The Duran Podcast - US-Russia talks, Ukraine ceasefire w/ Commodore (Rtd) Steven Jermy (Live)

Episode Date: March 13, 2025

US-Russia talks, Ukraine ceasefire w/ Commodore (Rtd) Steven Jermy (Live)

Okay, we are live with Alexander McCurice in London, and we have the pleasure and honor to have with us for the first time on the Duran. Commodore, Steve, Jeremy. Sir, thank you so much for joining us. How are you doing today? Yeah, pleasure, Alex. I'm always a bit shocked when used the title. So please, please call me Steve. I'll get very confused otherwise. All right. Fantastic. And before we get started and talk about everything that's going on in the world, let's just say, quick hello to everyone that is watching us on Rockfin, on Odyssey, on Rumble, on YouTube, and our amazing community on locals, the durand.locals.com. And a big shout out to our amazing moderators, Valies, Peter. Good to have you with us, Zareel, also in the house.

Thank you to our moderators in the chat for everything that you do. Good to have you with us. So, Alexander, Stephen, let's be. Let's talk about all of the news that is happening with Ukraine, Russia, the United States, the EU, NATO. Trump, so much to discuss. Let's just jump right into it, Alexander. But let's just in fact focus on the military situation, the military balance in Europe. I will call him now Commodore Steve, Germany, because it is the fact that he has been a senior military officer in the Royal Navy, and he's no,

He served with NATO, he served with obviously the British military, and he is very familiar with the situation generally in militaries, but also he's been writing very incisively about the overall military picture in Europe. And this is important because at this moment in time, as a result of the great changes that appear to be happening in the international situation, there is a sudden vast outcry across Europe that the Americans are about to abandon us whether that is true or not who can say but that the Americans are about to abandon us

and we must rearm and there are lots of proposals and discussions about how to rearm and how much money should be spent to rearm and huge figures of being spoken about in Europe less so in my opinion in, Britain, if I have to be honest, but anyway, but large sums of money. And as far as I can see, not very clear idea about how it's going to be spent and what it's going to be spent on.

But let's first of all talk about the actual situation militarily in Europe, because, Steve, I can call you this, you wrote recently a very interesting article on responsible statecraft, which I should say to those who don't read it. They should read it. They should absolutely read responsible state craft. They should look up this article by Commodore. It's linked in the description box. Exactly. Which describes the current military situation in Europe. And it makes the, I think for some people, rather alarming title or alarming point that at this moment in time, if it ever came to a war, a conventional war between us and the Russians, I say, us in Europe and the Russians, we probably wouldn't win. I mean, it is an academic point,

because let's hope there is no such war. And of course, I personally find it impossible to imagine a war like that where we would not run the enormous dangers of escalation into nuclear weapons. But it's the conventional balance that people are talking about. Now, people don't seem to be as afraid of nuclear weapons as they were. And, well, perhaps if you could just briefly summarise your points, the points you made in that article, and then we could take it forward. Yeah, that's very kind, Alexander. The article, as you say, was based on the theoretical situation of a war, a conventional war between NATO and NATO with America on board and Russia. The key point being that most people assume that NATO could dominate and sort of win that war.

You'll often hear it said that NATO is the greatest alliance ever. It's simply untrue. The greatest alliance ever was in the Second World War, I would say, and it was between the Allies, which included the Americans, the Russians, Britain, and its Commonwealth nations, and of course China. That was by far the greatest alliance. When you look at NATO as it currently stands, then were we to be in the situation of a conventional war with Russia? What that would mean would be that the war would extend beyond the boundaries of Ukraine into the whole of the NATO hinterland. So if you then look at the key elements of how we would mobilize for that war, please rest assured it's a theoretical thing.

It would be about the most strategically stupid thing that we could do. And that's saying something, because we've done many stupid things so far. But first of all, we're not mobilised for war and it would take us at best if we were going quickly two to three years, but more like five to ten years. So we would be obviously out-mobilized by Russia in such a situation, who is already partly mobilised for war. A good example, for example, with the American Army, currently about 427,000. It might be slightly lower than that, according to Daniel Davis, versus an army in Russia at 1.4.4,000. five million or their bounds. And all the NATO armies, all the European armies are much smaller. I think the French and the Germans are probably about the largest. Having then got that

mobilization underway, we'd have to get the kit from America and the soldiers, etc., to Europe. And that means going by sea. The majority would have to come by sea. And there we would run the gauntlet of both Russian submarines and mines. experts in anti-submarine warfare during the early post-cold war period with the British and I certainly was one of my specialist areas and at the moment we we I look at the anti-submarine warfare forces in Britain and there are a third of the size that they were in 1985 and that matters because the number of units matters because maintaining pressure on submarines is very difficult so

Those logistics and troops, which did survive the journey across, would then arrive in ports. And those ports are vulnerable to attack by Arrachnik and other ballistic conventional weapons, the hypersonic weapons against which we have no defence, none whatsoever. One of my jobs in the Navy was to command an air defence destroyer with anti-air missiles. And I can assure you, I think we'll be lucky to have any defence against. those in five years and probably more like 10 years are extremely difficult targets hypersonic missiles so those are against both the logistics but also of course our energy infrastructure people often say that Putin has been attacking the ukrainian civilians i i simply don't believe it i think he's

been attacking the energy infrastructure for the very good reason that actually it's a critical part of maintaining his forces forward and of of course there have been collateral damage a result of those attacks. But we would expect the same here. And I think in the article I said that if an original missile hit somewhere like South Hampton or Rotterdam, an LNG tanker position, then the effects will be sub-nuclear. You know, these are extraordinary effects. And so, again, the energy infrastructure would start to shut down our economies. We then got to think about the troops that we would be deploying into the front line.

And there's no doubt in my mind that by far the most experienced and the most battle-hardened of the two parties is Russia. And they're now three years into this, and they've largely speaking defeated the Ukrainian army. We have a disparate bunch of armed forces in NATO from the small to the medium-sized to the larger Americans. but none of them with the experience that Russia now has, nor the, I would say, the battle-tested equipment that Russia now has as well. So when you're actually in NATO, it's much more disparate than people think. I mean, some of the Baltic states, for example, have almost nothing.

Very brave people, please don't get me wrong, but you also get very different levels of training and very different standards of equipment. So it's very much a disparate bunch, whereas in Russia you've got a single set of logistics supporting a single armed force which is trained to a single set of standards. And last, but by no means least, is NATO can't do strategy. In fact, it's useless at it. I wrote a book when I left the service called Strategy for Action, using force wisely in the 21st century. It's not a plug for the book because it's out of print, but I wrote it because I realized how badly we were doing strategy. I'm sad to say it was a failure in as much as I was hoping it would prevent these sorts of poor thinking.

But looking back to Afghanistan, I served in Afghanistan in 2007. And when I arrived at the theatre, the most extraordinary thing was to find out that six years into that campaign with the NATO headquarters having taken over, there was no strategy. And the organisation of the forces were pretty poor. So that to me doesn't sound like a good starting point if we were over. to be in a conventional war and it also gives you, I think, Alexander, a sense of the scale of the challenge that we would need to meet to be getting anywhere near to be able to confront Russia and multiply that challenge by a factor about 10 if the Americans are not involved, which I think is that would be the case. I think we can all quickly say that everything that we have just

been saying here and will say today about the NATO militaries is not in any way. to criticize the actual men and women who serve in them. These are structural problems, and I think you've outlined them very comprehensively. And I wonder whether the politicians understand them, because unless you have a strategy, and strategy is something that is conducted at multiple levels, it has to be an economic and industrial strategy,

technological strategy as well. then throwing money at a problem is not going to address the problem. Now, you have to use money, but you have to use it intelligently. Now, before we did this program, in fact, before I knew we were going to do this program, I was actually reading a few books about Jackie Fisher, who, as a British naval officer, you will know all about him. And the thing was, he basically carried out a massive reform of the British Ruffalo, Royal Navy in the 19th century. But the thing that really struck me about this was how incredibly

comprehensive it was at every level. It wasn't just build more ships or spend more money. It was looking at how industry was organized, how the service was orchestrated. It was all about strategy. It was all about those sort of things. We don't seem to have that ability to break through now. You mentioned that you've written a book. Fisher wrote lots of our articles, and they got through to the public, and they informed the discussion, and they enabled the process of reform to work its way through. But again, we don't seem to have anything like that either. And when we talk about strategies also, we need diplomatic strategies.

And at the moment, we don't seem to have that still. And one of the diplomatic strategies is we look at this situation, which you've described. And we have the adversary who we've decided is our enemy. But we don't, it seems to me, have any clear understanding of the threat if there is one. Because the Russians have capability, but are they intending it to use? it in the kind of aggressive way that the rhetoric suggests. So I'm just throwing up points now rather than questions, but perhaps you'd like to respond to them. Yeah, no, it's my view. And when the war kicked off in January 2022, to be perfectly honest, I had not seen it coming.

I had a little bit about it. I mean, I now work in the offshore energy sector, the offshore renewables and offshore oil and gas sector supporting them. So it hadn't been top of my top of the pops in terms of what I was looking at. But I was quick to come to the analysis and I think one of the great things that the book that I learned through the book was how to really think strategically. And you'll be surprised how poorly this is taught in the West. But it was fairly quick to, I was fairly quick to come to the conclusion that actually this was the consequence of NATO expansion, and it's the view that I still hold. To my mind,

there are two sets of people. There are the expansionists who think that this is nothing to do with NATO expansion. Putin's an evil man, and that we're supporting the heroic Zanetsky and the Ukrainians in this fight. There are others who are the realists. Now, the realists, interestingly, are increasingly coming to the four, I think. I mean, the three of us here, I think, would probably describe this as such. We would see the history going into this conflict. And it starts as far back as 1996 when George Keenan, one of the greater strategic thinkers ever,

said that this would be the greatest foreign policy mistake that would be possible to actually expand NATO. And as most recently, John Meersheimer, his predictions of what would happen in 2014 were eerily accurate. what the expansionist base, they are help, they are mercifully immune of something which we really suffer from, which is prescience. Their forecast are almost always wrong. So that tells me that their diagnosis is wrong as well. So I think our diagnosis is much closer.

It's much more complex than just saying it's to do solely with expansion of NATO. But I think that's the primary factor. So I think in my mind, the NATO expansion is critical to this. But it also means in my mind that I don't think I've seen any evidence. And I listen regularly to John Misham on this, any evidence that Russia does indeed want to take more of Europe. I mean, why would it want more of Europe? I love John Misham, as he is discussing about taking more of Ukraine. He said it would be like swallowing a porcupine.

Well, if you're taking on Europe, I think that's a bit of Europe. be swallowing a whole number of porcupines and I can think of no reason why the Russians would want to do it, nor any benefits that they would get from it. So I think we've got that bit wrong. I think we've also underestimated, and I can talk more to this, Alexandra, if you'd like, I underestimated what it really means to do the sorts of industrial mobilisation that we're talking about based on time when I was in the Ministry of Defence in our policy planning department. I would be very very very, much want you to talk about that if I was going to ask you about it. It's because obviously it's something that I take an interest in.

I used to do work as an industrial lawyer, so I have some interest in, I have a general interest in industrial matters. But if you could talk to that, please. Yeah, sure. The policy plan department is the department, there's one in the FCO and the Foreign Office in Britishman's Foreign Office. That's the department which writes strategy. So although I was a carrier aviator,

and commanded ships. I was also what's known as for my sins, a Whitehall warrior, which is basically getting involved in Whitehall and within that particular department. I was there when 9-11 happened and over a period of six months, almost immediately after 9-11,

we wrote British Defence Policy. There were two key elements of it, the core policy area, which my director led, and I was the Deputy Director and worked on what were known as the Defence Planning Assum. Those are the assumptions that we would make in terms of what and how we would use our own forces and what that would mean for the force structures which came out of that.

That was a very rapid piece of work and we did it in six months where it would normally take two years to do this sort of analysis. Now if people really believed that Russians were about to come over the border, this work would be happening at speed. Britain is doing a defence review, but I would be surprised if they're doing it with a view for us to be for us to be fully mobilised for a war in the next two years, not leastful, because we couldn't do it. But that analysis would need to be done and we'd have to have a very clear understanding of what it is that we wanted to do with the forces and what indeed all of the Europeans wanted to do with the forces as well. All different Ministry of Defence all over Europe would need to be doing the same thing. I can't see an evidence of that. There may be, I don't know. There's a lot of noise. But as I said before, I'm afraid that it seems to me that Europe, well, less so American now, but the West has been driven, largely speaking, by a political narrative, whereas Russia has been driven by a military strategy.

And it's the military strategy which is winning out. And unfortunately, so many of us or so many of our elites still seem to be seduced by the political narrative that they've, that they've constructed and are following. Can I just ask, does NATO actually have anything equivalent to a sort of general staff or chiefs of general staff structure, that kind of integration, military integration at the top? Because I mean, when he hears about the military commander of NATO, who's always an American, as far as I can tell. But I've never understood what kind of.

the structure exists beneath him. Yeah, I'm very out of date on this, Alexander, but let me give you what it was like, and I suspect it still is. I mean, I left the service in 2010. But essentially, there were two Supreme headquarters in NATO. The first was Supreme Allied Commanders in Europe, which was always headed up by an American force staff, and an integrated military and political staff in Brussels.

And then Supreme Eleanor Command in your Atlantic, SACLAN, as we knew it, which was headed up by a, I think it was an American Ambron and a British deputy, but it might have been the other way. And that was, from memory, I think that was in Newport, Rhode Island. And then underneath there, there are a number of, there are lower level headquarters. A good example is Regional Command South. and I was corresponding with my brother on this after I'd done the first article. He's also an ex-naval officer. And his amusing feedback was that when he went into most recently, when he was last in regional command south, he was astonished, habloted and heavier it was.

I'm a huge fan of General Slim, who was the, ran the 14th Army in the Malayan campaign in the Second World War. He had a staff of about 24, I think, to run a full army group. I think Regional Command South is something like about 900. And my brother was saying that he was tripping over Brigadier Generals. And from experience, there is always a bit of a competition amongst the different nations to make sure they have some place amongst those different command appointments.

So it suffers from that, I think, a bloated headquarters. because it also suffers from the need usually. In fact, almost, I think it's always the case where the military staffs and the political staffs need always to refer back to their nations to get agreement to things. And of course, doing that with 20 or so nations was bad enough, but doing it with an expanded NATO

will be even more difficult. So decision making is anything but slugly. and effective. Is that one of the reasons why we don't do strategy well? There's far too many people involved in the discussions. I mean, if you don't have,

if you have a vast, cumbersome bureaucracy beneath you, I've worked in bureaucracies, a civil service bureaucracy. And I mean, the strategy is not something that comes out of that. A bureaucratic infighting often does. I don't say it always does, but it often does. But

that strategising is not something that comes out of a system where there are so many people involved, each of them with different views. I mean, having written about this, the key thing is that it doesn't, but it should, because one of the ways in which you get large organisations moving the right direction is having by a very clear strategy, but you're right, I'm afraid. The West has lost the skill of doing strategy. We used to be good at it, and a very good example. is during the Second World War.

In the Second World War, there were, in my recollection, 10 separate, might have been 17 separate conferences between the British, the Americans and the Russians on strategy to guide the war. They were, and some of them were as long as 10 days. During my time in the Ministry of Defence, and as a one star in the working at that level, when we were running both Iraq.

I say the Americans were leading, but the rest of us were supporting both Iraq and Afghanistan. I cannot think of one single conference in which we sat down and talked about strategy. And if you think about it, that doesn't make sense at all. I would be interested to see if it's got any better. I honestly don't know Alexander on this current campaign, but what I can say is that having written a book on strategy,

I think I would know a strategy of NATO's if I saw it, and I've seen no sign of it in the last two to three years. Is this partly because of the way in which the politicians interact with the military today? One of the great changes that's happened over the course of my lifetime is that the politicians have very little connection with the military any longer. Once upon the time, I can remember in the House of Commons, lots of military officers, lots of people who fought in the Second World War. And if you go back further still, that was even more so.

That was even more the case. There was understanding between the military and the politicians, which doesn't exist anymore. And at the highest level, it's government, it's politicians who determine strategy. I mean, that's what Churchill did and people like him did and other leaders did in the past. I think that's right. I think there are two parts of it, I think, and possibly three. The first is that we have politicians who many are much, have little military experience and so have to rely more on their military and diplomatic officials to support them.

And I think the second part of it, there is also a feature of the last 25 or so years, has been the increasing use of spin in politics and the need for the narrative to dominate which has unhelpfully polluted thinking and strategy. And I think the third bit, I'm afraid to say that I think I'm not sure that we've got military officers at the most senior levels who either have adequate strategic capability or have been properly trained in it. And I have a very simple test for this, which is that if you look back over the last 25 years, For me, strategic competence comes through success. And for a strategy to be successful, and I have free tests, was it effective, was it efficient in terms of the resources, and were the results enduring?

And as I look back over Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and now Ukraine, I can't think of a single success. So what we now have is a situation where we have not four, not one, but actually I would say four, gusting five military deficient. all of which are failures in our strategy. There is a wonderful French general who I looked at in detail during the writing of the book called Andre Befrey. And he said in 1963 that in war, the loser deserves to lose because his defeat will be due to failures of thinking, either before or during the campaign. And in that one expression, I think you have the explanation for all five of those defeats. five of those defeats.

That is actually extraordinary because you would expect the people who know and do strategy best to be soldiers. I mean, we're both Greeks. I mean, Alex and I are both Greeks. Strategy is a Greek word. And it is connected to war. The Greek word for general is a Stratigos, somebody who does strategy. So this is where it comes from. You would have thought that without a grasp of strategy, there is no real ability to command just to ask you. I think there may be a couple of other things as well in it, but no, rest assured that even though the book's out of print, the Greek derivation of the word is in the book.

I'm pleased to say as well the book is still required reading at the Royal College of Defence Studies. But when I look back, there's another book which is written by another neighbour colleague of mine called Losing Small Wars. It's by, I can't remember his second name, Frank. I can't remember his second name, but anyway, it's on our defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one of the things that Frank points to is the poor generalship.

And I think he's right. And I think that, unfortunately, we have a set of senior officers who've been involved in, largely speaking, smaller wars where they're not against peer-to-peer opponents. And so it's, although they've lost, it hasn't mattered so much and hasn't been so visible that they've been unsuccessful. So we haven't had that the issue which happens in almost all wars, which is that you pretty soon get rid of those generals and admirals and their marshals who can't do the job and replace them with those that can. Don't think that there aren't those that can. There are. But I'm not sure that I see anywhere in the higher structures.

of any of the Western militaries, generals who have been, and emmails who have been successful. Danny Davis, who I think you know well, takes a similar view. And I think the results are there for us to see. It's a bit like the Victorian Navy that Jackie Fisher had to take over. Because again, they were people who were all involved in Victorian Navy, doing the small gunboat things.

but it took a fissure to think about how to conduct a proper war against a peer opponent. So it's not that different. So what do we do? What do we do in this situation? We have problems. Again, it's understanding the problems, also it seems to me, that lead ultimately to the solutions. So what I'm taking from this is. is that first of all, we need to take a big hard look

at what kind of militaries we have. Again, to stress, this is not a criticism of the people who serve in them. It's a criticism of how they're organized and what their structures are. So we need to look at the militaries first, and then we need to shape our militaries and our industrial and economic strategies

to support them around, the kind of military that we want to have, and that in turn has to be related to the actual problem, the actual challenge that we are facing. Do we understand the challenge? Do political leaders understand the points that you made in your article, your responsible statecraft article? Because they're all telling every article,

I read time after time, I read people in the Guardian. We're so much stronger than the Russians. You know, they would never dare to fight us, and any that kind of thing. Do they have any understanding of this? Obviously not. Do they understand what the Russians are about? I can't speak for those serving, but I've got friends, of course, who are ex-British armed forces. I can think of one particular friend who's Major General Royal Marines, great Amaranis, and we're good friends as well. And he said the article was on the money. And I haven't had a single person who's come back to me and said this article was

wrong. So, you know, I think that's the first bit of it. But when you say what do we do, I think the most important thing by far is diagnosis. We must diagnose how this happened. Time and again, we've been involved in situations where we failed to diagnose what was really the situation on the ground. A good example is Afghanistan, where we sort of saw this as a Afghan Taliban, Afghan insurgency. Taliban weren't interested in us and it was a passionate insurgency. And we felt that we won quickly, whereas actually it was much, much more complex. So the diagnosis was always wrong and the war went badly. I think getting our diagnosis and really understanding and being honest with ourselves

about what's happened and if necessary, being critical with ourselves about what happened is the first thing. Because then that would allow us to get into these negotiations in a much more intelligent way. I think the Americans are ahead of the Europeans on this. and they're moving reasonably quickly. Clearly not all Americans are, but I think they've gone from an expansionist mode to a realist mode. And then once we've got our diagnosis right,

we can start to hopefully think about what it means for the armed forces that we want to construct. My diagnosis is that there are two elements to the problem. First is NATO expansion. Possibly three, although they're interrelated. The first is NATO expansion. The second is NATO-Spanion. strategy, which I would call confrontational security.

We're not seeking to do collective security, which is what NATO pretends to do. It's actually confrontational security. We're marching NATO up to Russia's borders and then being surprised that Russia doesn't like it. I mean, imagine if the situation were reversed, and it was Mexico and China, sorry, Mexico, who were having Chinese forces marching up to America's borders, the United States borders. There's not a chance in hell it would happen. So I think we've got to be honest about ourselves and understand that we fail to understand

Russia's legitimate security interest. I think the next thing is to think about NATO and whether NATO really is the answer to the problem. I think it's actually the primary obstacle to the problem. Furthermore, it would take a long time to get NATO back in shape, so much so that I'm not even sure that it's recoverable. I've been interested in the past, I'm more interested now in the OSCE,

which is the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, because that's based around, and the clue is in the title, is based around cooperation, and Russia is a member of that, as indeed all are all the NATO members. I think that's a much better approach, and the idea of collective security, where it's no longer zero-sum, but non-zero-sum, and we each take account of the other's legitimate security interests,

will be a much better basis to start thinking about it. It doesn't mean to say that we don't want to have some sort of, refresh of what we're doing with our own forces. But to start on the assumption that we'll be going to war with Russia is I think it's a failing assumption. The Europeans on their own won't be able to do it anyway. So I think we'd be much better to start on the basis of a proper diagnosis of the problem and understanding what sort of security architecture is likely to give us sustainable peace in the long term in Europe. I mean, if I think back to 1648 and the Treaty of Westphalia, That brought to a conclusion the 80-year war and the 30-year war, and it was hard work,

but the Europeans did it. And they did, as a result of that, they put in place a lot of the elements of the international legal regime that are still in place to this day. So that, for me, is the inspiration and the idea of collective security in which the Russians are part, rather than confrontational security, in which the Russians are the enemy. which if we go to Versfalia it was also of course where diplomacy modern diplomacy began that that was where the rules of diplomacy and the concepts of diplomacy we understand them were created well talking to the Russians might be then the right thing

to do and could it also be the case that as I remember happened during the Cold War we had contacts, military-to-military contacts with the Russians at that time. We don't, it seems to me, have any at the moment. I mean, I may be wrong, but I'm not aware of any. But there used to be a time, as I remember, when we did talk to the Russians at a military level, as well as a diplomatic one. And that might help to take us forward,

and it would help us to understand them better and what their security concerns are. I mean you have to look back as far as Gorbachev and you have to congratulate whatever you think of these three people, Gorbachev, Thatcher and Reagan. You have to congratulate them for actually getting into a discussion. And I think it was Thatcher who brought them together because she felt that Gorbache was somebody that we could do business with. And so it proved. And I think that I found it astonishing that we have been unable to maintain a bit. of diplomatic dialogue indeed seen as something that's almost evil I simply can't understand it

even during the the 38 years or so of the British engagement in Northern Ireland there were very subtle contacts going on with the IRA those were continued throughout the thing and eventually it was part of the thing that led us to peace so talking is surely essential I found Ian Proud's book misfit in Moscow fascinating on this and was ashamed, frankly, that the British embassy in Moscow had only two Russian speakers. It's not just a failure of the military, I think

it's a failure of the diplomatic service as well in that respect. And somehow it's due to a sort of Russophobia, which I simply don't understand. I have worked a little bit with the Russians because I was involved in sea training

in the late 90s. And and there we were part of something which was an element of the Partnership for Peace Programme, which came after the end of the Cold War. And there we were involved in something called Rutgers, which was Russia, UK, US naval exercises. We conducted one in the Plymouth areas. And to be honest, it was terrific, so to be able to do, and we were, of course, all cautious about each other. But that said, the fact that we were working together was I felt was terrific, especially as someone who spent all of his career up until that moment, planning to fight the Russians.

I should just say, my own personal opinion is that one of the reasons for these problems that we have with the militaries today is precisely because we've pursued this policy of confrontation and refusing to conduct dialogue and all of these things. because, again, coming back to your further point, we're not dealing with a reality-based policy at any level. So how can you expect the military to, you know, be properly structured and organized and disciplined or all of those sort of things?

Well, you've certainly given us a great thing, a great deal, seem to think about here. Do you think there's any possible chance that some kind of a dialogue between Britain and Russia might restart. I mean, that's a huge question. But at the moment, the Americans are doing it, are we really going to try and push on without the Americans? I mean, I find out a fantastic idea of myself.

But anyway, what do you think? I think the chances of a dialogue between the Russians and the Britons and the Europeans and the Britain are high. And the reason is that I think that America's already, engaged in it. I said some time ago in a podcast with Daniel Davis that people were asking what Putin wanted and what could Trump offer him. I said what Trump could offer him was a relationship and it's a relationship at the senior level and so it appears to be developing. I happen to congratulate Trump on that. Again, whatever you think is politics. The fact that he is talking

and talking will be the key to this eventually. I think the question for Europeans is whether they get drag kicking and screaming into this dialogue, which the Americans are going to conduct whether the Europeans like it or not, or whether they actually start to see at last that it would be a good thing to do. I think what the Europeans have, it seems to me, missed is the Americans are now operating to a different set of what they see as national security priorities. First, I think, is in America itself, not least of all, which is the the political civil war going in America between the Trump administration and the deep state and neolibs and neocons. And that's a critical confrontation, it seems to me. And so, you know,

who can see why Trump doesn't see Europe as anything else than the sideshow while he's got these bigger things to fry? Number two, I would say, is what's happening in the Middle East, which is much more critical to the West's interest, given that the criticality that we still place in oil coming from the Middle East, which itself looks like a much more complex problem to solve and a tinderbox. Number three is China, Taiwan, and of course South Korea and North Korea. Number four is probably the Americas themselves and sort of rethinking through their regional hegemony and how that works.

And then bottom of the list is number five is Europe and Ukraine. And I think that the Americans are looking at their national interests. And I think they must be very frustrated, I would imagine, with the Europeans who seem to be doing almost everything they can to keep the war going, which is 180 degrees counter to what the Americans are trying to achieve. As I looked at the European plan, almost every element of the four point plan, or certainly three of the four elements, is designed it seems to me to keep the war going, or at least set up a negotiative dialogue, which Russia will simply refuse to enter entry because it goes against three of Russia's four conditions that it's set.

Commodore, Stephen, Jeremy, thank you very much of this very enlightening programme, concerning in some ways, but nonetheless important, and it's important that we know these things. However bad a situation is, it's always better to know what it actually. is retreat into narratives. That is indisputably true. So if you can just stay there for a short while, I'll pass over to Alex. I'm sure he'll have some questions to put to you, just for a short while. If you have five minutes to answer two or three questions? I'd love to Alex. And just as a prelude to that, can I just say as well from those of us who

in the world of European cults who seem to think expansion is of the answer. It's so important to have people like you two and Daniel Davis and Judge Napolitano and others to have as our access to the information which is much closer to the truth that we get from the mainstream media. So thank you to all you do. Thank you. Thank you for your work and for your articles. Once again on the article that Alexander mentioned in the beginning of the video, I have that linked in the description box down below, so definitely check that out. I will also add it as a pinned comment as well when the live stream ends. Definitely an amazing article from Commodore, Stephen, Jeremy. So I'm going to ask you,

I'm going to reword a question from Nicos because I know that there may be some things on British policy that you cannot answer, but I'm going to reword it in a way that I believe you can answer it. Does the British military agree with the British, foreign policy, specifically the Russian foreign policy at the moment? I can't speak from the knowledge of knowing, but I can guess what I think the situation would be. I think that, I mean, it is generally the case that the military is guided, and this will be the same across the world, but it's guided by foreign policy. And that's probably its primary guide, one of its two primary guides, the second guide,

is making sure that it has adequate capabilities to do the jobs which are sort of what I would call the harder-ed jobs, starting with the security of your own territory and of the security of your own critical supplies and those sorts of things. So I would think that the British military are aligned. Again, I can't speak for current military officers. I'm not speaking to any of them. But I would guess that I'm afraid that many would be still, what's the best way to put this? I think they would still be seduced, I'm afraid, to say, by the narrative. I'm afraid there's far too much constructed in the narrative has led to the situation where people think it's actually true, even though it's evidentially not true. Let me give you an example.

Time again, I hear people talking about the millions, the million plus of Russian casualties, and the sort of 100,000 or 40,000 of Ukrainian casualties. Let's contrast that with something else, which is that we all know that ammunition is a critical issue for the Ukrainian army. And we all know that Russia is outproducing ammunition at a rate of, that outproducing the whole of the West. Now, for those of us experienced in war, artillery is critical. And artillery was the biggest killer in the First World War,

and I strongly suspect that it's the biggest killer in this war. So how can it be that the Ukrainians who have about a tenth of the ammunition of the Russians are managing with that tenth of the ammunition to produce 10 times as many casualties? It makes no sense whatsoever. But despite that, you'll find some military officers who are still probably saying that actually the Russians are the bad people here. And so we need to support. At the lower level, though, I've had a couple of bits of feedback. by ex-military people, both army people.

I don't know what their names are, but they're responding to podcasts that I've done in the past. And it's clear that they're coming around to the view that we've got this all wrong. And I think the thing that I just noticed in Afghanistan was that the British public got there before the politicians and the elites.

And I suspect it was the same with the Americans and I suspect it was the same across Europe. And, and I suspect it was the same across Europe. I think that we're starting to see, I'm just starting to see the first signs of people saying, somehow that this isn't making sense. And I hope that continues. So that's not a proper answer to your question, Alex, but it's probably the best I can give for now. Great answer.

Great answer. From Russell Hall, modern warfare, carrier groups is equal to sitting ducks. Lars Walter asks, are carriers obsolete? Yeah, it's a good question. And as a carrier aviates, you'd expect me to have a view on it. When I answer this question, the question really holds not around carriers initially, but it hose around whether you want to use air power. Because what the carrier can do which an airfield can't do is move.

And what an airfield can't do is move, and therefore that means that an airfield is vulnerable to hypersonic missiles. If you ask me, when was a Western carrier last hit and last damaged in war? I can tell you it was 1945 of Okinawa, certainly British aircraft carriers and American aircraft carriers due to the kamikazis. When was the last, when would, well, a British or an airfield in which British troops were hit? I'm not sure if there may have been one most recently, but it certainly was as recently as 2005 in Afghanistan just before I was out there and a cheap Chinese missile had been used and it's essentially written off to British, British, carriers. So I'm not saying that carriers aren't vulnerable. Of course, they're vulnerable, but actually if you want to use air power, they're probably less vulnerable than static airfields, which have no ability to move and they have less defense against hypersonic missiles

than carriers do. Carriers are also vulnerable to submarines, of course, and so that's why you need submarine forces. But in terms of defence, being able to move and being able to be less targetable is an advantage. There's an open question about whether the Chinese and Russian satellite systems are able to target carriers and how we would defend against that. To give you an example, during the Falklands War, I was an HMS invincible. We were targeted, but even though we were targeted with a sort of known position, we were able to use decoys to, and the The ships and the whole force did this to actually decoy the missiles that were fired out and this.

So you've got more options than carry, but I'm not going to say that it's invulnerable. Right. One more from Paul Walker. I used to work in battle group mains and div HQs. The amount of notdling dogs is unreal. To my detriment, I would point out obvious flaws which irritate a few. Multinational HQs are 10 times worse. No outside the box thinking.

Your thoughts. Yeah, I worked, I was the sort of deputy commander in standing NATO force Mediterranean. NATO in those days, when we were sort of having our light-hearted moments, stood for nobility to organise. And standing NATO, force, Mediterranean stood for situation, normal, something mystery. I won't say what the F was, but you can guess. And I think that it's very difficult to do this, whereas I'm not saying that it's not possible, for a force in which you're doing, for example, insurgency operation, you've got a better chance. Although, let's face it, NATO was defeated by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

It's not quite as simple of that. But doing it with a peer-to-peer war-fighting capabilities such that the Russians have, I would really struggle. Before arriving in Afghanistan, I read the Russian general staffs, review of their 10-year campaign and i was impressed by the professionalism of it so to say that the russians are incompetent is is completely counter to the truth and yeah unless you've had the sorts of build-up that um that the allies managed to achieve in the second world war then then no i really struggle with neto hqs fantastic

commenter steven jeremy thank you so much for for joining us on the durand thank you for answering some of the questions from our viewers. We appreciate everything that you do, and we look forward to having you on again very soon. Thank you very much. Yeah, my pleasure to the two of you. And as I say, well done for all your work here. I would give you what we would call in the name of Bravo Zulu, which is a flagstack, flag hoist, which means well done. So bravo zulu. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Take care. Have a great day. Bye. Senator, you with us? I absolutely am.

Great show, great guest, great guest, Governor Stephen Jeremy. Once again, I have the article that Alexander was referencing from Responsible Statecraft linked below. Fantastic article. I'm getting a sense, by the way, that there is growing sense in the British military that this isn't going well. By the way, and I'm going to make a further guess that what's probably played a big role in making all those doubts come together is this idea of sending troops to Ukraine. But it's probably a topic

that one shouldn't talk about at the moment because it's a policy subject. So I think the Commodore might have been constrained in what he could say about it. I'm pretty sure I can guess what it would have been. I'm hearing a cat in the back. Do you have a cat there? You are indeed.

There is a most annoying cat that is howling in the... background and there's cool it's cool i was just wondering where am i hearing there from i don't have a cat here so yeah there are there are two cats in this house together with two dogs and three children just so okay okay well i love cats so all good all good so before we we answer the questions alexander um i'm just going to read you what putin said during the press conference with lukashenko Kind of breaking news. And I'm reading this transcript, this translation from RT.

So this is what they say Putin said when he was asked about the 30-day ceasefire plan from Trump that was agreed on in Jeddah Saudi Arabia. I'm just going to read you what Putin said according to RT. And then I would like you to comment on this because there's going to be a lot of discussion about what he said. let's see russia supports the idea of ending the hostilities in the ukraine conflict but needs any potential ceasefire to facilitate a long-term peace russian president vladimir puttina said speaking during a bilateral meeting with belarusian president alexander lupischenko putton noted quote we agree with the proposals to cease hostilities but this secession must be such that it would lead to long-term peace and eliminate the initial causes of this crisis.

Moscow has a number of questions about the U.S. ceasefire proposal that will need to be raised in upcoming talks, Putin explained. I think that we need to discuss this with our American colleagues and partners, he said. Maybe we could discuss this with President Trump over the telephone. The Russian leader added, notwithstanding, Russia supports the idea. of diplomatically ending the conflict, he said. That's the latest from this press conference. Maybe he's going to say some more.

Maybe he'll get some more questions. I imagine, Alexandria, this was a planted question towards Putin, so he could give his answer. So anyway, your initial thoughts on what I just read to you. Once again, that is from, that translation is from RT. Yeah, I mean, he's in effect in a very polite way rejecting this proposal because it was a 30-day. unconditional proposal. It was a proposal for a ceasefire without any conditions. And the Russians have already said no, but to that previously before this proposal was put to them. And now it's been put to them. And, you know, he's saying, look, we're not against ending the war.

Of course, we want to end the war. But we can't do it. We can't have a ceasefire like this. We've got lots of questions, but at the same time, we don't want you to take our no as a sign that we're shutting the door on you. We are still prepared to take this forward. We're prepared to meet with you, to discuss this, to talk with you, to see where we can go. But we're not going to accept this proposal. It doesn't make any sense to us. That's how I read it as well. There are already a lot of outlets which are saying.

Putin accepts the ceasefire and stuff like that. But that's not how you read it at all. No. No, I'm going to agree. Yeah. Yeah, that's not how it should be read. Okay, so breaking news. Interesting comment from Putin.

Very well played. Would you agree that he played this well? A diplomat. Oh, absolutely. The point is he doesn't want there to be a breakdown in the discussions with the Americans. The Americans have moved a very, very long. way in towards the Russian position. I think you will underestimate this. The Americans have got the Ukrainians to move a long way too. I mean, that statement that came out of the Jeddah talks,

no security guarantees mentioned, no European peacekeeping forces mentioned, no, no fly zones, because that's what the British proposal was, the British French proposal was. None of that mentioned. And as for the Europeans, well, the Ukrainians want them to participate, but the Americans made no commitment that they should. So this is, as I said, something that the Russians are noting, but we have a long, long way to go. And I think that, you know, there'll be discussions. You probably speak to Trump over the course of the next couple of days. Usherkov, who is his foreign policy aid will meet with waltz. But as I said, when, you know, he's a foreign policy aid will meet with waltz. But as I said, when as we say in, as lawyers like to say, when you say, well, we're going to add, we're going to set conditions before you, before we accept something, that is actually a rejection.

Before we get to the questions, I just want to ask you one more comment if you can. How do you think Trump is going to, the Trump White House is going to receive this response from Putin? how do you think the Europeans are going to look at it, the EU NATO? The Americans are going to take this positively. Trump is going to take this positively. That is my own personal view. He wants to end this war. He understands he needs Putin's help to end this war, because Putin is, after all, one of the participants in the war. So he will take this positively. And we will see probably a further meeting between the Russians and the Americans over the next couple of days. And I'm guessing that there will be a,

summit meeting before long. And Trump, my own senses, will not be angry, will not be offended. He won't rush off and impose more sanctions or do anything stupid like that. He will move forward and try to come to some kind of an understanding with Putin as to the way forward. And I think, by the way, a key part of this is that both the Americans and the Russians are already agreed about one thing. and I suspect they have talked about it already with each other, and that is that Vladimir Zelensky must go.

Yeah. And the other parties, Zelensky, the Europeans, UK, NATO, how are they going to look at this response? How they're going to look at this. I'm not sure that they have the sophistication to understand it. That's one thing to say. But putting that aside, my own guess is that they will. try to, they will not be pleased. Let's put it that way. Their major concern is not about whether

Ukraine survives or falls or whether, and, you know, their major concern is that the Americans and the Russians seem to be coming together. I've said this many times in many programs. And this response by the Russians, instead of slamming the door in a way that would make the American and the Russians go further apart is going to feed their worry that the Americans and the Russians are indeed coming together. All right. Fantastic. Let's get to some questions.

Anna, welcome to the Dran community. Sarsi, welcome to the Dran community. Nikos says, actually, let me read you, Nikos's full question. He was going, what he wanted to ask the Commodore, which we had to just edit it a bit because of certain restrictions for the Commodore in answering questions. But Nicos, his original question was, can you please tell me why Britain is so arrogant? Why do they need everyone to be stepped on by them?

Does the military agree with this stance? How to answer this? Can you just put this again? Yeah, can you please tell me why Britain? Can you please tell me why Britain is so arrogant? Why do they need everyone to be stepped on by them? does the military agree with this stance? I don't think the military,

I think the military, as I said, is having increasing doubts about an awful lot of what is going on. But as Commodore Jeremy said, probably there are still a lot of people who are caught up in the narrative. Now, the thing to understand about Britain is that until a relatively short time ago, it was a great power.

And as a great power, and in the 19th century, the world's premier great power, it got very much into the habit of throwing his weight around. So it's a difficult thing to give up. And the British, moreover, after the Second World War, have had this long further period of when, because they've been so close to the Americans, they've been able to pretend that they still are a great power and continue to throw their weight around. Because the Americans talk the same language as they do. They seem to have the same foreign policy positions on many subjects as they do. And that gives the British the sense that they can throw their weight about,

walk over people in the way that Nico says. because that's what they've always done. That's what they used to do when they were the greatest power by themselves. And that's what they've been doing since they've been in this partnership with the Americans. From Politico Alexander, Putin puts heavy conditions on Trump's Ukraine ceasefire. And from CNN, Putin expresses reservations about 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine. So that's how. Well, they're not.

They're starting to see it. But these are American platforms. What the European media is going to say, I wonder. BBC, Putin agrees fighting in Ukraine must end, but says any plan must lead to enduring peace. That's the title from the BBC. I mean, if you look at what the Russians have been saying, ever since Putin spoke foreign ministry back in June,

it's not actually inconsistent with what Putin is saying now. In fact, it is directly consistent with it. The Russians were not going to accept a 30-day ceasefire. I don't think the Americans expected them to, by the way. That's my own view. I get it actually, can I just clarify? Maybe some, maybe some people in the White House. Some people in the White House might have done.

Kellogg's and these, I think they would have. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Apparently Kellogg is no longer playing a role, by the way. But I think that I think that one of the reasons, that there was this ceasefire proposal is that there's been all these ideas for, let's be clear about it, a no-fly zone, because that was what the Macron truce really was, a no-fly zone, a deployment of European peacekeepers, security guarantees, all of those sort of things. So the Americans coming up with this idea of a clean ceasefire was intended to bury all those bad ideas.

And that's what it's done, essentially. We're no longer talking about them. Interesting. Yeah. Good point. Nico says, I am very disappointed with Trump. He caved in. He isn't afraid of the Democrats. He is afraid of the media and the narrative. The media are the power.

The narrative is just undefeatable. They always hide it behind this fake morality and no one has the balls to call it out. Now Trump inherited the war. Why is it so difficult to tell the mainstream media and their supporters to F off? How do the media have so much influence over the public? Well, they do have enormous influence because they create the noise. I mean, they shape the discussion to a great extent. but has Trump caved?

I don't really see any sign of it, to be honest. I mean, he's gone very far, very fast in the very few weeks that he has been president. And I think we need to bear that in mind. Given the power of the people who he is taking on and how long those people have been in power in the United States, I mean, to completely change the entire direction of America. foreign policy as he has done in the last couple of weeks, takes an awful lot of courage. Ray Burns 5 says, how much of Trump's negotiating strategy do you think has to do with being able to sell a deal domestically? Older Americans will be skeptical of Russia due to being alive

during the Soviet Union. Well, of course, that plays a huge role in this. I mean, that's another important point. He not only has to do the deal. He has to sell it in a lot. He has to sell it in America. Now, I think actually that there is a critical mass of people in America, including many older Americans, by the way, who would support the deal that Trump is trying to negotiate. But clearly, he needs to maximize that support because there is going to be a virulent reaction. From Nikos, I love that. You said that the EU system is communism. We are in an era where we support NAZIs in Ukraine and neo-Mexam. Marxists in the liberal West.

It's extraordinary. I mean, it really is. It's absolutely true. From Nikos, and you know that everything comes down to one system, Spartan oligarchy. The West got it from us, and they might hate Iran, but they sure love the dividing conquer tactic they invented. Since Trump gave in, the question remains, well, Putin give in to their trap. I think he's going to accept that ceasefire deal, which not only will mean the end of his presidency, but also his reputation.

I just sometimes feel, Duran, that we are not enough. We aren't making a difference against the media and their pious narrative. No one can win. Well, I mean, councils of despair, as I said, are never good councils. And can I just say about what role we have, I have absolutely no idea that Putin himself, as I said, has in effect just rejected. the 30-day ceasefire proposal. He has not...

In a very nice way. In a very, very polite and nice... Diplomatic. Yeah, diplomatic in a very diplomatic way. Very diplomatic. Even the three titles that I read you, Alexander, from Politico, CNN, and BBC, they also understand that Putin played it very smart. He said no to the 30-day ceasefire in a diplomatic way.

They couldn't even spin it. No. which says a lot if they can't spin it. No, I know. Right. Okay. Eric Hatchet says, with what's coming down the pipe, Trump, who I voted for three times, yeah, three times, best keep every dime at home.

He's getting distracted. God bless you, gentlemen. This is, I think, the one great danger now. I mean, Trump is doing so much, so fast. it's going to be very difficult to keep control of all of these threads, just to say. And ultimately, his priority has to be this enormous reform program that he's conducting in the United States itself. So what he's trying to do, and there's logic to all of this, what he's trying to do is he's trying to stabilize the international situation. He's trying to end the war in Ukraine.

He's trying to, or at least the current conflict in the pre. He's trying to keep some kind of peace together in the Middle East. He doesn't, I think, want a war in China, which is why there's now this talk that he wants to meet the Xi Jinping. So he wants stability around the world so that he can focus on the United States itself. And to repeat again, a point I've made it before, and I've made it again and again again. What Donald Trump wants to do is to preserve the position of the United States so that it can remain a great power. He understands, and about this, I agree with him.

I think he's absolutely right that the current course, or rather the course that was being followed before, is an unsustainable one. It is exhausting American resources. It is dissipating American strength. It is weakening the United States. And he's trying to bring that whole process to a stop so that he can build up American strength again. Fractured, thank you for that super sticker. From Bitcoin Crypto and Gaming News,

have you guys ever looked at Polly Market? Currently, it's saying a 40% chance of a full-on ceasefire or more in the next month, approximately seems optimistic. What do you guys think about that pricing? I'd argue that you can win by making more intelligent bets on polymarket. What do you think of that? Polymarket prediction, 40% chance. I think, I think, by the way, the point that you can actually get a better sense of where things are going by going to that kind of market than to the media in the West is absolutely true. Now, how quickly this is going to happen. I,

I'm unable to say, but it might happen faster than more cautious people like me expect. And for one very, very simple reason, Trump wants to end this war. He wants to do it fast, not because, not just because he's worried about all of those people dying on the battlefronts. Though give him credit, I think there is some truth in it. that in what he says about that. But he wants to end the war fast so that he can go back and focus on the United States. There is a recession coming. He said very interesting things about that. I thought clever things about that, by the way. Again, people are getting this all wrong about

the recession. The recession was inevitable. It was built in as a result of the policies that the previous administration had forced upon the United States before. and is a structural consequence anyway of long historic patterns in American policy. But he has to get everything clear. The decks cleared internationally because he's going to be criticized over the recession. The Democrats are going to try and fix it on him. And he's got this enormous program of change in the United States itself. So that puts him in a situation where ending the war is for him becoming an urgent matter.

And the Russians realize this. And the Russians know this, absolutely. They see this exactly. And by the way, they're cutting him a lot of slack. I think that's a thing to understand about this. The Russians could have approached the whole dialogue with Trump in a very different way from the way they've done so up to now. the very courtesy with which they've rejected his proposal is a sign of this.

They understand that he's in a hurry, but they want to help him because that's in their interests as well. They don't want a situation where the war continues. They have a hostile United States, one which could itself descend into some future crisis, which might be very problematic for them. Matthew says what are the chances Trump escalates and provides heavy weaponry and goes back to the long-range missile strikes? I think this would be a very difficult thing for Trump to do. It would be such a complete reversal of policy. It would commit him and his administration to the Biden course. And why would he want to do that?

Politically, it would be very, very damaging. And it would track Trump and the United States. in exactly the same course that the Biden people had followed, which Trump himself says is disastrous. So why would he do it? I think he will bend every, you know, lever that he can to get, to avoid getting into that situation. From Saddam, why don't they listen to what Russia is saying? Seasfire gives advantage to the losing side. Explain to me why Russia would ever even consider this. Well, this particular ceasefire that was proposed in Jeddah would exactly fall squarely in the way that you've just said. But why did Trump come up with this? Why did the Americans come up with this? I can get a guess that this is a lot to do with the dynamics of the arguments between the Americans and the Ukrainians at the moment.

The Jeddah meeting is extraordinary. the Americans isolated the Ukrainians in Jeddah. They got them there all by themselves. They made sure that Zelensky wasn't there. And clearly they put the pressure on, eight and a half hours of discussions. And they come up with a statement in which all the Ukrainian conditions are stripped away. Now, just before the meeting in Jeddah happened, Yarmak, who led the Ukrainian delegation, published an article in the,

the Guardian, in which all the things that the Ukrainians have always insisted upon were there. Security guarantees, return of territory, European peacekeepers, unlimited weapons supplies, all of those things. And he came out of that meeting in Jeddah without a single one of them. You know, the interesting part is that Zelensky posted on X that they got those things. I know. Or he was hinting at the fact that they got those things, the 30-day... ceasefire, the no-fly zone. I mean, that's what he posted almost immediately after the meeting. Yeah, I mean, exactly, because he doesn't want this process to succeed.

Yeah. I wonder if the Americans are watching all of his moves. Well, I think they are. What do we do with this guy? Well, I think they're looking to replace him. And I think they've settled on who they want to replace him with. Who is Julian Tinschenko, whether that's a achievable objective. another matter. Joe Public says G.Bs, 40 admirals, could crew the aircraft carrier that works to keep us all safe. Mark Felton, actually, who's a British historian, did a program recently, which you can see on YouTube, in which he said that we are now down to more admirals than ships. So Rodney Effing says a small contribution towards your production costs. Thanks for your work. Thank you for that.

Amazing super chat. Very much appreciated. Paul Walker says in peacetime, divisional Maine would take two days to collapse, move, and set up. Probably. Sir Muggs game says, I got a captain hornblower vibe from Jeremy British Navy motto,

Siva passum, parabelum, if you wish for peace, prepare for war. Well, yes. That was the British Navy of the old days. Sparky says that new Romanian NATO base looks attractive to some hazel nuts, doesn't it? Oh, it certainly does. Alexander Putachev says, if the U.S. is running low on weapons, why is no one taking advantage of this? Who knows? Perhaps somebody will.

At the moment, there may be all kinds of factors at play. But I think that no country anywhere in the world, even with all these problems the US has, is really looking for a war with the United States. I mean, that would be a crazy thing to do. It remains a superpower. It remains a nuclear superpower. So why would you look to take advantage and risk an American retaliation that would be a disaster? From Nino and PC, Trump is playing 5D chess.

Trump and Putin have a back channel agreement. Trump says to Putin, I will handle the West. You got this war done quickly so we can begin doing business together. You get this war done quickly. I think there is something here. I mean, I would say that I'm not sure to what extent there is a back channel. Perhaps there is, but of course the very native back channels says that they're secret. So we don't know about them.

But perhaps there is a back channel. I don't like this business about 5D Chess. I just think the moves actually that each side has taken are that different. to understand. Yeah. From Elza, is there any chance that Ursula, as Lavrov, fewer Ursula, as Lavrov called her, will rearm Europe? Will money be found in time used to do that?

There's never any shortage of money in the West. So money will be found. All kinds of slush funds will be created, as Alex calls them. But that won't lead to rearmament for all the reasons. you heard on the program and which we discussed with common or Germany. By the way, I understand that the plan in Germany is 500 billion euros for so-called infrastructure. That is apparently very vague and very nebulous and about 130 billion for rearmament. Just saying. Sir Muggeem says actually Zelensky is the new Churchill, just like Winston, the US and Russia

have teamed up to screw him out of everything he holds dear. wash, rinse, repeat, and keep on repeating. I think that Churchill was an altogether more serious, man. The one with a highly developed sense of humor, by the other one. Let me just read you a post on X, Alexander, from Il-Libonese, from the press conference with Putin and Lukashenko. Is Europe done for? I guess that was the question. Well, if the U.S. and Russia agreed to cooperate in the energy sector,

then joint control over the pipelines could end, cheap Russian gas supplies to the EU. That's allegedly that's what Putin said about the energy pipelines. Nord Stream. A joint venture. Maybe I'm just reading your... I mean, there's been rumors about this, but... Financial times.

Yeah, well, indeed, absolutely, yeah. The first time that Putin is saying something about this. Saying something like this, yeah. Okay, interesting. Chili Pepper says, I'm so disappointed that Colonel Daniel Davis was dropped from Tulsi's team when Trump let him get smeared, same as Colonel Doug McGregor. I didn't know anything about this.

I've never heard anything about this. I read something about this in the morning. I believe, chili pepper, I believe he was, Daniel Davis was up for deputy national security director, a deputy position, I believe under Tulsi Gabbard. But then he was smeared by, by APEC or. I'm not sure what happened there. But I think his nomination has been pulled. Anyway, it's an interesting story that we should look into.

Yeah, we should look into, yes. Thank you, Chilipper for that. Zikna says it's a trap. U-Kros will put Russian uniforms on their own soldiers and carry out false flag attacks on themselves to falsely blame Russians for not honoring the ceasefire. No trust. well indeed i mean the russian officials have been talking about that precisely those uh possibilities all day

and uh lukashenka said something about for that effect earlier uh jamie dodge says davis does not support the genocide in palestine that made it known and he made it known and so his nomination was deputy national security adviser well okay gosh according to arreal wow it's a huge position yeah yeah okay I'm just reading sorry I'm reading the I'm sorry I'm really sorry I mean I know I've got to know Daniel Davis very very well actually

so I mean that really is a blow actually yeah St. Max says I'm very grateful for you too Bless and keep thank you for that Flying Boar says Putin is naive if he thinks he can get assurances from the West about a ceasefire He's not a naive man

Humming Pylon says Secure Kursk before victory day Russian logic. Oh, absolutely, of course. They did it. They did it incredibly fast. Christy Gray, thank you for a super chat. Flying Borisus, as Putin said,

he was naive to believe the West, who made this guy a KGB agent. Well, that takes us back a long time. I mean, he became very disillusioned with the Soviet Union. He, like many other West, Russians, for a time

thought that the way forward was, through cooperation with the West. And now he admits he was naive about that. By the way, this remains a lot of mysteries to what exactly he was doing in the KGP, just saying. Nico says, I don't know why Putin wants to agree to this deal. Why does he want to compliment Trump? The narrative got him as well.

Kisses presidency goodbye. No, he's not. What he's doing, again, is based on Russian national interests. And I come back to what I've said many times. If you go back to where this all started, and specifically to a speech that Putin gave in, I think it was September 2021, he said all along, the big issue for us is the security of our Western borders and our people there. And for that, ultimately, he needs the United States, because how else could he achieve that security? but that doesn't mean that he's going to concede

to the things the Americans demand. So far, the Americans are moving towards him. Yeah. Ian Proud posted on annex. I assess that Putin will agree a proposed ceasefire in Ukraine. This would put the ball back into Leshese court to sign a peace deal that could destroy him politically. Lots of people told me I was bad.

President Putin has today indicated that he supports a ceasefire. It's diplomacy, yeah. Putin is playing, yeah, he's playing this. Well, it looks like he's playing this very well. Yeah, absolutely. We'll see. We'll see. Sparky says Ukraine can always get U.S. military targeting data via Israel,

since Israel has long had carte blanche within the U.S. military. It's how Blinken was able to bypass the Pentagon whenever he wanted. True, I'm sure. I mean, I don't know about these things. But I did get the impression that the Ukrainians were very, very shocked. when the Americans pulled the intelligence assistance. Ms. Texas, she says, question, how can the UK recruit with such a multinational population?

It's becoming a problem. We are having problems with recruitment. I do think it's so much that it's a multinational population, but the fact that the northern and middle English towns, which used to be the great recruiting centers of the British, army are in deep economic crisis and the young people they're leaving and they don't feel the motivation and they don't feel proud of that country as they once did and this is having a major effect on the military.

AM says superb guest, great work, Duran as always. Thank you. Matthew says, I don't know if you answered this, but will the EU attack private savings to find defense? Excellent as always. Yes. I believe it's already been spoken about. Alex knows all

about this I mean I'm reading it but I don't know what it I mean they will tap I don't know how something they will get they will get banks

to lend money and I'll tell you what they will do they'll get the banks to buy euro bonds on the strength of their own of their own deposits that's probably what they would do

and if something happens to the bank then you're screwed exactly or if something happens happens with the bonds, then you're screwed. Yeah. Exactly. This could be a disaster. But I don't think

they're going to actually go into the savings. No. They're going to work with the banks. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. You got it, Alexander. Yeah. Moon Dragon says, so Putin agrees to a ceasefire. What is he mad? Or am I missing something?

No, I've said he's not exceeded it. He's rejected. I mean, this is. He's done it in a diplomatic way. But if you attach conditions, then you are accepting, you're rejecting the offer made to you. Arcane Eclectic says bring Rep Thomas Massey on the show, please. That would be great. That's a thought. It'd be great if we could.

If we could get him on the show, that would be awesome. Sir Mug's game says, me, scusi, gents, but the only piece Trump wants is a piece of the EU, Ukraine, and Russia action. well we'll see I think he does want peace and I think he wants peace for the reasons I said so that he could concentrate on the problems of the United States which are enormous sparky says keep in mind Israel has killed many more Americans

than Iran remember the USS Liberty yeah you've mentioned this before in previous programs and you're absolutely right to bring you to him and Sparky says anytime someone says Israel is friend, is our only friend in the Mideast. I can't help but think before Israel, we had no enemies in the Middle East, U.S. missionary, John Sheehan. And that's also brought up regularly. And it's also true. Christy Gray says, do you think Trump might offer Putin things unrelated to war as part of the deal? Is that even possible? I wish he would have cut off aid and left it off. Well, he might

offer things to Putin that are, you know, that are not directly related to. to Ukraine, but for the Russians, Ukraine remains the key issue. So it may not be so important to Trump, but it is very important to Putin. So Putin is not going to trade Russian interests in Ukraine for economic deals or anything of that kind. And I think that's something the Americans need to understand. I'm just seeing some reports, by the way, that Trump is responding positively, at least so it seems to me that I haven't been able to follow them, exactly. Flying Boar says China better get their money out of the EU

after Russia they are next. Yeah, true enough. And the final question is Ziknaz says, also who will guard the 2000 kilometer front line? How will this work with Russia's stated goals of demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine? Well, this is going to be the huge questions, which we just haven't got an answer to.

As I understand it, the Russians are moving to a position that there should not be any, any outside peacekeepers in Ukraine at all. In other words, it should just be them and the Ukrainians. So there probably would have to be ceasefire monitors of some kind. I don't think the Russians are going to accept just American satellite data, which is what Rubio was talking about. So, you know, we'll see how he comes. And I think the Russians probably will want Ukrainians to withdraw from the foreign. four regions and how is that going to be organized and monitored as well. So with lots, lots of questions and we'll see whether any kind of consensus is reached about them and we'll see how soon. But to repeat

again, a point Alex was making, the Russians could see that Trump is in a hurry and they will take advantage of that. From Flying Boar, why Russian liberals hate Russia? Don't they remember the 90s? Oh, they have completely set that aside. If they remember the 90s at all, they remember them as a time of, you know, a wonderful time when they were making a huge amounts of money or their friends were. And, you know, they're very angry, those of them who didn't, that they've been, that they were left out. Nick Coral says Trump must never forget that it was a pro-Ukraine lunatic that tried to kill him.

Yeah. I'm sure he hasn't forgotten. Death dealer 1341 says a friend told me that Kellogg went to Poland and sold that they can have U.S. nuclear weapons. Well, if Kellogg said anything like that, he was going far outside his remit and probably that's why he's apparently been sacked. Sparky says President Trump recently trashed Representative Massey on Truth Social because of Israel, didn't he? Yeah. No, I think it was because of boating stuff in Congress, but I'm kind of following that story a little bit,

but I haven't really gotten into it into too much detail. The alkali says the MIC has a club. You need to be a trusted supplier. And to become a trusted supplier, you need a military contract. It's hard to get into the gated community. Yeah, it's true enough. And one final one, Alexander from Ms. Texas G. Question, this is strange question,

but would Turkey leave NATO if the US did? Yes, absolutely. What would be the point for Turkey of staying in NATO if the US left? A couple more questions that came in. What does Trotsky have to do with the neocons? Well, way back in the 60s, some of the original neocons were Trotskyists. And then they gradually changed their stance.

and they then became neocons. And obviously their views are different, but it's been said that just as Trotskyists believed in, you know, unending revolution, so do the neocons in a sense. And just as the Trotskists were deeply antagonistic to Russia, which they were, many of them in my time came across many of them. So are the neocons, of course. Colorado Watch says the Dared.

I look forward to Alex Alexander every day. Great show. Thank you for that. And I think that's, is that everything? No, one more just came in, Alexander. The Americados and Russians are both from Sir Muggan, are both making with the nice, nice, but the Russians aren't buying the born-again America.

Oh, well, I think the Russians will be very careful what kind of agreements they make with the Americans, obviously. All right. That is everything. Thank you to the Commodore, Stephen, Jeremy, once again. And thank you to everyone that joins us on Rockfin, on Odyssey, Rumble, YouTube, and the Duran.com. And thank you to our moderators for everything that you do, Zareel, Valies, Peter. Peter, who else? I think that was everyone that's moderating. I don't think I missed anybody. Thank you to our moderators and Alexander.

Yeah, it's been a brilliant program. It's a brilliant program. Good to see someone intelligent from Britain at last, just as a say. I know there are lots of people like that here, but anyway. All right, we will end it there. Take care, everybody.