WAR UPDATE: Military Insider Gives Terrifying Prediction & Reveals How Unprepared America Truly Is

[MUSIC] Mr. Me, thank you very much for doing this. So in the United States, I think most people, to the extent they're paying attention, are watching what's happening in Iran and have a sense that what's happening between Russia and NATO, Ukraine, the United States, the festering war in Eastern Europe is kind of a stalemate and nothing really is happening there. I don't know if that's true. Assess what you think is happening between Russia and Ukraine and its proxies right now. Yeah, I think you're right. I don't think it is true, Tucker. I think that the general sense in the West is that you'll hear from some people that Russia is losing on the battlefield and that the Russian economy is about fall apart. I mean, I've heard it time and time again, and there's no evidence to support either of those things. The battlefield issue is poorly understood, and I think the reason is that people don't understand Russia's motivations, and they don't understand what the strategy is. In an article I wrote recently on the coming war with Russia, I said that Plasvich, who was the great political philosopher of war, said that the most important decision that a military man and a politician can make is to understand the nature of the war. And I don't think that the West is understood the nature of the war with Russia, nor for that matter with Iran, but what they haven't understood with Russia is that this as far as Russia is concerned is an existential war. They are fighting to make sure that Russia is preserved, and when you get people like Kayakalis saying that Russia must be broken up, who can blame them? I think have we understood that? I think that would be a start. And unfortunately, we're approaching the war, it seems to me, as a negotiation with arms. If we increase a bit of pressure on Russia, then they'll eventually come back to the negotiating table. What they've missed, though, is that Russia, I think, has a clear strategy, and I can't be sure about it. I'm not in the Russian general staff, but I think it's got about five key phases. We know that the run-up to the special military operation, Tucker, was it was clear that there were so many warnings going back as far as 1996, and yet unfortunately, we've ignored them all. Not understanding the warnings not only came from Russia, but from some of our very best strategic thinkers from Jordan Keenan back as far as 1996 from John Meershima in 2014. But when you add to the start of the war, then it seemed to me as the war kicked off. And I have to say, I did not see the war coming. I was involved in the offshore energy sector, but as I got to understand it, then the first thing that became obvious to me, that this was not a war to, or a special military operation, to invade Ukraine. And the answer, the reason was simpler, there were the words enough troops, you know, Ukraine is about the size of half of Europe, and you're not going to do that with 190,000 troops. I cannot, for a moment, think that the Russian General Staff advised Putin that they had enough troops to invade Ukraine. This was always about the Donbass. And I think the first phase of the stretch, she was really the use of military force to support a diplomatic engagement. And indeed that diplomatic engagement actually went quite well. The Russians had opened the gate sessions with the Ukrainians after day one. And, you know, as we arrived in March, then there was ready to, they were ready to sign, as both sides were, an agreement which would have, have stopped the war, it was no NATO, a neutrality for Ukraine, self-determination for the Donbass, but that was ready to design. And it would have been signed, I'm almost certain, if it hadn't been for Boris Johnson, no doubt, with Biden's support actually going across and persuading Zelensky to fight Russia and that he would have all the support he needed. So that's phase one. I think at phase two, when it becomes clear to Russia that they are in a, going to have to fight. And I like it to have to fight NATO because of what are they hearing. What you then see is what I would call militarily a, a withdrawing contact. So essentially what the Russians were doing, we're recognizing that actually the Kiev attack and the axes and the Donbass were all-different, they would now need to withdraw to a line. And what they did was they withdrew back to what's known as a sorry vacant line, which was a defensive line, constructed by the general who was the expert in Russia in defensive lines. And that from about September onwards, they then moved into three, phase three after the withdrawal, which is what I call a "tritional defense". And what that essentially means was meeting there two objectives, if there are objectives with de-nartsification and de-monetization, both of which were operational objectives. And the strategic objective, though, talking was clear, it was to preserve Russia's security. And what defensive, what defensive attrition means is, is wearing down the men and material of the Ukrainian army. And goodness me, we helped them a lot in that because we persuaded them to to expand not one army, but two armies against that defensive line for not a single penetration. So you get to elite 2023 and at that stage, I think what Russia does is they've started to, as the war got going, they started to mobilize an increase of forces. They need the industrial capacity. And so by late 2023, they're ready to move into phase three. Phase three was what I called offensive attrition, not necessarily secure-internetry, but really going on and starting to continue, what would continue wearing down the men and material of the Ukrainian army. Don't forget, the Ukrainian army had no air superiority. None of the things that you want fighting an offensive or indeed an offensive war. And moving slowly forward. I think as well, they will probably start and clarify what it would be their ultimate objectives. And I remember saying, I think to Danny Davis about a year and a half ago, I thought their minimalist objectives would be to secure the Donbass and the four Eastern oblasts, Crimea. And their maximum objectives might be to go further, might be to go to secure the hold of Novoresia, which is the Odessa and the next four oblasts to the west. I wasn't sure which way they would go, but I've heard Putin say quite recently that actually he's talking about Novoresia. And the logic behind that is about security. It's about establishing what they believe to be a secure buffer, protection the Russian people within it. And the question really is how long it takes them to get there if indeed they keep going in that way. So I think when you start to understand that and all of the stuff that we've heard, well, the Russians are going slowly, it misses the objective. It misses what they're trying to achieve. And when you understand what they're doing, what I think is the clear strategy. Then I think what that does is to actually help you work out what they're doing, why they're doing, why they're doing it and how the west should be thinking. Because at that moment we sort of see, on the one hand, Russian army is not doing very well, it's not securing much, much territory. That's not true. It's actually increasing. It's been securing territory for at least the last 30 or so months. But they're not secure to them. They weren't securing territory initially to such simply to secure the territory. They were doing it to actually to wear down and attract the Ukraine army with a high degree of success, as we know from the casualties. So I think when you get that tough, I think it's much easier to understand what they're doing and where they're heading. 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I have said for quite a long time now that the Russian operations are being guided by a military strategy and the Western operations are being guided by a political narrative and with objectives that change quite a lot. I think the initial objective, and it depends which particular party on the NATO side you're talking to, but the initial objectives were possibly to break up Russia. There's a very interesting round study written in 2018, I think it is, which is called extending Russia. The Russian intelligence she put in our fetch in a on YouTube video, which is on YouTube, talked about the need to actually have a war with Russia to actually help them get into NATO. I think there's also what I would call lagging thinking because a lot of the people who were proposing the expansion later without thinking through the consequences did not anticipate this. I'm certain they didn't anticipate it because they weren't ready. Another great failure of NATO, I'm afraid, to say they were not ready for the war. I mean, if they had thought it through and said that if we keep doing this, then Russia will respond, then actually they would either have made defensive preparations or they wouldn't have done it. I think we can say with a high degree of certainty that they did not think it through. I think there's some lagging there. I think there's also, I'm afraid to say, there's probably more European than the United States, although you will know better than the United States. There's a high degree of Russia-phobia, which I find it very, very difficult to understand. I think it's in part our press. It's in part the narrative that we built. It's in part the nature of spin in modern Western politics where an event kicks off and have people spin to help those parties that are in power, stay in power. What that means is that the population generally starts speaking, start to get deceived. I don't think they're live to, but they're deceived because they're presented with one side of the story. That really matters in war because in war you need to be able to look at all sides of the story, which is why I pen the article "The Coming War, The Russia" because nobody seemed to think what that war might like. It's very difficult to understand fully though the motivations, but I think within those factors, Tucker, you probably got the answer. I understand whether European populations are russaphobic because the propaganda has played upon their best qualities. Russia is seen as the aggressor. Ukraine is the underdog. I think Europeans in general root for the underdog. That's a sign of their decency. It's also allowed. You're allowed to hate Russians because they're white. You don't have to feel guilty about painting them as animals. You're not racist when you do that. I understand all of that. They just don't know any better because Europe is a biosphere in its media. There's no outside information that comes in. Of course, same in the United States. What I don't understand is the motive of the liars. Why do European leaders seek a war with Russia? Why do American leaders seek a war with Russia? These are not stupid people. They are hell-bent on destroying their own countries in the service of this war against a country that doesn't need to be our enemy. It doesn't make any sense. If I had to answer the question in one phrase, it's the lack of the ability to think strategically. There is a wonderful American general who I studied when I was writing on strategy called Andre Bufra. He said that in war, the loser deserves to lose because his defeat will be a consequence of inadequate strategic thinking either before or during the conflict. I think the institutional lag in entity such as NATO, which had done badly in Afghanistan, I was in Afghanistan and let's face it, NATO lost. The idea that NATO could prevail over Russia having lost against the Taliban, it's just extraordinary thinking, but it's in NATO. I think as well that the advice within the establishment, I used to call them the elites but I've now realized that they're not elites because the elites are about high performance. We're not seeing that within the establishment. I think the establishments have what I can best to score, to describe as a sort of institutional lag and sort of blink of thinking. We see that in many ways. When you look across the broad nature of the strategic context in which we're operating, if you can be bothered to listen to what the Russians have been saying, then the logic that they present is, I find it sort of unequivocal. I may have listened, of course, to your interview with Vladimir Putin and of course, a lever off. And there was almost nothing that I could think of that I disagree with. The problem though, the West is not interested in listening, it seems to me. So I think this is more about incompetence and it must be incompetence on the Europeans. There might be within the near cons and certain elements of the sort of near-con-like establishments in the West and the East, the Britain, Germany, and France that is determined to break up Russia. But it's obviously impossible, it seems to me, that the one you hear, Kaya Kallis, think that. Well, can I ask you, I was at a dinner with her not long ago in a foreign country with a lot of foreign diplomats who were not mediocre at all and she got up to speak and the feeling of contempt for her bewilderment that someone this stupid could have a leadership position in Europe, people were shocked by just how unimpressive, how uninformed she was, how child is she? How girlish she was, everything was a kind of grotesque and dumb moral generalization, Hitler versus Churchill kind of level stuff. How does someone like that, how does a structure like the EU, a continent with the smartest people in the world, in my opinion, promote someone like Kallis to a position of leadership? How does that happen? It's a very good question. Could you could ask the exact same question about Vonderland? Yes. Vonderland, when I was serving was notorious for being the worst minister of defence that Germany had ever had and suddenly we find that she is in charge or the, you know, has a leadership role in the EU. You could also say about Ruta as well when I thought the last negative secretary general was bad, but my goodness me, he's got very good competition now. I think it also goes across the Western leadership as well generally in my experience. I'm sort of started in my naval career back in '76. This is the worst set of leaders that I think we've got collectively for as long as I've been alive, I think. So I can't answer your question, I'll just say that it's a very difficult position to be, but also it's an incredible weakness that we have in the West and explains so much of what's going wrong in the West is the lack of high quality leadership. I'm used to teach leadership and I look at some of the ways that these leaders are operating and it's extraordinarily well that the issue is competent and I'm sure some of these decent people they're doing what they think, but they're obviously not competent. And I say that strategically that for a strategic operation the measure of success is was the operation effective, was it enduring, whether results enduring and was it was it efficient. Now on all of the interventions of this century starting Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and now Iran, we failed at every one of those I would say. Some people argue about Syria, although if you think creating a caliphate within Syria is a good idea, that's open question. It looks to me like Iran is being lost, it looks to me like Russia is being lost. So we've got a consistency in terms of capacity to think and act strategically. I think this isn't just though about the politicians, I think it's also about senior military officers, about senior diplomats, about senior intelligence officers. So this isn't, I wouldn't want to blame the politicians entirely, I've operated right [BLANK_AUDIO] top of British government as the executive assistant to our chief at defense star. So I watch people operating being part of that But Strashe strategic thinking is is the key shortfall and it's caused that's a lot of harm and I think it explains as well why We're going backwards whereas many other countries in the world are going forward Sadly, that is absolutely consistent with what I've seen lots of reasons to be strongly in favor of Mars men Low test testosterone is bad Obviously it affects your performance more than anything else in almost every part of your life and That's why Mars men exists to fix that the body makes test osterone but a lot of it gets short of way and remains impossible To use and that explains why a lot of men and a certain age feel low energy all the time in decisive sad Mars men could be the answer to unlocking that test testosterone so you can actually use it So to be clear no needles here nothing synthetic Real ingredients that optimize energy focused and strength made in the United States Third party tested built with just eight natural ingredients Mars men supports healthy testosterone levels energy stamina Basically a sense of drive throughout the day doesn't work for you 90 days to get your money back for limited time our listeners get 50% off for life plus free shipping and three free gifts all available now At men go to Mars dot com men go to Mars dot com for 50% off and three free gifts After you buy it show your support for the show tell them that we sent you to Mars men Well, you probably have heard about the van man companies amazing toothpaste by the thousands Americans are ditching traditional toothpaste in favor of van man the switches like pivoting your diet from candy Packed with red dye number 42 organic strawberries It is always better to stick with real ingredients today's big news is that van man makes more than healthy toothpaste This launched a body wash made from the finest oils available in vanilla grapefruit and no scent at all Famine's body wash can optimize your shower experience without all the sketchy chemicals that well who knows what they're doing to you Other body washes cannot say the same their ingredient labels would shock you if you could pronounce them you can't Some of this stuff is very bad for you one of them's a carcinogen. It's appeared in tons of body washes But it's not in van man Make the switch visit van man dot com slash Tucker use the code Tucker for 15% off your first order van man Dot com slash Tucker code Tucker 15% off no weird ingredients no exceptions great toothpaste awesome body wash um so at At the point we're at right now It it seems more dangerous In the west war against russia than it has been ever Um, can you describe where you think we are and where this is going Yeah, let me let me do it through the the the Tool Tucker of the article I wrote on the coming war with russia and the reason I wrote it was now hearing a lot of people here saying We're we're getting ready for war with russia will be ready to fight in 2030 I don't think that's true We can't afford to can't afford to be but anyway that's the um that's the narrative that's being sold to the european publics And the problem is that of course the russians will be listening to this of course. They'll be listening to it So um, I thought it would be good idea is they well okay Well if we're going to be ready to fight a war with russia what's it going to be like and the first um Thing about the article also said that um Let's not assume that russia is going to wait um doing nothing until 2030 until we're ready So let's assume that because of the way that we're starting to Promote attacks deep into russia by the e3 that um Germany Britain and France Providing weapons and weapons with significant warheads as well 250 kilograms and significant range deep into russia Let's not assume that the russians are just going to sit back and let this happen so my um Starting point was to say okay. Well, let's assume that russia Attacks uh europe or attacks of an elements of europe and what the russians have said is they have not taken these attacks off the Of the of the um the agenda which is a warning and it's a warning which we've seen to be ignoring So that's assuming that the first attacks happened in september of this year and my um Sonorio and and I should emphasize it's a scenario not a forecast so it's trying to make people think about what could happen So let's assume these attacks happen in september of this year and the russians destroyed With hypersonic missiles the factories that are Making drones and missiles in Britain in France and in Germany and The question that is what does europe europe do and of course the first thing europe does is it says okay We're now going to invoke article five As all of a sudden people realize what article five really means I mean you've got NATO which you know when I was serving in NATO Understanding NATO force mediterranean We used to say that NATO's to know ability to organize it's slightly unfair But actually NATO isn't this great omnipotent Coalition people say it's the strongest coalition since the Since since in history. I mean that obviously isn't true The strongest coalition history as far as I can see was the allied coalition the second wall with united states Britain the Commonwealth Russia and China that's the strongest coalition by far So NATO invokes article five um and the three countries that have been attacked in vocaltical five and they realize The suddenly that actually what article five means is that an attack on one is an attack and all but it doesn't Doesn't mean that actually those The whole of the NATO forces have to respond and people decide to respond as they think best and in the article I propose that Hungary says no we're not getting engaged Spain says no we're not getting engaged We don't think this is in our interests. I think other countries might equivocate You know it's difficult to say but you know country like Hungary for example, obviously won't so at that stage We suddenly see that this isn't all it means but the big issue Tucker is what does the United States do now because we know that Rubio has been Looking as if the United States is shifting back into support These operations But at that moment. I think there's no con question about what United States do if it does if it says sees attacks into Russia Especially if those have been warned The attacks are warned. We may know no response to them And my guess is that the member uncle will not want to commit troops into mainland Europe to fight and align a war against Russia on european soil and for the US troops to fight and die in the european soils. I wouldn't if I were in the United States So you're then in the situation. Well now to what the europeans do And again just to develop the scenario I assume that europeans do the anything they can do Because they're their land forces are not ready Is that they use air forces to respond to Russia and that that doesn't go very well That actually they find that there are against Russia which got a lot of experience in air defense And one of my jobs and the navy was to be the capture metters for air defense destroyer And um, I was what was known as the anti-air warfare commander and I can tell you that we are in poor shape In europe in terms of being able to defend our skies We would struggle to respond to saturation drone attacks. We've got extremely limited Responses to to ballistic conventional ballistic missiles. I'm a great fat of Ted postal who is an MIT professor on this He thinks that the They picked up pack three systems are possibly looking about 3% of ittiveness And when it comes to hypersonic missiles we've got no response whatsoever So suddenly we're making a tax that aren't very successful But in return I say that because the e3 have decided to respond to Russia's attacks that they then take the gloves off And use Hypersonic missiles probably with conventional missiles to to do more damage and the thing that I would go after especially as a energy expert Will be to do the same thing that they've done in in cabin in ukraine Which just a surgically um start to undermine our energy infrastructure And I can tell you that a resonant missile Landing in a liquid natural gas terminal or an oil terminal in milford haven or Rotterdam would do extensive damage That would be bad enough But unfortunately of course because of the sanctions we placed on russian the first place about 40 years for four years ago We've switched ourselves off from russian oil switched ourselves off from russian gas and that's 40% of our Gas and we've also of the of the particular Products we've switched ourselves off to russian diesel who used to provide us with 40% of europe's diesel now as an energy expert if you can explain to me how you can run a modern industrial society Without diesel then I'm all ears, but I don't know how to do it If it's respond that diesel is critical for farming for fishing for food logistics for construction For running the other two primary energy sources. That's renewable energy and nuclear energy I could go on on it is really is the critical field and we've switched ourselves off to it And of course having switched ourselves off from increased our prices indeed in europe which of course is having an effect on our economies Especially germans economy We're now in the situation where the straight-of-form mode is closed. So we've got a second one on top of the first one. So it took about being in a very, very fragile position, an extremely weak position, not least to all, because we import about 12 million barrels a day into the European region. Norway is reasonably self-sufficient, but norway is completely self-sufficient. We get about 45% of our hydrocarbons from the North Sea, although that's reducing, but Europe generally is extremely vulnerable. So what's got a situation, which is that our energy infrastructure is being written down as a time when we have no chance of defending our skies against it? And again, this is why I was trying to actually make the point to people who were prepared to think about what this war might look like. Because the economic consequences of this would be profound. Mathematically, there's a really close relationship between the use of energy and GDP. It's extremely close. It's close to one. It's about 0.99 or something. Yes. So what that means is when you take energy out of the system, then you are going to have a consequence effect, which is similar in rough water magnitude, on your economy. So if we take 10% of the world's energy away, then surprise, surprise, don't be surprised if we get a global reduction in GDP of 10%. That's getting close to a depression, indeed. It's on the borderline of depression. But going back to Europe, it wouldn't surprise me at all if we were in a situation where worse suction attacks happen than we would be in deep economic trouble. And I think that would lead to deep political trouble as well. Again, it is a scenario. And the point of the scenario was to help people really think about what such a war might mean and really make sure that we've done the risk assessment. Now, I developed it as a scenario because what I wanted people to think about was doing the risk assessment at the moment. The European's risk assessment of what they're doing as far as I can see is based on a guess. The guess is we're going to keep flowering long-range weapons into Russia and we're going to guess that the Russians aren't going to respond. And I think that's a very dangerous guess. I mean, people say the Russians don't have red lines and I keep saying to the world just a second, the Russian told us that if we tried to expand NATO into Georgia or to Ukraine and it would result in a war, and indeed all our clever thinkers told us the same thing. And surprise, surprise, when we did do that, a war happened. So Russia do have red lines. So I think it's wrong to have that guess. And the way that risk management works, I'm not a great fan of risk management, it's used by the financial sector to do risk analysis and as far as I can see, it doesn't work for them. But what they do do, they say, if you're thinking about a risk, have a think about the impact and the probability. Now, even if the probability is low of Russia doing what I've said, the impact is profound. So to me, that's a risk which you really need to work very, very hard to think through and to make sure that the population who you're exposing to that risk have been taken on board rather than just crack on without really thinking about it. So I think there needs to be in Europe a political debate about this and whether we're prepared to let our politicians lead us into a situation where we're exposed to this risk. We've been here before in Europe, 2014, a 1914, I should say, the run, the Fame Barbara Tuckner's Famous Club, the Guns of Orguts, where we almost fell into the First World War. People thought it would be over in four months and four years later Europe was devastated. So let's at least try to do the thinking this time around and decide that if we are going to do these things and to poke the bear for ready for a war which we would lose anyway, let's at least have a public debate about that and see how the country feels about it and other countries feel about it. Because I'm strongly of the view that actually if the country were exposed to what I'm talking about, the difference in terms of our political support for it would be profound. I think the political support for it would fall away. It doesn't matter what the moral issue is, I happen to think that moral, that the moral high ground lies with Russia. What happens is the issue of power and Russia has the balance of power here and overwhelming me. So my suspicion is if we were able to have that debate and I think we should have that debate, then I don't think Europeans would continue to feel quite so rushed to feel because they do. How ownership has always been at the center of the American Dream, it is an actual asset and place people work their entire lives to build, place of stability and security and real value. Right now though, too many homeowners are stuck swiping credit cards to cover groceries, there's basically a survival tax of 20% interest or more. So why keep handing your money to the banks when you could keep it for your family? Interest is what kills you. Our friends in American financing have a better way. They're helping homeowners use their hard earned equity and their supporting Americans looking to fulfill the dream of owning a home with mortgage rates currently in the fives. American financing saves its customers an average of $800 a month, that's about 10 grand a year. It's not just a loan, it's a true financial reset. We recommend American financing, they're called America's home for home loans for a reason. So get out of credit card debt. I mean, it is just crazy to borrow money. No judgment, but it's just make any sense to borrow money at that rate. If you want out, call 800 685 56 96 800 685 56 96 or visit American financing.net/tucker. I think one disadvantage that the Europeans have is they don't understand how hated they are by the people planning these wars. I think it's true of all the wars the last hundred years. I think at least in my country, the foreign policy strategists, the neocons who are driving all of this truly hate Europe and would like to see and destroy the Israelis hate Europe. And Europeans can't seem to admit that to themselves. It's very obvious by the effects. So let's say that the Russians did lob a hypersonic missile into Rotterdam or into the UK. Everyone knows it's very obvious that Europe can't mount a conventional war against Russia. They would lose instantly. The one thing they do have, however, is nuclear weapons. So how much incentive would there be to use a nuclear weapon in response? It's a $64,000 question and I should cover that in the article. I think what we're talking about is that if either Britain or France, the two nations with nuclear weapons chose to respond with nuclear weapons, that essentially is committing national suicide. I would expect the Russians to respond. Let's forget they've got nearly 5,500 nuclear weapons just short of that. And I think Britain's got more, I think there might be 200 as those sorts of figures. I think that a prime minister or president of France who is prepared to use nuclear weapons to support a conventional war, which we were likely to lose in the first place, I think there would be a very. There's a suicidal call to make, so I cannot see it happening. Really? Because they cheered the destruction of their own energy pipeline. They abetted the invasion of their country by North and Sub-Saharan Africa. They're suicidal. That's what it seems as an observer. I think it's suicidal by incompetence, but I would like to think that within the. Establishment of enough people who would, by this stage, especially when we were starting to go to war, I really start to think this through. I would also like to think that. I'd be interested in your view on this, that there were Americans who were saying, "This isn't very good. This isn't what we were thinking that we could help with a breakup of Russia. It's not happening. This war is starting to kick off. We need to get this to a close." And I don't know if that would happen, but I would like to think that actually there would be some voices in America. The sorts of people who would spring to mind from me would be people like JD Vance and Tolsie Gavos no longer there, but the voices of reason within the White House, curious to see what Donald Trump's view as well. But I'm sure that America would not want to be doing anything which opened them to the possibility of a nuclear exchange with Russia. My sense is that Trump's views are irrelevant. I don't think he was for this war with Iran. He did it anyway. He's utterly controlled. So there's that. JD Vance is the only person I'm aware of in American national politics with any power at all. To extent he has power who would oppose this, but I don't see anyone other than JD Vance. I hope I'm wrong. Yeah, now, yeah. I hope you are too. I mean, there's no doubt that the voices of the independent media are starting to be heard. We've got a long, long way to go, but we're starting to be heard. But again, this is why I think this debate needs to happen now rather later. I mean, Europeans haven't thought about this a lot. I mean, when the attacks were conducted on the Russian strategic bombing force, I thought that was an act of incredible. strategic recklessness because those bombers wore out on the airfields on the pan so that they could be seen by satellites as part of the start treaty. So it was part of the treaty. And Russian nuclear doctrine as such that if there were if they're nuclear triad, an element of the nuclear trial is attacked, their response is to respond with nuclear weapons. They chose not to do it, thank goodness. But we're playing with fire here. And I think that the issue I think is not the nuclear response. And I think it's a very open question. There's no open question, not only for us, but for the Russians as well. I could imagine the Russians saying, yeah, actually we've got people who are so incompetent in Western capitals that we perhaps don't want to respond this way. Or they might do it in a more measured way. I mean, here's a very good question. What if the responses were not against Germany, France and Britain, but against Germany? And what if the responses were such that they took out Germany's drone factories and Poland's drone factories? Would then Britain and Russia and France be prepared to sacrifice their nations and tens of millions of deaths to support Germany in that situation? Very, very good question. And I don't know what the answer is. But I mean, to me, the answer is let's at least think carefully about what we're trying to do with these long-range weapons and fight attacks into Russia. And let's also think about diplomacy. I mean, the fact that we can have have you know, have have meeting this where the West is talking about solutions to the to the Russia-Crane war and try and fitly exclude one of the belligerents and it's diplomatic incompetence of the highest order I can see. Yeah, we in the very difficult British and Irish relationships during the the troubles and idle maintained diplomatic, very subtle diplomatic engagement throughout that, almost the whole of that war. And thank goodness we did. What we need I think is to at least think about this alternative pathway to peace. I'm sure it's there. I've often thought that one of the biggest problems is NATO. NATO at the moment is a bit of a self-looking lollipop. But what I want to say NATO exists to confront a threat which is created by its own existence. It doesn't have the power to confront the threat that its existence has created. So I think NATO to my mind is a key part of the problem here. And what a beautiful formulation that is. NATO exists to confront the opposition it's created but doesn't have the power to successfully resist that up. I mean, that's that's the truth thing I've heard today. Yeah, it was in a real, it was in a one of the Quincey institutes responsible state crawtart about 18 months ago. I mean, it's so obvious, you know, and yet people think that NATO's omnipotent. So I think that understanding that actually the NATO guarantee is, there's a little as paper, but it is much less comprehensive than people think because it relies on the military forces which are to my mind nowhere near as battle hard and as Russians are. The second best army in the world, I would say at the moment in terms of battle hard and as a Ukrainian army. The first is the Russian army. The Chinese will be watching extremely closely. So the idea that NATO can, with a disparate group of countries with different levels of forces, with different levels of equipment capabilities can actually be brought together into coalition to defeat the most battle-partened army in the world. You know, it doesn't stack up, does it? You need to be a military man to understand that. It doesn't stack up. Unfortunately, a lot of the military people don't understand this. They're not really interested as far as I can see in understanding Russia. I just find it profound. I've been listening to a couple. I was listening recently to one of our former chief of defence staff and I said in a meeting in which we're out. I said, "What do you think about talking to Russia?" And his response was, "Yes, I think we probably should do that." But he said, "But not Putin." I thought, "Well, that's just astonishing, but anybody could say that." And it shows you the degree of Russophobia. I mean, I'm in my service career. I spent a lot of the time in my service career preparing to fight the Russians, but when the Cold War came and a partnership for peace was kicked off and we started to engage with the Russians. Nobody, we were, most of us in my experience, were delighted that we could be in that position. So quite how we've got back to this situation of seeing Russia as the enemy is a good question. A lot of it is to do with not listening to Russia and not hearing Russia because when he listened to them and hear them, it's fairly obvious what they want, but people just don't seem to be able to do it. It's a bit like, I mean, I'm not a soccer player, but it's a bit like getting your team ready for a match and not bothering to study the opposition. Yes. I mean, how many football coaches would do that? How many remarkable football coaches would do? How many, you know, everybody would be studying the opposition and if we were studying the opposition, and that would be a good start, we would then realize the challenge we got, but we would also be in a much position to understand the opposition. Well, they're much more serious than we are and much more. It's not close. And so that right there gives you pause. Why would you ever get into a conflict with people who are at least as smart as you and much more committed? You wouldn't. So where you, after your military service spent 15 years in the energy sector, where's your qualified answer to this question? Where is the West, the US, Europe, Australian, New Zealand, Canada, with energy right now? I think it's a very good question. My strong sense, this is intuitive with some analysis to support it, but my strong sense is that we're on the edge of a crisis. And the reason I say that is if you take, it's not 20 million barrels, but let's just stay with oil for the moment, not natural gas, but just taking oil, which is the critical resource for almost all of the others. If you take 20 million barrels of oil out of the switch out of the strange form of those, in fact, it's 13. Then sooner or later, then has to show up. Now, what I was surprised with is how long it's taken. And of course, and when you start to see what's going on, you start to see what's happening. It takes from the closure of the straight form those, it takes about two months for the ships, which are travelling at 12 knots, which is about the same speed as the bicycle, you know, to get to the United States and to places like Cushing. It takes about a month or so to get to Europe. So firstly, you've got all the ships which had left were still moving. The inventories, of course, were significant. There was a bit of an old glove at the time. So those have been largely drawn down as far as I can see. The strategic, particularly reserves as well have largely been drawn down. I think Cushing is now the American street in front of reserve. I think it's pretty low. Figure I have in my mind, you may know this better than me, it's about 20%. That's right. Again, when you get to start to get to the drugs, you've got to think carefully about it. Even when they all move through pipelines. So from Cushing up to New England, it's travelling at between three and three and eight miles an hour. So that, of course, takes time. And of course, the oil in the pipeline needs to, you need to have oil in the pipeline for the pipeline to work. So the oil in the pipeline isn't working. It's not working in Madrid. Last but by name, it's Lisa's China. And what I don't think any of us understood was how China would respond to this. And I don't think we completely understand. But China reduced it, it's demolished by about 5 million barrels per day, which is a significant reduction. It's also home to the largest strategic drone reserve in the world. I think the figure I've got is 1.3 billion barrels per day. So that's a very significant reserve. I also suspect, I don't know, I suspect one of the ways that China was thinking about this was not just about self-interest. But I suspect the Chinese were thinking that as an exporting nation, they were thinking long and hard about the impact that the straightforward disclosure would have on the rest of the Far East. Because there are other nations in the Far East, which are much more vulnerable. Japan had a very big oil reserve. The places like Taiwan, the 90% of the semiconductors are made in Taiwan. So it plays a lot of Taiwan with much more much more vulnerable. So I suspect one of the reasons China may have done that is not just not just for tactical reason, but also for thinking about their export markets because reduction in oil in these other places could have a significant impact. I don't think anybody really knows. But one of the other things to think about is that, sorry, I'll just finish. I think I would be surprised if we were not seeing consequences of this in August. And certainly it has some very good analysts who I follow talking about September as well. I'm a great fan of an of our country. which is called up who's an exceptional, exceptional analyst. The other thing though of course is that even when the straights foremost open, then there is a lag. There's a lag on actually those, the whole system getting going against, but like sort of closing off your plumbing and your pipe and your pipes at home and then expect it to function perfectly. Now one of the interesting things is that when the, I got rid of what the ship's name was, a ship like the container ship blocked the Suez Canal. And for every one day that that container ship blocked the Suez Canal, there's a very good much maybe analyst called Sam McCordley-Hano, who said it was about six days for the whole logistics system to recover. So even if it's three days, you could be talking for, you know, as a minimum it would be the amount of time that the straights been closed, it will take to recover, but it could be twice that or it could be three times that. So I'm expecting and forecasting that we'll be looking at a significant recession starting in the autumn and that could tip into recession in the new year. Quite where that recession will play in the globe is an open question. I mean the country that's most insulated from it, surprise, surprise, is Russia. Russia's an old target nation. It's well understand the consequences of, of what's going on, I think, although Putin's first degree is in law, his postgraduate work was in resource economics. So I'm, would be astonished if they don't understand this. I know that the Chinese have been looking at their own energy situation for decades. There's good evidence to stay that in 2003 when the Americans with allies went into Iraq that the Chinese thought that that was about oil. And they began increasing their own reserves. But as for places like Europe, we're incredibly vulnerable. So there's a lot of the far east. So I'm afraid to say on places like Africa. And as an open question about the United States as well, the Trump line that the United States is a, as an exporter of oil is true as much as an exporter refined products. But when it comes to, to cruise, it's an important crew. In tune of about 6.5 million barrels per day. And even if you've got access, you know, through, for example, Venezuela or Canada, oils are fungible commodity. So you may have access, but the prices will all go up. So I don't know what it's like over there in the States at the moment. In terms of, you know, cross-pog, but per barrel. It's up here. But if those costs were to increase significantly in the next two to three months, I would imagine that would not be the sort of run you'd want into the mid terms. And I would be surprised that they don't increase significantly. And even if you open the straighter foremose, I would be surprised that the lag in the system is such that you're still not suffering from the consequences that as well into the mid terms and probably into the new year. So oil, Brent crude was like priced in dollars, I think 71 last week. If you told me almost four months after the closure of the straight that it would be 71, I would never have believed that. But how did that happen? Were you surprised by it that it's so low? Yes, very, very. I was just as surprised as you. And I think most of the analysts were. But I think a lot of it is to do the lag. It's also this distinction between the futures markets and the actual delivery. I was talking to a Singaporean colleague last month. And he said that I don't know whether it's still the case that notwithstanding what Brent was out or what WTI was out, but in Singapore, they were buying crude for $200 a billion. So the difference is the interesting one. It's what people are actually paying for it. I mean, there may be a short term lag who knows. But that's the information. So what cracks bread between what you're paying or what you're forecasting to pay in the futures markets and what you're actually paying on the day. How does a country exist at $200 a barrel? Yeah, well, fortunately, Singapore's an extremely efficient country. Yes. So, you know, but that must be having political effects. I guess as well as quite a small country. I didn't. I was so surprised when I had $200 a barrel. I didn't ask much more. But again, if we get up to those sorts of figures, think back to 2007 and 2008, the great global financial crisis. I was happened to be in Houston at part of that. I remember vividly seeing the start market red all over. I'll never forget it. I remember talking into an American who was working in the British consulate in Houston. It lost half his half his retirement savings and that crash. And again, it seems to me that if you were to get up to those sorts of figures, 150, and if you've got a global economy, which is already not in trouble, but already very precarious. And it wouldn't surprise me if we have another great financial crash. I mean, who knows? You know, we might say it. It was 150 dollars an oil barrel oil. A function of that to me, it seems impossible that it wasn't a function of that. People will talk about. People talk about synthetic, collateralized debt obligations in the housing market. I think a lot of it's to do with the year a dollar. Areas actually in how how funding in the year a dollar areas are actually tightening. But it seems impossible to me that actually that that oil works as the primary resource wasn't playing into that. I mean, it's playing into things like lift hands. So I think council 20,000 flights. About a couple of months ago. I don't know what bunker fuels are like. That's the fuel used for ships. But when I was talking to somebody recently about those, they were doubled. So again, it's what people are actually paying rather than the future's market. And it's when those two come back into alignment. They will know probably more what's happening. The problem I said this before as well, Tucker is that when somebody, Danny Davis. So I think you know, Daniel Davis said to me, he said, if you were the czar of the world, what would you do about solving the energy crisis? I said, the problem is that the energy crisis, nobody's in charge. The whole of the energy market. So I run up by the market. So there is no single entity can say, well, we need to X, Y and Z to sort this out. You know, you can't just say where we need to actually run more tankers, few the straights for most. So if the shipping company say, well, we don't like the look of that. Thanks. We're waiting till it's ready. So there are a whole load of issues here, which are really run by the market. And there I think there's nobody. Who really understands the thing itself. And even if they did understand that nobody who can actually press a button or press five or six buttons to make the whole thing work again properly. That's right. And I'm hearing the same thing from other analysts. And you know, I'd listen to this like a book. And I don't say that I've got the answers. But what I do say is that you take this amount of energy out of the system. It's bound to have economic consequences. It's a mathematical impossibility that it won't. And in a globalized economy, no nation can have real sovereignty. Of course, you can act independently on behalf of your country because you're not in control of your country, because you don't control its economy. So yeah, I know no one kind of thought about that. Obviously in the post war era. So please ask you a final question, which is how long are these two conflicts likely to continue? Do you see hope of resolution in Eastern Europe or in the Middle East? I think if I take the Middle East first, I've got a strong suspicion. And I can't say for sure that as the continued closer of the straits comes home to the United States. And that as the midterms go, as I think it's almost impossible to avoid now badly. And I suspect that that will create a very different political atmosphere in the United States. If you've got very significant price increases and you're seeing lots of damage being done to the global economy. So my suspicion is that that's the thing which might bring the that there's the Iran war to a close. I can't say for sure that the interesting thing is well, we'll be to see the extent to which in a if we're the situation to be improved. Between the United States on the one hand and China rush on the other hand, both you both China and Russia could actually have a hand in helping to bring that that war to a close. What's for sure is that unless the United States is able willing to deploy significant land troops. When I say significant, we're talking tens hundreds of thousands because nothing else is going to make it different than the then then the war cannot be mumbled. And we know I don't think I'm overguessing to say that there's no political appetite in the United States to deploy land forces into the Iranian war. I think as regards the Russia crane war, that's the more difficult one to call my guess is that what you what Putin will be thinking about will be about the coming economic crisis in Europe. Because one of the things that he could be saying to himself is OK, I could respond. by as the European start to ratchet up pressure on me, but actually I can see what's coming. So by the time this economic crisis hits Europe, and at that stage the Europeans will be recognized finally that they simply can't afford the weapons, and they're actually, because they're actually tipping into recession. I mean, arguably Germany's already in recession. I think both Britain and France probably are on the edge of it, but suddenly their deep economic trouble and the last thing they want to do is to actually invite their countries to invest 5% of their GDP in fighting a war, which by this stage they'll hopefully rise cannot be won. If that happens then I would like to think that it could be brought to close by the end of the year if the recession hits. It's like the sort of weird way to think about it perhaps. If it were to be diplomacy a lot will depend on I think again it might depend on the midterms, it might depend on how the near consage, it might depend on the E3 and their policies, but sooner or later people I'm sure going to recognize that the war cannot be won. The one other thing that could bring it to a close would be a change in policy by Russia because the alternative to striking Europe, and I still do not think that's off the table even though it's an alternative could be a move on Kiev, in other move on Kiev, and I think that would be done not for military reasons but for political reasons. If the Kiev government were to collapse then I think at that stage I think it would be game over. So I would and Russia would never mention it but I wouldn't be surprised if it's been something they filter as a possible cost of action. I mean Putin has got to be under domestic pressure, he doesn't rule as an absolute dictator. He's got constituencies in the GRU, the military. Lots of people would like his job. I mean how much pressure is he under to respond with force, greater force? Do you think? I think he's under significant pressure but I actually took the time when the the war kicked off to listen to all of his stones interviews with Putin to get to know the man. And I also took the time to actually refill it short, to buy a graph here of him. And then you came out of that thinking this is a man who's extremely strategic and whatever you think about him due to what you heard in the press. This is a person who deserves significant respect. Yes. So if I had been thinking about this I would say we need to think very carefully because this is a strategic leader who deserves significant respect. I think he is under pressure but equally I think he's the sort of man who will be able to resist this pressure and do what he thinks best which is what I think he's been doing until now. So although I from here people say oh why hasn't Putin, I have broadcasters and people in the alternative media saying that Putin is not being affected, he should have responded by now. I have a strong intuition that supported by the General Staff. And when I went to Afghanistan before I went there, I read the General Staff's analysis of their Afghan campaign. They did a 10-year campaign and got out in good order after 10 years and the structures that they left there took two years before actually things started to become again. We got after 20 years, much more money expanded and things were collapsing around and so we got out. I was really impressed by what the Russian General Staff so I would think that actually he's going to be very well advised as well by the Russian General Staff. So I would think he's the sort of man who will be able to hold his nerve and I think he's the sort of man who will do what he thinks right strategically. So again, although I've pushed that scenario as one to think about and I would think that he will have that on the table and it wouldn't surprise me if that one way in which that if I were to forecast how that story would play out rather than to to put a sort of worst case. I'd say it's he if he were going to use weapons, he would the first thing he would do is he would ring up the White House and say we are going to use weapons against the E3 then having done that he would then say ring up Mert's Macron and Bernam is it will be and say we are going to use weapons against production facilities unless we have a clear a clear response from you saying that you will stop providing Ukraine with these sorts of weapons. So that's what I would guess he would do because he would escalate. So it's a different type of escalation but in terms of how do you know I would think you will hold his nerve for a bit but I think a lot will depend on firstly how the war continues to play out secondly the economic conditions and thirdly the extent to which the Russians become nervous that they are going to find large weapons fired into the middle of Russia which have been built in France, Germany or Britain and if they do start I think that is that is going to happen that I would expect Putin to respond but in a very measured way. That sounds exactly right to me. What a wise analysis thank you for taking the time to do this. It's a pleasure to occur and keep up the good work. I think we in the independent media it's important I get so often I get to the podcast and I'm with Danny and Glenn Dees and others people saying thank goodness at last and common sense and we really need this common sense because the danger otherwise is that we'll do a 1914 which is the last thing we need to do. Yeah I spent 35 years in traditional media and the second I went to independent media I thought this is where all the smart people are I wondered where they were. They're not in traditional media so thank you and you're a perfect example so thank you for doing this. Yeah pleasure. Thank you. Thanks.