Kitbag Conversations - Episode 29: Myanmar (Burma) 101

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

In this episode, we bring on Dean, a Patreon member and infantry enthusiast to explain the crucible that is Myanmar. Also matt left his laptop in his rental car.

BOOM! ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ I'm gonna go for it. I'm gonna go for it. I'm gonna go for it. I'm gonna go for it. Yeah. Starting strong. Starting strong. Yeah. I got a camp out there tomorrow like seven o'clock and be like, let me end. Oh, they're out of going through all your porn. These are awful big pics. That'll still pick up some like Russian pubes. So guy fucking enterprises like, who takes flaccid dick pics? Like, fucking. of guy fucking enterprises like who takes flaccid dick pics like

who's showing off his three-insure come on it's a bold strategy see how plays out for him I can lie to you it works so it's soft it's not that good yeah oh bro not a shower trust me let's take you to the frisier you know yeah exactly

oh it's like for the mystery it's like aballing a contract. You know, here you go Wow Yeah I hate you. Yeah, so let's talk about, all right, so let's talk about, in the realm of small penises, let's talk about Southeast Asia. So, fuck. All right, so I'm going to fast forward to my end all statement, which is America can do nothing in me and more, as proven here do nothing in Myanmar. Okay so bottom line up front is Burma. Is it Burma or Myanmar? Like what's the? Alright so technically US policy says it's Burma. It was Burma until 1988 then it became Myanmar And that's kind of a contentious topic,

because Myanmar is referencing a Bamaar kingdom, which is the majority population, but this whole thing is about small ethnic groups fighting each other and fighting for legitimacy and self-determination. So the renaming of the country, they said, was to kind of shrug off the colonial influences in the country and start a new, but most of the other small ethnic groups in the country

kind of take on bridge with that and say, you know, this is just one more attempt by the Bamaar population to subjugate and control all the ethnic groups, which, you know, to start off strong, there are 135 distinct ethnic groups in Myanmar. It's live promo. Yeah, yeah. And the major ones are also, coincidentally, the major players for state and non-state actors in the Civil War, which is the longest-running conflict currently. The Civil War has essentially been fought since,

well, 1947. They, well, they gained independence in 1948 and they've basically been fighting ever since. I guess we can run down a quick history, but I think what we talked about Cody is sort of comparing it to Ukraine for our Western audiences, kind of gives you a scope and scale of the importance of the conflict and why it's relevant. I totally stumbled across it. I was going down my own niche interest

looking into individual war fighting kit and weapon systems. And I started getting all these posts. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. I really like what these guys are doing. Or I'm really interested in the development of their small arms program. And so I dove headfirst into it to see how it all developed. And then it was just like, you walk into a walk into a room on fire, you know, it's the meme from the community.

And you're like, what the hell is going on here? So to kind of give you a rough breakdown and why it's relevant, Myanmar is slightly bigger than Ukraine. At 261,000 square miles compared to 233,000 square miles. It has a population of 57 million compared to Ukraine's 33 million. And then we get into some of the more interesting stuff, which is the GDP, right? It has GDP of 74 billion. But the stipulation there is that's reported by the government, which controls about 17% of the country. So we don't really know how much money is there, but it has 42% of the GDP of Ukraine

and 173 billion with just the government reporting, which is also one of the most corrupt governments in the world. And the 80% war. Yeah, yeah. And the amount of money that's flowing around that country right now is probably pretty incredible. I mean, it funds eight separate armies. Yeah.

Yeah, and not small armies, right? They call them ethnic armed organizations. You know, the Myanmar government would say they're rebel groups, but these groups have been around since essentially the independence of the country in 1948, at least some of them have been. And really diving into that is a huge thing in itself. So we can go over a quick burn through the history. 1886 Britain officially takes over Burma after fighting three really ugly wars. In World War II, this is where it starts getting kind of funny. The Bumar, the majority population or ethnic group in the country decides that they want to side with Japan. And so they send a hold of attachment to Japan,

to train in Japan, and basically help undermine the British occupation of Burma and help the Japanese. Now this is, of course, where a whole bunch of the small ethnic groups, specifically the Kachin and Keren, Help the allies because the majority population of course can maintain this crimes with the Japanese They end up Allying with the British and there's a whole history there the Karen group in particular was used by the British and

The whole thing with the whole throughout the whole history This notion of a united Burma is kind of an illusion. It's never, even when Britain was essentially ruling Burma, they left whole regions to self-govern. And so a lot of these ethnic groups kind of call it the golden age of rule because during, you know, under British rule, the Brits were like, yeah, we're not going to mess with it. You guys can govern yourselves, you know, here's the deal. We run things, but you're, you run things how you want to in your various regions. And there's 14 states, 63 districts. Those 14 states are generally broken down ethnic lines and reflect some of those groups.

The central part of the country, where the capital is, which is in itself its own kind of crazy story, is primarily Bhamar in that ethnic group. But when you get into the fringe, all of the frontier or on the states in the periphery against India and China, that's when you start getting into these ethnic groups that just have this really sorted and interesting history. I guess some interesting. A big question I got when you break this down, right? So, when we talk about self-governing, essentially what that means is nobody

could get up into those regions and defeat the people there, like the people, but you know, so you're using Ukraine, I'll use Afghanistan, north of Kunar, there are what are called the tribal territories. Like you see it in the movie, the Secret Life of Walter Midi, it's nothing has been there ever. Like no Russian, no American anything. And it's because we can't go there. Like we're fighting on Mount Everest.

And so like, is it the jungle keeping these groups out? Is it the people who are just warriors fighting them off or is it just? Like, what is it that's keeping people from reaching those regions and bringing them under control? In your, in your opinion, feel free to go off the coast. It's definitely, terrain is a huge part of it, and this goes back into how I got interested in it, is it's essentially light infantry terrain. And that's kind of what I like, and their equipment and gear is oriented towards it. And they just, they have a foundation of resistance. Culturally, some of these groups are more militarily oriented than others, but there has never been a presence,

a prolonged presence of outside ethnic groups exercising efficient and effective control in these regions. As far as I can tell, ever. And so when you have cooperation and you have essentially a United Myanmar like you did from essentially 2010, 2011 until 2021, that was because everybody came to the table willingly. And that's kind of the underpinning theme here is all of the various minority ethnic groups in Myanmar want to collaborate and do. and their own alliances to create these sort of counterweights to the Wanta and the Tatmandao. What are those?

For the audience, what are those? So, yeah. Yeah, so that the... Then we have to go back to history a little bit. The Tatmandao is essentially the military branch of the bermis or me and our government uh... and that kind of goes back to once

the the bermis is aligned with the japanese realized the japanese are going to lose world war two they flip sides and so i don't know we're with the bridge all along and they fight with the Brits and the Americans. The Kaijin actually love Americans because of a whole bunch of Christian missions around the turn of the century and early part of the 19th century. So they have a really interesting, they're actually one of the only Asian nations in the world or ethnic groups rather with a Latin written language,

because American missionaries essentially created their written language and did it with the Latin alphabet. So after they realized that they're going to lose World War II, they side with the Brits, they pushed them out, the Japanese, and one of the guys who was not only responsible for siding with the Japanese in the first place, but also had a foundation of anti-bredish sentiment, became one of the first presidents for would have been for about four months before he got assassinated. And his name was, and then we're off running, basically, from there.

So Eng Seung is kind of like the father of modern day Burma slash Myanmar. His whole story is fairly fascinating, and then his daughter becomes this very prominent political figure, and essentially is now, although she spent most of her life in prison or in house arrests. She was under house arrest from 1989 to 2010. And that's Ang Song Su Chi. And she was essentially a representative of, and we have to give them so many different political groups that have essentially the same Democratic or you know Similar name that keep them all straight. It took me hours of writing them all down, you know, I looked like

The always sunny in Philadelphia meme Yeah, I mean when I was looking at this and like because for the audience like we were talking in the discord about this and we're talking about like you know infantry tactics and fighting and Myanmar's just the thing that I was like, okay, we got to talk about this was that an Indian filmmaker went there and it was so hot and unbearable for him and his camera equipment was breaking and he just, he couldn't make sense of the whole thing and he was just having a mental just, he couldn't make sense of the whole thing. And he was just having a mental breakdown, equipment breakdown. And these dudes are fighting here. And it's just, Vietnam has nothing on Myanmar, the more you look at it. And then there was more weapons development. There is infantry development. There's all these things going on and like RFX is saying it's just

It's so complicated because you have the heroin trade here the golden triangle which we're gonna get into And we try and then I do it great It's just it's so hard to break down like okay. Who are the top five key players, right? Well, I want to I want to build on that a little more because I think they're the only I guess insurgent group, quote unquote, to use a mobile app is simulating as an RPG to fund their own munitions, which is war of heroes. It's like a dollar on the ice door. And every dollar you spend by the game, it funds whatever kind of like a K a variance in the buy. And I don't know what you're doing. Yeah, I'm 81. So yeah, I mean, when I first saw that, I was like, that's the only group doing this. It's like me and Mars. And I think Cody told me

last week that it's like eight or nine different groups of fighting for legitimacy. But if you're saying it's like a generational cultural kind of issue. It's... Number one, it's insane that they all came to the table in 2010 and said, actually, let's chat. That was for 10 years. Right, and that was all because of Ang Song Su Ji, who was the daughter of the guy who was essentially the founder of modern Burma. Which is, you know, and that woman has spent most of her life in prison for her political views. But just to go down, like, let's just go off, let's list the major players.

And I'm not even going to try and give you the various histories. I mean, we can go into each one but you have the Aircan Army. You know they started in 2009 they have about 30,000 combatants. They were trained by the KIA which is the the Kaijin Independence Army which actually helped the U.S. and had a whole thing. There's the attachment 101 which was founded by William Donovan. You guys know him from the OSS. Eric Prince, a price talks about him a little bit. But, yeah, they actually have statues in front of the embassy. So, those guys who have their own military academy, by the way,

this is a separate self-governing state in Myanmar with their own military academy, that all the guys from the the Air Khan army who actually from the Rakhine state sent their guys there to learn how to fight then the government attacked they couldn't get back to Rakhine they were stuck in Kaichin and had to fight their way back from Kaichin through the Myanmar army back to their home state to help them set up their army. And in the meantime, the Kai-chin Independence Army is literally manufacturing Type 81s, which is a Chinese AK variant, which is grossly simplifying it. But they have their own natural arms manufacturing.

And so these guys are pumping out these weapons platforms to everybody in the country. But the funny thing is, is like when we were talking about this too, is like, I think that people, and for the listeners out there, some like looking through the pictures and trying to like pull this up here, and is that you need to understand that the actual Myanmar army is probably one of the least well-equipped and least well-trained. You've got Chinese outfitted rebels. You've got American outfitted rebels. You've got, like you're saying, you're not officially.

No, the Kare National Liberation Army on the other side of the country uses primarily Western equipment in Alice gear and M16s, but they're not in the M79s, but apparently that's all combat drops from Vietnam. That's all American equipment that was confiscated in Vietnam that magically made its way there. Fifty years later. Yeah, it's the same. They have an M4 in there too, which is like, ahhhhhh. Yeah. The thing being that like when you look at Myanmar and you start looking at these groups,

you're going to find like RFX is saying like, holy shit. These guys are Joe Blow militias, but they're not Joe Blow militias. They're actually like legitimized military academy. They have FN sixes, they have AT, you know, AFVs and everything. It's fucking wild. It's like, that's a, what's also a wild is if you see any kind of like

social media coverage of the war Myanmar, it makes this team like it's black and white like government versus militia. But if he's talking about some guys use M16s, some guys use AK74s, some guys use AK47s, and then he's talking about these different ethnic groups that are fighting for the legitimacy. It's an oversimplification of the entire conflict. It's nobody does this justice. Well, the thing is, is like, real OGs move in silence. The biggest, most powerful actors don't post on social media. Most of the social media posts you're seeing and all the stuff on YouTube

is essentially the smaller groups, the underfunded trying to gain legitimacy and notoriety. And so they're competing in this social media sphere for political legitimacy, which is like very kind of hunger games where you have all of these various rebel groups or ethnic armies. And that goes into like the Karen group, right? So you have the KNA, which has about seven brigades. And each one of those brigades are independently run and governed and sort of cooperate,

but they're not consistent. Some of them are outstanding. Some of them literally are just armed organizations supplying drugs across Southeast Asia. And so when it comes to attack, they have these formations come in, and they try to attack an objective, and they're talking to each other on the radio, and Holburgades will just straight up be like, ah, we don't want to do that. That sounds dangerous. And they're like, what the hell do you mean? Like, yeah, inherently. And they're like, no,

we're going to chill here. And I was like, there's no encrypting comms across the board. It's all just open comms. No, there is. And like that goes back to when you were talking about the app, right? Because there's a pretty big IT community in Myanmar. And that's one of the paradoxes of this whole thing is it's like highly advanced and technological in very small regions and then it's completely and totally analog in other parts and these groups are cooperating simultaneously. And oh my god. And right now, I mean up until 2021, they were also fighting each other, but then after the coup in 2021, which, you know, that was when the-

We're on the same year. Which, that's when Eng Sung Suu-Chi's political party, the NLD, basically won the election in 2020, November 2020. They gained like 83% of the parliamentary seats. And the military was just like, nah. We're actually not going to honor that election. But the coup was essentially them just saying, yeah, we're not going to honor that election. The coup was essentially them just saying, we're not going to respect the election. That's the whole thing.

There was the first coup, which was a military dictatorship in 1962. Then in 1988, in August of the 8th and and 88, they had this big protest, they overthrew the military dictatorship, the military said they were gonna represent the interests of the people and they started the WANTA, the military council that ran the country until 2010, essentially. When they're like, okay, we're gonna run things,

we're gonna take care of everything, there's too many different moving parts, the military is the only person, or the only group of people that can handle this. Obviously what that created was an environment of essentially the generals are warlords. I mean, and then when you get into it, your military leadership in Myanmar, it turns into political and economic infighting where the Army will declare war on one of the ethnic groups to try to secure their resources. And then profit off of them.

Like the Kai-Chin, for instance, have access to Jade, Rare Earth Minerals. In fact, 25% of China's Rare Earth Minerals come from Myanmar. Okay, told that. percent of China's rare earth minerals come from Myanmar. Okay, hold up. This is this is where we I want to start talking about how important it is. Yeah, but continue. Sorry. No, you're fine because I was about to say for those that don't know. I've talked about this several times is that the National Geographic Association came to Afghanistan when I was there and they were looking for rare earth minerals. The Chinese didn't own because they had bought, they realized, oh shit, Afghanistan is all rare earth minerals, we need to buy them up so the Chinese had it all. And so Afghanistan couldn't mine and build their economy out

the rare earth minerals because the Chinese technically owned them all. And now you're saying that like China is also doing this in Southeast Asia and I believe partially that this is part of the reason why we stayed in Afghanistan was so long was because we wanted to keep China from exploiting Afghanistan and getting more rare earth minerals. But there's more out there now. Well, it's definitely not just Afghanistan. I mean, the Horn of Africa is where the phone ships

are manufactured from. It's, they're going about colonialism in a strictly like what is Cody call it? Like an economic victory way. They're just going after like what is it said for all you have to do is just make enough money. Yeah, don't get me started on that because I love doing that. I love winning by economics and religion and then the other guys are sitting there like you fucking piece of shit And it's like fancy

They got like a whole army on the border and they're just like fight me and you're like no Like No one thing I mean we can come back to this later. You're probably gonna talk about it. Is the belt road initiative? Yes, yeah, heavy is China in that? With Myanmar? Almost four to five times national GDP in investment alone in infrastructure. There it is.

Yeah, there it is. $230 billion. For a country that generates $74 billion yearly. Like I'm laughing, but it's scary. If it is, it's like what the fuck are we doing? How do you not see that as the State Department go, hey? It's like, is that? It's even, it's so much worse than that.

You know, even though it looks like. They wanted to develop the port for oil and natural gas in Myanmar to certainly have it to go through the straits of Malaka, where all of our strategic choke points are to shut off oil flow into China in a Taiwan invasion environment. And so there will be the Marines from the Navy out there, a EABO won't work. What if I'm not a Marine? What is that? What if I'm... You're gonna die in Korea. Come on. Son of a bitch. Well, but here's the thing, right? Remember when I talked about 25% of rare earth metals comes from Myanmar?

That's the Kai-Chain independent army that's providing that, not the Myanmar government. So, or at least a huge portion of it. So, I also will point out, again, this is an independent ethnic organization self-governing in a region of Myanmar Also the one that has a military academy and its own arms production coincidence. I don't know It's just funny because like you sit there and you have people in America who are like you know malicious don't work And there's literally a self-governing militia at Myanmar, like, sorry, what? Like, it's like the ear coiz confederacy. When they all came together, we're like,

we don't like Europeans. We'll sit down. It's that rope meme where like they're fucking polling. And it's like second amendment like gun activists fucking pulling and it's like second amendment like gun activists and then it's like liberal gun owners and then it's like Myanmar militias start pulling and then the communist government of China and you're like, what is fucking what is this? Uh and speaking of the communist government, most of these groups have been communist at

one time or another. Oh yeah, they flip flop all the time. I mean, now they're all, now they're generally all federalist self determining, you know, groups with their focus on self determination. Okay. Which yeah, but just for the right, just for the air prime. Yeah, well, I mean, they only concerned about their ethnic group. Well, no, that's not true. Because I mean mean you get into the three brothers alliance the air connell army and the mnda which is the Myanmar national democratic alliance army and then the TNA which is the tying national liberation army in like a tie they all start to blow together but three brothers alliance start the major offensive on 1027, October 27th. It's called the 1027 offensive of this year.

And it's been a very, very effective and successful offensive. And it took over a major town, Chen Shu Ha, on the Chinese border. And that was the major trade hub between China and Myanmar. And the origin point for the Belt and Road initiatives in Myanmar, which is now controlled by these ethnic armies and not the government. And they've stopped all trade. And one of which is 25% of the water trade

between Myanmar and China, versus an estimated $1.8 billion between the month of April and December. So what's happening right now is really interesting because it's coming apart of the seams, right? On paper, the Tatmadao has about 400,000 combatants, 50,000 paramilitary forces. The reality of that situation is very different, apparently. And I kind of wanted to touch on something you said with the Myanmar's army, or the Tatmadao being poorly trained. It's not necessarily true. What's interesting is that their arms procurement is

really admirable. In fact, they The Burmese government in 1962 is 63 bought a whole bunch of manufacturing equipment from Germany and Ryan Mattal, and made a deal with H&K and Ryan Mattal to manufacture weapons in Burma. So they have their own nationally produced version of the G3, and they expanded upon that from essentially 1960s into the 80s and 90s when they switched over to the Myanmar weapons platform, which is essentially in Israeli group Goliol, made

more jungle-friendly. But they're producing MG3s and G3s since the 60s. And their infantry equipment is actually really logical and straightforward for their combat environment. And I can go into that, but then we're getting down a whole rabbit hole. So we'll just say that it does make sense. And it is, they've made pretty good decisions from an arms procurement standpoint and have developed their own, which turns out to be really well suited to the climate

and terrain of Myanmar, which is, again, it's all essential to light infantry combat, because although they do have roads, they have 157,000 kilometers compared to Ukraine's 169,000 kilometers of roads. They have a pretty decent road infrastructure. There are trains 169,000 kilometers of roads. They have a pretty decent road infrastructure. What's interesting though is they have very limited rail infrastructure and none of it goes to the border. There is no external rail in Myanmar. It's all internal. There is no major rail hub. There's no bus service from any of the outside countries. If you want to get into Myanmar You either have to fly in or drive in a personal vehicle

And Technically, you're not supposed to do that But like a lot of those guys who are making the documentaries have to sneak across the border and go in but You know, it's one of those things is once you get into like the Sean State or the Kai Chin State or the Chin State, like, who's going to kick you out to Myanmar government? Yeah. No, no. No, no, no, they're not there.

And so you start to deal with these independent operating ethnic organizations. And you know, that goes into like the Type 81, which we kind of touched on briefly, where they took this Chinese design and started manufacturing it in a state in Myanmar. And then you have all these rebel groups use that platform as opposed to what the government's using. And it's essentially a Chinese design. And I was going to say, so for the audience audience we talked about this a lot in the discord shout out, go to the Patreon, but now the thing you kind of lost over which is kind of the important part and like, because I mean you're a big, you're a big infantry guy and

like talking about it and stuff and it's for the listeners out there who are in a part of the discord and the group like that's our effects is thing. It's I'm trying to put this into words as to like the G-Wat era and like the the soft idea of like what works right so you know the G-Wat era is a plate carrier with all the integrated pouches you know know, 210 rounds, maybe 300, some of the hum V, you've got your plate carrier, or helmet, you may have like extra flaps on, you know, the butt pad, the dick pad, the shoulder pads,

all that stuff, and you're heavy. It's the best way to put it. You know, you've got machine guns at the platoon level, you know, the 2,240s, you've got the saws and two saws per squad, you know, the 2, 2, 2, 4, days, you've got the saws and two saws per squad, you know, you're heavy. And there's a reason for it. It works in Centcom, which is the Middle East.

It works in Europe. Africa may be as well, but when we were looking at this and when we were talking about the gear and we were talking about this stuff, you noticed it was the right, there is no plates. There's a field load carrier there's and Like you said, this is heavy infantry fighting like this is think best way I can put it is like think Vietnam like in the mountains Like there's two valleys that run up the middle of the country But the rest is just all you know jungle mountains and it's it's a flick which is the fighting load carrier

It's like the belt with the shoulder straps. It's, you know, your, your Tic-81. What was the other one, the 556 one, the, uh, the, the, the, the, the, the MA, test the Myanmar, the, the, the MA one. Yeah. Um, so, but go, go ahead and talk about that. Cause I think like, if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably a little bit of a gear head tactical junkie and like knowing that, like, Hey, Navy seals with their three mags in a plate carrier, it's not the be all end all because it won't work here. Like right. Yeah, I mean, sustainment, right?

Especially for these non-centralized fighting forces, you know, you have to sustain yourself in what is always a difficult to environment to survive them. And watching a lot of the combat footage, seeing how they are equipped and what they're... it's belt kit essentially because it's it's so hot that like referencing back to that Indian reporter when he's like yeah I'm you know I live regularly at 113 degrees Fahrenheit, and this is miserable for me. Like, this is grossly uncomfortable, and I don't know how they do it, and they're caring equipment, and they're fighting in it.

And when you look at it, these guys are running around with, um, canvas boots, you know, uh, very popular in the PLA. Actually, the, the, the French came up with it in the French Algiers War, and Indochina, Patugos, it's basically rubber attached to a canvas booth, think converse, combat converse, essentially, and that's almost what everybody's using. From the Myanmar military to all of these different EOs, which is the ethnic armed organizations. And so, from footwear to kit, I mean, there's not a ton of nylon.

A lot of it's just canvas cotton. I mean, what's available in the region? But also, you know, it's so interesting because the Myanmar government, like these guys have run around, like P-38 British Web Gear, with modified mag pouches to fit their weapons platforms. I mean, custom made mag pouches for their belt kit, but the fundamental design is a world war or interwar Web Gear design for the British infantry. And there's so much of that referencing of British military tradition in this country,

that it's fascinating. And that's one thing that I kind of wanted to talk about is, when you go into Vietnam and you look at that conflict, you see a lot of the French influence, and then, of course, the Chinese influence, but Myanmar, you also see a lot of this British influence and a little bit of the American influence because that was the foundation of their military. I mean, post World War II,

they were using surplus British equipment. They had these British military traditions, much like India. And so that creates their whole military tradition. But it's just so funny to see like a P-38 web year. And you're like, holy shit. That's what the P-38 stands for. Yeah, it ain't work.

But what about, all right. So I mean, everyone's favorite sexy topic is Ukraine. So the amount of NGOs that went over there to like train with battle camps, you know, bro vets went over there to make like earn their spurs or whatever. But the only one I know about is yellow paratectical. They went over there to essentially like provide military training, shooting fundamentals, I guess, weapon gear and stuff like that. If you

see anything else on the NGO side of the house, it goes essentially, Southeast Asia is not like a sexy topic and because of that no one cares. The biggest one and I was going to talk about them later just because they're doing good stuff is the free Burma Rangers. That's where they got their start. Obviously, the Burma and free Burma Rangers, that was where they kind of cut their teeth on all of their provisions of medical assistance to these communities that were impacted and the fighting forces. I was actually watching a video today where a free-burmer ranger was applying medical aid to a whole bunch of tatmodel troops who had just surrendered. And that happened like yesterday where Garrison surrendered and they were all coming up and they were all jacked up because they were

surrounded by Canna-Lay forces, which is the Karen National Liberation Army. And this guy is calling out to them and yelling at them like, yo, dude, I don't speak Burmese, so I can't say for sure. But essentially, he's calling out to them saying, hey, and that's another thing. There's a language barrier because there is so little coverage.

Most of the coverage that you do get comes from a German independent media organization, DW, Indian news media sources, and then a couple in country, but very few of those are in the English language except for the Kaichin news network. So the Kaichin Independent Army has, well, they have their own website, their own media broadcasting, their own whole news apparatus and stuff like that. And kind of along those lines,

I wanted to kind of go over some of the stuff. When the Myanmar government was fighting the KNA, which is one of the oldest of these EIOs, they had a system called the Four Cuts, and we talk a lot about kind of counter insurgency fighting on this podcast. So I thought you guys would appreciate this. And the Four Cuts were funding, food, intelligence, and recruits. That was the Burmese government's counter-insurgency plan, was the four cuts against the KNAA originally. And it was largely effective. And so the ebb and flow of power and success with these ethnic armed organizations is certainly fluctuating constantly.

But right now, we are in this trend where, you know, they're making huge advances across the country because they're unified for one, which was part of the whole plan of the Myanmar government was to try to divide all these organizations and there's tons of infighting. I mean, you look at all of these things and like, oh, this group separated from this group.

And, you know, these guys decided to be communist and these guys said they didn't want to be communist. So these guys decided they want a trade opium and these guys decided they didn't want a trade opium. And that goes into the drug trade, which is definitely a super important topic because it funds a lot of these organizations. And the sheer scale of it

is pretty impressive. For instance, it's the number one methamphetamine manufacturer in the world. Number one. So they make more math in Myanmar than anywhere else. And 25% of the heroin trade is in Myanmar. Number two producer after Afghanistan. Well, who's number three? Come on. I don't even know. I don't know. I don't know. It is the logical next step. Come on. Number three. I bet it's not. I don't know. I look that at you keep going. I'm probably too. You can stand on the other.

I'm in that out. You keep going, Arif. It's probably too much. You can stand on the back of Korea. I'm betting with Korea. Well, and this kind of goes into, you know, when you talk about the relationship with China, because there's a lot of crossover, right? The United Wastes Army is sort of China's baby, because in 1949, a huge portion of the KMT, the Chinese National Army at that time, fled to Myanmar

when they lost against Mao Zedong. And so there's this huge Han Chinese population Myanmar on the border. Of course, the Communist Chinese government wasn't crazy about that. But they have been pretty consistent in understanding that military introduction into Myanmar is not a great idea. So China definitely uses the

gentle hand when they're dealing with the various ethnic armed organizations. But they actually provided, although this has not been totally proven, four MI 17 helicopters to the UWSA. That's the United States Army. HJ-8ATGM's Type 9622 millimeter artillery pieces, howitzers. So they're giving these guys heavy military equipment. More so than the actual official Myanmar government. They do sell weapons and equipment to the Myanmar government.

But it pales in comparison to what they actually supply to this ethnic armed organization, which is one of the most notorious opium producers and suppliers in the country, which I mean, I could speculate that they use for whatever various agendas they need to accomplish abroad. So they don't need to have, go ahead. Their own in-house production when they can just trade it for weapons across the border right next door and then distribute it as needed to various parts of

competitors. So the first question that comes to mind is is there a target region where they receive their munitions? So with like, I don't know the Houthis the Iranians come down to Somalia. That's the handoff point they go up to Yemen. Is there like a handoff kind of like conduit for Myanmar? I got technically no off kind of like conduit for Myanmar. Technically no. Yeah, the, what, no, what do you got? I was about to say I got you. I figured it. So there is a UNODC, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. It makes sense to the minute you see this, is that it goes Afghanistan, Myanmar, Mexico, Colombia, but they have all the drug trade mapped out in this document

and it makes that question of like, where's the ammo coming from? Where's everything coming from? Apparently, mostly I ran in China because I ran has the largest capital of heroin produce a heroin consumption, like 427 tons or something like that comes through Iran. So, yeah, like if you look at this distribution map, it comes out of Pakistan, it goes to Southeast Asia, but it goes through, it either goes through the North

of Afghanistan and goes to Russia to Western Central Europe or it goes through Iran through Turkey, which is also another big consumer of heroin. And then China is right below Iran. So there's definitely, I don't want to say it, but they're the golden triangle. Um, I was the golden triangle. I'm a golden triangle. The golden triangle.

Yeah, the golden triangle is very much alive. You know, Chinese gangs and stuff like that. Like the black market just, it just finds a way. Is the best way I can describe it. Well, and this country is the black market. Yeah, I mean, real. I mean, 90% of all rubies, uh, mind in the world, come from Myanmar. Peace.

And a lot of those happen in these regions. And that goes back to essentially the, uh, the Tatmadao and these generals who will try to take over particular parts of these regions for the mineral extraction and drug production It it's such an interesting dynamic where again, there's so much money that's going off the books floating around this country right now and You know we can we can talk about like sort about the nuts and bolts of the fighting, which essentially, in my opinion, is going to change the political landscape pretty quickly. But the incentive for a lot of this production, especially the narcotic production, goes away when the Civil War largely ends. Is there a bar chart of what insurgent group owns what neighborhood?

Because that really heavily dictates who owns what kind of drugs. So there's these states, right? The 14 states. Those states are also broken down roughly along ethnic lines. So the Sharn state and the Kachin state, or Kachin, is in the northern part of the country. And the Rakin part of the country, like if you look at a map of Myanmar real quick, if you want to pull that up, I actually have it up because I got one. Yeah, make sure it shows all the various states. That one does not. You can see where a lot of it is very mountainous. In fact, most of the northern part of the country

is very mountainous and dense jungle, which is why you don't see the same kind of utilization of drones and a lot of your sort of observational technology because A, it's hot as hell, so thermals not super effective and B, the canopy is so dense that a lot of your observational technology is kind of pointless. Frankly, so that does provide a very unique and interesting climate for essentially you're looking at 1980s, sort of 1990s, military technology and tactics. Right? Obviously it's pretty effective. I mean, one of the things we talked about was the utilization of not only underbarral 40 millimeter grenade

launchers, but also rifle grenades on the same platform. So you have the same platform using both. You're like, well, why would you have a rifle grenade if you have a 40 millimeter underbarrel grenade launcher? And it's all about, well, yield, right? So payload and the ability for kind of indirect fire, because the rifle grenade is fundamentally more indirect fire weapon than an underbar launcher,

which also technically kind of indirect fire. But if you think about it, primarily direct fire force multiplier. I mean, how many times have you shot an M203 straight up and you've been like, I don't figure out where it lands. You know? I did.

And the other thing is just weight. I mean, like a rifle. So the rifle grenades, you know, you're not dealing with as much of, like you said, it's a good payload. It's not as good as a distance as like a 40 millimeter. But it's also just direct. Like you were saying, there's kind of an arc to a 40 millimeter, but it's also just direct. Like you were saying, there's a kind of an arc to a 40 millimeter.

A fucking rifle grenade is just straight out and down. And so you got some options there. And the, I mean, even what's funny is like, you don't even, this is very light infantry we're talking. Like you're not lugging a 60 millimeter mortar. It's probably a knee kicker, which is just like un-mortar tube on a fucking strap. And then like everybody carries two rounds, and that's like it, because I mean, yeah, you're not carrying rucksacks here. And so, I mean, you are, but

there your NVA Atlas reproductions made out of cotton, right? Like they weigh like, you know, well, two pounds dry, eight pounds wet, but the whole thing is your combat loads are smaller and right, you're just not, you're your support weapons, although they do have the MG3, and they do have borders and all this stuff, that's all fixed, fixed. Most of the, they developed their whole modern Small Arms program off of this MA1, which is essentially a Galeel with some AK features. They have an LMG version of it and they also have a DMR version of it. But it's all light. I mean, it's all mag fed. you know, because like, let's be honest, belt fed in jungle climates, carves sucks.

Yeah, I know people. It's not, it's just not worth, man. I mean, it does, but it takes a lot of maintenance. And when you're dealing with a huge variety of skill and training levels, because, you know, here's the thing, when we look at a lot of the gains made across the country right now in the past couple weeks in this 1027 offensive you know a lot of these guys are you know frontier outposts these are periphery forces they keep their best forces around the capital which I mean if you want to talk about the capital. I sent you that video. It's insane. Yeah. It is wild in Napudol.

They built that capital starting in 2002, finished it right around 2015, 2018-ish. It's the same area as Shanghai with a little bit less than a million people living in it. But it's built out to house millions of people. And it's built from the ground up for the movements of military forces throughout the entirety of the city, and they essentially created one giant highway into it, and they put it in the middle of nowhere, and that's where the government has all their stuff. And you're like, this is the new capital. The old capital was too crowded and dilapidated,

so we're going to build a new modern capital. When really it's just like we can control access. We control who gets to be here. And the housing, the roofs of the houses, basically coincide with your career path, and you're like your job. So if you're in the military, you live in the Red House or the Red Roof buildings. If you're in agriculture and support, you live in the Green Roof buildings. I mean, and these are private residences, they're not just like huge apartment complexes. Like, they have whole neighborhoods that are built out specifically

for your sort of role in the country. Yeah. I guess the next logical step is, I guess from an Intel standpoint, what does battle tracking look like in Myanmar? Is there... Yeah. I'll map. Is it a map? Is it a map?

Is it a telegram? I know that ISIS use telegram. No, they don't. They actually, the Myanmar government, the Tatmadao, we started tracking a whole bunch of the EOs through telegram, they don't use it. And that was kind of weird. I wouldn't not have telegram to try and find it and did a whole bunch of search on it

to see if I could find some of their pages. And they were able to geolocate a whole bunch of these guys who were reporting on it and then arrest them. And a lot of this has to do with the protests to the directly to the coup in 2021. A lot of those guys were college students, it's all your professional class,

who was like, hey, we just had a decade of democracy, we don't really wanna go back to military rule, but they hadn't been fighting an insurgency since the 1960s, right? So they didn't have the same kind of op-sec, and some of these other groups. And so huge swaths of the country got arrested and killed. And the rest of these, all these periphery organizations were like, ah, amateurs, you know, and that goes back to like, when you watch a lot of the footage now,

it's from the newer groups. Because a lot of these older groups have been doing this for long enough that they're like, nah, we're not going to do our social media posts. We're just going to, we'll make a post after the battle. But you look at some of these groups, and like, they're filming during the battle. And it's hilarious. I mean, there are some of these guys are fantastic. I mean, just wild personalities. When you get into a lot of that, it's really interesting to see the diverse background of individuals

who are participating in this because that's the thing, right? Like, you have these groups, some of them, essentially, are professional armies. And then some of them are guys who are 3D printing guns in their basement and walking up to guys on patrol, you know, ganking them, you know, walking up, titting the back of the head, taking their equipment, and then starting a revolution from there on out. Or guys who are making single-barrel break-action shotguns out of a pipe and a hammer and trying to whaylay the army patrols to try to get their gear and build up from there.

Yeah. All right, so I guess another question is, is there a, how do I say this, an identified leader per organization? Because it is a bunch of teenagers they're not going to get anywhere. So yes, it's one of those big questions, you know. There's plenty of identifiable leadership because like again, some of these are self-governing countries essentially. You know, some of these organizations have whole supporting economies.

Some of them are what you might say more like militias or rebel groups. But a lot of these organizations that have been around since the 40s and 60s or 80s, they're very willing to let these up-and-comers go engage in conflict and so chaos and discord. I mean, do they have any longevity or future? Probably not. But if they start wiping out people on the chess board, you know, pawn for pawn, it's fine. It's certainly acceptable and they encourage it. They will supply weapons, they will supply training. But it also depends on region, right? Because some regions have more structure, they have structured resistance.

They have generational structured resistance. So if you want to fight against the government, then you are going to go into one of these ethnic armed organizations. But some of the central government are the central parts of the country, which is largely represented by the PDF, which is the People's Defense Forces, which is the armed wing of the NUG,

or NUG, which is essentially the political entity of the NDP or Eng Seung Suu Chi, I mean kind of that's democracy group, right? So the the NUG is essentially the the major democracy movement that had united the country for a decade And their ongoing is the PDF which is essentially it's a it's a Mishmash of all of these ethnic groups and the Bumar ethnic group, right? So this is like the PDF is the major current Armed resistance in the country and that's across the board against The Pat Mudow against them the Myanmar army and the man though the Hwanta government

That being said that is you know, it isn't united. I mean, I'm sure there's leadership, but what you're seeing is decentralized command. I mean, even, you know, like the Karen, the National Liberation Army that's been around the oldest one, you know, they have seven different brigades with independent leadership, right? I mean, you can't, there's, there's no, there's no cutting the head off of the organizations or anything like, there's no like surgical strike to, you know, incapacitate these resistances. And it's funny because I was listening to that, uh, the, that Sean Ryan thing and they were talking about that.

It's like, your decapitation strikes don't work. And the, the, the, the Tammondow no damn It's like your decapitation strikes don't work. And the Tammondow no damn well, but your decapitation strikes don't work because they've been doing this since 88. You're a children's leadership, it doesn't change anything. Yeah, and I mean, this is kind of one of those things that like, what is it?

You can't kill an idea, but at the same time, like it depends on the group, right? Like if you built you built like you're saying like these groups have been around since 88 so I mean in 47 or 40 so yeah, like older than like my father who you know Generation talk about generations of combat like that's when it starts getting really really stupid and the point to that being You know that the organizations of these got like, you're saying, these are self-governing, but these organizations are built up. And we've talked about on the podcast before, but I just, this is such a great example of what happens when

a group of people get together and they put the organization, they put the group before the person and they build it up. And now they're last, like these are groups that are completely self-sustaining and outlasting, you know, government officials and government groups that have tried to kill them and your decapitation strikes, like yeah, you may kill our number one guy, but he's not the group, right?

Like number two becomes number one, number three becomes two. Like we will exist, we will be fine. This will live long after we are gone. And I guess this is one of those ways of saying like, yeah, it's even in 2023, you can still build and join and create things that last beyond you. Just look at me, Anne, Mark. Right. Yeah, these groups have been around longer than the government.

Yeah. Like, some of them anyways. And, you know, it's, it is interesting because, you know, if you tried to imagine it, you know, if you tried to overlay this model on the United States, right? Like let's say we take a United States that doesn't have a civil war, and so you still have predominant state rights, a much less robust federal system. You know, that's kind of what we're looking at. We're looking at these states that have the ability to be self-sustaining. We have these taxes or California or any number of these states that have enough economy to be self-sustaining and create their own militaries. And so this idea that that can go away cannot go away without ethnic cleansing, which there's plenty of, genocide, which there's some of. But at the same time, even if you accomplish that goal, you still have to resettle it. You still have to rebuild it. And it's not feasible. Which is why I think China has had

the policy that it's had with this region for so long i mean even though right now it's holy dependent on and when you look at you know with this ten twenty seven offensive and trying to comes in and basically says like he guys knock it off like everybody stop fighting please like and that's that's their that's their diplomatic stance is like we really appreciate it if you guys could all just chill

uh... because that's that's their diplomatic stance. We really appreciate it if you guys could all just chill. Because that's their move. I mean, they know the weapons that are there. They sold half of them, or they gave half of them to some of the groups. And then those groups gave it to other groups that they weren't supposed to give them to. And so you have these man-pad systems

that they gave to the United States, which these FN-6 anti-air systems that are gave to the United Wastates, which, you know, these FN6 anti-air systems that are suddenly ending up in different rebel groups hands and they're like, hey, we gave those to you. And they're like, yeah, well, you know, corruption, you know, somebody's cousin gave to somebody's cousin, you know, I wanted the new Mercedes, they got

in the FN6. Sorry about the K So I think jet aircraft they got shut down. So the first thing that comes to mind, I think we're talking about all these different groups and like a positive outcome is, how do we mitigate a follow on civil war? So say one party takes control. And there is like what, seven, eight different groups that have all fought for their own legitimacy. What is prolonging or like, I guess, like equalizing the entire force to not fight each other? Because historically, when a country goes to the Civil War, they're going to have another because there's an opposing force that's inside

the ranks that also wants to legitimacy and representation. So this is where I think that we're looking at a fundamentally different model. I don't think that there's a continuation of violence once the current military administration is overthrown because they had a pretty good model before. It was imperfect, right? You know, one of the major criticisms of Eng Su, so she is that there was some ethnic cleansing under her administration and she had to go to the Human Rights Council, the UN, and kind of explain herself. And you know, she's supposedly the most progressive kind of tolerant democratic leader of Myanmar

at this point, and she says, me, it's not a big deal. Yeah, you know, it should happen essentially as what she says. Which, of course, you know, undermined a lot of her political legitimacy to some groups, because, you know, the foundation of this is that you have all of these ethnic groups that want self-determination, but they also understand fundamentally that they have to be part of a larger federal system, and they're willing. And when you look at these Northern Alliance or the Three Brotherhood Alliance, the Three

Brotherhood Alliance is the one that participated in the 1027 Offensive, which is essentially the ARKAN Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and the Thai National Liberation Army. These are different ethnic groups. These are different ethnic groups that have politically been different. There has been some conflict between them in the past. I mean, the Air Khan Army exists because the KIA, which is the catch-in independence army, trained them and helped create them in 2009. You know, the, because the KIA is like one of the OGs, right? And these are guys who branched off from the official government to create their own army

and have their own military academy, have their own arms industry, you know, have their own economy and production and stuff like that. But ultimately, these different groups all want to work together. And that's the big thing. Is all these E-A-O's aren't fighting each other? They want to be part of a larger Myanmar government, just not this one. And a huge call has been back to honoring the election of 2020. It's like, all you have to do is honor the election of 2020. It's like, all you have to do is honor the election of 2020.

That's, I mean, to look at that from the perspectives of like, because you could, even if they did, right? So let's say they honor the election of 2020. And like you said, China's free, get out of it, right? Because they're like, hey, we gotta depend on you guys to not be total foot like you can be fuck it's which can't be like repeat fuck ups It's like we all have that one uncle who's drunk, but he's really good at house repairs

So we just kind of let him float that's me and Mar for China, right like It sounds like even if this like even if this does get settled, that's going to be somebody has to make the heroin, right? Like you look at these UN reports coming out of Myanmar, you look at these, the weapons trade, like that's somebody's bank account. And it's not a good guy. He's not going to like just let that slide and heroin addicts. I mean, we're not talking, you know,

what is it like if I was gonna be a drug dealer, I'd be a nice drug dealer. Like, hey, you want to buy some drugs? No, okay, like these are heroin. Like this is like cocaine heroin and you know, fucking meth as well. Yeah. Those are the big, yeah, meth primarily.

Isn't it like a Math and caffeine is like Vietnam's like Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's there their major new kick the country Red Bull is totally gacked out on fucking math and Camp mean like yeah, you really need the caffeine with that. That's totally what you need in that It's the print my fun is I guess like in the same vein of like energy drinks If you guys ever read about the lore of like monster energy Oh, how it's like the devil it's the devil and how it's like

6666 is on the cannon shit It's like six six six is on the cannon shoot. Well, what kind of but the owner watched the tower's fall and felt like the military needed motivation. So he made an energy drink. It's a real thing. He made monster energy to fuel the wand hair. And we went with gas station rippets but I mean like even even if we did solve this right like it somebody's gonna yeah we're not gonna solve this but I mean like let's say like you know Jesus the second coming of Jesus happens peace be upon Afghanistan and my ammar that's still like like you said this is the black market. Like, if these guys piece in the middle east of Myanmar, it's still going to be drug traffic

and guns and all this stuff. The golden triangles going to have to kind of moot adjust, right? Like the power vacuum that always happens. Right. So an interesting data point is the catch-in independence army, the KIA, they actually stopped their open production. And say, we're not doing it anymore. Now, the Myanmar government was happy to step in and take over their open fields. The ethnic armed organization decided that it was not morally correct and so surrendered their pop-up production. So they didn't want to do that anymore. This was like the 80s, 90s.

The United States, or the United Law States, you know, I was talking about that interview where he's like, yeah, we don't want to really do this. Like we don't, we all agree that opium is not good for Myanmar or Burma. We know we're doing it because it's a means to an end, which is resistance against a military council that's been ruling since 1988, essentially illegitimately, especially since 2021 and 2010. There was another election where they got stopped in the elections and they just said nope doesn't count and just ignored it that was in uh... two thousand five i've tried to remember which election that was like yeah we're going to try

democracy in the lost like uh... we take it back this is crazy uh... but you know it it's kind of tied all back is this is a very important region and an incredibly strategically relevant part of the world. When you look at the natural resources that are being extracted from that country, you

know, you're looking at tungsten, they operate a natural gas surplus, copper, iron, obviously, rare earth metals, jade, rubies, nevermind the listed substances. Their national debt is 8.78% of their GDP. Put that in comparison to Ukraine. Ukraine's national debt is 69.36% of its GDP. And that was of like 22, 2021 estimates, just kind of throw that in perspective. This is sort of a, it is a country of the future, if you will, right? I mean, yes, there is enormous unrest right now, and there is structural instability. But you also have these small self-governing parts of the country that have been doing so for decades without some of the major bureaucracy and infrastructure

that you would come to expect of the modern nation. And they're still capable of competing and producing in the modern economy outside of traditional economic models. So that's incredibly powerful and interesting. And so when we look at what is going to shape the future, the lessons to be learned there, not only from a light infantry perspective, but economic and organizational and perhaps social is really interesting. And that's something that I've taken away from all of this is it's just a fascinating example of not only old technology and history coming back to repeat itself repeatedly, but also

you have Christian groups, Buddhist groups, Islamic groups all coming together to say, hey, all we want is self-determination for our ethnic groups and not to get, you know, yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's good. Like, oh, yeah, we're really, all we want us to be able to rule ourselves and not be taken out and persecuted for our ethnicity. And, you know, that seems like a pretty reasonable, fundamental cause, regardless of the ethnic group. And so, when you look at it from that perspective

It's like well, you know who is it black and white who's good who's bad like that's The the ability for self-determination is the fundamental truth there, right? And I think a lot of people across the world can understand and appreciate that It's also interesting because, and I'm trying not to make this sound very bad, like, rebellion. But, no, I guess what I'm saying is, this is like Kurdistan in Iraq. This is, I'm throwing a blank here, like the tribal regions in Pakistan and Iraq, this is, I'm throwing a blank here, like the tribal regions in Pakistan and Afghanistan, those are obviously an

evil way of looking at it, but there's all these things going on in the world where it's not just black and white, right? Like this isn't just, you look at it, it's like, oh, there's a civil war there. It's like, no, there's so much going on here. There's non-state actors and actors. There's drug traffickers and there's religious personnel in this area. Like you said, there's Buddhist incursions here.

You can have an effect on the world without being in the government or the military. You can create groups that have long lasting impact, obviously. And you can do groups that have long-lasting impact obviously and you can do things out like these These examples are what shows how complex the world actually is right like it's not just Republican and Democrat like it is in America There's so much more to global politics and the world than just black and white and this is a great example of how far that can go and how complex it can get. Yeah, I mean, when you look at the KIA,

the Kuchin independent army, that was 100 soldiers left the Burmese army and said, we want to start our own military force to protect our ethnic group or our way of life. There's a hundred dudes You know they have estimated anywhere between eight to 15,000 combatants now Jesus The Air Ken Army which started in 2009 has an estimated 30,000 combatants right now That's why. And you know, this is, that's 2009.

2009, they started with a couple dudes saying, hey, we need some education. We need some training. And now there's 30,000 of them changing the entire power dynamics in a country that has, you know, untold billions of dollars of opportunity. That's the truth. They are now a major political and social force in a country that has so much potential. That was just a handful of guys saying, we just want to learn. We want to protect our way of life and we just want to learn. We want to protect our way of life and we just want to learn. And you said it was 100 guys started in 2009 or is that I think that's the one that started

in 1960s. That was the guy. Yeah, but I mean, okay, but that was 100 guys. Yes, that was the original was 100 guys of this ethnic group came back to their their state and said, look, we need to create protections for our people. They're not represented in government. And we want to ensure our survival, especially because they had literally just fought against them in World War II. A lot of these guys. And yeah, these are the same guys that collaborated with the United States and the USS to basically sabotage rear guard units and logistical splirats of the Imperial Japanese Army. Now the British, they worked with the KNAA, the Karen National Liberation Army, and the Krenny, that that was the ethnic group that they actually, well they

all said they had been working with them since they were actually ruling. But yeah, it's interesting. There's, when you look at that opportunity versus what you see in so many modern conflict zones, you're like, well, why are they doing it? How are they so successful? Right. Part of it its dream. Part of it is the ability to operate unobserved.

And one of the advantages to having very limited infrastructure, especially digital, is that you have the ability to do a lot of things. And so when you apply that model to force projection, and it's something that you and I have talked to a lot, talked about a lot, is like how we go about our Marshall model, the United States in general, the American military model, our industrial complex,

and something that I keep hammering back is like, oh my god, we're, you know, it doesn't have to be this way. We can get better results for less money. We can save a whole lot of money by doing this differently. And in this case, very little, right? Like the United States probably doesn't have much business there at all. Other than support for people, you know, medical infrastructure building, right? And I think that's probably what we should be focusing in general.

But that's not a here and not there. Yeah. It's one of those things where it's like, I hate to say it, but foreign policy is what foreign policy is. Right? Like we got to do it's best in I hate to say it, but foreign policy is what foreign policy is. Right. Like we got to do what's best in the best interests of America. Don't fall in love with the partner force and don't be, don't overextend yourself and you know, Ada help, Linda helping hand that'll cut your wrist off. And that's kind of what me and Maris. It's like, it's China's, it's China's problem. And we can help. We can, we can help. We can,

you know, save people and we can help, we can help with aid and stuff like that. But to get involved in this, like you're saying, it's like there's no winning. And so there's no place for us. And from a foreign policy perspective for the United States anyways, as I said in the beginning, there's just really no place for us there, which is fine, except for support and economic development and construction because there's so much opportunity

there. And I suspect that in the fairly near future, when you see a major shift in the political landscape of that country, you're going to see an enormous opportunity for growth for a lot of people. Yeah. I mean, I'm seeing it more and more and not just like dudes going to Thailand for the Ha Ha Red Light District. There's a lot of growth in Southeast Asia and your money's going much farther there and especially with remote work and stuff like that, like you're saying, like there's, and that's a whole country that's kind of going untapped and unregulated, right? Like God, you know, imagine if they, you know, peace be upon Myanmar and, you know, fucking passport, bro, started coming there

with their financial advisor jobs, making 100K. What if, what if Cody? Yeah, me and Mar. No, this is not a sales pitch. But what if Myanmar is almost like the Southeast Asian, like Puerto Rico? Because every single time like a natural disaster or hurricane rolls through, the amount of American Wall Street bros that moved down there just by land

and turned into like real estate or whatever, you know, hotels, condos, whatever. So if there's something like that, where it's almost like a pseudo American colonyican colony showing up for I don't know like ex- police officers, military or venture capitalists or whatever heading over and there may be a markets I'm not saying like kinetically America will not get involved that doesn't make any sense but like you're saying earlier that economic victory to counterbalance the Chinese may actually be a good way to

like linchpin into that region. Don't get me started on this. I could do a whole fucking podcast about how we could do it. And we could have played a point to too many times. Go ahead, RFX. I would say that intention is not intense of the law. No. It's really not. Mashallah.

You can go in with that kind of perspective, but you're not going to get real far. I don't think that that's the kind of development that is going to make inroads in a meaningful way. I think that if you went in there to genuinely help develop and create opportunity and balance the economic narrative of China, which is exploitation and debt servitude essentially, you have an opportunity to succeed. But making it a vacation destination for American retirees or military or law enforcement or otherwise, will that be an opportunity? Yes. Security is going to be the major concern, but you're also talking about what do you know

about security against somebody who's lived their entire life and has been fighting an insurgency for decades and generationally. What do you use? Actually, thank you, Nick. I would love to hear, like, what do you really think that you've got on? Never mind that you, you know, you stand out like a Christmas light. You know, like, in Palm Beach.

Like, what do you, what do you think you're going to do? Well, I mean, if you think about it, so something like Thailand is pretty aware that the Americans are trying to show up and just essentially exploit the entire country. But Myanmar is almost untapped territory because of the war. So I'm almost waiting for like American carpet baggers like post-civil war to show up. It's sort of buying up land. I mean, do that. Oh, you have to look at. Oh, you have to look at. Is all the American NGOs that show up to you crane and then start selling weapons? Oh, there's either. I think I think I think you're not seeing the full picture.

You're talking about the number one meth and phetamine exporter in the world. Like, yeah, real politic is well known to these guys. You're not fooling anybody. Like, all right, no one knows gonna be hoodwinked there. I'm dying just imagining me and Matt showing up off a train with carpet bags, a pipe hat, and just like, hello there, We heard the war's over! Would you like to buy some democracy? Find a bag of it here! I hear your country's lost the faith in democracy. They're borrowing some of ours.

Matt, we have a couple of Mason jobs Bow Mason just us showing up. I drew the clown match. We could sell a fun. Dandy Now here Come on. I was a week He'd be on my I swear Thailand also has very similar I wouldn't say similar but they go into revolution like whatever five years in that country for some reason is like this sex capital of the planet so I'm waiting for like a venture capitalist to show up into

Burma. Alright, fine ants, bros. Like finance a maneuver, but they actually finance a maneuver instead of sell t-shirts. Okay, low blow, low blow, no. No. I can't do that. I can't.

I would say this, right? Like, and this is where it gets weird. And I've thought about this a lot, and it comes from past experiences and stuff like that. But to be, I see what you're trying to say, Matt, and the problem with that is you're essentially trying to create a legal mafia in a sense. May or may not be what I'm doing with the Patriotum, but like, but, um, no, it's a bit of a deliberative. I mean, like, you can, the problem with that though, is like, you have to combine like so many factors within this, right? Like, you have to combine a

guy, like, if the perfect guy to do this is a guy who, he understands how money works, he understands how the international world works, right? Like he's not an American. He's not a Carpet Bag, right? Like he's not showing up with the Carpet Bag, like why has everybody got a sour, puss face on? Like, you know, why is it just rice and fleshy for dinner? Like, you have to do so many things to make it work.

And the problem is that most of the guys who have nine out of 10 of these things You have to be so many things to make it work. And the problem is, is that most of the guys who have nine out of 10 of these things are former special operations or not Intel guys in the sense that you and I are Matt, but they're like kinetic arm Intel guys, think CIA ground branch or massage or something like that. And the problem is, is that they're not, because you're going to have to, like if we went to Burma, you're going to have to know how a gun works. You're going to need to be able to be comfortable in those situations, but that's

not what you're there for, right? And I say the mafia, because if you actually study the Italian mafia, and I got really deep into it, well, I was in Afghanistan trying to figure out how, because people think Taliban, and they're like, oh, they're a guerrilla force. And it's like, no, and my, my MR in these groups are a perfect example. Like, they're a, they're a gang. They're, there's money involved. There's drugs involved. Like guns just don't fall from the heavens. And, you know, the 13 stars on Betsey Ross's flag are going to be free. You know, that's not how revolution works. If you need money, you need funding, you need ammo, you need logistics. And so the guys who would be able to go into

Burma and fix the, I mean, look at the free Burma ranges, Rangers, they're, they're not there for business, they're begging for money and stuff like that. And I say begging because, you know, they're asking for donations and stuff like that. But it's begging because they're asking for donations and stuff like that. But it's like, you have to be so many things and the guys who, you know, you got to be a reddish on's man. And those guys really just don't exist anymore. All right. And so worth, there's something like this.

So Myanmar is China's backyard wide group. So far, I'd just go for that part of the world. How long until China creates a PMC to kind of like do their dirt work to ensure that everything you want to write? Do you want you want the air price answer? They want you want to what he said when asked that same question? No, it's a pretty answer. Come on man Well, I mean he said it's not they don't have the culture. Yeah, they don't have the firearms culture

They don't have you know, they're there's're security apparatus looks at hand-to-hand combat as the appropriate form of exercising security That is not what you create a private military corporation That was his answer. I mean I was listening it to it this week But prince. Yeah, it's I Don't you know you talk about like organized crime and like But, Prince, yeah. It's... I don't... You know, you talk about like organized crime and like... Arguably... Uh...

You're talking about trying to start a mafia in a country run by eight or nine different mafias, at least. Yeah. Like, what do you think? What do you bring to the table? Nothing, it's not a competitive space. And that goes back to what I'm saying, is like, that's not how you, you're competitive there. And that's what I said to you, Cody,

is like, when you're in the gold rush, like, don't be the guy panning for gold, be the guy selling the pans and the shovels, because that's the place for you, right? Like, you just need to supply the foundation and materials for growth and because That's what you can do. Yeah, that's that's that's your window, right? And in the United States has those Resources to provide things that would be helpful in that circumstance or those situations But most of that is going to be like organizational know-how so consultation and

But most of that is going to be like organizational know-how, so consultation and essentially doing things legally, right? Like my grandfather went to Poland after the collapse, Soviet Union, and like went and helped them start up companies. And like here, here's how you run a company in a capitalist society. Because so many of those countries had not practiced those concepts for decades, right? Like how do you manage a company or how do you run a manufacturing company in an environment where everything isn't based on lies?

Like, how do you do it? Yeah. You have a lot to say, go to your iposh. No, you're fine. No, it's like you're going down the rabbit hole that makes a hundred percent sense. And that's, and it's, it's so hard to explain this without like you, I can picture it in my head like a frickin movie, but you're, you're hitting it exactly right. Like, you're not going to, you know, how do you work your way into the partner, the partner

force? How do you work your way into the group? And this is something that they, they talk about in the Q course for special forces. And if you've ever worked with them, you have to know this stuff. And the point of it is that, look, when you meet an insurgent force that you've identified, OK, of the eight Myanmar groups, you're like, these are the ones that we most align with.

Like, these guys can be our partner force, and we can work by within them. They'll be our tool. And so, and it's never exactly like you said, 80 years of conflict. These like three generations, these guys have been fighting maybe four. And you're coming up to them and you're coming up to them with an M4 and a cog, drones, cash, be the, you know, all this shit. And you look like Buzz lightyear to them.

And they're like, whoa, if I kill him right now, I will be God. I will lead my, you know, my forces. But in, that's kind of like stuff you kind of work through, right? It's like, you know, maybe we don't go that approach. But in, this is a story from my dad's time at the QCourse, it's like, they were shutting them down at Robin's age. They were like, we don't want the Charlie, the engineer to come in here and fix our huts. We don't want this. We don't want that.

And my dad was a medic. And so what he did is he went in there and he started treating the guys who had diarrhea and he trained out the trash bags. And he started extending the hospital to them and doing field care. It's like, we don't need your fucking marine, you know, your US Marines here to help us to feed the communists, you know, we're fine fighting our own fuck you. And then it's like, well, then they're gonna get shot. They're gonna get hurt and you always can have, you always need more medics, right?

And so it's like building them a hospital and then like, hey, you're kind of cool. And then exactly like you said, you know, hey, they taught us how to work a business that doesn't revolve around heroin and meth. And like, you know, this is, what else do you got in that bag of tricks? And that's when the carpet bag of goals, it's a clock 19 boys. So like, yeah, and then you get to have fun.

And I think that that's, are you familiar with Henry Ford? Oh, right. You get to have fun. Yeah. I mean, well, the major points is the hubris of thinking that you're dealing with somebody who doesn't interact in a global society and isn't technologically competent, capable, and savvy. And I think that's the major point I have with all of these perspectives is that you can come in and try to show or demonstrate something that may not be unknown, but not particularly applicable or useful, because honestly an ACOG and a jungle isn't particularly useful

when your engagement distance are going to be under 100 meters, right? Yeah. And like red dots great, but you're in ultra-human conditions, and all of a sudden you start having a high failure rate, and then you want an iron site system that's going to be consistent and work every time. And then you're like, oh yeah, that's why you have a hood in front site and every one of your firearms.

Because that gives you your poor man's eotech. And you can put some illuminating paint on the front of that. And at the engagement distance that you might actually encounter somebody in a jungle warfare environment, that's a pretty useful tool. That doesn't, isn't depending on batteries or a logistics system. Or has circuitry that may or may not. So, I guess what I'm saying is it's important to exercise some humility when coming into different environments, right? Because Myanmar is not Afghanistan.

It doesn't have the same cultural initiative for resistance against like technological development? I mean, it goes... Whoever you are out there, I would say it doesn't matter what you do, it's important to somebody. I mean, what was it? Like they changed the chickens that Ethiopian villagers had. Like one guy looked around, he's like, no, you need like this type of hand. And it's an egg-producing hand. Like these guys are starving because they have

meat chickens, they don't have egg chickens. And like, it's like, it saves hundreds of lives. And it's like exactly that, right? Like exactly like you're saying, like, you can't help them militarily. You probably can't help them diplomatically. But what if, you know, what if you did have somebody come in there like your grandfather who showed them how not to run the drug,

you could do other things besides some drugs. Like, well, I mean, these are set up a hospital. Or, you know, like, hey, you know, these, you know, fuck, I just had a tree guy come here last month and he was like, you know, well, the trees are worth a lot of money. And it's like, he's like, I've seen, you know, like a construction site, he was passing by the,

when he would tell me this, he's like, they just burned walnut trees. They had like $40,000 in walnut trees. They just fucking lit on fire because the lot they were building on, the trees were in the way. They're like, what do you, what are you crying about? Like, why are you crying?

Oh my God, you know what you do. I know. They probably, yeah. So it's like, Well, they actually, they have teak. They have huge teak forests, which is, they make their money. And then again, yeah, it's,

but, you know, being a Husqvarna retailer, Dan Myanmar wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha the resource extraction and it doesn't matter what the political climate is. Yeah, all right. Let me sell you the pickaxe for rare earth extraction and yeah, our metallurgy is better because we have decades of research and development in that. You're like, yeah, well, I don't need that. Yeah, like cool. Like Matt said, I do. I have a huge question. So is Myanmar like self-aware enough to know that the Belt Road Initiative in Sierra Leone

legitimately created the colonization of that country? Is it self-aware enough to know that Chinese investment isn't good? Yes. So you have to understand the political system in Myanmar to understand the incentive. The Belt and Road initiative in Myanmar is putting in a scene amount of money into the government or the tabla doubt. All those generals are getting paid off and bribed, right? When I talked about the development and the building of their capital, the new capital, that cost $4 billion to build a city the size of Shanghai.

$4 billion. China has invested $230 billion into that country. They built a whole new capital for four. So think about that. Think about what $230 by is in a country that can build a whole new capital in ten years for four billion dollars uh... yes that they know the price but there's no debt incentive because what who

who's gonna pay the debt they're gonna like, oh, you owe us money. And the government of Myanmar is going to say, snow. Yeah, what are you going to do? Can you pull the road up? Go try and do that. Yeah, go into the Sean State. Go pull that road up. Go see what happens.

Yeah, go do it with those villagers. Yeah, tell me how that works. It's like, oh, yeah, that army that you've personally funded and developed for decades, now go and try and take it away from them. Yeah, Jesus Christ Like good luck. We've been trying for 80 years This is I mean it this is literally one ego ego Hubert's trip away from becoming China's Vietnam or Afghanistan. Like you were saying, they're saying, I cut it out, cut it out.

I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't.

I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't.

I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. and not go in there. And it's kind of, you know, the generals and all this stuff, you know, the guys that want to earn medals and, you know, you know, get a name on a plaque somewhere. I bet they're all thinking it like, man, if we could just go in there, we could set this shit straight. We could fucking, we'd be golden like a shower. We'd be good for the next 20 years economically speaking in China. If we could just get in there and fucking kill these assholes fucking it up for China, but they can't. Because like there's probably party members, like if we go in there,

we are never getting out. Like, party members in China are self-aware enough to the point where they know. Yeah, they have never won a war. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, so they said after for humanitarian assistance, that's cool. They sent guys are Molly, Somalia, Judy, it's a whole thing. But one of them is like Myanmar their own backyard. Afghanistan was a Soviet backyard and they lost. So I think they're somewhere enough. What if no, it's not worth the investment? What if we push? What if we push China? Yeah, look at the... Dude, if we push this, dude ruined them. I'm going for it.

I watch the Chinese guy get bullied by an African. You know, I paid for it. I don't care. I paid for it. He extorted me in bold Chinese. I was like, good. I don't care. Well, you look at the xenovietnames conflict and it's interesting because it's like so much of that it affected their whole Southeast Asia policy because they're like you know when MacArthur said don't get in the land war in Asia that also means for the Asians. I know Indian conflict. They put down their weapons only the fist fight each other.

They have to. It's part of a diplomatic policy so they don't nuke each other. They're not allowed to have guns. And so they just use spike clubs because that's clearly the more humane option. Like, mainly Webberg's. Yeah, it's like Conflict players. Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah, yeah. You know, what is a spike club versus a gun? I guess.

But dude, that entire part of the world is interesting because it's all China's backyard or this Cody said earlier Afghanistan Africa Horn of Africa and it gets now Myanmar is all China's backyard and they went to the magnetic backyard but Cody's also talked about in the past like no China does kinetic stuff in Afghanistan it is what it is the Soviets the Russian show up I always call them the Soviets but anyways the Russians show up. I always call them the Soviets. But anyways, the Russian show up. You and my dad. Dude, I do you see what the damn Soviets did? I think you mean Russians. Dude, I can't stop.

But anyways, I think that China is so aware enough to where their whole force preservation plan is to take Taiwan. And they're like, we will do whatever it takes to take that. Their whole force structure is to keep China. I don't think it's about taking anything. I think it's about holding what they have. In my opinion, obviously, there's some offensive capability and they actually have, I mean, their small arms development is fantastic. See what you will about Chinese quality and all this stuff

and people like to take cheap shots. Their small arm development has been consistently good for decades. I mean, obviously, they kind of came up with a lot of the technology, so they've been doing it for a long time. But when you look at the Type 81, for instance, I mean, if you want to go down that rabbit hole with me, we can go down it. They looked at the Type 56, which is their version of the AK-47 and the AKM.

And they're like, yeah, the accuracy on this sucks, essentially. And the Russians were like, yeah, it's pretty good. I mean, in single fire, it's acceptable. And honestly, it is. But the Chinese were like, no, the accuracy in single fires unacceptable, recoils too strong, the siding systems inferior, and we can do it better. So they developed the Type 81, and that's actually what all these insurgent groups are using, if they're not using the various other weapons platforms that are used by the government.

Or if you're the Karens, and then you're using M16s and M4s that are totally battleful pickups from Vietnam. But the Type 81, it's a fascinating development of small arms technology and it is well suited to the climate. And it's so funny because that's what they reproduce, right? These insurgents like the KIA who is essentially the major arms manufacturer in that part of the world. So I also have a theory of Bangladesh. She also produces a Type 81 variant and I wonder how much of the equipment that they have and get to produce the Type 81 came from Bangladesh. I don't know, it's all speculation.

But Type 81 is a decent rifle. And looking into its development, I'm going to obviously code the essential of those videos, you know, the Canadians shooting it. It's, you know, it's certainly more accurate. Has a software recoil impulse. Shoot the 762 by 39, which is well suited to the jungle environment, just for brush penetration and stuff like that. The thing is, the Chinese can make small arms, and they can make simple weapon systems,

and it's simple as they can make industrial grade weapon systems very well, and it's certainly not to be underestimated, because China actually has really good metallurgy and because of their iron ore deposits and the type of iron ore deposits they have higher quality steel available to them without you know complicated alloying processes then we do in the United States. I mean we can make good steel, but it has it takes a lot of production. Chinese have better iron ore resources for steel production in China. And that just has to do with the structure of the metals. But that being said, we can still produce better steel. It just takes more money to do so. Yeah. And the other thing is if you rip off the Chinese government, you die.

And if you rip off the American government, you get a bail out and an extension of funds to finish the 35 program. Right, which was only chosen because they had a better PowerPoint presentation. Yeah. Yeah, I had a buddy in every riddle who was there and he was going to school for aviation engineering and talked about how they were talking to guys who were part of that commitment process. He's like, yeah, joint strike fighter. Yeah, they won that contract because they had a better power point. Beautiful.

And it's like, what? Yeah, nothing to do with the end all specifications and capabilities I have to do with the better PowerPoint. Did you see those transitions? No, I can't be No, dude brass likes shiny things They like a nice PowerPoint, but was really Yeah, for the effort, dude the effort, but if you ever watched the video of the Japanese F-35 coming in for a landing on their helicopter landing carrier

And I am missing and sinking and the entire specific Scramble for the Chinese couldn't pick it up. Oh, yeah, yeah, I saw it. I was with that. It wasn't Japanese. I thought it was a US one No, I'm just a British that our job that I would bridge Yeah, the Brits Oh, fuck my baby Oh, it's not moving the shit You know what funny It's a carrier

I don't know what's okay No I can't Yeah, I remember when we When somebody dropped in f 35 off to side of a carrier We had to go fish it out and Post attacks up is around it and said Daria double dog Daria And the Chinese like why would we care we already have all the point

I don't I don't need to yeah, if I, it was just a spit in your face. Just leave a note. This thing sucks. Like fuck it. Oh, man. We're at final minute here. You've already said, like, there's no America saving it. But what's your big takeaway from studying me in Mar?

As for anybody out there listening? The biggest takeaway is in which way? I mean, if you had to Billy Madison, a marine or army private, and like, he was like, why would I look at Myanmar? You'd grab him by the head. What would you tell him? I would say there's more money, more people, more land, more resources than other important conflict zones in the world.

And ultimately, the paycheck is what's important. And there's way bigger paycheck here than anywhere else. That's the bottom line. And I mean, that's not how I view the world. That's not my foreign policy perspective. But I would say when you look at what is going to build a better future, it's probably not in the other major conflict zones in the world right now. But this one has the potential for the provisions of important materials to build a better world.

Got to. Not to mention, like from a military perspective, in a strategic perspective, your fancy shit doesn't mean that much at the end of the day. It's people willing to lay down their life to believe in a cause, which is why we need to reorganize our military to regional recruitment and development. But yeah, like a British system. All right, there you go. And bye.