacity, until something happens or a series of occurrences ensue that brings it back within their direct purview, either going to revolt to the body policy because it wore or some kind of perceived malfeasance on the part of the executive in terms of the counter of the war. But we're not here to have a discussion on an abstract constitutional theory you know, we're on you know, war power and what it's significant in the post-Norbert era. I just wanted to make the point that the Westphalian practice of literally declaring war as a change of status and relations between equals like that that's totally obsolete. And it doesn't matter if we think that's good or bad, that's the way it is. So the Gulf of talk and resolution doesn't stand out as this uniquely, you know, kind of corrupt way of a rather morally, you know, compromise executive virtue of warmen day. I'm not going to say here and say, Johnson was had any redeeming characteristics, but even like if Kennedy had been in the White House, he would have pursued, he would have proceeded in much the same way as would Nixon, okay, as would you know, Reagan, had he been in the White House. I mean, this is something important to keep in mind, but I won't believe that point anymore. But what the resolution represented was that and I'm going to I'm going to jump backwards a little bit as we proceed to talk about Colonel John Paul Van who I think is very important. He was his analysis of the Vietnam War like as it was underway. I think it's essential to understanding the battlefield situation and you know kind of the tactical shortcomings of particularly of Mac V. But I don't want to get into that yet, but what's important to keep in mind in discussing the escalation that was facilitated by the Tonk and resolution is that military assistance command Vietnam it arrived in country in 1962. And from 1962 to 65 there was a proper counterinsurgency campaign underway against the Viet Cong. And this really you know army special forces was very much purpose for that. You know and that we talked earlier about you know Kennedy's a strategic orientation towards secondary theaters you know the need to you know not surrender these contested territories to the communist. You know for not just for you know on grounds of military necessity but you know owing to profound political implications of communist victory you know in these in these developing countries you know the. And the fact that he is I can't even such a champion a special operations forces is extremely bound up with that policy vision but. Vietnam pre Tonk and gold so Kennedy in 62 and 63 was commander in chief guiding these missions. Yeah essentially yeah I mean he had it was it was Mac Namerah and it was um you know he Kennedy had a lot of talent around him you know who are who are helping identify kind of the concrete variables now this translated actual war fighting. But some of his wasn't just emergent from the mind of Kennedy but Kennedy did understand military matters reasonably well you know I mean he had been in pretty heavy action in the Navy. You know he wasn't he wasn't just some like civilian meal flight with no idea of you know what what. Of what this constitute and what the difference was between the heavy army you know um organized around organized around armor. You know and that that a very very close of what's the view of war fighting you know is the advance of fire I mean this really did like rule the day you know and I mean for good reason frankly because. Um that the the army's uh most probable military mission was to fight the red army I mean what the uh the kind of tactical flexibility that early special operations forces represented this really was like a revolutionary idea you know like people under like. 45 or so when they think of the army they they were they when they think of the military establishment they think of special operations forces. Um that's completely the opposite of the way things were during the cold war okay um and it uh and there's a lot of there's a lot of institutional resentment of the army towards special operations. Um I mean that's a whole other issue that's fascinating but. Point being there's the kind of this mischaracterization on court historians that okay in Vietnam there's this guerilla war underway and you know Johnson you know being the. You know being the kind of fool that he was and you know the army being you know trigger happy as they are they just like looked over the situation and said you know what we're going to deploy and massive and massive depth and we're going to throw like as much firepower as we can at the Vietnam like that's not what happened you know there's a years long counterinsurgency low intensity. Um war against the national liberation front by the army the Republic of Vietnam you know by uh by the arvin ranger element which is kind of their quasi special forces elements unlike we talked about the South of the enemy is army does get a bad rap because there were elements among them that fought hard and we're and we're very game. Um fighters um but yeah there's actually an internet fascinating old movie called go tell the Spartans which is about exactly this topic it's about you know um like the Kennedy area of Vietnam war and these green arrays of this kind of world or an outpost. You know as they realize the kind of tactical situations changing and obviously the back of their mind are terrified although they never like what on this is the case that of uh of like the North Vietnamese army one day showing up just like sweeping through. You know um out of nowhere and things like that did happen you know later on like against the against the the purported you know in in in in contrast to what army intelligence was claiming with the capabilities extent of you know had no way to deploy um in the south but uh he hasn't made um. As uh as the as things that are going bad in the south and as as DM made it clear that he was willing to negotiate you know we talked about the kind of murky political status of Vietnam you know and it was um it there was there was a lot of there's there's great concern that DM was just going to say you know quote will sell out the west and come to come you know come to terms with with Ho Chi Minh and with Hanoi. You know incorporate you know not just the NLF but you know the Communist Party of Vietnam uh into um you know into a into the ruling apparatus and I mean obviously that was unacceptable um because that you know that that the president that that would set would be completely would be completely at odds with what you know America was trying to accomplish and the developing world and you know we talked about how again like you know the you know the uh it was it was at base for talking about a political conflict it doesn't matter that you know um there there that that's in the China is not you know a bounty of natural resource it doesn't matter that you know there's not there's not some actually essential you know maritime port of call that you know has uh has profound military significance there. Um you know the line in the sand was uh was Vietnam and um that's that's where the communist challenge and that's you know the challenge that they're going that challenge is going to be met or it was not and um the communist had great momentum in the third world even really up until up until the late 1980s you know like long after you know long after the like Stalinist type rule you know and Marxist Leninist revolutionary ambition and the kind of the kind of the armed insurgency culture or political culture around that long after that like lost its lustre you know for anybody but you know total diehards you know like the kind of people who joined like the bottom mine off gang you know in the western world this kind of thing had an incredible power to animate people in the third world you know um and I know he meant himself as a testament to that you know like we talked about the whole was not some it wasn't some bumpkin or some or some ignorant you know from the beginning of the world. He was ignorant you know farmer or something you know he was uh he was he was highly educated you know his family was uh was was wealthy and well situated and very insinuated into the indigenous political structure you know in the in Vietnam so you know he was not he was not an outlier in order was he an anachronism but he isn't may um it uh the the mass escalation i mean yeah part of that was going to the fact that the the post new look army um you know once what once conventional forces you know kind of became a what once again involved for like a better way to describe it um the army uh the army remained obsessed with with firepower you know the idea that you know combined arms and a lot of these nascent technologies um you know and the precursor to smart weapons you know and uh as as well as like the technologies immediately proceeding the revolution in military affairs that allowed command control the truly direct fire um like like the the destructive capabilities of these things was just awesome so there was in fact a sense in the Pentagon that like look you know asymmetric warfare yeah there's you know this considerations emergent you know within that paradigm and that's got to be accounted for within the battle space itself and within you know and and and and it's got to inform decision making of how forces are structured and deployed in country but at the same time you know if you can blast the hell out of everything you're gonna get a lot done you know and how can you know how can the national liberation front you know no matter it doesn't matter what hard they are doesn't matter you know what kind of what what kind of civilian support they have you know it doesn't matter you know kind of how well it doesn't matter that they've got this kind of mass youthful male population to draw upon you know if you if you if you apply this kind of pressure in the form of you know just relentless and massive firepower against the adversary he's gonna just crumble I mean there was there was more than you know like you know like a modicum of that sort of thinking. I mean, obviously, however, it was clear, in 1959 and 1969, all the way to, you know, 1974, '75, when the people's army Vietnam launched its final offensive, it was clear that Hanoi was not going to prevail without a massive conventional assault on the South. Vietnam's a comparatively huge country, the National Liberation Front had the capability to dominate the countryside very effectively. Thus, this is what was responsible for the kind of, you know, hearts and minds campaign, all of that. And the idea of free fire zones and strategic hamlets, and we'll get into some of that later. But the, but the, but the, but the urban centers, the Viet Cong could not, not only could that capture the country, but they couldn't, you know, there was a dearth of a necessary civilian support, you know, which was the true kind of like infrastructure of the Viet Cong, you know, like any guerrilla movement that's what they have to draw upon. But even, like their big coup was when they, their big battle-beilded coup was when the NLF captured Hoi City, you know, and that's, you know, and those, those, those dramatic shots of US Marines, you know, like raising the American flag over the Citadel and in Hoi, you know, because it was this horrible, like, pitched battle, but I mean, just really, really raw. That's why I think it's cool that Full Metal Jacket, like, focus is on Hoi, you know, and, and a, Gustav Hasford made Hoi the focus of the battlefield segment of his novel for a reason. But the point is, like, you know, they couldn't hold it. You know, it's not like, it's not like the NLF took away, incident to this massive push on Tet 68, you know, and then, and then the civilian population came out and drove, you know, allowed them to consolidate that, that their presence there, you know, quite the contrary. So it was clear that South Vietnam, I was going to have to develop a competent conventional capability butch rest by, or facilitated by, rather, you know, modern combined arms and hardware, as well as the training of their people, you know, to operate these weapons systems and weapons platforms. Or there's going to have to be direct intervention, you know, by CTO, ideally. We got into CTO together day, or some consolation of, you know, American allies in order to, in order to stave off this, this imminent assault until, until the South could stand on its own. And that's what I just said, that's what became grand strategy in Vietnam, you know. And as any military man, I'll tell you, you know, you don't, you don't wait until the exigency is afoot and then respond to it. You know, just like, just as you anticipate capabilities, you know, not, you know, just considering, you know, probable action in terms of, in terms of judging and, you know, a potential opposing force, you preempt the ambitions of that opposing force. You know, you don't, you don't, you don't wait until the people's army of Vietnam is assaulting across the 17th parallel, you know, in, in, in, in depth, you know, with, with combined arms, you know, to decide like, how are you going to react to that? Okay, so this was the, this was, this was the logic behind, um, the massive escalation and, uh, their had been at its peak, pre-Tonkin Gulf, I think it was between 17,000 and 18,500 approximately, uh, American forces on the ground and Vietnam. This is, by the end of 1967, this had swelled the 485,000, uh, troops. And, uh, by the peak, um, which was the summer of 1968, it was, uh, it was over half a million. It was something like 530,000. Okay, um, the, uh, and obviously, you know, as, as the casualties mounted, um, and as, uh, and as, um, the post-situation, you know, kind of like restricted the, uh, the tactical environment and, and what was, and, and what was permissible, according to the rules and engagement, um, you know, commanders on the ground, uh, down to the company level, you know, their, their constant refrain was like, basically, we need more manpower. You know, we need, we, we, you know, we need to be able to, um, apply more, um, apply more pressure. Now, and, and why, why, why was it kind of boiled down to that metric? Okay, well, you know, we talked, uh, we, we, we, we talked when we first kind of scratched the surface of, uh, of the atomic age. I mean, like it's advent and what the implications were in policy terms, as well as military ones. And obviously, I can speak a lot more about, um, the former than the latter, because I, I'm not the military man. And I, I, you know, it's not really my wheelhouse, but I do know something about policy, as it interfaces with military decision making and the needs of, you know, the needs of the military establishment into accomplished stated policy goals as directed by the civilian executive. There came the ability to, the, the ability to corral data and the ability to interpret data, the ability to apply data to all kinds of problems at scale. You know, whether you're talking about, you know, whether you're talking about the best way to offset liability if you're, you know, if you're manufacturing automobiles, you know, and thus that was the, you know, unsafety speed that was like the Ralph Nader book about, uh, you know, the auto industry and it's, it's macad calculus of, you know, how many, how many, how many dashes aligned to the products liability issues were acceptable. Um, you know, vis-a-vis what would be the cost of remedying these design defects? I mean, everybody's familiar with that, okay? Um, this, this was something that was emergent, just like across the board, you know, um, in a, in the private sector and government, you know, in, in social planning. Um, the military, uh, in the Cold War, um, it, what, you know, what the, what the victory metric was in these secondary theaters, you know, where the primary challenge was a political one, you know, not a military one, you know, um, a comparable situation would be with the British were facing in Northern Ireland, okay? Um, uh, I mean, that, that, that conflict developed to read differently, but, uh, identifying, you know, not just what, uh, what the tactical orientation should be in order to neutralize the opposing force, but what the performance metric is, you know, of, uh, those forces in theater. Well, what this came boiled down to was, you know, the, the, the ability to manufacture enemy dead, quite literally. The logic of the body count became the performance metric. So there'd be demands from a battalion level, you know, originating with the, uh, originating, you know, at, um, at long been, uh, you know, and, and trickling down to company and then platoon level, you know, like you need to produce bodies, you need to produce enemy dead. And, uh, as a standalone metric that's problematic, I mean, aside from the fact that it's macabre and all of that, and I realize it's, it's kind of a gross thing to talk about, um, that makes people uncomfortable, but this is very much like, I mean, this is the, this is the stuff of modern warfare, okay? But it took on a significance in to itself in Vietnam, owing again to the kind of, to the kind of the culture of strategic planning, but it wasn't just spillover from, you know, the, uh, the kind of, uh, that the added revolution spearheaded by, um, IBM, and it's got the proto-computers, you know, that were utilized, uh, in the Second World War, and, um, and, and, you know, thereafter, obviously, you know, the victory metric of, in nuclear war, is very much to still down to, you know, the ability to, uh, the, like the ability to yield them, you know, enemy dead, at, uh, beyond like a certain tipping point, you know, that's, that's literally what the term, you know, like mega death indicates and assured destruction. Mega death was not just, you know, the name of like, kind of a, uh, you know, I, like a, like a fucking heavy metal man, you know, like, it actually, it actually was a term of art, if not, uh, technically or war studies and game theory, but he doesn't mean, um, there is something to, uh, there, there is something to this logic of the body count. Um, I mean, if you're, if the burn rate that you're, that you're imposing upon the opposing force, you know, far exceeds the population and military age males, you know, who can be trained, equipped and fielded, you know, to replace those losses. At some point, you know, the insurgency is going to fall apart, or it's at least not going to be able to mount operations, you know, beyond, you know, like platoon level or something. And this did work in a sense. I'm one of a few defenders you'll find in the Phoenix program. We'll get into that another date and people who don't really understand it, like even people are otherwise sensible, like it's become this kind of, it's become this kind of horror story that they like to bandy about, you know, it's kind of synonymous in their mind or, you know, taking on kind of the characteristic of, it's become kind of like the exemplar of of a, of executive overreach and violence, they're in, you know, but it, um, something like that identifying enemy cadres. I mean, if you have a reliable system of identifying these people and targeting them for annihilation, with a minimum of collateral damage, where possible, that's basically how you fight a counterinsurgency warfare, or how you wage counterinsurgency warfare. And that's what the British army started doing by the late 90s in Northern Ireland, the way they did it, obviously was, or by the late 80s, I mean, sorry, not the late 90s. But the, this, this, this was underway in Vietnam, at the same time that, you know, there was this kind of, there was this kind of like body count driven effort in, you know, being waged by, you know, conventional forces, you know, just to rack up the body count. And I mean, obviously this led to all kinds of problems, you know, wherein these, these numbers were confedulated, you know, civilians were counted as, as, as enemy combatants, you know, like really very, very corrupt things happen, you know, of a moral and a material nature. But that happens in every war, right? Yeah, exactly. And it's also this didn't like someone we merge and make the mirror, man, girls in this Googleish guy, it was like, oh, well, I have an idea, you know, let's, let's transform, let's transform the military apparatus into this kind of corpse manufacturing enterprise, you know, because that's just a great thing to do. And this was, this was the thinking at the time. And frankly, too, I mean, there's a, again, the Cold War was strange. I mean, in some ways, there's commonality to all, you know, to, to all conflicts where there's a, you know, where there's, where there's certain variables present, you know, that, that, that, that caused, you know, combat to resolve in similar ways, you know, adjusting for technology and things, you know, like with it within, disparate feeders and across, you know, across, you know, the temporal divide and stuff. But there were strange things about the Cold War that limited what was possible, not just because the threat of escalation, you know, even in, even in every secondary theater, excuse me, it was always present, but also again, if you're fighting a primarily political war, you know, we're not just talking about, we're not talking about the, the enemy's ability to field military age males, you know, who can be trained as infantry or sappers or whatever. Not every man is going to make it as a vietcong that requires a certain radicalism within, you know, like within, you know, the quote, hard in mind of that individual, you know, I mean, it's not, if you're, if you're looking to build an surge in army, particularly in a situation like what the Vietnamese called the American war, where, you know, basically, there's like an 80% chance you're going to die. Like you're not, it's not like being drafted into the US Army and, you know, to go fight the Korean war thing is a very different thing, you know, like you, you, every man pretty much needs to be a partisan. And yeah, you know, there were, there were, there were, there were NLF fighters, you know, who were basically like, press ganged and, you know, like joining the vietcong and stuff, but that, that was the minority, because you don't get results out of people like that, you know, I mean, so it, the idea that we've got to kill as many of these people as possible and a targeted capacity and, you know, killing them is a, is an end in itself, because that's a victory metric in order to kind of alter, you know, the political conditions on the ground, and how these conditions translate to military power, you know, I'll be in an asymmetrical way, like that, that is a real thing. And that's, that's a legit analysis, like I'm not saying legit and you know moral terms, whatever, I mean, I'm not rendering decision on that one or the other, but in terms, there is a tactical logic to that, that's not, you know, insane or something or totally off base or the nor is it the kind of 1960s, you know, technocrat version of shateo general ship. And I think that that's important, it's, but moving on, that, the mirror became very, very skeptical of administration policy, not just because Johnson, as we, as we talked about, you know, Johnson viewed escalation and the threat of escalation is a kind of political bargaining ship, which is not how you wage a war. Okay, I mean, that's not, and I mean, your first of all, you're playing with the lives of the men, you know, who are charged with fighting that war, but also it just doesn't, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't work. You know, that's not the thing that yields concessions. And it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't instill fear in the opposing force, you know, it basically tells them that, you know, eventually you're going to be willing to compromise, because otherwise at the end of the day, you know, if you, if that was not the case, you know, you'd be fighting this war, there'd be no like no restraint on the rules of engagement. And I'm not going to be wrong, you know, the despite despite the kind of, this, that's kind of connoir to like, oh, America was like fighting the Vietnam War with one hand tied around his ball or something. I mean, we killed a huge amount of people in Vietnam. Okay, like some real cowboys shit was going on. I'm not, I'm not crashing the war effort. Um, at all, okay, like, unlike World War two, I think within within the boundary rationality of the cold war, I like I've said, Vietnam had to be fought. Okay, but there was a lot of, there was, there was a lot of holes in killing of human beings. Okay, according to pretty loose criteria, you know, the tactical restraints, there was, you know, the, the literally the parameters that were imposed on the operational environment. Like, yeah, that had a, that that rendered victory. Problematic. Okay, like no doubt about it, but it's, um, but the, but the, but the say, but the say, but this idea that, you know, America was like hesitating to drop bodies in Vietnam, going to crazy or, or we like that's that that's that's completely fast. A vote of a man to me or realize was that, you know, the dropping more and more, deploying more and more men to Vietnam was not going to solve a problem. You know, Norway's the problem that you know, the bombing campaign wasn't intense enough or something. You know, like he basically reached the conclusions that we're going to talk about now. And like a lot of what I'm drawing upon to describe his mindset and to describe him and to describe some of the extant challenges of the Secretary of Defense in his epoch. I'm drawing upon his own direct testimony, you know, I mean, among other things obviously. But the act of marriage and when are 1967? And Magnur, as far as this is just freezing troop levels. And it basically to prepare, Magnur said like, within, you know, we don't have an indefinite time table, you know, to make South Vietnam like combat ready in terms of their forces and being, you know, to stand on their own against the North. You know, it's like basically you said that the situation is not going to improve on the ground either. You know, either the army of the Republic of Vietnam can fight now or it's or or or or can't fight. You know, two years from now, the situation is not going to it's not going to be radically different. Um, this was rejected outright by Johnson. And that's, you know, is November 29th of 67 that Magnur announced his pending resignation. He didn't retire until. February 68 or resign or rather, but that, I mean, that was, that, that thing was Australia broke the camel's bat. Okay. I think Minigran ever gave it his all in Vietnam for years. He risked his reputation. He probably risked like a lot of his, a lot of his moral, he probably compromised a lot of his, a lot of his, a lot of his moral commitments too, frankly. I'm not going to sit here and make a martyr out of him. He took the job. And I mean, if you're secretary defense, I mean, you're, you're dealing with the deaths of human beings. You got to be okay with it. But the, you know, he, for, for, for, this is what he did for, for seven years, almost. And when, when he, when he approached his commander in chief and said, like, this is a situation as it stands, I mean, Johnson base, it's like waved him off like the smist him. You know, I mean, I, and I'm not saying that Magnum are quit because, you know, I, I'm grounds like man stealing ego or something at all. But I can't even imagine being in that role. Or, you know, consider like what, what was underway in the country, you know, and, and your secretary defense, like, literally the man who, you know, he will rely upon more than any singular figure. I mean, in that administration, you know, to, to give you the straight story on, on the strategic situation, like he tells you exactly that, you know, and exactly what, what, what, what, what, what what your options are is as commander in chief, you know, and you simply dismiss him because like that, that doesn't comport with like your own conceptual prejudices. I mean, he's incredible. But, um, LBJ was just a terrible person and a terrible chief executive, you know, it's, um, but that, that doesn't need to be rehashed. But who succeeded, who succeeded McNamara was clark Clifford very briefly. That's not like a yally, like a, you know, like old, uh, old America, like name. I don't know what is, but he was kind of a placeholder. The true success in a McNamara was a guy named Nolvin Leard. He's kind of forgotten the history, but Nolvin Leard loomed really a large over the late Cold War. Um, his deputy, uh, it would, it was not worth it about Clifford was one of his, like one of his chief, uh, like assistance was Paul Knitzer. You know, and Paul Knitzer was, you know, he was the co-founder of Team B and, uh, you know, until he was like quite elderly, like he, he, uh, like Knitzer was even like he was, he was, he was drafting, uh, he was, he was, he was drafting, um, policy statements, uh, on behalf of the project for New American Century, you know, like is, is, is, is late as the early 2000s. You know, like he, he's, he's, he's, he's one of these, he's one of these kinds of, I mean, not the sound mode, dramatic. He's one of these, Knitzer was kind of one of these shadowy figures, um, of the defense establishment, you know, who, really was, uh, you know, who really was kind of like a hidden eminence. But, uh, that's really all that's remarkable Clifford. It layered, uh, where it was interesting. And, um, there was, uh, how long, how long we've been going here? I don't know if I should, um, I don't know, I should dive into, I don't know, I should dive into the, yeah, we'll get started on Melvin, layered and, and then what began the Nixon doctrine. And then like, we'll, we'll, we'll like deep dive properly into like Nixon's war next episode. That's cool because it requires, uh, I'm not intently dragging this out, but it, it's just, it's just like a lot here. But Melvin layered, uh, some people, some of you will talk, I'm like, it was a hands-off secretary defense, either going to, you know, Nixon being an imperial executive who bullied his cabinet. Like that's, that's completely nonsense. Other people cast layered as this guy who, you know, and then delivered ever to strike a contrast to McNamara, you know, was averse to, you know, setting a policy course and, like, you know, and it's own right, emergent from the Secretary of Defense's office. That's not, now those things are correct. The layered actually was, was very much engaged in the course of policy and he very much became an enemy of Nixon and Kissinger and this had implications for Watergate, which in my opinion was, you know, just a coup against Nixon by what we view today is the state. You know, I, you know, I, you broke up there. You broke up there for a second. Were you referring to it as you said that the people who would have carried out Watergate would have been comparable to today what we call the deep state? Oh, yeah, definitely, definitely. It's just that the, it's like the, like, the government was different in the Cold War in certain key ways. But I mean, some, like, I'm not, I mean, yeah, okay, we get, I mean, if you want to talk about it in linear terms, like, yeah, we can, we can look at it as, it's kind of, you know, the phenomena in common. But the, but layered, yeah, the, I think layered hostility to Nixon and Kissinger, it's so kind of a personal tenor, which is strange. I mean, I think it's a, but in peer policy terms, Laird's vision, I think he was wrong, but it's, it wasn't totally off base. If you, if you, if you'd be a nom as essentially weakening the United States, not just in material terms, but he said that, you know, essentially, he's like, you got a war weary country now, you know, then like that, they're now being 1969. You know, he's like, of a general war broke, you know, broke out with Warsaw Pact tomorrow. You know, with, with the country really have the political will, you know, to fight, worst, to fight the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, and Central Europe, you know, it's sacrificed like a million and a half young people, you know, on the, on the heels of what we've already endured in the Southeast Asia. Secondly, he's like, you know, the, the Soviet Union was advantageous as we talked about before. In terms of the fact that, you know, it, it basically had preexisting cadres on the ground throughout the third world. Oh, I mean, a large part, you know, the kind of the anti-colonial movement and other things. And like a basic hostility, you know, to the West and in, in, in, in profound terms, not just superficial ones. And, but also like a lot of these, a lot of these movements, like including the national liberation front itself, you know, they'd been engaged in combat against the Axis or, you know, against the, or against the Portuguese, the French or the English or, you know, any of these, any of these fading, you know, colonial powers, the Soviet Union was able to really kind of spare its own blood and treasure. Meanwhile, it really kind of had the United States as a number in terms of its war fighting doctrine, in terms of its strengths and weaknesses. You know, and, while America was, you know, while America was taking heavy casualties in Vietnam, you know, and, and, and, and, and, and, and people were losing confidence in the dollar and things. You know, the Soviet Union was really was, was, was, was under, had undertaken its own kind of revolution in military affairs. You know, but it had done so without, you know, like paying any costs and blood. And, uh, where it had a good point there. And, uh, this became very evident, um, host the time, I think. And that's one of the reasons why, um, when Reagan took the oath of office, you know, a decade later, um, there really was a sense that, um, Warsaw Pact constituted a clear and present danger. That wasn't, it wasn't just propaganda or, you know, um, a precursor to war fever or something, um, or a, or an iteration of war fever. What have you? Um, what Lair did do was, he said, uh, you know, his big thing, where, where, where he and Nixon converged, he said that, you know, we've, uh, we've got to be, we've got to be more assertive in, in foreign affairs. Um, we got to be, we got to strengthen, you know, US influence, you know, over the, over what was then the European community, you know, because the EU didn't exist yet. Um, you know, he's like, we got to consolidate, um, we, we've got to consolidate, you know, the hold we have on Japan and Korea, you know, to make sure that's permanent. Um, you know, when, uh, and, uh, he said that, you know, absolutely a credible nuclear deterrence is essential to essential sound foreign policy. But he said that strong conventional defense is, is, is just as important, you know, and the, uh, he came back to this point again and again, like I said, he's like, you know, you're, you're going to be basically turn people against the military establishment and we're constantly engaging these brush fire wars. Um, and I understand, I understand that point, but I don't accept it. But It's a you know my point is like I said like it wasn't it wasn't some crazy idea it's a What the Vietnamization regime, you know Nixon's policy at disengagement with the South you know well Well butchers think it's forces in being You know in material terms as well as as well in terms of morale and you know Transfer transform the army of the Republic of Vietnam and it's something kind of a capable That very much that policy course very much came from Nixon but Melvin layer of the rubber met the road, you know kind of Soxie with being implemented sweet as it's props for that the one of the early Rifts between layered and and and and Nixon and Kissinger I mean basically the entire like executive Basically the entire executive national security staff of the White House like you know other than himself in 69 That's when the secret bonding a Cambodia Begin you know Cambodia was officially neutral. I mean they were engaged in their own like bloody civil war There was all kinds of intrigues there and what's fascinating is that is the xenophobia split kind of set in There's very much a proxy war between the Soviet Union and red China in Cambodia You know between the between the Soviet Client North Vietnamese Like later just you know the Vietnamese army and the Camille Rouge But that Next and increasingly sideline layered in these key decisions And that's there's an interesting parallel I with with Iran contra there which which a war is mentioned I want I want deep dive into that now because obviously you'd be here all afternoon, but it's um Laird Laird understood it layered said basically look like this wasn't a matter of pride is you know, it's not a matter of me Being affronted that you know despite the fact that the secretary defense. I mean left out of these decisions But he said there's an inevitable there's an inevitable there's going to be an inevitable discloat public disclosure of of these bombings and public outrage Authentic or not cultivated or not by by hostile elements Is gonna is it is gonna harm the harm brought by that it's gonna neutralize any tactical advantage by hitting these North These North Vietnamese sanctuaries in Cambodia and Laird was actually right about that And again, I mean me What what was the anti-war movement and was it was it was it's focused on these discrete policy decisions? You know like the secret bonding of Cambodia was that like authentic Outrage I don't know okay not at all it was um it was it was the it was the 1968 equivalent of Soros Inc You know color revolution in the American street against mr. Nixon and the Vietnam war with of course the help of Warsaw Pagan Intelligence agencies, but that didn't matter the point is that's what it would be a catalyst for and of course I mean the You got almost here the Nixon rebuttal to that of you know, we're not we're not gonna let these like We're not gonna let some like commie cox suckers and Berkeley like dictate like the course of policy Particularly not you know the course of war and peace decisions because you know Bombing non-linear neutral states that are actually common to sanctuary is bad PR but Laird was absolutely right okay, and you know you If you're the president of the states, you know you're presiding over the political culture that you're presiding over and Miss guidance may be you know like comically Improper as it may be you know you are dealing with a hostile media if you're a mr. Nixon or mr. Trump That's going to do anything and his power to remove you from office and these things must be considered Now that does not mean that you were framed from assaulting Cambodia if it's a If it's a tactical Missusity what it does mean is that you finesse it the right way And you know you don't do it in secret and cut the secretary is defense out of the equation um, but that that really kind of uh That really uh That really was kind of the nail in the coffin of the relationship between Laird and um and and Nixon and Kissinger and later when when it was disclosed When the bomb bombing in Cambodia was disclosed and um these mass protests broke out Which were the precursor to the to the Kent state uh tragedy um Which I don't know people I Didn't know that until fairly recently um, I mean I knew like one that I knew when the came I knew when the Cambodia Bombings occurred and no one can state it and I didn't realize that like that at least the nominal Pretext for the big protest was um was the bombing in Cambodia but uh When this was disclosed the media uh Nixon um through Kissinger very publicly accused Laird of uh of leaking it you know just uh um Which is a pretty Which is a pretty pretty serious allegation um I've been deep-dived into the issue. I can't really comment on that. I would have been surprised if that was the case Um somebody Laird was a serious guy. However you were I feel about his politics um He wouldn't have compromised a guy like Laird wouldn't have compromised Though you know an active war effort, you know to stick it to mr. Nixon or to score points with the with With with woodward and Bernstein types. I just can't see that happening but uh be as it may um This was yet another um um I mean this this was yet another dysfunction of the Nixon White House. I mean dog him be wrong I think Nixon was actually fighting the Vietnam war um to win it um and uh Next episode we'll also get into the man of crate neighborhoods general crate neighborhoods. He's exceeded west morland um and uh I I think of west morland almost uh Almost uh Almost like I'm a colon of his era, you know like very much uh Very much very much have been counter or like a lesser or like a middle-level executive and in in that particularly innovative company, you know and in um In in in in in in in our uniform um how west morland Advanced the way he did Remains of mystery, but again, I don't there's obviously not a hell lot I can add um There's not obviously not a hell lot of inset I have into into the US military culture and uh, I mean having not seen it from within but um the uh Where to uh we'll wrap up here in a minute so that because uh the next kind of stuff top I'm gonna get into was is huge but the If there's a legacy to layered I think he was very much the last kind of like secretary defense that had any real independence in policy matters Um not because he was such an incredible dynamic guy but because subsequent presidents did not make mistake that Nixon did um Your secretary defense during the cold war in my opinion was was uh arguably as important as As uh as one is a selection for attorney general but uh that's um That's a That could be uh I guess that could be arguing in a number of different ways But um, I think this might be a kind of an antelope stopping point um I uh You can do your you can do your plugs. You can also announce that um Twitter is being Twitter again, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I'm under seven I'm on my eighth account, you know, I Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was suspended from Twitter the week Elon took over It's this bizarre and like ace they suspended him and ace is legit guy It's like he's afraid to speak his mind like what what what what what what what what what he doesn't he has He like blogs about I mean he's he's like kind of a mega guy, but what what what the hell is he dropping? That's offensive to Twitter You know like it's just totally random And like like he's like except his love for docking back for the attack That's the only thing that really But it like makes no sense like even like like the things that even usually throw like their triggers like he or whatever like he like why bad him but it um But the uh, but yeah, I mean, and it's I I but who people not every time does this happen literally a dozen times it happens like every several weeks Everyman happens people like like I die or something It's like I do a lot of just like goofy shit posting on Twitter. I dropped some serious stuff there too But that's like it's kind of a big nothing man like I use it to promote what we're doing so that our people can find us You know and tune in for like the stuff we're doing here There's like the idea that it's like this awesome platform that we need we don't fucking need that shit Like I built my brand when I was on no social media at all Okay, I do have an account there that is active um But I I'm gonna be low key about it because like I don't know I who that'll know is like what they're you know what the kind of um One can never tell like what what the lay of the land is in terms of you know the I mean who can predict Arbitrate and capricious action which is by definition is arbitrary capricious, but I'm transitioning to YouTube That's like my primary platform. I'm gonna back it up at an Odyssey and stuff. Yes, I realized YouTube is since stories as well, but I mean, I mean we're kind of we're kind of leaving Twitter behind anyway, but yeah So I don't want people acting like this is like the end of the fucking world like it just bothers me when people act that way But the what the um, yeah, I mean finding out subsick real time is 777 that's substick calm I'm on Instagram Just at like number seven hwbs 777 The YouTube channel is launching at the end of the month like I said I'm very excited about it Like I really am it I There's a lot of potential there and I think people will be very happy with it um And I've got I'm very blessed to have some really great people helping me produce it because I certainly Would be pissing into the wind on the production side We're not for them, but yeah, and Steelstorm 2 is available at Imperial Press. That's the second installment in my science fiction series So yeah, please check it out if you're a fan of my work product and or science fiction and That's that's all I got Well once again, thank you, and it's all the next time I want to welcome everyone back to the peak can you show Part 9 of the Cold War series. How you doing Thomas? Embery well, thanks Today I wanted to talk about something that's sort of a forgotten and then them to the Vietnam War and Like I raised before we went live There's some this some pretty haunting things about Vietnam. I don't know some old dramatic and I don't mean in the way that is presented In most court history narratives But there are there's a lot of dishonesty about the conflict particularly Among you know in the accounts of men who served in the executive branch now If you go to the Vietnam War Memorial, you know the wall in Washington DC and I didn't notice this until 2005 You know these the black marble or granite whatever it is I'm not a big fan of Memorial honestly like the way it's designed. I think it's kind of morbid, but There's it may um each section is designated by conflict year You know, so it's like all the men who died in 1967 and hostile action, you know, they'll they'll be like their names The final panels 1975 So I figured okay That's probably I didn't think there are any casualties of the embassy Marines or whatever during Occupation or operation. I think it was enduring wind um The evacuation of Saigon, but I noticed there's like 38 or some names on it Um, and I'm like that's not right and uh lo and behold The men who died on co-tang the Battle of Co-tang Island against the Camille Rouge Um, we're just kind of as an afterthought tacked on to the Vietnam War wall which doesn't make any sense Uh, the Battle of Co-tang was not the final battle in the Vietnam War it was Against an entangled it was against and you know, it was it was waves against an entirely different regime In an entirely different country for a totally unrelated reason this and I I found that to be kind of grotesque, but Some years later uh rum's filled wrote a couple of books. Okay um He wrote his uh bio autobiography and then he wrote his memoirs And rum's filled really cut his teeth in government um as uh The way I was chief of staff from the Ford administration And he talked about the Battle of Co-tang like it was this great operation and you know, there was only I think he said there's only three casualties which is perverse and we'll get into why Um, it was just like an out-and-out lie and this disturbed me. I mean I suppose the rebuttal would be well You know, Rumsfeld is recalling things then that we're you know 35 years in the past Rumsfeld did a photographic memory. He used to brag about that and uh My dad made the point when my dad got out of the army Uh, he went to work for McGeorge Bundy um and they developed kind of a rapport, you know, uh My dad used to drive him around and stuff like that And uh my dad met Rumsfeld During um his tenor with Bundy, you know, like dad was just like I nobody, you know So there was no reason for Rumsfeld to remember him and then decades later um My dad ran to Rumsfeld at some like CFR thing and Rumsfeld addressed him by his first name Because he just that's the way the guy. Yeah, so Rumsfeld did what I'm getting is Rumsfeld And I forget what the casualties were at Co-tang and he didn't just get confused about you know, what actually happened there um Nor do I believe that somebody ghost wrote the book and Rumsfeld didn't fact check it. So I mean that's um I guess what what kind of jumps out of me is that this this was still being kind of swept under the Rog like decades later. So what was the Mayag is incident and why is it important well um on May 12, 1975 uh A uh an American cargo ship uh SS Mayag is um it had crew at 39 It was uh off the territorial All uh coast of Cambodia, you know, which was then um which was then ruled by the Kmir Rouge, you know weeks before it uh conquer the capital um They got captured um The Kmir Rouge claim that uh they were in territorial waters uh They capped another Mayag is subsequently claimed like They were fired upon by teeth by peets by PT boats and you know corral um In the Cambodian territory Regardless This whole crew was seized uh This uh had echoes of uh when the North Koreans had uh seized the Pueblo Which was a Navy intelligence vessel in 1968 And uh the North Koreans grabbed the Pueblo at the height of the Tet Offensive and being that it was an intelligence ship Uh the North Koreans were able to seize encryption equipment and it's believed that uh It's believed that John Walker not John Walker went a different John Walker who became associated with Enfamy and Prezem um He was this naval officer who uh As it turned out was spying with the Soviet Union for decades And it's believed that you know the North Koreans um conveyed uh This naval encryption equipment to Moscow Walker then provided Moscow with like the uh with the ciphers so that they could you know So the Soviet's good could decode um You know the encrypted um language So i mean this was like this was a big deal you know and it um it um And it The you know there were even if Johnson had a stronger mandate and even if the Vietnam war was going better The United States wasn't really in position. You know open up another front in Asia and you know wage war with North Korea Um but there's evidence that in part at the North Koreans via the Chinese or very much trying to facilitate that what That's a little bit outside the scope but in any event um Ford was not going to allow a repeat of the poivlo incident So immediately obviously um um you know the uh The uh the national security council convened um secretary of defense uh which uh at the time was Schlesinger who uh I've got uh nothing nice to say about um people who Remember him at all generally remember him for it's an incredibly slanderous things that he said about present nixon But he uh you know nixon played musical chairs with his cabinet um Kind of like mr. Trump did although there was obviously there was more kind of rhyme and reason to the two uh nixens um staff decisions But uh Schlesinger had succeeded Elliott Richardson Elliott Richardson has had succeeded in eleven layered like not these men like stir from more than several months Okay But uh he was a holdover from the nix administration Um for better or worse so it's Kissinger who is secretary of state at the time um But uh And what's important what's important to keep in mind um During this time is that there wasn't a special operations command US military was kind of a mess um You know this was only This was less this was less than a year and a half um after the drafted had ended The all volunteer force was uh being implemented um there's a there's a there's a there's a drawdown and uh In the number of uh division size combat capable formations um So basically uh The uh the cold war flash points and you know Europe and Asia were really being manned by a skill of truth as it were. And there was not just like rapid deployment capability. And there was no special operations command. So, you know, the kind of instinctive response people have in reading out the Mayag is like, well, why didn't, you know, why didn't so comrades predecessor just like deploy Navy SEALs or something like that infrastructure didn't exist. And also, and as the crow flies, I think the closest combat cable force to Cambodia would have been located in Okinawa, I was in 1975. Okay, like this was this was this was this is high to the cold war. You know, this was not America did not have, you know, forward deployments all over this planet, you know, that and it didn't have the command control nor the forces in being, you know, to respond to something like this instantaneously. I mean, it seems short-sighted, I guess the people today, but that's history in the rearview mirror. Like this was not this kind of thing was not really within the kind of inflation of of the Department of Defense either. It was not the kind of exigencies that were emerging in 1975. In any kind of regular or predictable capacity. But, it may like we talked about, like we talked about last couple of episodes, Cambodia and the Kamiar Rouge was absolutely a client regime other people to public China. It was created some strange intrigues as you know, Beijing was decoupled from Moscow in a real way and this was, you know, solidified by the efforts of a Nixon and Kissinger. America had to tread somewhat lightly to in order to preserve that. Just an immediate kind of broad spectrum of assault on Kamiar Rouge, Cambodia, which they were calling Democratic Campuchia. That would have caused real problems. And that could have, that wouldn't have, the sinusoidal split by that point was the chasm was too great proverbially. That wouldn't have driven the Chinese back into the arms of Warsaw Pact, but it definitely would have generated momentum in that direction. Okay. So that's kind of the subtext of this. And that's one of the reasons why I think it's an important, it's not just, you know, like a footnote of history. It's something that deserves to be talked about, not just because the men that were lost there and the three of them in particular are suffering not only horrible fate that we'll get into, but it's imperative to understand, you know, how complicated and how strange the late Cold War became. And obviously later, you know, in 1979, the Hanoi government quite literally went to the war with China and, kind of, comitantly, you know, the Vietnamese assaulted into Cambodia deposed the Kamiar Rouge and this, you know, decades-long conflict ensued, you know, between the Vietnamese occupiers and the Kamiar Rouge had been driven off into the bush, which was very much a proxy war between the people of Republic of China and the Soviet Union, which, I mean, not to be flippant about it because, I mean, you know, the cost in human suffering was immense, but creating, generating that conflict was kind of a masterstroke of the Nixon White House and subsequent administrations who continued to cultivate that defying conquer strategy. But there's some evidence if one knows what to look for. The Chinese had absolutely no interest in sabotaging the kind of strategic alliance with America, which was then still pretty fresh, but at the same time, you know, China was not America's friend and they were just as prone to intrigues as ever. I believe that the Chinese probably directed the Kamiar Rouge to seize them, to seize the meagas, or at least once it happened, you know, they endorse that move. And I think the long game for Pete King was that they could intervene as like negotiator. It would be a way to kind of bloody Uncle Sam's nose in terms of global credibility, you know, cast China as a kind of the arbiter of a warrant piece of fairs in the Orient. And plus it would generate goodwill, at least in Pete King's mind, with, you know, whatever government replaced the Ford administration. And that sounds totally backwards and strange, but that's the way that the Chinese think and the thought. It is, it's an arguable example. So myriad of people think I'm just, you know, kind of melting off. I don't like the Chinese or whatever, but this was a delicate situation is what I'm getting at. You know, beyond the obvious fact that it any kind of hostage rescue operation is kind of the worst possible. And the operational terms circumstance to emerge, you know, what doesn't need to be, what doesn't need to be some high speed military type to recognize that. But the way it played out in operational terms was for it. The more it was informed of this seizure of the me of the me agas, add is a morning briefing on the 16th. Like I said, the National Security Council was convened Brent Scowcroft, who as I'm sure people will recognize, you know, later went on to play a major role in the Reagan administration, particularly Reagan's first term. You know, he basically early on in the crisis was a one who, you know, convened what ultimately became the parties who determined what the operational response would be. For better or worse, the big concern, I mean, obviously aside from the, the, the, the issues that just indicated, we were relating to relating the US Chinese relations and everything else, America had a major credibility problem. And like we talked, you know, over the fall of Saigon. And as we talked about, I think last episode, I'm not just overstating that because it's kind of my peculiar emphasis as a revisionist. This was in the cold war, particularly as a strategic parity set in which in the later version of era was, I mean, was was kind of the, you know, what was was the height of that kind of paradigm shift. The United States enjoying credibility and its ability to project power successfully, you know, in the third world. That's basically what the entire Truman doctrine hinged upon. And the entire American cold war strategy in, in military terms hinged on the Truman doctrine. Okay. So coming off of coming off at defeat in Saigon despite, you know, however much that had been mitigated by the Sanosovian split and pure military strategic terms. If America had proven unable or lacking in the will to respond to the seizure of them, the egg isn't its crew. In, you know, military operational terms that would have, that would have had real world consequences. And, and that's that's really what was on the minds of, you know, Ford himself and everybody in his national security cabinet. Ford immediately issued a statement declaring that the seizure of the vessel was an act of piracy, which is interesting language, which wasn't really precedent. And the context to understand that statement within, it wasn't just him, it wasn't just the president relying upon, you know, kind of cringe polemic. What he was saying was, I mean, this was the era when people were bainting that, you know, the president had to have, you know, approval from Congress before he, you know, acted in the article to Commander-in-Chief role. And like, nonsense, like the war powers act was being floated, okay? I don't want to start a constitutional debate, but that kind of stuff was emergent from the hangover over the Vietnam conflict that does not have a leg to stand on, according to the letter of the Constitution, but because that was the tenor of discourse. afforded to send some kind of message that you know he was not gonna he was not gonna He's not gonna wait some kind of congressional debate and whether or not, you know, he was authorized He was forcing us to come here Rouge, you know, he's saying like you know, this is outside of the bounds Of a of ordinary international relations and you know, I'm gonna respond or receive fit that's reading from the lines I find that very interesting I can't think of a more unenviable position to be in then, you know, the American president in the aftermath of Watergate being faced with, you know, a kind of asymmetrical national security crisis like this that calls for, you know, immediate decisive action that I mean, that's never a particularly desirable situation to find oneself in but in that era and in that specifically in that moment, you know, weeks after the fall of Seigon, like I can't even imagine but Seigar to states, what Schlesinger what he did immediately was he directed the joint sheaths to order other people in theater um to locate the Mayagas and at all cost prevent the vessel's movement to mainland Cambodia employing all the disarmure munitions um required to do that but obviously taking care not to harm, you know, the hostage crew um Kissinger and this is face needing immediately wanted to action but he didn't contact the Khmer Rouge or attempt to what he did was he contacted the Chinese liaison office in Washington and uh he immediately demanded to release the Mayagas and to convey uh that message to the Khmer Rouge on the ground um the uh whoever the formal diplomatic representative of Pay King was refused to accept the note saying basically I can't take responsibility for this Kissinger then tapped George Herbert Walker Bush who at that time was leading the counterpart liaison office in Pay King he delivered the note personally to the Chinese foreign ministry um and he according to Bush himself and uh I don't see why he would lie about this he conveyed orally that if there was not you know if the immediate release of of the Mayagas crew was not um you know it's not realized that uh the Khmer Rouge would be held responsible um collectively and there'd be a massive shock and assault on Penelman Pettin and um again the this wasn't just diplomatic protocol that both Kissinger and then Bush approached China I mean it goes to show you what was underway by the scenes and that this obviously um the most charitable view to take of it is that well you know the Khmer Rouge they they were paranoid cycles and it was this kind of backwards revolutionary regime they grabbed the Mayagas just because they were paranoid then when they realized you know that it was a US flag that's solely freaked out and didn't know what to do um the most kind of punitive view of it is that you know what I the possibility I raised a moment ago was that the Chinese orchestrated this as you know part of a Machiavellian kind of intrigue drama which they've done in the past frankly and continue to do so today you'll be it and was punctuated in violent terms but regardless Washington obviously was aware that you know China was either responsible for this and in proximate causal terms or had the power to force a resolution and uh that tells you everything you need to know about the relationship between the Khmer Rouge the Vietnamese the Soviet Union China and the United States um subsequently the Khmer Rouge tried to do exactly that um release uh the Mayagas crew unharmed um which we'll see and I think that further substantiates you know my kind of uh spitball analysis but I um like I said I'm not I'm not just speculating our conspiracy theorizing I think anyone who spends time with the factual record and you know kind of read between the lines of American diplomacy speak it I think this becomes clear okay um back to the uh kind of practical operational side of it though um the uh it was on the um the following day it was confirmed that the Mayagas was off the coast of Cotang which is an island um in Cambodia territorial waters um which the Khmer Rouge had fortified after the after Pinoe and Penn fell which it later became clear that they'd done so in anticipation of a Vietnamese naval assault because their big fear was that um it would be used as a staging ground um you know to uh assault the mainland presumably as you know a secondary theater um to a divert uh Khmer Rouge forces and being from you know whatever across border um um low guy had been the you know the the the spare plank does it were of of the Vietnamese potential Vietnamese assault um I can't speak how probable that would have been because I mean who knows but it wasn't it it it was entirely reasonable to you know anticipate that um at the time and with what was underway and I mean all the way the Vietnamese did I mean that's what the Pinoe Khmer Rouge is a Vietnamese attack so I mean this was not just um this was not just an alibi of uh of the regime whatever else we can say about it um and its credibility um the absence of combat cable American forces in theater again was the big problem um the closest uh truly combat cable element was the second battalion ninth Marines when they were training were then engaged in a training exercise on Okinawa and um on the night of the 13th of May which was the day after um the um the the seizure of the the vessel itself they were ordered to return a camp and prepare for departure by air on May 14th um it uh the problem was um this was a heavy um I mean this is this this was not this is the proverbial operation or one needs to go into light I mean like again these days it we would think of it as like a sealed team sex or like a Delta Force kind of operation um and uh this is not really what people were training for at that time and there was in it by 1975 there was there was a handful of officers um the second battalion ninth Marines suited you know like bent under fire and Vietnam but virtually none of the unless it matter as the yoves had um you know the the idea taken um I mean however tough these guys were and I'm sure that they were like a hard dudes uh taking um you know taking a marine element that had not been in combat before and you know kind of breaking their proverbial sherry you know by having them assault a ship that had been taken hostage in this in a kind of anti counter terrorist operation like it seems like a recipe for disaster um would ultimately put the kibasha on that um planned um operation was uh a guy named general burns yeah burns um he was command with the seventh air force he weighed in and said look um you know um it's very possible that you know the crew has already been you know taken landside either on co-tang itself or as being shuttle to the mainland um regardless he's like you're gonna need more firepower than just you know um then then you know can be uh you know he brought to bear you know by um dropping uh by by dropping uh by dropping marines on you know by chopper onto uh under the vessel itself you know with you know kind of like late covering fire from whatever these I assume like I assume like Huey I don't know if Huey Corbors were fielded then yet but um yeah yeah they would have been but I mean point being you know it uh burns to his credit was thinking ahead um and uh his idea was uh bring to bear uh air force gunships and choppers to be able to you know saturate the the island with firepower if need be and the uh you know the um the hostage rescue element he suggested uh the 56th security police squadron is like the air force guys who like guard uh like air bases um at that at that time that's what they were like these days their force has like a high speed like like spec war like element but in those days They basically had these guys were somewhat like more high speed like MPs, you know, and again, like that's not really, that's not really, you know, the element you want for something like this. But his view at least was more kind of in line with what was to develop than that, which was floated previously. And this operation was actually implemented. The utapo airbase in Thailand, which I believe is still in use, like the idea was that these gunships and these Air Force MPs, you know, who are the hostage rescue element, they're going to be shuttled from the Philippines to utapo in Thailand to be outfitted for staying. And then from there, they were going to assault Kotein on the way to Thailand. There was a chopper crash and like 18 of their number were killed. So as you can see this, it was 18, 18, the security police and five crewmen. So I mean, as you can see, they're just getting like more and more food barber by the moment and operational terms. It reminds me. It sounds like trying to go into Iran and get the hostages. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, no, that's that you're exactly right. And this couple with Desert 1 and, you know, we put to the board of Iranian rescue mission. And the lack of integrated command and control of Grenada, that's really what created so calm. You know, because the need for it became recognized. Well, there was only one lost in Grenada, right? Is there one? I think there was only one casualty in Grenada, right? No, there was a number. And what happened was these Navy SEALs who were, there was a bunch, there was a few, there was like, you know, there was an Army command element, a Marine command element, and then there was these SEALs who ended up somehow dropping the wrong place and then they ended up drownings. They weren't retrieved. Oh, geez. Yeah, it was a whole mess. And like it had to do. It was literally totally avoidable when it was like a command and control. 19 dead, 19 dead, 150 wounded. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Grenada is, well, get into Grenada when the later episodes, because it's in political terms, it bore directly on the, the, the Sanctonese revolution. And there was, there was North Koreans on the ground there. I mean, obviously it was the Cuban element. There was a couple of East Germans, like it's fascinating. And it very much, it very much was what the, I mean, however, anybody feels about the Reagan administration and, you know, some of us alleged, overreach. But Grenada actually was, it was, it was being purposed to rapidly reinforce Nicaragua and, and friendly proxies like in theater. You know, that was the only thing to build in Grenada was an airstrip for that purpose. And that's exactly what they were building. But, um, yeah, as it may, um, after this, after this, uh, after this disaster with, um, you know, in the, uh, the top, uh, before it can be another national security council meeting, um, on, uh, on May 14th, um, the, uh, communication, when they get been established with, uh, seventh Air Force elements, uh, that had departed from Hawaii and when it's circling, co-tang. And that, and these, they, in those days, those are close to you, guys, like real time communications. I mean, that's another thing we take for granted today, but obviously then, like you were, it was quite literally like blindness and theater. Um, if you were the command element in, in the White House, um, you know, trying to direct military operations through the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then they in turn, you know, any, any, any data they were getting from the battle space was, you know, minutes, at least minutes, and probably hours out of date. Um, the, uh, these fighters, uh, they were trying to, what they didn't realize was that the crew by this time of the Mayegas have been shuttle to this fishing boat, um, which was then, uh, it's happening to transport them to, uh, the mainland, this coastal city called Campong Som. Um, these guys, they're credit, these pilots who were circling, um, in theater. They recognized that's probably was going on. They requested a permission to, uh, try to shoot the rudders off of this ship that was conveying them and like assault the PT boats that were escorting it. Um, Ford intervened and said that, you know, the use of those kinds of munitions would be for would present to greater rest of the crew. So you put the good busch on that. Um, the, uh, at that same time, uh, the National Security Council, they got word, uh, they, they got word back that the Chinese Foreign Ministry and great Beijing had refused to, uh, pass any kind of formal communication on the Camille Rouge, but Bush said that in his, but Bush said that he could all be guaranteed that the Chinese are putting pressure on the Camille Rouge to comply with whatever American demands were. It was like, obviously, even if, I mean, like I said, I've got my own theory on this that, um, this was very much orchestrated by Pay King, but whether it was or not, obviously the situation was rapidly, you know, spiraling out of control. um, and, uh, bush, uh, whatever, uh, whether your view of it's charitable or whether it's, you know, not particularly, so. Bush was a serious guy and he very much understood the Chinese and had a rapport with them. And I mean, he was a career intelligence man. If you're a lead that in my belief, uh, you know, this has been conveyed and this is what's happening, I, I think, you know, that was I, I think, I think, um, I think that was as good as gold. Um, but, uh, the, uh, the acting chairman of the joint chiefs of staff was a guy named, uh, was a guy named David Jones. Um, what he presented, and this was ultimately followed through, um, and operational terms. He presented a range, a range of military officers in the National Security Council and he said, you know, look, like, we're not even sure where the may egg is crew is at this point, you know, whether they're shipboard, whether they're, uh, land side, and if they're land side, whether they're actually located. And he's like, obviously, like they, they're, you know, rescuing them on a harm needs to be our priority. But he's like, we basically got to like waste the community of Rouge because like we can't just like let this slide, you know, he's like, we got a, this is a credibility issue above all else, you know, aside, you know, obviously, you know, we're not in this regard of the liars where people, but, um, you know, we've got it, we've got a lay as much hurt on the community of Rouge as we can. Um, and from that point forward, that was basically accepted by the White O's. Um, it came down to three possibilities. Um, some intelligence suggested that there was still on the mayagas. Some suggested they were on Co-Tang Island. Other suggested that they were on the fishing boat itself route, uh, I bound for, um, the mainland and the, you know, the coastal city of Campong Som, which is what these air force pilots relayed, which turned out to be true incidentally. But what was ultimately decided was an national security council decided to, they decided to deploy the Marines to take the mayagas itself. Assault Co-Tang Island and together the mass of assault and Cambodia itself, particularly it's shipping and, um, uh, it's, uh, it's shipping infrastructure, you know, any, you know, like, you know, naval military targets, um, and, uh, escalating the Penelman Pen itself, you know, and like any other, kind of like countervalue, uh, targets of opportunity that presented themselves, you know, if, if, uh, if within, you know, 24 or 36 hours or whatever, you know, there wasn't resolution to the crisis. Um, the fishing boat on which, uh, the mayagas correction was, and it, it did arrive at Campong Som, the Cameroos commander at Campong Som. Either, either, he'd either been out of the Chinese had gotten to him or he just understood what was underway. He used to do it in order to his men, like, you know, I don't know, you know, do not harm these hostages, you know, under any circumstances. You know, he asked these hostages, you know, he's like, you know, I mean, I mean, but at that point, it was obviously an American flagship, you know, um, and he, uh, he asked him if the radio equipment was, was operable, you know, so that they could see it's like, look, we're releasing you, you know, like, can you call off this assault? Um, and, uh, it was, it turned out the radio equipment was not operable, but the, uh, as it, uh, as it turned out later, like one of the, one of the guys later just closed, he's like, he's like, I didn't know if we'd be able to reach like any of the aircrafts in the air, but he's like, by that point, like, I want it. He's like, I, I, he's like, I wanted the Cameroos to get their ass tics. So he's like, I, you know, he's like, I wouldn't have transmitted it anyway, which, frankly, it was the right call, um, I think, but that's, um, but by that point, uh, the die was cast. The, the, um, it was that, uh, the, uh, it was that around just past dawn on, uh, May 16th. Co-tang itself was assaulted, but as it, uh, as it turned out, Intel suggested that there was only about 20 or 30 computer-rooge fighters on the island. Uh, they turned out that there's over 100. And again, they, uh, they, uh, they, uh, they had a lot of heavy machine guns, um, among them. And like, uh, and cruiser like squad weapons, because, you know, like we talked about a moment ago, they fortified the island and it's a patient of a Vietnamese assault, which never came, but, um, you know, these, uh, the computer-rooge, uh, whatever you can say about them, these guys were, were incredibly game fighters. Um, since pitched battle ensued between the Marines and the computer-rooge, um, the, uh, the, um, the, uh, the crew of the Mayagas was safely conveyed, uh, back from this fishing boat, like back to the Mayagas itself. And, uh, and, and they were, they were, they were safely, um, conveyed away from the battle space, but, uh, when I began clear that the crew had been released and was safe, um, it, uh, the Marines were, uh, ordered to withdraw, um, and they began, uh, affecting a, uh, tactical withdrawal, like a fighting retreat, as it were, um, but, uh, the Marine Commander on the ground, there's two beach heads, um, at the Eastern, the Commander of the Eastern most, uh, operational area, he conveyed, like, look, if, unless we're like, rap, unless we're rapidly reinforced, like we're gonna be overrun, um, so, uh, the reinforcements that have been called off were then directed back to Kotang, to, uh, reinforce the Marines on the ground. Um, you know, this, uh, and this kind of chaotic withdrawal that ensued, there was a machine gun team of, uh, uh, three Marines that, uh, and this kind of craggy, they did, in this kind of craggy area, like on the beach itself, like just outside of the ever kind of shrinking perimeter, um, you know, they, uh, they'd set up a, uh, an ad hoc machine gun nest, um, and they'd been left behind in the wake of the withdrawal, um, and, uh, one of the, um, one of these guys, platoon mates, had said, uh, boarded shopper, like, you know, this, this, there's at least three men on the ground there. Um, for some reason, this wasn't, um, this wasn't abided. Um, and I realized like in the middle of a hot-o-z, like in the midst of a firefight, I mean, I'm sure things are confused, but this, uh, as it happened, um, these guys were left behind, managed to radio, a passing US naval vessel, and um, apparently, uh, some intelligence officers said, well, that's probably like a Camille Rouge trick, and they're, you know, like, like, I mean, it seems ridiculous. It seems like something like a cordial movie, like some Camille Rouge thing, like, yo, G-I-J, you'll send them all, you'll send them all my Reen or what? I mean, like, I would, I mean, that's, I'm not making light of a horrible situation, but that, um, it seems to me by that point, probably, um, everybody's looking to cover their own ass, as they became clear that, you know, they're like their head, probably even men left behind. These three guys are left behind, this became this like enduring kind of myth almost, and I remember before I knew anything about the Mayagas, before I'd like, I mean, I was always fancy by Vietnam, and I mean, I ever since I could read, I was reading about, you know, um, about the cold, worn things, but I knew this guy in the early 90s, uh, he was kind of a sad guy, um, you know, he's kind of like the troubled Vietnam vet of myth and lore, you know, like, he had a drum problem and stuff, but he, you know, they're getting pretty tight, so we worked together, like, we delivered pizzas together. You know, and he, um, he'd, I taught him about Vietnam, and he was really into the POWMIA movement, you know, and I kind of just looked at him as like a sad guy who was troubled by the war and other things, but he kept coming back to co-tang and saying, you know, they left guys behind, you know, and Cambodia, you know, that means they left other guys behind, and like, uh, like I'm not saying he was right about all these things, he claimed, but he wasn't just like talking shit, you know, like, and he, that's all this, as it turns out, the, uh, these guys were abandoned on co-tang, that, that fed a lot of the speculation that the, that the kind of POWMIA movement, um, you know, derived, uh, their claims from, but it came out years later, these three guys, I mean, there was kids, I think like, I think they were, like, I think they were like 18, 19 and 21 respectively. They were on the island for a week, um, and, uh, the Camirruz realized that like some of their rice stores had gone missing and that, you know, boot prints, uh, that obviously weren't the, you know, Camirruz sandals were found and Camirruz tracked these guys and they found them. They were, uh, settled in the mainland. Uh, you know, I mean, God knows what they were subjected to by Camirruz torturers, but after several days, uh, they were, looking at this to the jailers, uh, they were beaten to death with the butt end of a B40 rocket launcher. Um, I mean, I can't even imagine that man like being, uh, being, uh, being abandoned, uh, by, uh, by your own forces and then falling into the hands of the Camirruz, like literally on this like God for staying in the island. I mean, that's, that's beyond that. A lot of stuff frightens me like at my age and Frank Levy has some kind of awful experiences, but that, that, that, I mean, I find that just like horrifying, even, even to think about, you know, and their kids, they should, their kids, they should be home in the driveway working on a car they just bought. Yeah, yeah, man. And it's like of all people, uh, being captured by the Camirruz and I'm a horrifying thing, I can think of because like it's not just like the Camirruz really were animals, like it's not, they were, like, it's not, yeah, that's something. Yeah, it's not, it's not something just like bullshit propaganda or something like it. Um, I mean, there's a lot of cases where, you know, if you're, if you surrender, if you're captured at war, I mean, you, you're dealing with that poem, you're dealing with an opt for that are just guys like you, like in the case of the Camirruz, like these, these guys were fucking barbarians, but the, uh, yeah, they, they, they seem like the, um, the descendants of the, the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. Yeah, they, yeah. And there's just, there's like horrible stuff, like the, they're actually were like documents, it says like cannibalism, just like terrorized people and stuff and like they, you know, they, it's, it's one of the few ways that says again, we're kind of the truth is, the truth is worse than a lot of the propaganda that came out, but it's, um, but it's also too, like, I think, um, I think a lot of this was suppressed, uh, for the reasons I said, it was like this, it was this bizarre, like messy, political and diplomatic situation, um, relating to the, you know, uh, the intrigues, um, incident to the son of Soviet split, uh, you know, a lot of the, uh, the ongoing hangover, as it were from the Vietnam conflict and, you know, like I said, just even the way it's treated is bizarre. I think it's having the fact, like this was just, uh, this was just, uh, you know, it's just kind of like, as an afterthought, like slapped on, to the Vietnam War Memorial was owned and this was, you know, that this happened sort of in theater and sort of, you know, within the same decade. So, you know, why not just, uh, you know, why not just treat it as part of the same, uh, part of the same kind of like nucleus of, uh, of, uh, conflict events, but it, yeah, I, that's the, uh, that's the, um, that's, that's the story of co-tang, man, and that's the, uh, and that's the time that's the, uh, I believe, and I've written about this in my fiction. Like, I believe that, uh, I believe the US and, I believe the US forces engage the Kamiar Rouge, like fairly regularly. I don't see how they could not have. Like, they were, you know, they were running around Cambodia, um, for years, um, prior to 1970 and then in the aftermath, um, you know, even, uh, even when, um, even when the US and China, like, came to terms and, uh, the US began cultivating the Kamiar Rouge against, uh, you know, um, the Provi and the Miz element. I, there's no way that there's no way that America can soldier did not engage the Kamiar Rouge and in hostile action and theater, but this is the only time it happened above board. I mean, this was like a real fireflight, you know, and it, um, that's, um, you know, like I said, it, uh, I, I, um, I tried to raise the people because I think as an historical writer, I think it's important, you know, out of the memory of people like these guys who were there, but, um, it's also, it shows you how, it shows you a strange, the cold war got, um, really after 69, 70, 71, um, when it became really like a three weeks. kind of contest with the United States, kind of like not only allied with China in strategic terms, pursuing the kind of interdependence, the results of which we kind of seek today in the global structure. It was far from some kind of like clean alliance. And the way what the Chinese view has kind of sound policy in terms of how to intrigue against others is incredibly weird. And I'm telling you, creating this incident for the sake of trying to exploit the ensuing chaos for someone that politically deployed a KSHA that might seem crazy to like the Western mind, that's exactly the way the Chinese think. If you read about the pointless border war that Mao provoked with Moscow, Mao basically risked a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, said he could go around humiliating Brezhnev for a few weeks and acting like he'd scored some kind of victory so that domestically like he could shore up his kind of fledging personality told credibility. And like even a totally on his Western tyrant, like wouldn't think that way. Or wouldn't do that. But that's the kind of stuff characteristic of the regime. And from, I mean, in a lifetime of people like me and yourself, I mean, yeah, the kind of chaos of Mao and the aftermath is something we didn't experience firsthand. But even, even dang, it's kind of credit is like this great reformer and this kind of moderating influence. And the stuff that he would orchestrate in order to do an advantage himself or an advantage, you know, pay king in his eyes vis-a-vis the West, it doesn't make any sense. So that's going to last tragic chapter in the history of what wasn't in China. There was the Chinese, there was the Sino-Vietnamese border war in '79. And there was, again, too, there was the occupation of Cambodia from '79 until the walking down. China, Chinese and Vietnamese forces fired on each other like four years ago. Yeah, yeah, no, that's why one of the really interesting things, Obama was one of the last things he didn't know of was he lifted any remaining restrictions on military tech transfers to Vietnam. Like the people in the Pentagon weren't conceptually illiterate and there's very few of them who aren't, they're literally fucking morons. But they realized that Vietnam's like an essential hedge against the people's republic and it is. And Vietnam's got a real comic capability. I mean, they're hard people. They've got a real military and Vietnam's comparatively huge country. It's got like 60 million people. You know, like people think it's like Americans, they think all these countries like the size of Albania or something like a Vietnam's as a geotrige of hedge. Yeah, Vietnam's incredibly important. And I don't know why that would make sense. And now that will alleviate some of the pressure of America having to play between Tokyo and Seoul, which is increasingly causing a cast onation in relation to both countries as well as their relationship to China. Like what would be intelligent would be to cultivate countries like Vietnam and some kind of American version of what the Russians are trying to cause with the Shanghai cooperation organization. Like not only is NATO like destabilizing and pointless, but it's also not how you structure military alliances in the 20th century. It's extructurally obsolescent as well as politically unequanistic. That's going to be something to show. But I hope I didn't I wouldn't like bore people with just kind of like relaying the battle of co-ten. Like I said, I. I am. I'm not sending anything. Yeah, yeah. And I would next time what I want to do. I want to get to the president Carter's modernization of the command and control aspect of America's strategic nuclear forces and how the advent of AI as well as the onset of strategic parity, we're in the window of decision making, was reduced in some cases to five to eight minutes or something. And it just been accepted for a time that the president would die immediately in a nuclear war. So strategic air command would be acting as the article to executive. And I mean, that's apparently a constitutional number one. Number two, that's just like ethically, that's not right. You know, like the United States Air Force and strategic air command is then existed. They don't get to decide, you know, like who lives and who dies. They don't get to decide, you know, when and how we wage war, but also it raises a fascinating issue. And what it's telling people to like guys like Harlan Ellison, you know, when they were, you know, Harlan Ellison actually came up with the idea for SkyNet and like James Cameron like ripped them off, like Cameron rips off everything, but this wasn't just like some kind of horror movie trope. They're the removal of human decision makers from strategic nuclear war fighting. That was a real thing. And by the 1980s, it was becoming a and when there's when when launching even on warning, when the when the window of decision making, temporarily speaking, it becomes so narrow that even launching on warning is too late. Like what do you do? It's like, well, you know, you defend yourself by fighting ways to code variables that indicate, you know, that indicate imminent assault. Like before though, you know, before there's even like conventional like launch indicators and mobilization indicators, but then it's like, okay, but then like when do you attack? When there's like a 10% probability of assault when there's like a 50 anything over 50% you know, when there's 90% when there's anything over 1% you know, and it's some not, you know, that that's a kind of like machine thinking that becomes inevitable, you know, when technology becomes totally this positive of outcomes, but also the amount of data that has to be managed and strategic landscape like that, like humans can't do it. You know, so we were looking at a situation where the Cold War endured like machines would have been the decision maker, you know, and you'd have to hope that, you know, the coded indicators, you know, were correct or at least I couldn't be spoofed, you know, by by man or by fate. But that yeah, that's I'll save it for that when we get into that, but that's that's that's kind of the that's kind of the key feature of the card of presidency, I think. I mean, I am a lot friendly to Carter, and you know, the way I view his epoch and most people. So well, we'll get into some of these strategic nuclear command and control issues, some of these war tech issues and and we'll do you want like Carter the man himself the next episode. And like again, I really, really appreciate people supporting the series. I wanted to give PoTang it's due and the you know, the men were there. And so we can do because like I said, it's something nobody really talks about. And that's part of the reason for these series is so we can deep dive into stuff that people don't really talk about in more mainstream sources. So that's all I got. And thank you. Yeah, of course, I'm too quick plugs. Yeah, you can find me on Twitter that probably that'll probably change in the next few weeks, but I'm on there again, you can find me at real underscore Thomas 777. I'm a recording for my YouTube channel on Friday with my dear friend Carrie and I'm going to upload that next week's and time. So I'll make sure to hype it. So everybody knows my YouTube channel. There's nothing near yet, but there will be is Thomas TV. You can find me on sub stack. We're just kind of like permanent home. It's a real Thomas 777 that sub sec calm. I'm going to relaunch a telegram channel because everybody who supports us, they really like telegram. I mean, telegram really treated me badly. So I wasn't real keen to doing business with them again, but I will launch a channel for the sake of the subscribers and our friends. But I'm going to do that sometime this weekend and I'll plug that when we're back on there. But right now I just have like a private channel, but I'm going to relaunch a public one. That's all I got. Awesome. So the next time. Thanks for watching.