The Duran Podcast - US shift towards China and Iran w/Danny Haiphong (Live)

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

US shift towards China and Iran w/Danny Haiphong (Live)

All right, we are live with Alexander McCurris in London. And today we are joined once again on the Duran by Danny Haiphon. Danny, how are you doing today? Welcome to the Duran. Once again, we are happy to have you with us. And where can people follow your work? Danny, I have a bunch of links in the description box down below. But where's the best place to follow your work?

Sure. The best place to follow my work is on YouTube. Just my name, Danny Haifong. The handle is at Geopolitics. Hi, Fong, so you can find me on YouTube. And then, of course, if you want to support further, you can support me on Patreon. You can also find me on X at GeopoliticsDH, I believe it is. I have all those links in the description box down below, and I will add them as a pin comment when the live stream is over.

So before we get started, talking about a lot of news going on in the world. Let's just give a quick shout out to everyone that is watching us on Odyssey, on Rock Finn, on a Rumble, and YouTube, as well as the awesome Duran community chat on locals. A big hello and thank you to our moderators on YouTube. Thank you for everything that you do. Alexander, Danny. Let's discuss all of the news topics. that are happening these past couple of days. Indeed, let's do so.

And with no one, there's no one better to discuss them with than with Danny Highfong. Now we've appeared many times, Alex and I, been privileged to appear many times on his show. And now we're very fortunate that Danny has come and appeared on our show as well. So an absolutely wonderful person to discuss these things with because Danny, It's one of these people who is very good at seeing the wider picture. Because you can so easily, as we say in England, lose the wood for the trees. You focus on one particular conflict at a time.

Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, whatever. But in a phrase once attributed to Lenin, perhaps correctly, by the way, on this occasion, everything is in fact connected. Everything in the world that happens is connected. And this is absolutely true. It's true in international relations, in geopolitics, and it also, by the way, also affects economics and economic developments as well. So we are speaking a short time before two of the world's most powerful men, Putin and Trump,

a very odd couple in some ways, very different people, are going to start a telephone call, which is being waited for by some. some people with mixture of anxiety, hope and tread, depending on what your perspective is. So they're going to be speaking. We don't know what's going to come out of the call. We have some ideas about the kind of topics they're going to discuss. The Russians say they will be discussing Ukraine, obviously, and that's going to be perhaps the biggest part of the call.

But they're also going to discuss the process of improving. American-Russian relations. And Putin in a discussion that took place in his Security Council, the Russian Security Council, on, I think it was Thursday, actually it was on Friday, actually said that steps are now underway. The Trump administration is making serious attempts, finally to normalize relations between the United States and Russia. Now, given that we're talking about two of the world's most powerful countries,

the United States and Russia, both nuclear superpowers, that is going to have a massive impact if it happens on world affairs. It's also going to have a massive impact if it is attempted and does not succeed. And in the meantime, we've seen tensions rise in the Middle East. we've had a US attack on the Houthis. There's talk about sending US ground troops to Yemen, which I find an extraordinary idea, by the way. And there's lots of talk that the United States is planning

to try to improve relations with Russia so as to try and distance Russia from China, something that Russians themselves are saying is absolutely not going to happen. So an awful lot is going on. But first of all, do you agree with me? Danny, that this is, we're looking, when we look at the Americans and the Russians, we're looking at what is in effect a diplomatic revolution. They move from a position of complete confrontation to an extent to which I have never seen before to want of dialogue and cooperation.

And they seem to be moving towards at least some kind of mutual rapprochement with each other. What do you think about this? Well, it's interesting because indeed the Trump administration and Donald Trump himself came into office as president with the explicit intention of completely changing the U.S. relationship with Russia. And that led immediately to, well, why would he do this? And I think the easy answer to this is that the United States completely lost the war in Ukraine. It lost the proxy war that it had fueled for so long under Joe Biden. And it was clear that it was clear that it. if the Trump administration, if Donald Trump himself kept this going in the same way, that it would be a complete political disaster for him immediately following his ascendancy into the White House. So the Donald Trump, indeed, the relations between U.S. and Russia are changing, and I believe that

they will change fundamentally under his administration. However, one thing to, I think, consider is that under this huge diplomatic, change will be the United States seeking to reorient itself toward the other areas of conflict, which, as we see now, with Gaza, with Iran and with Yemen, and upcoming, there will be China, U.S. talks Xi Jinping. Donald Trump just forecasted that Xi Jinping will be coming to Washington. Actually, I think that's a surefire way of getting Xi Jinping not to come to Washington. But there will be talks. There will be a meeting at some point, just like there was in the first Trump administration.

But despite the massive differences from the first Trump administration to the current one in terms of the global political calculus, the conditions on the ground, the United States needs to change its relationship with Russia if it's going to keep on a particular path forward to maintaining and expanding this empire that it so wants to continue and make. maintain. I think we are seeing almost a rebranding or reformulation of a very similar playbook, which is to engage in early diplomacy, which a lot of U.S. presidents actually try to say they're going to do once they come into office. And then as time goes on, we see reality. A lot of people talk about realism, but let's like a reality set in where the overall objectives may change

from a defeated war in Ukraine to a, or to the necessity of going deeper into the Middle East, for example, because that's what Israel really, really needs right now in order to survive. It needs the United States as full support. And, of course, China, which the trade war is, of course, intensifying. But there will be, and I think the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, has said it many times now. there will be a military buildup toward China. Does that mean a broader war or a bigger war now? I personally don't necessarily think so because I don't think the Trump administration or any U.S. administration for that matter can handle that at this moment. But the buildup, I believe,

will be there. So I do believe we are seeing a massive change in U.S.-Russia relations. And the question will be, once the dust is settled, and I fully trust Russia to settle all of this in a way that will be beneficial toward itself. and also not damage or hurt any of its biggest partners. But the United States, of course, is its own entity. It has its own, as they totally remind us all the time. The Trump administration does own national security interests, quote unquote. How the Trump administration pursues those will be really important to watch because I believe that what Trump is doing is trying to save face while it.

admitting that the United States has lost to Russia and is trying to find a way to keep the United States on top pursuing other areas that in truth are of more interest to his political base, especially those in the GOP, the MAGA GOP now, which do not see Russia as the biggest threat to US so-called national security, but they see the priorities as being China. as being Iran, they see them as much more of a threat, at least in the short term. So that's where I do think I see things going. But on the one hand, you know, people criticize me. They say, Danny, well, you're just, you have Trump derangement syndrome for saying this. In fact, I actually believe that any kind of normalization between the U.S. and Russia is actually

beneficial for the world. There's absolutely no way of getting around that, especially when the United States at this point, in its imperial legacy in history, in its current condition, is weaker than it has been at any point in terms of its legitimacy around the world, in terms of economic standing, and also in terms of its ability to project power. So any kind of retreat in this way is going to be a net positive, but at the same time, it can't be negated that the United States already under Trump 2.0 is going deeply into the Middle East, as you said, Alexander, declaring an essentially a new war. I call it a new war, even though Yemen has been targeted by the U.S.-backed Saudi

invasion, and then, of course, by constant airstrikes on Yemen, drone strikes on Yemen, and then, of course, under Biden, the bombing, the multiple bombings of Yemen as they were, as Ansarala and Yemen was, you know, doing their Red Sea blockade and all of this. This is a new war in the sense, as you said, because not only is Trump promising, potentially an invasion of ground troops, but it's already declared that this is going to be an operation that lasts weeks to months. And so that is a new development. That is a new escalation. And it's one that is surely going to backfire because the deeper the United States gets into the Middle East, as we've seen over two plus decades, actually the more it backfires. The more

that the United States loses its ability to project power, the more that Israel becomes completely unhinged and unable to control its insatiable desire for greater Israel. All of this actually spells doom for the United States because it means permanent war. It's something that Trump himself has said many times he's opposed to before and during his presidential campaigns. And now it seems like he's diving headfirst into this in the first couple months of his administration. Of course, this could all change. He could do it about face. Donald Trump is certainly not predictable. He is someone who can strike hard and then pull completely back and promise one thing and do another. And then that is something that could definitely happen. We can't predict this is going to be another massive Gaza operation as horrific as 400 people overnight being killed by U.S. bombs to Israel had done. But at the same time, it's clear he's making Iran a principal target.

His administration sees Iran as an existential threat. And that means we can expect that we have four years. And in those four years, that the United States could be very much dragged into an endless war there toward Iran. And so this is, I think, really the play is that there are, the multipolar world has arisen. there are three major leaders of it, Russia, China, and Iran, and the United States simply cannot fight all of them. It cannot wage a war with all of them. And each successive administration from Obama to Trump one, to Biden, to Trump two, we've seen maneuvers to try to prioritize some over the others. And whether they are successful or not is another question. But now, I think the calculations are clear that there are maneuvers, deep maneuvers, to prioritize some of these multipolar players over others.

And it's going to be interesting to see what comes out of the Russia-U.S. talks because I am very uncertain about them. I don't know. It very well could be that U.S.-Russia relations will change dramatically immediately. And it very well could be that we have three plus years to see those talks in that. diplomatic thaw progress or regress. So it's going to be a very interesting period in history. And I think it's a, it's a monumental one in that the United States as an empire, Trump and beyond, I think that there are a lot of players at the top who are really unsure about how to go from here. And that's why we see the chaos and we see the massive and rapid changes and policy.

I'm very curious, but I will kick it back to you guys. Well, indeed, I think that you make an absolutely valid point. I think that the underlying calculation, the underlying assessment may not just by Trump, but by the people around him, is that the United States has been on an unsustainable path. It's been trying to confront everybody simultaneously at once. That was very much the policy that we associate with the neocon,

That was very much the policy of the Biden administration. And what it's trying to do now is it understands that that is unsustainable, that that is causing major problems in the United States itself. It's exhausting and depleting American resources. It is losing in all sorts of places. So the United States has to retrench in at least some places. So this is not about ending the US's, position as a great power. It is about preserving that position. I think that is what the Trump

administration is all about. That is what they say, making America great again. It's about making America greater bread again both at home by rebuilding its manufacturing base, making America great again abroad, by basically restoring US power and putting it in a more sustainable position. The problem is, is that not only is that an extremely difficult thing to do, but it seems that the US is finding it very difficult to kick habits that go back to the period of the unipolar, the neocon unipolar period. So yes, they're trying to repair relations with Russia. They're trying to bounce, I think the Russians, into restoring relations as quickly as possible.

But they're getting drawn back into the Middle East. Now, why would they do that? The Middle East is the area of the forever wars. This is where Iraq happened. It's where Libya happened. It's where Syria happened. Why would the United States want to get drawn back into the Middle East of all places?

You would have thought that it would be as important for the Americans to stay out of the Middle East. least as possible. And why would they want to conflict with Iran at this particular time? Again, you would have thought that it really doesn't serve American interests to drift into another conflict there. Could it be, and I'm just asking this question, that Trump has been giving so much time to Ukraine that he's allowing other people. to run things with Iran, with the Houthis and things like that. And that this is one of the perils of focusing too narrowly on one issue.

It's interesting. It's hard to know what goes on inside of the DC blob, so to speak. But in terms of the calculations that are made behind the scenes. But in terms of the interest, it's interesting because, The United States, you're exactly right, Alexander, as a whole, it actually doesn't serve U.S. interests to become mired in West Asia, to become completely imbued into a permanent war that leads toward a catastrophic war that will not go well for the United States with Iran. The United States, as you pointed out, Alexander, many times on your program, on my program, as I have pointed out many times, the United States has trouble in any kind of war. event, and we've seen this with Ukraine, and we've seen this over and over again in the forever wars in West Asia, from Syria to Iraq to Afghanistan.

And there's trouble maintaining any kind of, you can call a war without victory, because any kind of stability, any kind of achievement in terms of being able to project U.S. interests are hindered by the fact that only instability and chaos comes from these interventions. So that would be magnified 10, 20, 50-fold in a war with Iran, because Iran has military capabilities that are quite impressive. It is a very large army, and it is a very large and sophisticated military arsenal. So that would be incredibly disastrous for the Trump administration. However, there are a few factors that keep the United States, I believe, chugging along toward endless war in West Asia. First, everyone is going to mention this, and it's in the

world public view now that the United States is deeply committed to Israel and what Israel wants in the region. And this is a longstanding relationship, as you all know. But when Israel is in crisis, when Israel has certain objectives, for example, the achievement of a greater Israel, the United States, because of Israel's influence in Congress, because of its ability to influence U.S. politics, that leads to very easy decisions from U.S. politicians, Trump and otherwise, to go along with Israel's overall pursuit of its objectives there. But I am not in the school of the Israel lobby controls the United States. I actually do believe that the United States sees Israel as incredibly helpful to achieving its own interests, which I don't believe

are my interests. And a big part of this is West Asia needs to be kept in subordination and subservience to the United States or attempted to do this because ultimately when we see the rise of Iran, we see the rise of Russia, we see the rise of China, West Asia is this hugely important geostrategic and economic hub, which even if the U.S. can't exploit it for its own ends and even if it doesn't need to, for example, in the energy sector, it needs to keep that region of the world under its dominion. so that Russia and China cannot pursue their own and Iran cannot pursue their own development process and find themselves even more isolated than before. And this is something, especially with regard to China,

that's been looked at a bit more now with regard to the Belt and Road Initiative, for example. If the Belt and Road Initiative along the road that it is building from east to west, if that is going to be laid and advanced to a large degree, well, everything is going to have to go through its province of Xinjiang all the way to its autonomous region of Xinjiang, all the way into Europe. And that means crossing all across West Asia and developing these deep ties with countries like Iran. But really, everybody, every nation you see in that region must be integrated into this. And that is the desire. Iraq is part of the BRI. Iran is, all of the countries in West Asia want to be part of this mega deal for infrastructure

in the United States. See something like that. It sees Russia's deepening relations with Iran and otherwise it sees that as a big threat. So the only way to isolate these rising powers is to keep West Asia in this state of chaos. It's why Syria was such a big chess piece for the United States to continue to try to topple even after it was very unsuccessful in its initial phase of the proxy. war there. But now we see what's happening in Syria. We see HTS basically doing everything that the U.S. and Israel would want it to do, which is to wreak havoc, create chaos, get into border clashes

against Lebanon, do nothing about Israeli airstrikes. So we see how the political calculus in Syria is playing out to the, if we can, it'd be a stretch to call it a benefit because it is more and more chaos, but we're seeing how it is playing out in line with how the United States has seen the region for quite some time. So overall, I believe this is where a big portion, Trump or not, I don't know what's going on in his head, so to speak, but from his words and from his actions up until now, I think we see that there is still a big part of the entire U.S. establishment from the White House and otherwise that wants to see this region kept in flames so that it cannot advance and cannot integrate and cannot connect to the rising powers right

next door to it in China and Russia. At least that's my assessment given that the United States simply even when it looks like. I was saying, I was like Donald Trump's administration going deep. deep into West Asia just after the so-called ceasefire was brokered, after Biden was basically sunk by this of 15 months of just utter disaster to dive right in again in the beginning of his administration would seem to be suicide in some ways. But for right now, it seems like that's what's going on. Whether that continues, if it does, it's going to be big trouble for Trump and for his administration and, of course, for the people of that region.

Do you think the United States understands and knows very much about Iran? I asked that question because Alex and I, one of the things we talked about many times, is that the United States over many, many decades has developed a completely force understanding of Russia. That was one of the things that led to the Ukraine crisis. There was the assumption that, you know, Russia was the gas station, masquerade. It was a country. that it was run by a criminal kleptocracy, that all you needed to do was kick on the door, and it would all come tumbling down, to quote a phrase by someone else, by the way.

That we both knew was completely wrong. And we've seen that events over the last three years have demonstrated that. Now, I don't pretend I know Iran anywhere near as well. I've never been there for one thing. But could it be that the Americans have as distorted an idea of Iran as they did of Russia and that they don't quite know what they're taking on when they come after Iran? I think that's 100% true because even today, even in audiences that follow work like ours Alexander, there is this impression, and I think this extends all,

the way to the top of the U.S. political and foreign policy elite. They truly believe that Iran is, I think they truly believe Iran is weak. They believe Iran is a country that if it can be isolated, if it doesn't have the assistance of what is now called the axis of resistance, these so-called proxies that they're always droning on about, that somehow Iran will can be in, will and will and can be toppled like Iraq was, like Afghanistan was, that that is ultimately what's going to happen. And of course, you know, it wasn't like Iraq was toppled in rapid fashion. It took years to do this. It took many years of sanctions.

It took two wars for Iraq to be ultimately dismembered. And I think that's what the foreign policy elite that still does exist in Washington. I hope that people understand this, that that's not something you just do away with in a couple of weeks. that they truly do believe, I think, that Iran is weak, that its capabilities are bluff. And they're more than willing to spread what I believe is just Israeli propaganda, that Iran's capabilities have been degraded by a single Israeli airstrike that occurred late into Biden's administration. So all of that to me is false.

That couldn't be any further from the truth. Iran seems to be going through military exercises every quarter. every quarter of the year, where it shows that it has these capabilities to defend itself, and its explicit purpose is to defend itself, in part because it has to, because it actually is encircled in the region. There is a huge attempt to isolate it, and it knows that war in that region between Israel and Iran, between Iran and the United States and Israel, would be catastrophic for Iran, regardless of whether it can defend itself valiantly or not.

So that's why when I hear a lot of people tell me, Danny, well, why is an Operation True Promise 3 happened? Why hasn't there been a more massive response from Iran? I think people have to understand that to when you have parties in a conflict that one cannot be trusted and two have used nuclear weapons before and three, one of these parties has nuclear weapons that it won't ever explicitly and publicly make known. And I'm talking about Israel here, you have to make very difficult decisions that don't factor in, or at least don't make a priority your own capabilities. You're making the priority, well, how can we maintain as much stability as possible in this region, in the world, so that we aren't sunk by the constant traps that are being laid and provocations that are being born against us. I believe that's really what Iran's calculations are, at least for those who I believe have actual control in Iran, those who do see the forest from the trees. They see who their enemies are, and they know that they have to defend themselves against them. So, yes, there is a huge misunderstanding about Iran, and that misunderstanding is leading to what I see as huge miscalculations.

On the one hand, sure, if the United States wanted to bring to Barrett's full military power, It could probably decimate Iran's infrastructure and make Iran a very difficult place to live in. On the other hand, it would also bring to bear Iran's capabilities, which would be an absolute embarrassment to the United States and force it probably into a nuclear conflict because the United States can't stomach. We're seeing this with Ukraine. It cannot possibly stomach a military embarrassment like the one that it is about to face in Ukraine if it doesn't settle this conflict. And that means that the United States, because of those who are so committed to the preservation of this empire, they will do unthinkable things. And that means that Iran has to put this into consideration. And that is where I believe the misunderstanding is the miscalculations being made right as we speak on how to,

handle how to navigate this region for the preservation of empire. It's only leading to the same path and the same road that we have seen, which is quagmire, escalation, instability, chaos, and eventually an end game that will not even serve the U.S. Empire itself because it will lead it into what we are seeing with all of the multipolar powers that are rising in the world. It will lead to an end game that is potentially, the number one threat to the preservation of empire itself, like the question of mass extinction and nuclear war. I completely agree, by the way,

an American defeat in Iran, if we ever see it, I'm not predicting that we will, but if we were ever to see something like that, would be a geopolitical catastrophe, greater, much greater than what we've just seen in Ukraine. I mean, it would be on a different scale again. and it would also open up enormous risks, precisely because it would be such a catastrophe.

It's difficult to know how Israel would react, and it's difficult to know how the United States would react. And given that some of the people in Israel are who they are, one can easily imagine them escalating beyond any point that we have seen up to now. Now, can I just ask a specific question? These attacks on the Houthis that started yesterday, this new airstrike, this collapse of the ceasefire in Gaza, which Trump himself made such a big play of organizing. Are these two things connected? And are they part of this challenge towards Iran?

Just, what are your thoughts about that? Well, from the words of Donald Trump on truth social. and his secretary of defense Pete Hegeseth. That's what they are saying. They are saying that this is all about Iran. And I think there are other factors, though. So one, the ceasefire had already expired, phase one. Israel, in phase two, would have had to completely withdraw.

And the kind of exchanges that would happen of prisoners of war, so-called hostages, would mark a massive defeat. because the end of phase two means permanent ceasefire. And so that would mean that Netanyahu and the Israeli regime as a whole would have to admit that it was completely defeated during this. But it's 15 plus months of raising Gaza, destroying it, actually achieved nothing but the continued existence of Hamas and the necessity of Israel to get out completely and to not start again.

So Israel saw that as a complete non-starter. and it wasn't going to do this. But now the question of Ansarala and the U.S.'s calculations here, the Republican Party as a whole, the GOP, now it has changed dramatically under Donald Trump. One thing that hasn't changed, though, is its huge emphasis on ending and stopping, quote, unquote, terrorism. Now, on the one hand, one could support this because of the U.S.'s full support of these kind of proxies, extremist proxies in West Asia, as we've heard people like Tulsi Gabbard talk about in Syria,

for example. But on the other, the way that it is framed by the Trump administration and by the GOP as a whole is this massive, the whole into axis of resistance, the whole, essentially what they would call an anti-Israel axis, they are all terrorists. And Iran is the big sponsor of it all. So Hamas, Ansarala, etc. And this is to me a fundamental, mistake that Donald Trump makes and the Trump administration makes that I think falls into old habits of the GOP, which view them as simply armed bandits that need to be brought to heal, as Hillary Clinton said, about Americans, black Americans in the United States. So that is a huge mistake because, one, by engaging what's on Sorala, and I believe this early

engagement is because Trump knew from the very beginning that it could not, it was not going to stop Israel from going back to war. First of all, the political chaos in Israel that would ensue after the cessation of all hostilities would also be a blunder on the United States, because the United States would now have to find a way to save face from Israel's total retreat, and would have to deal with whatever political fallout comes. And I believe that the Trump administration has made the calculation that despite all of what we've heard about Trump and not liking Netanyahu, the conflict that we see Benjamin Netanyahu have with certain forces inside of the United States government, I believe the calculation

is it's easier to deal with the person you don't like, if we can call him an enemy. I don't know if I'll go that far, but can deal with him far. far better and easier than you can with whatever is to come from there. And so Israel, it's likely, wanted the United States to begin this process of helping it weaken those forces that would be completely in opposition to a renewed campaign in Gaza. And so it is very coincidental. I don't know if I can link them 100% to each other. But the timing is pretty stunning that Israel begins this mass.

aerial campaign that has already killed 400 plus Palestinians and more will be killed, you know, over the next few days to however long this is going to last. And I'll comment on that in a second. But it is stunning that right before this, the United States decided to essentially escalate what Biden has already been doing. And of course, Trump did to an extent with drone strikes and other kind of covert ops in Yemen. And then Obama, of course, was the big sponsor and backer of Saudi's war. So it's stunning that this is happening now in conjunction with each other and that everyone in the Trump administration is saying it's about Iran. There are even rumors, and I don't think they're confirmed or true, that the aircraft carriers, the United States is sending to that

region are actually sailing toward Iran. I don't think that is necessarily true because I think we would hear Iranian media and other media outlets that are perhaps a bit more essential. established sound of that alarm, but it's quite clear that the target is Iran and that I think the long-term play, because I don't think these short-term moves are, and this is why I wanted to comment briefly on Gaza, I don't think these short-term moves are actually Trump's attempt to support a re-igniting of what we saw under the Biden administration. I think their response to a number of conditions, one, this overall plan to isolate and then circle Iran, to Israel's own crisis that it was facing during this ceasefire debacle.

And three, I think that the big overall play here is with Gaza to find a way to satisfy Israel's overall aims and ensure that the United States maintains this anti-terrorer. posture, which can serve as kind of a smoke screen for the other two objectives. So by labeling Hamas and, you know, I'm sure Hezbollah will come back in if Hezbollah comes back into play into this conflict with Hamas, Hezbollah, Ansarala, to name all of those actors as terrorists, helps both the United States and Israel work with each other toward this overall goal of Iran. So in effect, there is a connection, but I don't believe, and we'll see from here, because I don't think we can trust, especially Israel in this regard. But I do believe this is likely to be another kind of

mowing the lawn situation in Gaza, where it doesn't take part in the full-scale Biden-era onslaught, but as Israel Katz said, he said, we are going to engage in escalating military operations in Gaza because of what Hamas did, didn't fairly negotiate the ceasefire. And I take that as meaning, okay, we're going to conduct strikes now that are of this size. Then in a bit, well, maybe there'll be smaller ones, bigger ones, but it won't be to the effect of a full-on campaign because of, well, Donald Trump has political considerations to take into account. whether that's true or not. I'm not going to say I'm 100% right on that because we can't be sure or certain at this moment. I could be very, very wrong on this in just a matter of days. But I think that initially is my sense, given what I'm hearing out of Israel, hearing from Trump.

And also the situation is so volatile. It would be a disaster for the United States, especially for Trump, to repeat the same exact process as Biden, given what he said, given what. what he did in the early Paceous administration and given that he has a long way to go. He has a very long way to go. And a full-on war in West Asia would be crippling, not just to his legitimacy, but it could be crippling for the entire world economy and, of course, to the US's overall prestige in the world. Is China the ultimate target of this? I mean, because you mentioned previously that there was this, talk about, concern about the Belt and Road initiative, trying to undermine it. There's the strategic partnership between China and Russia.

There's endless rhetoric about the fear of war in the Pacific, about the buildup, the Chinese military buildup, Taiwan. All of that comes together and marked hostility, certainly on the part of some people, towards the Chinese government and to the kind of government that China has. And is this where, is this the country that the United States is indeed going to pivot towards that this, that Russia was the first failed attempt, if you'd like, to take on China under the previous administration? Now they're going for Iran, slightly weaker country than Russia, obviously less important to China. but nonetheless important.

And then ultimately China itself. That this is ultimately where it's all going. And again, do they understand what they're up against if they do take on China in that kind of way? I do. It's hard to argue against, and some do. And I respect their opinions. Some people do believe, you know,

rush is the overall objective for, especially the neocons and the foreign policy blob, etc., to dismember and dismantle. And you can cite evidence of that for sure and, you know, ran corporation papers and other places. But when it comes to the overall strategy of the United States, especially just in the last, to say three administrations, if we include Trump's early administration in this, but if we just look at Obama to Trump one, to Biden, the continuity that was there was that the United States was seeking some way or form to fight Russia and China at the same time. And so it was hard for people to understand, well, which is the most important country

for the United States atopal? And I think it's clear that it's China. And this is why I believe that. It's because during the period, a lot of people are talking about Kissinger now. A lot of people talk about reverse Kissinger. Is Trump pulling a reverse Kissinger getting closer to Russia to, to, get to China. And the, my answer to this is maybe, but what we can surmise, and I think what we can't conclude is that when Kissinger was the Secretary of States and was doing his dealings to normalize

to weaken the Soviet Union, the explicit purpose, of course, of that was to weaken the Soviet Union. But it had a ripple effect and I think a backfire effect in the long term strengthening China and then China's rise ultimately becoming independent of U.S. machinations and foreign policy, which a lot of people disregard. A lot of people believe that the United States is just a full reason that China has resided. I think that's an utter just incorrect assertion. But now the United States, it's foreign policy elite, its blob and those. financial and corporate interests that ultimately hold the leash of it, they believe that China is the Soviet Union of the past. This is just so clear, not just in rhetoric, but in terms of policy. Because we always have to look at the economic roots, I think, of geopolitics. The economic roots

are that China's economic model is one that is completely intolerant. to that of the U.S. The U.S. is completely extractive. It's completely based on the rule of private equity and finance and debt. And I know you've had Michael Hudson talk about this. But the U.S.'s economic model at this point sees China's productive model as well as a model that looks at common development and common prosperity as it is talking about as one that will not only outcompete the United States in terms of technology, high tech, advancements, infrastructure, etc. but it will also serve as proof to the rest of the world that we don't need a situation where we have eight people holding 50% of all global wealth or whatever obscene number it is.

Like that is the model that China demonstrates to the world, and that is the one that the United States sees as a big threat, just as it saw during the Cold War, the Soviet Union as this big threat, as this kind of communist society that was going to, socialist society, it was going to lead to some kind of communist reality. And so that is why I believe China is the ultimate goal of all of this, because if you look at all the strategy documents, especially even just the last three of the prior administrations, and we'll see what Trump's will be this time around, but I'm sure it's going to include China.

The overarching theme is that China must be contained and that even if Russia and Iran, are part of this, the biggest moves that are made in all spheres end up being this very consistent theme of, okay, full-scale war that is not just military, but economic in nature. They tested this with Russia in Ukraine, and it was an utter failure. and they've been moving toward this with China, with the hopes that it will succeed to a greater degree because they've moved everything there. And this is one thing I hope people understand that.

John Pilger was talking about this in 2016. The situation is far worse now where the United States has most of its military capacity in this part of the world, in the Asia Pacific. And it had been employing to a slighter degree the same means it has been attempting with Russia, economic strangulation. And it's been attempting the same kind of maneuvers in terms of proxy war, atrocity, propaganda, propaganda, all of this to China as it had been building up with Russia.

And it tried to take Russia to an extreme degree so that it could see if it had the capacity to fight China. And it failed in this regard. But the overall objective of China is not being abandoned. And actually, they are attempting to ensure that now they move toward a conflict with China, just, I think, in a kind of time extended manner, meaning that it's not going to happen right away. It's going to be something that needs to take time. And that's why some of these moves we see from Trump, we have to be aware of, for example, dumping on Europe, moving Europe. toward the Russia theater saying we are no longer part of Europe security. I believe a good amount of this actually, and Pete Higgs said it.

He said that this is about moving the United States as resourcing scarcity, resourcing needs toward the Pacific theater. Of course, he said domestic concerns as well, but let's be honest, the border situation in the United States is not a military conflict. It is not. You have to understand that you can militarize the border, but there's not going to be a war fought on the U.S. Mexico border that's not happening. So the major majority of the U.S. military, it's both its strategy and its resources, are going to the Pacific.

And that's because they want to build up toward a war there. It's going to take a long time, though, because even though I don't believe they understand China's capacity and its ability to defend itself, I think they understand their own. And I think they understand that any kind of military, kinetic, conflict with China would almost essentially lead to a nuclear conflict. And they don't have the cards like they did with Russia with Ukraine. They don't have a Ukraine. Taiwan is not Ukraine. They don't have it. So they're trying to create a scenario where some kind of pretext in Tripwire can be developed so that they can start grinding China down. They just haven't succeeded in finding that just yeah.

One very last question from me. Do they understand the region that the neighbors of China are too well? I constantly read, for example, this is again, this is something that I know quite well, because I've studied this history, actually studied it at university, Russian-Chinese relations. Everything is looked at. Hello? You there? Sorry, yes.

Yes, yes. Sorry. Everything about Russian-Chinese relations relations. relations is seen through the framework of the Sino-Soviet conflict of the 1960s, which was an unusual period in Chinese-Russian relations that goes back to the 17th, which go back to the 17th century over the vast majority of which time period, Russian-Chinese relations have been very good. Now, the Americans have been trying to work other countries,

neighbors of China against China. Vietnam is one. I've read many people who say the Vietnamese people have very strong tradition of hostility to China. Maybe that was so once. I mean, the 15th century, I understand you fought a war with Japanese and Chinese fought a war with each other.

But again, it's not the whole story of the relationship. in most of the time, there's been at least a modus vivendi between China and Vietnam. Does the United States really understand that? Because again, I get the sense that it's trying to play off countries in the region, off against China, and is rather baffled by the fact that countries like Russia, which it assumes is very wary of China, or Vietnam, which it assumes is very wary of China. I'm playing ball with it.

Yeah. Well, the Vietnam question, is a really good one, Alexander, because I've been to Vietnam and I've been to China. And Vietnam, it's quite clear that there are disagreements. And that actually, because Vietnam has a much more, I guess you call it open, but more laissez-faire media system, that has had an impact on the consciousness. There's a lot of anti-China media that gets into Vietnam. And it's had an effect on the population.

And anyone who goes to Vietnam can see that, or at least anyone that meets people that you can actually speak to. which might not be reflective of the overall political views of all Vietnamese. But the government itself and the system in Vietnam, they're pursuing a very similar model to China's. And their economic relation, actually, you could almost say it's the same model. It's the same model of economic development, a mixed economy where private investment and industry is leveraged by the government to build up not just economic growth for the

entire society, but also to, you know, expand and raise the standard of living of all the people in Vietnam. That's what's been happening there, to a slower extent than China, because it has smaller. It has, it's been poorer for longer. It was destroyed by the United States and by the French for many, many years. And, you know, there's still unexploded ordinances occurring in Vietnam, despite all the progress made there around that. So, China and Vietnam have very similar model. Their friendship is actually growing. Their economic development and cooperation is growing.

And so there is this attempt, I think, of the United States. And it will be a project for the United States for years to come, which is to try to, as they've tried with Russia, get all the countries surrounding China on board to a policy of isolation and containment. And we've seen that has already failed, not only with Vietnam, which China and Vietnam have political synergy as well as economic synergy, but even among so-called U.S. allies, despite all of the chaos in South Korea and Japan and the hugely anti-China sentiments there, Australia too. I get people all the time from Australia saying, oh, we want to be free from China, free us from China. And the economic reality is that if any of these countries free themselves from China, their economies will be completely and utterly destroyed and placed into catastrophe.

And that is a reality that I believe China has developed because of its rise and because of its very smart and very shrewd and very realist and very much. uh, you know, self-interested thinking in many ways. It has seen its development as completely interlocked with everyone else's and has shown that it has cards to play and it has economic tools to offer that everybody wants. And so now the difficulty that the United States has with China that it didn't have with the Soviet Union is that it has to deal with a rising power with a different economic model that everybody needs to be on board with economically for them to sustain their economies. If you're going to build industry, if you're going to advance the technology, if you're going to raise a standard of living your people, you're going to have to trade

with China in large part too because the United States has given up. It's given up completely an attempt to compete with China economically. It has invested everything into finance in the military while China has invested everything into manufacturing and advancing technology and advancing in the markets that are the future of the world and the future of humanity. And so this is the conundra. This is the big, just crisis that the United States faces with China. If it goes too far with China, the entire world suffers. If it tries to push so-called allies in the region against China, they suffer.

So the costs are, well, there of course are costs to tariff from tariffs and tech sanctions and all this for China. When I was there a year or so ago, about a year ago, last April, people were talking about, well, sanctions on Huawei did hinder Huawei for a moment. And then Huawei was able to readjust, reorient itself and begin producing new advances in its, you know, cellular technology. and its infrastructure within months to years' time. And now we see the fruits of that with China coming out with huge developments like the Deep Seek AI model that shocked the entire industry, the tire tech industry, especially, of course, in AI. So this is the crisis the United States faces.

The overall objective is war with China. but to get to that war, there are so many obstacles in the way that it's almost like landmines exploding in the face of the United States and its overall objective here. Every time it pushes forward, another one presents itself and it's going to be interesting to see how Donald Trump and his administration handles this. I believe in the beginning it's going to actually be a complete emphasis on economic conflict, coercion, with diplomatic gestures, like we're seeing and talking about meetings with Xi Jinping, calls with Xi Jinping. And I think that will happen. I would definitely predict

more so a meeting in China, more than a DC meeting after what happened with Zelensky. But Xi Jinping is a far more powerful leader, an actual leader, unlike Zelensky. And if there are assurances that everything will go smoothly. Who knows? There could be a meeting here in the United States. But over time, I think we are going to see the posture move toward military encirclement, strengthening the United States military in this region, and beginning to maneuver. I'm not sure about Taiwan. Trump has very interesting contradictory politics when it comes to Taiwan, some that I think many Chinese are actually on the mainland are actually very much looking out for, for example, using Taiwan as this battering ram for trying to shift production of advanced chips back to the United States, essentially threatening to ruin Taiwan's entire economy. But overall, I think the play will be here is what.

is necessary a military buildup against China. It may not be framed like that at first or it may be framed like the, you know, Biden tried to avoid it sometimes and then said four different times that he wanted to defend Taiwan militarily from China. So it'll be interesting to see how Trump frames it, given that all of his economic rhetoric with China has been about, not just competition, but out and out conflict. If you read some of the fact sheets coming out of the Trump administration. It's all about taking everything back from China, supposedly, bringing it back to the United States, which a lot of it is filled with distortions. But in truth, the point of all of it is is to become stronger, a better, a bigger economy than China's. But all the framing is that

that will take economic conflict with China rather than cooperation. And so we should look out for that as the United States seeks to free itself from the Ukraine conflict, put that on the other players in the EU and NATO, and then seek to strengthen its hand in the Asia Pacific. Hard to say how that will look, but I do believe the United States militarily will be looking to do this if we take the words of the Trump administration and it's early, it's early policies into account. Danny Highfong, thank you very much for answering my questions

so thoroughly and carefully. If you can just wait a few minutes, I'm sure Alex has got some questions that he wants to put. Sure. Danny, you have about five, ten minutes? Sure, yeah, yeah. Cool.

Tisham says, Hello, Danny. That was a great roundup this weekend with Brian, Red Pill host, and Angelo brings back the Gonzalo Lira Roundtables. That's from Tish M. From Gene Whitworth, thanks. Thank you, Danny. Trump's not ending the Ukraine conflict because he hates terrorism or he wouldn't be bombing civilians in Yemen. Big question. How much of the reprashment towards Russia is to improve U.S. standing toward Iran and will it succeed?

Is it more of the same hegemonic insanity? Yeah, I mean, when it comes to, I think it's hard to assume, I think for me, when I look at history and I look how the United States does foreign policy over the past four decades, you know, for decades especially, it's quite obvious that we can assume that the United States cannot be trusted when it comes to U.S. I think Russia actually is playing this so incredibly well because I think they know. I think Putin, I think Lavrov, I think Putin's entire team, they know that the United States cannot be trusted. The United States is volatile. Even if Donald Trump, I don't know what's going on on the other side of these calls and talks, you know, Donald Trump's the most trustworthy in this regard, controlling for whatever interests people think Trump has in other areas of the world and maneuvering and pivoting, regardless, even if Putin and his team believe Trump is the most trustworthy on U.S.

Russia relations, there is just absolutely no trusting the entirety of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. And certainly it's, I think it's a mistake to view Donald Trump actually as this all-powerful figure that so many do. I think it will go down as a big tragedy for them to see that what is powerful is actual power. and actual power just doesn't rest in the hands of one single individual, no matter how much you might want that in certain respects.

So ultimately, strengthening hand on Iran, it could be. Here's the thing about U.S. foreign policy at this point. It is reacting and responding to crises that are interrupting what it was hoping would be since the fall of the Soviet Union a very smooth process. The end of history, Francis Fugoyama, this idea that the United States is the forever system that it cannot be competed with, it cannot be replaced. We are finding that actually that is not only untrue, but was a complete and utter fabrication and fantasy from the very people who were just so jovial over the fall of the Soviet Union

and the fall of the Cold War era conflict between, you know, U.S. led and, you know, U.S. led, mega imperial capitalism and the Soviet Union's model that it was championing. So all of that is to say is that to strengthen hand against Iran, yeah, this is generally how this political wing of the elite, they like to maneuver toward. It's more we can see it in Congress, the GOP-led Congress. they are far more interested in Iran and West Asia than they are in Russia. And I think this has a significant influence over what Trump does. And so these early policies, the Gaza bombings from Israel, the maybe potential invasion of

Yemen and the bombing of Yemen, all of this is to pave a road to a road to Iran. I believe that road is very much just completely sorted and it's not a smooth one and it's not one that can be built easily. But I do believe that's what they are building toward nonetheless. And in my assessment from how I think things are going to go, it's more likely to actually blow up in Donald Trump's face than it is to lead to any kind of material victory in this regard. I don't think the Trump administration is close to toppling Iran. I don't believe the Trump administration will succeed in defeating on Sarala because the Trump administration has no secret weapon that other administrations didn't have.

So, yes, you can bomb, send troops there if you'd like. it will be a political disaster and I'm sure the footage of U.S. troops being ambushed by Ansarala fighters will go very well in American public opinion, especially if Israel

is going scorched earth on Gaza. If all these things come together, it's going to be actually a political disaster for Donald Trump rather than any kind of material victory against Iran. So how Trump navigates this road as he is

falling into it is going to be something to watch out for. But yes, Iran is and always will be a target so long as the overall objective is to, regardless of whether it fulfills U.S. economic interests or anything like that, if the overall objective is to use this region as a springboard for maintaining this end of history fantasy, then Iran is the biggest impediment to maintaining that fantasy, and it will be the target for quite some time to come. Here's a multi-part question, Danny from Nikos. Mr. Haifong, Trump has done more good than bad, and he is not Biden.

Trump doesn't want war with China, despite what Hegset said for posture. Trump wants economic competition with China. Will it work? No. Is it bad? No. And my thoughts as a scientist, it's not the priority. Is it fair about Gaza? It's not the priority. Is it fair? No, but the world is not fair. We need the three superpowers to have normal relations. Trump will probably strike Iran. I don't like it. But he needs to show force for Israel. He won't start a war. It's the price he has to pay as a realist for bringing peace. I understand. bandit. How about you? Yeah, I saw this one, actually, Alex. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a multi-part question indeed. Let me see if I can address all of the points there. Well, one, this whole Trump needs to show force for Israel. Well, it's interesting because in the beginning of Trump's administration, when he brokered that ceasefire, before he even came into office, a lot of people

who are very supportive of Trump. And I actually shared their vision. I actually shared their view. I was like, well, this is a net positive because Donald Trump did what Biden refused to do, which was to actually go and do what the United States is very capable of doing, which is saying, Israel, you're going to do this now, and you're going to listen to us because we are ultimately the hegemon and not you. So when he did that, Trump actually demonstrated that the United States doesn't have to

have to show force for Israel. The United States can actually dictate terms to Israel because Israel is the one that's dependent upon the United States. And it's not the other way around as much as we see the United States act and operate like it is, in part because the United States is losing so much influence in that region and really has Israel to rely upon to create the conditions that the United States wants to maintain, as I said before, this fantasy that it will be the dominant force in the world and especially this region for a perpetuity. So and in perpetuity. So that, that is a contradiction that is going to have to be wrestled with here. Is Trump simply a victim of Israel or can Trump actually assert terms to Israel like he's already proven? And if the latter is true,

then why would he need to show force for Israel right at this moment? It's quite clear then that there is a desire to have this play out in the way that it is on the part of the Trump administration. And that desire is likely influenced by, you know, the concerns of the GOP, the interests of the GOP, their alignment with Israel, Trump's own alignment with the overall goal of showing force against Iran. And, you know, and then this overall objective that the United States needs to continue to have some kind of leverage and influence over West Asia. if it is going to move toward a full-spectrum dominance, which, as Alexander, you noted, the United States is not giving up. And so this is where the contradictions are. A lot of people are sharing now all these aged tweets from Donald Trump

and things that he said in interviews, where he has been very critical of the U.S.'s role in the Middle East and in West Asia, and he has criticized the forever wars. And so it's interesting to see now that there are early moves toward just repeating that same kind of process. It's early, so it's unclear whether it will go so far into a deep quagmire, but these initial steps are very much, you know, are very much a bad sign that may be hard to step out of. It may be hard to step off this path once you get onto it.

But in terms of this overall idea, I just don't think about geopolitics like this. I do not assess geopolitics as good or bad, evil men. I do believe that the overall system of the United States, those who control it, are doing evil. But when I look at geopolitics, I'm not looking at whether Trump or Biden are, whoever it is, whether what they say and how they present themselves is going to be the overall force that determines what happens. in terms of foreign policy or any kind of policy. What ultimately determines policy is the actual interests that the United States is power elite, the ruling elite, those who control things in government, those who control the state,

those who have foreign policy aims that they can actually push through. You know, everyone calls it the deep state now. But if we look at this nexus of financial, economic, and political elites, there is a thread that actually runs through all of them, and that is that the geopolitical chess board actually is the struggle between unipolarity and multipolarity. And unipolarity means that these interests are completely satisfied with no impediment to them. And multipolarity is the rise of legitimate impediments that are attractive to the rest of the world and will eventually weaken the ability of the United States to remain on top.

and to thus be able to dominate the economic landscape worldwide in a way that gives these elites what they want. And that is how I look at it. So Donald Trump, if he brokers normalization with Russia that is deep and binding, which I believe Russia will, is the only thing Russia will accept at this point after what happened in Ukraine, then that will be a net positive. But to say that that will mean Trump has done more positive, in the world than bad. First, that's a very premature assertion, given that we are only a couple months in. And two, I think it negates the fact that what the United States' path overall is and how its political and economic system is organized actually is designed to

a fuel empire regardless of who is president of the United States. Donald Trump can make a huge difference, and I believe he has, because it would be a mistake to say that presidents don't have any kind of independent historical force behind them. He has the power to alter things. But will his overall trajectory, how he, his vision, how he sees the world, will it fundamentally change the United States as a player in the world? it could change it some, but I actually see, and we're seeing it now, I actually believe what we are more likely going to witness is a rebranding, a reformulation of what Empire looks like. That could bring some net positives to it, but it will bring also a lot of, we call it the same, but even if it doesn't look the same, it will be predicated upon a thread of interests that are not going away. I hope that the person that asked this question can view this more from a standpoint of the overall picture rather than cutting up what I believe are very much connected developments from U.S. Russian normalization to war in West Asia to the buildup of war towards China.

And really, if we just look at the entire globe, the United States of knowing that it is in decline, knowing that it has not a lot of time left to cement this kind of permanent blocks that it needs, this foundation that it continuously is trying to build toward being on top forever. It sees that there's not a lot of time left to do that. And I think those elites also understand that time might not even be the question. it might be capabilities. And as the United States becomes weaker and weaker as its influence arose, as the rise of China, Russia, Iran, bricks, all of this continues to rise,

I think we're going to see regardless of administration, regardless of Trump or whoever else comes after him, they're going to be moving on a very desperate, chaotic, and potentially dangerous path against these rising countries to sustain this full-spectrum dominance project. And I could be wrong, but from what I'm already seeing, it appears that there are forces still leading the United States toward this path. And I would just caution making immense conclusions from a very short period of time. But again, I support U.S. Russia talks. I want to see U.S. Russia normalization, in part because I, I want to see what I think is inevitable and what I think is a historical reality, which is that Russia has won.

And so that normalization will be a byproduct of that victory. And that's a good thing for the world. Latimeros says, hi, Duran and Danny. As Brian Berletic keeps pointing out, U.S. presidents change, but U.S. policies don't. Unfortunately, for all of us, sad reality. That's from Vladimir. And you got time for one more, Danny? Sure.

Yeah. Were you from sophisticated cavemen, Danny? Wait, I just had it. Okay, there it is. Danny, might we have the Russians emerge as a mediator between the Chinese and other East Asian countries, Vietnam, Korea, Japan, and others? I would say no. I think Russia serves as a great mediator for,

possibly other areas. Now, mediator is an interesting position for Russia to be in, given that China and its conflict with, let's say, other countries in the world, let's say India, there are a lot of complexities to these conflicts that are in kind of the early stages and probably pretty far away, especially the China-India relationship from any kind of, kind of mediation process for a big change down the road. And I think really where the emphasis actually is going to be for Russia and China is going to be less on how to mediate conflicts and more on how to continue to build these multilateral mechanisms, which don't require mediation because most anyone who engages in them are treated

as equal players and are completely. emphasizing cooperation and development rather than any kind of solving problems between them. China, I think, is fully capable of engaging in diplomacy with even its staunchest neighbors, anti-China neighbors, for example, like Japan, if the other side is willing. Unfortunately, a lot of these anti-China, you could call them political entities in the Asia Pacific, they are not really interested in resolving political differences, but they're more than willing to conduct economic cooperation with China, leading to not many areas for mediation, actually, because the economic cooperation will continue, but the political differences will

inevitably remain. And we saw how Japan, I spoke at the UN Security Council. And when I was there, you know, the Japanese representative was there. And I just, the complete subservience to U.S. Dictats in Ukraine was just, you know, it's shocking to hear from a country that was literally nuclear bombed by the United States. But that's a political reality in some parts of the Asia Pacific. And so, no, I don't believe Russia will serve necessarily as a mediator. But I do believe that Russia and China, because they view themselves, even though

there are differences being to, even though, the way that they are rising, it has irregularities. I remember China on a huge economic rise with a strong military, but Russia now perhaps could be seen as the most powerful military in the world. When you see these two countries rising in their different ways, there's so much complementarity there. And I believe that will be the focus from here on out is how these two countries can complement each other.

and in a large degree for China, there actually is very little conflict. So unless Russia is going to get in the middle of China, U.S., which I don't think the U.S. would ever allow, I don't think it would ever allow any kind of mediation. And I don't believe China thinks it needs that kind of mediation, even with the United States. I don't know. I don't believe Russia needs to play that role. But again, Russia has just huge strengths in military and now. diplomatic affairs that, who knows, sometime in the future when these differences

maybe reach an impasse, a different kind of phase than perhaps. But I see so many of these things, whether there's Japan or India or what have you, there are many years down the road and are likely going to be dependent upon internal changes in those countries before they they can see the forest from the trees and stop hedging or in the case of someone like Japan completely going down the U.S. is the suicidal rabbit hole. Danny Haiphon. Thank you so much for joining us in the Duran. Thank you for answering the questions.

Once again, where can people find you? Sure. They can subscribe and follow me on YouTube just at Danny Haifong. I think the handle is at Geopolitics Highfong. You find me on X. I think it's Geopolitics, D-H. And then if you want to support my work, you can do so by subscribe by Patreon on Patreon. So you can find that.

My YouTube channel, patreon.com slash Danny, highfoam. I have that information in the description box down below. And I will add it as a pin to comment as well when the live stream ends. Thank you so much, Danny, for joining us. Thank you, guys. Yeah, it was great. Thanks so much, guys. Thank you.

Take care. Bye, bye. Bye-bye. All right. Alexander, are you with us? I am indeed. Here I am. Fantastic. By the way, sorry if you can hear various industrial sounds.

They will, they usually air bell for a while. Okay, good. All right. Let's answer the remaining questions. Yes. You up for that? All right. Absolutely.

From Wade, discussion request. China, PRC was not even when you're old when it fought the US to a draw. Korea and this was after the US had won World War II. The US cannot defeat any adversary that possesses conviction. Your thoughts? I think this is very true actually. I mean, the Chinese intervention in the Korean War was a decisive event, one which shocked the United States and briefly created a panic there. And it was carried out by a army that consisted mostly of light infantry just saying. So it was an event that shook the world. And you absolutely, Wade is absolutely right. The United States never ultimately got on top of it. Now, of course, it's important to

stress that the Chinese were able to do that in 1950 because they had the backing of the Soviet Union at that time led by Joseph Stalin. The Soviet Union had just acquired nuclear weapons. The Soviets were starting to involve themselves in the Korean War as well. We now know that Soviet pilots flew big 15 fighter jets to engage the US Air Force over Korea. So the Soviet presence was less visible, but it was nonetheless there. So that's what enabled the Chinese to do what they did. But it again demonstrates Wade's very precise point

that even at that point, even at this early moment in China's history, China's modern history, it was able to take on the United States and to achieve extraordinary things. William says, are Blinken, Newland

Elensky co-conspirators with Stamer and Macron? Does Coalition of the Willings suggest Blair Campbell and Mandelson are in on it. We had a discussion. Mental Sin is the is the ambassador to the US.

British ambassador to the US. Very, very close political ally of Tony Blair's, by the way. Blair's spin doctor when Blair was prime minister. And a person that many people consider a very sinister force and very powerful force in British politics. But anyway, putting that aside, we had a very interesting discussion on this very theme in a program that Alex and I did have already made,

and which I think is due to appear on the Duran shortly. But we made exactly the point that you have just made, that Stama undoubtedly is not acting on his own, that he undoubtedly is in contact with his friends in the United States, And obviously there's always this traffic between the neocons in London and the neocons in Washington and that they work out all of these ideas with each other. So absolutely, I think that many of the people you mention undoubtedly are involved and all of these ideas that are coming out of the coalition of willing,

extraordinary title by the way, by the way, because that was the title that Bush and Cheney and Blair gave to their coalition, which invaded Iraq in the United States. 2003. Anyway, so I mean, you know, the thing with the neocons is that they're not very imaginative. They don't even come up with new labels for the projects they launch. But undoubtedly, I'm sure that there is an awful lot of discussion and contacts going on behind the scenes. And I do wonder whether Trump in particular realizes that. Fuhr von der Leyen says the European Commission plans to take 10 trillion euros of citizens' savings for EU defense.

Take your money out or it will be mine. Quite, yeah. Matthew says, I cannot see a scenario where Europe doesn't introduce its troops, ceasefire or no ceasefire. Trump is not shutting it down. Hegset foreign policy paper includes a European peacekeeping element. I think that too much has been made of that. That went back to February of the time of the Ramstein Agreement, the Munich Security Conference.

I think that since then things have moved on. It's very, very clear that most European countries are not keen on this idea at all. Stama has just had a summit meeting, a virtual summit meeting. The Daily Telegraph has actually disclosed that most. of the countries that were participated in it were very queasy about this idea altogether. And the British and the French have admitted that without the Americans involved, this really won't fly. So I think that this is mostly bluff.

I think the Heggseth paper is a historic document that was created before the early interactions between the Russians. and the Americans. The Russians have made this thing. Their opinions about this very, very clear. I do think the Americans will go there. I think there's three countries that are signed up to the Stammer-Maconin incursion, the UK, France and Denmark. Denmark. I think those are the three countries. Yeah, I read it today. That's it. That's it. Yeah. Italy's out. Italy's out. Germany is out. Poland is completely out. Even the Baltic states are not particularly keen about it. Yeah.

Yeah. And even if they went in to do what? To do what? What are they going to accomplish? What are they going to accomplish? Well, I think the telegraphs said this as well, or who was it yesterday that you were talking about? And Nick Timothy, I mean, he was, who's one, you know, a prominent figure in Britain.

He was one of Theresa May's advisors. And he's still, you know, being person within the British political class. firmament. I mean, I've actually still got that article to hand. And, you know, he says this is a horrible mistake. And he says, the casual ease, me reading from it, the casual ease with which our political leaders and commentators are discussing decisions that could lead us to armed conflict should alarm us all. History tells us the most

disastrous of wars often start with small and apparently harmless steps. The Prime Minister should be prepared to answer these very serious questions. And then if you go to the thread of that article and the Daily Telegraph, and the Daily Telegraph is the most anti-Russian newspaper you will find in Britain, and it is also the one which members of the British army of the officer class tends to read, you will find that the thread is absolutely damning about this idea of sending troops to Ukraine. There would be enormous opposition to it in Britain. And there would be in France as well.

And I just don't think it's going to happen. MI says the MIC must be fed, regardless of Trump's actual beliefs, which are difficult to decipher. Needless to say, the deep state is not going anywhere. It is simply being reallocated. Well, this is the fundamental problem that any administration that wants to change things in the United States is going to face. is that the structures of the United States that began to develop first in the Second World War and then especially in the Cold War are now so deeply entrenched in America's social, political and economic life

that they are all but impossible to uproot. It would require a political revolution to do it. Now, I haven't to think that Trump and the people around, him understand that this is an unsustainable course that the United States is taking. I don't think they have a very coherent vision of how to get away from this problem. And I'm going to anticipate what I suspect are going to be lots of questions. I think what has happened, the blow up in the Middle East that we're seeing now, is the direct product of what I touched on in the question and answer with Danny. I think Trump and Wittgolf, who got that ceasefire in Gaza, are now so bogged down in

Ukrainian things. And on the Duran, we always warned that if he started getting involved in Ukraine, he would get completely bogged down. I think they have got completely bogged down in Ukrainian things. So the result is that all of these very hard-line people within his administration, these former army officers, people like Mike Walson, all of the others, and I mean, no disrespect when I say that, but people who serve in the Middle East and who have this visceral hatred of Iran that derives from their experiences there, whilst Trump and Wickoff were focused on Ukraine. Well, this whole situation arose and they kept along to Trump and they said, look, the Iranians are plain dirty again. So we must strike at the Houthis and we was, if the Iranians,

the Israelis rather, we start fighting in Gaza. We, you know, we should support them. And of course, Trump signs that off. Whereas if Wykoff and Wickhoff had been involved, engaged in the Middle East diplomacy, if he'd been talking to the Israelis, if he'd been talking to the Hamas people, if he'd been talking to the Egyptians, if he'd be doing that work that he was doing very successfully before, we would have had a different outcome. Wickoff, and I say this again, I'd be no disrespect to him, I worry that he may be out of his depth dealing with the Russians, and that he may not be the best person to put up again. against them. Whereas I think in the Middle East, perhaps because of his background from New York,

he had a much better feel and much better control of the situation there. Now that's my view. And by the way, it's based on experience. I've seen how these things happen. Remember, I've been on the fringes of government myself and I see how political leaders who lack bandwidth can quickly quickly find events slipping out of their control. This is not a defense of Trump. It is a criticism of Trump. He is getting too drawn into this whole Ukraine thing, just as we said that he shouldn't do. He's fallen straight into the trap. He's absolutely tied himself up in it. Yeah, every question that he gets is about Ukraine pretty much, or at least half the questions that he gets about Ukraine when he's giving media. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it's all Ukraine. Yes. Even Putin ever so gently. Putin said it. You're right. Putin said it. Yeah, he's getting too bog down in Ukraine. No doubt about that.

Tish M says, do we really believe the U.S. regime vassals are going rogue? I sure don't. This theater is all being played out per the new and ever-changing script. and Trump has just accepted the role of the new old genocider in chief. Well, I come back to what I said. I think he's lost control in the situation. I mean, he might eventually get it back under control because God knows he's Donald Trump.

He does all kinds of extraordinary things. He takes us to the brink of ball and then he pulls us back. But with the Middle East, you have to give it constant attention. Or at least if you aren't yourself going, to give it constant detention. You have to have people in charge of it who you trust and who reliably will execute your views. Now, my own clear view, and Trump said this, is that he wants to be some quiet in the Middle East. He brokered that deal in Gaza. He spoke about the fact that he wanted to do a deal with Iran, and that the only big issue for him was Iran's nuclear

weapons program. But then as soon as he started to say that, he got drawn in to these dealing with the details of the Ukrainian negotiations. And here we are. So he's got Mike Walsz and Pete Hegseth and people like that running affairs in the Middle East for him. And we know what their views are. And it's completely unsurprising that they've taken us to the point that they have. Now, this is, as I said, not an excuse for Trump. It's a criticism of him. He is not running this thing well. Matthew says, how does Ukraine ever get sorted? The EU is arming itself for war. Even if this doesn't blow up now, isn't it going to just happen in five or ten years? Well, quite plausibly. I mean, what I suspect is going to happen is we're going to have a

negotiations, the Russians will drive a very hard bargain, which I mean the reports, the early reports from Bloomberg, suggest that. Trump will eventually have to make concessions to them. But whether that's going to resolve the ultimate situation in Europe is a completely different matter. I mean, put aside Ukraine, there's the bigger issue of tensions in Europe as well. I mean, we see Ossula is still there. We see what Stama is trying to do. So again, my own view about this is that the best thing for Trump to have done would have been to stay right out. That was what we were saying on that you ran long before he became president, before he was even elected. But he saw himself as the great deal maker.

He has this idea that he can achieve some kind of reconciliation with the Russians. The Russians take that seriously. But exactly as you say, this is too complicated a task to sort, to sort out quickly in the way he wants it done. Or, Alexander, you agree to Istanbul Plus. You agreed to the June 24. Well, he did. Well, he might eventually do that, but then he's still got problems. Well, he's got problems.

But as far as the Russians go. Oh, no, that's fine. But that he's got to get the Ukrainians to agree. He's got to get the Europeans to agree. That's a whole new set of problems. So my own view is he should have, he would have been much better advised to stay right clear of it. But there we go.

He's got all the people who are telling him otherwise. He just said he has this idea that he's going to be the great deal maker. Now he's tied up today with a two-hour phone call with Putin. I don't think this was a useful, an efficient use of his time. FAR FAR, FARS, thank you for that super chat. Hish M says America has been sold. It's currently in escrow. Then the final docs to be signed.

The U.S. project has failed. Well, again, you address a very serious question because at the same time as Trump is committing all he's done, sorting out, you know, the problems of Ukraine. There are the actual problems of the United States to worry about. And here Trump has an enormously ambitious program, which has not been fully fleshed out. And ultimately, I would have thought that that ought to be the thing, the single thing, that he gives priority to getting control of the budget in Washington, which we can now see, was completely out of control, has got completely.

out of control. If he wants to move to tariffs, and I, by the way, have no principled opposition to tariffs. I think tariffs can work. They have in the past. Why shouldn't they in the future? But he's got to think at exactly how that works out. If you want to develop an industrial policy, which he says he does, that also requires time. He needs to give himself time to do all of these things arguing about power stations in Ukraine is not an efficient use of he's done. That's all. William says, oh, it's the same question with Newland and Zelenskyy, Mandelson, Coalition of the Willing. Okay, thank you for that. William, we go to Commando Crossfire. Unfortunately, Russia, like all countries, must be self-interest. This is no slight, but it means as it tries to repair relations with the US,

it will refrain from assisting oppressed peoples, i.e., Yemen, and Gaza. Well, you're absolutely correct in saying that Russia is mostly driven by self-interest. All great powers are and should be. My own view, and I speak now as a complete realist, is that when countries set out, particularly great powers, set out to act on what they call idealistic motives, it nearly always ends badly, badly for themselves, often very, very badly for the people they set out to help, because all it does is it creates unrealistic expectations,

and it also traps the great power into all sorts of problems which it should not be involved in, and then the great power starts to use its power in all sorts of dangerous and unwise ways. I think the Russians will try to calm the situation down in the Middle East. We know that they have offered themselves as a potential mediator, or if not mediator, at least a conveyor of ideas between the United States and Iran.

We know also that Lavrov has spoken to Rubio and has told Rubio, this attack that you're carrying out against the Houthis is a very, very bad idea. And we know also that the Russians are in Iran and they're supplying Iran with weapons and economic assistance. And again, they're doing that out of calculations of self-interest. In my opinion, when great powers act in a self-interested way, often they do more good than bad and I think that's what we're going to see with the Russians. Commander Crospire says, hopefully the rising tide of bricks and the third world can help oppress peoples without the need for Russia direct intervention.

Russia is no world policeman. Well, exactly. I mean, what exactly are you suggesting that the Russians do? Go to war, you know, send troops to Yemen to fight the Americans there? I mean, it's not happening. What motivation would the Russians have to do that? And how would that help the situation? It would simply create another crisis between Russia and the United States

when we're trying to bring the international situation to a position of more order. So, I mean, I just don't see what it is exactly that the Russian. Russians can do in this situation more and beyond what they have already done. Andrea says this is not going to, there is not going to be any peace agreement until the Ukraine army collapses and Ukraine capitulates. It should be obvious to Trump and his team. Very, very plausibly. And again, why is he getting involved, deep involved, deeply involved into the situation in the Ukraine? Well, you can see that he wants to improve relations with Russia. But he could have done that anyway, it seems to me. He didn't need to resolve the

situation in Ukraine. I think that American opinion, public opinion, is sophisticated enough to see that. Just saying, there would have been many people in Washington who would not have been happy, but they're Donald Trump's enemies anyway. So, I mean, I don't see why he couldn't have taken that course. My own guess is that we're going to get a negotiation. The negotiation is going to give to the Russians most of what they want, perhaps all of it. And I still think that's going to be only a pause in the wider conflict. And quite plausibly, maybe after Trump has gone, the whole thing will start up all over again. And it will be like South Vietnam all over again. Ukraine will finally collapse at that point.

Just that. Commander Crossfire says, Keep Coca-Cola Mickey D's out of Russia seriously. Oh, quite possibly. Joe G., welcome to the drag community. John Robert says, it seems to me the debt and demographic aging of the West, including U.S., act as a break towards war.

Do you see the economic factors in the U.S. and Europe contributing or inhibiting a march to war? I agree. I think, well, I think in some respects, they do I think you're quite right I think that with the population is growing older with debt problems and economic problems building up on all sides um logically that should deter us from wars the problem is we have an awful lot of very demented people who are still long for wars if that argument that you made that you know aging populations and debt problems

was motivating countries to seek peace, then Britain would be seeking peace almost more than any other country, because we're up to our ears and debt. Our economy is stagnant and in decline, and we too are facing the same demographic challenges that you see right across the West. Instead, what are we? We are more belligerent than any other one

of the major Western powers. From Latimer, I think somebody needs to disabuse the US from a belief that they can break the alliance between Russia and China. The US has nothing that attractive they can offer to Russia to switch sides. Well, I think this is absolutely correct. I've tried to make this point many times to all sorts of people. Well, I'll say I did. I had, there was a program when I made the same point, Vivek Ramaswami, I remember, then. So was Elon Musk? I find that this idea that, you know, Russia and China can be divided

from each other that some people still have. I find it very strange. When the Russians themselves go out of their way repeatedly to say it won't happen. From Kent Nilsson, channels such as these make me believe again, they are like Stars in the Heavens. I'm always happier and calmer. and learning is good. Yeah. For that. Thank you. Nico says,

Duran, in our previous discussion about the narrative, I wanted to ask you about the neol liberals hold of Wikipedia, Tucker Carlson has asked the question about the shaping of our archives by the left.

Well, this is absolutely correct. I don't really have anything to add to what Tucker Carlson has said, why does it surprise you that Wikipedia takes the stances that it does? I would have been a statement, astonished if it had taken any other ones, just saying. Lada Moreau says, I think we are all coming down from the hype about President Trump.

I was hoping for something nice from this admin. But same old, same old. Now, again, I think that this is, first of all, I think this is a different administration from the previous one. Just to repeat again, Biden, no negotiations with the Russians, no diplomatic contacts with the Russians. We've now got a sense of how. minimal the contacts with the Russians actually were. There were no ambassadors in each country. The embassies reduced to absolute skeleton levels, contacts entirely by email, apparently.

People wouldn't speak on the phone, with many emails going unanswered. That is an incredibly dangerous situation between nuclear great powers. and unending escalation from the Biden people, more and more weapons, more and more plans to launch missile strikes into Russia, more and more threats. Well, at least Trump has done this vast thing. He's taken this conflict with the world's other biggest nuclear superpower,

and he said this is incredibly dangerous and it must end. Now, that is a big change. That is a reversal of policy for what we saw. just seven weeks ago. And like Danny, I think this is a good thing, absolutely, that he's got himself into all sorts of problems in the Middle East, that he might find himself tied down in trying to sort out the Ukraine problem as well. That is indisputably true.

But I cannot say that there hasn't been a change from one administration to the Ukraine. the other because the visibly has been. Yeah, no one can say that. Yeah. I mean, everything that we've learned about the lack of communication between the United States under Biden and Russia is astonishing. I mean, I didn't even expect that it was that bad. No, no, nor did not.

Yeah. And Trump reopened the channels of communication at a minimum. At a minimum, at least he did that. Yeah, and he's done other things. We saw USAID, which is not a small thing, pulling the funding from Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe and Voice of America. Not a small thing either, actually. Again, most people don't listen to the, in the West, we don't listen to these radio stations or read their websites. So most people don't understand how important they have been in shaping the modern.

world and in continuing to play a role in neocon policies. So, you know, these are not minor things that should be simply swept away, that we have an unfolding disaster in the Middle East. No way do I deny his responsibility for it. But that's not to say that other things haven't happened, which aren't at least important. Elza says, are sanctions against China from any European country or the EU as a whole of significance, do the Chinese care at all? They do care. Of course they care. They're the world's major trading power. They're the major trading power in finished goods. So obviously, anything that restricts their ability to conduct trade is for them a very bad thing. But that doesn't mean that they can't take steps to mitigate the effect of that or to develop their economy in a way that won't help them to overcome these problems and to continue their domestic development.

So it's not true to say that they don't care, but it doesn't mean it's going to cripple them either. from sophisticated caveman will the u.s attempt to direct its imperialism at greenland mexico china and central america well i mean it's taking on lots of people at once i still am of the view that deep down donald trump's own sentiments are spheres of influence he wants to create a sphere of influence uh he wants to create a sphere of influence around the united states he sees canada greenland Central America, including the canal, as part of America's natural sphere of influence. And he sees countries like China and Russia as alternative great powers. He understands that they have spheres of influence as well.

But my own view still is I don't think he's looking for war with China. I don't think that is really part of his agenda at all. But of course, saying that doesn't mean, you know, he won't be pulled along into a conflict, which he doesn't perhaps fully understand and which could get easily out of control. Edward Jefferson, the third says deep truth seekers, PDF book Alice Bailey, Masters in the Path by Alice Bailey. Oh, I do. Thank you.

Studio writer says, why are the Greeks and Persians the best at geopolitics, I'm fairly confident that the US will lose against Iran since Wall Street will be fast to call it off once it is clear that the US MIC loses its value. Because we have the longest experience in it. We've been doing it for thousands and thousands of years. We started doing it with each other as well, by the way, in the sixth century before Christ. So, I mean, that gives us a lot of experience and a huge storage literature about this, which we can always draw upon. Studio Rainer says, I've also heard whispers that the Ukrainians are very aware that they have been played by NATO and Zelensky's threat to Vance was strange. Would you be surprised if Ukraine turns on the West?

Yes, I wouldn't be surprised at all. I think it's quite likely, actually. It will be a long and complex process. But if we go back to the war in the 1990s in the Caucasus, that's exactly what the Chechens came to. understand that they will be manipulated by the West. And the result is that they are now very, very loyal to Russia and very hostile to the West. And you were the first person to talk about, to draw the parallels between what happened in Chechnya and what could possibly happen in Ukraine.

That was over two years ago. Yeah. Maybe two and a half years ago you talked about that being a possible result of the conflict. Nico says, you are too polite to say tunnel vision mentality. I think it's because I think it's obsessive and pessimistic. As someone who suffers from depression, I choose for wants to have hope. I believe in Trump because he means what he is saying. I get to make the same point that I made about Trump before.

I think the problem with Trump is that he's something of an amateur. Now, again, I mean no disrespect to saying this. He probably is well-meaning. In fact, I think he is well-meaning. I think he is a very clever man. People underestimate hugely. He's intelligence. But he just doesn't have that depth of experience

that you need in order to conduct negotiations at this very high level. And he doesn't have a team that is organized to do that either. And here the problem is it isn't just Trump. The United States hasn't done diplomacy for decades. So the number of people who know how to do it in the United States, you can count them on your fingers, and they're nearly all of them old and retired.

So that's, I think, part of the problem. That's why there's this tendency to become overabsorbed in one problem at a time. Latimer Rose says President Trump should have listened to Steve Bannon to clean cut and walk away from Ukraine. He said it more explicitly than me. Absolutely. He should absolutely. I mean, this is one instance whether Duran and Steve Bannon are on exactly the same wavelength. Sparky says, great to see Danny Al-Nad Duran.

Thank you, Sparky. Mama Alaska says, I worry Ukraine, German Nazi followers in Canada. US. Yeah. You're quite right to worry about them. They are still there. They're a very, very serious problem. And you can be absolutely certain of one thing if there is a ceasefire or cessation of hostilities or whatever it is. These people will do everything they can to undermine it, as they have successfully done so many times. Matthew says, will there be war in Europe in the next 10 years? Well, I hope. Well, there is a war in Europe now, which is the one that's been waged in Ukraine. And it is not a war between Russia and Ukraine. It is a war between Russia and the collective West. And already we know that there are European and American soldiers in Ukraine waging this war. It's just that the fact that they are there is not publicly disclosed. fractured. Thank you for that super sticker. Sir Mugge

says in his recent comments Stammer said he must defend our continent since when did a British PM consider Europe our continent? Very good question. And with what? I mean with whose army? I mean, what army does he think Britain has which can defend the entire continent? A couple of days ago we did a program Last week, we did a program with Commodore Steve Jeremy, you know, senior British military officer from the Royal Navy. And he said Europe, even with the United States, probably wouldn't be able to defeat the Russians in a conventional war. Britain, although, Britain in coalition with who?

With Denmark, with the Netherlands, with a German army left in chaos by U.S. with Macron, you know, the new Napoleon alongside it, they're going to take on the Russians by themselves. Ridiculous. I mean, they could send troops in, right, Alexander? They could send troops in, absolutely. The question is what happens after that? What happens after?

How do the Russians respond? And what does the British do then? Yeah. Florina Plovetti says, why would Russia agree to a ceasefire just because the US wants that? Also exposing it. to the risk that the European country send troops to enter Ukraine further complicating things.

The Russians will, may consider a ceasefire with all of the reasons you said, if they are sure that as a result of that ceasefire, they will get quickly, what they would otherwise, quickly and peacefully, what they might otherwise have to spend months fighting for, and which might lead to many more Russian soldiers dying. That's what Putin said in his press conference. Sir Musgrains says Jamie Diamond said that he doesn't pay attention

to the economy. He pays attention to geopolitics. Sounds like an opening for an invite to the Duran. Well, maybe. Jamie Tyler, there's a thought. That would be interesting. It would certainly be interesting. Geo-1416.

Have you ever considered it? I should just quickly say that I am a bit worried about the fact that the CEO of was a J.P. Morgan says that he doesn't pay any attention to the economy. Yeah, it's kind of worrying. That's hardly reassuring. G.L.1416, have you ever considered doing explanation videos in addition to your brilliant update videos like an explanation of the causes of the SMO or of USAID? That's a very interesting idea, actually. Of course, the trouble is with doing all of these things, and, you know, maybe one day we will. But the trouble with doing that is we are running all the time to stay ahead of the news. I mean, we're just doing a program now

in a couple of minutes, an hour, whatever, Putin and Trump will be talking, and then we're going to have to rush ahead and try to deal with all of that. So finding the time to do these other things is always a struggle, but certainly it's a good idea. And I don't want to deny that. It would be a very good idea because I mean unless you understand the history you can't understand the conflict yeah between the three of us well the Duran me and you Alexander the three channels we're posting about 25 26 videos a week yeah that's a lot yeah so i mean we're trying to get as much news out there as possible yes uh chile pepper says uh Germany reportedly wants to postulate FM Annalina Berbach as candidate the post of UN General Assembly Chairwoman.

Oh boy. That would be fun. That would certainly be fun, yeah. By the way, by the way, if that's correct, I'm sure it is. It shows how completely out of touch with global opinion, they really are. I mean, the fact is it isn't just the Russians who don't like Annalina Bearball. No one does. So why would the Germans propose?

Sir Mugs gave says NATO, with Russia's help, couldn't beat Russia. Yeah. Fidbar says, excellent discussion. Gentlemen, studio, Reiner says, if you had to rate the current state of diplomacy in the world, in the world is so bad that it's only. almost satirical or that will have the Congress of Vienna 2.0. We are nowhere close to a Congress of Vienna type situation.

I mean, bear in mind, the Congress of Vienna took place in 1815, 181415, building on a tradition of European diplomacy that had been continuous going all the way back to the Treaty of Australia in 1648. So we have centuries of diplomatic expertise. And the result was that we have people like Talirin and Karseroy and Kemp and the Congress of Vienna, Nessaroda and all of those people. But no one like that today. The Russians, the Chinese do diplomacy and they have very, very strong diplomatic teams.

The West stopped doing diplomacy more than 30 years ago. So we have to relearn all of that. At least, and again, you know, again, no, I'm not. saying Trump is getting things right. But at least he's trying. He's actually talking to Putin. He's actually trying to find his way forward. And he's making one mistake after another.

And he's got his own ideas, some of which are very wrong, some of which are frankly bad. But at least there's some attempt now to try and get the diplomatic skills that have been just thrown away to try to find them again. And maybe in four years' time, we will see a German-American diplomacy emerge if this process continues. Florena says, I believe that Russia also wants Odessa

in making the junction to Transnistria, as well as the Sumi and Kharkov regions, even if this is not explicitly stated a goal. So Istanbul Plus won't do. No, I agree. I think the Russians ultimately want Istanbul plus plus plus I've no doubt at all if they can get Istanbul plus it would be a big step forward to Istanbul plus plus plus bear in mind every Russian advance leads to a weakening of Ukraine

and a further point now what's the point I've made in a recent program it's absolutely true that Ukraine used the Minsk agreement to strengthen itself to rearm But Russia used that period as well. People always overlooked this. Not only did Russia massively modernize and upgrade its armed forces as well during that time, but it completely reorganized its economy. It sank, it made it sanctions proof. It did all of those things, which in 2014 it was not ready for.

So every pause ultimately in this thing works to Russia's advantage if we do get a further conflict down the road, which I think quite possible, by the way. So, you know, I agree. But about Adessa, well, if you look at the media this morning, and I don't myself take this seriously, but the media is this morning is basically saying that Trump is going to propose that Ukraine give up Adessa in return for the Zaporosian nuclear power. I don't take that seriously. I cannot imagine that anybody seriously is to. thinking of anything like that. If Trump proposes it to Putin over this course of this telephone call, I'm going to tell you what I think Putin's response will be. He will say to Trump, go slow.

Be careful. It cannot work like this. Would you come? Yeah. And keep in mind that in 2016, if Hillary Clinton would have been president, there might have been a war much earlier with Russia. Well, there would have been. When Russia was weaker. When Russia was much weaker. Much, much weaker. Sanctions would have probably worked back then,

the big sanctions assault. Absolutely. I can remember in 2008, when there was the financial crisis, and there was a massive outflow of funds from Russia, you know, through Swift, the economy was open, all of that. And the Russian economy nearly collapsed. I mean, that's the distance that we have traveled.

Tom Boy 1 says, what is the best way to support your channel? How much is left of super chat for you? I don't know the second part to that question. I can't answer that. But the best way is locals, the durand.com or the Durand shop, where we have really great merch. So all those links are in the description box down below. Thank you, Tom Boy, for that.

And let's see, you've got a couple of more, Alexander. From Fjur van der Leyen, why would the EU announce they plan on seizing 10 trillion euros from European savings accounts to build the EU military machine beforehand? So that people can take out of their money out of the banks now before the European Union goes ahead and does it. Oh, no, but seriously, I mean, what they're doing is they're using the anti-Russian hysteria

that they have been whipping up for years since long before the start of the special military operation to increase the power of the EU centre further still. This has been a continuous long-running story. One of the reasons that they were giving, not in an official statement,

but it was all over the media at the time, for taking money out of Cypriot bank accounts, was supposedly that the Russians were laundering money through those Cypriot bank accounts. So this has been the thing that the EU constantly plays up and constantly says in order to justify all of these extraordinary steps that it has been taken. Yeah, and I think you had a good explanation

as to how it's going to work with the banks buying into the euro bonds. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's, yeah. Anyway, that's everything. That's everything. Well, it's a great life story, if I was saying. Yeah. Your final thoughts as I just.

Well, I mean, a dramatic day again, as I said, a blow up in the Middle East, which I should say has come out of nowhere. I mean, this attack on the Houthis, is followed by the breakdown of the ceasefire in Gaza, is a dramatic escalation. And clearly that there's some signs of cordial. nation here. I mean, these are not events that are isolated from each other. And of course,

this enormous telephone call, which could perhaps already be underway. I mean, we don't know. And we'll have to see what comes to it. Yeah. From Studio Rainer, one last question. Do you think the U.S. can win a conventional war against Iran? I don't think the U.S. morale or economy has the capacity to launch a war. If there is an unending, you know, a big war between information of the United States and of course, United States is far more powerful than Iran is. But my guess is it would not be a walkover at all. And it would massively overstretch America's already very strained resources. It would be like the war in Vietnam, a war with a country that appeared small and weak,

and turned out to be very difficult to capture, to defeat. a country that had China and Russia behind it. And of course, Iran is much more powerful and richer than North Vietnam was. And China, and by the way, Russia are much richer and more powerful and more technologically advanced, certainly taken together than they were in the 1960s. Yeah. El Migranti says this channel is a great source of knowledge and information. Thank you for that super chat.

In Brooklyn, Butterfly Art says, would Russia be setting itself up to to be a Syria 2.0 by accepting a ceasefire, any leader after Putin as committed? Well, I don't think so. I don't, I mean, I think any comparison between Russia and Syria is completely wrong. I mean, we're talking about two completely different countries, if I miss it. Again, if there is a pause, I'm not convinced there will be, by the way, but if there is a pause, based on what has happened before, it will be the Russians who will draw the benefit from it, not the West, just saying. But I don't believe that there is going to be opposed.

After all, the Russians have consistently said they ruled it out. Well, to be more precise, I think we will get a settlement to this particular conflict that we are seeing now, which will be Istanbul Plus or something essentially like that. Now, either Ukraine will then drift back into the Russian orbit. Or there will be more attempts again in the future to restart something in Ukraine, in which case, what's left to Ukraine will be crushed. Baby Jane, thank you for that super chat. And that is it.

All right. Thank you to everyone that joined us on this live stream. Thank you to Danny Haifong. Thank you to everyone that watched us on Odyssey, on Rock Finn, on Rumble, YouTube, and our local. community thank you to our moderators Zaryl Tish M Harry Peter and is it for the moderators thank you so much for moderating the chat Alexander let's see what's going on with the Putin Trump vote on like absolutely absolutely all right all right everybody take care