The Duran Podcast - Dangerous escalation w/ Brian Berletic (Live)

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

Dangerous escalation w/ Brian Berletic (Live)

Okay, we are live with Alexander Mercuris and we are joined by Brian Berletic from the new Atlas. Brian, how are you doing? Good to have you back on. Thank you. I'm doing very well. I always appreciate and enjoy coming on. It's great to have you with us. And we have a lot to talk about, a lot to talk about in the conflict in Ukraine.

but maybe Alexander and Brian, you can touch a bit on the Assange news as well. Let me just say a quick hello to everyone that is watching us on Odyssey, on Rock Finn, Rumble, YouTube, and v.urran. Dotlocals.com. And a big shout out to all our fantastic, awesome. Moderators, Brian Alexander, got a lot of news to discuss. So let's just jump right into it.

Shall we start with Assange? Because of course this is, it won't take us long, but I think it is big news. I should declare an interest in the sense that I've been a supporter of Assange for years now. And I've been involved in various campaigns in Britain concerning him. And I've had some very, very sporadic contacts with people who have been actually acting for him. but not in any formal sense, and I'm certainly not directly involved with them in any conceivable way. But anyway, he's now been released. That, in my opinion, is unequivocally good news.

He has been given a plea bargain. If I had been advising him as a lawyer, I would have unequivocally advised him to accept this plea bargain. I think he's going to have a long-term. period, a very long period before he recovers from the ordeal, the terrible ordeal from which he has suffered. But to add to all of this, we have a very unsatisfactory legal resolution to this case. So from Assange's point of view, this is the best, it's the best available decision. But where it leaves everyone else, where it leaves the position of the media, I have to say it leaves it in a bad place because he's now had to plead guilty to a charge which essentially has been brought about because he carried out journalism, as far as I'm concerned, journalism which was disapproved of by the government of the United States.

And he's now got a guilty verdict about it. And any journalist in Britain, for example, who does the same things as Julian Sanchez done, now runs the risk of facing an identical prosecution and probable extradition to the United States. So what are your thoughts, Brian? Well, I feel the same way. But unfortunately, I'm skeptical and cautious about what comes next. for Julian Assange. Imagine having to plead guilty for exposing actual criminals, exposing their crimes.

You were put in prison for that these people who have committed the crimes, and it's just all administrations past and present, who not only played a part in these crimes, but played apart in keeping him either locked up in an embassy or locked up in prison. And you talked about his recovery from being jailed. When I got out of the Marine Corps, they don't just let you out. So if you say you're not going to train, you're going to go to jail for a little bit of time in the brig. And I was in solitary confinement for just one month, just one month. And when you are confined for having a moral position, having done nothing actually wrong,

you can feel each day, each hour, each minute being stolen from you. So imagine the years and years he has spent his life in confinement off, everything that he was missing throughout that period of time. And now, still, you're always going to feel like you have to look over your shoulder and you always have to be concerned about what will come in the future because of the nature of the system that you exposed that has now painted a target on you. So it's very unfortunate. Julian Assange is still going to need all of our support well into the future.

I completely agree with every point. you've just made. I mean, I've had to deal with people who've been in prison. I've been, I've had to deal with people who have been involved in, who have been held in political custody in all kinds of countries. I should say that my wife has been involved with an organisation here that supports people who have been tortured. I completely, I'm complete accord with every point that you made. I'm going to add one final thing, which is that when, uh, you say, Brian, that he's going to have to keep looking over his shoulder. It is important to remember that he has now pleaded guilty to an offence that the United States say that he committed.

So he's been released because he's served his sentence. But if he starts doing similar things again, if he starts practicing journalism in the same way that he did before, well, he's already pleaded guilty to it. So the Americans who just come back say, look, you're doing the same thing all over again. We can begin our case against you all over again. We can seek your extradition to the United States all over again. And of course, you have no defense because you've pleaded guilty when you did the same thing before. So he's in a very, very difficult position. He's going to need an enormous amount of time to try to get his life together to the extent that he can, but beyond that, I think for all practical purposes, his career as a journalist is over.

I don't really see any way out of this. Perhaps one day he might be pardoned by a president, but that doesn't wipe out the fact that he's been convicted. One could come up with all kinds of complicated legal procedures whereby this conviction might eventually. be set aside, but these are remote possibilities for the distant future, for the present. He's in a very awkward position. He will certainly need our support, our continued support and sympathy as well, by the way. And as I said, his work as a journalist to all intents and purposes has now been ended. Although, and it's an irony that the one option he does have to live in relative freedom,

it's to leave the so-called free world. And just as Edward Snowden did, go to someplace like Russia or China, where he will have a degree of protection, where he can continue pursuing anything that he wants without fearing the repercussions from the collective class. But that is unfortunate. He has a family. He has a life. He has his roots.

Elsewhere, why should he have to move to another country and spend the rest of his days there? Again, in a sense, confined because he simply told the truth. It is outrageous and it is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the collective West at this point. I agree. And I'm going to finish one last comment about my own country, which is Britain, where all of these legal proceedings, have played out. I think I've often made the comparison between this case and the case of Alfred Dreyfus in France in the 1890s and early 1900s. This was a French army officer who was falsely accused of espionage with the Germans. It was basically all rigged against him. The whole legal

process was rigged against him. French society, however, rallied to the cause of Alfred Dreyfus. It became a massive scandal. The courts eventually came through after an enormous amount of political pressure. I feel that the case of Assange was Britain's Trafeus moment, except we failed it. Instead of making the stand that we should have done and which would have been consistent with the best of our legal traditions, we have very good legal. traditions and some very bad legal traditions. But instead of making the stand, which would have been consistent with the best of our legal traditions, we put him through an incredible labyrinth of cases and prosecutions and hearings, and whilst keeping him in one of our most tough and

ferocious prisons. And there was never the outcry. There was never the rally to him that there really ought to have been. So I'm afraid I feel badly for my country, Britain, for what it has done. But I have to say, in spite of all that we've said, I'm glad that Assange himself is free and that he's once more with his family and can now meet his wife and see his children, who he has barely seen in all those years that he's been in confinement. close confinement. So unless you've got more to say on this topic, Brian, shall we move on?

Because I think we are indeed in an extremely dangerous moment. I think we are. In fact, I'd go further. I'd say we're in a pivotal moment when we see escalation taking place in all sorts of places. We see it in the Middle East. We see it in the Far East, in Asia. We see it in Europe, in Ukraine as well. The reason we are in these escalation processes is in my

opinion because the United States and its allies in Europe and elsewhere have been on a kind of offensive a geopolitical offensive over the last few years. They've seen

geopolitical challenges as they see, as they think, emerge in places like China, Russia, wherever, and they've wanted to push back on them. So they've been on the offensive, but they're losing. And they are now caught between escalating even more and escalating in ways that even some of them themselves are starting to recognize as dangerous or retreating. which psychologically is almost impossible for them to do. So we're in a very, very dangerous moment.

And it's, I think touch and go where all of this is going to go. In Ukraine, and I think we've both watched and follow the events in Ukraine very closely. They're now clearly losing. In the Middle East, things have not turned out as expected or intended. And in East Asia, we're hearing all sorts of terrible plans being spoken about, you know, hellscape situations around Taiwan, attempts to mobilize various countries, the Philippines and all the rest. But I think there's still also a growing sense that things are not going well there either. But anyway, what are your views about this, Brian?

I mean, do you also feel that, you know, we've reached that point. where there's a realization that it's not working out, but no real acceptance of the needs to pull back. It is exactly that. People who study the special interests that actually do drive Western foreign policy, the corporations who have forums, do you have these think tanks, they have YouTube channels, you can sit there and listen to them, and you can see and get a feel for their mindset as they're laying all.

of this out. I was just looking at the center for strategic and international studies. The Russian defense industry today, this was just within the last 24 hours. And they're finally admitting to all of the things that we have all been saying for the last two years about military industrial production in the West's inability to keep up with Russia. Russia's not only adapting and overcoming the sanctions in terms of economics, but their production of military equipment, weapons, munitions, is all expanding and it will continue to expand. They're just as, because we remember the story about how backwards they are, disorganized.

They cannot innovate. Ukraine somehow are just inherently better at innovating than the Russians. They are dispelling all of these myths because they're trying to figure out what it is they should do. And this director of one of the departments in CSIS Max Bergman, at the very end, he's at risk of probably losing his job.

He said, the Patriot Interceptors, we have to find a way to lower the price on these. CSIS is funded by these arms manufacturers, and their job is to create the threats all around the globe to sell weapons and to expand American hegemony around the globe. But even they are starting to realize that it's not the conflict that they're in with either Russia or China or anywhere else that's unsustainable. It is their own system that is unsustainable. It's their own system incapable of succeeding in all of these objectives that they have laid out for themselves, that they have elected to undertake. Again, we have to remember the conflict in Ukraine did not start with Russia in 2022.

The U.S. overthrowing the government in 2014. And the constant expansion of NATO towards Russia and the very real menace that presented to Russia as a national security threat that started all of this since the end of the Cold War. So it's very important to understand how this all culminated. And now, yes, they cannot win, but they cannot back down. And that is usually what ends up triggering major direct wars between great powers. This is pretty much how World War II began, Japan and the United States in the Pacific. It didn't start with Pearl Harbor. There were hostilities and confrontation for years before that happened.

And so right now we're in a very similar process. as you say, touch and go, but I hope that Russia and China, they understand that time is working in their favor, and they want to be as delicate about this process as possible because a war does not suit them. They would like to avoid it. I completely agree. Now, can I just make two quick points? I mean, the CSIS, I mean, you've been sending me material that they've been inviting. This sounds like the most remarkable admission of all. There's been another very remarkable admission in a most unexpected place. And that's the economist who've now said Chinese science is actually booming. It's, you know, because again, there's been this assumption. It's not just an

assumption. It's a sort of ingrained, hardwired belief in the West that the West is technologically and scientifically superior to all of its rivals. And suddenly, there's this admission of the economist that actually that might not be true. So the Chinese might be as scientifically advanced and as scientifically successful and technologically successful as the United States and the West are. And if you look at the cover of the economist, I don't know whether it's the same, it's the same economist, because sometimes, you know, they change things where you go around.

But if you look at the one that's on sale in Britain, I don't remember the exact title exactly, the cover says, the rise of Chinese science, a threat or, you know, something, you know, to be happy about. I mean, it's, it's clearly deep down, they feel that it's a threat. But they're being forced to acknowledge that it is true. So that was one thing I wanted to say. The other is about the Second World War. You are absolutely correct. Certainly about the war in the Far East. Years ago, I, you know, binged on studies, reading all the sort of big academic books about the Japanese decision to launch the attack on the United States in December 1941.

And one of the most remarkable things about it was that it became increasingly obvious to me, the more I was reading, was that no one amongst the key decision makers in Japan believed that Japan could win the war. They all understood that if they started a war with the United States, unless the United States panicked and suffered some kind of

psychological crisis, which some of them were just clinging to the hope that it might do, they all realized that in the long term, and not the very long term, in fact, Japan would be defeated because the United States was so much more powerful. And yet, nonetheless, they did it because psychologically,

they couldn't see any way out to doing anything else. They were losing the war in China. That people don't want to acknowledge, but they were. Their economy was coming under immense stress because of American sanctions, but also other things. The cost, the cost, of the war in China. But they couldn't retreat. Psychologically, retreat was impossible. So they decided that since they were going to go down, they might as well go down with a gigantic bang. And that was what they did. And if you think of that mindset and look at some of the thinking in Washington today among some of the people there today, and not just in Washington, In London, in Brussels, in Berlin, in Paris, it's almost exactly the same.

They know that they're losing, but they can't accept the possibility of defeat. And that leads them to consider escalation in ways that would be incredibly dangerous. Yes, absolutely. And worse than that, when you think about it, the Western mentality, the fact that they have had supremacy over the planet for so long, generations and generations. And you're exactly right about this idea deeply engraved that they're superior to China in all ways, not just science and technology, just inherently better in absolutely everything.

And it doesn't even matter the fact that there's four to five times more people in China. The fact that their infrastructure is larger and more. advanced, the fact that their education system is churning out millions more in STEM studies than the United States, they think it doesn't matter because they're inherently superior. And we saw the consequences for Japan when they lost World War II, but I believe the people in Washington, London, and Brussels, they believe there's some sense of impunity that even if they do have this last great battle that maybe they'll lose, it doesn't matter because it won't be them suffering the consequences. They believe, and I believe this was the same mentality in Germany,

too, throughout World War II. The soldiers will die, the cities will be decimated, but the elite will somehow be able to work their way out of it, have some sort of impunity, and it won't matter for them. So they have no incentive at all to back down. That is the scariest part of all of this. They have no incentive to back down. This is absolutely correct. Now, about Japan, again, my impression from all that reading that I did, which is about, you know, 30 years ago, was that they did not have a sense of impunity. But in Germany, they absolutely did. It only suddenly dawned on them that, you know, they were involved in a struggle

where they might actually face personal repercussions very late in the war around the autumn of 1943. In other words, less than two years before the war ended. Up to that time, there had been no real incentive on the part of the German leaders to show any sort of restraint. Because either victory was certain or in the event of defeat, they assumed that they'd be able to walk away. And when they realized that that wasn't going to happen, it is as I said, it came very, very late. In fact, you can say, you can point almost exactly to the weeks from July to October, 1943, when, as I said, suddenly the realization came, that they were not only losing the rule, but that they might themselves be held through account for what had happened.

And even during the trials, the sense of arrogance and entitlement that they had even while on trial, and it wasn't until their sentences, were handed out and they realized, oh, I'm going to die at the end of the week. Then it dawned on them. There were some who ended up committing suicide. But then again, there were so many people involved in some of the worst aspects of the war who were brought over to the United States, the United States arms wide open or used in Europe, just pivoted around, pointed right back at the Soviet Union.

So again, that set a very bad example, a very bad president. that I think is flowing through the minds of the people making decisions right now, which again makes this so much more dangerous. Russia and China can see the existential threat. Western foreign policy poses to them. You just look on a map. They are encircled by the United States and its allies, their proxies. And there's a swath of death and destruction.

The U.S. has caught across the planet up to their borders. They know what is coming next. So they obviously cannot back down. And as you say, psychologically, the Western leadership cannot back down. Yeah. And that, in fact, brings me to another point, because I'm sure you get the same messages that I do from all sorts of well-meaning and sometimes perhaps not so well-meaning people,

that Putin is being weak, that he's not responding instantly to the provocations, that he's allowing the Americans and the Europeans, but especially the Americans, to do all sorts of appalling and frightful things, and he's not himself responding as toughly and as aggressively as he ought to do. Given the mindset that we've just been talking about in the West, it would be incredibly dangerous if he was to respond in that kind of way.

at least that is my own view. Because first of all, we are talking about people who really do seem to be ready to go to the absolute ultimate point in the West. And I think that given that that kind of mentality exists, the most extreme discipline and self-control is what the situation calls for. Now, if you know Putin, if you followed Putin as closely as I've done, you will know that he is a very emotional man. He is somebody who has very strong feelings about these things, but he's also a very rational man and also a very well-informed man. And the Chinese presidency, Xi Jinping and his officials, gave me the impression of being exactly the same.

And I think they understand very well, better perhaps even than we. do, definitely better than we do, how dangerous the situation at the moment is. So that's why they focus on in Ukraine winning the wall in the South China Sea, building up their forces and strengthening their economies, and don't let themselves chase around every single provocation that the Americans throw at them. At least that's my own view. No, I agree. Because if Russia or China were to react to these provocations, immediately, instantly, entirely throwing everything that they have. They would have exhausted themselves and ultimately they would have failed.

It is a long-term game that is being played. And it always goes back to, I always tell people to look at the situation in Syria because I had followed that from the very beginning when it started. And I remember the exact same people condemning Russia, even accusing Russia, betraying Syria, because they would not react to what the West and its allies were doing. They wouldn't shoot Israeli planes out of the sky. They wouldn't launch salvos of missiles at U.S. bases. But if you look at what they did do, the long-term patient strategy that they used,

they avoided a major conflict. And in the end, they won anyway. And that is the whole point. Revenge for them is ultimately winning in the end. And you don't need to react and get that immediate instant. satisfaction that ordinary people are just used to pursuing, often to their own detriment, by the way. They don't see it as a long-term process, and they don't see.

A lot of people don't even see how the conflict in Russia is connected to what the U.S. is doing to China. A lot of people understand what the U.S. is doing to Russia, sympathizing with Russia, but then they'll repeat U.S. State Department talking points regarding China because they just don't like China. You have to broaden your view of what has happened. You have to see the whole picture, the whole game board, metaphorically speaking. It is like a game of chess.

If someone takes your piece and you get angry and frustrated and you look for an immediate move you can make to take their piece, you might be falling into a trap when if you were just patient, accepted that loss at the moment and looked at the overall board and thought several steps ahead, you might be able to put yourself in a position to be back in the advantage. It works the same with geopolitics. Absolutely. And I mean, going back to the question of revenge, as the French like to say, revenge is a dish best eat and cold. I think this is absolutely true. Take your time. Don't rush into things. And in fact, perhaps don't think of it as a pursuit of revenge anyway. I mean, what you're trying to do is to secure your own position and that of your people.

and in that way, perhaps, set an example and provide a support for the rest of humanity. You mustn't chase because some enormity has just been carried out in Crimea. You mustn't brush off and start something which you can't control and which could very easily play into the hands of your enemies. Now, I think that everything is connected, that all of these things are connected. with each other, we see in the way that the Russian and the Chinese leaders who are at the core of this have been acting, because it's, I think, now obvious that they are coordinating with each other. And what I think we've now seen over the last couple of weeks is the final end of the assumption in the West

that these two countries can be played off against each other. They understand perfectly well that if they're divided, if they fall, if they're united, they win. So they're not going to let themselves be divided. And in fact, and I've been looking at some opinion poll data here, it's clear to me that in Russia, at least, there's been a strong swing towards good feelings towards China and Chinese people amongst the, population at large. Yes, and the Sino-Soviet split was actually an anomaly in Chinese-Russian relations historically. I've had Karl Zah on, Mark Zaboda, on going in depth into the history of both Russia and China and the relationship together.

And they talk about how their natural allies and they have cooperated for so long throughout history. The Sino-Soviet split was an anomaly. And the idea that you're going to somehow recreate that between, Russia and China. And it's always done through projection. The Americans and Europeans think that Russia, for some reason, would have the same feelings of insecurity and the same inferiority complex. Working with China, China is just physically, in terms of population, economy, bigger and stronger than Russia. Why does Russia have to feel like somehow they're subordinated to China? When their relationship is mutually beneficial, they can acknowledge that China is stronger and more

powerful. This is something in the mind of people in the West, a sticking point for them that makes it impossible for them to accept what is just reality. And this is a problem that the West is tripping over, but this is not something that Russia has a problem with. Russia can acknowledge that they're not the strongest, most powerful country on Earth. They're very okay with that. They want to be the strongest, most powerful version of Russia that they can be. And they want to interact with the rest the world in a constructive way. And that is how China feels as well. It is the West that projects these feelings and ideas on for Russia,

which makes them believe that it's somehow plausible that they can create some sort of strategy of attention between Russia and China, which I just don't think is ever going to work. I completely agree with that. And by the way, again, if you're talking about Russian-Chinese history, again, it's a subject which once upon a time I studied at university. And the thing I always point out to people, which they never seem to know, is that Russia was the first European country, if you call it European country, a first European country to establish diplomatic relations with China.

They did that at the end of the 17th century, more than a century before all the other European countries eventually did. And they did it in a peaceful way. And the ruler of Russia who ensured that that happened was of course none other than Peter the Great. He's always assumed to be somebody who was pro-Western and focused on the West. In fact, he was much more interesting and nuanced figure than that. And he was very, very well aware of China and took a great interest in affairs in China. And it was he basically, and his government and the Chinese government at that time who decided that in their joint interests it was the right thing to do

to establish good relations and the result was that russian relations and chinese relations throughout the 18th and 19th centuries except for a period of the very end were very close and then after the empire collapsed the emperor abdicated again relations between russia and china were very very close year in the 1920s and again in the 50s and as you as Brian correctly says the period of the Sino-Soviet split was not the typical period Sino-Russian relations it was absolutely the anomaly you the literature on this by the way is enormous and it you can find it in English it's very strange that people are so ignorant of these basic historical facts. People are just reading the wrong histories. That's all I can say. Anyway, let's turn now to that perennial topic that

we're always talking about, Brian, yourself and me, which is the war in Ukraine. Because I haven't, I get to say straightforwardly, I haven't seen your very, very latest programme, but you've been doing a whole series of magnificent programs over at your channel, the new Atlas. You've been discussing the production issues, which we've talked about many times. You did a masterly thing on javelins and stingers and Patriot missiles. You also, I think, exposed the stories about, you know, the tremendous success of the attackers missiles and how, you know, they were supposed to be sweeping the way forward. for the F-16s to fly in and win the air battle.

And I don't know whether your views are the same as mine, but I've been looking at the situation on the battlefronts over the last couple of weeks. And it seems to me that what you see is continuous Russian grinding off the Ukrainians down. somebody in Britain, I can't remember who it was, called it an anaconda strategy, that the Russians have coiled themselves around the Ukrainians and they're gradually constricting them and that they're losing people and machines faster than they can replace the people

and faster than they can replace the machines or more precisely faster than the West can replace the machines. And there is no solution to this problem. Now, and going back to that most recent CSIS video on their official YouTube channel, despite all the admissions that they were making, the one thing that they continuously stuck to was the idea of using territorial gain as a metric for success or gains in this conflict when it is actually a war of attrition. And if it is a war of attrition, territorial gains is the wrong metric. to look at. You have to look at who is building up their combat power faster and who is driving their opponent's combat power down quicker. And is there a dynamic where one party of the conflict is unable to replace their losses, to replace their losses in manpower and equipment? And that is clearly Ukraine, because even in the same video, they're talking about all the admissions to how

Russian production is expanding. The West cannot replace Ukrainian bosses. The equipment cannot be assimilated by Ukraine quick enough, even if it existed in the manpower crisis. They specifically talk about how Ukrainian mobilization has come too little, too late. They're talking about convicts using them on the front line. Do you remember how they were condemning Russia for this and calling it a desperate strategy? Now they are the ones doing it. And I was just looking at Kiev Independent talking about this. They're going to get two months of training before they are sent to the front. Two months of training is not enough training to do anything on a battlefield effectively.

So they're going to be human mind sweepers. They're going to be human trip wires. And this is not going to help improve their situation. And unfortunately, the same thing is being done with the conscripts being pressed into service. they're not getting sufficient training. If you don't have enough time to even train basic entry level soldiers, you do not have the time to build up cohesive units, even on the company level or battalion level,

let alone the brigade level, which is what we always hear these so-called Western military analysts and experts talking about. We're going to build up brigades over the next six months and then try another offensive next year. It's impossible. It will never happen. They cannot even train basic entry-level soldiers. Alexander, you talked about the Crimean attack on strikes.

I think you mentioned that. And this is something people have to be aware of. They're doing this. Yes, they're trying to get a reaction out of Russia. But the reason they're doing this in the first place is because they are desperate. They cannot use these weapons systems to affect strategic change on the battlefield. So they're trying to affect change politically, psychologically. So this is all very important to keep in mind when you see these atrocities.

And at first I was inclined to think that, yes, maybe the attack teams were aimed at a military target, and Russian air defenses deflected one, and it hit the beach. And it was a tragedy. It was a mistake. But we have this from Ukrainian media, Podoliak, and this was covered by the UK telegraph as well. Podoliak talking about there cannot be any beaches and tourist zones on the peninsula. The civilians are civilian occupiers. and basically unrepent and instead trying to justify it and almost incriminating Ukraine as if this was a deliberate attack on the civilian population of Crimea.

And they're doing that because as you point out, Alexander, the attack homes are not having the strategic impact. And how could they ever have the strategic impact on the battlefield? Russia has as many or more ballistic missiles with equal or greater capabilities. If it's a war-winning capability, Russia will win the war first. Absolutely. There was a point which, again, looking, you mentioned the telegraph. It was quite interesting how they reported this story, the initial reports about the story. Now, I'm not going to talk about, you know, the civilian casualties and what happened on the beach.

But the Russian Defence Ministry said that there were five attack and missiles launched. And one wasn't shot down, four were shot down, but one wasn't and got. through. And the Daily Telegraph reported, I read it yesterday, that the Russian Ministry of Defence admitted to shooting down one attackers with the implication that the other four got through. It was quite extraordinary how they sort of completely flipped the whole narrative. And this is because they don't want to admit. And this has been true right across the media here in the UK, at least, they don't want to admit to the fact that the Russians are shooting these things down. This has been something that the media here has completely failed to acknowledge,

because these missiles were so heavily sold as a major strategic game changer, that turning around now and acknowledging that, that they're not proving to be that at all. It would be just too embarrassing altogether. And this is, for me, very much an example of the whole way in which the war has been reported and which I think still clouds and confuses lots of people. Because what we are getting in the West,

every day, the reporting of the war that we're getting, is coming to us through an extremely distorted lens. It is not telling us at all what is really going on. And, Brian, you mentioned the fact that they focus entirely on territorial moves shifts. They do the same again with the situation in the Kharkov. They said that because the Russians didn't capture Kharkov city, the entire offensive in the north has failed. And, you know, I even read somewhere that because the Ukrainians'

captured two streets in Volchansk. That somehow is a great victory for them. Disregarding, again, completely the cost and the losses which are irreplaceable that Ukraine is suffering as a result of all of this. And it goes all the way back to 2022 when Ukraine did have what was considered at the time of successful offensive. But at the time, I warned people that, yes, they retook this territory. Russia realized that they weren't going to be able to hold it. They withdrew. They weren't driven out the same way they drive out Ukrainian forces,

stubbornly fighting and suffering catastrophic losses. They just pulled out and they left. They withdrew to better positions. And while they were doing that, they were striking at Ukrainian forces now out from behind the defenses. And they wiped out brigades worth of manpower and equipment, both in Kharkov and Kherson. And this forced Ukraine to attempt to rebuild their,

military up before the 2020, offensive, which then was, again, a catastrophic failure, depleting their forces. It was very predictable. We all said how, no matter how far they got, it was going to deplete their forces, and the West is incapable of replenishing them. So now we're here, and the Western media now has headlines

about manpower crisis. The U.S. is now taking monthly supply of Patriot Interceptors and sending it straight to Ukraine. There's another $150 million aid package that's going to be announced, they say, Tuesday. Oh, next, I don't know, very soon. And it's going to have attack them's 155 millimeter, maybe the shorter range, high Mars ammunition. But it's all ammunition that is being drawn from monthly production. But stockpiles have been depleted.

And now they have to wrestle with the decision. whether we're going to send all monthly production to Ukraine and deny it to all of our allies and customers around the globe, or are we going to continue fulfilling our commitments and then just leaving what's left over, which is not much to Ukraine. And this is where they are. And so when in a war of attrition, that is the metric you look at, and that is a metric that says you are losing, you are losing this conflict irreversibly. Absolutely. Now, I just wanted to return to this preradio topic of shelves, which we always come up with. I don't know how you made a comment that, you know, shells, it seems a tedious thing

to harp on about. But it is, I think, a good metric for production. Because it seems to me that my sense about the US is that they've got, as I understand it, two existing factories, that they had two existing factories that produced shells before the war began. They've increased production there to perhaps 36,000 shells a month. Now, again, let me repeat to people I have experienced in industrial matters. I get the sense that they've maxed out production at these two factories, that to increase production beyond that level at those two factories would require a major expansion of those factories and a reorganisation,

a production at those factories, which would be complicated. and very expensive, and which would probably result in a temporary fall of production, which would probably last several months. So I think they're maxed out at these two factories. They've opened a new factory, which is going to produce 30,000 shells, and they are saying that that's going to be, as I understand it, in full production by the end of next year. if they achieve that

well they might do if they commit all their resources to do it but to get a completely new factory with new sets of machine tools and presumably a new workforce up to the point where it is working at full capacity in just over a year I would say that is extremely ambitious. I would guess that even with something like shells and shells are not that straightforward to make

because you need you need the casting of the shells themselves but you also need to have the proper explosive mixes and all of that. To get to that point, train the workforce where they're able to do this successfully, to learn how to use the machine tools successfully and these are apparently largely imported machine tools. I would say that perhaps you're going to get 10, 15,000 shells by the end of the next year, and it'll be gradually a gradual rise in production. And so I think that they're already making commitments with respect to shells that they probably won't be able to fulfill. That's my guess.

It's based on experience. As I said, if they went all in, if they really, you know, mobilised a workforce and went over to a full mobilisation economy. Well, they could do it. I mean, one can do it. But I don't think that's what's going to happen in the United States. And eventually, we will get to this point where this factory is producing 30,000 shells a month. But it's going to take significantly longer than some of these claims are suggesting.

That's just based on my experience. And even the most optimistic projections of what they will be making between 2025 and 2027, still combined with Europe, is still short of what they themselves admit Russia is making or acquiring right now. And we see this relationship with North Korea. We see Russia continuously ramping up its production. And again, U.S. policymakers see these think tanks, admitting that this is taking place. admitting that North Korea has a huge workforce and industrial capacity that can be leveraged to do this,

they're going to continuously be ramping up their own production. So by the time you finally do reach the 4.5 million rounds, I think they said that Russia is making annually. By the time you reach that, how many more shells will Russia be making? And then you have to think about guns and everything else that you need to effectively use artillery ammunition along the front line, which Ukraine is also rocking out of. And you made a point in one of your programs, or your recent programs, which corresponds, by the way, exactly to my own observations.

And this is about the factory in Omsk, which, by the way, I should stress, I've never visited. That's not one of the factories I've been to. But I made the point in many places that, you know, visiting Russian factories for a Westerner is a strange experience, because you see these huge,

factory spaces and often very, very large workforces working at very low levels of capacity. And of course, this is what the Russian industrial system is designed around. It's designed to be able to search. And you gave the example of the factory in Omsk, which produces T80 tanks, and the fact that they kept back the machine tools from the 1980s that were needed to manufacture the gas turbine engine. And those machine tools are still there. And the factory spaces are still there.

And there's probably people, in fact there's definitely people who will be trained to use those machine tools. So yes, again, it will take some months to do, perhaps a year to do. But before long, they will be producing new gas turbine engines for new tanks. That, again, is the difference

between the Russian industrial system and the West. In the West, we see all these huge factories and all these machine tools, and we say that this makes no economic sense. But for the Russians, the sense that matters is not the profit one. It's the question of security. It's the question of being able to ramp up reduction when it is needed as quickly as possible. Exactly. It is profit-driven versus purpose-driven. And even the United States, in their own national defense industrial strategy paper, which I went over a month or two ago, they even talk

about, they touch on it briefly, but they don't identify it as the key problem. But the key problem is their defense industry is controlled by private enterprise that exists solely to make profits. And it is not profitable for them to keep machinery that they don't use, keep people on the payroll that are not working at full capacity. And to make cheap types of munitions and weapon systems in vast quantities, that is not profitable for them. Making these small amounts of extremely overpriced weapons, that is what is profitable. So they're looking at that. They understand that that is the problem, but the solution is a systemic change. They have to change the whole foundation of how Western economies and industry work.

And that is an undertaking that I don't think they would be able to successfully do, even if they wanted to. And I don't think that they want to. Exactly. Let's know, I mean, we talked about shells in Russia. This is almost, you know, this seems almost a minor thing compared with the ship, the naval situation. Now, I've been looking at pictures now of the shipyards in Shanghai. The number of warships that China is actually churning out.

It is just, I mean, it is astonishing. And the United States, by contrast, struggles to get a single warship out, apparently in a year. The Chinese can, I'm not even going to try and compare the production rates. They've become so lopsided. It's almost embarrassing to do. But beyond this enormous surge in Chinese production, the other thing that struck me about this is, again, that they are producing very straightforward warships.

They're producing the kind of warships that I recognize as warships. You do not see these. extraordinary things like, you know, the Zoom Vault or whatever it's called, destroyer, which looks like something straight out of, well, I don't know quite what it, like a steampunk novel, and these literal class ships, which apparently nobody could operate. And I've also been reading, I don't know whether you've been hearing this also, Brian, that the warships that the United States has, the crews in them are constantly exhausted and sleep deprived because they're not enough sailors

basically to operate them now, because recruitment levels have declined to the extent that they have. Now, we have this massive discrepancy in power and emerging power. And we see people in the United States talking about a naval confrontation with China, the Taiwan sees. Do the people in Washington understand what they're throwing the U.S. Navy against, if that is really what they plan to do? It's hard to know because I listen to even senior officers in the U.S. Navy, and they talk as if somehow they're still able to win a naval confrontation with China. The whole hellscape plan that they rolled out using on-man systems in the straight of Taiwan

to hold off Chinese forces for up to a whole month so that they can mobilize, just as you point out, this smaller, diminished, decaying navy and of all of their so-called allies that will be pressed into this conflict as well. This is just unbelievable. And if you look at the type of drone systems that the U.S. is developing, it is, again, examples of overpriced, over-engineered systems that have, by the way, already many of them tested in Ukraine, completely failed. And then even as they're rolling out this hellscape strategy, they say, we're learning

some of the lessons that Ukraine is learning on the battlefield against Russia, which Ukraine is losing the conflict. successes that they are having with drones is because these are drones that they have bought from China or drones that they have made from components sourced in China. And we're talking about how important production numbers are. If Russia is outproducing the United States in all of these areas, what do you think China will be able to do? DJI alone has, I think, 70% of the consumer drone market in the entire world means no combination of companies around the globe, again, combined equal one single company in China. So imagine if they decided to take DJI, press it into

full military production, plus all the other companies and industrial capacity in China. How are you going to create a hellscape situation where your drones are somehow overwhelming China off their own coasts with the industrial output that they have, with the military capabilities they already have and the capabilities they will be able to develop. And again, they underestimate the ability of China to innovate and iterate very quickly, which is what Chinese manufacturing facilities, even when it's a foreign company that owns them or is using them, the workers there are Chinese, the engineers, the designers, they are Chinese and they are very good at what they do and they're very good

developing ideas, iterating them, improving them, and making different tiers of quality and quantity. And it's a massive ecosystem that you have to see to believe because you will not see anything like this anywhere else on Earth, only in China. And this is who the United States is thinking of picking a fight with because they know that if they don't stop China now, the window of opportunity probably has already closed. But they imagine that it will close and China will irreversibly surpass the United States. It will never get another opportunity. So it's now or never and worth a try in their mind.

Again, it goes back to what we said in the beginning, the sense of impunity that they have for their actions, the fact that it won't be them dying on these U.S. naval vessels thousands and thousands of miles away from U.S. coasts. It will be sailors of people they don't care about and families they don't care about. So this is how they see the world. And this is the cliff that they're rushing. the entire planet tort? This is my greatest fear, actually. I think that the US knows perfectly well

that the power balance is shifting rapidly in China's favor and that he can't really be changed. I should say, again, I briefly, well, not briefly, actually for quite a long time, worked in shipping law. And my mother in the 1950s worked for quite a long time in a Greek shipping office. And of course, in the 1950s, Greek shipwenders were using American liberty ships, built at the rate of one a day by the United States during the Second World War.

Some of them were still sailing in the 1980s, by the way. That was the industrial power that the United States once had. It doesn't have it today. China does. And I think deep down, they know that they're running out of time. But rather than negotiate, compromise, which the Chinese would be very, very important. pleased to do, I think that they're going to say to themselves, like the Japanese did, in December 1941, let's stake everything on one last throw. And the effect of that, I really just only want to imagine. Anyway, that's my last point of the program. I just leave it to you, Brian, and then we'll just

switch to Alex and see whether he's got any questions to put to you. I'm sure he does. I actually I think that's a very good point to to end on because I think we we agree that that that that is where we are at we are at this critical point and it it really is up to I mean that's kind of why we do what we do we want to wake people up and we want to kind of drain the amount of public support this this self-destructive policy might have so that so that we can slow it down impede it and perhaps even stop it because there is a place in a multipolar world, a prominent place for the collective West, if they want it, but they just have to accept that they are not superior to everyone else. They cannot lord over the rest of the world. They just have to work together with the rest of the world. I don't think that's a lot to ask for, but unfortunately for the people in power now, for them it is.

I completely agree. So over to Alex. I'm sure he's got questions for you. There's been a lot of questions. We're on a bit of a tight. time limit for today, but let's get through all the questions as best we can. From Christos Lipopedia, he says, only good news today. It's only good news about Assangeus, agreed.

Raphael says, I seriously start the question if Putin is not on the payroll of the West. Russia needs to remove this chicken before it's too late, too timid. Mark Hewitt says, do you think that the death of Gonzalo has led to the release of Assange via the removal of Newland? No, absolutely not. They're completely unrepentant. And again, as far as Julian Assange, we don't know that he is really in the clear and that he will be able to go and live his life as he wants now. So, no, they sometimes they have no choice but to give, but they are not repentant.

And this isn't a sign of change, and I don't think it contributed at all. I don't think Gonzalez, what happened to Gonzala, has anything to do with this at all. I think that the United States is actually quite happy with the outcome it's achieved. It's got a conviction. It's muted Assange as a journalist. And far from being in the clear, he's got a, conviction now hanging over him. If he steps out of line, they can come after him again. And of course, they've got what they wanted. They can warn other people too. Absolutely the

correct decision for Julian Assange. No one should criticize him for what he has done. But, as I said, in terms of the causation of the case, Gonzála's case had nothing to do with it. I said that, by the way, quickly add on the topic of Putin's and somebody brought him up, I noticed that in a press conference, Putin actually mentioned Gonzalo. He didn't mention him by name, but he talked about the fact that an American journalist had died in Ukraine and that nobody had spoken out in favor of him. No, the American government hadn't. Also look at the timing of Assange's release, two days before the debate.

This was a big win for Biden. I agree. I agree as well. As well as a big win for Assange. It's a big win for Biden as well. Elza says, Brian, great work. Will Thailand get it to Bricks? Oh, that is a very good question. And as optimistic as I would like to be, I'm cautious, if not skeptical. Getting into Bricks is a process that if you do not have control over your own country's information, political, educational space, the U.S. is going to use their

unwarranted influence to derail that. They already have people who I know for a fact, associate with the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Embassy here writing op-eds in local papers saying that joining Brits is misguided, it's a mistake, and before you know it, you will have protests in the streets, even violence, and there will be tremendous pressure on Thailand not to join Brits. We've seen what happened to Argentina and the black hole they were sucked into before reaching Bricks. It's the next logical step for Thailand would obviously benefit Thailand and getting into bricks and perhaps starting a process of uprooting all this on board that influence inside Thai through the various Thai domains.

That would be great, but the U.S. isn't going to allow this to happen without a fight. Vincent Vegas says, good morning, Brian, Alexander and Alex. Vincent. Paul, thank you for that. Adragisa, thank you for that. Sparky says, Brian, would running the U.S. out of Syria be a productive reprisal for Russia, for the civilian beach attack? Is there a good way for Russia to go about it? Well, they're in the process of doing that.

They don't want the U.S. in Syria. Syria doesn't want the U.S. in Syria. And none of these countries want the U.S. in the Middle East. And even for Israel, a U.S. proxy, whether they know it or not, it's not in their best interest to have the United States in the region and for them to pursue the foreign policy that they pursue. So it's a natural process that everyone agrees must happen anyway. And I would imagine that, yes, if there are opportunities to expand this policy and accelerate it because of the different provocations the U.S. is carrying out, then yes, they will take advantage of that and speed up the process.

Michael Seymour says the U.S. wanted to produce a chilling effect on the journalists by accusing Assange. They did not win against Assange, but the chilling effect was successful. Yes. Stephen Walter, thank you for that. Benjamin says, is Russia not a stabilizing force in the world? Surely breaking Russia up will have globally catastrophic consequences, even for those who dream of its balkanization, pure hubris. True. Yes.

Nova Storm says the situation seems so much more concerning due to being an election year, as if the U.S. needs the escalation. Another Vietnam, perhaps? I mean, this is where I differ from a lot of people. I don't think elections make any difference at all. I don't think Trump or Biden. I mean, Trump had already been in office for four years. He was still, I was under his administration. It wasn't like it was his idea.

It was under his administration that first of U.S. weapons went to Ukraine, which almost certainly was the crossing of the red line that convinced Russia. We need to, we need to intervene now because if we don't, the weapons are just going to build up. and this is going to be even harder in the future. That is what compelled them to do that. And again, it wasn't true. The president isn't making these decisions.

It is the deep state, unelected deep state that does this. But if that is the case, then what difference is making, what difference do elections make in U.S. policy? I just don't see it. But that's just me. Yeah.

Well, just to add to that and the point that we've been making on our programs, the latest sanctions that the United States are unveiled against Russia. mean that the United States can now impose secondary sanctions against any financial institution in the world, including all of the Chinese banks, and since their secondary sanctions,

they don't need the decision to be made by the president. It can be done by the bureaucracy without the president himself being involved. Yeah, Brohams says with the British elections coming up in the Big Zero Seats campaign, going on. Any chance we see another episode with Dr. Nima Parvini. It was an excellent show with him. Good news for Assange. Yes, that's a good idea to do another show with Dr. Parvini. Master Goa says, can you guys talk to Russians with attitudes sometime? Also, thank you for all your

hard work. Love your shoes. Sure. Yes, we will give that a shot. Sparky says, build a better world with bricks. Michael says, can you confirm that Biden promised on December 2021 that no missiles would be installed in Ukraine and that this promise was removed in January 2022. The best person to go to all of that is Ray McGuhrone, who's tracked it and followed it very, very closely. And he's taking all this information, of course, from Russian transcripts of the meeting between Putin and Biden and statements that Russian officials made, including Lavrov himself, who's provided a very detailed account of his meeting with Blinken, in which the promise the offer was taken away, taken back.

BFT eyes wide says, Brian, do you think the West is able to wage the war at scale today? Unlike the 1930s, the USA and European industries are not up to snuff enough to escalate to a bigger war. Nuclear is the only way it can go. Well, clearly they cannot because they're trying and they're failing, and they're admitting in their own reports examining the state of their military industrial capacity that a huge system-wide change needs to be made. And the people that fund these think tanks to do these studies are the arms manufacturers that are pursuing profit over purpose

and incapable of delivering. So it just cannot be done. And if you look at traditional arms manufacturing in the West and these so-called startups, their first and only priority is profit. And everything else comes second. And so this is what drives every decision that they make. Whereas if you have state-owned enterprises presiding over your military industrial production,

it doesn't matter how much it costs or how long it takes. If it needs to be done, it's going to be done. The resources are going to be made available, whether it's a tiny profit margin, no profit margin, or say you do make a profit. But the purpose comes before profit. And this is the night and day difference. The U.S. had a mindset like that during World War II.

That is gone. That is buried forever. They will never be able to dig it up. Not in time to change the course of what is going on now. G1416 says, could the Istanbul talks have been tactical move by the West to get the Russian troops out of Kiev? Well, some people in Russia now think that. Putin has said straightforwardly that he was tricked. I mean, he's admitted it, by the way.

He said himself that, you know, the Russians were tricked. They tricked us again. exactly what he said. John Dutchman, thank you for that. Adadola says brilliant, brilliant, all. Thank you, gentlemen. It's reassuring to know that reason still exists. Thank you for that.

Matthew says, Brian, percentage possibilities of a wider conflict. It's getting wider by the day. I mean, let's just look at what's going on. The U.S. Right now, right now is even they're escalating with Russia and Ukraine. They've got the Philippines now trying to prevent. a armed conflict, basically, with China over a rusty Hulk stranded on an atoll. With China, the Philippines's largest trade partner, imports, exports, their only chance

of getting modern infrastructure to climb out of the poverty that generations of Spanish and American colonialism has placed them in, they're going to start this conflict with China. So it's only set to expand and inspire auto control, unfortunately. Sparky says it takes two generations to significantly change from a non-innovative culture to an innovative one. It's been long enough. China is now innovative. Well, the economists think so. Yeah, KFD.

Thank you for that sticker. Em Henrique says, in war, morale is crucial to achieve victory. it'll be a disastrous war against the grandsons of the mighty red army. Valeria, thank you for that super sticker. Nicholas Walker says, I'm reminded of the yes minister line. Diplomacy is about surviving until the next century.

Politics is about surviving until Friday afternoon. That was a brilliant series, by the way. It came out in the 80s. But today, I think the world is a much darker place than it was. when that series was made. Sparky says Western foreign policy has a mentality of a bunch of adolescent girls. Valeria, I can't hear that. Yeah, accurate.

Turner Games. Thank you for that. Donald Dashie, thank you for that super sticker. Tapato, Matato says, first China, then Cuba. Now the DPRK in Vietnam, perhaps Putin should purchase a hammer and sickle lapel pin for foreign troops. I think that let's not jump to these. The ideologies, I think, are becoming increasingly relevant in a situation where, as I said, all of these countries feel that they face the same challenge, which is the United States and the collective West. The latest country is to achieve a strategic partnership with Russia, by the way, it's been talked about this morning, is Iran.

And Iran was not an ally of the Soviet Union at any time during the Cold War. Bob says I'm sorry, I was just going to say that a lot of people have this idea that China is this like red communist dystopia that they've seen in the 70s where they're all riding on bicycles and wearing the same clothes that is not China today.

China today, if you go there, it looks like how Westerners wish their society looked. And it has central planning, but so does the West. They have state-owned enterprises, but so does the West. And they have plenty of private enterprise now. So this concept that it's some kind of, in the traditional sense, a communist society, as they imagine, this is just, this is a fantasy.

This is not like that right now in China or Vietnam. Bob says a thousand likes. Think for that spark. He says, Brian, will Assange now shed light on Seth Rich murder? Debbie seems like Debbie Washington Schultz had her stooges, the I-Wan brothers attempt to take him out. was finished off in hospital. Let me repeat again the point I made. He is not out of the woods.

He's not in the clear. He has a conviction hanging over him. He is going to be very, very careful what he says. Exactly. He'll be quiet, I think, for a while. Tapato Matato says it seems to me that we've reached a point where the U.S. can't choose to fight war against only Russia or only China. If the U.S. attacks one, won't the other step up?

in defense. They're out of time. They wanted to take Russia and then China, but they're out of time because it's taking too long to, or it will never happen in regards to Russia, and China is moving too quickly. From Rob 1, appreciate your articles, Brian. Thanks, Alex. And Alex, I tune in daily. I like having the extra insight amongst friends, so it's hard for me to share,

but appreciate it and unparalleled. Thank you. For that, Rob. Chris says, do you expect Urujde taking on a more key role in NATO, Brian, to trigger any change and approach towards the SMO and Russia or vice versa? He will do whatever he's told by the special interests that actually control which direction NATO goes. And that, again, it's the arms industry, oil, big finance, the same corporations that have

been running things for generations in the West. All right. Brian and Alexander Just a number. Please give a confidence level out of 10 In your personal opinion, did Ukraine intent for the detonation to occur

over the beach? A five doesn't count. I don't like to give numbers. I've swung backwards and forwards on this, but I've come to the conclusion that they did. Now, you know, it's because we're getting more information all the time. But partly it was what Pardaliak said. Secondly, it was the trajectory of the missile.

And thirdly, the Russians are updating the information that they'd be providing. And I think that they knew perfectly well that when they launched the missile and the way that it did, there was a very, very high probability indeed that something like that would happen. They didn't target the beach directly because doing that would have, you know, been an open, they wanted to preserve some degree of deniability. But they've shown, as Brian said, absolutely no remorse about what has happened, no sense that this is a mistake or anything like that. On the contrary, they seem perfectly happy with the result.

No number. Brian? I mean, Padoliac said it. He's saying this fits into their larger strategy of exterminating the population of Crimea, which these are people who have lived there before 2014. And so they're talking about liberating Crimea, but also exterminating the population that had been there before it rejoined Russia. So this is what Russia and the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine have been putting up with since 2014. And this is why it has devolved into war because you've got reason with people who think like this. These are people that simply have to be dealt with.

You cannot reason or negotiate with them, unfortunately, which is why the U.S. installed them. Claudia Spencer says Julian Assange is free. Thank you, Claudia for that. Joe Public says, what has $800 billion been spent on annually? I guess in reference to the money to Ukraine, I guess, or the U.S. military budget, maybe. Brian, you're the expert on this.

The army run down and throw more than an expeditionary force. I don't know about the Air Force. It goes into these massive, overpriced, absurd and ineffective weapon programs. The new stealth bomber, for example, is so over budget and behind schedule. And they admit that modern Russian and Chinese air defenses are almost certainly going to be able to target and destroy it. So what they will use it for is the same thing Russia. is using their old Tupla of TU-95s for standoff weapons that you can literally fire with a propeller-driven war plane at a distance because it doesn't come close to air defenses.

So it doesn't matter if it's stealth or not. This is what the U.S. is spending the money on, and it is just pure corruption. It is private enterprise profiteering at the expense of purpose. Fly High says the clowns threw away the F-22 tooling. Well, they did. They did the same with Saturn 5, as I understand it, that, you know, their heavy launch rocket. And as I said, they scrapped it,

and they can't make it now. They could in the 60s, but they can't make it now. D.F. says, was the Haimar on the beach supposed to hit the recommissioned early detection system in Crimea, allowing Israel to attack Hezbollah with an EMP? I haven't heard that. No, I don't think so. I'm sure not.

That's too complicated. I think Brian has explained what the logic of this was. It's basically to terrorize, to cause fear and to drive and anger. And anger. And anger as well. Sparky says, Brian, in the U.S. industrial arts, aka shop class, has been removed from U.S. schools for two or three decades. millennials and younger, millennials and younger can't hammer a nail,

much less produce 155 millimeter shells. And that's what they admit in their own reports, studying the defense industrial base, that the human resources necessary to ramp up production don't exist, and no one in America's interested in joining a potential expansion of the industry to do this. And they're talking about, well, maybe we can do some program

where we go into schools and promote STEM, and just imagine how that would work and how long that would take to produce results. This is where they are, and again, a mess of their own making. I don't know about China, but I should say in Russia, which produces huge numbers of STEM graduates

relative to its size. There is no forcing of people or incentivizing the people to do STEM subjects. just do, because that's the culture of the society that we're talking about. And I think in China it's the same. Bob says, 2,000 likes. You guys are so cruel but good. Thank you, Bob. Troublesen says, my three favorite journalists are Alexander, Alex, and Brian. Thank you for the great work you all do to keep us informed. Thank you for that. Sparky says, seems to me, boat, building, shipping, and logistics are in the Greek blood. Yes, they are. Oh, absolutely.

Nick, yeah, Nick, thank you for that. Sid Osley, thank you. Ralph says, Brian, do you think that Scott has been given a warning by the U.S. to dial it back? I guess with the passport issue. I can speak. Yeah, I don't know. My father's, I mean, my family's dealt with that.

He'll get it back. He'll get it back. I think you answered your own question, actually, Ralph. I mean, he'll get the passport back. Yeah. They didn't want them to travel to Russia. I think it's that simple. Simple. Yeah. Andrew says they learned the lesson in World War I and went directly to government control in World War II. Okay. Sparky says, Brian, obviously Putin's peace proposal shows that the West has Russia on the run.

Should Western event planners move forward and order the victory party decorations? I mean, and again, as both of you, Alex and Alexander, have explained in your videos in much greater depth, it's a maximalist proposal and it's hardly a peace plan. It's an ultimatum, and you don't make an ultimatium from a position of weakness unless, of course, you're Zelensky, and then you're doing that, but you're just doing that because what else can you do? Jamila says, thank you, gentlemen, for your great work.

Thank you for that. Trevor Max says, thank you. Thank you, Trevor. Tish M says, justice for Julian Assange, justice for Gonzalo Lira. Thank you. Sparky says, Brian, could Ukraine's attack on the Russian early warning radar station be an attempt to keep Russia from warning Iran of an Israeli attack? No.

Yeah, and again, look, whatever Israel plans to do to Hezbollah or Iran, as long as they're using conventional weapons, it really doesn't matter because we've seen this transpire already just between Israel and Lebanon in 2006. They bombed it for weeks and weeks. They ran out of bombs. USA had expedite bombs to Israel to continue bombing them, and they still lost because you cannot win a war with just air power alone, with just airstrikes alone.

And if they're going to use some kind of nuclear weapon, I mean, how will you know until it's already detonated that it's a nuclear weapon versus a conventional payload. Summer of 1970. Thank you for that. Peter says, happy to say I took tech shop classes in New York Public School in the late

2000s. Well done, Peter. Johan says, thanks for the daily excellent information. Joe Public says, dumbing down seems to be working well. And Sparky says, millennials may not be able to produce a Saturn

5 rocket, but they can tell you whether it's sexist, racist, poor phobic. But that's everything. America is capable of amazing engineering feats, but just not on the scale that they used to be able to produce them. Look at SpaceX, but SpaceX is an exception because it is Elon Musk's personal project, and he has put the purpose of SpaceX above profit to the point where he does lose money and admittedly loses money,

and you can see his approach, how effective it is, compared to, say, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, United Launch Alliance, Boeing with its, it's got its first man crew craft up there at the space station leaking, and SpaceX already fulfilled their original contract,

they're working on the second contract. That shows you night and day the difference between purpose and profit within the same system, the American system. Yeah, agreed. All right. I think that's everything, guys. Any final thoughts before we wrap things up? We are living in very, we're living in very interesting times. And I check with one of my Chinese friends, and it turns out that is indeed a Chinese thing. But we are indeed living

in very, very interesting time. If we get through the next few years, things will start to get a lot better. This is my own view. There will probably still be many, many problems in the West, but we'll be through the most dangerous time. And eventually, that will start to have an effect on the West itself as the other places in the world rise. The next few years are going to be difficult, very difficult. It's going to be a matter of the rest of the world, really, stretching this out, playing out the clock. These interests driving Western foreign policy right now, exhausting themselves, and a process where they are displaced within the West with more constructive interests willing to work with the rest of the world rather than trying to

irrationally subjugate it. That's what needs to happen. That's what we all have to ask ourselves what position we're in to contribute to which part of this best, because it's going to take a lot of work. Can I happen overnight? Can I happen with one election? It's going to take years and years of hard work across a wide array of different focuses, media, industry, business, community, everything to try to get this in a direction that will benefit us. I agree with Alexander, if we get through this, the world will be much, much better off in the future. And just one very last thing.

The fact that it is indeed us against the rest of the world, the Swiss Peace Conference actually showed that. I mean, it was just the West and everybody else turned their backs turned their backs on the whole process and in effect on the West itself. Yep. Yes. Thank you, Jeff, for that

super sticker. And on that, the note, we will end the live stream. Brian Berletic, the new Atlas. I have his YouTube, Twitter. What else, Brian, do I have in the description? Telegram. I've got all the links in the description box down below.

I strongly recommend that if anyone is not following Brian, definitely follow Brian. One of the absolute best content creators out there. Thank you, Brian, for joining us once again. Thank you for having me. And thank you everyone who tuned in. Always an honor and a pleasure. Thank you for everyone. Pleasure for us.

Ron. Thank you everyone who, thank you for everyone who watched us. on Odyssey, Rockfin, Rumble, the durand.locals.com and YouTube. And thank you to all our great moderators. Thank you, moderators for everything that you do. That's it for today. Take care, everyone.