Julian Dorey Podcast - #315 - Rogue Foreign Minister on China’s Takeover, 5th Gen WW3 & "Titanic" Diplomacy | Eric Czuleger

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

SPONSORS: 1) GhostBed: Use Code "JULIAN" to get 10% off your new GhostBed Mattress https://ghostbed.com/julian PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/JulianDorey (***TIMESTAMPS in Description Below) ~ Eric Czuleger is a Diplomat, Author, & Renegade Country Explorer. For the past 11 years, Czuleger has lived and traveled across Europe, Asia, and Africa –– getting himself into wild situations that include managing diplomatic relationships between unrecognized countries. Eric insists he is *not* in the CIA –– but absolutely no one believes him. His life memoir, “You Are Not Here” came out in 2023. ERIC'S LINKS: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eczuleger/?hl=en X: https://x.com/eczuleger BUY HIS BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-Here-Countries/dp/B0C87SH7Q8 FOLLOW JULIAN DOREY INSTAGRAM (Podcast): https://www.instagram.com/juliandoreypodcast/ INSTAGRAM (Personal): https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey/ X: https://twitter.com/julianddorey JULIAN YT CHANNELS - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Clips YT: https://www.youtube.com/@juliandoreyclips - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Daily YT: https://www.youtube.com/@JulianDoreyDaily - SUBSCRIBE to Best of JDP: https://www.youtube.com/@bestofJDP ****TIMESTAMPS**** 0:00 - Istanbul detention, Turkey ban, Google mistake 4:07 - Smoky room, waterboarding fear, book sales joke 8:01 - Interrogation, Kurdistan book, Erbil questions 13:08 - Kurdish statehood history, Sykes-Picot 18:16 - Nation-state illusion, Westphalia, social constructs 23:01 - Internet, crypto, digital citizenship 28:00 - Bretton Woods, U.S. power, dollar dominance 34:18 - Globalization, wealth inequality, systemic failure 42:00 - Climate change, Tower of Babel, fragmentation 50:15 - 5th-Generation warfare, influence, mind battles 59:11 - China, psychological/economic/legal warfare, TikTok 1:09:17 - Info wars, U.S. polarization, social media 1:24:13 - Transparency, government trust, speech tension 1:40:02 - U.S. soft power, sitcoms, cultural influence 1:54:16 - Micro-states, Liberland, Somaliland, Bitcoin embassy 2:01:05 - Ambassadorship, aid logistics, geopolitics 2:08:00 - China tension, soft power argument, desert escape 2:15:00 - Intelligence secrecy, accountability, governance trust 2:21:00 - USAID, aid misuse, soft power repair 2:27:00 - Development vs. geopolitical aid, system reform 2:32:00 - Statecraft illusions, collective action 2:45:07 - Patriotism vs. cynicism 2:53:54 - Czuleger's Work CREDITS: - Host, Editor & Producer: Julian Dorey - COO, Producer & Editor: Alessi Allaman - https://www.youtube.com/@UCyLKzv5fKxGmVQg3cMJJzyQ - In-Studio Producer: Joey Deef - https://www.instagram.com/joeydeef/ Julian Dorey Podcast Episode 315 - Johnny Mitchell Music by Artlist.io Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

And the question is, like, if you were going to start a country, now, what would you do? I ended up meeting the president of Liberland, Vit Jedlikov, on the back of a jet ski, and he's, like, stopping by, like, each of the little boats and giving some Liberland speech, and then he says, everyone should start their own country. Would you be interested in being the ambassador? So, met this guy named Abdullah. For some reason, he doesn't trust me. Probably think that I'm some sort of US government asset, and he's like, you just want to take from Somaliland.

He keeps making me tell him my backstory again and again. So we all leave and Abdullah is like, why don't you ride with me? I get in his car, he's just stepping on the accelerator. We pass the street that I'm supposed to be dropped off at and I am fucking terrified trying to get myself ready to just jump out the car. But then his tire blows. I stood up and I was like, can you just drop me off at home?

I don't know who you think I am. I'm not that and I feel just kind of loses it. And he's like, hey guys, if you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five star review. They're both a huge huge help. Thank you. Um... I was gonna say in my defense, but it's fairly indefensible at this point. I did get detained in Turkey again. So, I was flying from Sarajevo to Athens. I was at the Sarajevo Film Festival.

And then just transiting through, I think it was like, IST, whatever that airport was. And I've gone through that airport, like... I don't know, 50, 60 times since I was initially banned from Turkey. I mean... Look, the airport, I was like, you know, I Googled around, they're like, they can't detain you in an airport. And I was like, that sounds good.

And also, it's so convenient to fly from Albania to Istanbul. And to go anywhere else. So, anyway, I was somewhat hungover from Sarajevo and just was like, oh, I'm gonna like sleep the entire flight. I've got a long layover. I'm just gonna chill in the lounge in Istanbul. And as people are getting off, I got two police officers who are checking passports, and I was like, that's a lot of safety.

And then they're like, I give them my passport, and then they're like, you're coming with us. I was like, well, surely not. Didn't you know that Google says I can travel through your airport, sir? And I was like, oh my God, I'm way too hungover for an interrogation. And so we start like walking together. I was like, oh my God, I'm way too hungover for an interrogation.

And so we start like walking together. I've got two guards, two police officers. And- Are you trying to communicate with them at all or? Yeah, I mean- You're making jokes? Just being, you know, really polite and my voice gets real high when I'm afraid. So I was like like so you guys

like working here um and this is like if Jonah Hill and Michael Sarah had a baby and it was a wannabe diplomat and also a fed whoa whoa whoa whoa former diplomat former diplomat I'm sorry mr. ambassador to Somaliland thank you thank you six whole weeks. That is my proper title. I've abdicated the position, but I did six weeks and we did a lot of good work there. You and the CIA? God, I wish they had hired me. I need some health insurance. So anyway, these two police officers start walking me down the sort of airport terminal.

And I'm like, oh hey, can I, before I go into whatever room you're putting me in, can I just go to the bathroom real quick? And go to the bathroom and I'm like, fuck, fuck, fuck, who am I gonna call? I need to tell somebody that the Turks may be imprisoning me right now. And the fucking Wi-Fi at the Istanbul airport was dog shit.

Oh, they didn't give you the password? No, and I felt like that was kind of uncouth to ask at that point. That was like, hey, real quick, while I'm not hiding evidence or contacting the embassy, can I get the Wi-Fi password? And it was like you had to buy something. So I-

Like duty free or? It was like, there was like a bunch of like random, you know, coffee shops there that I could have like signed onto their wifi. I'm like- Turkish coffee, let's go. Well, I know, but I was in the bathroom at the time and I was trying to like, you know, get information out about my whereabouts.

And so I realized I couldn't do anything there. So then I was just like, well, I guess the only thing I really can do is just sort of start sweating through my shirt. And I did that really well. And then they brought me back and I was like, okay, how bad is this? Like, how much trouble am I in?

And I'll gauge that based on the room that I'm going to. And so we go into the back of the airport, and I'm like, this looks pretty standard. And then we go into the back of the back of the airport, and I smell cigarettes, and I'm like, oh shit, they're smoking inside. They're gonna put them out on your fucking floor. This does get worse. So I was like, no, dude, there are no laws here.

You're smoking inside an airport? I'm theirs. So- They're from Sinaloa, they're used to that. Sorry, you gotta rank this up a lot. Sorry. By the way, we do have Kat on the board today, who's gonna be a guest later today.

I'll throw you my cigarette words. Yes, thank you for filling in, and Karolina's here as well, fan of the show. I was gonna say I gotta get some, but I don't want any. But please continue to the torture, like the fusion, all that. So, they put me in this room and for a second, I'm like, okay, so I just sit in this room

and then they left and the door was open. So I felt cool about that and I had my phone on me. So I was like, well, I'm just gonna take pictures of like how I look now and all the things in the room. And I couldn't tell if this was my brain playing tricks on me or if it was what it looked like, but there was a body-sized board in the room and a pallet of, or like a big jug of water and a wet rag,

and I will send you these photos. So... They'd let you keep the phone, that's the best part. You're like, wait, am I about to get KSM'd? So... I'm on TanaMo06, let's go! That's right, yeah. So I started taking pictures of everything in the room,

and then I was like... And the book had been out for like a year now. And I was... This book, this book right here. And you were... Oh, so this was after... This is like a year after you were with me last. Yes, so the reason that it was super not cool for me to transit through the airport anymore was because the book had just been published.

And so I came to find that out. Anyway, I will send you the photos. Viewers at home, you decide if I was gonna get waterboarded or not. I... Didn't feel good. Yeah, I was like, sort of just staring at the rag on the table and I was like,

if it's wet, I'm gonna freak out. If it's wet, I'm gonna freak out. If it's wet, I'm gonna freak. That is such a body-sized board. And then, like, I spent, like... I was done taking pictures of everything, and then just trying to look polite. And they came back, and they're like,

go give us your phone. And I was like, oh, yep, that seems like a good thing. Then they closed the- Don't look at the pictures. That's right. I'm not giving you the passcode. I think they were able to circumvent that pretty well. Yeah.

So then I had nothing to do but stare at the rag and I'm like, I'm not gonna touch the, I don't wanna, like if it's wet, like I'll just freak out. And then like after about an hour, I was like, I'm not gonna touch the rag. I don't wanna... Like, if it's wet, like, I'll just freak out. And then, like, after about an hour, I was like, I'm gonna see if the rag's wet. And the rag was fucking wet, and I was like, oh, God! But then, I was thinking, you know,

I'm thinking book sales. Uh, because I was like, genuinely, how long would I feel good about being in Turkish prison for it to be a best seller? And I was like 72 hours, 72 hours. What was the logic with 72 doing it? Oh, well, that's, I feel like all I could take.

But like, I'm like, if this makes headlines, like my book's going through the roof. This is like, you know. You're in there, you're lying down like, I'm ready, boys. Just let me know when it starts. Oh, no. Don't make me into a best-selling author.

I would hate that. But also, don't waterboard me, guys. But then, okay, so then they come back in, and they have my phone opened. And they bring in a translator. Are you shitting yourself? I was just sweating a lot, but yeah. Figuratively, definitely.

Literally not yet. So translator comes in and he has my Amazon page open. And he's like, this book, what is this book? Why were you in Erbil? And I was like, oh, I was... Yeah, I was writing about Northern Iraq. I was living in Northern Iraq. He's like, yeah, but like, what were you doing there?

Vacation? I was like, well, I was a third grade teacher. I also did fourth grade, and it was like social studies in homeroom. And then like if there was a sandstorm, we'd have to watch the kids during recess and, you know, substitute teacher stuff. And they're like, yeah, but, you know, this book,

you have this book here, and he's like, you know, scrolling down the Amazon page, and he's like, it says Kurdistan here, right? Isn't that a... Isn't that a thing that some people say is like, in Northern Iraq? And then, thank God I titled the book this. So I was like, guys, it's called You Are Not Here, Travels Through Countries That Don't...

I'm on the team. We're good. Fuck. Curtis never heard of it. Never heard of it. Say that word again? That sounds wild. And then I thought I was breaking through a little bit, and he was just sort of like scrolling, look at the Amazon page, and he got down to the reviews, and I was like, five stars. Damn. Five. That was pretty good reviews, right?

And then he didn't think that was funny at all. Um, and then he just like made't think that was funny at all. Um, and then he just like made me sit there and look at the rag some more, which I did. And... Was there a big guy that ever walked in with like a gimp mask on? I was expecting the big gimp mask guy to come in, but he never did, which...

He might have fucked you. He might have, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and thank God that is not this story. Um, that is for another time. He is straight, by the way, everyone. I know it doesn't appear that way sometimes. Fair, fair. But what you gotta tell people,

for people that haven't seen episode 163 and 164, you were the last podcast recorded at my parents' house. That's right. Fucking seven hours. It was a marathon. And I had to drive your ass up here. That was incredible. At 2.30 in the morning and drop you off,

slowing down to about 15 miles an hour. Yeah, I just. To get the fuck out. I tucked and rolled and somehow I ended up back in Manhattan. Right, but you told the story last time. I want you to tell this again for people who haven't heard that.

About the first time I got a little snafu with the country of Kurdistan right visa V Yeah, Turkey, which you know we asked boost to Monta and the Oreo about that Mm-hmm a couple months later on Danny Jones when we did a crossover Yeah, they both thought you were fucking retarded for well, I mean, and I can't really argue. Yeah. No, it's super fair Yeah, this is this is a fair assessment of my behavior I mean, and I can't really argue with you. Yeah, no, it's super fair. This is a fair assessment of my behavior.

So the short version of this book is like- They're coming for you right now. Erdogan's just, he's got me, ever since they took my phone, he just knows where I am. He doesn't think about me nearly as much as I think about him, which I think is bullshit. So in 2017 as I think about him, which I think is bullshit. Um, so in 2017 I think I was I

Had just gotten out of being a open source intelligence analyst for like forecasting firm So like just looking at areas of the world and trying to forecast what happens next. I got a chance analyst yeah, open source intelligence, so like organizations like just looking at areas of the world and trying to forecast what happens next. I got- Intelligence analysts. Yeah, open source intelligence. So like organizations like Stratfor or Strategic Forecast, they publish openly and- No feds working there. That I know of.

Wink. Basically like I had gotten into this company and they trained me as an analyst and then set us going. I was mostly looking at the Middle East, but I also looked at some of the former Soviet Union. The job was basically just to be a super advanced news reader and try and write an assessment about something that might happen in the area, or like why something is super important, because oftentimes, you know, the work of being an analyst

is just like looking at like a really small thing that's gonna be super significant later on. Yes. So I spent a lot of time looking at northern Iraq because the Islamic State was just like up to no good there. It's one way to put it. Yeah, they're being rascals. And the Kurds were there too,

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I just sort of watched the world tearing itself apart all day. And because of that, it like just made me really not like the world that much. You know, you spend all day reading like Islamic State propaganda and you're just like, the place that I really loved learning about, which I was previously a Peace Corps volunteer,

and had traveled around a lot, I spent about a decade abroad altogether, suddenly seemed like a place where it's just nothing but chaos, it's just nothing but, you know, a bloody chessboard, basically. And I was like, well, I don't have a job now, so I, like, if I was gonna go anywhere in the world, where would I go? And like, well, I don't have a job now. So if I was going to go anywhere in the world, where would I go? And what would I do? And I was like, well, I've been watching the Kurds attempt to get this referendum on independence

going in northern Iraq, where they were going to vote themselves into having a state for the first time in history. Granted, there have been other Kurdish states that were created. They didn't last super long. So there was the kingdom of Kurdistan, which lasted about two years. There was another Kurdish-led area called the Mahabad Republic, which I think only lasted a couple months.

Maybe like eight months. Supported by the Soviet Union back in the day. And it was like, I think it was like 46, something like that. I don't know, please fact check this because it's been a while since I've been writing about the area. What's it called again? I'll pull it up.

The Mahabad Republic. Mahabad Republic. Republic of Mahabad. Yeah. All right, you weren't lying. Yeah. So this was 22 January to 15 December, 1946. They didn't even get a year.

Damn. Nice. The puppet state of the Soviet Union arose alongside the Azerbaijan people's government and the short-lived, unrecognized Soviet puppet state. Yeah. So there were a lot of these moments where the Kurds were very likely going

to have agency over their own statecraft. In fact, the Treaty of Severus, which was the sort of like pre, I think Treaty of Luson, but it was going to end World War I. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it actually included a place where Kurds could mandate their own space.

This is when they carved up the Middle East essentially. What's the name of that family dynasty? Sykes-Picot was the agreement. That's it. I'm thinking of Sykes-Picot. But there was like a... I forget what they... I'm gonna find out. Yeah, so it's like the English... Taylor's old as time. An English guy and a French guy

were left alone in a room with a map and a ruler, and they were like, what if? Yeah. Hear me out. You know this place we've never been? What if we draw some lines? Oh, you know, and they were racist as fuck too. You know that.

Well, okay, so this might be apocrypha, but I had heard that the- It's a big word, apocrypha. It might be bullshit. I had heard that when they were looking at the original line for defining Syria and Iraq and that, they were like, okay, well, where would this line be? And one of them supposedly said something like,

well, I want it from the E in Acre, which is in, I think, modern day Jordan or Israel, and I want it to go to the second K in Kirkuk. And then they were like, let's just, and then they were like... Pull that up, like, tilt to your chair. Like that? Laptop is in the shot.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's fine. And so, like, I'm gonna draw it, like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so like, I'm going to draw it to the second K and Kirkuk. And I think you can see a picture of that original map. Like you can see a picture of the the line drawn by the Sykes Pico agreement. But for those of you who who don't know why I was getting in trouble with the Turkish government because of writing about the Kurds, the Kurds writ large are the largest stateless population in the world.

There's about 35 million Kurdish people. We talk about it all the time on this podcast. I'm obsessed with that. It makes no sense to me because they also have their own pieces of lands within Syria, Iraq, Iran, and it's not like they're paying taxes to those states right there. So it's literally, they just don't have the line on the map

and the recognition in the organizations around the world. Right, and that's all of my research, is just what does it take to draw a line on a map? And it's heartbreaking because it's like, what it takes is blood and treasure. And it takes being the satellite state of a larger power that has a lot of blood and treasure and wants you to exist.

So I started my research in Iraqi uh, in Iraqi Kurdistan. Uh, like I said, I got a job as a third grade teacher there. And I was living in Erbil and reporting while, uh, they were having their referendum on independence. Um, it was a really exciting time to be there. You could sort of feel like, you know, maybe this actually goes through. But meanwhile, at the exact same time,

you have the Islamic State directly across the border in Mosul, and you have like two very different definitions of what it means to make a state at that exact time, right? So the Islamic State is basically saying, hey, we're just gonna murder our way to drawing a line on a map. And the Kurds are saying, no, like, we're going to do this in a democratic vote, and we're going to try and make sure that our population has agency to determine their own

future, to have sovereignty. And so it's these two different conversations about what it means to make a state at the exact same time, and an invisible line between them through a desert that's just full of ideology and a lot of empires that have fallen. Like one of the most ironic things about this was in Nineveh, which is the region of Iraq, like right between,

that's where they say the Tower of Babel is. And the Tower of... Oh, shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like there, and I didn't even realize that, but there was some sign in Erbil that was like Tower of Babel, not like this way. I don't know what else it said, just said Tower of Babel.

I was like, okay. But that's like a biblical allegory of statecraft, right? It's an important allegory of statecraft, right? It's an important allegory for statecraft. And it kind of tells you everything that you need to know about what making a country is. Because making a country is all about creating this story and this illusion that is contained between borders

that allows people who do not know each other to interoperate together. It allows them to contribute their strength and innovation and wealth to people that they will never know and that will never know them, but somehow they're all making their lives better together. That's the ideal. You get cited on my podcast probably more than any other guests I've ever had on because of two quotes

And one of them is countries are just stories and every time I say that like the person across from me goes Like wow cool and the second one is people are not their governments Yeah, right because then you you're what you're describing is a story that says okay. We're gonna exist within this border. We're all Different people we may not know each other, but like, now this is our culture, so we are there for a country. But that doesn't mean that all these people are gonna come together and at one time support their current government,

what, you know, regardless of what they're doing. Right, and it's like the, and the current research that I'm doing now, I'm doing a lot of various tasks, not for the government. Oh, tasks. That's an interesting word choice. the current research that I'm doing now, I'm doing a lot of various tasks, not for the government. Tasks, that's an interesting word choice. Lots of stuff, mostly just researching statecraft.

But I was like, okay, well, when did, like a lot of the work is like asking really dumb questions and then finding out that reality is way more interesting than you think it is. So like the modern conception of the nation state really came from, like, it was an ideological technology from, I want to say, the 1400s, the Westphalian peace. And it ended the Thirty Years' War,

which came on the background of the Hundred Years' War. And the reason that these wars just kept happening throughout Europe was, I mean, I track it back to the invention of the printing press. Because at the point that you decentralize information, you know, the Catholic Church had a pretty good stranglehold on Europe at the time. And then suddenly the printing press comes out, suddenly, you know, Martin Luther is like, hey, we can read the Bible in our own language. Suddenly you don't need somebody to be your gatekeeper between the holy power and your

understanding of what that holy power is. So as power drained away from the church and you had the Protestant Reformation, or you had Protestants start to exist, they fought each other a lot. And there was this really strange series of relationships throughout Europe at that time. And those relationships were through like, you know, duchies and like family relationships and intermarriages. And so you had these small power centers

that were littered throughout Europe, but the alliance structure was such that if one family member goes to war, then everybody goes to war. And it was brutal. Like the 30 years war actually starts with... one of my favorite, my favorite historical moments, which is the defenestration of Prague,

where three Catholic dudes were thrown out of a window. Sorry, Prague. Yeah, sorry, Prague. And actually, fact check me on this, I'm pretty sure they were okay. I don't think they died. No. Yeah. I'm pretty sure they were fine.

Wait a minute. So they were getting thrown out of- They were getting thrown out. Background disputes occasionally, Bohemian revolt, does that sound familiar? Yeah. To lower and upper Austria. Also I should say I'm not gonna be able to go

into fine grain detail on the 30 years war. I tried to understand it and I was like, holy shit. Well, wait the fuck to bring it up. Who are the, well I just wanna wanted to tell you about the experts. I wanted to tell you about these guys getting thrown out of a window. All right, well, and we're gonna take your word for it. If the comments don't like you, as they probably already don't, we'll fucking tell you. Probably not, yeah.

Deep state, communist over here. I love your comment sections, brother. My favorite. It's really good. You are hated. Just absolutely reviled on the Danny Jones show. Like, I wish that I was, like, as shadowy and powerful as they think that I am. Um, but I'm not... at all. Anyway, so these guys got thrown out of a window.

Um, and, uh, eventually, 30 Years War has got to end. They come up with this idea. It's the Westphalian piece. It's a sort of treaty that is signed in Westphalia, which is like northern Germany now, I think, in the city of Ansbruck and Munster. And the idea of the nation-state started to form here. It's sort of the beginning of the modern nation-state.

And the idea goes that, like, what happens if instead of having your allegiance pledged to, you know, one person with all these complicated family relationships that could ignite because somebody got thrown out of a window, what if your sovereignty is connected to the land around you? And suddenly, from that ideology, you have the ability to have states collectively bargain

with one another, where you say that no state is ideally better or worse than the other one. They're able to go and have diplomatic relations with one another. And so this is where we get the sort of idea of the nation state. And it's something that's changing rapidly right now, which is really interesting because we have another decentralization of information and power. Can you extrapolate on this more?

What do you mean it's changing now? Yeah. So, um, we'll come back to the Kurdistan story. Okay. Yeah. I just want you to roll on this. Yeah. So... We'll come back to the Kurdistan story. Okay, yeah. I just want you to roll on this. Yeah, so right now we're seeing a huge change in how nation states exist. And there are a lot of projects that are out there that are sort of poking holes in what we feel like a country is. And I think the reason for this is because,

while wealth and military power for the most part, and you know, law and order, previously pooled between borders, and usually if you had like a lot of military power and a lot of wealth within your borders, then you could take care of your citizenry really well. And then if you didn't, you were sort of at the behest of whoever had the most, you know, blood and treasure

or whoever could spill the most blood and treasure. But now with the advent of the internet and with the advent of digital currencies and an open information space throughout the entire world, you have the ability to make money in another country, and you have the ability to shop around for a tax system that works the best for you. So like the green tips that you're starting to see

of this sort of changing fabric of nation states is you have a citizenship as a service or statehood as a service model that's opening up. Like you have Trump's golden visa, which was started originally in Malta. That shit was hilarious, I'm not gonna lie. It's a golden, golden visa. Yeah.

Five million. Has to be golden. But yeah, people, what people are doing, very wealthy people are expatriating themselves to find the best tax structure that gives them the best bang for their buck. Um, you know, if you're a Russian oligarch that is just being crushed by sanctions,

suddenly you can pay to be Maltese. Um, on a smaller level, you have people who are, quote, unquote, passport bros who will just go support bros. Oh, yeah, they're the worst. You're saying this like I'm going to know what this is. Oh, yeah. Passport bros are the worst. So basically, a passport bro is somebody who is, let's say, a digital nomad who has left their country of origin, and they've gone to a country

where they can have a pretty high quality of life and live as if they're really rich in a country that is, in a country that's an economy that they get more bang for their buck. Wait, I know guys like those. Andrew Tate. They go to fucking Bali. Yeah.

Yeah, Bali guys. Yeah. That's a passport, bro. I mean, the Venezuelan I pay, he's fucking living like a king down there. Yeah, yeah, Bali guys. Yeah. Yeah, um That's a passport bro. I mean the Venezuelan I pay he's fucking living like a king down there Oh, is he good good for him? He's great. Look. Mm-hmm Shout out to the Venezuelan. Yeah, I'm named Venezuelan. Right is the shady one now. He's the he's Secret weapon gotcha. I was wondering how you're like house is doing so well That's how you get Eric Prince on. I don't think Eric Prince is going to Venezuela for anything, but a drone strike. But that's probably not.

Yeah. Yeah. So you have people who are now basically using the benefit of their country to have a good deal more power and agency in another country. have a good deal more power and agency in another country. And so borders are starting to mean less and less, and people are able to be, you know, globally autonomous. And it begs the question, well, what's my country for in the first place? If it, you know, the, in studying this and my more cynical moments, which I have a lot, um...

Because, you know, we've all grown up in nation states. It's the water that we swim in, and that story is a part of our DNA. And so, the idea to me of shopping around for a better deal Feels bad like yeah, I understand it really does and I don't know if that's just me being like impractical and I need to get with the times or if there is something that is like genuinely really important and almost wholly about the place that you're born and that you You need to be a part of the fabric of that place, that you need to contribute your legacy

to making that place better. Depending on the day, I'm like, either a country is a unique place that you're born into and that you are specifically supposed to make better and contribute anything that you uniquely can to making your country better. And that's the noble reading of it. And then the other reading of it, which sometimes I find myself falling into is, a country is a subscription service that you're born into now that's cynical as

fuck in it see what you're saying part of it that like I'm thinking about it from American centric view for the start but I think this is actually getting a little more global right yeah so America builds itself into the world power by the 21st century essentially and solidifies that in the first half of the 20th century. I'm sorry, right? And so we have this large GDP, we have a diverse population because it's a mix of a lot of different people

who have come in here from different countries. I didn't have any family members here before like 1900. You know, I won't speak for everyone else in this room, but like it's a melting pot, right? And so when you have a mix of a lot of different cultures and a lot of wealth that therefore has a lot of power around the world, we've had like the stereotypical American expatriate going all over the world more than other places in general for a very long time. Now in the 21st century with the, interconnectivity and people even from poorer places

being able to get ahead in certain ways, not a bunch of them necessarily, but like you can have some people who leverage the resources they have to be able to exist on the global playing field, make a lot of money within their country and get the fuck out. It's like that mobility and that ability to go

somewhere else is now making people wonder, like yes, we still have to do passports, yes, we still have to go somewhere else is now making people wonder, like yes, we still have to do passports, yes, we still have to go through border checks and all that, but like how much of this really is just that whole, countries are just a story and I can start to write my own new story and I'm gonna go somewhere where there's already a lot of different cultures there.

It's not like a monolith in all these places is much anymore. There are places that are still like that, I don't wanna be misheard. But you know what I mean, you can go to, you know, somewhere in Europe now and there's gonna be a lot of, it's a country that may have had like mostly one race 60 years ago and now they got a lot of different people.

Right? So there's more of an ability for people to come and blend in and be a part of it and be a part of this now like inner border story. Yeah. Well, there's also this thing that I see consistently in the States, but also in Western Europe and, you know, areas that benefited the most from globalization. No Frills delivers.

Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. Are now saying, well, we don't want the hard bits of globalization. We only want the benefits of globalization. You know, we want our cheap goods that are manufactured in China,

but we don't want immigration to come in. Like, we want the benefit of immigrant labor without having to provide services for immigrants. And this is throughout a good deal of the world. And globalization, I mean, I think was a net positive. You just got smoked. Yeah, I do. Both sides of the aisle. Please make this argument because I see what you're gonna do.

Okay, so the Bretton Woods Accords, right? So Bretton Woods, World War II ends, the world is pretty fucked up. And Bretton Woods basically said, hey, uh, the United States is going to make sure that the ocean is universally policed for anybody to do business on the ocean. You can trade goods, but you guys gotta stop fighting

over colonies and trade routes and stuff like that. It also does something which is really important, which is what leads to the United States becoming this global power, which is it dollarizes the economy of Germany, it dollarizes the economy of Japan, it makes their success aligned with American success. And one of the things that happens when you build the new structure, when you build the highways and, you know,

infrastructure of globalization is that you benefit uniquely from it. And specifically, the United States, after World War II, we were in a very special position at that point. And we could have... We could have dominated the world much more than we do now. Really? Oh, yeah, certainly. How so?

Well... Seems like we did a lot of... We did. Yeah. But look, we were the only power at the time that could project power over the Atlantic and the Pacific at the same time. The markets of Europe were destroyed. Uh, the, uh, export market was just beginning

in the United States, and the manufacturing sector of the world was also destroyed. And so, if you wanted to buy, you were buying from America, and it was coming to you from America. And then suddenly, we have this robust middle class that just shoots through the roof. And this is where we get, like, you know,

the summer of love in the 60s and boomers being like, yeah, I bought, you know, a house for, like, a nickel and a handshake. -♪ BOTH LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGHING, LAUGH that we made was, you know, we will help rebuild these global economies so long as everybody plays fair on the oceans. And so American Overwatch was able to provide a safety net for Europe to start developing again and for it to rebuild itself.

And a lot of the socialized programs that Europe now has and enjoys is specifically because of that rebuilding process. It's like, look, we now have a lot of war wounded. Now we have a lot of people who need to like reskill into different jobs other than fighting wars because Europe had been locked in war for so long. And so suddenly you get a better education system coming out. You have a socialized care that comes out,

because the state simply has to take care of the people who had come back from World War II. They had to rebuild their infrastructure after both of the great wars. And so the United States at that time was just pumping out manufactured goods, and it was shipping them across the world and it was finding new markets.

And those markets started slowly, slowly to thrive. So when I'm saying that the United States could have been worse, yeah, we could have been. We could have dominated the world militarily, but we chose a more mercantilist approach, which was, look, we don't care what you do other than do business on our dime. Do business as the dollar reserve currency

and use the safety net that we're providing by policing the oceans. And that's the legacy of Bretton Woods. There's a lot of talk in policy circles now, too, about like how we need to figure out a Bretton Woods 2.0. I don't know what that would look like. Meaning like a similar thing or something that's like a new era spin-off of the idea,

but entirely new set of standards. Yeah, I just don't think that geopolitical reality really exists without a crushing war. Without a crushing war. Yeah, without a crushing war. Yeah. I mean, it's not what people want to hear. Sorry guys. Um, I mean, the, the wars of the last, you know, at least my lifetime, I'm 37. Um, so, you know, I was, uh, gosh, I was like 15 during nine 11.

And so we had 20 years of the global war on terror. During that time, Russia was able to rebuild their military. They're able to retrench and start looking at their sphere of influence and wanting to push out their sphere of influence. Vladimir Putin specifically has said that he thought the worst thing that's ever happened was the fall of the Soviet Union. He specifically believes that the European Union is an artificial transnational organization

and wants to divide Europe from itself. Of course he does. Right? What else is Vladimir Putin gotta do? He's still got a GDP the size of Italy. Work on that pal. That's right, yeah. I always use the comparison of Texas.

Yeah. Um. Yeah. Cause I'm a nationalist. Someone needs to say that to his face just to see what the comparison of Texas. Um... -♪ Yeah. -♪ LAUGHS Because I'm a nationalist. Someone needs to say that to his face just to see what the reaction would be. You do it, not me. -♪ LAUGHS So, um... So, yeah. -♪ LAUGHS

Russia is able to sort of get their army back together. They're able to start, you know, getting designs on how can we push out our sphere of influence? How can we, you know, get the Soviet Union band back together? That's exactly what they that's their exact term. They also provide great cover for China too, because it's like, oh, everyone just right over here. Well, China is a different story too, because China, in, what was it, 2000, China begins to... The United States helps China gain accession

to the World Trade Organization. And so by 2001, China is a part of the World Trade Organization, and there is a belief amongst policy circles in the United States that by putting China into the globalized market, that political freedom would follow economic freedom, that you would be able, that eventually capitalism would jailbreak people

from communism and the... How'd that work out? Not great, man. Not great. So they thought that the government of the CCP would moderate under global economic success. And what's happened instead is they haven't moderated, but they've benefited massively from global success. And then on top of that, we have, you know,

companies that are not beholden to the United States in any way. I mean, I can't remember the exact number, but Apple like built an incredible infrastructure in China where they're not only training, but they're upskilling people in incredibly detailed engineering practices, while also running factories there.

So the United States enjoys the benefit of like an $800 iPhone, and suddenly we've transported a middle class to... That's right. The broader Asian region, because China also has all these trade relationships with everybody else. Which they suck up and give to their elite class.

So it even doesn't... You basically just destroy middle class everywhere and think you're creating it somewhere that's not here. It's like this fucking ass-backwards prophecy. And this is also, like, one of the things that I keep banging around in my head is... It's really hard to create a system where winners don't keep winning.

You need to have some way of, call me a communist, redistributing wealth. Like, because what happens is the, you know, the top 1% now can do business in other locations. They can shelter wealth in other locations. They can benefit from slave labor in some country that doesn't really care about that and sell their goods to countries

that don't care about it either. And so we're exporting all those things while making people highly, highly profitable. Like, I think the quickest growing class of people in the Western world right now is the hyper wealthy. And that's massively problematic, because then you see all of these social divides, which are easily exploited by people

who don't mean the United States well. Well, that's the thing in any system like this around the world, okay? On one end of the spectrum, you have full government control, which you could call communism, fascism, whatever's on the farthest end of the spectrum. And on the other end of the spectrum,

you have a fully free market. But the buck stops somewhere in either system. On the government one, it stops with the government, which is these overlords who, you know, maybe you're in a country where you actually elect them, but they get to use that power and take control and tell you what to do. And they may legislate away your ability to have wealth

by earning it in the economy because they're trying to put stops on everything and redistribute wealth to everyone. That's one example. On the other end, in the free market system, you now have corporations who can use the free market to go around the best interests of their own country because you gotta remember,

they got a quarterly report to answer for and if they don't fucking get their numbers, they're getting fired. It's the shareholders who are the government officials. They're the party, you know, the poll barrel. And by the way, who owns the biggest stocks? Huge companies, rich people, so it way who owns the biggest stocks huge companies rich people So it's a circle jerk of like elitism and everyone in the bottom 90% at least

Gets left behind slowly because the buck is stopping with the organizations that are get they're taking away all their opportunities All you got to do is pull out the Steven Pinker graph for the middle class since the early 80s and watch that V happen Mm-hmm. And and listen, I'm all for a free economy. I will take that system over the alternative because you do have a chance to get ahead. The alternative is terrible. But it doesn't mean that it's perfect. And it doesn't mean that there shouldn't be I don't know, some sort of action for reaction equilibrium to form here where there's like, reasonability. The problem is human nature says we swing in these pendulums

of either, government control me, or fuck the government, tear it down. Government control me, or fuck the government, tear it down, and we can't ever like, stop right here and be like, ooh. All right, maybe this is okay. It's not perfect, but it's okay. Well, this is why collective action problems

are so interesting, right? Like, it's just, and this is, you know, from like, working in aid circles before and what? Aid like I was a peace for volunteer so like you say yes shit. Yeah, that's me. I'm Doing black ops, but he's not here trying to get trans transgender surgeries for Albanians The US now I can't go back to Albania Goddamnit, I gotta stop coming on the shot. tried that with the cartels. We've never seen you again. No, but like, I think that like,

aid is a great example of this, where it's like, people use this really stupid analogy a lot where they're like, we can put a man on the moon, but like people are still hungry. It's like, those are totally different things. Those, what, how are you using that as the example? Like, poverty is what they call a wicked problem, right? You can see the output,

but there's so many different inputs that it's impossible to isolate the variable that is causing that poverty. Like, we have enough food in the world to feed everybody. And that means that when there is a famine, that's a political decision more than it is a reality of food production. In terms of like, you know, free market versus designed market

or a contained market, I think the hard problem is like if you're really trying to distill down the hard problem of, like, if you're really trying to distill down the hard problem of redistribution of wealth, it's such a loaded term, but that's the one I'm gonna use. Screw you, comment section. That chip's out a long time. Yeah, I know. Clicking off.

But if you're trying to solve this hard problem, what you have to do is you have to align individual incentives to make that happen. So that is the person's choice to do that because they will realize that they benefit massively from this. Has anybody cracked that code? Absolutely not. I don't think that the way to do that is through a designed economy.

I think one of the best examples of the problems of designed economies, I think, is the Aral Sea. The Aral Sea? Yeah, the Aral Sea. How do you spell that? A-R-A-L. Okay. An endohiak lake. Kazakhstan.

Yeah. That's where Borat's from, right?ek lake. Kazakhstan. Yeah. That's where Borat's from, right? It is. My name is Borat, we have the Aral Sea up here and it is very, very salty. A serious geopolitical auger, Julian. Very salty. I bring my wife, Pamela. Well, so look, the Aral Sea doesn't exist anymore.

Oh, they got rid of they shucked it up? Yeah, it's because of a poor design choice of the Soviet Union. So they wanted to grow cotton in Kazakhstan, and so they redirected a river. And now, from 3,000 miles up, from the Politburo, from just drawing lines on maps, they were like, yeah, we'll just redirect this river.

It'll be no big deal. And then we get cotton, and then we get cotton from that place. And everybody's super stoked because they have cotton. But what happens is in the course of like, it happened really quickly. It's like 30 years or something like that. The sea is destroyed.

So if you look at photos of the Aral Sea, you'll see a bunch of boats, fishing boats in the middle of a desert. And those fishing boats were on the Aral Sea until it just drained and drained and drained. So the problem with designed economies is you can't see the specifics of what your, you can't see the ecosystem that you're messing with.

And if you can't see the ecosystem that you're messing with. And if you can't see the ecosystem that you're messing with, it's going to have outsized. Yeah, that's crazy. We're looking at it right now. That's what you're talking about. So on the left is where there's a body of water that looks like it could have been, I don't know, 20, 30 feet deep.

I'm not a sea guy, so who knows. But that on the right side, it's a fucking desert. Yep. If you pick up a photo of the boats on the Aral Sea, and then there are all of these other horrible effects that came from it too. They were dumping in the Soviet Union industrial waste into the Aral Sea.

And then when the sea drained, all of that toxicity went into the sand and into the salt that was in the sea. Or was it fresh water? I don't know. Either way, all the toxicity went into the earth, and now they have sandstorms, and now they have toxic sandstorms. So, yeah, when you design an economy and you try to use a hammer instead of a scalpel,

bad things happen, and you don't know what the third order effects are going to be. And this is why, you know, I think that individual economies and a more free market approach is the best way to do it because people have an incentive to keep their communities functioning and doing well. If that's the case though, because the people in charge may not. It's like when they did the Paris Climate Accords

and whatever, it was like, yay, nice job everyone. Where's China? Back padding around the world. Where's Russia, right? Like, oh yeah, yeah, we'll turn off our industrial plants, you're right. Yeah, check at five o'clock, it'll be off. Which I think is like,

these big Western transnational gestures, which they are, like they're gestures, right? I think that they come from such a... You know, it's a blunt tool that's not that effective, right? Because it also vaguely insinuates, by the way, we went through an industrialization period, but you don't want to do that because it's gonna make the environment worse.

It's like, there are other countries that are industrializing, that are having advanced economies. Like, we don't get to just have the benefit of having industrialized and say, no, not for you. Like, that's not a solution to climate change. And now it seems that people are looking more Like that's not a solution to climate change. And now it seems that people are looking more at mitigation strategies rather than stopping climate change.

Because again, it's a collective action problem, which is back to the Tower of Babel. That was a collective action problem. Thank you. That was a good wave. Climate change is the Tower of Babel. Good night. But it is that that's exactly what the allegory is about.

The allegory is about how once you stop people from being able to work together in a mutually beneficial way, once you get them speaking different languages from one another, then the project that they're working on, no matter how noble it is, will fail. And so that is the story of climate change. That is the story of statecraft. That's the story of poverty. It's the story of all of these wicked problems where people who don't know and trust each other are unable to work together collectively.

Well, what happens is you have someone, it starts with one side somewhere, good luck finding out where it actually did, someone bites off too much. They either shut it down too much or they amplify it too much and they use evidence that's not good, whatever that may be, and it causes a reaction on the other side, it's like, wait, wait, no, no, no, that's wrong. And then this keeps pressing and pressing and pressing and pressing. I mean, this is just politics. We see this over and over again. It moves apart and suddenly you're screaming at each other like the other person doesn't need to exist because their ideas are so bad.

Right. So when you look at these collective action problems, that's, that's what we're talking about here. We just have a constant overcorrection depending on the time of our pen of our pendulum swing. Even if you just look at the highest level, I've said this on a lot of podcasts, so apologies for the repetition here, I guess. If you look at our presidents since World War II, Truman, Eisenhower, right? Left, right. Kennedy, they whacked him.

LBJ. Nixon, they got him out of office. Ford. Carter. Reagan. Reagan bought four years for his intel buddy, George Bush. Clinton, right? Bush, Obama. Trump, Biden, Trump. It just goes back and forth. That's what we do. But imagine if you could live in a world where,

not that this would ever work, it's just against human nature, but where like two of those presidents from the opposite, were president at the same time. It would be real cool. It would be better. I mean, yeah, I think that a lot of it is, and this is, you know, the bargain of democracy

is that that synthesis of two opposing sides will surface better ideas. That's how ideally it should work. But given the fact that it is really easy to... It's easier to make your population fight one another than it is to make them benefit one another. It's also a divided society is a compliant society, right? As you get people fighting over the shit that doesn't matter Yeah, like I'll get those idiots right and and the the fissures are are

Really strong at certain times Times of economic uncertainty. Yes times of of global of uncertainty, times of global scarcity, times of like the crushing burden of seeing transnational problems and not being able to do anything. You know, we all got paper straws at one point and apparently it didn't stop climate change, which is wild.

It did save a few turtles. It did save a few turtles, yeah. A couple turtles. And now they rule the world. That's right. But, like, so I think that, like, the cynicism is warranted because I think there's a lot of people who are looking at the wealth

that's around them, about the power that is around them, at the role that their country has in the world, no matter where you are, and they're left wondering, why are things not getting better for me? There's this wonderful phrase from Shoshana Zuboff's surveillance capitalism, and she talks about how people need to have a right to the future tense. They need- The future tense.

Yeah, a right to a future tense. They need- The future tense. Yeah, a right to a future tense is this, it should be a logical belief, a considered belief that their future, projecting out five years, 10 years, 20 years, is going to be healthier, wealthier, and more secure. And they need to have that belief that sort of got- Hope. Yes, hope.

And they need to have that belief that sort of got... Yes, hope. And they need to have that guiding belief, or else they're going to start looking for people who will give them that belief. And this opens the door for a lot of malfeasance. It opens the door for, you know, con men and hucksters and autocrats, and that sucks. Who are the people who want those jobs usually, by the way? I mean, it's just, that's the nature of it.

Well, so that's also another strange thing. Like governance is just really interesting for so many different reasons, but you can also like, because you can see it go wrong, but when it's going well, you don't notice it. Oh, of course, that's just human nature. We don't appreciate when we have it good, and then when we have it, the minute we have something bad,

we're like, oh, fuck this. Right, yeah, yeah, it's a negativity bias, where it's like, I know something's wrong here, but like, governance should be this like, invisible infrastructure that like, just ideally works to give everybody this this belief in a future tense. You know, a lot of the stuff that I'm studying right now is around what's called fifth generation warfare. Oh, yeah. Can you walk us through each generation of warfare and then where we're at right now?

Because we're going to get into AI with this and I'm fucking hyped. It's super interesting. So First Generation Warfare... And I will bring him back to Kurdistan, people. It's still there, don't worry. First Generation Warfare, you and your buddies go to fill a bunch of holes. Fill another bunch of buddies full of holes. Pause. Keep going.

You know, those jackasses over there, they gotta die for something. Um, and so usually people talk about first generation as like, oh, it's the like line and column tactics. Um, you know, dudes marching with shields and stuff. Ancient warfare. Then, second generation, you move into, um, these gunpowder fights.

Um, sometimes, uh, you look at, like, You move into these gunpowder fights. Sometimes you look at Napoleon as the... It's like the Revolutionary War, when they're lining up across from each other, and, take aim! That's it. Yeah, which... It's so hard to watch, man. I watch The Patriot, I just get pissed.

I'm like, just fucking charge each other, do something. I just always wonder who the dude with the drum is. Like, how... Right, he always gets his head blown off every movie. There's a dude with the drum is. Like how... Right! You know? Right, he always gets his head blown off every movie. There's a dude with a drum and then there's Flute Guy in like all of these paintings. And I'm like, do you feel good about this? No, there's no way.

And then they're like, oh well we gotta have a flute guy. Like George Washington is like, I need your best flautist. Bro, it was the original rap battle. But they're like shooting each other. That's right. It's like, all right, you take your bars. And also they're shooting like a bayonet from like 30 yards away.

Those bullets are zigzagging like fucking, you know, you aim at that guy, at Frank Sinatra's face right here, the bullet ends up on that side of the wall. They don't even know where it's going. It's so, they were doing, they did a really interesting study on how to train soldiers.

And it was based off of the fact that during, it was some battle, I wanna say it was a civil war battle, but where they had to use rifles, where you're putting up- With the bayonet. Yeah, yeah. And what they found was that people were just loading their bayonet over and over again,

because that's all they had trained for. So since they'd trained so many repetitions of this, they would find a weapon that had been loaded like up to 10 times, because that's all they could train for. And they noticed too that people were like, they didn't like killing people. So they would aim above the heads of people.

And, yeah, there's a wonderful book called On Killing. I can't remember who it's written by, but it talks about Pavlovian training of soldiers to ensure that they are able and well-trained to shoot at human beings. Maybe by telling them, aim here, you won't hit them. Well, that's when they started using human targets too. There was a big-

Human targets. Pardon me, human shapes targets. Yeah, right. You forgot that Hunger Games part of American history? I guess so. The 80s was weird. I don't know, who was I just talking with about them? Someone was just telling me they're bringing,

oh, Johnny Mitchell was telling me that down in Mexico, like when they get pissed at someone and they just wanna kill them, like the cartels, they'll bring them in onto one of their ranches and say, train their soldiers and say, all right, you're gonna shoot him. And it's like a real, God.

I know. So that's the second generation of warfare. Third generation of warfare is quick maneuver warfare, hyperrialized, think the Blitzkrieg, and, um... So tanks rolling over, air fire coming in. Right. But you're still in battalions, I mean... Right.

And it is... this is the last, you know, hurrah of great power conflict was World War II. And then the Cold War comes out. The Cold War drops. Can't wait to find out what the next one is. Wild album. So the Cold War happens and suddenly we have the nuclear bomb.

We've got two nuclear armed rivals and nuclear proliferation is happening. And suddenly we realize, like, we can't fight wars like this because it will destroy the entire world. We have the concept of mutually assured destruction. Yes. And because of that, I mean, we still have to fight over resources and influence because we live in a world full of infinite appetites and finite resources.

And so this turns into asymmetric warfare. This is the fourth generation of warfare. Asymmetric warfare, proxy wars, and insurgencies. So the global war on terror is sort of lumped within this fourth generation of warfare. A lot of paramilitary stuff, dropping small groups into zones, going door to door, all that, yeah.

And now fifth generation warfare, fifth generation warfare has always sort of been a part of things, but the bar to entry for influencing your opponent is so much lower now. And what fifth generation warfare really is, is it's the cognitive realm. It is the gray zone conflict

in your opponent's gray matter, right? The best ground that you can take in your opponent's sphere of influence is between the ears of their citizens. Right, ideological subversion. Ideological subversion. Ideological... They're so good at it. They're great at it. Yeah.

I've seen your comment sections. That's right. Yeah. All these Russian bots hate me. It's a lot more than Russia, bro. It's every country around the world doing this shit. Nobody likes me. I'm so polite though. Yeah. But... And actually, so I'm writing a big paper right now on- A paper?

Yeah, basically like the greatest hits of Russian, Iranian and Chinese fifth generation warfare tactics. All right, walk me through China's. China's really interesting. So it is very platform-based. So the TikTok, you know, infiltrate the adversary with really- Titty videos for nine-year-olds, pretty much?

Specifically, titty videos for nine-year-olds. That's actually in a CCP document. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, you know, one moment of this- I read. One moment of this platform-based incursion is like, you know, when they were gonna ban TikTok, you had literally people on TikTok, which I thought was hilarious, making TikTok videos of them saying goodbye to their Chinese spy.

Have you seen those? And they would like, like learn a little bit of Chinese and say it into the camera. Like John Cena. Right, yeah. Comrade Cena. He's on the team, everyone. So look, I mean, this is wild. Like you have, like, good job.

Like you have, like, the American citizenry saying, no, we want this Chinese program. And we also, like, are so aware that this is an infiltration tactic that we're learning enough Chinese to say goodbye to our, like, supposed Chinese spy. Like, and so that's one way that China does it. China has a fascinating capability for waging this gray zone warfare. I remember back in 2017, you know, Daryl Morey from the NBA?

No. So he's the Sixers president and general manager now, but at the time he was the general manager of the Houston Rockets, which, and president, which is meaning he's making all basketball decisions, which is an era when they had James Harden and were really, really good. But most importantly, it's interesting that he was

with the Houston Rockets because this is the franchise that had Yao Ming, the most famous Chinese basketball player of all time. So in China, they're huge. People are huge Rockets fans because Yao played for them. And so the NBA was doing like a pre-season thing in China and Daryl Morey simply tweeted out, something, something for peace, free Hong Kong. Oh.

And it was a fucking nuclear crisis when this happened. The NBA lost all their games in China for that year. You also, you had like a lot of NBA coaches and players being asked about this and they're like, yeah, nah, he shouldn't have said that. It's like, my God, like we're sitting here talking about like Black Lives Matter and stuff But they're doing genocide over there, but y'all are making money So well, you don't want to talk about this

So he actually he was like persona non grata for a little while and they had to like recover They had to like play the dance with with China for like a year But I bring this up because when that happened China obviously doesn't let in our companies, right? They don't let in Twitter, they don't let in Facebook, they don't let in Google, all these different American companies. But what they did is they had their hackers use VPNs to operate outside of their borders

and send spam like fucking campaigns against Darrell Murray and against like the whole Hong Kong thing. And it was, I think the Wall Street Journal, if I remember correctly, back when this came out, did a big piece on it, breaking it down. And it's like, this is just one little event. I've got another one for you, which is really, so, and before we get into that,

so like the Chinese doctrine has been this doctrine of what are called like the three warfares and it's to win without fighting. And so psychological fighters, I'm sure they're great, but they're better at, you know, preserving their strength and making sure that, you know, they benefit massively from a functioning global economy.

Like why go into a kinetic conflict when you can quote unquote win without fighting? Yeah, I don't know any Chinese UFC fighters come to think of it. Actually, there was a thing about this. More boxers. There was a thing about this Chinese UFC fighter going around China and like challenging

these Kung Fu masters And he was seen... Oh, they do have that. They're nice with that. He was seen as being antithetical to the CCP and essentially, like, disgracing China by saying, hey, you know, this very important cultural art form is not a superior fighting style. And I think he just got, like, absolutely contained by, you know... Like they whack them? No, no, he's still And I think he just got like absolutely contained by, you know.

Like they whack them? No, no, I think you can find videos of him. It's really- Chinese UFC fighter? Probably. All right, let's see. Zhang Welle, does that sound familiar? It's been a while since I've been watching Chinese UFC guy.

Sounds right. Chinese UFC fighter challenging Ta Kwon Do guys? No, Kung Fu. Oh, same thing. All right. That's Korean. You neanderthal. I once went to a Chinese restaurant and said,

where the fuck are the spicy tuna rolls? So you understand how cultured I am. Again. I had my Asian friends like apologizing to the waitress. I'm really glad. I know Italian restaurants. I'm really glad that we both have intellectual cultural blind spots, my man. All right, so Zhu Zhidong, who gained widespread attention for his victories over various Kung Fu

practitioners, including Tai Chi masters. Isn't that what I just said? I know you said taekwondo For the record a Korean martial art and Wing Chun masters Another notable case is the fight between Ding Hao a self-proclaimed Wing Chung master and Ju Jidong Which saw Ding Hao? defeated in a short bout So so he's. Impact of the controversy. It sparked considerable debate in China, with some supporting his actions and others criticizing them.

His actions led to controversy with some claiming that he faced harassment and even violence from traditional martial arts practitioners, and also some reprisals from the government. Right. So... also some reprisals from the government. Right. So, so- But they're trying to not do like the hand to hand, gun gun thing, they're trying to do like- The three warfares. So the three warfares are psychological subversion,

economic subversion, and then lawfare. They're good at the economic subversion. It's incredible. Like, you know, I've studied the Belt and Road Initiative, which is China's play to organize the world into, you know, one economic system, which is done through these large investments in infrastructure projects. And oftentimes this leads to what's called like a debt trap where they will, you know, loan a country the money and the expertise to build this infrastructure project

on behalf of- It's loan sharking, they own them. That is a better way to say that, yeah. So you're seeing this in Kenya right now. There was a big controversy in Serbia because a Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure project fell down and killed some people. That's why you had such big... Serbia Belt and Road.

I'm going to Google it. Yeah. You can also see the protests about it. So there was a infrastructure project that fell apart in Novi Sad and it led to the largest protests in Serbian history since the end of Milosevic. Oh shit. That's a big deal. OK. So the Novi Sad railway station canopy collapse in November. Oh you're on it. Thanks. In November 2024 which killed 16 people was a major event in Serbia that sparked widespread

protests and raised questions about government corruption and the Belt and Road Initiative. The station, part of a larger BRI project, had been renovated recently, leading to accusations that the tragedy was a result of inadequate oversight and poor construction standards. The protests, fueled by dissatisfaction with government corruption, has grown in size and scope demonstrating a broad range of discontent with the political system. Well, and along with it, again,

this sort of like goes to the platform question too. Along with the Belt and Road Initiative comes these, along with the Belt and Road Initiative comes a digital Belt and Road. Sometimes they call it the digital Silk Road. So sometimes they call it the digital silk road. So sometimes they call it the digital silk road. And that has led to, again, these platforms that are being created for ostentatly the population that China is building infrastructure projects for.

But that comes along with the Chinese surveillance infrastructure as well. In Serbia as well, their digital Belt and Road initiative in Belgrade, I want to say, they were going to start a safe cities program. And that was a sort of vaguely veiled way of saying that we're bringing Chinese-style surveillance into Serbia. So you can see that there was a lot of pushback from that. And I believe that type of surveillance is actually illegal in Serbian law. How much do you know about the scope of Chinese surveillance?

Not much. I've been mostly studying, you know, their influence on the American information space. My, the gong that I've been banging for, you know, the last year is the fact that the United States doesn't have a stated public national security and national defense strategy for protecting the information space. So- Now what on, can you break down what the biggest red flags are there? What we're doing wrong?

Yeah, well, I think that to begin, we just need to have a strategy. So- You think we got literally nothing. Well, if you look at the national defense strategy, the most recent one, and the National Security Strategy, National Security Strategy is put out by the White House, and the National Defense Strategy is put out by the Department of Defense. What am I Googling?

National Defense Strategy, White House? Or National Security Strategy. They're two different documents. But you'll see within that there are the major domains of, yeah, the 2022 one is the newest one. You know, you'll see a lot of domains that are covered in there, including the Arctic. Like we have a strategy for Arctic defense. We have a strategy- Like Antarctica?

Yeah, oh yeah, big deal right now. The Arctic is fascinating right now. Okay, all right, we gotta take this detour for a second. What's the story? Cause we don't own that place. No, right? Yeah. And it's gonna be really difficult for us to own it

because there's a, what people are calling the icebreaker gap. So- The icebreaker gap. The icebreaker gap, which actually sounds really cool. Yeah, good marketing. Yeah, I actually just wrote a, so I wrote, I write a bi-weekly intelligence brief for anybody who wants to read stories

that don't make the headlines in the United States, but are super important. An intelligence brief? Yep. From your intelligence work? Mm-hmm, open source, baby. I'm not... You're my favorite player. Yeah! It's okay. So I was writing about the icebreaker gap.

You can go back and look at my newsletters called The Under Report. Please subscribe, it's free. And so I was writing specifically about the Arctic. And the difficulty is, right now we've got a... We're sort of talking out of two sides of our mouth in terms of like the American Defense Establishment. We're saying, hey, we're getting rid of all of this climate change stuff, but we're also looking at the Arctic

as a new domain of defense. And the reason is because climate change is happening. And so there are passages that are opening up in the Arctic. And that you couldn't previously get to. That's exactly right. So, the, uh So the dominant force there and the force with the most icebreakers is Russia.

They've got like 300 plus and we have like three on a good day. They have 300 plus. They got Arctic in their country. Yeah, they're very Siberian. And so there's a great report from War on the Rocks about how do we actually meet that target of reaching parity for Arctic defense?

And is it important enough that we actually need to pour resources into defending the Arctic against any sort of incursion? This is also part of the reason that they're looking at Greenland. This is part of that reason is because- I kinda love that, I'm not gonna lie. It's kinda cool. It is pretty fucking wild.

It's pretty fucking cool. I just never thought, you know, I never thought that the United States would be like, now we're expanding now. I'm like, are we just like... American imperialism, baby, let's go. It's like, just so out in the open now. It used to be just Starbucks,

and now it's just like conquest. Um... Whatever, man. Sounds good, I guess. So, like, we've got, like, an Arctic strategy. Um, we have a cyber defense strategy. This came in with Bush, I want to say, directly after 9-11, because there was this concern about what they were calling

a cyber pearl harbor, where essentially our core infrastructure was just getting shut down by a cyber attack. And so, that strategy was created well before we saw major cyber attacks, and we still see major cyber attacks. We don't have a strategy for an information space, defense or security, but we are under onslaught

in our information space at all times. I mean, they're pretty well documented. And so that's why I started writing this paper about, okay, how does Russia do information space attacks? How does China do it? How does Iran do it? These are our main adversaries. So what we should do is we should look at the different techniques that all of these

adversaries are using, and then we should figure out the best way to have a strategy that defends against those things while also maintaining free speech, which is a difficult... It's very, very hard to do. Right, yeah. It's incredibly difficult.

So what are the... You don't have to go through all of them, but what are the main strategies, regardless of country, that are working the best? Or if there's like an official terminology you've gotten into with, oh, they do this type of thing, and here's what the downstream effects are on our society. Yeah, I mean, so Russia is... Also, the cat looks a little different right now. Yeah. We left the room and we got Deeth back in the building. Oh, hey. You haven't met Deeth yet.

Yeah, I haven't met you yet, but now we got it. Good to see you. Keep rolling. Yeah, so each sort of style of subversion is done based upon the constraints and imperatives of the particular country. So Russia is really focused around sowing discord within not only the US, but in Europe as well. Some people, and I tend to agree with them, believe that Russian psychological operations and subversion are really the tip of the spear, and kinetic operations just go to serve that.

That essentially, if you want to, you know, with an economy the size of Texas, you want to disrupt far larger and better armed adversaries, then the most bang for your buck is going to be making it so that your opponents actually can't interoperate together. They can't solve problems together. You can use the democratic system to have nothing but gridlock. So nothing gets solved. And so some portions of this and you can notice it in really key moments in our modern history, right?

During elections, there's quite a few information space incursions. Oh, every country's doing it during that. And we do it to every country too. Yeah, and I mean, people are going to roast me in the comment section because they're just going to. But do it But do it. Do it.

They're going to roast me in the comment section by when I say this, but like, you know, the 2016 election was affected by Russian incursions into our information space. And this comes from the Mueller report. Did it rise to the point that it was collusion between Donald Trump and Russia? Yeah, the Russia gate was bullshit. Right. that it was collusion between Donald Trump and Russia. Yeah, the Russia gate was bullshit. Right, the Russia gate was bullshit, but at the same time, it did expose the networks of psychological operators who were affecting

the American information space. So it exposed the Internet Research... Lab? I think it was called the Internet Research something or other association. It was Yevgeny Progosian's like troll farm. Got it. He was the head of the Wagner Group. He was the head of the Wagner Group and then he, RIP, he exploded. Yeah, he had a tough end. What are you gonna do?

So the object of this was to throw as much discord into the American political system. One of the things that I found really fascinating about learning about Russian psychological operations and, you know, subversion in general is that the thoughts don't matter as much as the actions. Like, you can convince people that, you know, the world is run by a cabal of Satanists to worship Saturn or whatever.

You can convince people of that, but, like, ultimately it just matters if what you want them to do, right? It doesn't matter what they actually think in their head. It matters what they either do or what they don't do. And so, I think this is called, oh God, I looked up the term right before we talked. Nah, I can't remember what it is. Anyway, so it's a matter of what they do

or what they don't do, right? And I think right now everybody feels this intense polarization in the American population. And part of that is our own doing, part of that is indigenous. But part of it is direct attacks on our information space from adversaries. Well, they're also doing that all these countries around the world where they burn the candle from both ends, because the algorithms are run by AIs that take information, confirmation

that we give them by clicks, and then feed us more of that and get us deeper and deeper down that. And you will see people, like I was at a dinner a few weeks ago, and I was just, I got there and everyone was already talking, and I just sat down and listened and the differences in the algorithms that I could hear like, oh my god, oh my god. It's like these people are living on different planets. But they're so strong in their opinions and what everything is that like this is what

it has to be period end of story of story. And it's like, it's not natural. There's this concept of plausibility structures. Plausibility structure. Yeah, a plausibility structure is your sense-making mechanism. It's your institution, it's your family, it's your podcaster, it's whoever is how you're triangulating what reality is now, it's the news, it's all of these things. These are all plausibility structures.

And at the point that you knock down a plausibility structure, this is my favorite term recently, you can induce what's called ontological vertigo. Ontological, I heard ontological shock, ontological vertigo. Ontological, I heard ontological shock. Ontological vertigo? Ontological vertigo, it's that point at which your plausibility structure has been knocked down and suddenly you're sort of in free fall. You're trying to cling to something that makes as much sense as possible.

And it really doesn't matter what that thing is so long as it brings you a good deal of comfort and control. And so this is one of the reasons why that polarization happened so hard during COVID. It's because everybody was grasping for some bit of real estate that felt truthful to them. And they went searching for truth in the internet at a time that world governments

didn't know what was going on. I think a lot of them knew exactly what was going on. I think this is a part of the plot. I think COVID was the ultimate simulation test to divide people. And I think that's what it was meant to be in a bunch of different places around the world. We think of it US-centric here, but I think that existed what it was meant to be in a bunch of different places around the world. We think of it US-centric here,

but I think that exists in a lot of places. To me, and it's one of those things that I'm consistently struggling with is like, you know, how much of this is something that was indigenously created by powerful people, or how much of it is powerful people capitalizing on a tragedy? You know, let the tragedy go to waste.

Yeah, it's sort of- Oh, I think it's both. It's a reverse or a boros where the snake is shitting its own tail into its mouth. That's right. Yeah, yeah. Trademark. So, and in fact, specifically with the COVID example,

I was in a lecture from somebody who was like working on health, global health at the time that COVID, you know, COVID came out. Another hack. Yeah. He was like... He was like, you know, people assumed that there was a lot of malice, people assumed there was a lot of malicious activity going on, but what it looked like from the outside was very different from what it looked like on the inside,

which was we just didn't have the information infrastructure to deal with it rapidly. But what you cannot do, see, that's a bullshit excuse to me, because what you cannot do is then, let's say, let's say he's even right and they didn't have the structures in place and they didn't know what was going on. And I have an example of that.

To then, and I'll let you give that, but to then say, well, since we can't figure it out, we're gonna decide how everything goes up to and including what speech we allow on the internet. Yep. That's bullshit. Totally agree. And that's why these places are getting fried

and they deserve to get fried. And I see a lot of people who want trials about this stuff. We knock down our own plausibility structures. And I get it with some people. I do get it. So the example is, and I think you're threading the needle properly, right? The example was he was talking about specifically,

like, well, we need to know how many hospitals we have. We need to know how many heads on beds we can get. And he was like, well, you'd think we would have that information at our fingertips, but we didn't. So we had to make sure that each of the hospitals was reporting how many people were in their hospital, how many beds they actually had. And he was like, at the end of this lecture,

he was like, you would think that like, we maintained those structures. We didn't, you know? Yeah, let's also economically incentivize them to say the deaths are all COVID too. Yeah. Like, you know, what could possibly go wrong? Well, and so this is also a big-

I think they were getting like $13,000 in some places. I haven't heard about that. Every time they reported that, something like that. Is that true? Yeah, correct me in the comments with the exact number, but there was a thousands of dollars, like I think it was like an insurance payout that would happen if the death was COVID.

Interesting. So someone dies and you're like, oh, they had COVID, all right, write it down, cool. Yeah. I hesitate to weigh in on that because I really just didn't, like I was in Albania during COVID and it was a- How was Albania during COVID?

Weird, but better than the States it seems. Were you going outside? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not messed up everywhere? Nope, they had a curfew. So they haven't had a lot of Chinese investment then? Nothing I know of. But Trump is buying an island off of the coast of Albania.

Is that like news? Cezanne, yeah. He's buying it? No, he's just doing like a big property development in Albania. Gonna make a big beautiful land. I mean, if you look it up, I think there are mock-ups of what it is. I think it's Jared Kushner's project. That's reassuring. I think I think there are mock-ups of what it is. I think it's Jared Kushner's project

Island Albania, you know Albania proves luxury resort project linked to Jared Kushner Yeah, so Albania's government has granted strategic investor status to a company linked to Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner built a luxury resort on an uninhabited Mediterranean island that was once a military outpost. I love that when the industrial complex feeds itself. That's right great new economy Yeah, this is the great society. We'll all know that we've achieved global peace when when every every Terrier hotel becomes a hotel. Yeah, that's right. The Balkan country strategic investment committee headed by prime minister, Eddie Rama on December 30th accepted a proposal by Atlantic incubation partners. What a name.

LLC for the 45 hectare project on the small island of Cezanne involving a planned investment of 1.4 billion euros. You got it right. So there's this thing that you touched on and that I've been sort of racking my brain to try and figure out, because it goes back to information space

and like how do you create a strategy in a country that is made so much better by having free speech that is operating in a global economy and a free idea space. How do you protect the collective mind of that country from attack? And part of that, I think that is out of whack in the United States is the fact that we have,

we've used transparency improperly, in my opinion. There's a certain amount of, I think all systems have a certain amount of good transparency. And if you change the structure of the transparency and you basically allow people to see just enough to not trust them, your transparency is fucked up. Like people talk about like, what do you know about the CIA? It's like, oh, MK Ultra and you know, all these black ops. And the reason, yeah, JFK. Oh, I don't know.

I didn't read those documents. Oh, you don't? I've never been. Oh, so you had the, they were gonna let you read them, but you just decided not to decide dude. There's like 60,000 pages of JFK. I'm so not interested in JFK Who did it what the papers say? Seems like the Pentagon and CIA to me all right. I'll take your word for it now I

One theory I never I never got into Um, I... One theory I never got into. Um, uh, but look, that's a transparency gap that's not working. The reason that people feel so strongly about the malicious actions that our clandestine agencies are taking is because they've specifically admitted to doing really fucked up stuff. And so we have this gap where we've highlighted

only the shitty things that our clandestine agencies have done. And then within this, like, you know, wall of shadow, we don't know what they're doing that's actually good. So, like, we only see the bad things. We only see the system when it falls apart. That's right. That's infrastructure, you know? Like, the most important day that you will think about your plumbing is when your plumbing doesn't work.

Right? That's right. Yeah, I had that day a few days ago. Sorry to hear that. Yeah, toilet exploded back there. Anyway, let's continue. That was a Psyop. Yeah, so like.

I didn't take a shit for it to explode, it just exploded. Just randomly. Yeah, I mean that happens every day, but. I didn't take a shit for it to explode, it just exploded. Just randomly. Yeah, I mean that happens every day, but. I imagine, yeah. So yeah, we have this, we have like, one, I think a pretty noble cause around, hey, after a certain amount of time,

you have to declassify stuff. I think that's great, like we should have more transparency. But given the fact that the stuff that gets declassified is pretty gnarly, we look back at those documents and we're like, Jesus, you were doing all of this shit? Right. And we think, well, I can't trust my government. I can't trust the-

Righteously so. Right. And so with only highlighting the things that are specifically antagonistic to the American people, it's no wonder that people have lost or are having their trust eroded in the process of governance. And I don't know. I don't know how you fix that. Like, I don't think abject transparency is the way to go.

I think that governments need to maintain a certain amount of strategic depth in their own information space? Well, it's a tough dance because in a transparent world where we have everything at the tip of our fingers with the iPhone, we expect everything to be transparent, including the government, and that's not realistic. We also expect everything to be perfect, meaning there's no good, there's no bad stories coming out there and bad shit They did and what happens is we then react by wanting naturally wanted to throw the baby out with the bathwater So it's not bad enough that like we haven't had oversight for CIA

Which we should have more oversight it is out of control and there are things we got to fix there Instead we have to say no you have to abolish the whole agency right right which doesn't work, but You made a point earlier that ties directly into this that's a great, I mean, you can't skip over this with any of this stuff and that is times of economic unrest. And then you mentioned a few other things. And social unrest. And social unrest are breeding grounds for,

let's say like revolutionary type things. Mystice and malign information. That's 100% right. And so right now, we've seen the biggest divide as we already talked about earlier between like the elite class and everyone else because the wealth gap is growing and the winners are getting bigger and bigger and more and more spread out, that it is ripe for that glass house, us versus them, Main Street versus Wall Street or whatever, or Tech Street, whatever it may be. Insert Elite Street here, that we are looking at a scenario where people are going to cling

to the things that give that, that give their argument against the other as much juice as possible. So again, the elites are running the world, they're working with intelligence agencies to do it. Therefore, which I'm not saying some of that stuff doesn't happen, it does. But like therefore it always happens, that's the only thing it is, so we gotta get rid of it.

Right, and then there are all of these preexisting fissures that exist in a pluralistic society. Like, I mean, I think that we should really take stock of the amazing thing that the United States is, that it created a space where people could come and prosper. And in New York City, I'm listening to 700 different languages being spoken on a subway that is functioning and air conditioned. That's incredible. Like,

that's pretty fucking cool. That's a remarkable feat of, of it's just an incredible achievement in in both globalization and and proper governance. But those features still exist and they can be exploited. So one of my favorite, one of my favorite Russian PsyOps is, so I can't remember exactly when it was, but basically the internet research group, you have getting per Goshen's troll factory was like, what if we start Facebook events? And they decided to throw a protest,

and it was a group called the Heart of Texas. And, uh, they were gonna, they were gonna, like, burn a Quran or something. And then they also... They put a different opposite one across the street. They got a counter protest across the street. And so, fortunately, this, this didn't end up with an enormous amount of violence, And they also... They put a different opposite one across the street. They got a counter protest across the street. And so, fortunately, this didn't end up with an enormous amount of violence, but you can

see how it could. Because suddenly you have, you know, I think Heart of Texas had something like 300,000 people in that group, like in that Facebook group. 300,000. Yeah. And so those people were being directly influenced by, you know, some operative in St. Petersburg who is just tweeting and posting. You know, there was an operation in, I want to say it was the 70s, it's called the Fake

in the Lake or Project Neptune. And Russia was attempting to subvert the new government in Germany, I want to say. And to do this, they wanted to sort of plant a fake chest of seemingly Nazi documents in this lake and then uncover it. Yeah, right? Nice. I kind of like that plot. It is really, yeah, the dude who... It's like a George Clooney movie. and then uncover it. Nice. Yeah, right? Nice. I kind of like that plot. It is really, yeah.

The dude who... It's like a George Clooney movie. It feels cool. Right. Yeah, it feels so much cooler than like I just tweeted something mean at Eric specifically. Yeah, Nazis really get the people going. They really do. So they had to create like, you know, forge these Nazi documents.

They had to like age a steamer trunk. They had to sink it to the bottom of this random lake. They had to invite a real film crew out there to record this thing and open this thing. And the, this is from the book, Active Measures by Thomas Ridd. It's a wonderful book if you want to learn about Russian psyops.

The operative who did it, this guy named Ivan Agayants, and he's quoted as saying something along the lines of, you know, it's great to have freedom of press because if they didn't, we'd have to invent it for them. Whoa. He was specifically talking about how easy it was to play these games.

But I always talk about this though. The painful part of like living in a democratic system is that the freedoms that come with that, countries that have the opposite authoritarian and tell other people what to do when it comes to infiltrating our system, they get to use it against us. There's such a strict,

I mean, there are, in the great conversation of geopolitics, there is a battle between whose political philosophy is eventually going to win out. Like, do you have an information space that is open and allows the best ideas to butt their heads against one another. And eventually we come out with something that's synthesized

that works for the maximum amount of people. Not only that, but you've created a system of governance that has active buy-in from those people. And because they are somehow a part of the generation of that system, they also are a part of it. So they're less likely to destroy their own system or to become cynical in it. It's an authoritarian system tends to be more brittle.

And when they break, they break really, really violently. That's right. And it's crazy how little, like the powder keg that causes it, it doesn't need to be like 50% of the society. Like David Satter always talks about how the USSR fell because they got 15% of the society to turn. Right. That's all they needed.

And then those people were, it was enough volume to be like, get in the streets and then it was like, okay, that's it. I think sometimes they talk about the Iranian revolution as a stolen revolution. Stolen revolution. That they, uh, part of the, they didn't realize that an Islamist regime was going to be coming in, that they thought that after getting rid of the Shah, that a more sort of open and democratic government was coming in. Yeah, they used the Marxists and everything.

Didn't work out. Yeah. So, so yeah, I mean, I think that, um... At least I hope that democratic principles went out, because mean, I think that... At least I hope that democratic principles went out, because frankly, I just think it is a better system for surfacing the best ideas and then building your country based upon those ideas. But when you have information space that is being slowly poisoned by external actors,

it becomes incredibly difficult to agree on a similar set of facts. This is called in the Rand Corporation came out with a great report on- Oh, your place. I'm a full disclosure. I'm a student at the Rand School of Public Policy and National Security.

Not suspicious at all. Not at all. Just filling up my Deep State dance card. That's right. He wants to start a country. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about that a little bit. So they did a great report on what's called truth decay.

And truth decay is... That sounds like the biggest fucking big government term ever. That feels like Ministry of True Shit right there. Well, so this is exactly, exactly why it's so difficult to have a conversation about the information space. Because specifically, Americans, and it's in my DNA too, as soon as you say something about like, oh, you're going to tell me what to do.

It's Orwell! Right, yeah, exactly. We're just like digging up the corpse of George Orwell constantly and making him dance for us. But, like we have to maintain freedom of speech because it is a superpower for us. That's right. Freedom of speech can be painful,

but the other side of it is way worse. It's proven over and over. That's why I will die on that hoe forever. And a lot of people listening who are from America especially, like we get that. Well, and there were two organizations that were recently stood up and then immediately stood down

to try and deal with information space attacks. And it was the Global Engagement Center was one of them. I think it lasted for like eight minutes. Who runs these things? I don't know. Like Klaus Schwab? information space attacks, and it was the Global Engagement Center was one of them. I think it lasted for like eight months. Who runs these things? I don't know. Like Klaus Schwab? No, no, no.

This is a US, this is a Biden era initiative. That's not reassuring. Right. So there was the Global Engagement Center, and then there was another organization, I can't remember what it was, that was stood up basically to do some type of information space defense, but they were shot down specifically

for the exact reason that you mentioned, which is like this feels like a ministry of truth. Because it probably, there's an element of it that either already is and even worse will completely become that sure Yeah, and and I think that everybody is is right to be super wary of Any government structure that is right put in place that makes the information space? Curated on their benefit. That's right. Here's here's a policy that I'm

I'm at least writing about in my paper that I think maybe we could agree on is a good one, right? Okay So there are one one dominant attack that is fairly common especially in electoral site you do us No, but cognitive DDoS attacks are really interesting. I'll tell you about that in a second Um, but no thought you were going there. Yeah Really excited. Oh cognitive DDoS attack is where you it's Steve Bannon flood the zone with shit Basically, if you if you have some message that you want to get out there and then you're somebody else is able to co-op that message by just like Slamming it with like a bunch of nonsense, then the signal will get lost in the noise.

That's a cognitive DDOS attack. Steve Bannon is very, if you've read him in the past and what he says, he was a big fan of Rachel Maddow. Okay, wow. For example. Because what you're describing is the same thing that like she'll do. And you'll see this from the hard ends of the spectrum. They just flood shit with shit and it starts as one place, oh, they said it,

therefore we have a source on it. That means that there's something there, and then a bunch of other people say it, and pretty soon it's like, oh, that's just the truth. Do you know about the nationalist school that he was trying to start? He was trying to start a hyper nationalist European university in a monastery outside of Rome.

Come on. Yeah. Look it up. Steve, Steve, Steve Bannon's, he's got some ideas. Yeah. I can't remember what I was on before. You were talking about the paper you're writing about the type of- Oh yeah, hack and leaks.

Okay, so- Hack and links? Hack and leak. So here's a policy, tell me if this is to Ministry of Truth or not. Okay. Right? This is your idea, right? Yeah, so this is one policy idea that I think doesn't touch freedom of speech.

Comment section at the ready. Go for it. Also, I shouldn't state, I don't think this is possible. I don't think this would actually happen. So why are you writing about it then? Because it's a good idea. All right, here's my idea. Is, so essentially a hack and leak operation

is some antagonistic force comes into like the democratic national convention servers and they leak a bunch of emails, and then they shovel pass it to the Republicans, and they say, hey, we got all this dirt on your opponent, don't you want to use it? And run on what we hacked and leaked to you. My policy idea is that there should be a mutually agreed poison well clause where if it is proven that information was hacked and leaked, neither party can use that information

against the other party. It's a beautiful idea. You're right, it probably will never work. And the reason it won't work is because it is too valuable in the short term. It's too valuable in the short term. It's too valuable in the short term to have some really juicy information about your competitor and...

Hunter Biden's laptop. Right. Yeah. Like they can just say, oh, that's Russian. That wasn't even a hack and leak. They're like, they can just say that's Russian disinformation, have a bunch of people sign it. Oh, that's what it is.

Crazy. But the system falls apart when you're transparent or about the wrong things. And when you're obfuscating the wrong things, when you have people who are saying, oh, Russian disinformation, Russian disinformation, then it turns out to be true. Like there needs to be a certain standard of transparency

which actually increases trust in the American government and increases trust between individuals. So that's one policy, which I don't think messes with freedom of speech. Another one that I think is important, which my buddy calls the Bob Dylan strategy. The Bob Dylan strategy. They filmed that whole movie right here, by the way.

Oh, did he? Yeah, the Timothy Chalamet one. He was just walking around. The Bob Dylan strategy. The Bob Dylan strategy. They filmed that whole movie right here, by the way. Oh, did he? Yeah, the Timothy Chalamet one. He was just walking around. All around Hoboken, I walked onto the set by accident. Did you? Are you in the movie? No, I got physically removed.

They're like, sure, sure. I'm like, what? I was like on the phone. Yeah, tough moment for me. You're a lot bigger guy now, so you might have scared Timothy Chalamet. No, I don't think he noticed. It was the security guys. Yeah. Yeah

Um, he was locked in bro. Good. He's no like yeah that motherfuckers on it seems like it like a different world Would you have them have them on the show? I would love to be really cool. I love me some chalamet pause but yeah, um, so So yeah, like the the Bob Dylan strategy. Um, this is more of like, uh, I don't want to call it an offensive operation but it is an offensive operation is the fact that like we need to use the benefits of the open American information space and and American culture to Ship that externally the best Ambassadors that we've ever had

are our rock stars and our sitcoms. I was in North Macedonia in Lake Orchid, and I saw Lenny Kravitz's concert, and I was like, why the fuck is Lenny Kravitz in North Macedonia? As it turns out, after the fall of Yugoslavia, he was the first rock star who wanted to come in and play a concert.

And people love him in there. That's great marketing. Right? I can't remember who it was. Or I think it was after the Velvet Revolution when Czechoslovakia fell apart. But the first band to come was Metallica. Right? I think the best ambassador that I've ever met, or the best ambassador I've ever had an interaction with in Eastern Europe is fucking Chandler Bing.

Every single Albanian I know knows every single episode of Friends. Like, not technically, I think it might be an American, was Titanic an American movie? Cameron's from Canada. It's a fucking, that's an American movie, right? Okay, okay. Good, just making sure.

Leonardo DiCaprio. Yeah, thank you. Titanic, it's our boat that sank. You're right. So Titanic, amazing example. My first month in Albania, I was at my host family's house and my host family is that your handler this is the the Kurchini family of Lava they're on the payroll of CIA or NSA peace Corps well that is CIA so I

see I wish I was doing something so cool I was just getting yelled at by Albanian teenagers for sure you were yeah and you ended up in a bunch of countries that So I see it. I wish I was doing something so cool. I was just getting yelled at by Albanian teenagers for two years. I'm sure you were. Yeah, and you ended up in a bunch of countries that don't exist and became ambassadors somewhere. But you know, that's the thing. Go read the book to find out more. But anyway, so we're there.

We're there, or I'm there, and I've got my two host brothers and the family is going out for the night and I was like, oh, I can cook dinner. And they're like, oh, cool. So I was cooking dinner and night, and I was like, oh, I can cook dinner, and they're like, oh, cool. So I was cooking dinner, and then my host brother was like, oh man, we need to make this a really cool night. And I'm like, cool, what are we gonna do?

And then he just put on the Titanic soundtrack, and I was like... I was like... I was like, listening to my heart will go on from these Albanian... Was he at least playing like an NBA highlight where they dribble and like as the song drops, like the ball drops?

It would have been really cool, but no, we just like sat there and listened to My Heart Will Go On over and over again and like... That's like a little gay. He was, yeah. Oh, well. It was, yeah. Just listening to My Heart Will Go On

with my two new host brothers. And they're like, have you seen Titanic? I'm like, yeah, beautiful movie. I was talking with an Albanian friend at one point, and she's like, I made a reference to Demolition Man, and she's like, oh, I know every line from Demolition Man. And I'm like, how? And she's like, well, it was one of the first movies

to come through after the fall of communism. And I'm like, yeah, do more of that. That's a great marketing strategy. People should be lined up, looking for the next country to fall. If I'm a musician or artist or something, have my demo ready to drop there. Dude, whoever snatches up the North Korean hearts and minds

by playing a sick rock show there. It's gonna be the new K-pop, but North Korean style. Who do you think it's gonna be? If you had to choose right now, who would be the American artist that you'd be like? Little Uzi Vertical could really pull it off. Oh! He could pull it off.

Wow! Yeah. That was not who I thought. He's out there. That wasn't who I thought you were gonna go with. They would just be so fascinated by that. Cause my friend Wally Green went to North Korea to do ping pong diplomacy.

I know, that's so cool. And he's black. So they're like, what is this? You know, they're all North Korean there. Yeah. And so they were just, and then, you know, he won over the crowd too. It was actually like an amazing story.

Yeah. Because he was doing a ping pong match with like this nasty North Korean. Like he was really good. Yeah. In front of this whole stadium. And every time like he would do something, like Wally would do something, like he was really good. Yeah. In front of this whole stadium. And every time like he would do something, like Wally would do something, they would go, boom.

Every time the other guy would do something, he'd be like, yeah. That must be. Perfect clapping. And then he started to like kind of work with the crowd and show them like, oh, I come in peace. And they were like almost confused, but they're like, okay, like, I guess we can clap a little bit.

And then at the end, the other guy came over to like, I don't even know, I can't even, there's a video of it. I don't even remember if he like shook his hand. This was all in episode 147 with Wally back in 2023. But like, he like went to either whatever the custom was, bow or like shake his hand. And Wally pulled his hand and pulled him in and gave him a big hug.

And the guy was like shocked. But then he like started to smile like, oh, this is kind of cool. And people were clapping. But what I'm saying is like, it was so outside, like someone who literally just looked like Wally before he even did all that stuff was so outside their purview that they started against it,

but then got curious about it. And then they realized it was okay, they weren't gonna get shot for being curious about it and then they're like, oh, this is cool. So I'm saying like, you know, you could take an extreme example, meaning something that's totally different than what they know, which little Louie's vertical would,

you know, obviously I'm advocating right here, but you know, he would be that. It's a funny example, but in all seriousness, it's like it could work. That's what we're good at, right? That is the thing that ingratiates, like that American culture shipped through our media ingratiates us more to the rest of the world

than our military does, certainly. And so I think that there is, you know, a lot more attention has to be paid towards how we're having these public conversations in our art and in our artists. Because- Well, USAID made sure to pay off some people, so we got the right public conversations.

That's right. Well, and okay, so I'll get on my sub box about USAID. Oh God, here we go. Here we go, all right. Here's the shiller. Let me start shilling. The good old shiller. Look.

I gotta get Mike Benz in here with you just to throw up. Yeah, let's do it. I would be in. Because I think he and I might agree on more things. No, in all seriousness, like, you guys will. You're a reasonable dude. Yeah, I think that... I think we would agree on the problem.

And look, you know, every country needs some form of soft power, some form of diplomacy. And then also like, so there's two angles on this for me. Like one, I want people in other countries to get to know Americans that are there to help them out instead of there to suppress them in any way. Like I prefer that as an American who wants to be seen well in the world.

And I think it's also partially our responsibility when we're benefiting so much for a globalized world. And then here's my cynical answer to it. It's cheaper to do international development than it is to fight a pandemic or a war that comes out of that area that we could have helped out with. It's just cheap. Yes. No, no, that theory is in theory, 100% right.

As you well know, and you and I agree on this, this is why I like you because like you're a moderate guy on a lot of things and you'll say stuff that gets some people riled up, but it's like it's a very moderate type opinion. It's like You can use soft power to do things for example to combat the well-documented Soft power that I don't know China does with Belt and Road as you've already laid out around the world When you then use that and it gets like a shrub that's way out of control and you use it for things that have nothing to do with soft power and actually having the opposite effect while wasting our tax dollars as we saw with all the waste in USAID. And when you can, when other organizations like a CIA can use USAID as like a shell company

to not have to report things that also aren't having an effect of soft power, that's where people get pissed, and where I get pissed, and we have every right to be. What Mike Benz is saying, and he's like in a really tough spot, is that he's the one who's been screaming

at the top of his lungs for a decade about this problem, and yelling, look at it, look at it, look at it. And then all the people finally get on it and they're like, great, burn it all down. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then they're like, oh, you must be controlled opposition. He's like, no, no, I'm just saying I want this to be smart.

Like again, like we're here, let's not go here, let's get it here. Right. You know? And I mean, to create an effective soft power apparatus is really difficult because international development is really difficult. There are some astounding projects that have done really great things in countries.

And again, we don't hear about them. We hear about the fuck ups. We hear about the fuck-ups. We hear about the, you know, funds for USAID being frittered away on bullshit and nonsense that doesn't benefit the US and also doesn't benefit other countries. Or, worst case, it being used on behalf of the clandestine services for whatever reason. But I also put that on them, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like USAID post-Reagan became a pool of wealth that people could try and gain funds from.

After Reagan, it became a pool of wealth that people would be able to write contracts from, get funded by USAID to do a project on the ground somewhere. And part of the thinking of that was, well, if it's an indigenous NGO and we can pay them, they're gonna be able to do that job better because they know the area and they're being paid at a lower rate.

We don't have to send some dude from Texas over to Azerbaijan to do stuff. Right. And so it seemed like a really good idea, but then you had these larger international development companies, which made hay off of getting all of these government contracts. And then you had agencies that didn't mean the world terribly

well jumping in on the action too. But again, there's a problem with the transparency here. We didn't know and we don't know where all of the funds are going and apparently a lot is unaccounted for. Because of that, it opens the door for an enormous amount of mistrust in, I would say, a beneficial organization. I was at a conference the last two days at a deep state, Deep state, deep state, deep state. At where? At the Council on Foreign Relations.

You were at a Council on Foreign Relations conference. That's right, that's why I have this tie on. You are just, you're like a guy just as trying to off himself in front of the... As soon as I get Bilderberg group, I've got the hat trick or Davos. Do you work for Teal? No.

You sure? Yeah, I should. You should. you work for Teal? No. You sure? Yeah, I should. You should. He's so veiny and shiny. Shout out to Peter Teal. Pause. Um, big pause. Big, big pause there.

All right, continue with your desecration of events from the last two days. Right, so I was at a conference for students and just mid-career people who work overseas. So it's a lot of people studying international relations and conflict resolution from Georgetown. There was like a random high schooler there, so good on him. But anyway, I was talking with some people who, you know, they stood up and they're like, well, hey, I was a part of USAID.

I was working, I think one lady was working in Madagascar trying to help with like textile production. And she's like, I just don't have a job now. And I also have this remarkably specialized set of skills. Like, I know about trying to make the textile market in Madagascar better, and I speak that language, and I specifically know this area. Like, I was doing good work there

until the rug got pulled out from under me. There are people who are scrambling right now to be like, well, look, I came into this. I wanted to do something noble. And now everything is being thrown out with the bath water. And not only did the noble work that I was really passionate about that was incredibly costly for me to do. Like, I'm sorry, I spent two and a half years

as a Peace Corps volunteer. And it's difficult to just go overseas and uproot your entire life, and specifically to do that just because you actually believe that you can make something slightly better, and that it's a worthy task to do. Like, that is the mentality of aid workers, and I think it's bullshit that they're being...

The good ones. ...all maligned. Yeah. Yeah. And it is the good ones, and it's bullshit that they're being all maligned. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it is the good ones. And it's just really difficult work. And they clearly care about solving really hard problems. And so to see it all maligned is really, it's really disheartening because, you know, I want to believe that the United States

really has these high-minded ideals that we are capable of being generous and powerful at the same time. Well, and that's where the cynics will come in and I'll hear them when they come in, when you use a word like generosity referring to an entity that's trying to impose power around the world.

I don't, to be clear, Peace Corps is a different kind of thing, because like that's literally like, my cousin went and did it for two years in Guinea and had to get pulled back because of the pandemic and has been here ever since. But like, you know, you're going and you're building wells in places that literally don't have running water or you're building a school in a place

that doesn't have any education for their kids. Like, that's a great thing. When you're talking about the stuff where there's actually real soft power being used, like a lot of money changing hands to specifically build up industries that are going to economically incentivize some country that's going to help the United States interests in this area of the world because now that country having this thing and da da da da da, when you're talking about that, I don't even need generosity.

I need oversight and common sense. Completely agree. That's what I need. That's right. And so I'm like, what China's doing to Africa is a disgrace because it's China centric. They're like, well, I don't go fuck about that. They're like, they're building some nice things.

So it's like on the surface, it's like, oh, thanks for doing that. But now they fucking own them, because like we said earlier, they're building stuff, they know that these countries can't pay back. So now they're gonna be able to say, we do whatever we want here. I would rather us go in and do some of those things,

and maybe actually, I don't know, try to be a little freedom America, and build it in a more economically advantageous way. So it's not like, yo, we own you. But it could be like, hey, there's certain things here where we would love to have your support on that. Well, I told you about meeting the Chinese ambassador in Somaliland when, I don't, do we talk about

the Chinese ambassador in Somaliland while I was there? No, but you're gonna need to fill people in. Oh, right, yeah. Dude, let's give the first story. This was an episode, we did 163 and 164, the beginning of 164, you go into your whole Liberland thing and tell the whole thing. I would highly recommend that, very entertaining. But can you explain to people how you became the ambassador for Liberland, which is a country

that allegedly doesn't exist? Yeah, I can. And I'll do it pretty succinctly. So Basically, I was reporting in Kurdistan. I was third grade teacher there. There you go again In that fucking country. I know I just keep saying you're gonna get executed next time you go to Turkey really hope not I'm just not allowed to travel through there anymore. We're gonna close with that story but good nice Curtis, yeah, yeah, but keep going so While I was there I was talking with a Dutch journalist that story by the way. Good, nice. The first Kurdish that I've ever heard of. Yeah, yeah. But keep going.

So, while I was there, I was talking with a Dutch journalist and he was like, well, if you're interested in countries that are unrecognized, you should get a load of Liberland. And I was like, what's Liberland? And he's like, oh, it's the world's first libertarian microstate. It's on an empty island in the middle of Danube River between Serbia and Croatia. And I was like, I don't understand anything more about Liberland. And he's like, you want the president's phone number? And I was like have you heard of this Steve you never this is great. I'm I have a really weird resume

And I'm unemployed so hire me anybody CCP so Don't worry, we'll take care of him later Oh, all right, get the fuck out of here. Don't worry, we'll take care of him later. So I get the president of Liberland's phone number. Shout out to Vidyadlika, president of Liberland. And then I was doing other reporting in other unrecognized nations in Kosovo, Transnistria. And the entire time I mean, I have the phone number

of a president of a cryptocurrency-based micro nation, I'm gonna fucking email him. And I did a lot. Like I just bothered the hell out of that email him. And I did. A lot. Like, I just bothered the hell out of that poor man. And it would just be like, hey, it's me again. Subject, I do not work for CIA. I can't imagine what they thought I was, but I was going to Oxford at the time,

so it gave me some bona fides. I was like, I'm doing my dissertation on statecraft. Which I was. That's just how I sound in emails. Um... And so eventually he was like, okay, you can come to the third year anniversary. And I was like, great. So go to the third year anniversary.

Turns out the third year anniversary is a cryptocurrency conference as well as like the third year anniversary of Liberland. And I didn't know anything about crypto at this point, but I met their secretary of state, who was a really regal Englishman named Dr. Tarek Abbasi. And he was like, are you going to go on the boats? And I'm like, what are the boats?

And he's like, well, we're not allowed to step on the island because the Croatian authorities and us are in a legal battle over the island of Liberland right now. And so I was like, well, so you're just gonna like, go look at the island of Liberland. And he's like, yeah. I'm like, sounds like a party. If I'm invited, let's go. Yeah, it's really yours. Yeah, and so I-

No touching, just looking. I ended up meeting the president of Liberland there on the back of a jet ski, because he was just sort of jet skiing around on the Danube. How do you end up on the back of his jet ski, because he was just sort of jet skiing around on the Danube. How do you end up on the back of his jet ski? I thought I told you. Okay, okay. So this is... Well, you did, but people out there haven't heard the story if they haven't heard the podcast.

So, um... So, I basically got on the biggest boat that was in the Liberland flotilla, and it was a really ragtag flotilla. There were, like, dinghies, and then there was a big houseboat, and then there was, you know, some mid-sized boats, and I just got on the biggest one because I figured that's where the president would be.

Um... You were right. I was, and... Well, I actually wasn't. Yeah, that's the Liberty. Right there? That's the one. Yeah, that's the one I was on. God, rough times for that country.

That's a big boat. They've got more boats now. They're doing pretty well. So anyway, I got on the boat and I was looking for the president and he wasn't there, which was crazy because it's a boat and there's very few places to leave. And then I look over the board

and he's just riding around on a jet ski and he's like stopping by like each of the little boats and giving some Liberland speech, and then hopping on the jet ski and going somewhere else. It's like Kenny fucking Powers if he had a country. It was so... Like, I was equal parts like... impressed and horrified.

I'm like, I either support the hell out of this political leader or the world has fallen. Right. I don't. All 13 people in this country. I think they had like 40. At this point, there was like maybe like 40 or 50 people on the boat.

Anyway, I'm like dude, I need to talk to him. I've come so far to talk to this man about how to make a country. I need to talk to him. But there's a lot of water between me and him, and he's moving very quickly because the jet ski. And so I just sort of leaned off the side of the boat, and I've never even met this man.

And then eventually, their foreign secretary, he's a guy named Tom, who works for Expedia, I think he still does. Shout out to Tom. He's like, you wanna get on the jet ski? And I was like, yeah, I do. And he's just... Just you and him, and now are you holding him around the waist?

So he waved VIT down, and then I, yeah, I got... Very Titanic of you. My first impression was like, just getting onto a jet ski and then holding the president of Liberland and then us just sort of like blasting off into the Danube River. Meanwhile... Are you like heimlicking it?

I'm heimlicking it. I felt like that was too personal, so I heimlicked. Okay. Uh, and so, I mean, really the scene was nuts because we had Croatian police on one side making sure that the boats didn't go on the island. So...

Guns drawn? No, no, no, just like, but lights, flickering off of the Danube River. And then on the other side, you had a bunch of Bitcoin nerds partying on houseboats while they're blasting Katy Perry. And meanwhile, I'm hugging the president of Liberland a bunch of Bitcoin nerds partying on houseboats while like they're blasting Katy Perry. And meanwhile, I'm hugging the president of Liberland. And I'm like, hey, it's me. I'm

Eric. And he's like, yeah, the email guy. No, I'm like, oh, you've heard of me. And so eventually, I'm like, like all of the questions that I had for this person just kind of ended up leaving me because of well, I'm on the back of a jet ski in the Danube River between the Croatian police and a bunch of Bitcoin nerds. And so I didn't have all my faculties about me. Also, I had drunk quite a few glasses of Libreland's official wine, Tierra Nolis. Oh, they have a wine.

They do, yeah. It's pretty good. Red? Yep. Okay. Plastic bottle though, weird. Oh. Yeah. Fransia throwback. Look, that was when they were a three-year-old country.. Plastic bottle though, weird. Oh. Damn.

Fransia throwback. Look, that was when they were a three year old country. Now they're like 10 years old. So now they're doing better. So now they got silicone. Right. So the only question I could ask him was, I was like, you know,

I've been living in unrecognized countries for so long and people have to fight and die for the right to draw this line on a map. And now you are doing it in this way where you're basically using digital currencies and the global court system to draw a line on a map. And the only question that I can really ask you is like, is it worth it?

And meanwhile, I'm yelling it in his ear, like as we're cruising along the Danube. You're like, is it worth it to start a country? Yeah, exactly. And then he like, he stops the jet ski in between, you know, the boat. Oh, this is dramatic. Right? And he stops it and he's still, you know,

the engine's just sort of chugging along. And then he says, everyone should start their own country. And then he just busts a really sick U-turn, big wave of water goes towards the Croatian police, and we just like buzz back to the houseboat, and I just get put back on the houseboat, and I'm like... Did you get goosebumps?

It was, it was, yeah. It was an incredible moment. Write that down for a script, Diff. We're gonna use that. So, I was like... Everyone should start their own country. That's either... the greatest thing I've ever heard, or the stupidest thing I've ever heard. It's either like a Zen count or it's a really cynical take

on how one person can gain agency in the world. And depending on the day, you know, I flip-flop all the time. And the question is, how do you actually gain sovereignty in the world? If you were going to start a country now, what would you do? And this is, aside from the fifth generation warfare stuff,

which is what I'm doing for school, the next, for school, man, I'm getting A's. Um, I'm so good at national security. Um, so, for the next book in this series, I'm tackling that question. I'm trying to figure out, like, okay, well... If I was gonna start a country, how would I do it? Like, what do you actually have to do

to start a country in the would I do it? Like, what do you actually have to do to start a country in the world as it is right now? And as it turns out, there's like a pretty clear set of criteria for how you make a country. It's called the Montevideo criteria. And it was, I think it was signed in 1933, but you might wanna fact check me on that. What's it called?

The Montevideo criteria. Oh, like the place, Montevideo. Yeah. Montevideo criteria. I think so, yeah. Here we go. The Montevideo criteria established by the Montevideo Convention of the Rights and Duties

of States defines four key elements for a state to be recognized under international law. A permanent population, defined territory, a government, and a capacity to enter into relations with other states. That's it. So technically, if you have those four things, then you, friend, you've got a country. I mean, the declara- but the difficulty is, the difficulty is in between the declaration and then the recognition. Wow, yeah. Because anybody can declare a country, especially if you have those four components,

then you meet the criteria of an internationally recognized country. But how do you gain recognition when all of the land on earth is spoken for? Now, the places that have tried this, they all kind of fall into a series of really interesting buckets. Some are these sort of, I guess for lack of a better word, like art project sovereignty,

where there is, and this is no shade to them, but there's a nation in the Southern California desert called Slow Jamistan. Shout out to the Sultan. We need to do a podcast from Slow Jamistan. You absolutely should, yeah. We should do that. I have exchanged text messages with the Sultan of Slow Jamistan.

The Sultan. Yeah, the Sultan. They speak English? They do, he speaks it with a self-imposed accent and some of his... Self-imposed. Some of his laws include that crocs are illegal in slow jammistan. I can get behind that. Right. Yeah.

I can get behind that. Yes. Look, I mean, you can be a part of that permanent population. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. And then there's like another micro-state called Molossia. It's in the Nevada desert, and they still pay taxes to the United States, but they consider their taxes

to be aid delivered to the United States. BOTH LAUGHING Hey, however you market yourself. You know, like, honestly, like... BOTH LAUGHING I really... I hate to pigeonhole myself too much, but I think kind of my sweet spot as far as writing and talking about ideas is like really goofy shit

that we should take seriously or really serious shit that like maybe we can have a laugh about because geopolitics is too serious to treat completely seriously all the time. I think you're right about that because it gets so, I mean, you're always talking about the most controversial shit in the world and you're talking about shit where people are living and dying too.

And there's a time and place, right? There's things that you got to just deliver it how it is and you want to be funny, but you know, you got to respect the situation. But there's a lot of stuff where you got gotta have some fun with it because it can also, I agree with you, it can loosen the conversation in small ways. Obviously not all the way to the top of the people who are signing the bills and making the declarations here, but like if you move society in a way

where these conversations can happen, eventually it could seep its way up to that level. Well, and so this is a part of this project, this is a part of the project of trying to build a state, trying to create a country, because what I wanna do is I want to show people how the magic trick is done. Because just because you know

how the illusion of statecraft is created, it doesn't make you interact with it any less. It doesn't make it more, it doesn't make that less impressive or less important. It just shows you that a big part of it is illusory. And you can believe the parts that are really important to you down to the marrow of your bones, and you can participate in that illusion.

And that's really important because it allows you to operate with your countrymen and to build together collectively, even though you guys don't know each other. But on the flip side, it also lets you call out the bullshit, which is so important because I think blind patriotism, no matter where it's coming from, or blind apathy towards your country,

these are two poisons that have gotten into our system and have gotten into our system, have gotten into our information space, and they're all predicated upon having too much certainty. And certainty is a hell of a drug. So I think that, you know, areas like slow jammistan, and in my first, so we've doing doing a bit of documenting on this and at the end of this this month, I'm going to be going to the National Convention of Micro States National Convention of Micro States. Yes in Montreal this year. It's called micro con Canada would have I know specifically Montreal too because they have such a secessionist movement there.

So there's like, and I was like, how many countries are gonna be at Microcon? As it turns out, there's a lot. Like there's a lot of micro states there and they range from like goofy little guy fun art projects to like people who are like, no, I'm really serious about creating my country. They range from like goofy little guy fun art projects to like people who are like, no, I'm really serious about creating my country. As the ambassador of the Julian Tory podcast,

I would like you to open up diplomatic relationships with Slow Jamistan on behalf of us to potentially do content from their land with the Sultan. I can get you an advisory meeting with his holden of slow Jamestan on my territory oh on your territory I think I think that's that's advisable I think you should got to come here he spoke I haven't spoken to him a ton but he's supposed to be a great guy and I've been that I've been following slow Jamistan for a while now.

Hopefully they don't turn into some horrifying occupation in their empty desert, but time will tell. If the Sultan gets drunk with power. Right, so that's one bucket. Off the kind though. I want to come back to this so that so people understand because we started this this Weave with you and the Chinese guy in Somaliland. I'm wearing ambassador So you get off the jet ski with Liberland president guy, correct? You get onto the boat and some point the conversation turns towards where is now you need an ambassador? No, this is not necessarily how it happened. It was weirder. So, Tom, foreign secretary,

I was like, where's next? Where's next on your journey? And I was like, I'm going to Somaliland. And he was like, we have an embassy there. I was like, weird. He's like, you wanna stay at it? And I was like, yeah. What's it a porta potty?

I can show you pictures of it. Yeah, I remember from that time. But and so I was like, yeah, I want to stay there. Like, I think I was like down to like maybe 300 bucks left in my bank account. Like I was just shoestringing this entire research. Your bank account, but not the bank account that's handled by CIA. Not my USAID black market slush fund. So you had a backstab.

Yeah, I had that, but there's only so many Iraqi rials that I can keep in my wallet. That's right. It's worth a lot, I hear. Super. So I'm getting ready to go. Yeah, um, super so I'm like getting ready to go. I like have a plane Flight to Hargiza, which is the capital of Somaliland

Which for people it's oh, yeah within Somalia, but this is a legit How big is the population like two million or something and what is considered so it's significant um, and considered Somaliland? It's significant. And actually it's really weird how relevant all of this is becoming now because the Trump administration is potentially considering recognition of Somaliland. 6.2 million. Yeah.

And then Hargis is the capital, like you said. But yeah, so it's within what we consider Somalia, but this isn't like, like people make the joke about Liberland, this is fucking 40 Bitcoin, bro. This is a real like thing. No, this is a real this isn't like like people make the joke about Lieberlein. This is fucking 40 Bitcoin, right? This is a real like yeah thing No, this is super like Somaliland is super geopolitically relevant and there's a big tussle going on between So sort of federal Somalia, which is their capital is Mogadishu and then Somaliland their capital is Hargeisa There's this competition right now. That's that's broadly defined as between the UAE and Turkey,

because Turkey is, they're taking this one path towards gaining influence in the Middle East and the larger African sphere by aligning themselves with different governments that also have access to critical ports. So Mogadishu has this. You'll see a lot of sort of Turkish help in the region of Mogadishu, but not in Somaliland.

So they're throwing their lot in with Mogadishu and they're trying to build up their military so that they can suppress al-Shabaab. And they're doing sort of nation building within Somaliland because it's in... or pardon me, within Somalia, within Mogadishu. And the reason for this is because it's an incredible, like, geopolitical asset. It's right into the Red Sea. And so if you want to project power at the mouth of the Red Sea,

Somalia is a great place to do it. Meanwhile, the UAE is trying to build up another port within... that's closer to the entrance of the Red Sea. It's a port called Berbera or Berbera. I don't speak Somali. I didn't speak it then, and I don't speak it now. But I actually went... Please don't try. I'm not going to.

I went to this port, like, and this is a consistent issue. There's two different versions of kind of how they see the Middle East and the larger African sphere working. And the UAE really wants this more mercantilist approach where it's like, look, we don't care where you pray, we just care that, like, you pay us for access to markets. Like, we want everybody to just sort of get along economically, and we'll try to create that infrastructure for that to happen. Whereas, Turkey has expressed the desire to sort of recreate a larger Ottoman sphere, like the Neo-Ottoman Empire, like a greater sphere of influence

that is beholden to Turkish power. This is an argument that's consistently playing out and I'm covering it pretty consistently. Obviously I'm interested in Somaliland for various reasons, but yeah, the US potential recognition of Somaliland is a huge deal. Yeah, it's crazy because it wasn't on my radar before I met you, and ever since then,

I'll hear about it all the time. Like, oh, shit. Like, my boy was the ambassador to that fucking place. And you were like, you were offering, we're not gonna go through the whole thing again, we can go to episode 164, but you were like offering up, you know, aid offerings from Liberland. Well, I made an aid delivery

from on behalf of Liberland. So anyway, as I'm getting ready to go to Somaliland, I just hadn't heard from the president. And I'm like, dude, I have a plane ticket to Hargiza. Like, I don't know where I'm supposed to go, what I'm supposed to do. Like, I can't just show up in Somaliland and like find a place to stay.

It's not that kind of place. So again, I just start, you know, emailing and texting the president of Laborland. And, and- Is he a good texter? You know, he wanted to call as soon as I texted a message to him. And I was like, oh, this is official.

And then like- Very official business. Really strange moment where I was like, oh, this is official. And then like really strange moment where I was like, hello, Mr. President? Shakira Line? No. So I was like, yeah, Mr. President, what's up? And he's like, oh, we had a problem. Like we lost her.

I'm like. It's like my first real. We had a problem. Yeah, which is like the first time that I really spoke with him, other than like holding him on the back of a jet ski. Um, and, uh... -♪ Da-na- I lost them, lost them, or like lost them. You know how you said I was retarded about certain things?

Yeah. Yeah, sometimes that comes in the form of not asking questions that I should have probably gotten an answer to. Right. And that was one of them. I was just thinking like, oh shit, like I won't have anywhere to stay. I'm just showing up in Somaliland randomly.

I have like 300 bucks to my name, and that's a dangerous situation because I'm there for up in Somaliland randomly. I have like 300 bucks to my name, and that's a dangerous situation, because I'm there for like six weeks. And he's like, yeah, so like, would you be interested in doing that? And I was like, what? And he's like, being the ambassador to... from Liberland to Somaliland.

And I was like... Sir, yes, sir. Yeah, I was like, well, what do I have to do? And he's like, well... Probably serve my country. You know, it's empty. Like, I was like, well, what do I have to do? And he's like, well, Probably serve my country. You know, it's empty. Like the embassy is empty, but. You're thinking shelter, food, I'm good.

Absolutely. And he was like, you know, maybe we can find somebody to put a bed in there for you or something. And I was like, that's. Close the bed, we're good. Yeah, like give me the mansion. I'll take the hay.

And so part of my job was to just buy furniture for the Liberland embassy. Where are you going, Ikea? No, there was a big like furniture row in Hargiza. And I had a guy, that was like the last thing I did. Like when I was like on my way out of the country, I was like, it was a really weird day because in Somaliland anyway,

I can't speak for the larger Eastern African area. It was a really weird day because in Somaliland anyway, I can't speak for the larger Eastern African area as I went to go look for like bed frames because I was like, I guess there's like four, we're gonna have four bedrooms and four offices and a big banquet table. Like that all seemed normal. I don't know, I never even bought furniture for myself

and now I'm outfitting an entire embassy. And so, a lot of the beds and couches in Somaliland were like... really garish. Like, they were like brightly colored and had like sort of rainbow lion faces on them, and they had like lights and stuff, and I'm like, this is not... This is not the vibe for a serious embassy.

Like I can't have these howling hallucinogenic lion faces. We're gonna have real diplomatic meetings here. It was really weird to buy so much furniture in Somaliland, but then, so I was supposed to, you know, buy furniture for the embassy, and then I was supposed to, you know, buy furniture for the embassy, and then I was supposed to make diplomatic connections with Somaliland, and so I met the vice president

of Somaliland, and then a cyclone blew through the area, cyclone Saggar. I hate when that happens. I didn't even know that it was happening, but it knocked out communications. I'm pretty oblivious at times. I don't even know that it was happening, but it knocked out communications. I'm pretty oblivious at times. I don't know if you noticed. Yeah.

But anyway, we had to, this actually wraps right back around to Ada. The Secretary of State called me and he was like, well, this is great because we have, yeah. It's my favorite picture of all time. Yeah. For those watching at home, I'm the one with the white shirt. I have the glasses, but I'm not the guy with the tie.

The guy on the right is the vice president. Of Somaliland. And so, yeah, like, the Secretary of State called and was like, okay, well, you know, this is great because we've got an aid team on the ground. And I'm like, who's the aid team? He's like, it's you. I'm like, oh, I thought that was gonna be the answer. Fuck. And he's like, you need to figure out how to give aid to the nomads that were displaced by Cyclone Saggar.

You're saying aid or aid? Yes. Hold on. bad connection. Rude. So I was like, okay, like, you gotta get me money somehow. Like I can't, how do we get money into Somaliland? And their banking system is, as you might imagine,

pretty rough. I was gonna say, they even have one? They do, yeah, there's two banks there, but it's really notoriously difficult to like get money in Somaliland. So I You know really rounding out my deep state resume. I have currently a bank account in Somalia that I started for a libera land that is not suspicious in the slight not at all I also have one in Lebanon, but that was for work in Iraq.

Anyway, I went through the whole process of starting a bank account on behalf of Liberland and they're like, it's not gonna work. And I'm like, I know. So they sent me $15,000 in Bitcoin and one of their contacts on the ground changed it over to US dollars. And suddenly it had. There you go.

Yeah. So you had a fixer. Yeah, I did. At what point does the Chinese guy roll in? Yeah, so I had met this guy, like a sort of German NGO guy, perfect example of like somebody who's like, they dedicated their life to like, aid, to making one small aspect of the world

a little bit better. Just a really genteel old German guy named Hans, and he was like, what are you doing in Somaliland? What was he doing between the years in 1939 and 1945? Obeying orders! BOTH LAUGH Sorry, Hans. Hans, you're a lovely person, and you only did right by me.

Um, so I was like, Hans, what are you doing here? He's like, oh, I'm working on the prosopis. I'm like, what's the prosopis? He's like, oh, it's the mesquite bush. I'm like, what? And he's like, I'm trying to stop the invasive species of the mesquite bush in the Port of Africa. I'm like, how long have you been doing this?

He's like, 10 years. I'm like, so... Nice. And he's right, like, it long have you been doing this? He's like, 10 years. I'm like, so. Nice. And he's right. Like it's a massively invasive species that is a thorny bush at the time that it's young. And a lot of the wealth in Somaliland is kept in livestock. The livestock eat the thorny bush and then they die.

Like that's a huge drain on resources in a pastoralist economy. And I'm like, dude, way to go, Hans. You're just, like, launching your one-man crusade against the damn mesquite bush. Way to do some good in the world. But anyway, he invited me over to his house for tea one night.

And he's like, I've got some friends coming over. I think you should meet them. I'm like, cool. He sounds like Werner Herzog. Um, Somaliland. And so in walks these two Somali guys and a Chinese guy. And my needs during Ramadan.

And so I'm fasting for Ramadan, you know, just as a part of- Oh, you were? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good for you. Just- You don't look like you fast a lot. No, I don't, I know. Gotta start again. So I'm fasting for Ramadan and I'm like, oh yeah, I'm gonna meet these guys

and we're gonna have tea and you know, that's fine. And so we all sit down and the Chinese guy is pretty hammered already. Like shocky bombs and stuff? I think he was Ethiopian gin. And alcohol is illegal in Somaliland. Oh, it's illegal? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can chew cot, which is a local narcotic. Right, we talked about that last time. But yeah, you can't drink booze. So, but he is apparently, I mean, he's identified himself to me as the Chinese ambassador to Somaliland. Great. I explain my situation as the Liberland ambassador to Somaliland, and suddenly things change a lot

between him and me, because he just starts promising me the sun and the moon, and he's like, we're gonna make you the president of Liberland one day. And I'm like... Oh, he's trying to turn you. I'm like, you just heard about Liberland. Yeah.

And I just heard about Liberland. Yeah. I don't think you understand what's going on here. Meanwhile, he's just like, tea is off the table and he's like, we're drinking Ethiopian gin, boys. And so, yeah, a long and pretty intense night ensues after that. Did you ever see him again? No, I never did.

All right, that's good. So he didn't turn you. Nope. You didn't become a Chinese agent. All right. That's good. So he didn't turn you Nope, I'm gonna come a Chinese agent. Yeah, not yet. Anyway, so it's still unemployed. Hold on a minute Yeah, now you're trying to start your own country. Well, so did that You know I did you can tell me hold on hold on. I turn you I should I should say something So this is in the book, but it bears on what we were talking about earlier. Everybody been fasting, Ethiopian gin comes out. Not good.

Oh yeah. Yeah. And you know, been dry as a bone for weeks and then the gin comes out and you know, it's not going to let all of these guys drink alone. And, you know, we're just hanging out in poor Hans' like sitting room, like, you know, just ripping through packs of Chinese cigarettes and drinking Ethiopian gin. Is there any air conditioning? Uh, I don't know.

I doubt it. I don't remember. So it's just like 90 degrees in there. You're ripping everyone. You're with the German. He's probably not wearing deodorant. You're ripping everyone, you're with a German, he's probably not wearing deodorant, you're just ripping Ethiopian shots. And things start to get a little spicy.

Oh man. So there's this big dude, and for some reason, he doesn't trust me. And I'm like, he's like, he just keeps being, he has an English accent because he had like spent some time in London. And the weird part about this was like, I was sort of explaining my very confusing

like backstory to him. And he kept making me explain it over and over again. And he's like, he's like, wait, you were living in Albania? Why? I'm like, no, cause I was a Peace Corps volunteer and like, yeah. Don't worry about it.

Yeah. And then he says, he says, Chau Bon, which is a Northern way of saying hello or what's up in the Albanian language. And I'm like, why do you know like a Northern greeting in Albania? And he was like, well, I was doing business with Albanians in London.

And I'm like, okay, this is potentially a weird moment, and I can understand maybe why you're not trusting me the most right now, and you probably think that I'm some sort of like, I don't know, U.S. government asset. Either way, things were pretty frosty between me and him. Everybody- You're not strapped either, right? Oh, God, no.

I'm just- You got a knife? Hammered, no. I'm just gonna knife hammered. No, I did. Well, that another time. Um, uh, things start the wheels start to fall off the conversation at one point. And the the larger gentleman Abdullah, he that's what I call him in the book. The larger gentleman, Abdullah, he, that's what I call him in the book, he starts to get a bit more aggressive as the Chinese guy starts talking shit about Hans. And he's like, the Chinese guy is like, look, all of these things are being brought to you by China.

We do X, Y, and Z in this country. And hey, you've been working here for how many years? And the Mesquite Bush is still around Hansen. Hansen's like, oh yeah, we're working on it. And then Abdullah just kind of loses it, and he's like, no, man, this is exact words. You're trying to fuck Somali land without a condom. Oh!

And he's like, do we work for you, or do you work with us? You just wanna take from Somaliland. So do we work for you, or do you work with us? And I was like, I mean, I kinda wanna get in on this action. And that was the Jinn talking. And I was like, yeah, he was calling himself David. I was like, yeah, David, do you work with Xi Jinping or for Xi Jinping?

And he's like, I don't understand the question. I'm like, no, do you work with Xi Jinping or do you work for Xi Jinping? And he's like, I don't you work with Ji Xianping or do you work for Ji Xianping? And he's like, I don't understand. Lots of hand waving. Anyway, the room gets tense as shit at this point. And I can see that Hans just really wants us all to get the fuck out of his house.

Yeah, Hans is having a tough day. Obvious reasons. And the big dude just- This is feeling like the Inglourious Bastards basement scene. It's starting to get there. It gets worse. I don't know if I told you this one before. No.

So, uh, Abdullah is, um... He's still, he keeps making me, like, tell him my backstory again and again. And I'm like, dude, I, like, I told you, and also, I don't know what you think I am, but I'm not powerful and influential in any way. I have an empty mansion across the street that is the embassy of a new country.

I'm telling you everything. That's somehow I'm the ambassador of this country, Somaliland. And I'm like, look, I will prove it to you. Come across the street and look at my empty mansion. Also, I had an armed guard in there named Eid. So I was like, just really gin brave. Eid was a kind man, but I don't necessarily know

if he would have protected me. No, but that bank account. Right, so I foolishly, so foolishly end up taking all of my new friends over to my, our Libra Lens mansion. And I'm like, see, it's empty. This is just a big empty space. I'm just a weird guy who caught up in this thing. And now we're in an empty mansion.

Like, that's what's going on. And so they, you know, are just sort of checking out the mansion, and I just like take a second on the, like, balcony area. And Abdullah comes up to me. He's like, tell me about it again. Tell me why you're here again. And I'm like, I'll tell you one more time. And I start up to me, he's like, tell me about it again, tell me why you're here again. And I'm like, I'll tell you one more time,

and I start talking to him, and he's like, stop! Tell me about it again. And I am losing my patience at this time, and I have a good deal of patience. The djinn was not helping that. But at a certain point, he says, stop a third time, and I was like, look, Abdullah, if you tell me to stop again,

I'm gonna have my guard throw you out. Buddy. Buddy. Mind you, I'm looking at him like this. He's a very large man. And that was a very stupid thing that I was doing. So dumb. My poor decisions get poorer soon.

So I, and he's like, oh, you are, you're just sort of caught up in this. And I'm like, yeah, I'm just caught up in this. And he's like, okay. Anyway, the other guys come up and they're like, oh, hey, this one, shout out to Hassan. I wish I had hung out with you more than Abdullah. Shut up. Hassan're like, oh, hey, shout out to Hassan. I wish I had hung out with you more than Abdullah.

Shout out. Hassan was like, oh, my wife is making dinner. You want to come over for dinner? I was like, that sounds great. And he's like, yeah, the house is just like down over there. Like we can see it from my rooftop. And I'm like, okay, cool. So I felt like things were kind of like warming up a bit

between me and Abdullah after I threatened him with my armed guard. The power was going to my head. And so we all leave and we're just going down the block. And the guys have their cars. Hassan is gonna take David, who's hammered at this point. Granted, I am as well, and Abdullah is like, why don't you ride with me?

And I'm like, okay, like I feel like we're bros now, and this is me being really stupid. Yeah. And so I get in his car. It's a common theme. It is, yeah. Makes for a great book. Yep, five star review.

Link in bio, description. And so I get in this car and We are supposed to drive Maybe a block away, and he just turns it around and he starts driving the opposite direction Oh the opposite direction are there even lights on these streets? No no no no no so the opposite directions Yeah, oh yeah. I was definitely noticing how comfortable I was getting with meeting my maker at this point.

So he turns around and he drives us out of this sort of like, you know, it's like a protected, almost like an embassy area. A lot of the NGOs have their compounds in the area. So he drives us right out of that and he drives us just towards the desert. Mind you, it's night, I'm hammered, he's hammered. And we're just speeding along. He just like cranks up some like Stormzy or whatever.

And he's just like stepping on the accelerator. And I am fucking terrified because he owns me at this point. Like, I got into this car and he's just gonna drive me wherever he wants. And so he's sort of yelling at me about, you know, whatever he thinks I am at this moment. And I'm looking out the side of the window,

and I'm like, how fucked up am I gonna get if I just have to ditch at this point? And he was going so fast that that was not an option. And then more on top of that, I was like, I don't even know where I am now. Like, I haven't been outside of these compounds this far. And so I'm like, I just gotta, like, stop him somehow and, like, talk some sense into him

and just take some of the air out of the, like take some of the tension out of the car. And I'm like, I know what I'm gonna do. I'm like, I'm gonna puke. And, cause I knew his car was beautiful. Like it was super nice inside. And he's like, not my car. And so he pulls over real quick.

And then I like go to the bushes on the side of the road and I'm like, fake puke. And I'm just sort of like scoping out where exactly I am. I'm probably about a mile away from lights in the middle of the Somali desert. And I'm just like, there's no way I can't, like I can't get back without him. I just can't.

And so if he just wants me terrified, well, he's got it. And I stood up and I can't, like, I can't get back without him. I just can't. And so, like, if he just wants me terrified, well, he's got it. And I stood up and I was like, look, I don't know who you think I am. I'm not that. I'm fucking terrified. Let's go back to town. So can you just drop me off at home

and we'll just forget about all this happening? And then he was like, yeah, okay. And he realized he had... Yeah, he realized he had scared the shit out of me. And so we start going back, and we pass the street that I'm supposed to be dropped off at, and I'm like, oh, no. Oh, no. And he's like driving me further into the downtown area. Now, downtown Hargiza, you're not allowed to be out

if you're a foreigner. It's really dangerous to be down there. And I'm like... You stick out like a sore thumb. Now, downtown Hargiza, you're not allowed to be out if you're a foreigner. It's really dangerous to be down there. And I'm like, oh, yeah. And the wrong shade. I don't blend in in Somalia. Somaliland, I should say. And so he's speeding again, yelling at me. And I'm like, this is I like I can't off, like, in this area. One, it's illegal. Two, I'm hammered. Like, that is an imprisonable offense if a foreigner is out. Not only a foreigner is out, but a foreigner that is drunk is out. And so, uh, eventually, I'm just like,

I'm trying to get myself ready to, like, just jump out the car, but then his tire blows. Nice. Come screeching to a halt. I just open the door and like run off into the night like a drunken vampire. Never saw him again. No.

Uh-uh. That's awesome. It was the worst hangover I've ever had. Your life's a movie. It's also a book. It's a book. And we'll get that out there right before we leave though because we got cat Yeah, yeah, yeah that podcast which you're welcome to stay for by the way, but the first Kurdistan story

I don't want to blue balls people with that What was where were we at where you're on the train? Oh, yeah? Yeah, you had told this one before but we started the whole podcast talking about the second time Yeah, you got arrested by Turkey and right waterboarded. So, the first time. And I'll send you the photos for that. So, I want, you know... Yeah, I love that you were taking pictures of your torture chamber.

You know, memories. Yeah. So, the reason that I was initially banned from Turkey, and still am, is I was... I had to leave Iraqi Kurdistan during the holidays, even though there was a, uh, the airspace was shut down over, over Iraq, over Iraqi Kurdistan,

specifically to punish the Kurds for their referendum on independence, basically. And, um, my girlfriend at the time was living in Bulgaria. I wanted to see her for the holidays, so I just took a bus out of Iraqi Kurdistan and then flew from some place in eastern Turkey to Bulgaria. Anyway, we were coming back through. We decided to take the train from Sofia, Bulgaria

to Istanbul. Really cool train. Also, I'm not... 100% think that everybody should go to Turkey. It's a wonderful place. I, you know, the politics of the area disagree with some of my work, and that's not a referendum on the people. That's a referendum on the government and choices that I've made. So, you know, go to Turkey and have some cool ice cream.

But anyway, we are chugging through the border on this train. When we get to the border, it's about like three o'clock in the morning at this point. And they say, you know, get out and, you know, go show your passports. I'm like half asleep. This like, it's no big deal. Like just normal border check.

And so passports, passports. And the guy at the border asks me where I live. And since I'm kind of like half asleep, I'm like, oh, Kurdistan. Come with us. Yeah, and then... It's like in the movie where it's like Kurdistan, the next scene you see two guys just dragging you I mean it was more or less like that

They was just like because there weren't that many people on the on the train So he's like, yeah you guys stand to the side and I'm like, oh shit And so I got me and I should have been like Kurdish dance is not a country It doesn't know my friend. Yeah, it no no It's not a real which is which is not a real thing. Really, really fucked up that. It should be Turkey, it's greater Turkey. I don't even know what anything is, I'm just a kid. So they took us out and also like a shout out

to Savannah Fortese, who's still a brilliant friend of mine and we look back on getting banned from Turkey Together Fondry. You're like his friends with you? Yeah, yeah, we're look back on getting banned from Turkey together fondly. Your ex is friends with you? Yeah, yeah. We're still really close. I don't believe in that. She's great. I see there's a little head nod right there.

No, no, no. I just... There's no such thing as that. Dude, everybody check out... I can. Check out the Savannah Fortes Music on the Move podcast. It's awesome. So she's a music journalist. And yeah, I think she's gonna be making some music for our show too.

Anyway, yeah, she was incredibly gracious about specifically me fucking up. Massively. Getting arrested by Turkish fucking. Like I got her arrested too. I got her banned too. So what did they, like, officially say to you? You are no longer welcome within the confines of Turkey? Uh, well, what happened was we had about, like,

two or three hours of interrogation... -♪ HE LAUGHS, CHUCKLES, LAUGHS, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCKLES, CHUCK any good or... It was fine from what I remember. It was weird because he was like, like, I thought we were being really cool with each other for a second, and then he'd be like, really not cool with me. So he's like, both good cop and bad cop at the same time, which made him like, confusing and a nerving cop. Like, at one point, I crossed my legs and he just like, slapped my thigh and was like,

sit up straight, and I was like, oh, shit, okay. Sorry, bro. And then he like, went through all of my phone and all my contacts, and then he'd be like, pick out a random person, and he's like, oh shit, okay. Sorry, bro. And then he like went through all of my phone and all my contacts and then he'd be like, pick out a random person and he's like, is that person Kurdish? And I was like, no, that's my aunt. You gotta be like, there's no such thing. Yeah, I'm like, I don't know, what is that?

What is that even? Read the Turkish or Iraqi? I've never heard of any of these things. Just a baby. And so fortunately they didn't arrest us, arrest us. They just basically took us back to the border. So, get the fuck out. Yeah, and it was late December,

and we were left at the border of Turkey and Bulgaria. It's fucking freezing, and the guard is like, what are you doing here? And we're like, we got kicked out. And we got pieces of paper that are like, you're banned from Turkey. I actually just found that piece of paper in my parents' house. Oh, you gotta post that.

Yeah, I can send it next time I'm back home. And we're like, it's like 14 kilometers to the next city, Svillengrad, Bulgaria, and we're like, it's like 14 kilometers to the next city, Svillengrad, Bulgaria. And we're like, oh, I don't know. I literally don't know what we're gonna do. And then like a ray of hope came through by way of this Bulgarian cab driver named Demeter who just happened to be dropping off somebody in Turkey

like at three o'clock in the morning and he like gave us a ride for free to Spiel and Brad. Oh my god. What a good guy. Yeah. That's a great way to close it. Yeah. Shout out to Demeter. Shout out to Demeter. Yeah. Alright, Eric Zulger. This is always fun, brother. Yeah. You gotta stop through when you're in town. Definitely. Always enjoy talking with you. Next time I'm at... Your book is You're Not Here. You got a lot of great stories. Your life is crazy.

You probably work for the government, but that's okay. Also, please join me on the under report. I do weekly intelligence brief. So. It's gonna take all your data. All of the, I mean, I'm just gonna drain your data. That's right. He's a Palantir guy. That's a... I wish I'd have healthcare. Um...

No, it's a weekly intelligence brief where I cover the top five stories that are not being reported in the United States. I actually just don't cover the United States, and then I give one weekly deep dive on a concept or idea that's particularly important in the world. So last ones have included Rare Earths, the Red Sea, and Arctic Defense.

So yeah, come be a part of that. Love it. Make sure I put all the proper links in the description when I put this out. But thank you as always, brother. Appreciate you. All right, everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to me.

Peace. Thank you guys Alright everybody else you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to me. Peace.