The Ricochet Podcast - Churchillian

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

What’s the Ricochet Podcast to do when the world insists on calamity? We invite one of the leading historians in the English speaking world and a former National Security Advisor, that’s what. Joining the fellas in our opening chat is Andrew Roberts. He reports from Eastern Europe to tell us about his recent trip to Ukraine, and, as the Churchill expert, to give his take on the comparisons between... Source

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Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace. Democracy simply doesn't work. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Peter Robinson. I'm James Lawless, and today we talk to Andrew Roberts about Churchill, Zelensky, and H.R. McMaster about the war in Ukraine. Let's have ourselves a podcast. I can hear you! Welcome, everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, episode number 585. Wow. What are we going to do

when we hit 600? Well, wander on over to ricochet.com and get a hint. Join ricochet.com, why don't you, as well, and be part of the most stimulating conversations and community on the web. I'm James Lalix after a fortnight's sojourn. Happy to be back. Peter Robinson is here. I know, of course, you guys ached and missed me terribly. And I'd ask Rob what he felt about it, but he's stuck in traffic. He'll be along presently. We're going to go right to our first guest, though, because it's a lot to talk about these days. Andrew Roberts, author of nearly two dozen histories, including Storm of War, Churchill, Walking with Destiny, and most recently, The Last King of America. Currently, he's in Hungary and just made a

visit to the Ukrainian border and has ricocheted, well, perhaps the world's preeminent authority on Sir Winston. We want to just take on World War III. Actually, I think it's World War V, if you want to be technical. And Churchill, number two. Andrew, welcome. Thank you very much. It's a great honor to be on the podcast.

We understand that you're in Budapest, but given that we're renaming everything now We understand that you're in Budapest, but given that we're renaming everything now correctly, shouldn't that be Budapesh? Yes, absolutely. I am. I'm the guest of, I'm a visiting fellow of the Danube Institute, which is John O'Sullivan's outfit here in Hungary, and it's a great honor to be a visiting fellow with them. Oh, I didn't know that. John was our guest last week, and it's a great honor to be a visiting fellow with them. Oh, I didn't know that. John was our guest last week, and now I feel as though we're in a rut. Yes, sorry about that.

Andrew, listen, I want to get, of course, I want to get to your, what struck you, what strikes you in Eastern Europe, and what struck you when you were on the Ukrainian border. Eyewitness account, how what you saw affected your thinking. First, however, I must note that you recorded a podcast, I believe it was yesterday, with Henry Kissinger, 98 years old, and you recorded the podcast on the very day that a piece by Henry Kissinger on Ukraine appeared in the Washington Post. And we have, very broadly speaking, two schools of thought on Ukraine. One is the Zelensky School of Thought, where President Zelensky of Ukraine actually is playing a leading role, as far as I can tell, in thinking about what America ought to do, and that has helped them in every way possible. The lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal yesterday was headlined,

Why Not Victory in Ukraine? Question mark. Against that, we have the example to go way back in history, not to a real historian, this isn't way back, but to most of us, it's way back. 1956, there's a Hungarian revolution, and Dwight David Eisenhower does what? Nothing. He lets the Russians put it down on prudential considerations, and Kissinger, I haven't heard your podcast yet, but in his piece in the Post, he's arguing, think, think. There is history here. There are national interests at stake. Ukraine is a complicated place. Russian-speaking in the East, Ukrainian-speaking in the West, Orthodox in the East, Catholic in the West, half European, half Asian,

and for centuries, a country with its own history and culture intertwined with that of Russia. Think carefully. Let's see if we can't reach a settlement. Where are you? Well, in my conversation with him yesterday, he was talking more about why putin has done this and it wasn't about the orthodoxy and the um uh and the westward leaning attractions of west ukraine and so on it was much more about uh as you'd expect from somebody like henry kissinger who's interested

in the rise and fall of great powers he sees it in terms of a declining Russian um empire as it were collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions and lashing out viciously uh in its uh in its sort of the beginnings of its death throes I think I might be exaggerating slightly what he was saying but that's that was his um he did use the phrase lashing out and declining power and so on so um i uh i i think that that's an interesting take obviously on uh uh on what's going on but i i my problem i think with with uh that article was that it seemed to move towards trying to open up the idea of a partitioned Ukraine. And I think that's wrong. You do.

That's morally wrong. Yes, because I think that if aggression is seen to have paid so successfully in Putin's case, that you've got a partitioned Ukraine, perhaps along the Dnieper with a Western Ukraine that's based in Lviv. I think you have so patted him on the back. You have so rewarded aggression that it's essentially another long part of the long via dolorosa of appeasement that we've been following with Putin. And I think that this is a... There is, of course, especially in the conservative movement in Britain and America, but more in America,

a difference between the isolationists and what I would call the Reaganauts, you know, people who do believe that you've got to engage properly in Europe. And I think a partition would be a very bad thing. And what, give us a report of you, if, I don't, since I'm not there, I don't even know quite what question to ask. James will come in in a moment, because James is good at, James is very good at questions. But how has being where you've been for this last period of days, how has going

to the border affected your thinking well i went over the border actually oh did you crane um to yeah to um uh to talk to ukrainians and to uh sort of get a sense of that only western ukraine which was not under attack at that stage they hadn't lobbed that cruise missile like they did a couple of days ago but um but the well first of all of course emotionally it's uh it's terrible you know there are long lines of refugees there are miles upon miles of cars of them trying to get out then at the actual border itself you have sort of well where i was crossing there were women who were screaming because they they uh didn't have the right documentation and and uh um it was it was quite sort of powerfully emotional also to see

individual um women young women with um with one single roll-on suitcase and you think to yourself how could i fit my worldly positions into what what would i take you know how would i go about trying to do this and leave the country for who knows how long perhaps you know like the 56ers in hungary perhaps for the rest of their lives it's it was it was a very moving and uh and profoundly emotional experience and uh when i talked to um ukrainians in uh berhovy which is a city on the in western ukraine they were saying and these are not zelensky supporters these are people who who didn't vote for him who are ethnically hungarian they're subcarpathians they they you know a lot of them don't really truly consider themselves to be wholly Ukrainian.

And they all admired him hugely. They said that, oh yeah, the last three weeks have brought them round to him entirely. They thought that his leadership was just superb, which I thought was very interesting, considering they are not Zelensky supporters. That is the question of the day. People are comparing him to Churchill. And in his time did not voice animated cartoons or play the piano or dance on the wireless. Different backstories for these gentlemen, but yet he seems to have channeled and found something that perhaps people did not expect. Well, Churchill, can I just intervene this just for a second? Because, of course, Churchill was ridiculed hugely. He was laughed at. He was shouted down in the House of Commons. He was in the press. He was made out to be a joke figure for for some part of the 1930s.

He wasn't. Of course, as you say, he's not he wasn't a-up comedian like Mr. Zelensky, but he was somebody who took a lot of ridicule in his wilderness years. But nevertheless, you could see the character of the man in his earlier days, and perhaps nobody expected Zelensky to be able to tap whatever he has tapped. Now, a lot of people argue about this, it's manufactured, it's not true, you know, it's ridiculous, we're inflating this guy for weaponized empathy and all the other accusations you find from people who don't like Zelensky or don't like the fact that he's being praised. But nevertheless, I mean, there is something unique about the man that capitalized on the moment. It might be because he's an actor, but it could be because there's there's something in his character that he found and so if you could compare the two how would you compare them since the comparisons are being made or do you think it's it's really a waste of time

because it's not necessary to connect zelensky to churchill to find him admirable or an honorable man? No, I think it is essential, really, because I think that this leadership that he's showing is indeed Churchillian. And for all of the people in the West, safe in the West, to try to denigrate him, one has to remember that this is a man who's refusing to leave his capital and willing to fight to the death and that's something that an awful lot of people in the west might not be willing to do and some but some and it automatically focuses the attention on this uh on this style of leadership and it was the same thing that winston churchill winston churchill had no plans to leave london we were going to move the gold out out of Britain and the young princesses and the king might leave, but Churchill was not going to leave. And so a sense of somebody who's willing to fight

to the death literally for their principles in their capital city is something I think that focuses the attention astonishingly well. And in fact, of course, the other thing is that whilst Churchill was bombed for hundreds of days from the air, like Zelensky's being bombed every day, he didn't actually have enemy troops 18 kilometers from, so a little over 10 miles away from him in the capital city. So in a sense, Zelensky's Churchillian leadership, I think, does hold true. So when we say Churchillian, because we should probably narrow in on the term, it's not just the defiance, though.

There's something else. There's a humanity to it and a fellow feeling, an empathetic bond with the people that seems to be what we're discussing. Precisely. And an ability to, through rhetoric, through oratory uh to connect with the people i think the way in which zelensky hasn't attempted to minimize the dangers is also churchillian you know he he doesn't try to sugar the pill how can he he's being you know bombed um but also his uh he has deliberately paraphrased churchill in his speech to the house of Commons the other day. He talked about we shall fight in the streets, we shall fight in the forests, and we will win.

This is a clear paraphrase of Churchill's 4th of June Dunkirk speech in 1940. And I think it works. I mean, I know it works because it certainly makes my spine tingle when I hear the words. Andrew? it works because it certainly makes my spine tingle when I hear the words. Andrew, all right, so I'll trot out some thinking and then yield to your superior analytical powers. The larger, the large strategic question here is this. Can the West pull itself together to face up to the challenges which are likely to come principally from China and not Russia, but from both, and from Iran?

Can the West pull itself together enough to think of itself as an entity and to defend itself? That's the big strategic question. I completely agree. Absolutely. That has to, yeah. All right.

So that's the large strategic question. Now, you put that in the background and you think, I'm just thinking this out loud to get you to the one or two steps I feel I can take and then see what you do, the 10 more steps I'm sure you can take. Ukraine is, on the one hand, we have the Kissinger position that he laid out, which is the Donbass is Russian-speaking, Crimea, the naval port in Sevastopol in Crimea is founded by Catherine the Great five years before the Constitution of the United States is ratified. The history is deep, there are grounds for a settlement, you've already rejected that. I'd also add that in the act of invading Ukraine, whatever shred of truthfulness there was in Putin's claim, he has now invalidated. That is to say, even as the best I can tell from recent polls,

there are some polls have been taken, even the Donbass is now anti-Russian and pro-Ukraine. So, Putin rolls in and behold, a genuine national consciousness is taking shape in a much more vivid and well-defined way than previously existed. Okay, from that we descend to the practical question of, we give them anti-take weapons? Yes. What about MIGs? Different matter. What about a no-fly zone? For which President Zelensky explicitly asked when he addressed Congress two days ago. And Congress gave him a unanimous standing ovation, and I am 100% certain that a lot of members of Congress, as they walked out of that hall, muttered to one another, no fly zone? Is he mad? So, how does one think through descending from the large strategic question to what it is that we can do, including who are we. The Germans are back with

us now? This is astonishing. Yes, I think that, well, first of all, I completely agree with you. Of course, it's very much part of the large strategic issue. I think the 24th of February 2022 is going to go down as an extremely important day in world history, post-war history. I think that having read Putin's 6,685 word essay of July 2021 called On the Historical Unity of the Ukrainians and Russians, I was, of course, expecting him to say that Russia isn't a real country. But I also noticed no fewer than 17 references to Lithuania as well, including some rather sinister remarks about the overlaps, the cultural, religious and historical overlaps between lithuania and russia which means

that if we were to allow him to win uh i were i a lithuanian i'd be very um worried even though of course lithuania is in nato um with regard and so i think it's absolutely essential that he should um he should lose not not lose the crimea i don't think that you can necessarily say that it has to be total victory. I think it has to go back to the status quo ante, to the point that, so, Mariupol stays in Ukraine. He doesn't get the land border between Crimea and, sorry, the land corridor between Crimea and the Donbass. But, as you say, people have changed their minds massively. There was a very strong pro-Russian feeling in Ukraine before the invasion, and that has completely disappeared and will not reappear for our lifetimes.

So I think we've got to recognise that there's a totally different attitude now. And the best way of getting a good outcome, i.e. one that Zelensky and Putin can live with, whereby all troops go back to where they were before the 24th of February 2022. And by the way, I think we should still keep up our sanctions because he has got to recognise there's a price to pay for having done what he's done nonetheless i think the best way of going about this is to um help arm them as

much as possible to the point that we don't get into a third world war and if historically we remember the amount that the uh russians that the support the russians gave to North Vietnam during your war with Vietnam, the amount that Iran gave in terms of IEDs and so on to try and kill American soldiers in Iraq, and indeed Afghanistan in a different context. If you think about these historical precedents, I think it would have been perfectly fine for the United States, the Biden administration, to have facilitated the MiGs getting into the Ukrainian hands without a world war. take that one stage further unfortunately in order to uh to actually supervise a workable no-fly zone in which nato jets are not shot down you have to take out the ground to air facilities which unfortunately are in belarus and uh and russia and i think that would be unacceptable i think i don't think that you can actually i mean nato is a defensive

organization always has been was created for that reason that's the reason that finland and be unacceptable i think i don't think that you can actually i mean nato is a defensive organization always has been was created for that reason that's the reason that finland and sweden might want to join it uh and i think that you can't therefore go and attack russia all right so we are now in we grant that ukraine has become even those who had their doubts before we grant that Ukraine has become, even those who had their doubts before, we grant that Ukraine has become a real nation. We grant that Putin must be stopped, and he must be stopped here. Otherwise, his next step is to take on NATO, and that really, we just have to stop him here. And from that point, it becomes, we instantly find ourselves involved in complicated, detailed, prudential judgments. Do we send MiGs? How do we send the MiGs? We can't take out the SAMs. That, here's sort

of my last question. That requires us, in our case the American people, to trust the military establishment and to trust the administration to get these complicated, difficult, prudential judgments right. Now then, I have three words for you, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam. This notion that they've squandered the trust of the American people. In other words, what I'm trying to say is that the sentiment on the right in this country of mistrust for our leadership and this kind of neo-isolationist sentiment does not come from nowhere. How should we as conservatives address that well i don't think you can blame the generals um frankly i think that if you give them a job to try to get uh to get mig 29s into ukraine they will come up with without uh you know having them flown across the border by by nato uh pilots i'm

sure they'd be able to come up with a good way of dealing it. No, the problem is the politicians. The problem is that President Biden has led from behind in every single stage of this conflict. And before the conflict, he made moronic statements, frankly, about incursions versus invasions and so on. The form of his withdrawal from Afghanistan was a green light for Putin in Ukraine, essentially saying that the West was decadent and wouldn't stick up for values. And so as a result, you're in a far worse position now. That doesn't mean, though, that he couldn't actually act. I mean, the other day where he gave $ million dollars was a was a jolly good start frankly when it comes to uh giving the ukrainians what they need it's the old you know it's a

churchill we're back to churchill it's give us the tools and we will finish the job you know he was not asking for church was not asking for american intervention at that stage he was asking for american weapons and uh and you know ultimately also, I think there's something a little bit wrong and frankly sort of a bit disgusting, really, about the way that we, I don't mean you and I, but I mean we in the West, a lot of us, especially in Europe, are talking about what might or might not be acceptable for what Zelensky can decide when he has his meeting with Putin,

if that ever happens. The fact is that we shouldn't be nudging him. We shouldn't be looking over his shoulder. We shouldn't say, oh, you can't give them Mariupol. You shouldn't give them this. I mean, it really is his country that's being martyred and crucified right now. And for us to nudge his shoulder constantly, I think, is a bit disgusting. We should not treat him as a client. Precisely. I mean, in a sense, he's a proxy because he's fighting a proxy war, but he's not somebody who I think will do a worse deal than we would be able to get for him, frankly. Right, right. James,

last question that goes to what Peter was just saying there. You have proposed, Andrew, the creation of the U-24. Let me read the quote here that I've been given. Today, the world does not have such tools. The wars of the past have prompted our predecessors to create institutions that should protect us from war, but they unfortunately don't work. We see it. You see it. So we need new ones, new sorry, that was Zelensky. Oh, good. I'm sorry. I scratched my head for a moment thinking I'm writing too much if I can't recognize my own quotes. I know the feeling very much so. Well, let's let that sit there in Zelensky's statement that we need these new institutions. Over the last two years, three years, COVID included, we've seen what seems to be the fracturing of every institution that we assumed was reasonably competent. We no longer have that faith in these

things to do what's necessary, as Peter was saying. The world order that we had post-World War II was gone, and we didn't realize it until Putin hit the brittle thing with a hammer, and now we are where we are, putting things back together. The two attempts in the previous century to come up with institutions that would safeguard the world from these things, League of Nations, UN, post-World Order, came after catastrophic, immensely damaging wars. What is the chance that we can cobble together some new institutions to guide us through the 21st century if it's just stopping Putin, if we just stop him here. In other words, is this enough, or is simply sending Putin back and having him fulminate for however many years he has left, is that going to be enough of an impetus to get the West and the other institutions to come up with something that guides us better than the institutions that have failed us in the last few years?

Well, they certainly have failed us, haven't they? I mean, the League of Nations, very obviously. I'm reminded of what the League of Nations was going to be debating on the day that Adolf Hitler invaded Poland. It was the standardization of railway gauges. That, for them, was the number one issue at that time. And the United Nations has done no better. Of course it hasn't. And I don't think that just a rejigging of the seating

around the Security Council, you know, giving one person an extra seat, taking away a Security Council seat from somebody else, is going to make any difference either. No, I'm a i'm a hard power guy on this i think the institution that we've got to coalesce around is nato i think that um if we had the finns and the swedes in nato as well that would be uh uh obviously it would also be a big long border with russia but i think it would be a superb slap in the face for Putin, because so quarters of a century, they have essentially been undermining the solidity of the West.

And now they've brought themselves up to 2%. They're spending 100 billion. They're sending lethal weapons rather than helmets. And it's been an extraordinary sea change since uh since the i think dreadful angela merkel has uh left the political scene so you know there is something to celebrate where when peter was talking earlier about the west i think that we would be in a much better position now much more unified were china to attack tai, for example, which I think is much less likely now that the West has shown unanimity in so many areas over this.

Well, there is the question as to whether or not Xi is looking at this and saying, hmm, maybe I don't want to ally myself with this guy in the end. Andrew, we can go on for another hour, and one of these days we will, and I understand that you have a podcast, right, Peter? Yes, Andrew has a podcast. Fool that he is, he's invited me to follow Henry Kissinger.

Andrew, the name of the podcast? Secrets of Statecraft. I think you'd be the perfect person to follow Henry. A little light entertainment after the Sturm und Drang. We have light entertainment before, which is Chris Buckley, who is giving

a fascinating dissertation on the history of the faux pas, the social faux pas. That's coming out today or tomorrow, so I hope that listeners will enjoy that too. Secrets of Statecraft. And this will appear in the Apple iPod store,

just everywhere, I suppose. Boxify. Yes, you name it. All right. All right. Terrific. The history of the faux pas. Oh, for the appointment in Samara days

when a simple social faux pas could end your life. A simpler time. A better time. No, a worse time. What am I talking about? Andrew, thank you very much for joining us in the podcast today thank you thank you very much um well it's always good to discuss and remember the genius of churchill and if rob long were here and by the way he'll be coming along just in a second right now he'd say gee james wouldn't it be great if you could find some kind of genius in your own life and then i would pretend to be a mad at what

he said and then he'd go on in his fashion. And then we'd eventually get to the spot, right? And you'd say, well, where are you going to go with the genius thing? Policy genius. That's why. Listen, if somebody relies on your financial support, a child, aging parent, even a business partner, you need life insurance. Having it can give you peace of mind that if something happens to you, your loved ones would have a financial cushion for rent, mortgage payments, loans, education costs, and everyday expenses. Policy Genius is your one-stop shop to find and buy the insurance you need. Believe it or not, well, getting Policy Genius is easier than you can possibly imagine. Just head to PolicyGenius.com and answer a few questions.

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To find out why they've amassed thousands of positive reviews across Google and Trustpilot, head to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save. And we thank PolicyGenius for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. And now we welcome to the podcast, H.R. McMaster, retired Lieutenant General of the U.S. Army who served as the 26th National Security Advisor in 2017 and 2018. He's been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a consulting senior fellow at the

International Institute for Strategic Studies, and is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Wartime anxieties being what they are. See, I can't even get out the word wartime anxieties. We thought we'd have him on. Welcome. One question. How's Russia doing? From here, what we're seeing, it looks odd.

It looks bad. It looks like the mighty, strong Russian army that everybody feared is fraught with operational, logistical, technical difficulties. Well, they are, and it shouldn't be surprising. The way to evaluate military prowess goes far beyond counting the numbers of tanks or weapon systems or missiles that an army or armed force has. And what you're seeing are really significant qualitative deficiencies in that force associated with poor training, the inability to integrate what we call all arms into the fight. And that would be infantry and tanks in close combat supported by effective fires delivered by artillery systems or through an air force.

The inability to conduct effective reconnaissance. I mean, they're leading with their nose. They're not making contact under favorable conditions with a defending enemy. They have all kinds of logistics problems, as we've seen. And there are many indicators of ill discipline and poor morale. A lot of the maintenance issues that they've had, for example, just indicate that they're not maintaining their equipment well. And so I think in many ways, this is a Potemkin army. And war is the great auditor of military institutions. It's quite easy to look pretty strong in peacetime. We've seen all the films of Russian tanks charging across open fields,

but now they're meeting a very determined defending force and the Ukrainian army that's much different from the Ukrainian army of 2014. Hey, HR Peter here. I have two questions for you. One is kind of technical, and one is what you have taught me to ask the big question, what is the desired end state? But first, here's the question. If you're Putin, or let's say you're a general serving under Putin, you know something about being a general. How do you proceed? How does the command structure remain intact when you now know that all your subordinate officers have been lying to you all this time about their capabilities and about the levels of discipline, when you now know that the young Russian men who grew up in villages with

wood houses and dirt roads and thought it was really cool to be in the army and drive a tank. They've now seen tanks destroyed in their columns. They've lost comrades and they don't want to be there anymore. Are we at the stage where there's likely to be just a comprehensive breakdown in the ability of the Russian army to function as an army? And that's the first question. I'm just going to give these to you and let you deal with them as you wish and then get out of the way. And the second question, the lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal yesterday was headlined, Why Not Victory in Ukraine? What would victory look like? What should Zelensky be aiming for? That's the great lesson I've learned from you over the years. Start from where you

want to end. Okay, over to you, HR. Well, to your first question, in terms of just a breakdown of the force, I think that's quite possible, right? And, you know, in his magnificent study, The Face of Battle, John Keegan observed that what battles had in common across several centuries, because he looked at battles that occurred in generally the same geographic area across four centuries. He concluded that what battles have in common is human, the struggle of men trying to reconcile their instinct for self-preservation with the achievement of some aim over which others are trying to reconcile their instinct for self-preservation with the achievement of some aim over which others are trying to kill them. And he goes on to observe that battle is always aimed at the disintegration of human groups. And so I think we have to remember that war has a very strong psychological dimension to it. And I think what you're seeing is the disintegration of some of these Russian units. And you're also seeing a great deal of resilience

on the part of Ukrainian forces. And where does that resilience come from? Well, it really comes from, I think, the warrior ethos, you know, an ethos around, you know, principles like honor, willingness to sacrifice for one another. It comes from the cohesion in teams that really become bound together by mutual trust and common purpose, where there's a real sense of affection between soldiers and a military organization. You fear letting your fellow soldiers down more than you fear the prospect of death, you know. And that's where combat power comes from, is that kind of confidence in one another. It also comes from the recognition that you're fighting in a righteous cause. And certainly this is the case for the Ukrainians.

You know, it was a G.K. Chesterton who said, you know, that you don't fight based on what's in front of you, you fight for what's behind you, right? And I think that when you look at, you know, the corrupt regime in Russia, there have to be some doubts, you know, among those who are fighting about whether this causes righteousness, especially when they see that they have been responsible for inflicting death and destruction on innocent civilians. So all of these are factors, right? And it's really hard to determine how that's going to play out, especially because there's an information blackout in Russia essentially now. So I think it's really important to talk to people in the know who have friends in Russia, which I've been trying to do in recent weeks.

So I think the issue is of will and the disintegration of human groups. And I think it's quite possible. Remember, you know, you can, an army can mutiny, right? I mean, the French army mutinied after the Nivelle offenses in in world war one um so i you know we'll see we'll see what happens here but i think it's quite clear that you know the whole system in russia is corrupt right and and it was i think probably unrealistic to assume that that corruption wouldn't affect the military as well and and um and then gosh of course now i'm forgetting the second question peter the end state the end state okay well what should zielinski aim for some sort of partition, now I'm forgetting the second question, Peter. The end state. The end state question, HR. What should Zelensky aim for?

Some sort of partition settlement? What's the end state that's acceptable? I think the end state that's acceptable is really a return, potentially of the return of Crimea and the portions of Donetsk and Luhansk that that were occupied in 2014. But I think of just a withdrawal of the forces, a restoration of of of Ukrainian control over all the territory that Russia has taken since this renewed assault on the country. And I think he ought to demand that. Now, it's up to him. I think Andrew's quite right about this, that we shouldn't be telling him what he should demand. We should support him.

But we have objectives here as well. I mean, as Andrew alluded, this is kind of a proxy war, right, between, you know, between I think our free and open societies and an authoritarian revisionist power that is connected to another authoritarian revisionist power on the Eurasian landmass, and that's China, obviously. So it's important to us that Russia fails. I think that ought to be our objective number one, Russia fails. And I think we define that by the withdrawal of Russian forces and return of territory to Ukraine. That won't end the conflict, right? If Putin's still in power, he'll try to still keep Ukraine under his thumb. And this might be an unrealistic objective at this stage. I mean, we don't know what's going to happen to Russian will. We don't

know what's going to happen with Putin, right? We don't know, you know, are the Ukrainians going to be able to maintain their national will under such duress for an extended period of time? But Russia fails should be, I think, our objective number one. I think objective, you know, objective number two is to mitigate the humanitarian catastrophe there, right? And objective three, I think, is prevent an escalation to nuclear war. So some of these objectives are in tension with one another. And I think the fourth objective is to use this crisis to shift the balance in favor of our free and open and democratic societies and away from China and Russia. We need to hang this on Xi Jinping's neck. We need to remind him and reread frequently the 5,000-word statement that Putin and Xi issued just prior to the Olympics, during which they essentially declared victory over us and said that we're entering a new era of international relations. There are no limits to their partnership. And this is an opportunity, I think, for us to stop underwriting our own demise with economic and financial relationships with China that are that are that are putting us in a position of disadvantage.

So I think there are all sorts of opportunities here that we need to take advantage of. But, of course, recognizing that those opportunities are being created really with the blood and suffering of the Ukrainian people. Hey, HR, it's Rob Long. Thank you for joining us again. Last time we had you on, we were talking about Afghanistan and military humiliation, or at least foreign policy humiliation. And I have to tell you that then a few weeks later, I was burning up the text lines to you to ask for your help in getting an Afghan family out of Kabul. And by the way, success. They are living with their relatives in Los Angeles.

So one of the women was pregnant i you know she could name her child hr so just be prepared for right so thank you for that um so i'm gonna ask a couple some some um a couple military questions strategy questions and then some big big thing right the strategy questions to what extent is there now a cascade in favor of the ukrainians that i mean yes they're they're destroying the buildings they're destroying they're killing people but there does seem to be this surprising for people who aren't who do are not war fighters or warfight studiers it does seem to me like there's a there's a missing link that we didn't predict that this is not a game of risk this is not a game of chess this is something else going on on where the Ukrainian people, each day they don't fall.

They get stronger somehow. Is that fair? I think that's right. You know, and, you know, of course, there's so many factors that will help determine the outcome of this. I don't think anybody can predict with any degree of certainty what's going to happen. But I do have the same sense that I think maybe you do as well, that time is not on Russia's side. I mean, they're having a very difficult time supplying themselves logistically. They've had maintenance issues already. They're not going to get any better.

They don't have a good logistic system. They can't fix vehicles forward. You know, you've seen maybe some of these film clips, some of these clips of Russian soldiers abandoning their equipment and just leaving it, you know, in the center of some of these towns and walking away from it because they're out of gas. Right. And, you know, the Ukrainians are doing, I think, a really smart job of attacking soft targets, the trucks that are coming in to resupply them. You know, so I really think the time is on the Ukrainian side. And then, of course, you have the effect of the sanctions, the financial and economic sanctions that will continue to inflict more pain on Russia. So, you know, I think there is an opportunity here to, you know, to try to, you know, to accelerate, you know, an outcome that ends the bombing of the cities. And this is, you know, Putin can still do a hell of a lot of damage.

He's doing it right now. Right. So. Oh, yeah. Right. So, I mean, what are we learning, I guess, about Russian capacity? In the late 80s, Russian MiGs and U.S. fighters went toe-to-toe in a proxy war in the Middle East. And it was a total rout for the Americans. The Americans just completely destroyed the Russian Air Force, right? Russian planes flown by non-Russians against american planes flown by israelis and the technological advantage was so enormous that it was one of the things that was part of the calculation for why the cold war had to end why the russians had to sort of throw up their hands they couldn't win um and it was a very interesting uh example for americans and america certainly people who were for or against the

military build-up of the 80s that actually we got value for our money um what are we learning what do we learn now about the real because it doesn't seem like there are american um weapons in the in the region it seems like we're talking about soviet migs going against the russian forces what we learning anything about the next time this happens because it's going to happen again right yeah i i think what we're learning is, I mean, that, you know, the Russian equipment is just, and weapons don't work very well, right? And, you know, I think one of the things, I mean, you know, I'm an armored cavalry officer, you know, there's no way in hell I'd ever want to be in a Russian tank, you know? I mean, I think that their design is not for survivability, right?

And you're seeing that, you know, how hard they're being hit with N-laws, you know, which is a relatively simple, disposable anti-tank weapon system. And, of course, the much more advanced javelins, you know, which have a range out to four kilometers. I mean, these anti-tank weapons are crushing them, not just because of the inferiority of their equipment, but again, the inability to employ all arms in the fight, right, to conduct effective reconnaissance, and then to be able to employ infantry and armor together. But, you know, the Russians have kind of a history of being ineffective in this. Remember Grozny 93 and 94 even, right? And then what happened is they did Grozny 99 in 1999 under putin and they just leveled the city they killed 80 000 civilians 80 000 in grozny so you know this is something that putin's done before right he's aleppoizing you might say you know some of the some of the

right cities in uh in ukraine so so he's ruthless you know he can do a lot of damage in this war that doesn't take a lot of skill to bombard a city. And I think that that's really got to be the emphasis now. We mentioned make sure Putin fails. Part of that is to ensure that Ukraine has the right range of capabilities to ensure that Russia fails. So I'm going to ask you two questions. Put on two hats, right? I'm going to ask you a question. Put on two hats, right? I'm going to ask you to put on your Putin hat. You know, it's a big furry hat, right?

What is his strategy now? And let me pitch you what I would pitch to him if I was sitting across that long desk. That the thing you want is you want this to get super murky you want to make it as complicated as confusing as possible because you want to go to the table with all sorts of things that you can negotiate so you can pull out and say hey listen i got an agreement that they're not going to join nato and that's all i needed and then you come out and you say obviously i have to pay restitution but i can't because you guys have all your sanctions so you got to lift your sanctions and you kind of live to fight another day.

Right. You kind of scuttle home because it seemed to me that was the only possible outcome. Anyway, if you invade a country, whether you do it for the right reasons or wrong reasons, there's always a Hamid Karzai in the wings you're going to bring in. You're always doing it in favor of the of the true leader, the real leader of the nation that you're trying to reinstall there's always a shah there's always a hundred cars there's always something like that he didn't seem to be prepared for any of that well he you know he was he was just operating on all the wrong assumptions right and you know he thought okay he thought that uh you know his forces would triumph in a few days we know this right because they mistakenly released the victory message you know and and had to reel it back in.

And so, you know, he also thought the Ukrainian army was going to fold. It didn't fold. And I think he just believed his own propaganda. Remember the 6,000-word essay he published under his name last summer, right, where he said, you know, Ukraine isn't a viable entity, right? They're just longing to be part of Mother Russia again. So, of course, nobody's done more to strengthen, you know, Ukrainian national identity than Vladimir Putin has over the years, right? And especially now. And then, of course, I think he just looked at himself. Like, he looks powerful, didn't he? Right before the Olympics, you know, and standing there next to Xi Jinping. The friendship that will never end, right? There are no limits to the friendship. And he thinks of himself, you know, this is a guy who rides shirtless on horseback, right?

And he looked. Okay. All right. He looked. It just seems strange that there was never. He didn't have a Ferdinand Marcos or a Shah of Iran. He wasn't even playing the game the way it's traditionally played. That seems to me to be so. So take off your your hat for a minute and put on your she hat he's got to be

pissed right because he's this is a total disaster for him his way out would be i'm maintaining my status as an honest broker between the two i'm going to try to broker peace how does he do that he's not even on the game. He's not part of this. The Chinese hate two things. They hate failure and they hate instability. And it seems to me that Putin has brought both. They now have a client state, a little brother they can't trust. So how is he going to play the next month? Well, he's already kind of trying to play it this way, we call on all parties, all this nonsense, abstaining from UN votes and trying to play it this way right we call on all parties you know all this nonsense right yeah right you know uh abstaining from un uh votes and trying to trying to occupy this middle ground but at the same time you know he's responsible for this right he not that he had

to green light putin but he basically said yeah i've got your back don't don't worry about it this is the olympics and then putin of course you know took care of him by postponing the invasion till after the olympics which kind of screwed Russia over, right, and Putin over because the ground bought, right? And that limited his mobility even more for the offensive. And then, you know, what Xi Jinping has already done, okay, he's already done this. He's given, you know, his leadership there the mission of helping Russia circumvent the economic and financial sanctions. This is going to, I think we're going to reveal this quite soon.

I think the administration is going to reveal all of this. And then I think we're into the great decoupling, right? I mean, unchecked globalization, it's over, right? It was always kind of a bad idea, right? But we never had to pay the price for supply chains that were biased too much in favor of efficiency and low cost rather than resilience and this is going to be painful it's going to be a painful economic transition so the smart move for the chinese you think is to say hey you know what how dare you invade ukraine we're we're on the side of the

germany and the u.s and europe and we'll help it we'll we'll we'll give weapons to the Ukrainians. Would that be the smart move at this point? It would be, but they won't do it. He won't do it, right? Because I think what he, you're absolutely right. What is he motivated by, Xi Jinping? Mainly fear. Fear of losing the party's exclusive grip on power. And that's tied to his aspiration, right, of

restoring China to national greatness. Now, what I think he's afraid of, any kind of chink in his armor at all, right? So if Russia fails after China so clearly backed him and they professed their love for one another, Putin and Xi, I mean, how does that look for Xi? It looks like he's weak. It looks like he's unwise at the very least, right? And he's got the Chinese Communist Party Congress, the 20th Congress coming up in November, during which he hopes to be, you know, named chairman for life, essentially, the new Mao Z, during which he hopes to be, you know, named Chairman for Life, essentially, the new Mao Zedong. And so he's, you know, this is what he's looking forward to. And Putin is, it's a problem for him, the failure in Ukraine,

which makes it all the more important that we ensure Putin fails there. Okay, last question. I know James wants to get in. I know you got to go. Are we ready? Are our armed forces ready? I mean, you know, a year ago, we would have said, I don't know, like, it looks like the Russians are tough, and we're doing anti-transphobia seminars in the U.S. military. How off the mark are we? Would we be surprised if we had to go in a land war in Ukraine? I think our forces are very ready in terms of level of training, level of competence, the ability to integrate joint capabilities effectively. But our forces are suffering from a bow wave of deferred modernization, first incurred during the Obama administration. They're also suffering from a lack of capacity, right? We've assumed for so long that our exquisite technological capabilities would allow smaller and smaller forces to have bigger impact over wider areas. And so I think the defense strategy that was supposed to come out in the national security strategy, I think those have been reeled back in because they were based on this assumption

that, you know, that it's all really about China. We have to worry about anything else. We only have to worry about one conflict at a time. When now we can see the potential for cascading conflicts from the Middle East with an increasingly aggressive Iran because we've been supplicating to them, as well as the crisis that we see in Ukraine, and obviously the threats to Taiwan or in the South China Sea. So we have to be prepared for more. And our forces have just gotten too darn small, right? I mean, we only have 11 armored brigades in, you know...

Are we looking at a 1980s style expansion that was sort of born out of almost the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? You know, I think so, but we don't have to spend 6% of GDP like we did in the 80s to make up for it. Right now, we're only spending about 3.4% of GDP. We only need to spend about 4% of GDP to make it up, I think. That's my estimate of it anyway. And that's the kind of historical norm in the post-World War II period. It's a peacetime norm, right? Excluding the hot wars of you know korea and and uh and vietnam

and so forth so you know i really i really think um it's time to do it i don't think it's administration will do it because you know what they're talking about they're using this term integrated deterrence yeah which is like a magic wand right uh that prevents conflict uh with economic sanctions how did that work out right and other and other means so you know i think we're hopefully we're coming to the realization you know hard power you know it kind of matters right and and and and deterrence is based on kind of a simple equation capability times will right and the reason why i think deterrence failed is that putin assumed that our will was zero our will be in the will in the West, especially after the humiliating withdrawal and surrender in Afghanistan.

And then our capability was insufficient. We deployed, we pulled out of the Black Sea last fall. Why did we do that? To play Kate Putin. How did that work out? You know, we're deploying like penny packets of American troops to, you know, to Europe. I don't think that's like a very serious message, hard power message. So I do think that, you know, I hope we learned a lesson that, Hey,

the hard power aspect of, you know, of the elements of national power, it matters a lot. Well, I have 16 more questions about Russian institutional flexibility when it comes to reevaluating their strategy, but I'm going to have to leave that for the next time. And I hope at that point we're discussing a fruitful conclusion to all of this. You too.

H.R. McNaster, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. James, Rob, hey, Peter, great to be with all of you. Take care. H.R., thank you so much. Thank you so much. Now go enjoy those grandkids for the weekend. I will. Thanks, man. Take care. Hope to see you guys in person soon. Take care. You know, it's been fascinating to those of us who've been watching. This is a Twitter war.

It's a TikTok war. It's not a Facebook war, although I'm not on Facebook, so I couldn't tell. But I've learned so many things about so many aspects of warfare from people who know what they're talking about. I have one little detail, and I just love it. There's a thread from a guy who is basically logistics and maintenance. He's an army truck maintenance guy. That was what he did for 20 or 30 years. So he's able to look at a picture and look at the tires or look at the on twitter but as a whole taken together it's absolutely fascinating and i say that removed from the horror that's going on um and you of course want to remove yourself from a horror as well i was uh i was reading yesterday um that a whole bunch of planes russian with it were heading east russian official government planes were heading east over the Urals.

And they had their transponders on so everybody could see where they were going. And people were saying, they're bugging out for the bunkers. They're going to the doomsday bunkers and they want us to know it. And they're either trying to make us worry or they don't care or whatever so i laid down for my nap and i'm trying to sleep and i'm trying not to think possible to sleep possibility no way to sleep and then what happens how could you possibly goes impossible literally impossible you're just torn up by anxiety and terror like you would just to it would require it would require almost extremely super

human uh sleeping apparatus and equipment for you to just to be able to drift off to a nap literally impossible surprising you're you're still functioning now having literally no sleep due to your anxiety those would be interesting assertions to make a better place perhaps at the conclusion of my anecdote rather than in media meant to note was that we had an amber alert here in the twin cities which means that everybody's phone whether you like or not makes it makes an emergency broadcast warning sign and so i was jarred from my nap by this sound which you sort of presume goes with sirens and so this segue is so long it has like several ways to get into the

spot this is pretty good segway you gotta say it did however it's like a it's got it's a three-act structure for your segway this is great it would be shorter if you were still in traffic well if you do three of them if you do three of them i get to interrupt three times that's the that's kind of the rule but go ahead anyway point is i fell right right back to sleep in my nap because i have bull and branch sheets and that is go. And that is important. The thing that you have to remember is that, you know, if you're tired, you can fall asleep anywhere in a slab of marble if you want. But, you know, in your daily life,

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back with a story you have well then a story you should tell i was in new haven i went to uh on on wednesday night i had an incredibly interesting dinner um conversation with members of the buckley william f buckley program there which just was started by a former Ricochet kind of intern summer young student named Harry Graver, who's now gone on to great, great things. As a law clerk, I don't know for a fact, but I think a law clerk for a recently appointed Supreme Court justice who also spent time in New Haven. Really? I don't know for a fact recently appointed um supreme court justice who also spent time in new haven um really good i don't know for a fact i think um i should check anyway so the buckley program was

there and we had a nice conversation they're really really really super smart i asked one i mean we talked a lot about i asked i have two two stories right i asked one question i said on a scale of one to not pissed to 10 phenomenally volcanically pissed how pissed are you young people at the country and the um cdc and the scaffolding for basically ruining your college time uh for no reason because you were not at risk and And one young guy turned around and goes, 11. And they all kind of nod. They go, okay, save that. Use that. That's good.

You have every right to it. I'm glad you feel that way. But we talk about everything. They're great. It's really, really fascinating, really interesting stuff. I want them all to join. We have the student membership thing. So I want them all to join because it's free.

And they should join the conversation and sort of join the conversation start some because i know our members really love to hear it then the next day i hung around for a day and the next day i went and at six o'clock had a cigar at the owl shop there um which was just a cigar store but in the intervening three decades plus since i was a student uh it has turned into a like a cigar bar and a really nice one too and uh and i want to use the real name so i'll just say so uh um i met uh three other members i'm not a couple of my met already before it various new hampshire events during the primaries we used to do which i hope we still do um ricochet members you're not buckley program but ricochet members i'm sorry these are these are people uh ct law and um and then jack mantle but I don't know. I can't remember what his –

Whose handle it is. I think that's his handle. And then Kirkian Wanderer, who is young and looks younger, and she was carded within a second of sitting down. And we were going to meet for six, six to eight maybe, you know, have a drink. And we left at 10, and we talked about everything. We solved every problem there is uh and it's fascinating because uh kirkian wanderer um speaks like six languages including arabic and russian and um english and a bunch of other ones and uh and so she kind of like we were talking and every now and then she would in her very quiet

voice sort of say well actually and then she would fill in the information that we as sort of grown up people don't have. And it was just fantastic. And so I hope she I hope she posts more and I hope they continue to post because they're great members. And that is the kind of thing we can get to do now that there is no more covid and we get to meet in person um so uh that's this my story and that leads into my my my portion here of this podcast to remind you that we do have a nightcap cocktail recipe winner that was announced by peter robinson uh on call-in with john gabriel and uh david sacks do you want to it's it's brian stevens. Do you want to... It's Brian Stevens. Hold on. I want to get the name of the drink exactly right.

It's written down here. Yes. No, wait a minute. It was a spicy spicy rye. I can't remember the name of the drink now. Okay. Well, you got to go. You got to go to the member's feed and check it out because apparently it's really great. And I'm'm gonna find the recipe and i'll do it too

um but i already spicy rye i'm in um that sounds like my stage name um uh coming up just in time for eastern passover radio talk show host and prager u founder dennis prager uh will be our next guest for no dumb questions to discuss his new book, The Rational Passover Haggadah, but also everything else. Who's he talking to? He'll be talking to none other than James Lilac. So that's Wednesday, March 23rd at 8 p.m. 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific. Bring your best questions.

Join us. Join Ricochet. Join that. That's going to be great. I'm kind of jealous. He's a piece sort of a he's kind of prickly, though. James, are you ready for he's a he's sort of a he's kind of prickly though james are you ready for that because he's sort of like he can be cranky dennis is dennis we've had him on the show here um we've talked pens and brookner which is always a way to soften

him up he's been over to my house for heaven's sakes i had i had burgers with him at one point so i'm i'm not so you're prepared i'm I'm very much prepared for Dennis Brager. I mean, in the ranks of prickly people, I don't put Dennis at the top. I don't. Oh, that's good. I've interviewed William Shatner, so I think I'm okay. Okay. I've been corrected.

Spicy whiskey sour. That's the name of the thing. Spicy whiskey sour with probably rye. And you got to join to get the recipe. To's the name of the thing. Spicy whiskey sour with probably rye. And you got to join to get the recipe along to join James' conversation with Dennis Prager. Somebody should come up with one of these drinks

that I discovered a new whiskey. Actually, it's available here in the States. I discovered it over in England. I was at this pub and I just looked up at the shelf of inscrutable whiskeys and asked you know can i sample this something that i'll never get here and then i would i found something else that i can get here and i come back and i'm all happy but i'm thinking you know

what i should i should find a healthier way to drink this there's got to be some drink that somebody comes up with the cocktail conversation contest that involves like a really high quality vodka, not the Russian stuff. No, and like those yogurt things that people are taking for their gut microbiome. Probiotics. A probiotic vodka substance, even if it doesn't increase the health of your gut microbiome, at least it cancels out whatever the vodka does. Now, you know, folks, I got to tell you this, because obviously I'm doing something here that is spot wise. You know that you've been hearing a lot about gut microbiomes lately, right? We didn't know anything about it. And all of a sudden, everybody's an expert. Well, you know,

it's more than diet and exercise to keep yourself healthy. And if you've got type two diabetes, well, people over time who have that lose the gut bacteria that help them digest fiber and manage blood glucose levels. And pendulum glucose control. Pendulum glucose control is the first and frankly the only medical probiotic clinically shown to help manage type 2 diabetes when taken with medication. Now, for those with type 2 diabetes, exercise and diet are often not enough alone to manage it. The best approach emphasizes diet, exercise, and a healthy gut microbiome of which we were speaking. This connection has been widely recognized by leading scientists studying diabetes, including the American Diabetes Association, Mayo Clinic, and John Hopkins. Pendulum is designed to lower A1c and after-meal blood

glucose levels to help you manage your type 2 diabetes. It can feel like an uphill battle to keep post-meal blood sugar in A1c levels where you need them. And if you've struggled to manage them with diet and exercise alone, Pendulum can help fill in those gaps. With Pendulum, you can feel in control of your levels, not the other way around. Their team of scientists, doctors, and innovators isolated the unique strains of beneficial gut bacteria that help people with type 2 diabetes manage their blood sugar levels. Now, if somebody you know has type 2 diabetes, take control of glucose levels with Pendulum Glucose Control. Use the code RICOCHET at PendulumLife.com to get 20% off your first month of membership. That's

P-E-N-D-U-L-U-M-L-I-F-E.com. Promo code Ricochet for 20% off your first month of membership. And we thank Pendulum for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. The last thing before we go here, interesting story. Oh, yes, Rob. I have two more promos. Two more Ricochet club announcements. It never ends. This is a part of our new thing i'm telling

you this is like because the being a member is a good thing and it has benefits uh if you it is but this you this is like on radio when you cut to seven sure well this is yeah this is put um i this is but the one for me i'm joining uh this a group called lean right to discuss concert creatives um and that's a couple days from now. That's on March 23rd at 7 p.m. Eastern. It's a community for Jews and friends of Jews who are conservative. So that's, I mean,

I guess, despite Peter Robinson, I do count as a conservative. And it sounds like it'll be a lot of fun. And you can join Lean Right, and all that info will be up on Ricochet.com slash events. Go check it out. And then this other cool, really cool thing.

On March 30th, former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, president of Young America's Foundation, and former Wall Street Journal reporter Azra Nomani will join Ricochet editor Bethany Mandel and Andrew Gutman. They have their own podcast here called Take Back Our Schools. And they will be at the Young America's Foundation headquarters in Reston, Virginia, which is right outside of DC, to have a record a live episode and I think get into how to take back our schools. And we want you to come. We want you to be there in person. Go to ricochet.com slash events for more details. We'd love to see you there. And that's, there's all that. I'm done, but that is a reason to join ricochet.com i agree

good reasons all and now for my pitch for ricochet i'm going to read the entire 165 uh post thread that has no i'm kidding i'm kidding i'm we'll leave that for people to find on their own peter come back in here as we close with this thought. There was some news this week that finally San Francisco has managed to boycott most of the United States. Quote, a March 4th memorandum of city administrator Carmen Chu reveals that San Francisco will not enter into contracts with businesses headquartered in most of the United States, 28 states in all. Official travel to those states is also forbidden. So if you pass a law that San Francisco doesn't like in order to support their values, they just simply won't do business with you. This falls into the very large

category, big fat file folder for all those of us who live here in Northern California of things to ignore that come out of San Francisco. The item not to ignore took place a couple of weeks ago when there was a recall election and all three members of the school board who were up for recall did get recalled by a margin of three to one, even in that most progressive and wokest of cities, San Francisco. it turns out that all three of the school board members who thought they were just being woke like San Francisco, all three of them got tossed, I repeat, by a margin of three to one. It turns out you can be too woke even for San Francisco, especially if what you're doing is monkeying around with people's kids' education. That

goes in the very narrow folder of things about San Francisco to take seriously. Who knew the Boogaloo boys were so big in San Francisco and registered to vote. That is, that is quite remarkable. Well, we could go on forever and ever and ever.

We could even talk about daylight savings time, which is sort of like talking about the weather. And so we're not going to. What we are going to do is thank you for listening. Thank all of our sponsors, Bowling Branch, Pendulum, Policy Genius. Thank Rob for finally getting around here. That's great. I mean, he's racing through traffic.

It's like one of those scenes from the movie where the guy throws money at the cabbie, gets out and runs, right? I mean, we can just see this long tracking shot of you running through, excuse me, excuse me, bumping into coffee, flying everywhere until you get to your microphone. That's the dedication that he brings to this show. And the least you could do is join so that, you know, tell him that you're glad he's here. Rob, Peter, it's been fun. James, welcome. Welcome back. Yeah.

Yeah. Welcome back to you. And I'm gone next week, too. Wow. Because I'm doing the Rob Long peripatetic thing. Maybe I'll chip in. That might be fun. It's entirely possible.

But yeah, I got to tell you this before I go. One, it was great to be away from the news. It really was. To not have television screens. And I hate the way the television news is handling this because it's over-emotional. BBC is doing an okay job. CNN has been doing surprisingly well with some of the people they have in the field, but everything in the studio, I can't stand.

Two, at the airport, I noticed there was no CNN international playing anywhere. And I thought, this is a sign of a world that is healing because you weren't having that nonsense droning overhead as everybody tuned it out and looked at their own little glowing screens. So that's a good sign. More updates from the world beyond next week

in a couple of weeks and I rejoinin but otherwise great to see you guys again and we'll see everybody in the comments at ricochet 4.0 james lilacs is turning into late stage johnny carson he just shows up to shoot the show every so often all right rob next week you and I will be guest hosting again. Well, that's got its own charms. I'll leave it at that. Next week. Next week, boys. Poor boy. Yeah.

Absolutely. Nothing. Yeah. What it good for? Absolutely nothing Say it again, y'all What is it good for? Absolutely nothing Listen to me I despise

Cause it means destruction Of innocent lives War means tears To thousands of mothers When their sons go to fight And lose their lives I said war Good God y'all

What is it good for Absolutely nothing Say it again What is it good for? Absolutely nothing Listen to me It ain't nothing but a heartbreak Send only to the undertaker

This is an enemy to all things The thought of war blows by me War has caused unrest within the younger generation Induction, then destruction, who wants to die? Ah, war, good God, y'all. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Said, said, said.

What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Listen to me. It ain't nothing but a heartbreaker. That one friend, that's the undertaker Has shattered many a young man's dreams Made him disabled, bitter and weak Life is much too short and precious It's been fighting wars each day

War can't give life It can only take it away Oh, war Ricochet Join the conversation Absolutely Say it again War

Oh, Lord What is it good for? Absolutely Nothing Listen to me War It ain't nothing but a heartbreaker What is it good for? Oh, absolutely nothing. Listen to me. What? It ain't nothing but a heartbreaker.

What? Friend only and the undertaker. Woo! Peace, love, and understanding. Tell me, there's not no place for them today. They say we must fight to keep our freedom. But Lord knows there's got to be a better way. Oh, what's going on? What is it going on?

You tell me. Say it, say it, say it, say it. What's going on? What is it good for? Stand up and shout it Nothing War It ain't nothing but a heartbreak

Our Friend only to the undertaker Outro Music you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you