The Duran Podcast - How Iran and Ukraine Exposed America's Limits w/ Garland Nixon

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

How Iran and Ukraine Exposed America's Limits w/ Garland Nixon

All right, Alexander, we are here with the one and only Garland Nixon. Garland, great to have you on The Duran before we get started. Where can people follow your work? They can find me at The Garland Nixon. That's T.H.E. The Garland Nixon on X. And, of course, on my YouTube show and Rumble and Rockfin and all of that kind of stuff. And then the basics, the Instagrams and the Facebooks. Just look for Garland Nixon.

I haven't seen another one. That's a pretty rare name. I will have it in the description box down below those links, and they will also be added as a pin comment. So definitely, if you're not following Garland, definitely check him out. And today we've got a lot of ground to cover. Got a lot of news to go over. So Alexander Garland, let's get into it. Absolutely.

And it is a huge pleasure to have Garland with us on this program, because today, in this program, we're going to discuss topics about the United States, the limits of American power, the effect this is having in the United States, which I cannot think of anyone better to talk about, that Garland, because in my opinion, that is what we're seeing. I have lived, I'm just long enough to have lived through another period in my lifetime when the United States sort of hit the limits of its power. and that was in the late 1960s at the time of the war in Vietnam. But since then, the world has changed. The Soviet Union collapsed.

The Cold War ended. We had the unipolar moment. We had end of history rhetoric. Suddenly now, or so it seems to me, we find ourselves in the same situation again. But this time, because, Because we've had this period of unipolarity, which has only ended very recently, I think the shock of it is even greater, much greater, going to be much greater than it was in the 60s.

So why do I say this? Because, of course, the United States has been unable to prevail in Ukraine. But that was against Russia, a great power. but it's also now been unable to prevail against Iran, where I sense the Americans expected, or at least the Trump people, expected that they would prevail quickly. So what do you think of all of that, Garland? First of all, I mean, let's start with that. I mean, do you think that my overview is correct?

And my sense that we're reaching that moment when, again, America, is confronting something it always finds difficult to face that it's actually reaching the limits of its power. Yeah, and I think it's something that I've been saying for a while that these two conflicts are inextricably linked. One of the tells, one might say, is that recently during the conflict with Iran, drone operators and drone specialists from Ukraine showed up in one of the Gulf States, and apparently according to the Iranians and according to the Russians, they had a warehouse, and some of them were available and some of them were attacked. So you had people from the Ukrainian conflict literally fighting and training in the conflict with Iran. So clearly to the U.S.

military leaders, they see it as one particular conflict because they've got fighters crisscrossing between one and the other. And I think that makes it fairly obvious that from their perspective, They are deploying unitions and experts from one conflict to the other, which means to them it's clearly one conflict. And the other side is doing the same in a kind of a sense. I mean, we've had lots of reports. None of them ever fully confirmed, but perhaps interestingly, none of them ever really denied that the Russians have been providing some degree of help to the Iranians, perhaps extensive help. And, well, we had Jim Webb here doing a program with us, and he was sure that he was a sort of U.S. former military. He was sure that this is happening. And sure enough, who is

meeting Vladimir Putin, even as we are speaking, but Iran's foreign minister, Abbasarakshi. Is this an important meeting in your opinion? Yes, I think it is. Well, there are two things going here. Number one, I think one of the most overt examples of, shall we say, technology and techniques transferring from the Ukrainian conflict to the battlefield in West Asia or the Middle East would be the use of FPV drones and in particularly ones that are, you know, fly by wire where they use the wires to ensure that they're not intercepted by signals by Hezbollah. So what we're seeing is Hezbollah having significant success using the exact same techniques and likely the exact same hardware as the Russians are using in Iran. So I think it's not just that Iran is receiving help.

Now, it could possibly be that somehow, we don't know how that technology and expertise is transferring to Iran and then maybe Iran is transferring that to some of their allies in the region. But again, you know, we see that the closer we look at this, this becomes almost like a worldwide proxy war, really, that this is, you know, we use terms like World War III. I mean, you can call it whatever you want to, but clearly the U.S. is losing power. It's being demilitarized, and it's looking for other options to try to contain its adversaries. But this is all one fight. And add this, we're talking about Ukraine. We're talking about the West Asia.

But meanwhile, the U.S. says, oh, we're going to do a worldwide blockade on Iranian energy ships. Well, 90% of those Iranian energy ships, 90% of Iran's oil is bought by China. So clearly, that's aimed at China. And this is perhaps where we see the limits of American power. most strikingly. Because I was one of those people. Here, I'm going to say it straight away. I got this wrong.

I thought the American blockade of Iran would be effective. I thought it would be effective, not because I thought that the US Navy was going to successfully chase down and capture every ship that left Iran with cargoes to China. But because I was sure that the ship owners,

and the captains of the tankers would not want to challenge an American blockade. They would be too afraid of retaliation, retaliation against them directly, legally, by the United States, through secondary sanctions and all of that. And it has not happened. the tankers from Iran continue to move, they pass through the Straits of Hormuz, the United States Navy is making no serious attempt to stop them. But most amazingly for me, the ship owners and the captains are not complying with the American blockade. They are not intimidated by the fact that the United States has declared it.

And that is something that I never, ever expected to see, at least not at this time during this conflict. Now, to me, that is an enormous change. What are your thoughts about this? It is, and it implies something that is critical, I think. You know, whatever word you use, hegemony, imperialism, whatever you use to show that the U.S. would have some level of world domination is a narrative. It is a narrative. And as long as people believe that narrative, it will work. It isn't that the U.S. has had to blow up all the ships or shoot people or whatever. They would say, don't do this or do this or will punish you.

and because other countries believed the narrative that they were a hegemonic power, they would act. The narrative is dying. The narratives, you know, the holes have been punched in the narrative over the last couple of years. The Russians, certainly in Ukraine, with the success that they've had, now the United States went head to head with Iran, and they were unable to really, you know, we could argue about who's winning, but clearly they've been unable to best Iran and this. countries recognize around the world that reports that the U.S. is running short of ammunition being demilitarized. So what I think we're looking at is the actions of both governmental and private entities around the world are reflecting they no longer have the fear. They no longer accept the narrative that the U.S. is in control and can dominate. And when you lose the narrative that you can dominate, people will not act as though you're a dominant party anymore,

and effectively you're not. The key word you've just used is fear. I mean, every system of dominance. You could talk about benign dominance. Authority is always based ultimately on fear. the sense that if you go, if you transgress, if you don't comply, then retribution will follow. Those ship owners and those naval, those sea captains no longer fear that retribution, which is, I think, an extraordinary moment. It's a sort of wizard of odds, Oz moment. and it's the most remarkable thing in this conflict, which for me, because, you know, I used to work in this industry, for me, has happened up to now. So the other thing I wanted to touch on is this military industrial issue that you also highlight you, just mentioned just now, because of course we see that the United States has struggled to keep up. with the Russians, Russian war production in Ukraine.

And that has been extremely embarrassing. But at least Russia is a great power with enormous resources. It's a former superpower. It's the former superpower rival of the United States. And if you lived through the Cold War, as we both have done, we will both remember that a narrative during the Cold War was that the Russians were always able to produce. lots of weapons. They might not be able to do other things, but they could always produce weapons.

So you could rationalize it, you could fit it in to your history, to your world view. But Iran, Iran being able to outstate the United States in terms of an armed conflict, Iran being able to continue to produce drones and launch missiles. I think this must be an even bigger shock. I mean, what do you think then? I think so. I think also. I think that, you know, people who even inside the U.S.,

who look at the recent history of the U.S., the voluntary de-industrialization of the country and turning it into a financialized, you know, speculative capital casino economy are looking and saying, you know, in hindsight, I understand how we got here. You know, most Americans are looking and, you know, you ride through parts of the country and you see all of these, you know, old buildings where there used to be factories and, you know, rust everywhere. You understand how we got here. But I do think that the issue of the two things, the issues of the change in warfare in that rather than build planes that cost $100 million, you build drones that cost a few thousand dollars and use them, that an air, you know, can you argue that Iran doesn't. have an air force. Yes, they have an air force. It's just unmanned. And they've decided it's a lot cheaper if we make an unmanned vehicle that only has to go one way. And then it blows up and it

doesn't have to come back. So the, I think the tactics and the hardware of war have dramatically shifted in a way that benefits a country that levels the playing field, that benefits a country that doesn't have as much money and doesn't have as much. And you have to add this, it's always considerably cheaper to build a defensive military than an offensive military. So the bottom line is this. The ground of military confrontation have shifted under the United States in a way that we can no longer dominate. That makes it very easy for a country to defend itself. So now, again, part of what we talked about earlier, and that is that around the world, people are looking at this and they're saying,

you're unable to push people around anymore. You're unable to dominate people anymore. And therefore, we are going to make an attempt to bypass your sanctions, to bypass your orders and see what happens. I think part of it is now Iran has kind of opened a door for other countries. Once the first country defied the United States and the U.S. said, okay, we will just demonstrate to everyone what happens if you defy us. And Iran said, okay, well, they have effectively shown the world that you can defy us. us and that we are unable to kinetically force you, to kinetically impose our will upon you, I don't think there's any way you can put that back in, you know, you can close that door now.

I think the world is just, the narrative has changed. How is this change in air power, the nature of air power? What is that, what is the psychological moral effect of that going to be in the United States? Because looking at the United States and the outside, so much of the sort of military image of the United States has been based around its all-powerful Air Force. I actually read a fascinating article, a very interesting article, which said that U.S. Air Force pilots are like the armored knights of the Middle Ages, that they have the same kind of. tremendous, you know, mythology and charisma in the United States that Armand Knights used to have. And suddenly, this vast investment in all of this is proving, is proving anachronistic. It's out of date.

It doesn't work anymore. And the United States isn't even ahead in air power any longer. What is that going to do once that starts to sort of percolate through to the United States itself, I mean to the people of the United States? How are they going to respond to this? That's interesting because I tell you it's actually part of the culture in the United States of power. We're powerful. Look at these planes and look at these things that we have. And one need only look at the movies.

Top Gun, Top Gun Maverick. There was a movie called Independence Day, which is a very, you know, we're. kind of a, we are fighting the aliens in America's winning, you know, thing. But in that, Will Smith was a fighter pilot, and the name of his pilot wing was, the Black Knights, right? So the metaphor is perfect that these were the knights and these are the tough guys and they're, you know, but unfortunately for them, as is natural, the world changes the technology changes. So the U.S. has attached its military culture of power and domination to a particular type of technology. And it's simply the world changes. Okay, great.

fighter planes for a while they dominate the skies, but eventually someone's going to come up with air defense systems and figure out that it's a lot cheaper to build a one-way missile than it is a plane. And now Iran has a dominant air force. That air force is just an unmanned air force. And I think it's something else that's going to cause the U.S. military ego to deflate faster. And somewhat of a shock in that, I can't believe that. These people are not supposed to be defeating us. They're not supposed to be fighting us toe to toe to when they are. I think there's a certain amount of shock. An instability in the political class, and this is what's interesting, and I'm sure you see it. You know, a denial. You know, there's a level of denial. Well,

we'll just go back and tell Iran, they better do this. And Iran's like, no. Well, they better listen to us. No. And then Iran's like, well, you're going to, you know, like a little child with a bully on the playground, when the bully says, do something, and the child says, who's going to make me? That's what Iran's saying. And the U.S. is in this interesting, in our particularly Congress, and, of course, the White House, an internal denial, where on the outside, they can look outside and say, wow, there's nothing we can do. We can't defeat those people. And then when they had the internal conversation amongst themselves, They say, yes, we're still tough.

We can defeat anybody. Nobody has a chance at us. So this weird internal conversation that pretends that we still have domination when really their actions towards Iran show that they kind of recognize that they don't have them. Does that explain some of these extraordinary comments and statements made by the president? He makes all kinds of demands of the Iranians. I mean, one of the strange things about this conflict is that, even as it's continued and become more intractable, and the costs for the United States

of the conflict are increasing. American demands of Iran have not changed. They're not adapting to the change in the situation, even as energy prices and prices of other things grow, and there are stresses in the markets generally. is it because changing demands, looking for other ways to negotiate, would undermine, would contradict that denial of reality that you've just talked about? Exactly. I think that you have to read these, particularly the tweet, the truth, socials, whatever you call them, the statements of bravado and toughness by the president and Pete Hedgeseth and the other cheerleaders. I think you have to read them through the context of internal and domestic politics as opposed to. They're not talking to Iran. They're not trying to look tough against Iran. They're trying to look tough for the people that are criticizing them within their administration and within the Beltway. So now they, if they get together and recognize, yeah, we don't want to go back to war with Iran because we're losing too many planes and things aren't looking good for us. We don't want to do that. But they can't go to Congress and the Senate and say that. They cannot admit that. So they have to continually, you know,

It's kind of like when a person makes a statement of toughness and, you know, that person's trying to hide their weakness. And that's what's going on. And that's what's interesting. And that is that the problem that Trump has really is not so much external as internal. Because he could sit down with the Russians and the Gulf in the Iran and they could be able and walk away if he lived in the real world. But he couldn't come home and bring that deal home to Congress, to the Senate and et cetera.

So the fight of a, the battle of a declining kind of imperial hegemonic power is the battle with those internally who will, you know, how it is. They'll call you weak and then try to, you know, throw you out of office and put someone else in who will have to play tough. This is a very, very strange approach because, of course, if you're no longer fighting the Iranians, but you're fighting reality. then you're going to lose you're going to lose even more, also it seems to me. That is not, one can understand the politics of it, but it is not a war-fighting strategy. It's very different from, let's talk about the British. I mean, the British found themselves in a very bad situation at the beginning of the 20th century during the Boer War. It didn't turn out well for them at all.

Everything went wrong. But what they did, they went away and they said to themselves, this isn't working. We have to re-examine our armed forces. We have to carry out a massive reorganization and reform, both of our army and by the way of our Navy, too. And that's exactly what they did. And it did give them an extra lease of life. but they had to face reality to do that. If you don't face reality, if you are remaining in denial,

then you're not going to adjust and make change. Are you saying that adjustment by the United States in the face of this is now impossible? Well, I say this. Once again, we go back to the beginning of our conversation and we connect it to the Ukraine conflict. right the same thing the Russians are losing the Russians are going to lose they're out of weapons they're out of missiles there you know all of these things that do not align with what's happening in you on the Ukrainian battlefield you know we've heard it recently from some of the political class in Europe the Russians have to lose the Russians are going to lose Ukraine's going to win

so it's like that's the a refusal throughout the US and throughout their NATO allies, if that's the right word, a refusal to accept reality. I think part of that is out of desperation. If I have to take Russia and get all of its resources, if I have to take Iran and get all of its resources in order to continue with this neoliberal, you know, system, then I can never say I can't do that because that is to accept the end of the system. Let me add something to you, because I can add, connect this to the White House correspondent. incident or the reaction. And I think it's important. What we're looking at is almost something to laugh at if it weren't so dangerous. And that is to watch people look at reality and say the opposite of

reality. To say, come on, you really expects us to believe that we're looking, we're seeing something and we're hearing something that doesn't align with what we're seeing. Okay, here's my point. Immediately after the incident at the White House of General, I went online. And all I heard was, It's a false flag. It's a false flag. Nobody believes it. It's a false flag. Immediately everywhere there were memes, there were jokes. We don't believe anything we're told. So what's happening? I think the people inside the U.S. are, you know, starting to intuitively recognize that they don't get the truth from their government anywhere. And when anything happens, the immediate response of people in the United States is, I don't believe the government. I don't believe the media. They're trying to hide

something. They're trying to perpetrate a lie or a false hit on us. So it all comes together. They look at Iran and they see planes going down and terrible things happening. And the government says, we're winning. We've destroyed their air force and their Navy. They have no air defense and then they shoot down 10 airplanes the next day. So I think that reality that our government no longer says things that aligned with reality externally is now really seen by Americans as we can't trust them. And I don't know. I'm not saying that the White House correspondent's dinner thing was a false flag or wasn't a false flag.

I'm just commenting that nobody believed it. Anything that happens, if our government says it's Tuesday, people will look at their calendar and expect that it, you know, suspect that maybe it's Wednesday. That is very important. I mean, have you ever known a disjunction? of that kind in America before. Because my experience in the past is that the American people

had enormous faith in their government and tended to believe what it said most of the time. Of and wrongly, by the way, but that was always the case. I mean, they were very, very willing to believe their government. If that's not true any longer, then we have a situation of us versus them,

a political class, a political class which is no longer supported and no longer with deep connections to the country, up against the people who have lost faith in it. Something we are now faced with very much in Britain. Here, by the way, everybody talks about that. Here in Britain, this is no longer a topic that the mainstream media doesn't talk about. The mainstream media acknowledges that there is this us and them, a political class versus the nation attitude. But is that where America is also going? Well, our mainstream media hasn't really accepted that.

They're still, I mean, completely, you know, our mainstream media is pretty much just mouthpieces for the political class, malpices for the ruling elite. I think one of the things that really has affected. faith in government, faith in traditional institutions here is, you know, you had a Joe Biden in who clearly had some cognitive difficulties that was denied. And of course, then he went out and did a debate and it was obvious. And, you know, a lot of Americans were like, well, that was fairly obvious. There's no surprise here. There are those who suspect Donald Trump has similar frailties, you know, cognitive frailty, shall we say. And the discussion here that he, and this

important that a lot of people specifically voted for the Trump administration because they didn't want war and specifically the Iran war. And they were told, see, that's the thing. We're not talking about issues, broad issues here. Very specific issues. I'm voting for you because I don't want X. And they got exactly what they voted against. And I think that that is kind of the straw that broke the camels back, that a lot of the last few people who believed that there was a potential that they could vote their way out of this, a lot of people lost that, at least vote their way out of it by supporting one of the two traditional parties. What about the economic situation in the United States as it is affecting people? First of all, could you tell us what it's like?

because one of the stories that we hear in Europe is that actually America is very insulated, the people are not affected by the deepening economic crisis, that the US is so sufficient in energy. I am very skeptical about these claims myself, but I'm obviously not in the United States. So what is the situation that people are facing in their everyday lives? And are they starting to connect the dots and say to themselves, this is related to what is going on in the Middle East? I think a couple of things. Number one, because the standard of living in the United States has been deteriorating

slowly for a long period of time, it's not as pronounced here as it is. It's not as sudden here as it may be in other places. people are, there is an ambient anger, resentment, and anxiety over the reduction in the standard of living here. It's not as sudden, so people aren't, haven't in the same way connected it to, say, foreign policy and political policy. However, and this is something that I've discussed for a while, I think this particular conflict is changing that dynamic because what Americans are seeing now is, you know, Americans, they'd see foreign policy and whether they liked it or not, and they'd ignore it. And then they would see the deterioration of their standard of living. And they

didn't connect the two because they were too far apart. And they were slowly a slow bleeding, frog-boiling kind of thing. Wherein now, Americans are getting the opportunity to see, here's what happens in Iran, and here's the immediate effects. And so now they're able to connect foreign policy to their domestic economic suffering in a way that they haven't before. And, of course, in the United States, as people know, you know, people like pickup trucks and SUVs and traditionally lower gas prices. And I'd said this, the one thing that will cause a revolution in the United States is high gas prices because part of our culture, you know, race cars, fast cars and big old pickup trucks and things like that. So high gas prices really bite into the traditional culture of the United States, which is a car truck culture. So people are, that's the thing I'd say.

More so than ever before, people are able to see the immediate consequences of foreign policy on their daily lives and connect them. And I think that's going to have a significant long-term effect. It's already starting to have an effect. There's one thing that I found very interesting. And that is that I read, again, it was in the British media, a long piece about the coming midterm elections. and the fact that the Republicans look very likely to lose and lose badly.

But the writer of the article made the point that if the Democrats are going to win, it's not because they are popular, because they are not. Their positivity rating is minus 20. In other words, they're actually unpopular. And that, I have to say, is very, very similar to what we've seen in Britain. recently, where we had a conservative government that collapsed in 2024. But there was no real enthusiasm for its labor replacement, which has also become unpopular as well, and that they're all lumped together within the political class.

Is that also your feeling to? Absolutely. I mean, there's been numerous issues in the U.S., in which, as an example, you have a national health service, whether somebody agrees with it or disagrees with it, 88% of Democrats were in favor of a national health service of some type in the United States. And the other 12% of the party was said, nah, we're not going to do it or we're even push forward for it, right? On the issue right now of the Israeli conflict and the West Asia conflict in general, I think 80% of Democrats are in opposition to, you know, the party's position on it. So traditionally,

what's happened in the United States for a while has been this. neither of the parties really offers anything positive for the main, you know, the working people, the average person. One party comes in over the course of four to eight years, the results are disastrous and the other party just waits. And when this, the party that's in has disastrous results, then they just waltz in nice and easy because they are not, you know, I'm not that guy over there. And that's been going back and forth. And I think that's kind of wearing down, particularly with the issue of war and peace starting to really infuriate the Democratic base. One of the things that is not talked about when it comes to the midterms, people talk about

the midterms in November. But prior to the midterms, people have to run against, you know, incumbents have to run against challengers. And what I'm watching is prior to the midterms, right, in the primaries, because what happens if the Democrats wake up and they say, okay, we're going to win in the midterms? midterms, but they see the traditional pro-war, pro-conflict, kind of neoliberal Democrats, start to lose and start to be replaced by people who are in opposition to the party's general policies that are unpopular. So I think before we talk about the midterms, we have to look at

what's happening in the primary races and see if maybe some of the things there change the dynamics. And, of course, there will be independence. So I think it's going to be interesting to watch the build-up to the primaries. We're a long ways from the primaries. But I don't think we're going to be looking at a traditional just, the Democrats versus the Republicans and the old-school Democrats that hold the old ways and the old school Republicans that do things the old way. I think the Republicans are facing that. There are people now who are looking at Lindsey Graham, the numbers are starting to turn bad for him that he might lose. So I think in both parties, watch the primaries here. There could be some dynamic shifts there. Again, if we go back to the 1960s, which is the closest,

though by no means exact parallel to what we're seeing today, when America hit the buffers, I mean, one of the things that did bring about what was actually a course correction. There was a major course correction by the United States in the 1960s was protests from below. I mean, I remember it. I can actually just, it's on the tip of my memory, but I can remember it. People came up protesting. There were huge protests, not just protests from the below, but many people in the elites started to complain and say this simply cannot continue this way. And there was, of course,

a tremendously chaotic convention in Chicago, which people like me still remember. I think in Chicago they still talk about it. But it did provide a big course correction. Is there any prospect, any possibility of a similar eruption in the United States today? I mean, there were a lot of factors that were a play then, which there aren't today. There was the civil rights movement, which had already provided a certain background of protest. There was also the issue of the draft which radicalized a lot of young people and by the way their parents, which people often overlook today. But is there anything like that, is there any possibility of something like that happening this time? Well, I think I would approach that from two directions. First being that as the summer moves on and as the prices of fuel increases and the economic pain starts to become more prominent and more obvious, I suspect that there will be increased anger in protests. That's number one. I would also argue that we live in a different world. I noticed that I have spoken at some protest.

right, and you'd speak at the protests and there were a thousand people there. And then when you look online and you see that it ran on a bunch of different, you know, alternative media spaces, you realize it had 250,000 views. And it's like, wow, if we had, that was 250,000 people there. So I think that one of the, quote, protests that I think is ongoing is the shift from mainstream media to alternative media. You know, if you add up your not. numbers, you know, the judge and in dialogue works and mine and all the various numbers. And you start

adding those numbers up to the millions of numbers. That is a people, as they say, have voted with their feet to say, I'm not watching whatever, Sky News, whatever, you know, Fox, MSNBC anymore. I'm going to go over and I'm going to kind of launch a protest vote with my eyes. I think, you know, where I'm going to go to alternative media. So I think, you know, to be quite frank, the huge shift in attitudes is both a move to alternative media and a realignment of the discussion. Because, you know, the discussion, I mean, when you look at Anderson Cooper, for God's sake, his mother was literally Gloria Vanderbilt, you know. So when you look at the people and, you know, I was at Fox and I noticed, you know, that everybody worked

there were the sons and daughters of the ruling elite. And when you see shifts to people who, you know, worked in regular jobs and who are more regular common people, some of us have had access to maybe political areas that others have, but for the most part, regular old people, you see a shift in the discussion. When things happen, the Anderson Cooper's of the world discuss how it affects the narrative, how it affects the narrative, how it affects the the plans of the political class and the ruling elite. And when people like us discuss it, we discuss the attitudes of the common man and woman and how it affects them and what they think about it. So I think the protest is a shift in focus from, we're not even going to deal with

these institutions. We don't trust them. Let's come over here and talk to people that we agree with and that we identify with on a human level. Let's talk about the other big players here. Let's talk about the Chinese and the Russians. And in some ways, actually, at this moment in time, the Russians are more interesting because they're involved more directly, I think, in both conflicts. I mean, they're obviously fighting in Ukraine. And my sense is that the Russians are saying to themselves, we've seen off the Americans in Ukraine, the Americans have lost belief in this war.

and the result is that the Europeans have taken it over and they're much, much more dangerous than the Americans are because they have so much more to lose and they're much more frightened. But that's, I think, one part of the Russian mood. The Russians are also, as we've just discussed, involved in the Iran conflict. As I said, Arachi is going to be meeting Putin So there's going to be discussions going on at that level between the Iranian and the Russian leaderships.

What do you think the Russians are saying to themselves at this particular point? The Russians have talked a lot about multipolarity, multiple poles, those sort of things. Do you think they're becoming more confident that this is coming, that this is all the pieces are falling into place? or are they on the contrary becoming more nervous, that they sense that events have a danger of spiraling out of control and that perhaps the important thing is to try to give the Americans an off-ramp. What is your feet? Well, I think the Russians, you know, if you remember, President Putin gave a speech, I think it was 2022, where he talked about this decade was going to be extremely dangerous because of the changes that were happening. And so I think the

the Russians saw this coming. I think number one, I think they're looking at the Europeans saying the Europeans are much more voted, at least the political class, is much more motivated to fight us, but much less capable, which of course makes them very, very dangerous. But they're motivated. But I think the European rulership is short on time because as their economic woes grow, they're going to be less able to, you know, drag their people into a battle because their people are going to get be getting more and more furious at the leadership. So I think the Russians are looking at this from the perspective of time is on our side, but we're in a dangerous place and we have to get through these things without either one of them, you know, blowing up, exploding or spinning

out of control. When it comes to the Europeans, I think they recognize as to many, the European leadership is in deep and serious trouble. And it's barely holding on. And any number of things could happen in Europe in any of the major countries that could cause the governments to fall. And I think this, the coming fuel emergencies are certainly a possibility. But we're the most dangerous time right now. What will the Americans do in Iran? So I think the Russians are in a strong military position because they're able to both defend themselves on their border, effectively. they're able to produce the military hardware that they need and that their allies in Iran need to defend themselves and to hold their position. So I think the Russians are, it's more like this.

The Russians, the Iranians and the Chinese are kind of holding their positions of strength. And the Americans and the Europeans are kind of punching themselves out. You know, they're swinging and they're not hitting anything. They're punching. They're getting more frustrated. And I think the Iranians, the Chinese, and the Russians are trying to hold their positions without really getting engaged in some kind of a world war and some kind of a massive war, particularly against an enemy who's out of weapons. Because if you get in a fight with an enemy that's out of weapons, even though you could easily defeat them, the only thing they've got left is nuclear weapons because they fired everything else. So it's a dangerous time. And I think the Russians are in a strong position, but they understand that just because they're in a strong position doesn't mean that they don't need to attempt to mitigate the conflict between the U.S. and others. You know, I've put it like this.

The, what's going on, particularly with Russia and China, particularly is they're managing the decline of the empire. I did a video like three years ago where I said, will Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin save the world, right? And people were like, oh, you think they're great. I said, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is they're the other two great nuclear powers. Will they be able to manage the coming conflicts in a way that you don't yell too fast too much in front of a crazy person? Because you don't want to freak them out. Will they be able to do that?

I know you've had, I think you've been to Russia fairly recently. We've had lots of people talk about a very tense atmosphere there. that there's been criticisms of President Putin and of his approach to foreign policy and to the relations with the United States. What was your impression? I was there in June of last year, which is a while back now, but anyway, I was there. My overwhelming sense was that the mood was very stable, actually, that everything was very stable and that there was a lot of confidence that the country was being.

led intelligently and wisely. But what was your sense? I mean, did you get a sense of a tense internal situation in the country? You know, I think the word that you used that important is stability. It was stable. Just, I'll put it like this. In a country that's stable, it is perfectly okay to be somewhat critical of your government's policies. You can look at your government's policies and say, well, I wish they do this differently.

I wish they do that differently. But overall, I'm comfortable and I have confidence that they're doing the right thing. So is there, when I was in Russia, is there some criticism? Now, the last time I was there, which was three weeks ago, the end of March. Interestingly enough, the biggest criticism, what really anger upset people the most was telegram and WhatsApp. aren't working or they've been slowed down and now they have a new app called Max or whatever it is and they want people to use that. It wasn't the international conflicts that was bugging people. It was the day-to-day on my phone. I use these apps to call and text my friends. They're moving slow. I got problems with the new app, which I think is healthy. And if you know anything about the

Russians, you know, they're quick to complain about their government and pushback and things like that. It's a healthy, it's not an angry distrust that the government is not on their side. It's a healthy distrust of bureaucracy, right? So it's not the same kind of government anger you'll have here in the government. Like we don't trust them. They're out to get us. It's like, dog on it. Those bureaucrats are screwing this up and it's not working right.

If anything, nothing has changed from the perspective of the only real complaints you hear about the government is that they're not assertive enough. You know, you never hear like, oh, we should let the, we should back off and go home. It's like we should punch harder. We should get harder. We should end this. Those are the complaints. But I think they're, I wouldn't say muted. But I'd say they're healthy in that that conversation is allowed to happen.

And people don't say, well, they're not hitting hard enough and fast enough. Therefore, I have no confidence in them. They're just basically saying that. So I would say things are stable. And there is a healthy conversation going on amongst the people. about things they're happy with and things they're not happy with. Last issue, basically, which is, again, about the Russians. Do they have a strategy in this situation?

I mean, because we always tend to think of the Russians as people who play chess when the Americans play poker. I'm not sure I agree with that, by the way. But do they actually have a long-term strategy here? Are they trying to defeat the United States, which I know many people believe, as part of some great clan to, I don't know quite what, take over Europe? I'm not sure what that's supposed to be. But you do hear about this, that they have a strategy to defeat the United States. Or are they trying to defend themselves?

and through that process acting as a kind of catalyst for this transition that you've been talking about, the transition away from American Empire and American Higgen. What's interesting is, if you look at what the Russians have talked about and what they have proposed, right, they could propose a new security architecture in Europe. We want a, and what would that bring them? it would bring them stability to their borders, military stability and economic stability. Now, there have been discussions, even when I was in Russia. I heard some of the discussions that there were Russians talking to Gulf Coast countries.

We've seen the foreign minister of Iran. He's now in Amman. He's in Pakistan. He's in Russia. Clearly, there are discussions going on about a security architecture in the West Asian region that, you know, may or may not be. and in this instance would likely not be led by the U.S. So I think rather than defeat of their adversaries, which the Russians will do if necessary, particularly on their borders,

I think the Russian way of doing things is to create long-term stability. And I think that's what they're looking for, stability on their borders. I think what frustrates the Russians the most is the disingenuous nature of the talks, with the, whether it's the U.S. or the NATO powers, et cetera. So I think they're shooting for stability in their region. They're shooting for stability in West Asia. And I think because as we've said, the two are inextricably linked, I think they understand if we can get stability in either one of them, it will affect the others.

And certainly they understand that all these things are connected to this long-term vision of containing China and all of that. But if any of the, say, we'll call them the three fronts, the Taiwan, Korea front, of course, the Ukraine front and the West Asia front, that if you get stability in any of those three, that it thwarts the ability of the aggressors, shall we say, to destabilize the other two. So I think that's what they're looking for. Stability, not defeat, not loss, but to close down one of these. conflicts diplomatically. Now, is that possible? I don't know, but I think that would be their, I would guess that's their goal based on my interactions with people. There's certainly an element in Russia that is very pessimistic, legitimately so, as to whether that's possible, who say,

you know, we got to punch them out because that's the only way. But I think the leadership would prefer to do it in a more diplomatic way because they understand the potential, as you just mentioned, for spinning out of control if you try to win this in a kinetic manner. Garland Lick, so this has been a brilliant program. I just wanted to say thank you very much. We've covered a huge amount of ground. And, well, I've learned an awful lot, by the way, just a second. So thank you. And, well, I look forward to having you again, Garland. Thank you. And, you know, I'd love to come back. You know, I spent the better part of a week in Grozny in the Chechnin, Chechen region of Russia. That is very interesting. I learned a lot. And so if you guys have time, I'd love to have a conversation about that. I think people could learn a lot. And I have pictures that I can send you in videos that I can send you that I've taken about from the region that kind of illustrate some of the things that I'd be discussing. The rebuilding since the war and different things like that.

Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, Garland. Thank you, Garland. Before you go, where can people follow you? Find me at the, that's T-H-E-The Garland Nixon on X and, of course, my YouTube channel, Rumble and RockFit. All right. Those are linked to the description box down below.

Thank you, Garland.