Shaun Newman Podcast - #967 - Larry Johnson

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

Larry C. Johnson is a former CIA intelligence analyst and deputy director in the State Department’s Office of Counterterrorism who left government service in 1993 to found BERG Associates, a private international security consulting firm. A co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), he gained prominence in the early 2000s as a media commentator on terrorism and intelligence issues. You can find his work through his Substack blog Sonar21 where he commentates on the Russia-Ukraine war and the general theme of geopolitics.Tickets to Cornerstone Forum 26’: https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone26/Tickets to the Mashspiel:https://www.showpass.com/mashspiel/Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionBitcoin: www.bowvalleycu.com/en/personal/investing-wealth/bitcoin-gatewayEmail: [e-mail] Prophet River Links:Website: store.prophetriver.com/Email: [e-mail] the code “SNP” on all ordersGet your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500🎙️ New to streaming or looking to level up? Check out StreamYard and get $10 discount! 😍

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Today's guests are American political commentator, blogger, and former intelligence analyst. I'm talking about Larry Johnson. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Numa podcast. Today I'm joined by Larry Johnson. Sir, thanks for hopping on. Hey, listen.

I, boys, appreciate it. invitation. If you think I'm worth listening to, then I can only take that as a compliment. Well, you come, I was saying this before we started, you come highly recommended from a bunch of different people. And so, no, glad to finally make it happen. Before we get into anything, I guess it's first time on the podcast. For the listener, maybe tell them a bit about yourself. Yeah, I'm basically a guy who couldn't hold a job. So I taught at American University back in the early 80s, joined the CIA in 1985, stayed there for four years, was a senior regional analyst for Central America, moved from there down to State Department Office of Counterterrorism,

stayed there for four years. Then I started a consulting business, and in that consulting business worked, I was scripting terrorism exercises or counterterrorism exercises, depending how you look at it, for U.S. military special operations forces. as well as me and my partners, we did international money laundering investigations. So I have a pretty broad perspective. I've worked with intelligence, with law enforcement, with military, with all things pertaining to transportation,

both maritime and aviation security. So I got a pretty broad base. I'm a mile wide and an inch deep. You mentioned counterterrorism exercises or scripting of them. What does that mean? So this was done on behalf of what's called Special Operations Command, Socom, and the subordinate command to that, J-Soc, Joint Special Operations Command. So J-Soc is sort of the pointing end of the spear that if there's a terrorist incident overseas

and there's going to be a military response. Let's take the, you know, that ship that was captured by or taken over by Somali pirates a few years back, more than a few, about 10, 10, 12 years ago. When the word comes in, oh, my God, the ship's been taken over, and these are Americans being held hostage. So the military, the president orders, the military, the president orders, the military do something go rescue them and so that starts off an entire planning process that the units like in this case seal team six has to be alerted hey seal team six wake up you need to go you're

going to be going to uh the uh the uh the red sea um and so seal team six then has to start gathering intelligence about where they're going to go they need to figure out what they're going to take with them okay how are we going to attack this target are we going to parachute in or are we be flown in on an airplane so the the point of an exercise is to replicate that whole process and my my job was to replicate the kind of messages that would come out from state department both from main state the secretary of state sending a message to an embassy and then the embassies sending messages back to state and so to because they wanted to create as realistic a scenario so that the uh the military personnel when they got actually had to

to do something in real world, it would be familiar to them. They wouldn't be saying, what is this? Interesting. So then I guess if you fast forward to today's world, when things are coming out in the media, you stare at and go, oh, yeah, I've seen them. We played this drill out before, and this is probably going to be the reaction. Am I oversimplifying that or is that close? No, no, no, it's not oversimplifying.

You know, let's take the example of Venezuela. So Venezuela is in the area of responsibility for what's known as Southern Command, a.k.a. Southcom, you know, so I learned how to speak military acronym, acrony's during my, you know, 23 years during these exercises. Southcom is actually headquartered. It used to be headquartered in Panama, but now it's headquartered in Miami, just west of the airport, the international airport. so normally they are what's called the supported commander the commander who is in charge who everybody else is tasked to assist them uh in this case though it looks like socom

and slash jsoc is the supported commander and that southcom's duty is just to support the special operations folks so just you know the fact that i understand that nuance and you know 99% of Americans don't. I mean, you know, that's how I look at it completely different. And having work inside J-Soc and Socom for, you know, like, 22, well, actually, first started associating with them in 1989. So, you know, 36 years ago. You know, I have a notion of what they can do, what they can't do.

And just, you know, your way to evaluate it. What I do know is that despite the capabilities of the top tier one units, either Delta Force or Steel Team 6, very capable for certain types of missions, but they are not counterinsurgency capable. They are not good at taking territory and going up against a conventional army that has a lot of firepower. they do have their limitations. But unfortunately, Hollywood has, you know,

made it, turned them into superheroes. You can do anything. And, yeah, they're very physically capable, but they're still basically what would be called light infantry. So, you know, watching what goes on in, you know, our efforts to provoke a war in Venezuela. And then on top of that, you know, I bring to it, I saw how the intelligence activity behind the scenes,

when I was at the CIA and the Central America branch, well, you know, Panama was one of our areas of responsibility. And I watched for more than a year as the operation side of the house tried to provoke Manuel Noriega into taking some sort of military provocation that would allow us to justifiably invade Panama. We kept trying to provoke. He would never take the bait. So when I look at what's going on right now off the coast of Venezuela, that's exactly what we're doing. Now, I know that we did that for more than a year in Panama. The difference now, though, is we've deployed a lot of military, you know, naval assets, air assets, and about last count, I heard 18,000 troops. When we were provoking Noriega,

we actually had military bases in Panama, U.S. military bases, both outside of Panama City and then up north outside of Cologne. So we didn't have to worry about having to deploy lots of forces. And this current deployment off the coast of Venezuela is very costly. You know, you can't get these ships out there and just trying to keep people from getting bored. you know, it's, I've alluded to, you know, all the erectile dysfunction ads, you know,

that if your erection lasts more than four hours, contact a doctor, because that's going to be a problem. Well, the military, this kind of deployment is simply like the military equivalent of an erection. We're ready to go. We're ready. And yeah, we're, and after a while, your readiness level starts to decrease. and it's also costly, economically costly. And then, you know, the other part of my experience

in working with the military, understanding what we're actually capable of doing as opposed to what we say we're going to do. And if you step back and just objectively look at what Venezuela represents, it is a country that is three times the size, physical size of Vietnam. Now remember, in Vietnam, at our peak, in I think it was April of 1969,

we had 543,000 soldiers in Vietnam trying to stop the North Vietnamese. And we failed more than a half a million men. And so here we're going into, when I go into Venezuela, which is three times, larger than Vietnam, has terrain more difficult, more challenging in terms of triple canopy, jungle, and mountains, and we got 18,000 guys.

How do you think that's going to turn out? Not good. So, you know, as I have, you know, I bring all these different experiences I've had together when I start looking at these situations analytically. And it's just, unfortunately, we've got a lot. of leaders making decisions that just they don't know what they're doing. So when you look at the Venezuela situation, what do you see? I mean, other than, you know, you go back to 500 plus thousand men being on and failing to 18,000. I think many people can do the simple math and just

see as a tiny force with a country three times a size. And all the things you've laid out, It's like, okay, you know, the average Joe sees the videos of them blowing up. I don't even know. They're not even ships. They're, they're, they're speedboats. They call them cigarette boats, but they're, most are not actual cigarette boats. They're just, you know, they are boats with outboard motors, you know, that have a limited range. I mean, this, the gaslighting and propaganda surrounding this for, you know,

beating it to the American people. And I don't know how those in Canada are viewing it. But from the outset to try to portray Venezuela is this major narco state. It's a joke. I mean, it is so absurd. I'm not claiming that they don't have some drug profits flowing in and that they've helped smuggle some, you know,

cocaine in the past. But they're a minor, minor, minor, minor player. The big ones is Mexico. That's the big one. And then Colombia, but not Venezuela. But, you know, yet it's been sold. So, you know, this whole thing, the Tren de Aragua, this, you know, criminal narcotics gang, this savaging. I described them as a creation of the Central Intelligence Agency.

By that, I'm not saying that they're not real people, but sort of the narrative surrounding them has been created by the CIA as part of a broader covert operation that was signed off on and authorized by Donald Trump back at the end of 2017. And so starting then, in 2018, we began seeing newspaper articles appear in Central, in South America, principally, describing Trenda Aaragua and its activities with narcotics. Nobody had ever heard of them before then.

And this is one of the capabilities of the CIA to build a storyline that will convince people, hey, boy, this trend de Aragua, this is something. We've got to stop them. We're seeing another recent propaganda piece by, you know, he's, I can see, he's an acquaintance. You know, we're not friends.

We don't stay in touch. But his name is Gary Bernson. Gary was, he's a retired CIA operations officer. I know he at least did a stent. He was deputy chief of station in Uruguay during prior to and during 9-11. But his distinction was he was the last CIA officer in Afghanistan. of running an operation back in, say, 1997. So when 9-11 kicked off, he finally was brought back to the fore.

He went in leading the second, what they called, Jawbreaker Team. And he wrote a book, Jawbreaker, with Ralph Pizzulo. Anyway, I bring Gary up because he and Ralph are out now pushing this thing. Oh, Venezuela was working with Dominion voting machines, and they were planning to steal elections. They created this election software, and they were the major player and stealing elections all over the world.

I'm not going, Venezuela? You know, so this is another example of what I call CIA spin trying to create a justification for why we need to attack Venezuela. The only reason we, quote, need to attack Venezuela is we want their oil and we want their gold. And as far as the Venezuelan people go, screw them. We don't care about them as we demonstrated with the people of Ukraine. So,

you know, I think oil is what this is all about. But, you know, we keep trying to paint it up as oh, we're fighting narco-terrorism or we're fighting guys who've been structured, you know, stealing elections. I mean, think how hilarious this is. You've got the people connected with the CIA complaining about Venezuela, interfering in the elections of other countries as if they are the major player. Huh. Who fits that description? Oh, that might be the United States and the Central Intelligence Agency who have a 70-year history of massive interference in the foreign affairs of other countries. So, I mean, but the fact that they got the balls to sell this like this.

You know, I give them credit for that. You know, they've got no shame. When it comes to oil, maybe you can make this make sense because I, you know, going in for oil and everything, you know, like I'm not going to argue that. I sit in Alberta. We got this giant oil reserve. We have a fracturing relationship with Ottawa. We have a independence movement here. Yeah.

Why deploy the U.S. military, the Venezuela, when you could just, in one breath, strengthen relations with Alberta or the western part of Canada. It's right there and you don't have to deploy anything. And the relationship is already on rough footing between Ottawa and Alberta. And you could just push on that and get all the oil you want. Yeah, I've, well, what I've been hearing is that the people if they're placing bets or betting that Alberto is actually going to become part of the United States. So we'll see if that happens. But no, I agree. You know, when it comes to strategy, as far as the United States having a strategy, we can't spell it. We're not for

spell checker. We wouldn't be able to, you know, get the words and the letters in the word lined up properly. And I say that in light of our, the latest, you know, they just came out with the new national security strategy of 2025, which is just put the Europeans in a complete panic. I didn't look at it specifically to see what it said about Canada. I don't even know if Canada got an honorable mention in it. But, you know, you're right that the independence movement that's afoot in alberta may ultimately produce an alliance closer alliance with the united states well i just you know if it's oil that the states wants i mean they're already getting a ton from canada right but you go there's more to get and and there's a fracturing relationship there

that is playing out in front of her eyes and you go the cost everything to deploy and go after Venezuela. You go, well, why wouldn't you just strengthen ties with Ottawa and by, or sorry, with Alberta. And by doing that, you already have an aggressive front on, on, on, on the east coast of Canada against what Alberta does. I just look at it. I'm like that, uh, if it's solely for oil, I guess, I'm like, my brain doesn't understand. Like, I, I get that. But I also look at where I sit and what's happening here in Canada. Yeah. Well, Sean, I think, I think it's also, uh, a function of trying to counter what they see as Venezuela's closer ties or close ties with Iran, China, and Russia.

And the United States trying to reassert, okay, hey, this is the Monroe Doctrine. This is our hemisphere. You stay out. Notice that when we fear encroachment in areas that are under our, what we consider ours, we get really upset about it. but we don't give it a second thought when we're doing the same thing to Russia and to China. And then when they react like we would react, we go, hey, what's wrong with you? You know, so if you're looking for consistency, you know.

Fair enough. That's a very good. That's a very good point. You know, when I first started talking to you, the first email that we got back and forth, you were in Moscow. Yeah. So you've been going to Russia. Yeah, it's been very interesting journey. First, I got an invitation back in December of 23 to participate in a small seminar. It was going to be headed up by D.Metri Symes. Dmitri used to be the head of the Nixon Center on K Street in Washington, D.C.

Dmitri fled the Soviet Union in 1972. He was persecuted because he was a dissident, came to the United States, you know, got married, has a son, Dimitri Symes I, and developed a relationship with Richard Nixon of all people and then was put in charge of the Nixon Center. So that's why I knew him. He'd hold seminars. It was really an important think tank in Washington, D.C. Then he got accused of, quote, being a Russian influence agent because he was helping advise Donald Trump in 2016.

and all of a sudden he found the FBI coming after him. So he moved back to Russia. Anyway, he was hosting this seminar. There was a small group of people, Pepe Escobar, if that name's familiar to you, Alistair Crook, myself, Eva Bartlett, Patrick Kenningson. And then we had the Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia, segregated Ribcoff.

So that was my first foray into, you know, it was discussing about how to open Western relations with the West. Can we just point out for one quick second? I forget, is it Dimitri Symes? Is that what you said? Demetri Symes, Jr. He flees Soviet Russia because of persecution, comes to the land of the free, and does a bunch of things, then gets persecuted and flees back to the country that he fled from in the beginning.

Yeah, yeah. And now, the irony is in Russia, he's now got more freedom than he had in the United States. The FBI, just like the old KGB, went in, he and his wife owned a home in Virginia. They went in and ransacked it. I mean, they broke furniture. They just, what the United States has become is evil, in my view. And I say that as I am an official member of the sons of the American Revolution. I have 28 ancestors that I've identified that have fought in that American Revolution.

evolution. But by God, we're acting like a bunch of damn thugs and bullies. And, you know, I am ashamed of what America is today, how it conducts itself in the world. And what they did to Dimitri. But that was, that whole affair was sponsored by an individual and had organized what they called the International Rusciphile Association. I went back in February of 2024 to attend a broader conference that brought in a thousand people on those topics about, you know, how do we promote peace between Russia and the West?

Went to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June of 2024. Then I went back to, went back to Moscow in March of 2025 this year with Judge Napolitano, and we had a sit-down interview with Sergei Lavrov, the Foreign Minister. I was back in Russia a couple of months later, attending another conference, and then I've been in October and early November, I've been back twice, working with a group. One was for the 20th anniversary of RT,

and the second was to participate in a seminar with the equivalent of what we'd call the Atlantic Council here in the United States, but it's one of the leading Russian, it is the leading Russian Foreign Policy Institute. So, you know, I've been fortunate to have made associations and people appreciate what I have to say because I do bring a little different perspectives than others. If I'm doing my counting right, I think you said you've been there seven times since 2023. Yeah.

So, and you've got to sit down with Lavrov, which for anyone paying attention, that is not a small feat, I don't think. I have, I have questions on Russia, but I also have a question on the United States. Like, have you been harassed for going to Russia? I feel like anyone who goes there, you know, you talk about Dimitri Symes having his place rated by the FBI for basically helping Trump with relations. I mean, you've been there seven times in the last two plus years. Have you faced any backlash for that? So far not, but you know, you never know. I have my blog. I write on my blog, Sonar 21. People, you know, are not forced to

come there and read it. It's there if everybody wants to read it. So I'm not out actively trying to influence U.S. government policy. I'm just simply reporting what I've seen, what I've heard. Russia is a remarkable place. In Moscow, right off of Red Square, two blocks off of Red Square, there's a hotel called the Metropole. And directly across from the Metropole is an Italian restaurant, the Bottega Siciliana.

I'd fly to Moscow just to go to that Italian restaurant. They've got the most incredible pizza I've had anywhere in the world. But apart from that, you go to Moscow now, it's not communist, it's Christian. It's modern, it's clean, it's safe. You don't see police presence. There's this notion that it's some sort of authoritarian state is just a joke. The Russians are not the people, ones lock it people up for having wrong thoughts. like they do in the UK, or, you know, even here in the United States,

people get persecuted because of their, quote, beliefs. You know, so this, the old world where we try to portray Russia as this great enemy, it's not an enemy. It should be our best friend. But the United States and Western Europe, I think, are hell-bent on destroying themselves. Would you say then it is, you know, like, speaking of, Britain, right? I just finished an interview with Neil Oliver a week ago, roughly. And I just get the sense more and more that's probably not the place to go. It's not because I think I'm going to

get arrested. I just think everything I hear about going across their border from all the people I talk to is you're going to probably get your devices confiscated and searched and everything else. And you're like, oh, wow, that's, that's interesting. All your, all your data, they're going to try and take it. You know, certainly we're watching different citizens from the UK be arrested for social media posts. And you, and you see that play out. Yeah. When I listen to more and more people about Russia, it almost seems like it's welcoming to people to come and be a tourist there or come see what they have to offer, which is, it's almost inverse to what it was, I don't know, how many,

years ago, do you have to pick? Like, is it, is it 20 years ago, regardless of the time frame, Larry? Once upon a time, it was like, don't go to Russia. Like, they're going to search everything you got. And Britain was the complete opposite, right? It's, it's inverse now. Would you agree with that? Like, oh, yeah, yeah. Well, I was, so I was in Kiev back in 1994. Yeah, the 19 August, like, I think it was like August of 94. I was the, um, let's, I was the body, guard for a female CIA contractor so the CIA was running a project uh through this contractor in ukraine and my job was to protect her from a guy his name was vietzislav we called him vietch the lech you know vietch vetsv the lecher um and back then when we when we went into the hotel

the hotel was true to like old soviet times had an old older woman, you know, a babushka, like a grandmother, but, you know, she wasn't the warm, cuddly grandma. She was this hard, you know, a hard-edged, steely-eyed woman watching what's going on and reporting any unusual activity. Okay, so that was still a legacy of the Soviet Union. Today? Oh, heavens. In fact, Judge Napolitano and I were, we'd been to this World War II museum and we're on a bus heading back to our hotel and i said hey what look around you what don't you see is you know we're driving through the streets of moscow and he said what do you mean and i said you don't see any police go to new york city and just walk down a block or two you're going to usually

see police on every street corner or every other corner uh and one of the reasons for that is because it's not a safe city and they have to have a visible police presence in order to try to deter crime Well, that's not Russia. But the other thing that's fascinating is Russia is becoming a haven for Christians. So there's this Canadian family, errant and, oh, I forget the last name. But they've got a website on YouTube called Countryside Acres. They're actually now back in Canada right this week, visiting family. But they moved to Russia.

They've got eight kids, and they built a new life. And they went there because of the Russian embrace of traditional family values. And they're walking around with eight kids, man. The Russians love them for that. Another friend of mine, John, I won't mention his last name, he graduated at West Point, 1972, 1973, he was the president of the Russian club at West Point, because his family had fled the Bolsheviks in 1917, but he is now, you know, he's served in the U.S. Army for 20 years.

He's now gone back. He's a Russian Orthodox Christian. Joseph Rose, a guy who born up in Tallahassee, lived, worked out in Hollywood, had a religious conversion got married he's moved to russia uh he he's got he does a podcast on youtube uh stanislav karpivnik staz came to the united states when he's like nine years old grew up in north carolina went to north carolina state r o tc joined the u s army became an officer uh left as uh he was promotable to major when he left uh but served in in the war in serbia in bosnia so my my my pointing this is there are a lot of Americans and Canadians and Australians that are moving to Russia

because Russia reflects values that they want their children to grow up with. And, you know, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting four or five Russian Orthodox churches, you know, in Moscow. So this is, these people, the faith that is evinced in these people, it's deep, it's genuine, it's real. And, you know, one of the things that I'd argue that's leading to the destruction of Europe is there abandonment of Christianity. You know, Christianity used to be,

by saying it used to be the hallmark defining what defined Europe, good and bad. Unfortunately, all those Christians across Europe, whether in the Church of England or the Catholic Church or the Lutherans, etc., they certainly didn't act with the Christian virtues towards each other, as was evidenced during World War I and then continued during World War II.

So, but as the West abandons Christianity, we see, you know, I don't think it's a coincidence that you're seeing a deterioration in the quality of life in these various nations. I don't know if I'm pronouncing this last name, right, but Feinstra's? Oh, Finster. Yeah, that's right. That's the Canadian family. Yeah, that's the Canadian family. Yeah, Finster.

And obviously you're on either keeping track of them or talking to them, Larry. I've had a text exchanges with Aaron. I was pleasantly surprised because he, Aaron Finster knows Joseph Rose. And Joseph I had been, I talked to and met with a couple of times. But I've been following the Finster family on. YouTube since they arrived. I mean, it's an amazing, they went out to the spate of land. You know, it looks like about 30 acres, 40 acres. And they built their own house. I mean, he did it with his kids, built the house, a two-story structure, built a barn, built a guest

house. I mean, they're amazing. It's just absolutely amazing what they've been able to accomplish. It's really a very inspiring story and, you know, really a great, tremendous group of kids. You know, you don't see these kids fighting and sniping at each other. Yeah, as you're talking more, and it's putting it back on my brain, you know, sitting here in Canada. I remember when I saw that news story and I'm like, that's interesting. People fleeing Canada, which used to be, you know, everything's inverse these days. People used to flee to Canada, right? It used to be the place to go, the land of the country.

opportunity and you know as we turn into you know you point to the christian values i can't agree more but i mean like you just see how upside down our society has become yeah and that's what that's what's pushing the alberta independence movement is because they they no longer recognize the country around them and if they they feel if they don't do something about it they're going to lose everything that they hold and hold dear, their value set, and not to mention the economics that have been going on with the governing federal party of the liberals and what they've been doing to this country and everything else. But it's interesting to me, a man who, in yourself that's been to Russia so many times, how highly you speak of it. And I don't hear, oh, you'd better

be careful if you go across the Russian border that you don't have electronics on you or that you're carrying something that they might want to, you know, interrogate you over. I don't hear those words. But when you talk about, I don't know, Britain is the main culprit, but other places as well, they're starting to become more of these places. Well, I don't know. Yeah, what's interesting is I've actually, I've met now probably four times with Maria Zakharovra, or Zakharovah, who's the press spokeswoman for the foreign ministry.

and when the judge and I were first proposed to the foreign ministry to do a sit-down interview with Sergei Lavrov and the other one with us was a fellow named Mario Nafal. I was told later that Maria said, why do we want to talk to some former CIA guy? You know, she was really skeptical. But then they met me and they realized he's not so bad. You know, ask good questions, and, you know, they recognize I really, I try to be what I call an honest umpire in this, called balls and strikes without trying to say I'm in a favor one side or the other. But, you know, when I hear the West constantly accuse Russia of being an imperialist power,

trying to recreate the empire of Russia. Do you know how many colonies Russia had in Central and South America? The answer would be none. How many colonies did Russia have in Africa? None. How many colonies did Russia have in Asia? None. The Russia consolidated power on its borders.

Why? Go back and look at its thousand-year history. They were usually fending off attacks from the south, from the north, from the west. And so trying to create a secure nation, that's what they did, but they haven't been military adventurous going out and killing people in other countries. That distinction belongs to the United States. And it's not my opinion. That distinction belongs to a lot in the West. Yeah. You know, just go ask the people of Vietnam. Yeah, and Canada was involved with that as well. In Vietnam, Iraq, twice, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Serbia.

Panama you know so if we're going to define when you go out and start attacking other countries that haven't attacked you now Venezuela you got to step back and say I think we're the problem it's not Russia that's a problem

and the same applies to China again China has been at least in the media narrative constantly portrayed as this you know communist state that's intent on conquering the world the last country China actually set military forces into was Vietnam in 1979 and the Chinese got their ass kicked by the lowly Vietnamese who were actually battle-hardened

after years of fighting the French and the United States but the point is that China China has not been one to go out and try to conquer the world militarily but what China what China has done in the transformation of that country over the last 50 years because you go back to 1972 when Nixon opened it back then I think the literacy rate

in China was something like 60%. The cities were run down. It was not really a modern place. Today universal literacy a growing middle class

and they are the leading industrial producer in the world. And the United States cannot match them on any category. Speaking of China, China, I don't get the same sense of like you should just go there tomorrow. Would you say, oh, no, like China is an open place and the stories you've been told about it are wrong? Yeah, well, talk to two friends, Pepe Escobar and Alistair Crook. Alistair just returned from a week, week and a half in China. speaking at some universities and lecturing. You're not getting rousted by the police when you get off the plane. Now, he does comment that one of the issues in Shanghai in particular is,

you know, you better take a good Chinese translator app on your phone because nobody, hardly anybody speaks English there. So, you know, the Chinese are not worrying themselves about learning to speak English. They're saying, hey, we like our language, and we're going to speak that. One other question then on China. Coming from a CIA background, I think you'll agree with me that there's two ways to fight a war. There's obviously the kinetic, the front of like people dying, bullets flying, ships, planes, etc. And then there's the intelligence side of it.

You know, from a Canadian's point of view, China seems like they're messing with a lot of things here in Canada. They're not the only ones by any stretch of the imagination. I mean, just go back to the election folks and watch the comments Donald Trump was doing in the middle of an election and see how that played out for us. But isn't there different ways to really exert your force on the world and China can do that in different ways than the United States? say that if they're a poor military adversary, why would you play in that realm? Why wouldn't you play in a different realm of data of influence? You know, like we've had collusion in our politicians and it stems to China. I mean, to me, if that isn't a different power influencing force, what is it then? So let me turn the question around and ask it this way.

How many times have you heard Chinese officials identify Canada as a military threat that must be defeated and we should be prepared to go to war with Canada? You ever heard any Chinese say that? I don't think I've heard any one talk about our military capabilities, if I'm being fair. Right. But with respect to the United States, we've had several politicians and military senior officials, senior military officers, including the deputy commander of Indo-Pacom, which is the military command responsible for China,

say that exact same thing about China. China's never said that about the United States. So if you hear me saying, you know, I'm going to have to go to war with you, Sean, in your country, because you're a threat. Would you sit there and ignore my warning? or would you start taking actions to defend yourself? I think you'd start taking actions to defend yourself,

which is exactly what we're seeing China do. So we make the threats, China reacts to those threats, and then we go, see, see, they're building up their military. And let's go, hey, you know what? If I keep driving by your house and say, I'm going to drive, I'm going to come over and I'm going to shoot your house up, and then you go out and buy a firearm to defend yourself.

Then I blame you for buying the firearm. So that's what's really going on here is the West is projecting onto China and to Russia to a lesser degree the very things that we intend to do to them and have done to them. You know, if you go back to the opium wars and what the Brits did to China, and you think they've forgotten about that, you know, And then when you look back at the times Russia made, they made at least four requests,

starting with President Yeltsin and two or three requests from President Putin to join NATO. Hey, let's get along, let's be friends. You don't need that. Wes said, no, no, no, no, no. Can't have that. Because if we've got a friendly relationship with Russia and China is economic.

economic partners and as countries that are friends, how do we justify a trillion dollar defense budget? We don't. And that money spent on defense is so necessary to keep our economy afloat. In fact, I thought this was, you know, I had to check the calendar. I said, was this April fools? Let me look it up here real quick. It was the headline in the Washington Post yesterday or one of their side articles. Washington Post. I want to make sure I get the headline correct for you. Let's bring it up the website here.

It was basically, it was an article arguing for the fact that we need to have more military spending, that our defense budget is, inadequate uh let's see uh it disappeared so it was there yesterday but but think about this here we got a trillion dollar defense budget and and then the washington post is arguing oh man we don't have we need we need to spend more we need to spend more on defense that that i don't know did you ever watch saturday night live sure okay um Do you remember the skit with Christopher Walkin,

more cowbell? Which were? More cowbell, yes. For sure. They were doing a takeoff on Blue Oyster Colt, and he was the producer. And every time he came out, he said, more Cal Bell. That's the West. We want more war.

Instead of Cal Bell, it's war. Why do we want the war? Because by God, if that war wagon stops, the economy is going to come to. to a crashing halt because we're not built and equipped for a peaceful economy. Keeping General Dynamics, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, keeping them afloat, that's our number one priority. You know, if I go back to Russia, Ukraine.

Yeah. You said to a lesser extent, Russia, Ukraine, but at a time, I would say Russia was demonized to the nth degree and and like it was wild to watch as you know you go well what are they going to do i mean you literally have forces stacking up on their border what are they going to do they're going to they're watching as ukraine is going to become nato after they said they'd never do that and and you go back in their history and you go yeah we're not taking your word anymore after we've tried to get into this and and so now you've got that conflict uh going on it's it's it's I find this conversation very fascinating because all the places I've been told all my life never go there.

Like, you know, I, I even point back when I played hockey in Finland, not that long ago. They were talking about the Russian border back then. I don't know. And that I'm talking, what would that be, folks? A boat, geez, time is flying. 15 years ago, I used to play hockey there. And they, and I never, you know, I had this vision of going across Russia. Like, I'm going to be interrogated for five hours.

Oh, yeah. And now you're telling me, China, no, not that end of the world to go there, although English is, you know, you're going to have some difficulties there. Russia, you know, you're talking about it sharing the values that I want, it being the safe place. And more and more you stare at places specifically like the UK. And you're like, I don't know, it looks like it's going to a strange level. Well, Sean, let me ask you, do you recall a hockey player by the name of Vietzlov, Fetisov, or 50 soft? Yes.

Slava. So my last trip to Russia three weeks ago, I spent 45, 50 minutes with him talking. And, you know, those who are not familiar with him, he's sort of, he is to hockey, what Michael Jordan is the basketball. He doesn't have the records that Gretzky does, for example. but and you know and but he was um he played on the night he was a young guy 20 21 years old on the 1980 uh Olympic hockey team that lost to the United States but then he came to the U.S. in 1989 I believe played for the New Jersey Devils and then went on to the Detroit

Red Wings and they won two Stanley Cups with him. Now one of one of the first fascinating things he and right now believe it or not he is a sanctioned person he cannot come to the united states because he's a bad person even though his daughter lives here his grandchild lives in the united states but uh slava is banned and why is he banned well he was he was an official he was in charge of the sports ministry uh in russia he organized the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi. But we got talking, you know, I'm not a big hockey fan, but I, you know, I admire and respect the both of power and the ability of people,

you know, this incredible game. And he said, you know, when he first came to the West, he said, everybody was playing as an individual. He says, the one thing I, he said, the one thing I learned under the Soviet system was, we play as a team. And, you know, and I'm not talking communist ideology, but just the simple idea of if we're going to do anything and be successful, we have to work together.

We have to coordinate, collaborate. And that's what I have found that that is a distinctive characteristic of the Russian mind of how they view the world. You know, I've repeated a sort of an off-color joke that's told, in Hollywood about two Hollywood agents, two guys. And they're sitting at the Hollywood Hilton or Beverly Hills Hilton. And they're watching this beautiful starlet walk by. And one says the other, I'd like to screw her. And the other agent says, out of what? So it's this mentality of what can I take from somebody else? What can I grab from somebody else? How can I dominate that person? That's a Western

mindset and what you see in the russians is how can we work together to accomplish a goal and you know all i said all you got to do is well i've walked the streets of st petersburg i've walked the streets of moscow hey you know i've been i've been to uh canada i've been you know ottawa montreal vancouver manitoba um and i recall the one trip I had to Canada, when I got to my room, I thought, oh, I'll just grab a drink of water out of the faucet. And there was a sign saying, warning, don't drink the water. It's contaminated.

I thought I had to check my map to make, it was February. So I knew I wasn't in Mexico. But, you know, I never, I never had an experience in Russia being told, don't drink the water. You see that conflict coming to an end, Russia, Ukraine? Or is Europe going to, you know, I've had. had in the last week, I think I've had Tom Longel, Alex Craneer, and then it was Martin Armstrong. And, you know, you had the peace talks in Miami and, you know, and on and on it goes. And Martin's big thing that he was talking on is like, Europe isn't going to let this end.

What are your thoughts? Well, they're going to try to keep it going. I agree with Martin. And, you know, Alex and Tom are both friends. and I think our views are largely similar but Europe wants to keep it going but you have to step back and say what are their actual capabilities what can they do

notice that recently on the one of the peace the 28 point peace plan the Europeans wanted to make sure that Ukraine could have an 800,000 man army so just out of curiosity I looked up what the total military strength of the U.K., France, and Germany are with respect to ground force. Those three combined have less than 500,000 troops, okay?

Their total population is 220 million. Ukraine's total population right now is about 19 million. and yet those three countries who want Ukraine who is one-tenth the size of those three in terms of population they want Ukraine to have an army of 800,000 which is almost twice the size of those three countries combined what are they thinking I mean they're living in a fantasy world the realities are this Europe does not have the industrial capability to compete with Russia to produce weapons, armaments

that would keep Ukraine in the fight. Moreover, they don't have the technological edge. They don't have air defense systems worth of dam. They don't have hypersonic missiles. So they're at a complete disadvantage on the technology side of military, on the industrial side of the military, and when it comes to manpower,

Russia's got a standing army right now of 1.5 million, which is with dwarfs, all of NATO, excluding Turkey. You know, you put turkey in the mix, then between the U.K., France, Germany, on paper, you've got 800,000 troops. But the reality is they don't really have that. So, and Ukraine, Ukraine is bleeding out. It's the equivalent that they've had the carotid artery severed, and they're bleeding out.

it's just a matter of time before they die that's the that's the harsh reality uh so efforts you know i know some keep saying well the they'll keep up uh trying to they'll launch an insurgency and that'll that'll that'll that'll screw russia up god would these these people don't even read and know history in the aftermath of world war two the west the united kingdom and the cia launched insurgencies in Ukraine, specifically, to try to disrupt the then-Soviet Union. And what happened to those? The Soviets crushed it. 1999, once again, the West sponsors, funds, radical Islamic terrorists,

and they start what's known as the Second Chechen War in Chechnya. And that goes on for 10 years. Russia crushed it and destroyed it. So Russia actually knows how to deal with those things. They've got a history of it. They don't put on rose-colored glasses and pretend it's not an issue. And again, the West simply doesn't look at the history. Russia is, this will be settled, I believe this will be settled on the battlefield.

Russia's, the West will refuse to make a deal. And Russia says, okay, we'll be too militarily. And that's exactly what they're doing right now. Yeah, the Russia thing I always find interesting, you know, the more I look in the history because, you know, I sometimes wonder what the heck I read in my earlier years. You know, I was just, I'm reading a book on Western independence here in Canada. It was very interesting because it got talking about some of the history of the United States. And I'd heard this multiple times from different guests, but then to see.

see it written out kind of like dates and historically when the Russian Navy came in to help during the Civil War that, you know, and it was Matt Eridon here who brought up the fact Alaska had sold, sorry, Russia had sold Alaska to the United States. And I'm like, how is it possible? I live in, like, relatively near Alaska, relative. Didn't know that. I'm like, how is it that we, we've, it's like we've taken all the things about Russia that put them in a pretty darn good light and we painted them as this arch nemesis, we have to destroy them, all these different terms, and yet when you look at it through the historical lens, it's like they showed up in your hour of need to make sure that you, you know, the United States had an outcome

that was, I would say, pretty beneficial to the Americans. Then, you know, the Americans turn around and buy Alaska off of them. I mean, and on and on these stories go. Well, yeah, actually, one story that was told me while I was in Russia, which was fascinating. They've got a minister of culture. His last name is Shvidkoy. And just a great guy, intelligent, you know, very widely bred. And he was saying, you know, most Americans don't know the story of the correspondence that took place between Alexander the second, the czar. and Abraham Lincoln.

It was, and this was all during the Civil War, and both men, one of the issues they communicated on was slavery and eliminating slavery, which they, you know, they both signed decrees, eliminating it. So there was this relationship between Russia and the United States. The Russians also played an important role in key, countering British European efforts to interfere in the civil war on behalf of the South. So, you know, there's actually been pretty warm relations during the 19th century

between the United States and Russia. It's only in the 20th century that it sort of went off the rails. Yeah, I agree. And I guess I just implore people to go read a few different things because it's almost shocking. the way we talk about Russia now and when you look historically and then you hear what's going on from yourself and others.

Very interesting. Larry, I appreciate you hopping on today and giving me some time. It's been worth the wait and I appreciate, you know, you're giving some different thoughts on some different places and I think, hope, forcing us all to think a little bit today.

And either way, thanks again. Hey, Sean. Well, thanks for the invite. Hour went quick. So I mentioned we had a good discussion. Thank you.