Shaun Newman Podcast - #859 - Rebekah Koffler

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

Rebekah is a Russian-born U.S. intelligence expert who served as a Russian Doctrine & Strategy specialist in the Defense Intelligence Agency. Working with the DIA and the CIA's National Clandestine Service, she has led "red" teams during war games and advised senior Pentagon officials. She has delivered classified briefings to top U.S. military commanders, NATO ministers, the directors of the CIA and DIA, the White House National Security Council, and senior congressional staff. She also wrote Putin’s Playbook: Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America. Link to Putin’s Playbook:https://www.amazon.ca/Putins-Playbook-Russias-Secret-America-ebook/dp/B07ZZJ8HF4?ref_=ast_author_mpbArticle in NY Post describing Dead Hand:https://nypost.com/2022/04/23/what-the-west-fears-most-about-putins-nuclear-weapons/To watch the Full Cornerstone Forum: https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcastGet your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionWebsite: www.BowValleycu.comEmail: [e-mail] Use the code “SNP” on all ordersProphet River Links:Website: store.prophetriver.com/Email: [e-mail]

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subscribe make sure to leave a review if you're on X hit that retweet button hit that follow button all right let's get on that tale of the tape She's a Russian-born U.S. intelligence expert who served as a Russian doctrine and strategy specialists in the Defense Intelligence Agency. I'm talking about Rebecca Koffler. So buckle up. Here we go. Well, welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Rebecca Kaufler.

Rebecca, thanks for hopping on this morning. Of course. It's a pleasure to be here with you and your audience, Sean. Well, you left an impression on me the last time we chatted, and I thought, man, we can. got to get you back on and then you know it's funny when when we started talking again you know you put it a date on it okay yeah and in the last i don't know hasn't been weak you could you can walk me through this better than anyone i think um russia ukraine like i there's been a lot going on maybe you can walk us all through it sure well um president trump uh ran on one of his uh key campaign promises to end this

to end the bloodshed. In 24 hours, in fact, he claimed that he was going to do that on the first day that he goes to the White House for his second term. That right at that very moment when he announced that just indicated to me that he doesn't really have any advisors in his circle who understand anything about the floor. The swore is super, super comfort. And it's not resolvable, not in 24 hours, not in 24 months even. And I started as usual, you know, as a former intelligence officer, I do still intelligence analysis based in a very rigorous tradecraft. I don't just go on TV, you know, and run out of my mouth, as a lot of people do,

actually, because they're politics commentators. I provide my actual analytic line. I predicted this war in my book and both in the intelligence community, I briefed NATO on it. And so I started saying, no, this plan, this peace plan and ceasefire are unachievable. And all of a sudden people started, you know, shutting me down. So then, but Putin, of course, did get... basically he started getting engaged with that Trump because Putin does want to end the war,

but he wants to end it on his terms. Okay, but to the American side, it seemed, oh, a piece of cake, we're going to go do that. Then Zelensky was making some, as the Russian saying goes, vibrating the air. He started putting out, you know, some, some, some, tweets that were running counter to President Trump's ambition. And then President Trump dressed him down in the Oval Office telling Zelensky, you have no cards, shut up. And Zelensky indeed does not have the cards because he can't really conduct the war without our support.

We are the one, we meaning the United States, the Europeans. You may weigh in now what you guys are doing on your side. We keep sending money. I don't know if our military can really send much other than a couple of old jeeps. And, you know, like, I mean, we have our own problems up here with our military. But certainly money, we've been sending money off to Ukraine. So basically, the West was propping up Ukraine to the point where, we, and when I say we, just to, again, I'm talking about collective West led by the United States,

to the point where their government would collapse if we didn't give them any money, let alone weaponry, right? Because we're paying their government salaries, their health insurance, you know, you name it, even though maybe we don't pay it to our own, you know, we don't give free health care to Americans, but by golly, we give it to Ukraine. So President Trump said to Zelensky basically shut up. And then President Trump started sending his envoy Steve Whitkov to Russia. And that poor guy made, you know, several trips. And Putin is only happy to receive him, you know, with open arms and everything.

Because Putin indeed wants to end this conflict. But again, he wants to make sure that Ukraine. remains in Russia's strategic security perimeter. What does it mean? It's like we have the Monroe doctrine over here, right? And you guys in Canada are kind of part of it, right? Because we provide air defense for you, the Northern North American Command commands. The Space Force is NORAD, North American Air Space Defense Command that I briefed actually personally on Russian war fighting strategy and Putin's thinking last summer. So we are providing that coverage, that defense coverage for you.

So basically, Putin does not want, just imagine like flip it to this side. If Russia-China stationed war-fighting capabilities in Canada or in Mexico, or in Mexico. Would we ensure and remove those capabilities? Hell yeah. I hope so. So that's what Putin wants to do. But in addition, he wants to reverse,

he wants to transform the entire relationship between Russia and the United States and reverse everything that Biden has done, right? Reverse the permission to strike that we gave to Ukraine using our weaponry to strike deep into Russia. Reverse like the whole sanction situation. So that is going to take time. Things just don't happen that quickly. You can't just like do a ceasefire, right? And but in addition to that, Putin is not stupid. The ceasefire is really what the West wants to do, pushed by the Europeans. Yes, President Trump wants to end this war. But the Europeans, what they want to do, they just want to rearm Ukraine. and give time for them to get on a wartime footing to upgrade their weapons arsenal and to ensure that Ukraine remains as a their strategic security perimeter, right? So, therefore, after all of these multiple rounds sending Steve Whitkov, you know,

a meeting in Saudi Arabia, in Istanbul, here, there. and nothing happening in terms of results. And remember, Trump wants things like that, right? It's a completely cultural mismatch. The Russians, things just don't happen in Russia that fast. There's the saying, which means the slower you go, the farther you get. Americans culturally are like, boom, boom, boom.

If it doesn't happen, President Trump got his stuff. And so yesterday there was this whole barrage of tweets or however you call it truthposts and Trump basically said Putin is playing with fire he's crazy he called himself Putin crazy and but the thing that worried me about it shown go ahead jump in well I was just going to say this this is one of the tweets I've always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia but something has happened to him he's gone absolutely crazy. So obviously, I mean, it depends on what, uh, what Trump meant by crazy. If he meant clinically insane, Putin is not. There's no evidence that Putin and we've got back in the

intelligence community. As you know, we do psychological profiles as a whole center in the CIA that does leadership profiles, the does Saddam Hussein. We have like medical doctors. Obviously, nobody has ever examined personally no Western doctor did a psychological evaluation of Putin in person, but we've done it remotely. And I personally, for my own business, now I worked with a medical doctor, a psychologist, Dr. Chani. you can look it up on my YouTube channel I have an episode with Dr. Chani

evaluating and he's a CIA contractor. There's no evidence. Putin is just he's a rational actor. The reason President Trump, I believe, it is my assessment,

called Putin crazy, is because he's not properly briefed. The night before Trump sent out this rant on truth, the Russians launched 366 drones all across Ukraine. And that made Trump mad. What the US media and Western media in general did not cover properly is that Ukrainians made an assassination attempt on Putin on May 20th when Putin was visiting Kursk, which Ukrainians actually conducted an incursion into the Russian territory, Putin's helicopter came under drone fire.

Now imagine if Trump's helicopter came under drone fire by the Russians. This is an act of war. Putin was measured in his approach, right? but Trump apparently wasn't briefed that this was a retaliatory strike. And now the one thing to point out shown to your listeners is that everybody is screaming how civilians are getting killed were getting killed in these drone strikes. Well, the Russians out of 366 strikes, it was a single campaign, drone campaign, 12 civilians were killed.

Now, let's look at the numbers here. In terms of the rate, this is a point, let me get, I've done my analysis here, the rate, right? This is a 0.033 civilians killed per strike, okay? 0.033. Now let's look at the ratio of civilians being killed by U.S. military in strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. From 2002 to 2020, right, between 10,000 and 17,000 were killed. That is the rate.

Wait for it. Wait for it. The rate is 0.7 to 1.4 civilians killed per strike. Okay? So compare 0.033 to up for 1.4. So let's just do our homework. The problem with the media landscape in the U.S. It's like it brings me back to the Soviet Union. And as some of you know, I was born and raised in the USSR.

I was lied all my life. And therefore, I just hate lies. And that's what we lived with. There was like an alternative reality. And now the same alternative reality is created in U.S. and Western media space, where only one side is covered. And I'm not like a Putin support or anything. I wrote a book for goodness sake exposing, you know, the war plan.

But let's just be realistic about it. Because when we're not realistic, what ends up happening is that we make wrong assumptions and we are getting, letting someone like a foreign actor like Zelensky, who's extremely talented at deceiving the world, right? We're letting him drag us literally into World War III. And there will be no winners in that war. And that is the consequences of not telling people the truth and living in an alternative reality

that was created in the U.S. media and in the Western media. I think it goes without saying that killing civilians, anyone being killed is heartbreaking. And everybody wants to stop. What you're pointing out is like when you do the math and you just put it side by side, strategic strikes, I guess, would be the word because obviously he's not killing innocent bystanders every which way. It's not this giant bloodshed that we make it out to be. Certainly there were civilians die, but when you put it side by side with others, it's extremely low compared to counterparts.

Exactly. And again, it's hard braiding it. I'm not justifying by any means by what's going on, but we have to look at the root causes of this war, right? And the root cause of this war is that before President Trump, three U.S. presidents, George Bush, and beginning even with Clinton, but George Bush primarily, Barack Obama and Biden were hell-bent on pushing Ukraine into NATO. Okay, well, what are you going to expect, right? If somebody were trying to violate our Monroe doctrine and placing, like I said, war fighting capabilities into that space, we would remove them. And right now, speaking about war fighting capability, and I think that's really not properly covered, it's kind of was a little bit covered by the New York Times. and everybody forgot about it.

There are 12 CIA bases right now in Ukraine, okay? With, there's a NATO combat training center in Yavorov. Yavorev is about 10 kilometers border with Poland. Our military officers, our intelligence officers, and again, And I'm saying collective, our U.S. and NATO, they are on rotational basis training Ukrainians how to fight Shaun, how to kill the Russians. Okay. Now, are you surprised that wouldn't want to remove that capability? Moreover, on rotational basis, there's National Guard from New York, from Florida, from Tennessee,

constantly on rotational basis in Ukraine. Nobody talks about that. Moreover, talking about the assassination attempt, right, on May 20th that Ukrainians conducted on Putin. Ukrainians don't have their own satellites. They don't have their own precision, you know, strike capability. They can't do the targeting packages.

This is all NATO support. NATO warfighting support. All Ukrainians do is just press the button. So if you're sitting in Putin's shoes, you know that the Ukrainians press a button, but the only reason they get to press the button is because they're having immense amount of help from the guy saying, hey, let's have a ceasefire.

100%. So Putin is not a lady yet. Why would he, you know, why would he do that ceasefire? And moreover, Putin is a, does not trust us because we have demonstrated to him that just on a dime we can change the decision. Remember, in the very beginning of this war, former President Biden was very adamant that there will be no U.S. boots on the ground that what else did he say? We're not going to go to war with Russia and he was threatening nuclear Armageddon. He was telling his job.

that Putin is serious about that. And we will never give Ukrainians the long range missiles, right? And then all of a sudden he gave him attack us. And then all of a sudden, but he put the rules, right? The rules of engagement were that Ukrainians were not to strike deep inside Russia. They were only allowed to defend their own territory.

Then all of a sudden he changed like that. What is Putin to make of it? Trump did the same thing. When he came in, he was at first, he was very, you know, strong in terms of Putin Zelensky in his place. He withdrew military support. He withdrew intelligence sharing, right? And without intelligence sharing, Ukrainians can do squats. And then all of a sudden, he put that back in.

I mean, why would Putin believe us? I mean, people somehow think that Putin is an idiot or like they think that he is a fool? Because in the one hand, the same people who call Putin a murderer and a dictator and a war criminal, they have been puffed that Putin does not make concessions. Well, if you think Putin is not a nice person, why would he just make concessions and just end?

the war in which he's trying to remove this existential threat just because you say so just because Trump's want to and he's winning the war and that's another thing that is not covered is the same people who got us into Afghanistan and we spent you know again collective we spend 20 years dead and for the US it's $2.2 trillion okay and 6,000 lives men and women in universities and And then we withdrew. And what does it say? We couldn't even beat the, uh, uh, an adversary that lacks a regular armed force. Those are people in, uh, with towers on their heads running around like lunatics with that AK 47. And so we are in, it's the same people are now saying, oh, give more weapon to Ukraine, victory is just around the corner.

Well, wait a minute. Afghanistan and Russia are two different things. Russia has the world's largest, and I repeat, the world's largest and the world's most sophisticated nuclear arsenal, and holds advantage in that particular sphere even over the United States. So whatever happened on September 11th, you know, is going to seem like fireworks. If Putin, who's been really calibrating his, you know, strategies, fighting like below the threshold of what we call in the intelligence business of a direct kinetic response from the west. That's why it's taking such a long time, which all the, the so-called experts say that, oh, Russia can't even, you know, beat Ukraine. Well, Putin can demolish Ukraine tomorrow. He just doesn't, just wants to avoid the war with NATO. So the same

people are dragging us into the nuclear war right now that got us in. Afghanistan. Okay, I got a whole bunch of questions, but I'm going to try and I just want, I just want to start with two, at one point Russia wanted in NATO and NATO said no, correct? Correct. So if I'm, Martin Armstrong, when he was in in Calgary, he said, you know, one of the lessons he learned from his father was you don't judge someone with the way you think, you judge them by the way they think and I ever since I heard that it makes complete sense to me I sit here and I'm listening to this and I'm like okay so you're sitting there in your Russia okay this isn't Sean being pro Russia this is just looking at this from there where they sit in the world it's like well we try

just being common sense right common sense we tried joining NATO they told us no they told us they wouldn't turn you know a bunch of countries into NATO countries oh wait they're doing that you You mentioned they got 12 CIA bases in Ukraine, among other things. The entire Western world is funding it. They want to ceasefire, but they don't want to draw back. They don't want to pull any of that stuff out, as my understanding, if I'm getting this right. Correct. Not only that, Sean Surgeon Trump.

We are adding long-range missile capabilities. And as German Chancellor Meros just said, that it's a lot. It still needs to be verified whether he meant to say it or not, but to the Russians, they're going to take it at face value, right? And what worse said is that all the limitations on Ukraine to use all of those long-range missiles from Great Britain, from Germany, from the United States have been removed. So Putin is sitting there and saying, you know, they can attack Moscow, you know, tomorrow. So go ahead with your train of thought. You said that... So basically, from Putin's standpoint,

not only we're not removing that stuff, we're adding. Yeah, so like you go, well, you said this can't be, you know, Trump walks in, I'm going to end it in day one, right? And then, and to me, that's just the way Trump is. If you watch Trump, he says things, and it's just his intention.

My intention is to end the war. If it takes two years, it takes two years, but we're going to end this war. You, if I heard you correct, he said it won't end in a day, a month, maybe not even 24 months. And I go, okay, so if you could sit and have the president's ear

and be like, okay, Donald, this is going to take time because there is a lot going on here. I don't know if you need to give me a time frame, but what are the things that would need to be done to make Putin go, okay, they're serious about like ending this war. Like, is it just removing the U.S. from the Ukraine? Is that even possible?

Like, is even, like, I don't know, like in my world, like, oh, okay, so pull it back. Like, I mean, like, when you have all these long range missiles and nuclear capabilities, why do they have to be on the doorstep? It doesn't, that doesn't make any sense to me other than I'm sure there's a whole bunch of things I'm missing. But is that even possible? Can you, can Donald call up his military and go, okay, we're going to pull back? or is there just so many interests at play here that I don't understand? Exactly.

And the reason I'm saying it's unresolvable is because it's not just Putin. It's the United States that really does not want to do it. Because Donald is not the only one who makes it, yes, like by Constitution, he's the one that makes a decision. But he's here just for another four years. and the deep state, and I'm not afraid to use this word because I have first-hand experience with the deep state and you know how I was targeted by it since you have read my book. The deep state, they have turned this whole thing into the Ukraine-NATO situation, into a money laundering scheme and into a gravy train, right?

because the reason why we, the U.S. want Ukraine as part of NATO, is because it's a, then we would need to arm Ukraine and outfitted with NATO standards weaponry, right? And that is the boon for our military industrial complex. Look at the stocks of Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Lockhead Martin. And so, and it goes more. Look at how many, how much money all these congressmen make. Like somebody recently probably can get it on, you know, on Google, put up a graphic, like of salaries, of Nancy Pelosi. and all these, you know, congressmen and annual salaries, which is approximately like 200, 250K. And then they, and then their actual declared income is millions of dollars. And, uh,

Elon Musk raised that point. And he actually started with George. He started putting things together, like trying to figure out how do they get their money. And that's why like Elon Musk was not, no longer there, because he's a threat. He's a threat to all these people. So not only that shown, so these are the two pieces, right? I just named military industrial who are feeding off. They effectively show them they're feeding off of dead Ukrainians. By giving more money to Russia, they perpetuate the conflict and enrich themselves.

So military industrial complex, congresspeople, all sorts of lobbyists, okay, who Ukraine, hired, and I'll give you some very specific numbers, names. And it's actually people who are vibrating U.S. airwaves. All of these contributors go to legacy media and check who is talking, has been talking. And there's a certain four-star general. I'm not going to name who, but you all know him, on a major network, on a major U.S. network, keep saying, fourth start, okay? Keep saying, give Ukraine more weapons. The victory is just around the corner.

I'm kind of simplifying, but that's basically it. Fox News contributor. Another one, former CIA person, keep saying the same thing, victory just around the corner. Now look at how these people make their money. look up their names. One is the head of the think tank that is funded by the military industrial complex. So that person is making income on that.

Yeah, that's a huge conflict. And the other person, and the other person, look it up also is on the board of a company called BGR. BGR. And I can send you links that you can embed. I would appreciate that. Yes, I will. BGR is profiting. There's even an article by a Western publication,

profiting from arming Ukraine. And when I challenged one of the networks on this by saying that those people's analysis, because they cherry-picked my analysis and make it sound like I was agreeing with these people. And I said, no, I don't agree with these people. I, you know, I'm not just a commentator. I'm an intelligence analyst.

And my clients, I make my living by accurately predicting Putin's behavior. And I have a very strong record on it. So I, my integrity is very important to me because that's how I make. I need to be accurate. I don't just like run off, you know, my mouth. And I said, I disagree with these two people. You made this sound like my analytic line the same. It's not.

You cherry picked my analysis. And moreover, these peoples, and I name just for, and it applies to a lot of them. And I'm just alluding to this particular two. I said, their analysis is not unbiased. They are incentivized to give more weapons. to Ukraine so that more Ukrainians get killed so that they get more money because they are paid by the military industrial problem. It's this simple. And you can look at this out. And it's mind-moggling to me that people, but the American people have no idea. They think that this is a legitimate

four-star general, you know, he knows. It's the same freaking general who had us, who told us in Afghanistan, you know, we're going to win in Afghanistan. So it's really, it's not on, it's a more And typically, like in intelligence, we don't talk about morals. Like if we don't call somebody, they're a war criminal or whatever, because there are a lot of bad guys, right? We just assess a threat how it is. You know, war is war. We assume that people are going to be killed, including civilians. The Russians, for example, they never lecture anybody.

You killed them, blah, blah, blah, but it's the U.S. It's all these, you know, the do-gooders, right? the Lindsey Graham's and the what's the other one it'll come to me you know Putin is a kill but you are you're you're the one who keeps lecturing the rest of the world on morality and how moral you are but you essentially killing Ukrainians in order to enrich yourself and then the second one is in order to protect the Europeans because the Europeans are screaming that oh if we let ukraine fall into putt his hands we're going to be next right there he's going to strike poland well that is such a dumb argument because Putin is not suicidal he's a

rational person he doesn't want to attack natal unless it's in self-defense even preemptive self-defense but because attacking Poland or even one of the politics would involve collective defense clause, Article 5, and then he's in the direct war. He very specifically wants to avoid the direct war because he'll have to go nuclear. He doesn't want to have nuclear. All of the war plan, and so the Europeans, they're just deceiving everybody because they want Ukrainians to do the fighting. to keep themselves, you know, so-called protected. Yes.

Can you, I'm curious to have someone who analyzes the data, walk me through something that is on my mind. How old is Putin? He is, oh my goodness, I want to say he is 70 at this point. his birthday is October 7. So he's about 70. Why? Tell me now.

72, 72, okay. Yes. So, okay, you said, so I'm just looking at it from the standpoint of Putin or the world looks at the U.S. and sees Donald Trump there and he's in and he's going to make big changes. But they know it's less than four years. he's done. Exactly. It's just done. And then when I look at the other side, I go, okay, so Putin's 72, you know, like how many years does he have left as president of Russia? Is it,

is it 20? Is it 10? At what point can he no longer be the leader, the master and chief of, well, if you are talking about like constitutionally or like health-wise, so constitution, So Putin legitimately can be president until 2036, right? Because of, yes. So. Tell he's 83, if I'm doing my math, correct? Yes. Okay.

Now, Putin is the kind of person who wants to make sure that Russia is secure. like they think like he's a manga whatever and and yes I guess one can make that point whatever but we like I said like in my profession we don't do place those uh what he wants to do is he wants to ensure the security of Russia and so he likely is looking for his replacement right now just as a as a hedge because look at their assassination attempts on him, right? But he's not just going to trust anybody. This person does not easily trust. And so my assessment is that just like Yeltsin hand-picked Putin, Putin is going to handpick somebody.

And right now there's just nobody in his circle who is ready to be that person who is of a younger, you know, much younger age. So in terms of health since we started talking about it, he already outlived the average age of a Russian male. But he's extremely healthy because he exercise. He's an avid, you know, athlete in great shape. He doesn't do drugs. and he doesn't drink much. He's a very moderate drinker, maybe like wine, a glass of wine once in a while.

So, and that, he can live for a while. And I'll give you also, like a personal example. A lot of people think that, like, Russians die like flies, you know, and yeah, because there's alcoholism, there's that. But if you have good genes, and Putin has good genes, his father and grandfather ate into, lived into old age. So my own father is now 89, never drank, never smoked in his life, right?

He also, all his friends are like dead. So it's conceivable to me that Putin can be president, you know, beyond, beyond 2036 if they don't kill him and if he doesn't find a replacement. So, but what was your question, like the actual question? Well, I don't know if I, I'm just, I'm walking through a train of thought. I look at it and I'm trying my best to, you know, I used to look at time and I say this lots in a very like day to day, week to week, month, a month. And you know, the longer I do the podcast, I just start to look in longer timeframes. And I'm starting to understand different cultures and the way they look at time.

And so when I look at this, like, you know, we, I understand like, to me, how the U.S. operates, it's starting to make more sense. You bring up the deep state. Well, they're just going to buy their time until Trump's out. And they're going to try and win the next election. They're going to try and do whatever they can

to win the next election, whoever the successor is of Donald Trump. I don't think anyone can argue at this point that Donald Trump is like one of the most popular presidents of all time. It is just, it is wild to me. It goes beyond the U.S. border.

It goes to other countries. It's just, it is, he's just, larger than politics. And when I look at it, I go, okay. So the deep state is looking at Donald Trump and going, well, we got a little less than four years and he's out. And, you know, so you go, he's got to try and end a war, like could be cataclysmic

war with Russia. Correct. Of all the cards are on the table. And time is already rapidly closing on. I'm not one to say three and a half years, a lot can't happen. But certainly when you look at a timeframe of how long Putin's been in power, it is a short little time frame. And he's rushing because he wants to end it. That's what it looks like to me.

But now he's got the deep state that's working against them because they want to prolong this for all the reasons you just said. And when I look at Putin, I go on the flip side, I've watched Putin. And I want to be very clear here, I don't know Putin. I don't think he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. I just look at him and I go he's very calculated. I mean, they've attacked him how many times and he hasn't pulled the trigger to go wild. So like I look at that and I go, here is a guy who is very calculated, meaning he's willing to take some losses. He's willing to take an assassination attempt and not like destroy Ukraine and march into Poland and just keep marching, you know?

So like me, forgive me, folks. Although he could, right? Right. But that's restraint. He's showing restraint. That is restraint. And they are picked and they're painting him as like this, you know, like he's trying to annihilate the world and that he's crazy. He's been extremely, extremely restrained in his, in his approach because he wants to avoid a war with NATO.

All he wants is to restore that strategic security perimeter, which, by the way, I may have mentioned in our last episode that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the strategic security perimeter, which is the distance, the shortest distance between NATO and Russia has reduced from 1,000 miles to 100 miles. That is shorter than from New York to Washington. Okay. So he needs from the terms of the the missile flight length and trajectory and the reaction time, he needs to have time to make the decision. So what happened now shown with the what these people did by giving Ukraine both the long, long-range missiles and the permission to strike deep inside Russia. They actually signed Ukraine's death sentence. Why is that?

Because originally Putin would have been satisfied by keeping the eastern part, the Donbass area, the Donetskluhanz-Hirz-Ber-Hirton. That's where all the key industries is. It's kind of like the area that's the breadbass area. basket of Europe. So he would be fine with that. Now that Ukraine has that capability, the Russian intelligence has assessed that they need the entire Ukraine as a strategic buffer zone. Now they are going for the entire thing because they want to keep that distance to give them stout to protect the hardland,

Moscow and Petersburgs and the key cities from missile strikes. And they need, Putin needs reaction time. So that is exactly what these Lindsay Graham's and whoever else is behind those. I have no idea who's pushing Trump into that. But clearly that circle is very, very strong because Trump is falling into that trap. that he's misinformed. He didn't know about the assassination attempt. He doesn't understand.

So that's what they did. How could he possibly not know there was an assassination attempt? How is, like, that's one of the biggest world leaders on the planet. How is that possible that another world leader doesn't know that? They probably kept it from him. I mean, if you don't put it in the briefing book, right, in the PDB or whatever. And the networks are not covering it.

You know, I mean, Trump watches US media all the time, like that's Fox, on Thai has newsmax. None of these people covered it. Have you seen it? Have you guys covered it? No. Well, no. Does Canada cover anything?

No. I was listening to the radio today and we got Pride Prig coming back in Eminton. That's what I heard this morning. I'm like, great. That's what's really the top of mind. right now. They were all celebrating. It was fantastic. I was so well informed this morning. No. I, um, that's why I, I, I, you coming on at this time, I'm like, man, what a, what a, just an not opportunity, yeah, probably opportune time. Like it's just, it's, it's, it's at a time where,

you know, I felt like things, I felt like things were moving the right direction. It felt like, you know, I watched Zelensky in the Oval Office and be like, this is wild. Like, Trump is tearing this guy apart. And, you know, and then he'd had his calls with Putin and I'm like, oh, I, you know, like, is it, is it eight months away? Is it a year away? It just felt like it was moving in the right direction. And then it's gone completely off the rails or at least that's what it looks like to me. And you're not going, no, you're wrong, Sean. No, it's completely on the rails. This is just a slight bump, you know, a stiff wind. Oh, no, no. It's, it's got in fact, like you said in the beginning of, with your opening. And, um, we,

We are really on the brink of nuclear war. And let me explain how and why. So I assume you'll listen to star Trump's tweets or postings saying Putin is playing with fire. Bad things are going to happen to Russia, really bad things. Okay. So you mentioned a couple minutes ago how, and I forgot whom you quote, that you have to like other people think different Martin Armstrong Martin Armstrong okay that concept that you mentioned is called in the intelligence business mirror

imaging it's when you project your own thought processes you know old mental frameworks on your adversary and that and and then you making decisions based on that well that is wrong right so let me tell because that's gonna get you in trouble because all of your policies are going to be wrong, your assessments are going to be wrong because Putin does not think that's what I constantly tell people when they talk about sanctions. I say Putin doesn't, you're assuming Putin thinks like an American. He doesn't think like an American. He's Russian. He's damn Russian. So the danger and I put out on my ex-handle that if I may please give a plug to my ex. Please do. Please do. Rebecca.

which is spelled a little differently, R-E-B-E-E-K-A-H-0-132. And 0-1-3-2 is the code for an interlopster in the US-G-S system. I put it out. I really was concerned, Sean, after Trump put out the barrage of postings on social media, because Putin will read it in a way that is consistent with the Russian mindset, with his mindset, with Russian cultural predisposition for worst case scenario. Putin is looking not just at Trump's tweet that he said bad things are going to happen to Russia. He's putting that tweet in the following concept.

Okay. We just lifted restrictions from Ukraine to use long-range missiles to strike deep into Russia. There was just an assassination attempt. Linda Graham just called Putin's game is going to be over. We're going to do something really bad, game over. The NATO just conducted military exercises, military drills in Estonia with participation from Estonians, the Swedish and the Finnish, who are the new members of NATO, And Finland shares an 800 mile border with Russia, right?

3,000 British troops just returned from the exercises, specifically when they were training Ukrainians on military or NATO military hardware. Okay? We are flying fighter jets along in the... Baltic Sea, Black Sea, right? He's putting that tweet in that context, okay? And the other, the two very important points to understand to this, there are things that we do not see, right, at the classified level that the Russians are monitoring. And one example is satellite maneuvering.

Because every time like there's an impending attack, you have to maneuver satellites to do the proper coverage, to do the targeting. If for some reason, right, something happened like we, let's say we maneuver it for a different reason to move it into like a different or like whatever, right? Because we don't even think from our side, I doubt, I really doubt that Trump meant. really something bad. He was just like frustrated, like said really bad. But let's say it coins all of these things that I just mentioned, right? And something completely unintentional, because we're not even thinking of going to war with Russia, right? I'm just saying, for example, and something like that, the probability of unintended escalation and the Russians interpreting it as a precursor to war, they have.

have a preemptive doctrine. Here's how the right. This is important. And this is so I put it on my tweet. I said, POTUS needs to be very conscientious about his language because Putin is placing it into this context and I explained. And President Trump may not have intended to say, but here's what it sounds to the Russians because the Russian's history is very different.

Their history is full of wars. They assume a worst-case scenario. They lost 20-plus million people in World War II. I mean, they had Napoleon invasion. They had, you know, the history is just completely full of war. So it means to them something different. And the way that the Russian make their threat assessment, I also put it on my Twitter just as public service,

because unfortunately right now, the U.S. intelligence community doesn't have Russia expertise. Like I said, I personally briefed Space Forces Nord and Northcom. I was stunned with the lack of expertise. It was even less than when I left. So I put it out. Here's how the Russians make their threat assessment. There's a software-based program, right, where all of these, what I just named to you, the context, they're called an intelligence business IMW, indications and warnings. They are all placed together in the database. In addition to what the leader says,

what the Congress, anytime Lindsey Graham says, Putin is a murderer, he can no longer, or Biden said, remember, he can no longer remain in power. All of that is put in there against the context of how Washington conducted business for the past quarter of a century, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, regime change. Okay. The system then spits out the, it's algorithm driven, spit out the probability of risk of an impending attack.

And it provides courses of action. It's a decision support software. And then a human goes to somebody very close to Putin, goes there to make, to see what's happening. and then Putin makes a decision, you know, how to act. As I said, is a preemptive doctrine. So my official analytic line, if the Russian intelligence and Putin himself have made a conclusion, an assessment,

that an attack on Russia is imminent, so it's inevitable and it's imminent. There are two different things. There are two different causes of action. It would trigger a preemptive strike, including on the United States, including on NATO. It is very easy, and war gaming has shown back in the intelligence community that unintentional war is a very real thing due to miscalculation, because we have done all of these things And then we said something stupid that we didn't mean to, but the Russians interpreted it.

That's the reason. And if there's a kinetic war, and I'm not saying I just want to be very precise here for your listeners. I don't, the Russians will not do a nuclear strike right off the bat, right? There's a whole escalation ladder. But it will, wargamy has shown it eventually, and fairly soon, going to nuclear. It will start with like crippling cyber attacks, like an EMP strike, you know, space warfare, turning our satellites down. So just to plunge the economy, but then obviously we would retaliate. So eventually it'll go nuclear. Well, this is, so if I mean, this is,

this brings me back to why I asked Putin's age, because when I, when I just draw it out on my piece of paper, nobody can see that. But I go, okay, let's just go, he's got 11 years. I realize he could go for 20, but I just go 20, 36. Okay, so 11 years. Trump's got three. You just rattled off how they have basically analysis coming in, showing how close they are to an imminent strike. And if I look at it, you don't say imminent strike in the next day.

You don't say imminent strike in the next six months. You say imminent strike. Well, imminent strike is like in the next three years. I'm sorry, Sean, just to correct you. That's not what inevitable. That's inevitable is what you mean to say, right? Inevitable does not mean like right away. And the Russian intelligence has already concluded that a direct, and this is what I wrote in my book.

A Russia-U.S. war is inevitable. That's a quote. That's a quote. And that's why I wrote that book. So people are playing with fire really right now. So go ahead. No, no. Say that line one more time.

A Russia, U.S. war is inevitable. Inevitable. Inevitable. Doesn't mean tomorrow. It's not imminent. And what they're looking is we are escalate. And as an analyst, I am confirming to you, we are on that escalation ladder. And we are climbing it very stettled for the past three years.

Because remember how we started, like, there was no, we didn't give lethal aid to Ukraine. it was blankets and night vision goggles and mirees but then trump actually is the one who get so from the russia they are watching all of this okay they're watching how it started and where we are right now and we have already pretty hot we're still not nowhere near nuclear or even like crippling cyber we're not there but the progress that has been made it indicates to the russia so what that does is the Russians are saying to themselves right now, they announce, and I'm saying to myself, kind of on the one hand, I'm proud of myself predicting that. I mean, it's a terrible thing. If it actually happened, I wish I were wrong. But I'm thinking to myself,

we're going to this is exactly. And the Russians say, we were correct. We were correct invading Ukraine because eventually it's going to happen because, look, it's happening. you know when you take the time though right like you you you sit and you contemplate time for bit and you stop looking at month to month and you start looking at the trend and where the trend is going i go once again i come back to this this thought whether Putin has more than 11 years or not i just go 11 years and he knows in his next 11 years there will be another US election where there is the possibility that somebody gets elected that isn't like Donald Trump. And under Donald Trump, who would be the most outspoken that I can recall, and maybe you have

somebody you can toss in there, um, on war and trying to stop it, if he can't stop it and it's still slowly escalating, then I'm glad you changed my words and because I appreciate the precision and what you're, what you're saying. It's like, well, it becomes inevitable because if Donald Trump can't slow it down, then the next president certainly isn't going to be able to slow it down, which means you get to the inevitability of where we're heading, which is a really like sobering thought because I look at and I go, why can't? And this has been the history of the world. It's like it's like you're you're fighting the current or something. You know, it's like why why can't we just lay down arms, drawback

I understand there's there's been bloodshed and everything I get that but when you look at the history there's bloodshed everywhere like eventually World War I comes to an end eventually World War II comes to an end now all the things that happen after the wars

then predicate what comes next and so I look at this and I go you're talking about like the worst of possible outcomes ever I don't think there's anything worse than an EMP blast over well any population just think of where that takes you.

Yeah, yeah. The only thing may be worse is a nuclear blast that just destroys populations as a whole. And when you say it's inevitable, not for nuclear, just for confrontation, for a kinetic war to happen. Yeah. I'm like, that's a sobering thought. And I just look at the times.

Putin's looking at his next 11 years. He's not looking at the next year or the next two. And certainly when he got in office, he wasn't looking at, oh, I got, you know, the next three. It's like, you know, there. And that's how I, when I look at the Russians, they just look at the world differently in us. So it's two opposing views trying to solve a problem, because I assume it's trying to solve. Some are trying, some are very bad actors.

That is the deep state and others, I might add, that are trying to perpetuate this. But that's how the inevitability comes about. Is it not? Oh, absolutely. You just laid it out perfectly. I wish there were more people like critical thinkers like yourself. And honestly, there are many in the, I was stunned with the lack of like strategically minded, like critical thinking people in the U.S. government.

And yeah, that's why we are in this, you know, terrible situation. I'd like to mention one more thing. You just triggered a thought in me by, you know, during this expose, very enlightening that you just did. AI, artificial intelligence, right? It may very well precipitate the whole thing because we are hell-bent on incorporating AI into, like, fire control, systems in with the drone warfare into our weapon systems right and AI has this ability to like hallucinate when it when it goes wild and then it's not like doing it goes beyond what's supposed to do

so imagine something like that happening during this very tense period it's like all of a sudden You lost control of your finger on the trigger, so to speak. And it's happening beyond your will. And that is with the pace that AI is developing right now. And the Russians are not very fast on AI. And this is why the Russians are very, yes, they want to develop it, but and they are developing it, but they inherently are very suspect of technology. They're like, they like human intervention at the very like plus point.

So what happens and what's happening like in the nuclear, for example, and in other realms, our systems, Western systems, U.S. are a lot more vulnerable than the Russian systems because they want to make sure that they prioritize security over convenience. So it's extremely like if people think that somehow we can disable Russian nuclear command and control, good luck with that. It's impenetrable. It's impenetrable. And it has a thing called the Dead Hand.

I don't know if you remember that from my book is where like they make sure like even if like there's a devastating strike that is being detected and incoming on on on on Russia that's going to decapitate the leadership basically to take out the key people that hold the nuclear football then the system goes automatic to do a retaliatory strike and with AI on our side it's very easy to get there. I'll send you another, I'll give you another link to the article describing the whole system, the dead hand. That's why it's called the dead hand. It's the actual name. It's perimeter, nuclear command and control. But the nickname is that is dead, is that hand. And if I may just, you triggered another thought in me when you spoke about the time and everything. Going back in time in 1980, And not many people know that it used to be highly classified and a few years it's Declassified. So if you and it's in my book also in 1983 the USSR and in the US and NATO came very very close to nuclear war

because the Russians interpreted that there was a that there was a military exercise going on close to Russia's borders and it was against the background of President Reagan's like very kind of militant rhetoric against Russia and the Russians interpreted it as a precursor to a nuclear strike and they actually literally put the leadership in the bunkers and thank goodness US intelligence did not pick it up at that point because if we picked it up, we would have interpreted that Russia is preparing to do a nuclear strike on us. And they're just putting their leadership in the bunker to secure them. And we would have striped it. It's like it's a maddening thing.

And so on this point, I want to read to you. I also put it on Twitter a little quote that, uh, uh, uh, really demonstrate how you end up. Neither side really obviously want neither the Russians nor the U.S. nor NATO, hopefully, want to have a nuclear war. But they can end up there. And here's the quote from the epilogue in my book that conveys that psychology. And it's a quote by somebody named Thomas C. Schelling. And he's the thought leader behind the war gaming theory. And the court comes from his book, The Strategy of Conflict. So here's how we get into war.

Hopefully not. But if we were, here's how it happens. Listen very closely. He thinking that I was about to kill him in self-defense was about to kill me in self-defense. So I had to kill him in self-defense. Make sense? Want me to read that again? You got it?

You're giving me a sober, sober episode that we haven't had for a few. Where can people find your book, Rebecca? I'll put it in. Yeah. Go ahead, go ahead. Well, I'll put it in the show notes that way if people, I was, when you saw me scanning, I'm like, I have notes in it because I was highlighting and I was going through. And then I'm like, I must have left it on my like, my, like, my, my, my,

bedside table, bedside table. Yeah. Because I had notes and I'm like, oh, so you're rattling all this off. I'm like, there were things that, there's just little things that you write in there that I think are really interesting, I guess. And they're not, some of it are, you know, you talk about these, these, I don't know, maybe I'm oversimplifying, but like big thoughts. There's like little thoughts just in, and how you write and analyze where I'm like,

oh, that's interesting. I should ask for that. And then, of course, I left the book sitting at home, obviously, because I can't find in the studio, which is just silly of me. Oh, well. But if people wanted to pick it up, I'll put the link in the show notes. I appreciate you hopping on and doing this. And, you know, let's not wait so long to have you back on again, because as things continue to evolve here over the coming months and years, I think you're a sobering voice in the conversation. Thank you. Thank you very much for having me and you you are one of these very unique shows where people actually

get the truth and true information because you can't get it anywhere since you ask the book is I'll show your people very quickly put in its playbook and it's really anywhere Amazon is the easiest way to get it but I know some people don't like Amazon so in any bookstore pretty much Bons and Nobles or wherever they carry it yes I'd be I'm happy to come again, and we will. You can ask me all these other questions that you marked in the book. Sounds good.

Thank you, Rebecca, again. Thank you very much, and please people follow me on that X, Rebecca, 0132. Take care.